A Healing-Type Bankai?

The rain gradually stopped.

Gaps opened in the lead-gray clouds. Daylight slipped through—not bright, but enough to reveal the full extent of the scorched earth. Ruined walls stood amid the wreckage, puddles reflected a shattered sky, and the wounded lay scattered against the rubble, struggling to breathe.

Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto slowly turned. His gaze passed over every face, over the survivors standing, sitting, and lying on the ground.

Some faces once so familiar had vanished forever. Others stood firm even after the torrential rain, soaked through, their clothes stained with blood and grime. They looked exhausted, but they remained on their feet, steady as mountains.

Yamamoto studied the battered warriors in silence. He gave a slight nod of approval, then said quietly, "Bury those who fell according to custom. Place the fallen captains' bodies at the First Division for now; we'll hold proper funerals when the time comes. Send the severely wounded captains to the Shin'ō Medical Institute as soon as possible. Chōjirō, I leave the arrangements to you."

Chōjirō bowed deeply. "As you command!"

Then Yamamoto announced in a low, commanding voice, "All personnel, dismissed!"

He had not raised his voice, yet in the hush that followed the downpour, every word rang clear across the heart of Seireitei.

No one answered or formed ranks. Those crouching slowly rose; those sitting were helped to their feet. Stretchers were lifted again. The order had been given, and no reply was needed. The surviving Soul Reapers began to move, dispersing from the center of Seireitei and leaving the scorched ground to Yamamoto, standing in silence beneath the pale light.

"Hey, old man!" Saito did not speak loudly, but something in her voice made everyone turn.

"That student of yours... He just unlocked Bankai! And it's the same type as Yachiru's!"

The Soul Reapers who had been about to leave stopped in their tracks. The Eleventh Division vice-captain whipped around in disbelief. A Ninth Division Seated Officer turned for a better look. A Fourth Division stretcher-bearer stood up beside the stretcher, eyes wide and mouth open. Even the Second Division members carrying bodies slowed their work and listened.

Silence settled over the scene, broken only by the patter of rain. Saito leaned against a broken wall, letting the cold water soak her clothes. Most of her signature purple twin-tails had come loose, wet strands hanging around her pale face. She looked battered, but her eyes shone bright as stars.

The captains and veteran Soul Reapers knew exactly what Yachiru Unohana's Bankai, Minazuki, meant. Its spreading pool of blood could dissolve flesh, combining healing and destruction on a scale few powers in Soul Society could match. And now someone claimed that this First Division member, whose name hardly anyone remembered, had unlocked the same kind of Bankai?

Every gaze converged on Shuichi.

He stood at the center of their attention, drenched from head to toe. Water ran down his body and dripped onto the ground.

Under so many eyes, Shuichi felt awkward. His heart raced, and sweat beaded on his forehead. He tried edging half a step aside, but he still felt every gaze fixed on him.

Saito's words echoed in his head. The same type as Yachiru's. They struck like thunder.

He knew she was not lying. He had felt the warmth of his own Bankai, the strange healing calm that spread through him from within. He could never forget it.

But...

The same type was more than he could bear.

He had only just unlocked Bankai. He did not even fully understand what part he had played in the battle. He did not believe his Bankai could compare to Yachiru's, much less deserve such praise.

Then Yamamoto spoke.

His sharp eyes rested on Shuichi beneath deeply lined brows. Calm and steady, they betrayed nothing. His gaze paused briefly on Shuichi's wounds, then moved away.

"I see."

Yamamoto spoke softly, without a trace of emotion.

Just two words. No questions.

When Yamamoto offered no further comment, the Soul Reapers on the scorched ground resumed their departure. Survivors from each division shouldered stretchers, supported the wounded, picked up scattered Zanpakutō, and headed for their barracks and medical stations.

No one looked back at Shuichi. It was not that they were uninterested. The Captain-Commander had spoken, and they had no time to discuss a new Squad Member's Bankai. The battlefield still needed clearing, their comrades' bodies needed collecting, and the wounded needed care.

Shuichi waited where he stood.

He did not know what he was waiting for.

For Captain-Commander Yamamoto to say more?

For Vice-Captain Sasakibe to question him?

For someone to tell him what to do next?

The Soul Reapers receded like a tide. Even Saito was carried away by members of the Sixth Division. Her loose purple hair swayed over the edge of the stretcher, then vanished into the rain haze. Nothing followed.

After saying "I see," Captain-Commander Yamamoto had turned away and never looked at him again. Vice-Captain Sasakibe followed without so much as a glance back. No one asked about his Bankai, checked whether Saito's claim was true, examined his wounds, or told him where to go. It was as if she had never spoken.

The area soon emptied.

Only a few ordinary First Division guards remained on the scorched ground at the center of Seireitei, clearing the battlefield.

They had probably been sheltering somewhere during the fighting.

They were clerks, logistics staff, and communications personnel. Combat was not their duty, and Captain-Commander Yamamoto had not sent them into battle.

Now they had emerged from hiding. In silence, they turned over bodies on the scorched ground, dragging the Soul Reapers out from among the Quincy corpses one by one and laying them neatly to the side. No one spoke. There was only the scrape of bodies across the ground and the occasional heavy breath.

Shuichi watched them work for a while. No one told him to leave or came over to speak to him. The guards had probably recognized him as a First Division member.

