— — — — — —
The Nalakuvera's broadcast system carried Ryo's voice across the city.
"I'm delighted that you've all come to Arcadia City at the Edge of the World to take part in my debut battle."
"After twenty-four hours of announcements, I trust you've already received the basic information about this Gift Game."
In a park, Asura hummed to herself and pulled out a sheet of black parchment.
[Gift Game: Bleach World]
[Clear Condition: Become the Soul King.]
[Method One: In Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, gather the powers of Shinigami, Hollow, and Quincy. Perform the orthodox ritual and become the Soul King within fourteen days.]
[Method Two: Defeat the host.]
[Loss Conditions: Surrender, leaving the game area, or failure to meet the clear conditions.]
["Arcadia Seal"]
...
Asura scanned the lines, a faint smile lifting her lips.
"As many of you already know, this Gift Game will take place inside an artificial world," Ryo continued.
"But as you also know, the number of participants has exceeded expectations. Within the range of our current life-sign scans alone, we've detected over 3.3 million eligible players."
"Given that this is far too many, I've decided on something simple."
"I'm expanding the game map. Across the entire 120,000 square kilometers of the city, I will overlay a fictional world."
"WHAT?"
Graiya shot to his feet, shock written all over his face.
"You're replacing all 120,000 square kilometers of the city with another world? That's insane!"
Just how big was the City at the Edge of the World?
From north to south, it stretched more than five hundred kilometers. East to west, nearly five hundred as well.
To overwrite an area that vast with an alien world would drain every last drop of power from a four-digit entity, and not a weak one either. It would have to be an elite.
After all, this was equivalent to creating, in the lower layers of Little Garden, an entire world where five-digit and even four-digit beings could clash. Even with the Little Garden core supporting the physical laws, the cost would be brutally real.
Was Ryo Yagami out of his mind? Creating a world like this just for a Gift Game? Was he trying to burn his own spiritual foundation dry?
"Monster…" Rin muttered under her breath.
A fabricated world, no less a trial ground. This was practically a partial copy of a continent. Even if it was "only" 120,000 square kilometers, that was still a Little Garden continent. Supporting that level of consumption… was Ryo some kind of perpetual motion engine?
"This just got troublesome," Graiya said grimly, lifting his head.
From this single move alone, he could sense how terrifying Ryo really was.
"It'll be fine," Kalki said, trying to reassure them. "At this scale, it still can't do anything to Asura."
Meanwhile, the broadcast continued: "From this moment on, everyone may make their choice."
"You can enter my fabricated Soul Society and take part in the trial, or you may remain in the real world."
"You have one minute. Absolute freedom."
"I'll be waiting for you on the throne of the Soul King."
As his words ended, the sky seemed to open.
A storm of parchment rained down. Pure white sheets, engraved with the rules of the game, drifted from above.
They were the manifestation of the host's authority.
The white sheets fell like ghosts, passing straight through physical obstacles, yet remaining tangible to any living being.
"We've been played!"
Kalki's expression changed violently.
At the same moment, Graiya spread his wings. A raging black storm erupted, tearing the roof apart and blasting away the upper floors.
Yet the parchments kept falling, drifting toward Kalki, toward Rin, toward Graiya and Maxwell.
Realizing the storm was useless, Graiya flared his wings wider. Hands sprouted along the expanded feathers, seizing Kalki, Rin, and Maxwell in a single motion.
His wary voice echoed around them, "Changing the map wasn't because there were too many participants. He wanted to scatter his host authority across the entire city and flush out every hidden enemy."
"From the very beginning, Ryo planned to use this to find us. To find Ouroboros."
"The Heavenly Army leaving was real. Athena leaving was real. His true goal is to capture Ouroboros members, or at the very least trap us inside his fabricated world."
As he spoke, Graiya's wings beat again, shining with a bright cyan.
Most divine beasts were aligned with wind. Through their authority, they could briefly become wind itself, merge with nature, and gain a form of omnipresence.
At the extreme, that speed approached the speed of light.
Of course, in the lower layers, the Little Garden core capped everyone just short of true light speed.
Graiya's plan was to carry his companions and escape the city before the parchments could land.
The cyan light spread across his body, faster and faster, almost complete. Then, just as the transformation was about to finish, a soft sigh sounded.
Kalki recognized it instantly. It was Ryo's sigh.
Graiya grunted, and his cyan body snapped back to dark gray.
His authority had been forcibly interrupted.
"How is that possible?" Graiya shouted in disbelief. "There wasn't any anomaly!"
"A barrier," Kalki said quietly, staring at the parchment drifting down toward his head. "A barrier that suppresses all abilities. It activated the moment the parchments began to fall."
And more than that. It was anchored to his Another Cosmology. This was suppression at the level of a worldview itself.
Kalki's pupils contracted, then he sighed again.
"We go in voluntarily," he said. "The fabricated world is the official venue of the Gift Game. Rule violations aren't allowed there, so it won't have a barrier that suppresses power and authority."
"Only by entering the fabricated world can we use the field itself to avoid being captured by Ryo Yagami."
"If we stay in reality, under this barrier, we're nothing but live targets."
As he spoke, Kalki grabbed a scroll of parchment and pressed his handprint onto it.
The next second, his figure blurred and vanished from reality.
Seeing this, Graiya and Maxwell had no choice. Gritting their teeth, they each seized a parchment.
Rin hesitated for a heartbeat, then sighed and reached out as well.
...
Across the city, figures disappeared one after another.
In a park, on a bench, a small handprint appeared on a pure white sheet of parchment. The figure that had been sitting there, bearing snow-white oni horns, was already gone, drawn into the fabricated world.
At that moment, someone picked up this parchment and glanced at its contents.
It was Ryo Yagami.
He looked at the parchment in his hand, the corner of his mouth curling upward.
A breeze passed, and Ryo's presence faded from the air.
— — —
"Hmm..."
Rin finally opened her eyes.
She curled up instinctively, scanning her surroundings with caution.
"Japanese-style decor? Am I in a traditional residence?"
As the thought crossed her mind, a soft scratching sound reached her ears.
The sound of a brush gliding over paper.
She turned toward it and saw a desk not far away.
Seated there was a man with short brown hair, messy as if rarely tended, black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. He wore a black kimono, with a white haori draped over it, emblazoned with the character "Five." His expression was gentle, almost warm, as he practiced calligraphy.
The brushing sound continued for a moment longer.
Then the man stopped, turned his head, pushed up his glasses, and smiled kindly.
"You're awake."
"Who are you?" Rin asked warily. Her instincts told her this man felt… contradictory.
"Me?"
The brown-haired man chuckled softly.
"I'm Aizen. Sosuke Aizen."
"I am a Shinigami."
.
.
.