Reishi Arts

The Senkaimon opened outside Seireitei's south gate.

Shuichi returned to Seireitei. Aside from Seventh Division members on patrol, there was no one else within Seireitei.

Shuichi did not go to the captain's office. He went straight back to the Thirteenth Division grounds.

He immediately began writing the Kaimachi mission report: one Gillian and eight Steel-Skinned Hollows, all eliminated; the Soul Reaper squad stationed in the World of the Living assisted in combat, with five lightly wounded and none seriously injured; the Quincy Reishi Armed Forces withdrew after the battle concluded; the human military was carrying out reconstruction work amid Kaimachi's ruins; a suspected High-Reishi Unit had attracted the Menos Grande, and one human child with abnormal spiritual power had been discovered and adopted by a human military officer; the officer's Reiatsu possessed an abnormal nature—not a Soul Reaper, not a Quincy, not a Hollow, and not an ordinary human. Further investigation was required.

After finishing, he checked it over and confirmed that nothing had been omitted or written incorrectly.

He did not send it over immediately. It was too late, and everyone was probably resting.

Early the next morning, Shuichi woke earlier than usual. He washed up, put on his Shihakushō, draped his captain's haori over it, picked up the mission report from his desk, and left the barracks.

He crossed Seireitei's streets toward the First Division. Seireitei was already stirring at dawn.

The doors to the First Division Barracks were open. Shimura sat behind a desk at the entrance, reading a file, while a thick stack of documents sat piled in front of her. Hearing footsteps, she looked up. When she saw Shuichi, she froze for a moment before breaking into a grin.

"So early?"

She was another First Division member responsible for processing files. Shimura was more like the team leader, specifically dealing with people of high status. "Something from the World of the Living?"

Shuichi nodded and placed the envelope on the desk before her.

"Mission report. Menos Grande extermination in Kaimachi."

She glanced at the writing on the envelope but did not open it. "The Head Captain isn't here yet. Do you want to wait for him?"

"No."

Shuichi said, "Just archive it after you've read it. If anything needs supplementing, find me in the Thirteenth Division."

She took the envelope and placed it atop the stack of documents that had already been processed at the side of the desk.

"Fine."

Inside the First Division office.

Yamamoto finished reading the final word of Shuichi's mission report and set it on the desk. He said nothing. His gaze settled on the final section, where several lines read, "one human child with abnormal spiritual power," and "the officer's Reiatsu possesses an abnormal nature"...

Soon, several black shadows flashed through the room.

The seventh day of classes at Shin'ō Academy.

Four hundred students were divided into twenty classes, twenty students per class. Not a single one came from the nobility.

Shin'ō Academy.

They did not recognize Yamamoto's handwriting, but they recognized that place. It was where they would live from now on.

The first teachers were the last instructors from Genji School.

Yamamoto had directly reorganized them into Shin'ō Academy's initial faculty. They might not have been elites of the Gotei 13, but they were people willing to teach, capable of teaching, and able to clearly explain the four foundational disciplines of Zan-Sō-Haku-Ki.

Today was Yanyuan Jinle's class.

Yan Yuan stood behind the lectern at the front of the large classroom.

Three classes, sixty students in total, had been combined into this large room.

He adjusted his glasses.

The lenses flashed beneath the indoor light. The movement was light, barely noticeable, yet all sixty students' eyes were drawn to him at once. It was not because the gesture had been dramatic, but because of the nearly imperceptible shift in Yan Yuan's Reiatsu. The instant he adjusted his glasses, his Reiatsu gave a faint pulse, like a pebble dropped into still water. Ripples spread outward—from the lectern to the first row, from the first row to the last. Every student felt it. It was not pressure, not intimidation, merely an acknowledgment: I am watching you.

Yanyuan Jinle was tall and lean, with a long, thin face.

The sixty students from Rukongai unconsciously sat up straight, their eyes fixed on Yanyuan Jinle.

No one had told them to sit properly. Yan Yuan had not said, "Sit up," or "Quiet," or "Look at me."

Kidō.

To people from Rukongai, it was something exceedingly distant. Among Soul Reapers, there were no people who could not use Kidō—only those proficient or unskilled at it, those talented or untalented at it. Ah, no, that was wrong. Those recruited from Rukongai could not use it.

Yan Yuan spoke. "Kidō is not the privilege of nobles."

There was no preamble to his first sentence. No "Hello, everyone," no "I am the Third Division captain," no introduction to what they would study today. He went straight to those words. The breathing of all sixty students slowed by half a beat.

