The Qualifications of a Powerful Shinigami

Natsuki was sleeping soundly.

In the world of his dreams, he no longer felt the cold. It seemed as if a beautiful figure was keeping him company, and he rested his head upon her lap—warm and soft—which left him feeling somewhat intoxicated.

Yet, the sweet dream did not last long. Suddenly, a violent shaking struck, and the entire world shattered into pieces in an instant.

Natsuki opened his sleepy eyes, and the first thing that entered his vision was a flat, round face.

This gave him a fright. He jerked backward to put some distance between them, then forced his eyes wide open, finally managing to see everything before him.

Standing in front of him at this very moment were several figures, all dressed in black robes with long swords hanging at their waists.

The appearance of these people was identical to the attire of the person he had seen killed by the monster earlier.

More importantly, he felt that both the attire of these people and the monsters from before were somewhat familiar, as if he had seen them somewhere before.

This was mainly because, in the final days of his life, he had been constantly running around due to his illness and had no energy left to seek entertainment, to the point where many things had been temporarily forgotten.

"&#￥@#@#..."

After seeing Natsuki wake up, the flat-faced man who had shaken him awake rattled off a string of gibberish. It was definitely speech, but the problem was that Natsuki could not understand it, just like the language spoken by the monster earlier.

Natsuki truly had no idea what the other party was saying.

Hey ghost, speak Chinese!

I don't understand!

Consequently, Natsuki stared at the man with a blank expression.

The man continued to speak.

Natsuki continued to stare at him.

Stare...

Upon sensing Natsuki's gaze, the man finally realized that the other party could not understand a word he was saying.

This was confirmed when Natsuki also opened his mouth, actively attempting to ask the man a question.

Just as he could not understand the man's words, Natsuki spoke a sentence, such as: "Can you speak Chinese?"

He also could not understand the meaning.

This was awkward.

The two sides could not communicate; this was a major problem.

Thus, they could only give up on talking for the time being.

"Captain, looking at him, he seems to be a Soul who just fell into Hueco Mundo. Before he falls and becomes a Hollow, should we perform Soul Burial and guide him back to the Soul Society?"

A red-haired man walked up to the flat-faced man and asked.

"It's too late," the flat-faced man said.

"Hm?" The man who spoke earlier frowned slightly, gripping his sword tightly, prepared to purify the other party before he completely fell into becoming a Hollow.

Noticing the intent of his subordinate, the flat-faced man explained further, "Before waking him up, I carefully inspected the battlefield here. I discovered that although the ordinary Hollow was killed by Jiro, this Menos Grande was not killed by him."

"What?!"

Hearing this, the red-haired man was somewhat surprised.

The flat-faced man said in a deep voice, "Jiro must have been killed by the Menos Grande's Cero during the battle. Afterward, his Zanpakuto was picked up by this soul. It seems he possesses a special talent, having awakened the Zanpakuto that had gone dormant and reverted to an Asauchi upon Jiro's death, thereby unleashing powerful strength to kill the Menos Grande."

"In other words, he is no longer a Soul, but... a Shinigami!"

"Him, a Shinigami?" The red-haired man looked at Natsuki in disbelief.

"Can someone who hasn't been taught at the Shino Academy and doesn't know any Shinigami combat techniques really be called a Shinigami?"

The flat-faced man said to the red-haired man, "It is not only those who pass the Shino Academy graduation exam who can become Shinigamis. In fact, before the Shino Academy was established, the definition of a Shinigami was far broader than it is now."

"Back then, it wasn't like today, where souls with the aptitude for being a Shinigami undergo systematic teaching before being granted the title of Shinigami upon passing an exam. In the beginning, as long as one could wield spiritual power and swing a Zanpakuto, they could be called a Shinigami."

"The current definition of a Shinigami was only established after the Gotei 13 and the Shino Academy were founded."

"However, even so, every few years, there are still instances of souls in the Rukon District accidentally picking up an Asauchi left behind by a fallen Shinigami, thereby activating a Zanpakuto, defeating the heroes guarding the gates of the Seireitei, and entering the Seireitei to become Shinigamis directly."

"Not to mention, within the Seireitei, many nobles also learn various Shinigami abilities through private family schooling. They never went to the Shino Academy, yet they can still be called Shinigamis!"

He rambled on to his subordinate for quite a while.

The flat-faced man was very senior and well-traveled, so he knew many things his subordinates did not.

His gaze fell back onto Natsuki. "Although he hasn't undergone any systematic teaching, the fact that he could reawaken a dormant Asauchi means he undoubtedly possesses the aptitude of a Shinigami—no, I should say the aptitude to become a powerful Shinigami."

His gaze shifted, landing on the corpse of the Menos Grande.

The red-haired man followed his captain's gaze and looked at the corpse of the Menos Grande, his heart trembling.

"Then Captain, how should we deal with him?" The red-haired man waited for a while before asking the flat-faced man again.

The flat-faced man pondered for a moment.

Finally, he stepped forward and began making clumsy gestures at Natsuki.

Since language could not bridge the gap, gestures should be able to communicate, right?

Natsuki froze for a moment after seeing the other party's hand gestures, then began to gesture back in kind.

After a round of "friendly communication," Natsuki simply joined the man's group.

For the period that followed, he stayed by the side of the man with the round face, following him to learn how to speak.

Since this was the other party's home turf after all, Natsuki had no choice but to accommodate him.

At first, Natsuki had assumed this was another world, but when the man wrote characters upon the desert sand, Natsuki was stunned; while he did not recognize some of the characters, others were exactly the same as Chinese.

Combined with the way these people were dressed.

How could he not understand now.

This world seemed to have some connection to the island nation.

It was no wonder he hadn't been able to understand what they were saying before; it turned out to be their language. During his conversations with the man, certain classic phrases like "Yoshi," "Baka," and "Yamete" only served to confirm this for him.

Because the island nation's writing system originated from Chinese and was adapted from it, with some characters being directly lifted from the original, Natsuki was able to recognize about half of them.

With the foundation of recognizing half the characters, learning the language became much easier.

Time flowed slowly, and as he gradually became able to engage in simple exchanges with the man, he finally figured out the situation of this world, and the outlines of memories he had nearly forgotten in the back of his mind began to resurface.

This was indeed the world after death, just as he had thought.

But it was the afterlife from an anime.