Composite Evolution

"The Bankai release scene was beautiful too," Bakuzan Katori's voice rang out again.

Senjumaru Shutara spoke immediately after her. "Your Bankai doesn't only have healing abilities, does it?"

It wasn't a question. She sounded as though she were stating a fact she had already confirmed.

Shuichi paused.

He hadn't expected Senjumaru to speak to him directly. He wasn't familiar with the newly appointed Twelfth Division captain; he didn't even know what her Zanpakutō was. Still, she seemed quite familiar with everyone here.

Shuichi then nodded. "The other forms from Shikai... can be used together as well."

Blue butterflies, yellow healing, white barriers, red chains—four colors, four abilities. During Shikai, they could only be used individually. Blue meant no yellow, yellow meant no white, white meant no red. But within the sea of flowers created by Bankai, they all existed simultaneously.

"Then it seems to be a Composite Bankai, combining the abilities of the Shikai."

Senjumaru Shutara did not use words like "uncommon" or "rare." To a researcher, classification mattered more than appraisal.

Composite Bankai were an extreme minority among Soul Society's Zanpakutō classifications. Not because they were stronger than single-type Bankai, nor because they were harder to cultivate, but because the Shikai itself had to possess multiple abilities.

Most Soul Reapers' Shikai had only one ability. Some did not even possess an ability, only a change in physical form.

Shuichi's Bankai combined the four abilities of his Shikai. It was not addition, but multiplication. The four abilities were not simply activated at once—they existed at once.

"Interesting." Furoufushi Saito's voice came from the side.

Shuichi glanced at Saito.

"Alright, the Bankai demonstration ends here. Everyone, disperse," Yamamoto said.

Everyone looked toward Yamamoto, nodded, and departed with Shunpo.

Only Yamamoto, Sasakibe, and Shuichi remained.

Yamamoto's voice reached Shuichi's ears clearly. "For your captain's haori, do you want sleeveless or long-sleeved?"

Shuichi looked at Yamamoto's sleeveless white haori, then at Sasakibe's sleeveless haori, and thought for a moment.

"Long-sleeved."

Yamamoto gave a slight nod.

"Choose a plot of land within the Seireitei for your division's base. Chōjirō Sasakibe will accompany you."

Chojiro Sasakibe nodded once.

"Understood, Teacher," Shuichi said quietly.

Shuichi found a plot of land in the southern outer district of the Seireitei.

There was a small pond here, with several lotus leaves floating on its surface. A gazebo stood by the water. The wooden structure had not suffered badly in the war; most of the roof tiles had merely fallen away, and patches of paint had peeled from the pillars.

The pond contained flowing water. A thin stream entered through a hidden channel beyond the wall, then flowed out through an exit on the other side.

Shuichi stood by the pond for a long time.

Chojiro Sasakibe stood behind him without urging him on.

He looked at Shuichi's back, then at the pond and gazebo, probably thinking, This kid certainly knows how to pick a place.

The surrounding area was a wide stretch of vacant land.

Several lower-ranking noble families had once lived here. Their estates had stood side by side, occupying the best plot in the southern outer district.

When the Quincy attacked, those noble families happened to lie along the path of a Schrift-level Quincy assault and suffered devastating losses.

Postwar records showed that almost every member of those families capable of inheriting their households had died. After their estates were destroyed, no one came to clear the ruins or rebuild them. Under the postwar settlement regulations, Central 46 reclaimed the land for the Seireitei, awaiting redistribution.

Now, Shuichi had taken it.

The surrounding nobles soon learned the news.

Their estates were not far from this plot. Some were separated by a street, others by a single wall. After the war, they had cleaned up the wreckage, buried their clansmen, and repaired their courtyard walls. They had only just caught their breath and were preparing to discuss how to divide the ownerless land—the plot by the pond, the old foundations left behind by those extinct noble families, the best location in the southern outer district—when Yamamoto's student took it.

No one dared confront Shuichi over it, and no one dared demand an explanation from Yamamoto.

"Yamamoto that demon."

Some time later.

Inside the Fifth Division's new residence.

Fifth Division members moved in and out, carrying supplies salvaged from their former base—documents, equipment, and several crates of old archives that could not be opened.

