Chapter 284: Parting x Reigniting x Potential Peeping from the Soul King Palace
Too bright,
Too dazzling,
The tornado of fire enveloped the mushroom cloud as it soared into the sky.
The surrounding trees, rocks, flying birds, and terrestrial beasts melted in an instant, as if they never belonged to this world in the first place. Not a single trace of them remained within the vast heaven and earth.
Thump~ At the Ubuyashiki estate, Kiriya—who had been led inside by Amane following Kagaya's orders—was peeping through the window. Abruptly struck by a sharp pain in his eyes from the dazzling light, he collapsed backward onto his buttocks.
The young boy had overheard the conversation between his father and Kyojuro, and it was exactly as the two lords had stated. A battle with Lord Eiichiro's involvement was visually beyond anything the general populace could ever hope to come into contact with.
Just like those affected trees and rocks, if I were at the scene, I would definitely have been vaporized in an instant, right... His heart went thump-thump, thump-thump... cold sweat streaming down non-stop. The young boy thought to himself, uncontrollably shivering amidst the intense shock and terror filtering through his mind.
"Kyojuro..." A leisurely utterance drifted out into the small courtyard.
With his back to Kiriya peeping inside the room, Kagaya Ubuyashiki coated his pupils in a layer of Nen aura just as Kyojuro Rengoku had done, deploying [Gyo]. He looked up at the mushroom cloud wrapped in flames as it dispersed the moonlight, pulverized the night wind, and slowly blossomed across the firmament.
Slightly tilting his head, he looked at the young man whose flame-like yellow hair was swaying slightly, equally lost in thought. He spoke with deep meaning: "Are you certain... fifty times is enough?!"
Mortal and Nen are different. As a man who had undergone Roy's assistance to open his aura nodes and was trying to learn the [Four Major Principles], he understood exactly how terrifying and formidable a Nen ability was. It could be said that whether an ordinary person awakened a Nen ability was a difference as vast as the heavens and the earth. But...
Even if that gap was as massive as a chasm, it was still far from being as terrifying and shocking as this single slash that Roy and Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryūsai had just clashed with!
Just as he himself had stated moments ago, he shouldn't even dream of catching up to "understanding this battle" in this lifetime... It simply drove one to despair!
Hiss~ Hoo~ Kyojuro Rengoku's breathing actually turned somewhat erratic for a moment. For a Hashira who had been steeped in a [Breathing Style] for years, this was an almost impossible occurrence.
The young man, his yellow hair hanging down, fell into a rare silence... Courteous and open-minded, Kyojuro never refused anyone's questions, having displayed the persona of a "big brother" and a "warm guy" since childhood. But... fifty times... truly wasn't enough. In fact... it was far from enough, so much so that...
He lowered his head in shame. After a moment of silence and self-reflection, he said: "I was wrong."
Casting another glance, locking his eyes onto the horizon, he took a deep, heavy breath and said: "Whether it is Lord Eiichiro or the one fighting him, I am not even a ten-thousandth of their match!"
A leisurely wind blew past, carrying a faint trace of scorching heat. Silence fell over the small courtyard once more, accompanying the two men along with the clatter of Gyomei Himejima violently yanking the iron chains back down, forcefully suppressing his weapons beneath his seated form.
The monk held his palms together, tears streaming down his face. Witnessing the tornado of fire and the mushroom cloud sweeping through heaven and earth, his chant abruptly broke for a fraction of a second out of sheer shock.
By the time he recovered his senses and flicked his prayer beads as usual, the Buddhist heart that had been kept stable through years of chanting cracked with a snap, fracturing into pieces in an instant!
Gyomei Himejima was undoubtedly proud. In the original story, as the strongest Hashira, he could be called the number one person in the Demon Slayer Corps for hundreds of years since Yoriichi Tsugikuni and Kokushibo left the corps! Especially after opening his aura nodes and mastering [Ten], [Zetsu], and [Gyo] at an extremely rapid pace, even completing half of [Ren]—overtaking others to be faster than Kyojuro Rengoku, who had converted first... Gyomei Himejima had thought more than once that he might eventually be able to trade blows with Roy. After all, strictly speaking, he had only started practicing "Nen" a bit later than him; his so-called "deficiency" was merely a matter of time and experience.
But looking at it now, Gyomei Himejima silently chanted "Praise the Sun" in shame. In an instant, he felt entirely like a frog at the bottom of a well, ignorant of the vastness of the world, breaking the three Buddhist precepts of greed, ignorance, and wrath!
Whoosh~ Another hot gust of wind blew past...
The tornado of fire collided with the mushroom cloud, the impact of the aftershocks showing absolutely no intention of slowing down...
At the absolute center of the explosion,
Two figures stood in absolute silence, blade pressed against blade. One had his eyes closed in a hazy manner, his expression peculiar, appearing as if he were still immersed in the sudden enlightenment of visualizing deep within the Sun. The other had unleashed a single-slash Shikai; despite clearly holding the upper hand—and even having ample room to spare, fully capable of taking advantage of this opening to unleash another fatal slash upon the boy,
Such as [Jōkaku Enjō] (Castle-Gate Blaze),
Such as [Ennetsu Jigoku] (Flaming Hell),
Or even if he abandoned his sword and relied solely on his fists, a single move of [Ikkotsu] or [Sōkotsu] could smash the boy into dust.
