Nobles

By the time Shuichi returned to the garrison, the sun had already begun to set.

The pond's surface had been dyed dark orange by the sunset, while the pavilion's tiles cast jagged shadows overhead. Shuichi crossed the front courtyard. Several members finishing work saw him and gave slight bows. Shuichi nodded in return without slowing down, heading straight for the side room temporarily serving as an office.

The side room was small, with one desk, one chair, an old map of the Seireitei hanging on the wall, and several crates of documents moved from the old garrison piled in the corner.

Shuichi had barely sat down when someone knocked on the door.

"Come in."

The door opened, and a young man entered.

Shuichi recognized him. Over the past few days, this was the person who had sorted out the documents and delivered them to him. He also knew that the young man was the Eighth Seat of the Thirteenth Division.

He carried a stack of documents in his hands. The edges of the papers were uneven, bearing signs of having been cut. The first line read, "Thirteenth Division—Materials Requisition Request," followed by a dense list of construction materials and quantities: so much lumber, so much stone, so many roof tiles, so many nails.

The following pages contained personnel and logistics lists—daily provisions, medical supplies, cleaning tools. Even brooms and rags were listed.

Shuichi accepted the documents and flipped through them page by page. Some of the material names did not quite match the things he was familiar with. He could not understand the specifications for some kinds of wood, and he had never heard of the origins of some stones.

But he did not ask. Once he finished reading each page, he turned to the next. After finishing the final page, he picked up the brush on the desk, dipped it in ink, and signed his name at the bottom of every page.

"Approved. Collect the supplies according to this."

The Eighth Seat took the documents and turned to leave, but Shuichi stopped him. "How are the personnel vacancies within the division?"

The Eighth Seat halted, turned to face Shuichi, and gave a formal bow. "I am currently the highest-ranked seated officer."

His voice was flat, as though he were reading a report. There was no self-pity in his tone, no complaint.

Shuichi fell silent. He was the captain of the Thirteenth Division; he should have known its seating roster better than anyone. Yet he truly did not. He had been captain for too short a time and had spent too little time integrating with the division. After the war, the surviving members had handled the work of counting the dead and reorganizing the seats. He had not intervened. Now that he had asked and the Eighth Seat had answered, he finally learned that there was not even anyone left for Third Seat.

Shuichi glanced at the candle on the desk, nearly burned down to its end, then at the Eighth Seat by the door. "You will take Third Seat. Fill the ranks down to Tenth Seat. We'll deal with everyone else later."

There was no joy on the Eighth Seat's face, no gratitude, none of that relieved expression of finally being recognized. He merely nodded. "Yes, Captain. I'll make the arrangements immediately."

Shuichi sat in his chair, leaning against its back as his gaze fell upon the old map on the wall. The outline of the Seireitei glimmered dimly in the fading sunset. A small patch in the southern outer-ring area had been circled in ink—the marked location for the Thirteenth Division's new garrison.

Shuichi looked at it for a while before shifting his gaze away and lowering his head in thought. There was still far too much to do: personnel, training, completing the garrison, teaching at Shin'ō Academy, and matters he had yet to even think of.

Inside an upscale restaurant in East District One of Rukongai.

This place was separated from the Seireitei by only a single wall. The streets were clean, the houses orderly, and the pedestrians passing by were respectably dressed. The restaurant was a three-story wooden-and-stone building with upturned eaves and corners. A gold-lettered sign hung above the entrance. The lanterns outside had yet to be lit, but candlelight already shone through the window lattices from within, bathing the street in a warm yellow glow.

In an elegant private room upstairs, several Upper Nobility families had gathered.

It was the first time they had gathered in such numbers since the war. Their family estates were still under repair, their clansmen were still recovering from their wounds, and the memorial tablets in their ancestral halls had yet to be removed. But they had already caught their breath amid the ruins. After all, none of those sitting in this restaurant belonged to families exterminated during the Quincy attack. They had survived. Their estates had been preserved. Though many clansmen had died, their foundations remained intact. After several cups of wine, the conversation grew livelier.

"What exactly is Yamamoto's Shin'ō Academy?" asked a middle-aged man in a dark purple kimono. A silver family crest was embroidered at his collar—three overlapping diamonds, the emblem of an old Upper Nobility family from the northern Seireitei.

There was still a wound on his face, slanting from his forehead across his left eyebrow and down to his cheekbone. The stitches had only just been removed, and the seam marks resembled a many-legged insect crawling across his skin. He had not concealed the scar. On the contrary, he had deliberately combed his hair back to expose it, displaying his family's bravery in the war.

"I heard they merely renamed the Genji School."