They looked much better than they had after the war. Most of their injuries had healed, they no longer limped when they walked, and some color had returned to their faces.

More importantly, the white patterns had mostly receded.

The white threads left behind by Pernida Parnkgjas had remained entwined within them for so long, yet a week ago, they had finally begun fading away all at once.

They vanished without a trace.

There were no aftereffects and no discomfort, as though they had never existed.

Except for one person.

Danjiro Obana sat in a wheelchair, his feet hanging in the air and his Zanpakutō resting across his knees.

His external wounds had long since healed, but he still did not dare heal the severed tendons in his ankles—the tendons he had cut himself.

He had tried having a division member remove them. But the moment the blade approached his ankle, the white threads wriggled as though they were alive, frightening that member so badly he nearly dropped his sword.

So Danjiro had never dared recover from his injury.

He feared that once his body's defenses fully activated and the flow of Reiatsu returned to normal, the white threads entrenched in his thighs would travel upward along the Reiatsu pathways and enter his heart, then his brain.

At that point, he would no longer be the captain of the Fifth Division. He would become Pernida Parnkgjas's puppet.

A guest came today.

Senjumaru Shutara sat before him. She had not come to visit, but to collect research material.

The Twelfth Division's new laboratory was already more than half complete. The main building had been roofed, the basement excavated, but the experimental equipment had yet to be installed.

She had brought one of her portable devices with her.

"Leg."

Senjumaru's tone was like she was ordering an uncooperative test animal.

Danjiro rolled up his trouser leg, exposing his calf below the knee. The white patterns on his skin glimmered faintly in the sunlight.

Senjumaru picked up a palm-sized Reishi detector and pressed it against Danjiro's calf. Her eye moved close to the device's eyepiece, the distance between her brows and the instrument shrinking further and further until it gave a beep.

She straightened and stared at the data displayed on the device for a long time in silence.

"Interesting."

Over the next several days, Senjumaru appeared at the Fifth Division's new residence every afternoon without fail.

The tools in her box increased by the day—Reishi probes, spectral analyzers, resonance detectors, and several pieces of experimental equipment that did not even have names.

She covered Danjiro's legs in Reishi-sensing patches, had him sit motionless in his wheelchair, and irradiated the white patterns with Reishi beams of various wavelengths while recording data.

She built models, overturned them, then built new ones. Every conclusion was the same: it could not be deciphered.

On the fifth day, Senjumaru stood before Danjiro's wheelchair and placed the detector in her wooden case, snapping the clasp shut.

"I can't analyze this thing. It seems to have completely fused with your nerves."

Danjiro's face went pale for an instant. He would rather it had been some poison or curse Pernida left inside him—something that could be purified, sealed, or torn out by the roots. Fused with his nerves sounded utterly terrible.

"But I can add another layer of reinforcement seal. On top of the existing seals, it will block its spread routes and strengthen your Reishi barrier, preventing the white threads from further consolidating control. However, while you will be able to move freely, you will not be able to use Shunpo."

Senjumaru did not turn around. Her hands never stopped moving, and her voice remained as calm as though she were reporting experimental results.

"Still, I'll make you a pair of leg guards. As long as you wear them, you'll be able to use Shunpo normally."

Danjiro looked at her back. The resentment in his heart rose, then was extinguished.

"Alright."

Senjumaru made the leg guards quickly. They took only two days, blue with a metallic sheen, wrapping from his ankles to his knees.

Danjiro lowered his head to look at his feet, then at Senjumaru. She had already turned and headed for the door without waiting for his thanks.

"Come find me if the seal can't hold. Come find me if the leg guards break too. Don't try fixing them yourself."

After the Seireitei's reconstruction work fully got underway, the First Division became even busier than it had been during the war.

Before dawn every day, Okiba Genshirō stood in the corridors of the First Division Barracks with a thick stack of mission orders in hand, assigning them to division members coming and going.

Shimura and Okabe worked overtime in the records office until late at night, drinking pot after pot of coffee. Whenever their eyelids began to droop, they splashed cold water on their faces.

