In the Soul Society, All I Want Is to Coast into Retirement

"How can we split up at a time like this? Haven't you watched horror movies? Demons and monsters always target people who are alone. I'm in command of this operation, so listen to me. We absolutely cannot separate." Thinking of all the horror movies he had watched in his previous life made Yamabuki Chidori's skin crawl. When he pushed aside the weeds in front of him, he wasn't suddenly going to see a bloody face, was he?

Neither Katoru Hatsunoya nor Gen'en Kinra objected. Yamabuki Chidori was usually rather unreliable, but he could still be counted on at critical moments. The three of them cleared a narrow path through the weeds and, sure enough, discovered a small village not far away.

They quickly headed over, but before they could get close, a foul stench hit them head-on.

It was the smell of rotting corpses!

Katoru Hatsunoya covered her nose with one hand, her delicate brows tightly furrowed.

Gen'en Kinra, however, did not seem to care at all.

Yamabuki Chidori's heart sank. When he went over to take a look, he found that the villagers had indeed all been slaughtered.

Judging by the state of things, they had been dead for quite some time. Their corpses were already severely decomposed.

The scene before them had either been caused by bandits or the army of an enemy nation. In these chaotic times, it was not surprising to encounter such a sight.

Gen'en Kinra calmly examined the wounds on the bodies and found that they had all been inflicted by sharp blades. Yet he also noticed something very strange.

"So many people died. Why haven't I found any of their souls?" Gen'en Kinra asked.

After death, a person's soul would leave their body. The weaker their attachments, the easier it was for them to enter the Soul Society. The stronger their attachments, the more likely they were to become Hollows. Logically speaking, these villagers had all died violent deaths, so their resentment should have been overwhelming. It would not have been strange even if they had all turned into evil spirits.

Yet now, apart from the corpses littering the ground, there was not a single soul in the entire area.

Where had all the souls gone?

Yamabuki Chidori's expression grew increasingly grim.

There were three ways for a soul to disappear completely.

First: after someone who had committed heinous crimes died, the Hell Gate would open, and Hell would take their soul away to suffer eternal torment.

Second: a Hollow had been active nearby, and it had already devoured everyone's souls.

Third: Quincy. Quincies possessed the power to completely destroy souls, but their main targets were Hollows. They generally would not lay hands on the souls of ordinary people.

The reason Quincies hunted Hollows on a large scale was that Hollow Reiatsu was highly poisonous to Quincies. To eliminate their natural enemy, Quincies slaughtered Hollows indiscriminately. If this continued, the balance between the three realms would inevitably tilt.

"Yamabuki, what do you think?" Gen'en Kinra asked.

"First, it can't be Hell. Hell only takes the souls of the truly wicked. Are you saying there wasn't a single good person in this whole village? That's far too absurd. As for Quincies, those people may be cunning and treacherous, but they probably wouldn't attack ordinary souls..."

"So, a Hollow came through here and ate everyone's souls?" Gen'en Kinra's face turned livid.

Yamabuki Chidori remembered that a Soul Reaper had been assigned to this region to guide souls onward. However, according to the report, that Soul Reaper had suddenly lost contact with the Soul Society and had most likely met with disaster.

And now they had no clues at all. It was truly a headache.

Suddenly, an extremely faint sound came from the house behind them. Yamabuki Chidori instantly drew his sword.

Could it be that the Hollow had not left after eating people, but had remained here?

"You two go in! I'll stay here and cover you!" Yamabuki Chidori said shamelessly.

It could not be helped. Those two big shots were simply far stronger than he was.

Gen'en Kinra took the lead. His naginata was too long to use easily in such a cramped room, and it would be difficult to deal with any sudden situation.

In the end, they discovered that the faint noise was coming from inside a box.

Gen'en Kinra flicked his sword, instantly cutting the box open. A little boy of six or seven tumbled out, trembling from head to toe in fright.

"A fish that slipped through the net?" Yamabuki Chidori said in surprise.

The little boy's face was full of terror. He had probably mistaken the three sword-carrying people for bandits.

Seeing the child, Katoru Hatsunoya's maternal instincts overflowed. She said gently, "Don't be afraid, little brother. We aren't bad people."

