A silent modern city stretched in every direction, towers needling the sky, driverless cars asleep along the curbs.
Mo Ke stood atop the tallest building, one hand shading his eyes as he took in the horizon.
With the yin half fused back and the soul made whole, the inner world of his Zanpakuto felt utterly changed. The spirit still refused to show its face, but Mo Ke could feel it watching.
"Found you."
He leaned forward and blurred away.
A short while later, Mo Ke in his black shihakusho stopped before a bathhouse. He did not spare it a glance. His gaze slid to the small wooden hut next door.
Familiar. Painfully so.
When the first tower rose on this block, this little hut had already been torn down. After that he still visited the area often. His destination had simply shifted next door.
The hut was a rental bookshop named "Youjian Rental."
Most of the joy of his school days smelled like the pages in here.
He pushed on the worn door. It squealed a protest and swung wide.
A tiny counter with a computer. He could almost see the owner again in his mind, idling away on QQ and staring glassy eyed at Legend.
He swept the room and smiled. Nothing had changed.
Rows of shelves. In the middle, a big crate full of random comics. No famous titles here. Those belonged in the state bookstore or a friend's backpack from another city. This little town only stocked the hand-me-downs.
No math or physics or classics on the shelves either. Only novel after novel wrapped in yellow dust covers, dog-eared and limping.
Every cover said the same thing. "By Huang Yi."
He had not read a single real book by the man when he was young, yet he spoke the name with awe anyway. In his city at least, maybe everywhere in the country, every pirated webnovel got a yellow jacket and the magic stamp Huang Yi on the front. A few rare ones said "Anonymous."
A little honesty. Not much.
They never wrote the real author.
Which is how an entire middle school's worth of underachievers spent lunch breaks debating whether Huang Yi or Anonymous wrote better books. The first had volume for days, the second short and punchy.
Then the internet grew up, broadband no longer bled wallets dry, and a few clicks later the same geniuses discovered Anonymous was not a person.
He missed it all, frankly. The time when the web was just waking up. When you went to an internet cafe at dawn to grab a leftover machine from an all nighter. A one yuan book rental was joy on a string.
He lifted his Zanpakuto and chuckled at the shelves.
"Three Thousand Worlds." So that was the name's joke. This place fit it too well.
He shelved the nostalgia and moved through the rows without looking, feet remembering the old route. The back corner held a narrow gap between shelves that hid a tiny nook with a ladder stool. The kind of step-stool that doubled as a seat.
He had loved curling up here to read. Close walls make a quiet mind.
Sure enough, a boy sat there now with his nose in a book.
The boy's face was Mo Ke's, only with black hair and black framed glasses. His hair was a little messy.
He heard the step and looked up.
"You came."
"I came."
"You shouldn't have."
"You read Gu Long."
The boy blinked, thought, then shook his head.
"Then why are you quoting him." Mo Ke snorted. "I said I never read him. How would you."
The boy closed his book and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I did not read Gu Long, but I read that line. I know why you came. First I will ask a question."
"Ask." Mo Ke felt no fear. A Zanpakuto spirit could be smug, but it was still him. It could not step beyond the borders of his own mind. Even if it did, he could always shrug and say he did not understand. Would the blade pretend it did.
"Inoue's hollow and Ichigo spoke. You read that. Then hear it from me. Our forms, abilities and power are the same. Who sits the throne and who becomes the steed."
Mo Ke frowned. He had expected a question about dreams. This was a quiz.
"You are reading too many novels," he said flatly. "When were your form and power the same as mine. Idiot. This is Naruto's world. At worst I throw away the blade. What will you do then."
Ah. Not the Bleach world. If he abandoned the Zanpakuto entirely, the spirit could not climb into his place. The script did not work here.
The spirit tossed the book aside and stood, sleeves rolled and ready to argue. A Zanpakuto was not a thing you could simply discard. Have some respect.
Which is when Mo Ke laughed at him. "You think you look like me. You are half a head shorter. Where exactly are we the same."
Color rose in the boy's cheeks. "And whose height is that. Your middle school self."
"So. Want to fight me. I am one point eight now."
"I admit this much. I am not like you. At this age I still have some shame."
Mo Ke grinned. The spirit was clearly a snapshot from an earlier chapter of his life. A pinch of chuunibyou and a lot of thin arms.
"Fine, skip the drama. We can fight and whoever wins gets to be king. Simple."
He flexed his biceps just to be obnoxious.
"No," the spirit said after comparing frames and doing the math. "This is not Bleach. If you lock me away, your power does not drop — it collapses."
"Then I am leaving." Mo Ke turned on his heel.
Question marks almost hovered above the spirit's head. So off script. He lunged and caught Mo Ke's sleeve. "Wait. We can discuss something else. Swordplay only, perhaps."
Mo Ke flicked his arm and sent him stumbling into a shelf. "Swordplay with you. Why not a math contest."
The spirit had been about to plant his hand, tuck, and spin into a showy flip before sliding in for a low sweep. The trouble was Mo Ke's strength blew the routine to pieces.
He steadied himself, considered, then nodded. "Math is acceptable. We could…"
"Hard pass. I am going to sleep."
"You do not want the true name's power."
"Nope. Shikai is enough. Actually I do not need shikai either. I will seal this blade when I get back and let you rot."
"Do not be like that. I was only teasing. Do not go."
Mo Ke did not slow. He counted steps in his head.
One. Two. Three.
Four. Five. Almost at the door. That was not how this was supposed to go.
Just before he stepped outside, a sigh drifted from behind him. "Fine. I surrender. You call it. What do we compete in."
A sly smile tugged at his mouth. He turned back with a look of pure boredom. "Can you stop talking like a primary schooler. Pick one style and stick to it."
The spirit wilted. The grand plan to flip the script had died before the first page. Funny thing. In the memories the spirits almost never won anyway. Most strutted for a paragraph then behaved. Some even took pretty human forms and got teased without mercy. He had it easy by comparison.
Mo Ke in middle school had been honest and absurdly optimistic. The spirit had inherited both traits.
In the end, they did not duel. They cut a simple deal. Mo Ke would occasionally toss a novel into this place. The spirit would teach sword arts and, as a bonus, hand over the bankai's ability for free.
Did the spirit lose. Not at all. The alternative was being locked in a blade rereading a single orange book like Kakashi for the rest of time.
Mo Ke stepped out of the Zanpakuto world feeling fresh. He tossed in a copy of Ninja Will to keep the spirit busy.
He was the one who got fleeced. He had not read it yet.
He studied the Zanpakuto in his hand and nodded, pleased.
Zanpakuto Three Thousand Worlds. Bankai Vast World.
Good. Now he really was the world's chosen.
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