Ukai was responsible for coordinating personnel shortages across every division. The forms on his desk were piled higher than his head.

Construction sites everywhere needed personnel to patrol them. The bases of divisions newly relocated into the Seireitei required material coordination. Nobles came to complain about land disputes every other day. Although Yamamoto glared them away each time, the paperwork still fell upon the First Division.

More troublesome than reconstruction were the people.

There were not enough people.

The casualty lists from the war had already been compiled, and the numbers weighed heavily in the First Division archives.

It was not only captains and seated officers who had died. More numerous were the ordinary division members—the ones who charged at the front of the battlefield, ate the least Reiatsu food, and took the harshest blows from Holy Soldier blades.

Every division's roster was densely marked with "killed in action," "seriously wounded," and "missing." Fewer than half their prewar personnel could perform their duties normally.

The Genji School was too small.

When Yamamoto founded the Genji School, he had only wanted to give those wandering souls in Rukongai with talent for Reiatsu a chance to become Soul Reapers.

The school grounds were small, and there were few students. Each class had only a few dozen people. After graduation, they were assigned to the various divisions, like drops of water flowing into the sea, silently replenishing the divisions' natural attrition.

But this was not natural attrition. It was a cliff-like shortage. The handful of people graduating from the Genji School each year would not even make a ripple when distributed among the divisions.

First Division members were sent out everywhere to search for wandering Soul Reapers.

So-called wandering Soul Reapers were those who had not joined the Gotei 13 and operated alone in Rukongai or the World of the Living. Some could not endure division discipline and chose to travel alone. Some had been expelled because of their personalities. Some had graduated from the Genji School but failed the division entrance examinations and had made a living for themselves in Rukongai.

Most of them did not possess much Reiatsu and were mediocre at Zanjutsu, but they were still Soul Reapers. They could still draw their swords. At the very least, they were much faster to recruit than training newcomers from scratch.

But—

The results were scarce.

First Division members ran through all eighty districts in every direction, knocked on countless grass huts and wooden houses belonging to Rukongai souls, and searched every place wandering Soul Reapers might be hiding. They could count the people they found on one hand.

Most wandering Soul Reapers had already died during the Quincy invasion. Those who survived had hidden deeper in Rukongai and did not dare show themselves. Some had simply abandoned their identities as Soul Reapers, buried their Zanpakutō in the earth, and settled down as ordinary wandering souls.

Yamamoto sat in his office, with the personnel shortage reports submitted by each division spread out before him. He held a brush in his hand, its tip hovering over the paper for a long time without falling.

Outside the window, the Seireitei was being rebuilt. The clanging sounds of construction carried from afar, while sunlight struck the newly laid roof tiles and reflected a blinding glare.

He thought for a long time.

The Genji School had to expand.

Not by simply enrolling a few more classes, but expanding from the roots—broadening recruitment, expanding the scale of teaching, and increasing the number of graduates.

There were far more wandering souls in Rukongai with talent for Reiatsu than the handful selected by the Genji School. Many more were turned away because they lived too far away, failed to meet the Reiatsu testing standards, were too old, the wrong gender, or for all kinds of inexplicable reasons.

He chose this plot himself.

It was in the eastern outer district of the Seireitei, neither too close to nor too far from the central area. There were broad hills, rolling terrain, and open views. It was not as crowded as the center of the Seireitei, nor as desolate as Rukongai.

The land was cheap because several lower-ranking noble families living there had gone extinct during the war. After their estates were destroyed, the land had been reclaimed by the Seireitei, and no one had claimed it since.

Yamamoto stood atop the highest point of those hills. Beneath his feet were rolling slopes and broad swathes of weeds, while the distant outer walls of the Seireitei gleamed white in the sun.

He watched for a while, then turned and left.

Not long afterward, when the construction crews entered the site, the surrounding nobles watched from afar. No one dared ask what was being built.

They had grown accustomed to it. Yamamoto built whatever he wanted wherever he wanted. Ask, and he would draw his sword.

Yamamoto personally inscribed the plaque.

He dipped his brush in ink and wrote five large characters onto the rice paper, stroke by stroke.

[Shin'ō Academy]

The era of the Genji School had ended.