"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm! We're all good people. Tell us what happened here," Yamabuki Chidori asked.

The little boy looked at Yamabuki Chidori, then at Gen'en Kinra, and ultimately chose to hide in Katoru Hatsunoya's arms.

"You don't look like a good person at all." The boy pointed at Yamabuki Chidori.

Then he pointed at Gen'en Kinra. "He looks like a pervert! This big sister is the best!"

"You're a very good judge of character." Gen'en Kinra smiled without warmth.

"What kind of way is that for a brat to talk?" Yamabuki Chidori rolled up his sleeves and flicked the boy's forehead, letting him know that the world was a dangerous place and that he should not talk nonsense.

Katoru Hatsunoya gently asked, "What exactly happened here? Why did so many people die? Why were you hiding in that box?"

The little boy looked miserable. "Bandits. Bandits suddenly attacked the village and killed everyone. I was lucky enough to escape by hiding in the box..."

"Escape? What nonsense are you talking about? If you had escaped, you wouldn't be able to see us. Turn around and look. What's that?" Yamabuki Chidori said.

The little boy turned around and saw that the body lying on the ground was his own corpse.

Monster ### "How... how could this happen?" The little boy was completely panicked. He hurriedly lowered his head and touched his body, only to discover a broken chain on his chest.

Yamabuki Chidori explained, "This is called the Chain of Causality. Once it breaks, it means you're dead. We aren't asking about the bandits. After people die, their souls appear, just like you. After those people were killed by the bandits, where did their souls go?"

For the moment, the little boy still could not accept that he was dead. He looked at his hands and trembled uncontrollably.

"We are Soul Reapers, deities who manage the souls of the dead," Yamabuki Chidori said.

"Soul Reapers! Then I really am dead?" The little boy looked despairingly at Katoru Hatsunoya. She gently nodded.

The little boy burst into tears.

Katoru Hatsunoya spent a long time soothing him before he finally calmed down. The boy kept nuzzling his head into Katoru Hatsunoya's chest, and Yamabuki Chidori watched with utter envy!

Who said he wasn't still a child too?

Next time, I'll cry like that too. I'll nuzzle into Katoru Hatsunoya's chest too! She probably won't chop me to death, right?

Once the boy had calmed down, he finally told them everything he had seen.

"I saw a monster take everyone away! No, it should have taken everyone's souls away," the little boy said.

"What kind of monster? Tell me carefully. Did it have a huge hole in its chest and wear a strange white mask on its face?" Yamabuki Chidori asked.

The little boy shook his head hard. "No. It was a very strange man. Very tall, very big, and very fat!"

A person?

The three of them were all startled.

It had not been a Hollow that had eaten the people here? A "person" had taken all the villagers' souls away?

Yamabuki Chidori's expression turned grave. Had he really guessed correctly? Was the mastermind behind this series of crimes truly a Quincy?

"That monster took everyone's souls in that direction." The boy pointed north.

"Hatsunoya, you stay here with the child. The two of us will go take a look..." Yamabuki Chidori had not even finished speaking before he was interrupted.

"You stay here instead! You'd only become a burden if a fight breaks out." Katoru Hatsunoya said coldly. For some reason, whenever "looking after a child" was mentioned, her attitude became very frosty, even though she liked children herself.

Yamabuki Chidori glanced at Katoru Hatsunoya's full chest. I finally understand why Kurosaki Ichigo chose Orihime Inoue. Adults can manage, but no matter how hard things get, you can't let the children suffer?

Gen'en Kinra smiled, then he and Katoru Hatsunoya used Flash Step to leave. Only Yamabuki Chidori and the little boy remained in the village.

The little boy trembled as he asked, "What will happen to me? Do Soul Reapers eat human souls?"

"You're so clever. You actually guessed right. Do you know what kind of people I like to eat most? Children. Children have tender flesh. I mash them into meat paste and mix it with rice. Did you see that bespectacled uncle just now? He likes to peel people's skin off and admire it slowly. And that big sister you like? Her hobby is smashing people's heads apart with a sword! Exciting, isn't it?" Yamabuki Chidori's jealousy was running wild as he shamelessly scared the child!