An elderly nobleman with graying hair set down his wine cup and lightly tapped the table twice with his knuckles. His tone carried the reserved air of someone who knew more than everyone else. "They also moved the location, from Rukongai to the eastern outer ring of the Seireitei. It occupies a huge tract of land. My steward said leveling the foundation alone took more than half a month. They were rushing the work hard."

A man in his forties sat at the head of the table. His face was gaunt, his cheekbones high, and his thin lips resembled twin blades. His collar bore a family crest of a crossed sword and shield, passed down through countless generations. His gaze swept around the table, taking in everyone's expressions before he spoke. His voice was quiet and unhurried, as though discussing the day's weather. "They actually said they would admit every soul with spiritual power as a student?"

He spoke those words softly, yet each one was like a small knife. The relaxed expressions on everyone's faces abruptly became deliberately composed.

After a brief silence, the first man spoke. "Every soul with spiritual power? Those wandering souls in Rukongai who cannot even afford enough food?"

His voice rose several degrees. His fingers gripped his wine cup as the liquid within trembled slightly. "Do they know how to hold a sword? Do they know what Reiatsu is? They have never even touched an Asauchi, yet they deserve to enter the academy? At least the Genji School used to screen applicants. Spiritual Might too low? Rejected. Too old? Rejected. Background too poor? Rejected. But Yamamoto has torn down every threshold. Anyone can enter."

The gray-haired old nobleman turned his head and spat to the side, displaying his contempt. "There are three hundred and twenty districts in Rukongai, with countless wandering souls. Quite a few possess spiritual power. But spiritual power is spiritual power, and quality is quality. Those wandering souls who have scraped along at the bottom of Rukongai for years, even decades—even if they have spiritual power, their character has long been worn away. They are deceitful, greedy for life and afraid of death, and willing to betray anyone for profit. What could they possibly learn at the academy? What kind of Soul Reapers could they become after graduating? My family's guard corps would never take such people. No noble family would!"

The man at the head of the table lifted his wine cup and took a sip. When he set it down, he deliberately used more force, making the base of the cup strike the table with a soft sound.

"Most graduates of the Genji School used to be selected by the various divisions. The small remainder either entered noble guard corps or returned to Rukongai. Now Yamamoto has torn down the threshold. The number of students will multiply several times over, perhaps even dozens of times over. The number of graduates will multiply as well. The divisions cannot absorb that many people. Where will those not selected by a division go? They will come to us!"

His gaze swept across their faces. "Are we supposed to raise the Rukongai trash Yamamoto recruited for him?"

The air in the private room seemed to suffocate.

No one had considered that question. Or rather, no one had dared to. Shin'ō Academy had only just been announced. Enrollment had not even begun, and graduation was years away. Yet the head-table man's words were like a needle, piercing precisely the place everyone feared most.

Not now, but the future.

Would noble guard corps eventually have their positions taken by graduates from Rukongai? Would the future Seireitei no longer be the nobles' Seireitei? Would those wandering souls who knelt by the roadside to salute them someday stand beside them instead?

No one could answer those questions.

No one dared voice what they truly feared in that private room. What Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto was doing was not simply expanding a school. He was rebuilding the foundation of the Seireitei, gradually taking control of Soul Society's future from the nobles and handing it to ordinary people who had struggled through the dirt of Rukongai—people with nothing, yet possessing spiritual power and potential.

New guests arrived at the restaurant upstairs. Footsteps and greetings drifted up from below, thinning the silence in the private room somewhat. Someone picked up a piece of food with chopsticks. Someone refilled an empty cup. Someone cleared his throat and began discussing another topic.

But the man at the head of the table knew that from this day onward, everyone present would watch Shin'ō Academy's every move. How many it enrolled, how many it eliminated, how many graduated, which divisions they entered, how they performed. They would watch that newly built school like hawks, waiting for it to make a mistake, waiting for it to fail, waiting for even a trace of regret to finally appear on Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto's face—a face that had never bowed.

Outside the window, the outline of the Seireitei gradually blurred in the dusk.

After several rounds of wine, the atmosphere in the private room relaxed somewhat. Some began discussing the progress of repairs to their estates. Some complained that the General Affairs Department had approved too little lumber. Some said those old fossils in Central 46 had become increasingly sluggish after the war. The topic drifted like a released balloon, going wherever it pleased, but someone would always reach out at the appropriate moment and tug it back.

"Do you think Yamamoto will accept our family's children?"

