Gillian

That night

Thirteenth Division headquarters

Footsteps came from the courtyard entrance.

Shuichi recognized those footsteps.

When Chojiro Sasakibe walked in, he held a document in his hand.

Without exchanging pleasantries, he walked straight to the pavilion and placed the document on the tea table beside the blank form.

"Kaimachi."

Sasakibe's voice was quiet, but every word was clear. "The Soul Reapers stationed in the World of the Living reported a Menos Grande sighting. Kaimachi has already become a no-man's-land. The stationed Soul Reapers cannot handle it and require a captain's intervention."

Shuichi lowered his gaze to the document. The word "Urgent" was written on its cover, the ink still fresh.

Sasakibe continued, "The Head Captain has issued orders for all Soul Reapers stationed in the World of the Living to be assigned to the Thirteenth Division. The Hell Butterflies have delivered the notice. There are seven hundred in total."

Shuichi's finger paused over the words "seven hundred."

He looked up at Sasakibe.

"I'll handle it."

Sasakibe nodded without saying anything more. He turned and left, his footsteps gradually fading away as the courtyard returned to silence.

Shuichi sat in the pavilion, staring at the document for a long time.

Kaimachi. No-man's-land. Menos Grande.

The Senkaimon opened a rift in the darkness with a glow of reishi. Shuichi stepped through without hesitation.

The Senkaimon's exit opened atop a large tree.

Shuichi landed on its thickest branch. The bark cracked faintly beneath his feet, but he did not immediately jump down. He stood high above and observed first.

The night was dark, but it did not hinder a Soul Reaper's vision.

Kaimachi stretched out beneath him. Houses had collapsed, streets had split apart, and several fires still flickered in the darkness, as if the ruins were still breathing. There were no people, no lights, no sounds—not even the barking of dogs.

The scent of Hollows was so thick it could not be dispersed.

Its towering body made the surrounding ruins look like children's building blocks. Its entire body was pitch-black, while a white bone mask covered its face. Beneath the mask, its hollow eyes stared ahead blankly and without expression.

Gillian.

Shuichi had read that name in the reference files.

The lowest class of Menos Grande—but "lowest" was relative. To ordinary Soul Reapers, a Gillian was a disaster. One strike could destroy an entire street, and its spiritual pressure was enough to make the inexperienced go weak in the knees.

This was Shuichi's first time seeing a Menos Grande.

It was also his first time coming to the World of the Living alone to deal with a Hollow.

Standing atop the tree, Shuichi spread out his spiritual perception.

It was an ability he did not often use. No—in Soul Society, spiritual perception was more of a skill intelligence officers needed to specialize in.

His spiritual pressure spread outward like an invisible net, covering every corner of Kaimachi.

Gillian's spiritual pressure was enormous, so great that it was visible even without sensing it, like a black flame burning on the ground. Yet strangely, aside from Gillian and several other giant Steel-Skinned Hollows, there were no other Hollows.

Something was wrong.

The reference files had made it clear: Gillians did not appear alone.

Wherever one appeared, it would inevitably be accompanied by a Hollow Disaster, with dozens or hundreds of Hollows of all sizes swarming in like a plague of locusts, devouring everything in their path.

But there were none in Kaimachi.

Shuichi's perception continued to spread outward, passing through the ruins, the scorched fields, and the broken roads, reaching even farther.

His spiritual pressure silently spread across the night sky, like a stone dropped into still water, its ripples expanding outward in ever-widening rings.

In the distance, those ripples struck something.

Shuichi's eyes narrowed slightly.

The first camp was northeast of Kaimachi, roughly three kilometers away.

The spiritual pressure there was orderly and stable. It belonged to Soul Reapers—a complete stationed unit, fully staffed. Everyone was alive, and there appeared to be no wounded. Judging by their numbers, the Soul Reapers stationed in several nearby districts had likely gathered there.

The second camp was southwest of Kaimachi, farther away. They were ordinary humans—many of them, densely gathered.

An armed human force. They had not withdrawn yet.

The third camp was directly west of Kaimachi, the closest to Gillian. When Shuichi's spiritual pressure touched that direction, it paused.

The Reishi Armed Forces.

Their platinum-colored spiritual pressure was as orderly as a formation measured with a ruler. The flow of reishi was completely different from that of Soul Reapers.

Quincies.

Shuichi's hand rested on his sword hilt. His fingers tightened, then loosened.

At the site of a Hollow Disaster, he had found an armed human force and the Quincy Reishi Armed Forces. And from the looks of it, the Hollow Disaster had not subsided naturally—they had contained it together.

Gillian was still there.

But the swarm of Ordinary Hollows that should have poured down around it had already been cleared away.

Forget it. I'll deal with Gillian first.