"Kidō is precise control over Reishi."

Yan Yuan's voice echoed through the large classroom. It was neither loud nor soft, just clear enough for everyone to hear. "Zanjutsu uses the 'quantity' of Reiatsu—the greater the quantity, the stronger the slash. Hakuda uses the 'burst' of Reiatsu—instant release, instant restraint. Shunpo uses the 'change' of Reiatsu—changing direction, changing speed, changing the point of landing. Kidō is different. Kidō uses the 'measure' of Reiatsu. One bit too much is wasteful. One bit too little is insufficient. Incantations are not spells. They are calibration. Every word corresponds to a position in a Reishi arrangement."

He stepped out from behind the lectern. His pace was not quick, but every step landed solidly. The wooden floor gave a faint sound beneath his weight, mingling with his footsteps. The sixty students' gazes followed him—from the lectern to the first row, from the first row to the second, from the second to the third. He stopped beside a student in the third row. The student stiffened, his body taut as a fully drawn bow, even his breathing halted.

Yan Yuan did not look at him. Facing the entire classroom, his voice rose from the middle of the third row, reaching everyone's ears clearly and without a trace of emotion.

"The first lesson of Kidō is not incantation, not Reishi arrangement, not Hado, nor Bakudo."

He slipped a hand into his sleeve and took out nothing.

"The first lesson of Kidō is not to be afraid."

The classroom was utterly silent. Not one of the sixty students spoke. Sunlight streamed through the windows, falling between desks and chairs, over Yan Yuan's thin profile, and onto the lenses of his glasses. The reflected light was like an extremely fine needle, lightly pricking every student's face.

Yan Yuan walked back, returned behind the lectern, and came to a stop.

"Next, we will discuss the rhythm of the incantation for Hado Number One."

Yanyuan Jinle's voice echoed through the spacious classroom.

"Kidō and Reishi Arts are fundamentally the same thing."

Yan Yuan adjusted his glasses, and the lenses caught the light. "Both are techniques that use mental commands to manipulate Reishi and produce specific phenomena. Their names differ, their schools differ, their incantations differ, but their underlying logic is exactly the same."

Several students paused.

Yan Yuan continued, his voice unchanged, like a steadily flowing river—neither hurried nor slow, though something churned in the depths of its bed. "But."

When those two words fell, it seemed as though some of the air had been drawn out of the classroom, leaving only the faint breathing of sixty-odd people. "Most Reishi Arts texts circulating through Rukongai contain one extremely dangerous flaw."

His gaze swept across the classroom from behind his lenses.

"Instability."

Those who had been inattentive from the beginning—the boy in the corner of the last row, who had believed since the first day of class that he possessed a solid foundation in Reishi Arts, with only three lines written in his notes, his pen lying idly on the desk as his fingers lazily spun it; the girl by the window from North Seventh District, who had learned the rudiments of Reishi Arts from a wandering Soul Reaper, who had stopped taking notes halfway through the lecture and leaned back with her arms folded, a faint smile on her lips as if listening to an amateur explain something she knew best—when Yan Yuan's words landed, the corner of her mouth stiffened. Its upward curve became a flat, expressionless line. She unconsciously leaned forward, lowered her arms from across her chest, and laid both hands flat on her knees.

Yan Yuan did not look in any particular direction, yet everyone in the classroom felt that something had extended from the lectern like invisible threads, drawing in from all sides and wrapping around every person who believed they understood, every person who thought there was no need to listen any longer, every person who thought Reishi Arts were nothing more than "manipulating Reishi."

Yan Yuan did not say they were wrong.

He did not even say there was anything wrong with what they had learned. He merely stated one fact: "Instability."

That fact alone was enough. There was no need for examples, no need to single anyone out for criticism, no need to call some self-important Rukongai Reishi Arts enthusiast to the front for a public demonstration before pointing out the errors. He had merely spoken the three words, "Instability," and let those words speak for themselves.

Those who believed they understood Reishi Arts all fell silent at that moment. No one had been named, yet everyone had been named. There was no punishment, not even a reprimand, yet that feeling of being watched was like standing at the edge of a cliff. Wind blew in from every direction. You looked down and found that the stone beneath your feet had already begun to loosen.

Yan Yuan withdrew that invisible scrutiny. "Yanyuan Jinle, Captain of the Third Division. Your Kidō instructor."