Reishi Arts

The Senkaimon opened outside Seireitei's south gate.

Shuichi returned to Seireitei. Apart from the Seventh Division soldiers on patrol, there was no one else inside.

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

He immediately began writing the mission report for Kaimachi: 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 ended; the mortal army was carrying out reconstruction work in the ruins of Kaimachi; a suspected High-Reishi Unit attracted a Menos Grande, and one human child with abnormal spiritual power was discovered and adopted by a mortal military officer; the officer's Reiatsu had an unusual nature—neither Soul Reaper, Quincy, Hollow, nor ordinary human—and required further investigation.

After finishing, he checked it over and confirmed that there were no omissions or errors.

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 his shoulders, 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 in the early morning.

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

"You're up early."

She was another First Division member who handled records. Shimura was more like the team leader, specifically dealing with people of higher standing. "Something from the World of the Living?"

Shuichi nodded and placed the envelope on the desk in front of her.

"Mission report. The Menos Grande extermination in Kaimachi."

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

"No."

Shuichi said, "Read it and file it afterward. If anything needs to be added, come find me at the Thirteenth Division."

She put the envelope away, placing it atop the stack of completed documents at the side of the desk.

"Fine."

Inside the First Division office.

Yamamoto read the last word of Shuichi's mission report and set it down. 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 had an unusual nature"...

Not long afterward, several black shadows flashed through the room.

The seventh day of classes at Shin'ō Academy.

Four hundred students were divided into twenty classes of twenty. Not one came from nobility.

Shin'ō Academy.

They did not recognize Yamamoto's handwriting, but they recognized that place. It was where they would live in the future.

The first teachers came from the last instructors of the Genji School.

Yamamoto directly reorganized them into Shin'ō Academy's first teaching staff. 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 all, had been combined into this large room.

He adjusted his glasses.

The lenses flashed beneath the indoor light. The movement was gentle and slight, yet all sixty students' gazes were drawn to it at once. Not because the gesture was large, but because Yan Yuan's Reiatsu changed by the faintest, almost imperceptible trace. The instant he adjusted his glasses, his Reiatsu gave a soft 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, nor intimidation—only the confirmation that he was watching them.

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

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

No one had told them to sit properly. Yan Yuan had not said "sit up," "be quiet," or "look at me."

Kidō.

For people from Rukongai, it was something very distant. Among Soul Reapers, there were no people who could not use Kidō, only those who were more or less proficient, more or less talented. Oh, no—that did not include those recruited from Rukongai.

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

His first sentence came without any preamble, without any opening like "Hello, everyone," "I am the captain of the Third Division," or "Today we will learn..." He simply said that. The breathing of all sixty students slowed by half a beat.

"Kidō is the precise control of 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 'amount' of Reiatsu. The greater the amount, the stronger the slash. Hakuda uses Reiatsu's 'burst'—instant release, instant restraint. Shunpo uses Reiatsu's 'change'—changing direction, changing speed, changing the point of landing. Kidō is different. Kidō uses the 'measure' of Reiatsu. One fraction too much is wasteful. One fraction too little is insufficient. Chanting is not a spell. It is calibration. Every word corresponds to a position in the arrangement of Reishi."

He stepped out from behind the lectern. He did not walk quickly, but every step was firm. The wooden floor gave a faint sound beneath his weight, blending with his footsteps. The eyes of all sixty students 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 drawn tight like a fully strung bow, even his breathing halted.

Yan Yuan did not look at him. Facing the entire classroom, he spoke from the middle of the third row, his voice reaching every ear clearly and without fanfare.

"The first lesson of Kidō is not chanting, not Reishi arrangement, not Hado or 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 in through the windows, falling between the desks and chairs, across Yan Yuan's long, narrow profile, and over the lenses of his glasses. The reflected light from those lenses was like an extremely fine needle, lightly pricking every student's face.

Yan Yuan walked back, returned behind the lectern, and stopped.

"Now, we will discuss the chanting rhythm for Hado."

Yanyuan Jinle's voice echoed through the empty classroom.

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

Yan Yuan adjusted his glasses, and the lenses flashed. "Both are techniques that use mental commands to control Reishi and produce specific phenomena. Their names differ, their schools differ, their chants 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 deep beneath its bed. "But."

When those two words fell, it seemed as if some of the air had been sucked from the classroom, leaving only the barely audible breaths of sixty-odd people. "Most Reishi Arts manuals circulating in Rukongai have one very dangerous flaw."

His gaze swept across the classroom from behind his lenses.

"They are unstable."

Those few students who had looked distracted from the start—the boy in the corner of the last row, who had believed since the first day of class that he already had a solid foundation in Reishi Arts, who had written only three lines in his notebook, left his pen idly on the desk, and lazily spun it with his fingers; the girl seated by the window, from the North Seventh District, who had learned a little Reishi Arts under a wandering Soul Reaper, who had stopped taking notes halfway through Yan Yuan's lecture and leaned back with her arms crossed, the faint upward curve of her lips suggesting she was listening to an outsider explain something she knew best—her smile froze when Yan Yuan's words landed. The curve became a straight, expressionless line. She unconsciously leaned forward, lowered her arms, and placed her hands flat on her knees.

Yan Yuan did not look in any particular direction, yet everyone in the classroom felt something extending from the lectern like invisible threads, drawing in from all sides and wrapping around each person who thought they understood, each person who believed they no longer needed to listen, each person who thought Reishi Arts were merely "controlling Reishi."

Yan Yuan did not say they were wrong.

He did not even say there was a problem with what they had learned. He merely stated a fact: "Unstable."

That fact alone was enough. There was no need for examples, no need to call anyone out, no need to drag some self-important Rukongai Reishi Arts enthusiast to the front for a public demonstration before pointing out their mistakes. He only said the three words, "They are unstable," and let them speak for themselves.

Those who thought they understood Reishi Arts all shut their mouths at that moment. No one had been called out, yet everyone had been called out. There was no punishment, not even a reprimand, but the feeling of being watched was like standing at the edge of a cliff as wind blew in from every direction. You looked down and discovered that the ground beneath your feet had already begun to loosen.

Yan Yuan withdrew that invisible scrutiny. "Yanyuan Jinle, captain of the Third Division, and your Kidō instructor."