Seireitei, Central 46, a side chamber off the underground council hall.
Dozens of Sages sat as usual, quietly wrangling over how to divide the taxes from several spirit mines in postwar Rukongai.
Then, without warning or any report from the guards...
A sudden breeze swept into the side chamber for no apparent reason.
It lifted a corner of the documents on the desks.
In the open space at the center of the hall, a ring of pure-black ripples spread silently through the air, like ink bleeding across water.
A huge black figure, remarkably broad and almost bulky, stood there all at once.
He was a bald, burly man.
He wore an enormous Shihakushō with a Captain's Haori over it. A string of astonishingly large black beads hung around his neck, and a thick, jet-black beard bristled from his chin.
He folded his arms across his chest, his thick forearms bare below his sleeves. A genial smile filled his face, and his eyes narrowed to slits.
"Wh... who are you?!"
A young Sage with little seniority jolted to his feet and shouted, "This is the seat of Central 46! Where is the Onmitsukidō?! Where is the Punishment Force?!"
"Sit down, you fool!!"
The seats were arranged in a square. An elderly Sage facing the bald man's back spoke with a slight tremor in his voice, clearly forcing himself to remain calm.
For what he saw was not merely a comical-looking monk. The white Captain's Haori draped over the monk's shoulders bore a distinctive diamond-shaped crest on its back.
It was the emblem of the Soul King Palace.
The Zero Division.
For thousands of years, Central 46 had governed Seireitei in the Soul King's stead as Soul Society's highest judicial and administrative authority. Its members had read that name, suspended high above