Soul King's Right Arm

Inside the Thirteenth Division barracks, Liu Chuan's unexpected visit and his help in saving Vice-Captain Kaien had created a harmonious atmosphere.

Liu Chuan was led to an elegant tea room, where Kaien Shiba personally received him. Jushiro Ukitake sat beside them with a smile, while Rukia attended to their needs nearby.

As the fragrance of tea drifted through the room, their conversation gradually shifted from the dangerous battle earlier to lighter small talk.

However, while everyone was chatting, Jushiro Ukitake, who had been quietly listening, suddenly changed expression.

He abruptly raised a hand over his mouth, his body pitching forward as a string of uncontrollable, violent coughs erupted from him.

"Cough, cough, cough! Urgh—cough, cough!!"

The coughing was far more severe than his usual weak, sickly coughs, as though an invisible hand were wildly stirring inside his chest.

His thin body shook violently. The little color in his pale cheeks vanished in an instant, replaced by an almost translucent bluish-gray. Veins bulged at his temples and neck as cold sweat poured down him.

"Captain!" Kaien Shiba and Rukia Kuchiki both went pale and sprang to their feet.

Kaien rushed forward to support Ukitake's unsteady shoulders, while Rukia frantically searched for a handkerchief and water.

Liu Chuan also set down his teacup, his eyes fixed on Ukitake.

Amid Ukitake's uncontrolled coughing and painful spasms, he clearly caught a trace of... an extraordinarily obscure fluctuation of power!

It surpassed ordinary Spirit Particles and carried a sensation akin to the very essence of "law." Liu Chuan would never forget it!

Not long ago, within the blue crystal in Soul King's Hall, he had felt a similar power at close range!

Why did Jushiro Ukitake possess power from the same source as the Soul King?

As thoughts raced through Liu Chuan's mind and countless guesses surfaced, Ukitake's coughing seemed to reach its peak. He suddenly vomited a mouthful of dark red blood, splattering across the snow-white silk handkerchief in a horrifying sight.

Then the coughing gradually weakened, turning into painful, suppressed gasps. He nearly collapsed against Kaien Shiba, his eyes unfocused and his breathing faint.

"Captain! How are you? I'll call the 4th Division right away!" Rukia's voice cracked with panic.

"No... no need." Jushiro Ukitake weakly waved a hand, using all his strength. His voice was so hoarse it was nearly unrecognizable.

He struggled to raise his head. His gaze first swept over Kaien Shiba and Rukia's anxious faces before finally settling on Liu Chuan.

He fell silent for a moment, as if gathering the last of his strength to speak. Then, facing Kaien Shiba and Rukia, he shook his head almost imperceptibly yet without room for doubt, and said in a breathy voice:

"Kaien, Rukia... leave for a moment. Stand guard outside the door. Don't let anyone enter. I... have something I wish to discuss with Lord Liu Chuan alone."

"Captain!" Both of them were startled. They looked worriedly at Ukitake, then at Liu Chuan.

"Go." Ukitake closed his eyes and repeated himself. Though weak, his tone carried the unquestionable resolve of a captain.

Kaien Shiba and Rukia exchanged a glance. In the end, neither dared defy their captain's order. They could only suppress their worry, bow respectfully, and silently leave the tea room, gently pulling the door shut behind them.

Only Jushiro Ukitake, whose ragged breathing was gradually easing, and Liu Chuan, seated quietly across from him, remained in the room.

"My apologies... for making a fool of myself before you."

Once his breathing had settled somewhat, Ukitake leaned back in his chair and used a clean handkerchief to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth. A bitter yet knowing smile appeared on his face.

"It seems I still couldn't hide it from you. Lord Liu Chuan, you must have... already noticed the abnormality inside my body, haven't you?"

Liu Chuan nodded slightly and did not beat around the bush.

"The fluctuation of power inside you shares the same nature as the power I felt in Soul King Palace, power originating from the Soul King's body itself... Though faint, it couldn't escape my notice.

Captain Ukitake, what exactly is going on? Is your illness related to the Soul King?"

Jushiro Ukitake did not answer immediately. He slowly turned his head and looked at the swaying shadows of bamboo in the courtyard outside the window.

His gaze was distant, as though it had pierced through centuries of time and returned to the beginning that had determined the course of his life.

His voice was soft, carrying the hazy tranquility of reminiscing about the past.

"I was born into a lower-ranking noble family. When I was three, I contracted a grave illness for which there was almost no cure.

My fever would not break, and my spiritual body gradually began to disperse. I was on the verge of dying young.

With no other options, my parents believed an ancient rumor and sent me to an extremely remote part of Rukongai, to a shrine nearly forgotten by the world, one that enshrined the One-Eyed Great God."

"The One-Eyed Great God?" Liu Chuan's heart stirred. The name sounded strange.