The Quincies, the armed humans, the stationed Soul Reapers—all of that could wait until this Menos Grande had fallen.

He drew his sword from his waist. Each time it was sheathed and drawn again, the blade was red.

The instant he drew it—

A red slash of sword energy flew from the blade, cutting through the night sky and striking Gillian's mask with perfect accuracy.

It did not shatter.

But it left behind a deep scar.

Gillian slowly lowered its head.

At last, those hollow eyes found focus. It looked at Shuichi.

Then—

A piercing roar tore through the night sky.

At the same time, Gillian's spiritual pressure crashed down like a collapsing wall. The air became heavy and sticky. Rubble in the ruins was jolted into the air by the pressure before rolling across the ground.

The Steel-Skinned Hollows moved as though lashed by a whip. Three, five, seven...

Beneath Gillian's mask, red light began to gather. A point of crimson emerged from nothingness, rapidly swelling into a mass of burning energy.

Cero.

The three distant camps were alerted almost simultaneously.

The stationed Soul Reapers' camp.

The sensing-type Soul Reaper with the sharpest spiritual perception was the first to rise, his face deathly pale. "Gillian's Cero! No—that's not right! Someone is fighting Gillian!"

The hand he pointed toward Kaimachi with was trembling. "Captain-Class spiritual pressure! It's a captain!"

At the Reishi Armed Forces camp, the Quincies did not need spiritual perception to know what had happened. The red sword energy that had exploded against the Menos Grande's mask remained clearly discernible through the fluctuations of reishi even from several kilometers away. Everyone stood, weapons in hand, staring toward Kaimachi. Someone sucked in a breath, but no one spoke.

The humans' camp.

The soldiers only felt the ground shake again. Someone said, "It's starting again," but no one responded. They stared at the night sky over Kaimachi, unable to see anything. They could only feel the ground trembling again and again, as though something over there was beating a drum.

The Steel-Skinned Hollows charged.

They were as fast as black arrows. Their feet crushed the rubble beneath them, producing dense, thunderous roars. The one in front had already opened its jaws, revealing two rows of serrated teeth as it lunged for Shuichi's throat.

Shuichi lightly tapped the ground with his right foot.

Shunpo.

His figure vanished from where he stood. All eight Steel-Skinned Hollows missed at once. Some crashed into their companions, some tumbled into the rubble, kicking up clouds of dust, and the foremost one bit into the tree, tearing off its entire crown.

Shuichi stood in the air.

Beneath his feet was a thin platform condensed from reishi. Soul Reaper reishi adhered to his feet, gathering spiritual pressure beneath his soles so that he could tread through empty air as though walking on solid ground. This was an advanced use of reishi, one not every Soul Reaper could perform.

The eight Steel-Skinned Hollows stood on the ground, craning their necks upward in helpless frustration.

They could not jump that high.

The only one capable of flight had wing membranes stretching from its forelimbs to its hind legs, like a deformed bat. It dove in from the side, its wings ripping through the air with a shrill whistle. Its claws spread wide, each one as long as a short blade, aimed at Shuichi's neck.

Shuichi shifted slightly aside.

The Flying Hollow shot past Shuichi. Momentum prevented it from stopping sharply in midair, and it slid far away before awkwardly beating its wings to turn around. By the time it turned its head, Shuichi was no longer where he had been.

The Flying Hollow had missed again.

On the ground, the Steel-Skinned Hollows roared louder and louder. They were not mindless beasts, but at this moment, their intelligence seemed to contain nothing but rage.

They scraped at the rubble, raising their forelimbs and smashing them against the ground as though venting their fury.

The Soul Reaper beside him gripped his Zanpakutō's hilt tightly. "That is definitely Captain-Class spiritual pressure. Look at that captain's haori!"

They could not make out Shuichi's division insignia. The distance was too great, and the night too dark. But the white captain's haori stood out far too clearly in the darkness, like a piece of snow lifted by the wind, suspended above Kaimachi's ruins.

Which division was he from?

No one knew.

It did not matter that no one knew. What mattered was that a captain had arrived.

At the Reishi Armed Forces camp, the silence grew even heavier.

The Quincies stood at the edge of the camp, weapons in hand, but not a single one stepped forward. Gillian was gathering a Cero, while the spiritual pressure of the Steel-Skinned Hollows pressed down like the stifling thunder before a storm.

"That Hollow..."

A young Quincy swallowed, his voice tight.

"Terrifying."

No one laughed at him.

"Good thing we didn't attack on our own."

Another voice came from the middle of the formation. It was the captain of this squad, a middle-aged man.

From the rear of the ranks, someone quietly said, "Who was it that mocked the Soul Reapers for being cowards before?"

No one answered.

They really had mocked them.

The Soul Reapers knew what they were facing. They did not.