Specks of reishi light fluttered down through the air like black snow scattered by the wind, dissolving bit by bit into the gray daylight. The Hollow's nauseating reiatsu, which had seemed capable of crushing the surrounding air solid, finally ebbed away like a retreating tide.
The pale-haired brother and sister finally found relief from the tension that had gripped them for who knew how long.
Yet that sudden release let out the breath they had held for far too long. As though the last trace of strength had been drained from every limb, their knees buckled, and they stumbled down onto the ground strewn with ash and rubble.
The boy's chest heaved, each breath carrying a faint, barely audible sob. But he paid no attention to his own weak limbs. He immediately reached back and pulled his sister tightly into his arms, shielding her entirely with his body. Raising his small, dirt-smeared face, he stared wide-eyed and unblinking through the lingering dust at the towering figure standing before them.
The hem of the white haori slowly settled in the murky wind. The snap of its fabric became the only clear sound in the ruins.
"It's all right now."
Zhu Sibo Zhengyuan's low voice rang out. With a turn of his wrist, his Zanpakutō gave a metallic scrape before he slid it precisely and unhurriedly into its sheath.
He turned and looked down at the two children sitting on the ground.
A captain accustomed to life and death had a keen eye. In his experience, the lowest inhabitants of Rukongai reacted to death in only a few ways: numbness, collapse, or clutching their heads and crying for mercy. Yet this brother and sister fit none of those patterns.
Though the boy trembled all over, even the arms protecting his sister