Nobility

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

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

The room was small: one desk, one chair, an old map of the Seireitei hanging on the wall, and several boxes of documents moved over from the old barracks piled in the corner.

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

"Come in."

The door opened, and a young man walked in.

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

He carried a stack of papers, their edges uneven as though they had been trimmed. The heading read, "Thirteenth Division: Materials Requisition Request," followed by densely packed lists of construction materials and quantities—how much lumber, stone, roofing tile, and how many nails.

The following pages listed personnel logistics: daily rations, medical supplies, cleaning tools. Even brooms and rags were written down.

Shuichi took the documents and flipped through them page by page. Some of the listed materials did not match the things he was familiar with. He could not understand the specifications for certain types of lumber, and he had never heard of the origins of some of the stone.

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

"Confirmed. Collect the supplies according to this."

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

The Eighth Seat halted, turned to face Shuichi, and bowed. "I am the highest-ranking seated officer."

His voice was flat, as if he were reading from a report. There was no self-pity in it, no complaint.

Shuichi fell silent. As captain of the Thirteenth Division, he should have known its seated-officer 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. The postwar tally of the dead and the reassignment of seats had been handled by the surviving members. He had not intervened. Only now, after asking and hearing the Eighth Seat's answer, did he realize that there was no one left even for Third Seat.

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

There was no delight on the Eighth Seat's face, no gratitude, none of the relief of finally being recognized. He merely nodded. "Yes, Captain. I'll make the arrangements right away."

Shuichi leaned back in his chair, his gaze settling on the old map on the wall. The outline of the Seireitei glimmered darkly in the fading sunset. A small area in the southern section of the outer ring had been circled in ink—the marked location of the Thirteenth Division's new barracks.

Shuichi looked at it for a while before shifting his gaze and lowering his head in thought. There was still far too much to do: personnel, training, completing the barracks, teaching at Shin'ō Academy, and matters he could not yet foresee.

Inside an upscale restaurant in East District One of Rukongai.

Only a single wall separated this place from the Seireitei. The streets were clean, the houses orderly, and the passersby decently dressed. The restaurant was a three-story structure of wood and stone, with upturned eaves and a gilded signboard hanging above the entrance. The lanterns outside had not yet been lit, but candlelight already streamed through the lattice windows, casting the street in a warm yellow glow.

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

It was the first time they had come together in such numbers since the war. Their family estates were still being repaired, their clansmen were still recovering from their wounds, and the memorial tablets in their halls had not yet been put away. But they had managed to catch their breath amid the ruins. After all, those sitting in this restaurant were not from families wiped out by the Quincy attack. They had survived. Their estates had survived. Though many clansmen had died, their foundations remained intact. After a few cups of wine, the conversation grew livelier.

"What exactly is this Shin'ō Academy of Yamamoto's?" The speaker was a middle-aged man in a dark purple kimono, with a silver family crest embroidered on his collar—three overlapping diamonds. He belonged to an old Upper Nobility family from the northern Seireitei.

There was still a wound on his face, slashing diagonally from his forehead across his left eyebrow and down to his cheekbone. The stitches had only recently been removed, and the seam 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, demonstrating his family's valor in the war.

"I heard it's just Genji School with a new name."

An elderly nobleman with graying hair set down his cup and lightly tapped the table twice with his knuckles. His tone carried the restrained pride of someone who knew more than everyone else. "The location has changed too. It was moved from Rukongai to the eastern outer ring of the Seireitei, taking up a huge tract of land. My steward said that leveling the foundation alone took more than half a month. They rushed 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 looked like twin knife blades. His collar bore the crest of crossed sword and shield, passed down through who knew how many generations. His eyes swept across the table, taking in everyone's expressions before he spoke. His voice was not loud, nor was he in any rush, as though discussing the day's weather. "They're actually saying they'll recruit every soul with spiritual power as a student?"

He spoke those words softly, yet each one was like a small blade. The relaxed expressions born of drink vanished from everyone's faces, replaced by deliberate calm.

After a brief silence, the first man spoke. "Every soul with spiritual power? Those wandering souls in Rukongai who can barely afford to eat?"

His voice rose several degrees. His fingers gripped his wine cup, making the liquid inside tremble slightly. "Do they know how to hold a sword? Do they even know what Reiatsu is? They've never even touched an Asauchi, and they think they deserve to enter the Spiritual Arts Academy? Genji School at least used to screen applicants. Those with Spiritual Might too low were rejected, those too old were rejected, those of overly poor birth were rejected. But now Yamamoto has torn down every threshold. Anyone can get in."

The elderly nobleman with graying hair turned his head and spat to the side, making his contempt clear. "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 spent years, even decades, scraping by at the bottom of Rukongai—even if they have spiritual power, their character has long been ground away. Devious, cowardly, greedy, faithless. What could they possibly learn at the Spiritual Arts Academy? And what kind of Soul Reapers would 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 raised his cup and took a sip. When he set it down, he deliberately used more force, and the base of the cup made a light sound against the table.