They had seen his face around the First Division, but this was no time for greetings or questions. The battlefield was not yet cleared. They had neither the time nor the heart for it.

Shuichi turned and left the center of Seireitei. Behind him, the First Division guards kept silently turning over bodies. No one saw him off or called him back. Seireitei was unnaturally quiet after the rain. Puddles and rubble filled the streets, and the air smelled of char and damp. Alone, Shuichi walked the empty stone road, stepping over broken tiles and splintered wood toward home.

On the way back, Shuichi finally had time to look around.

He had run here earlier, when Seireitei was still burning and Reiatsu churned everywhere like a pot at full boil.

Now it was gone. After the rain, Seireitei felt like a vast tomb. He walked its empty streets alone, stepping through gravel and puddles as he slowly made his way home.

He began to notice what he had missed on the way here.

A ruined wall. It had not been blown apart but cut straight through the middle, the severed face smooth as a mirror. Rainwater ran down it.

Behind it stood the burned-out frame of a home. Thin smoke still rose from the roof beams, and shattered tiles covered the ground. Somehow, a ceramic teacup had survived intact. It lay upside down on the threshold, a little rainwater pooled in its base.

Farther on, a street was strewn with the bodies of Holy Soldiers. Blood had soaked their white Reishi armor a dirty gray-red. The bodies lay in neat rows, not because anyone had arranged them, but because a single slash had cut them all down mid-charge. They had fallen in almost identical positions, all facing the same way. Shuichi walked past, his footsteps splashing through the puddles.

Around a corner, he heard a voice.

"Is anyone there... Is anyone there..."

It came faintly from beneath a heap of collapsed beams, as though smoke had scorched the speaker's throat raw.

Shuichi stopped and turned toward the wreckage. The beams and tiles formed a triangular gap, and the voice came from inside it. Without hesitating, he crouched and used his Zanpakutō to pry at the beam on top. It was heavy. His left shoulder was no help, so he braced the blade with his right hand and pressed down with his body weight.

The beam rolled. Tiles clattered down, revealing a dust-covered face in the gap. The man was a young Ninth Division Squad Member with freckles and a standard Shihakushō. Another beam pinned his leg, but he was conscious, his eyes fixed on Shuichi.

Without a word, Shuichi sheathed his Zanpakutō, gripped the beam pinning the man's leg with both hands, and heaved. It rose a few inches. The Squad Member pulled his leg free, then collapsed onto the rubble, gasping for air. The leg was not broken, but it had been pinned so long that it was numb.

Shuichi bent down, dragged him clear, and propped him against a wall that still stood beside the road. The Squad Member leaned back, face tilted upward. After a long while, he turned toward Shuichi and moved his lips to thank him, but Shuichi was already walking away.

Not far ahead lay another scene of destruction: the remains of a noble residence. Its gates had been blown off, most of its courtyard wall had collapsed, and the yard was littered with Holy Soldiers and several warriors in Noble Armed Forces gear.

A woman wearing the family crest of the Lower Nobility knelt on the rubble, frantically clawing tiles aside. Her nails had broken, and her fingers were bloody. She kept calling someone's name, though Shuichi could not make it out. He crouched beside her and helped dig. The tiles and stones were sharp; soon his fingers were bleeding too, blood mixing with mud. After a while, a pale hand appeared beneath the rubble. The woman screamed and dug faster.

Shuichi looked at neither her nor the hand. He kept digging until the rest of the person emerged.

It was a young man in a robe bearing the same family crest. A blow had left a hole in his forehead, surrounded by dark, congealed blood. His eyes were closed, and his chest did not rise. The woman threw herself over him. Her sobs carried far through the post-rain silence.

Shuichi stood and took two steps back. He glanced at her, but she did not look up. She lay across the body, her shoulders shaking violently. Shuichi turned and continued home. Blood dripped from his fingers into a puddle, faded to a thin pink, and disappeared.

Farther on, he spotted a familiar face at the mouth of an alley: Shimura, a First Division clerk. Shimura leaned against a fallen gatepost, his clothes soaked with blood. A deep cut in his lower leg was still seeping. When he saw Shuichi, he froze, then gave a rueful smile. "So you finally made it back."

Shuichi crouched beside him and examined the wound, then slung Shimura's arm over his shoulder. Shimura accepted the help and stood, keeping his injured leg off the ground. Shuichi supported him step by step as Shimura rambled in his ear about the clerks' office being blown up, Okabe getting hurt, and nobody knowing where Sakaki had gone. Shuichi said nothing. He just kept walking.

Shimura lived not far from the First Division Barracks. Shuichi brought him to his door and handed him over to a neighbor, a young woman who also worked as a First Division clerk. Her eyes red, she took Shimura and thanked Shuichi again and again. He nodded and left.

At last he reached his own door.

The house was still there.

The fighting had largely spared the Squad Members' homes on the outskirts of Seireitei. A few cracks marked the courtyard wall, and several roof tiles had been shaken loose. Shuichi paused as he opened the door. Inside, it was dark, just as it had been when he left. The tatami still bore the indentation where he had sat in Sword Meditation. His Zanpakutō sheath lay beside it. Everything was exactly as he had left it, and nothing was the same.

He stepped inside and closed the door.