"Yes, the One-Eyed Great God. Its origins and divine status had long been buried beneath the dust of history, surviving only in the most ancient fragments of records.

That shrine was also utterly dilapidated, with no worshippers left. My parents had merely been trying anything in desperation..."

Ukitake paused, and a complex, unreadable glimmer passed through his eyes.

"Yet within that shrine, a miracle... or rather, some indescribable 'transaction,' took place."

"My illness miraculously began to improve. The fever broke, and my dissipating spiritual body gathered together again. But at the same time, my hair changed completely from its original dark color to this pure white."

He stroked his snow-white hair and continued.

"Furthermore, from that day onward, I often felt an indescribable sensation in my chest, as though something had been 'hollowed out' and then 'filled' with something cold.

"My body has remained like this ever since—frail beyond measure, with unstable Spiritual Pressure. It feels as if there is something inside me that does not belong to me, yet is inseparably linked to my life... an 'alien object.'"

He looked at Liu Chuan, a trace of fated acceptance in his calm eyes.

"Only much later, after I became a Soul Reaper and came into contact with more secrets, did I gradually come to understand.

"That so-called One-Eyed Great God was likely not some ancient deity at all, but..."

He drew a deep breath and slowly voiced his startling guess. "It was... a part of the Soul King that had been cut off, stripped away, and cast down to the lower world."

A part stripped from the Soul King! A sharp light flashed in Liu Chuan's eyes! Ichibē Hyōsube's grave words echoed in his mind.

"They cut off the Soul King's arms, which governed the concepts of 'Advance' and 'Stagnation'!"

"They dug out the Soul King's heart, severed his feet, cut open his internal organs, and stripped them from his body one by one. After removing the corresponding authority and power contained within them... they cast them down to the lower world."

"It's the right arm." Liu Chuan nearly blurted it out, his tone certain.

"The Soul King's right arm, which governs 'Stagnation'!"

Jushiro Ukitake's body trembled almost imperceptibly. His gaze toward Liu Chuan was filled with surprise, which quickly turned into deep admiration and understanding.

"As expected of a member of the Zero Division. Lord Liu Chuan, you truly see everything clearly.

"That's right. Based on the scattered records I later researched and pieced together, as well as what I felt within myself,

"what entered my body that year, prolonging my life while also bringing me endless illness, was most likely the portion of the Soul King's Right Arm that governed 'Stagnation'...

"That shrine may have been where the right arm fell all those years ago."

With a bitter smile, he pointed at himself. "So, ever since that year, my physical condition has in fact been 'fixed' to a certain extent by this power of 'Stagnation.'

"It halted my dying state and prolonged my life, but it also halted my body's health and vitality. That is the root cause of my coughing blood."

Everything suddenly became clear! No wonder Ukitake possessed a power fluctuation from the same source as the Soul King. No wonder he had been sickly for so many years!

He was the vessel for the Soul King's Right Arm's power of "Stagnation"! This was not a blessing, but a centuries-long "symbiosis" with a fragment of a god's body, paid for with illness!

Liu Chuan silently processed this shocking truth.

The Soul King's body was not only scattered throughout the world; it could even merge with certain individuals and exert such profound influence.

"You can't actively control this power?" Liu Chuan asked.

Ukitake shook his head. "Most of the time, it merely lies dormant within me. I cannot actively call upon it, nor can I even clearly perceive its full nature."

He paused, his eyes turning toward empty space, his voice becoming solemn and low.

"But I can feel that under certain extremely special circumstances, when the survival of the Three Worlds hangs in the balance and equilibrium is on the verge of complete collapse... this power may truly be 'awakened.'

"And at that time, I, as its 'container'..."

He did not continue, but the resolve and calm in his eyes explained everything.

Liu Chuan immediately understood what he had left unsaid.

Unless the Soul King died completely and the "wedge" maintaining the Three Worlds utterly collapsed, causing the Three Worlds to lose balance and face the ultimate crisis of destruction, the "Stagnation" power inside Ukitake would likely never need to be "used."

And once it did need to be "used," the price would most likely be the life of Ukitake himself, the "container."

He was a contingency measure in human form. Should the Soul King's body completely fail, he would briefly "replace" or "stabilize" the Three Worlds and buy time—a disposable "fuse" or "buffer"!

No wonder Captain-Commander Yamamoto valued him so highly.

He was not merely a sickly captain. He was also one of Soul Society's deepest-hidden "last lines of defense."

"I see..." Liu Chuan slowly exhaled. Looking at the man bearing such a heavy fate, complicated emotions welled up inside him.

There was sympathy, but also respect.

"I understand. Captain Ukitake, you... have endured much."

At those words, an exceedingly faint yet remarkably genuine smile appeared on Jushiro Ukitake's pale face.

"It is enough that you understand, Lord Liu Chuan. This matter is a secret among secrets. Very few know of it."

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