Yet,
Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryūsai merely observed the boy's current state quietly. A heart that had remained frozen for nearly two thousand years without vibrating experienced a sudden, rapid skip following the slash Roy had delivered moments ago!
This kind of skip was something that hadn't appeared for an incredibly long time... signifying "danger" and "alertness"!
So, a young boy who wasn't even fifteen years old could actually pose a threat to him—the person wielding the oldest "Flame" type Zanpakutō, the number one Shinigami of past and present?
Yamamoto-Genryūsai's old eyes narrowed into a mere slit, studying Roy deeply. For the first time in his life, the answer to the proposition that "Shinigami are greater than humans" was... shaken!
It should be known that in the Bleach world, Shinigami and humans are entirely two different "species." It wasn't a matter of a human becoming a Shinigami simply by dying. In fact, if someone died in the Human World, they could only become the lowest-level Plus soul within the Rukongai outside Seireitei—an existence so mundane that even Aizen disdained them for his Hollowfication experiments.
Not to mention, Shinigami are natural spiritual bodies, possessing immense longevity and powerful spiritual pressure... A hundred-year-old like Toshiro Hitsugaya, judged by Shinigami standards, was merely a "child," let alone...
Roy,
Whose bone age was under fourteen,
Placed in the Bleach world, he would easily be categorized into the "infant echelon" without a single voice of doubt...
Sizzle crackle~ The flames scorched, the high temperature and high pressure grinding down, forming a powerful wind that made one's facial skin tighten...
Immersed within the visualization of the Sun, oblivious to the passage of time... Roy went from transforming into an atom, to undergoing fusion with other atoms, to detonating, to losing himself... repeatedly experiencing the process of violent transformation. After a long, long time, finally,
At a certain moment, the exact instant he completely mastered the fusion process, he regained his sense of self. He re-established the perception of his limbs, his heartbeat, and his breathing... Opening his eyes slowly beneath Yamamoto-Genryūsai's astonished gaze...
"Is there anything else?" the old man asked.
"No more," the boy smiled bitterly.
Roy could clearly sense that the energy throughout his entire body was completely depleted, his Nen aura wrung dry to the point where even maintaining the [Gate of Cognition] was difficult. He simply tossed Solar Eclipse into the [Sumeru Mustard Seed], spread his arms and legs, and sprawled onto the ground in a large "X" shape.
Buzz~ Above his head, the tornado of fire enveloping the mushroom cloud flew higher and higher, growing fainter and fainter...
Yamamoto-Genryūsai's figure suddenly trembled. As Roy's Nen aura was wrung dry, it was clearly impossible to maintain the [Gate of Cognition], and he gradually began to fade...
The old man caught the sensation, knowing it was time to return. Looking down deeply at the boy lying by his feet like a salted fish beginning to idle and recover his Nen aura, he spoke to Roy word for word: "Among the host of young people I have known,"
"I, Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryūsai, am willing to call you the strongest in talent..."
"Does this count as acknowledgment?" Roy asked: "A pity that in the end, I failed to touch even a single thread of your clothing, elder."
"The current you cannot touch it," Yamamoto-Genryūsai tapped Ryūjin Jakka lightly against the ground, restoring it to the appearance of a completely ordinary walking cane. Speaking once more, proudly dragging his long beard, he said: "As for the future you, may this old man anticipate it?"
Roy bared his teeth, revealing a row of white teeth: "If you aren't afraid of being slashed to death, anticipate it all you want."
Gu he he;... A sudden ray of divine light flashed from the slits of Yamamoto-Genryūsai's eyes. Upon his majestic, sharp face, a trace of a smile surfaced infrequently. This smile was incredibly faint, vanishing in a flash... If Chojiro Sasakibe, who knew him well, were to see it, he would probably drop the watering can in his hand in sheer shock, suspecting... that some entity had absolutely possessed the Captain-Commander!
After all, having followed Yamamoto-Genryūsai for nearly two thousand years, he had never seen him smile at anyone; it was truly... rare!
"Young man, you truly are arrogant..." His figure visibly faded another notch. The old man leaned on Ryūjin Jakka, pinning it to the ground as he spoke leisurely: "This old man shall be waiting for you!"
Casting one last glance, without waiting for the [Gate of Cognition] to urge him to depart,
Yamamoto-Genryūsai actively sought out and flashed through that opened crack. With a movement of Roy's thought, passing through the [Gate of Bleach] that overflowed with Nen light and hazily covered one's consciousness, he drifted inside in an instant.
The familiar sensation of falling arrived,
His consciousness followed and began to plunge downward.
When Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryūsai slowly opened his eyes, his being... subsequently detached from the Demon Slayer world, returning once more to the Bleach world. Before his eyes was the familiar small garden. Beneath the corridor were the two fat calico cats chasing and playing with each other. Casting another glance, turning his head to look by his side, Chojiro Sasakibe was dressed in a meticulous Western suit, a rapier hanging at his waist, his white-gold vertical pupils looking over immediately upon his return, eagerly awaiting... him to provide an answer...
Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryūsai carefully savored that Demon Slayer world he had witnessed alongside Roy. Remaining silent for a long while, he leisurely offered his thoughts: "Chojiro, we might have been trapped by our own foolish, rigid selves."
Yamamoto-Genryūsai sat cross-legged in the wooden corridor, Ryūjin Jakka having reverted to a completely ordinary walking cane resting upon his lap. Under the gaze of Chojiro Sasakibe's bewildered, chaotic eyes, he looked up at the sun in the sky wantonly radiating its light and heat, and continued: "Just like a frog trapped at the bottom of a well, believing the sky is only as large as the opening of the well, completely oblivious to the fact,"
"That the vastness of heaven and earth is far from being as simple as three realms and one prison."
(Note: [Three Realms and One Prison]: The world order constructed by the Ancestral Soul King, utilizing the Soul King's body to maintain its foundation. Safely divided into: the Human World inhabited by humans, the Soul Society governed by Shinigami, the Hueco Mundo where fallen souls—namely Hollows—roam, and... the ultimate destination of souls... signifying the "End"... Hell!)
Sizzle... hiss hiss...
"Meow~" In the courtyard, the fat calico cats playing and frolicking inadvertently knocked over the watering can placed on the wooden rack, causing the fine water to splash over, wetting a large patch of grass...
Silence filled the small courtyard at this moment.
Chojiro Sasakibe stared blankly at Yamamoto-Genryūsai, appearing to be in shock, yet also appearing to have his brain operating at rapid speed, desperately digesting this astounding news. His brow furrowed, and with a gulp~, he swallowed a mouthful of saliva: "So, what exactly did you see?"
"The sun and a boy."
"Oh?"
"A human boy... who exists outside the three realms, yet walks toward the sun..."
Outside the three realms... human... Chojiro Sasakibe recalled that bizarre "void portal" that Yamamoto-Genryūsai could enter, yet he couldn't even see, let alone touch. Everything seemed to bear witness to Yamamoto-Genryūsai's words in the unseen world.
This Lieutenant of the 1st Division, the wielder of the Lightning-type Zanpakutō Gonryōmaru, who had unfortunately been severely wounded and killed by Sternritter member Driscoll Berci during the Thousand-Year Blood War because his Bankai was stolen—the very existence that successfully unleashed Yamamoto-Genryūsai's rage,
Had followed Yamamoto-Genryūsai for nearly two thousand years and had never questioned the other party's words. Visibly, he remained silent for a good while before recovering his senses, speaking with a grave expression: "If it is true, I wish it were false; if it is false, I actually wish it were true."
Chojiro Sasakibe looked seriously at Yamamoto-Genryūsai and said: "Genryūsai, you understand that Soul Society cannot fall into chaos. But if... the Soul King Palace learns of this," Chojiro Sasakibe paused his words, his golden pupils suddenly narrowing: "Beneath the collapse of faith, order shall also cease to exist!"
It should be known that the reason the three realms and one prison existed and maintained a relative balance relied entirely on the power of the "Soul King."
The members of the Zero Division in the Soul King Palace took it as their personal duty, pride, and faith to guard the "Soul King's corpse," thereby guarding the three realms and one prison. Therefore, if they were to learn that the so-called three realms and one prison were merely "that well" in Yamamoto-Genryūsai's mouth, Chojiro Sasakibe could almost imagine what kind of crazed actions the Zero Division, having lost their faith and pride, would commit in their distraction!
First of all, interrogating the Captain beside him who was both his commander and old friend was absolutely foreseeable!
Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryūsai was clad in his pristine white haori and pitch-black Shihakusho, his white beard meticulously braided into a twine shape. As he sat cross-legged on the wooden corridor, it curled into a circle resting on the ground. Hearing this, he remained silent and wordless...
He understood the meaning explicitly and implicitly within Chojiro Sasakibe's words, and caught the "reminder" and "worry" contained within them. In fact... even without Chojiro's reminder, he had already pondered this problem deeply. This was precisely why the host of Shinigami, Captains or Vice-Captains, frequently saw him space out during meetings. However,
"What must come cannot be avoided,"
"What must leave cannot be kept,"
The old man leaned against the 1st Division barracks, the Avici Hell suppressed beneath his seat. Squinting his eyes as he watched the sun wantonly radiate its light and heat, he vaguely saw the youthful silhouette of Roy, his fiery red long hair fluttering in the wind. The corners of his weathered mouth slowly upturned under Chojiro Sasakibe's dumbfounded gaze, tracing a shallow arc: "If a problem truly arises,"
"This old man shall simply cleave it apart with a single slash."
Chojiro Sasakibe: "..."
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