The speaker was a young man seated in the corner who had barely spoken all evening. His features were refined, and there was still some sharpness between his brows that the war had not yet worn away. He was the youngest person present. His father had died of severe injuries after the war, leaving him to assume the position of family head at a young age. He wore a black kimono with a family crest embroidered at the collar—a crane with outspread wings. His voice was quiet, but everyone present heard him. Someone set down his chopsticks. Someone paused with a wine cup in hand. Someone placed the food he had just picked up back onto his plate.

After a brief silence, the gray-haired old nobleman cleared his throat. "My family will not send anyone. Direct-line descendants have inherited swordsmanship and Kidō to learn. Even if collateral-line descendants were sent, they would not achieve anything there. Yamamoto would simply use them as favors."

He lifted his wine cup and took a sip. He did not say what sort of favors, but everyone understood. If Yamamoto accepted noble children, he would effectively have his hands around those hostages' throats. Once they graduated, they would be assigned to whatever division he chose. What could their parents say? Could they go argue with Yamamoto? The outcome of such an argument had already been shown to everyone by those who had gone to the office to question Shutara over the choice of division garrison site.

Yet the middle-aged man in the dark purple kimono shook his head. "I think we should send them."

He lightly tapped the table twice with his knuckles. "If Yamamoto intends to admit noble children as well, then you must send them. If others send theirs but you do not, how will you answer when Yamamoto asks in the future? Will you say that you look down on his academy? That you think his school is unworthy of your family's children?"

He did not continue, but his meaning was already clear. Yamamoto might not care whether the nobles sent their children, but the nobles could not afford not to care what Yamamoto thought of them. This was a game of power. It was not a question of whether you wanted to play. You had already been dragged to the table, and there was no option to leave.

The man at the head of the table had not spoken. He listened to the discussion in the private room, to the arguments over sending and not sending, to the speculation about Yamamoto's motives and the anxiety over the nobles' future. He waited until everyone had finished speaking, until every opinion lay on the table, until the arguments gradually died down, until the private room became quiet once more.

"If we do not send them, Yamamoto can still recruit enough people from Rukongai to fill the academy. His plan will not change in the slightest because our children do or do not go."

His gaze swept over every face, like a blunt knife cutting through rough cloth. "But if we send them, our children will have to sit in class with wandering souls from Rukongai who cannot even afford enough food. They will sit in the same classroom, use the same desks, listen to the same teachers. After graduation, they may be assigned to the same division, live in the same dormitory, and perhaps even fight side by side on the battlefield."

He paused, lowering his voice. "Do you want your children mingling with those people?"

No one in the private room answered. It was not that they lacked an answer. They simply did not dare say it aloud.

They did not.

They did not want their children sitting in the same classroom as wandering souls from Rukongai. They did not want their family swordsmanship, passed down for centuries, to be regarded as equal by people who had never even touched an Asauchi. They did not want the invisible yet unbreakable boundary between nobles and wandering souls erased by a school, a desk, and a graduation certificate. But they could not say such things. To say them would be discrimination, contempt for Rukongai, opposition to the "new order" Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto was establishing.

A suffocating silence.

The air in the private room froze for a moment. The man at the head of the table placed his wine cup on the table. "The head of the Shihōin Clan said that the captains of the Gotei 13 will all serve as instructors."

Every family had its own sources of intelligence, and every family believed it knew a little more than the others. But news from the Shihōin Clan carried a different weight. That was not "heard," but "known."

The gray-haired old nobleman spoke first, his voice lower than usual. "The Gotei 13... all the captains will go?"

He did not explicitly mention the divisions beyond the Thirteenth Division, but everyone present understood. The Gotei 13—all thirteen divisions. The serving captains would take turns entering the classrooms of Shin'ō Academy. Those thirteen were Soul Society's strongest Soul Reapers, figures standing at the peak of the Seireitei, figures before whom any noble had to lower his head in salute. They were going to teach wandering souls recruited from Rukongai, souls who had never touched an Asauchi, how to hold a sword, how to throw a punch, how to release Reiatsu.

The middle-aged man in the dark purple kimono put down his chopsticks. "The Shihōin Clan... Lord Qianri himself will go as well?"

The captain of the Second Division, head of the Shihōin Clan, Commander-in-Chief of the Onmitsukidō—he was Shihōin Qianri. His name itself was a banner, more convincing than any advertisement. If he stood in a classroom at Shin'ō Academy and told those Rukongai students, "Joining the Gotei 13 is the best choice you will ever make," who would doubt him?

The man at the head of the table did not answer.

There was no need to answer.

Shihōin Qianri was one of Yamamoto's staunchest supporters. If even he was serving as an instructor, there was no room for discussion. The captains would become instructors, and noble children would be sent there as students. This was no longer speculation. It was settled.

"Let's disperse."