Yamabuki Chidori indulged in an impossible fantasy.
Before Aizen truly came into his own, he greeted everyone with a smile, hiding his true thoughts behind kindness and warmth. People like that were the most frightening.
Quite a few members of the Gotei 13 concealed their strength, but not one of them had escaped Yamabuki Chidori's notice, no matter how perfectly they thought they had hidden it.
"So this is the Human World." Aizen had followed Kuro no Suke's trail all the way here.
He had not expected the man to be so good at running. After leaving Seireitei, Kuro no Suke had circled through Rukongai several times before finally reaching the Human World.
A Soul Reaper had once gone to the Human World on a mission, and some anomalies had appeared. The Research and Development Bureau had assumed its instruments were malfunctioning and paid them no mind. In hindsight, a Soul Reaper had probably used that opportunity to slip into the Human World.
Aizen looked at the scene before him and felt a touch of emotion.
More than five hundred years ago, Japan was in the chaos of the Warring States period. Gather a few hundred or a thousand men, and you could become a local warlord. Everyone fought tooth and nail, seizing cities and declaring themselves rulers.
The imperial throne and divine authority had become mere ornaments in the face of military power. The emperor was a figurehead; the shogun who commanded the armies held the real power.
Beneath the shogun were the many daimyō.
War had devastated the land. Human lives were worth less than a dog's.
Aizen gazed at the ravaged earth left behind by battle and sighed softly. "Humans have remarkable energy. They live less than a hundred years, yet waste that precious time on