Life Weaving!

Ichiro picked up the medical record he had just finished writing and looked it over before setting it down. He placed his right hand against the injured man's neck to assess his condition, while holding his left hand above the wound. One by one, green threads streamed from his hand and seeped into the wound. Starting from its deepest point, they swiftly stitched the flesh together as if sewing a garment, then became part of the flesh itself!

Life Weaving: Converts Reiryoku into vitality, then gathers it into individual threads to stitch wounds and fully treat injuries. The finer the threads, the more meticulous the treatment. It also has powerful healing capabilities and consumes very little energy, but requires extremely precise control over Reiryoku.

Life Weaving was Ichiro's achievement in Kaido—or, more precisely, a by-product of his work editing incantations. Though it was only a by-product, its healing ability was remarkably powerful.

The extremely high difficulty of mastering it came with exceptional healing ability and exceptionally low Reiryoku consumption. For the same injury, Ichiro's Life Weaving could heal it completely using only eighty percent of the Reiryoku. If his control improved further, it might take as little as half!

Before long, Ichiro had completed the initial treatment of the injured man. The green light faded. He picked up the notebook beside him, quickly wrote down the follow-up treatment, then turned to the injured person who had been brought over behind him and began treating the next patient.

In truth, although the injured people here needed fairly urgent care, their wounds were generally easy to handle. Most had external injuries, and a few only needed bandaging. Only those with deep wounds required treatment.

So in practice, Ichiro and the others only needed to treat moderate injuries until they became minor ones that no longer threatened the patient's life.

Even so, they were still swamped!

The wounded in a war usually didn't have any unusual injuries. Most had external wounds that weren't difficult to treat, but there were so many of them.

Besides their own people, they also had to treat the rebels. Neither side received priority: anyone who was injured had to be treated. That was the principle the captain had laid down, and Ichiro had no intention of violating it—or allowing anyone else to—because life was priceless!

"Pop~"

As he headed for the next patient, Ichiro opened a bottle of blue Reiryoku recovery potion and drank it. Even though he was only using Life Weaving, which consumed very little energy, this was already his third bottle—and it still wasn't the most exhausting part of the work.

Ichiro pushed up his glasses, suppressing the weariness welling in his eyes once more, and quickly treated the patient before him. His efforts had paid off: all the patients in District Seven who needed emergency care had been treated, and he was now helping the other districts.

But from what Ichiro knew, the other districts didn't have many patients left either. The reason they were still sending patients over was, first, that their members were too exhausted to continue treating them, and second, that they didn't have enough people.

Yes, even Squad 4, which had arguably the most members in the Thirteenth Division, was short-handed!

Squad 4 did have the most members, but most of them were only capable of routine health care and emergency treatment during wartime—in other words, treating patients with various medicines. Those who could actually use Kaido to heal numbered only twenty or thirty, not counting the Seated Officers. And even that included the Seated Officer candidates.

The moderate injuries mentioned earlier couldn't be treated with medicine alone. Even if medicine could barely keep the patients alive, they would be left in a terrible state for the rest of their lives. In most cases, they could only be treated with Kaido.

Fortunately, the Head Captain and the others had finally had enough of the rebels' reckless actions and put an end to the rebellion outright, so the number of wounded had stopped growing. Otherwise, in Ichiro's current condition, he wasn't sure he could have kept going.

"Captain!"

A sudden, urgent shout came from nearby. Ichiro continued treating the patient as he frowned and looked over.

He saw a delicate-looking, short-haired male member whispering into a squad leader's ear. The squad leader's expression changed abruptly, and he hurried over to Ichiro, leaning in close.

"Lord Ichiro, there's an emergency!" the squad leader said quietly, bending close to Ichiro's ear. "Lord Ichiro, the First Division just sent over a critically wounded man. He's Kuchiki Koga, the Kuchiki family's son-in-law. His injuries are too severe. The lieutenant could only stabilize him for now and can't do any more to treat him. They need you to go help."

The First Division? Kuchiki Koga? I remember him being one of the stronger Captain-level fighters at this point. Are the rebels really that powerful?

Though Ichiro had some questions, he didn't dwell on them. He was still just a student, and whatever schemes were afoot had nothing to do with him. The captain would take responsibility for those matters. His only job was to save lives.

With a thought, he increased the flow of Reiryoku from his hand, shortening the treatment time. Then he handed a notebook to someone nearby and turned to leave. "I'm nearly done here. You record the data, including the follow-up bandaging. Lead the way."

After speaking, he poured two bottles of Reiryoku recovery potion into his mouth. Feeling the tiny amount of Reiryoku restored within him, Ichiro sighed.

Has my body reached its limit?

Reiryoku recovery potions were mostly made from Reiryoku liquefied into a solution. They didn't cause drug resistance, but unfortunately, the body could still become worn down.

Replenishing Reiryoku worked by having the body absorb it, then release it. When this cycle repeated endlessly within a short time, it put considerable strain on the body. There was no way around that.

Once the body reached this state, even Ichiro's Alchemy couldn't refine Reishi from the air and into his body. There was no solution; he could only wait for his body to rest and recover.

Even so, Ichiro kept pouring Reiryoku recovery potion into his mouth. Though the effects were weaker, they still helped. At a time like this, every bit of Reiryoku meant a better chance of survival for Kuchiki Koga.

Based on what Ichiro knew, Kuchiki Koga definitely had Captain-level strength at this point, while the odds that the enemy had anyone of similar strength were practically zero!

From his earlier conversation with the captain, Ichiro had learned that the incident at the Academy had prompted the captain and the others to speed up their operation, and they had eliminated the enemy in an instant. But even someone as powerful as the captain couldn't defeat a Captain-level opponent in an instant!

Perhaps the Head Captain could do it, but it would hardly go unnoticed.

So, all things considered, there was an eighty percent chance that Kuchiki Koga had been betrayed by his own allies. Considering that the Academy, under the First Division's direct jurisdiction, had been attacked, the odds were even higher.

If Kuchiki Koga died here, it would send shockwaves throughout the Soul Society!

The current head of the Kuchiki family, Kuchiki Ginrei, was grooming him to become the next head!

There were still plenty of obstacles, but at least Ginrei's intentions were clear. And if Koga died, the entire Kuchiki family would unite behind one cause—a very different matter from simply choosing a new family head.

"Hiss!!"

Ichiro soon arrived at the scene. Seeing Kuchiki Koga barely clinging to life under the care of Vice-Captain Kiyonosuke, Ichiro sucked in a sharp breath.

Three enormous gashes across his body!

Two across his chest, and one across his back!

The worst was the wound on his back. His heart was clearly visible, with a small cut in it!