Just as expected, the boy was frightened into wailing.

"If you want to survive, draw what that strange man looked like for me," Yamabuki Chidori said.

The frightened boy kept sobbing. He grabbed a small stick and drew two circles on the ground. There was a small circle on top and a large circle below it, with two thin lines on the small circle.

"Hm? What are you drawing? A rice ball? How could someone possibly look like this? No arms or legs? Even a dumb bear would look better than him, wouldn't it?" Yamabuki Chidori asked curiously. But when he looked up, he discovered that the little boy was backing away in terror, repeatedly pointing behind him.

"Me? You don't need to be so scared of me! I was just joking with you. The Soul Society may be chaotic too, but it's still a bit better than the Human World..." Yamabuki Chidori looked around at the bleak surroundings, then suddenly realized that something was wrong. The shadows on the ground—there were actually two shadows.

Yamabuki Chidori abruptly realized that the boy was not afraid of him. He was afraid of the thing behind him!

He slowly moved his hand to the hilt of his sword and glanced back from the corner of his eye. With the strength of an elite Lieutenant like him, he could rank among the top thirty in the entire Soul Society—unless he encountered a Vasto Lorde or an Adjuchas...

No matter who was behind him, he would slash them first and ask questions later!

"Eat my quick-draw slash!"

His Zanpakuto left its sheath, and the silver sword light was as fast as lightning, but his slash struck nothing.

Even so, Yamabuki Chidori saw clearly what the thing standing behind him was.

It should have been a person!

Why "should have been"?

Because this person's build was simply too bizarre!

If he had to describe it with one word, it would be... enormous.

Over two and a half meters tall, with an abnormally obese body. There was no visible neck, and a thick layer of fat was wedged between its head and torso. It wore two small braided pigtails and stared at him with a cruel expression.

This image was exactly the same as what the little boy had drawn on the ground. The resemblance was ninety-nine percent.

So he had wronged the child!

"What kind of monster is this?" Yamabuki Chidori hurriedly retreated two steps, staring nervously at the strange man.

In his memory, there was only one person in the Soul Society with this kind of body: the legendary figure, Oomaeda Marechiyo.

Countless legends surrounded that man!

"Stand down, Aizen!"

"This ends here, Yhwach!"

He could crush Aizen with Reiatsu alone!

He could stand still and take over ten thousand strikes from Zanka no Tachi without suffering a scratch!

He could instantly kill the Soul King!

He could drive back Yhwach with a single glance!

A god among gods!

Oomaeda Marechiyo!

"I fucking knew those urban legends were true!" Yamabuki Chidori stared at the monster before him in horror.

The strange man grinned viciously at Yamabuki Chidori. "Soul Reaper, your Reiatsu is so strong! If I make you my test subject, I'll definitely be able to create a work that satisfies me."

"Hm?" Yamabuki Chidori did not understand what he meant.

A test subject? Could the legendary Oomaeda Marechiyo also be a genius scientist? It was possible!

With that man's legends, it would not be impossible for his technology to surpass Kisuke Urahara and Kurotsuchi Mayuri!

"Soul Reaper, what is your name?" the strange man asked.

"Before asking someone else's name, shouldn't you introduce yourself first?" Yamabuki Chidori stopped fantasizing and cautiously faced the strange man.

"I... I am Zendouji Yuuhin, a scientist driven by interest!"

P.S. This is fanfiction, so don't nitpick whether the term "scientist" existed a thousand years ago.

The first captain of the 12th Division makes his appearance.

Initial setup: a mad scientist with maxed-out strength, agility, recovery, and destructive power, who experimented on his own body. But because of his special constitution, the black technology he developed could only be used by himself.

The First Mad Scientist ### "Zendouji Yuuhin?"

"The first captain of the Gotei 13's 12th Division?"

"Why was he here?"

As Yamabuki Chidori was wondering, Zendouji Yuuhin's obese body suddenly vanished. Like a ghost, he appeared behind Yamabuki Chidori, his huge hand reaching down toward Yamabuki Chidori's head!

That enormous body actually possessed such terrifying speed!

Hearing the wind behind him, Yamabuki Chidori used Flash Step without even thinking!