"Most Genji School graduates used to be taken by the various divisions. Of the small number left over, some joined noble guard corps while others returned to Rukongai. Now Yamamoto has torn down the threshold. The number of students will increase severalfold, perhaps even dozens of times over, and the number of graduates will rise by the same amount. The divisions cannot absorb that many people. Where will those not selected by the divisions go? To us!"

His gaze swept over their faces. "Are we supposed to support the Rukongai trash Yamamoto brings in?"

The air in the private room seemed to seize up.

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

Not now, but the future.

Would the ranks of noble guard corps one day be crowded out by graduates from Rukongai? Would the Seireitei of the future cease to be the nobility's Seireitei? Would those wandering souls who knelt by the roadside to bow to them one day stand at their side?

No one could answer those questions.

No one dared say aloud what they truly feared. Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto was not expanding a school. He was rebuilding the foundations of the Seireitei—slowly taking control of Soul Society's future from the nobility and handing it to ordinary people who had struggled in Rukongai's dirt, who had nothing, yet possessed spiritual power and potential.

New guests arrived at the restaurant upstairs. Footsteps and greetings rose from below, thinning the silence in the private room. Someone picked up a piece of food, 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 students it recruited, how many it eliminated, how many graduated, which divisions they entered, how they performed. They would watch the new school like hawks, waiting for it to make a mistake, waiting for it to fail, waiting for even a trace of regret to 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 twilight.

After several rounds of wine, the atmosphere in the private room loosened somewhat. Some began discussing the progress of repairs to their estates. Some complained that the General Affairs Office had approved too little lumber. Some said those old fools in Central 46 had become increasingly sluggish after the war. The conversation drifted like a released balloon, floating wherever it pleased, but someone always reached out at the proper moment to pull it back.

"Do you think Yamamoto will accept members of our families?"

The speaker was a young man seated in the corner who had barely spoken all evening. His features were refined, and his brows still held some of the sharpness the war had not yet worn away. He was the youngest person present. His father had died of severe wounds after the war, leaving him to take over as family head at a young age. He wore a black kimono, its collar embroidered with a family crest of a crane spreading its wings. His voice was quiet, but everyone heard him. Some put down their chopsticks. Some paused with their wine cups. Some returned food they had just picked up to their plates.

After a moment of silence, the elderly nobleman with graying hair cleared his throat. "My family won't be sending anyone. The direct line has inherited swordsmanship and Kidō to study. Even if members of the branch families were sent, they would not achieve much. It would only give Yamamoto a favor to use."

He raised his cup and took a sip. He did not say what sort of favor, but everyone understood. If Yamamoto accepted noble children, he would effectively have a hand 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 arguing had already been demonstrated firsthand by the people who had gone to the office to question Shutara over the location of the division barracks.

But 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 accept children of noble families too, then we have to send them. If everyone else sends theirs and you do not, what will you say when Yamamoto asks? That you look down on his Spiritual Arts Academy? That you think his school is unworthy of your family's children?"

He did not continue, but the meaning was clear. Yamamoto might not care whether the nobility sent their children, but the nobility could not afford not to care how Yamamoto viewed them. This was a game of power. It was not about whether they wanted to play. They 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 room, to the arguments over whether to send them or not, to the speculation about Yamamoto's motives and the anxiety over the nobility's future. He waited for everyone to finish, for every opinion to be laid out on the table, for the voices of debate to gradually fade, for the room to fall quiet again.

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

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

He paused, and his voice dropped. "Do you want your children mixing with those people?"

No one in the private room answered. It was not that they had no answer. They simply did not dare speak it aloud.

They did not.

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

A suffocating silence fell.

The air in the private room congealed for a moment. The man at the head of the table set down his cup. "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 information, 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"; that was "known."

The elderly nobleman with graying hair spoke first, his voice lower than usual. "The Gotei 13... all of the captains?"

He did not explicitly mention divisions beyond the Thirteenth Division, but everyone present understood. The entire Gotei 13. The captains of all thirteen divisions would take turns entering Shin'ō Academy's lecture halls. These thirteen people were the thirteen strongest Soul Reapers in Soul Society, figures standing at the pinnacle of the Seireitei, figures every noble had to lower his head and bow to. They were going to teach wandering souls recruited from Rukongai—souls who had never even touched an Asauchi—how to hold a sword, throw a punch, and release Reiatsu.

The middle-aged man in the dark purple kimono put down his chopsticks. "The Shihōin Clan... Lord Qianri himself will be going too?"

Captain of the Second Division, head of the Shihōin Clan, Commander-in-Chief of the Onmitsukidō—he was Shihōin Qianri. His name alone was a signboard, more persuasive than any advertisement. If he stood in a Shin'ō Academy lecture hall 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 going to serve as an instructor, there was nothing left to discuss. The captains would become teachers, and noble children would be sent there as students. This was not a guess. It was settled.

"Let's disperse."