Kasasaki, bordering Minamikawase.
On the deserted roadway, even the streetlights cast a cold glow.
Suddenly, a pillar of fire crashed down from the sky,
hosing the asphalt like a fire engine's cannon.
Hollows hiding underground were forced up—and turned to ash the instant they showed a head.
"That's the last of them."
The white dragon snuffed the red flame in its jaws, shed its form, and flowed back into the scabbard at Shinomiya's waist.
He slid the sword he'd been holding back home.
That motion, too, declared the night's battle finished.
It had taken a little over three hours.
Exhausting, yes—but getting to cut loose and test his training was joy, pure and simple.
At least for Shinomiya.
Besides, there was a perk no one else got afterward:
loot settlement.
The second his feet touched the roof of a Western-style restaurant, ink-brushed characters unfurled before his eyes.
Heavens! The greatest prodigy since the Spiritual Arts Academy's founding has cleared its hardest-ever "Soul-Burial Analysis," and with absolute dominance ground this era's heavy-spirit zone beneath his heel. The Engine Soul rejoices!
Yet a tyrant like you won't be confined to a mere school chronicle. Your eyes turn to the ground itself. If singularities migrate each era, why not migrate to the one who embodies the next era—yourself?
Karakura trembles and respectfully offers a gift in thanks.
You have comprehended the art of another who, in the same darkness, in a boundless sea of fire, existed only to drive invaders from his land—
"Shihōin Chitose's Notes on Shunpo."
A breeze stirred—
blew the ink away—
and washed through Shinomiya, cool right down to the soul.
His mind went crystalline.
All his focus, all his brainpower, were seized and repurposed to drink in inspiration from the void—
greedily, efficiently.
His grasp of Shunpo surged at an impossible rate—"a thousand li in a day" didn't begin to cover it.
No training could do this.
Even memory infusion needed a period of adaptation.
But Shinomiya had earned this—arrived at the same "experience" as the first Captain of Squad Two, Shihōin Chitose—by his own effort.
Which meant…
He hadn't been given someone else's thing; he'd gained something equivalent to it.
Shinomiya opened his eyes—at some point he'd closed them.
They still shone as clear as ever; battle wear hadn't dulled them. If anything, there was something more in them now.
He looked at sky, at ground.
At iron railing, wall, lamp post, hedges, window glass… his gaze seemed to pass through them with indifference.
Not contempt—no cold emotion.
More like… he regarded them as intangible mirages.
His figure flicked out.
Then appeared before the restaurant's front door below.
If a Soul Reaper had been watching,
they'd have sworn he'd used Shunpo to move at high speed.
They'd be right.
But one thing needed adding—
This wasn't a straight dash from point A to point B.
In the space of a second, he slipped from the rooftop into the building, flowed down the stairs past every obstruction, and stepped out the front.
As if he'd passed through the walls like a phantom—
or rather, as if the building itself were the phantom.
There was a certain lofty, above-it-all feeling to it.
Shinomiya himself didn't notice.
He only knew one thing:
He hadn't learned any fancy new tricks, but his mastery of Shunpo's three basics—pre-stance, first step, the flash itself—had vaulted up a tier.
"Rapid progress" didn't cover it.
It felt like body and mind had been baptized by something impossible—and had come out better on every front.
With ordinary training, even a prodigy like him would have needed years to get here.
Truth was, when it came to Shunpo, his talent wasn't on the level of those freaks seemingly born for a single art.
But his rate of growth? Enough to tilt the freaks off-balance.
"Had my fun, got paid—win-win."
He knew the Hollows hadn't all been Ishida Uryū's doing. His goody-two-shoes teacher probably had a hand in this.
To which he had only one comment—
If this is the curriculum, please schedule more classes.
…
"Ugh, I'm beat! Never again!"
Half an hour later, Shinomiya met Yayahara and Rindō Yu at Minamikawase as planned.
Sensing spiritual pressures in motion, Ichigo came as well.
He arrived in time to hear Yayahara wailing.
"It was great at first, but there were just too many Hollows—endless! In the end I ran dry on stamina and spirit power and had to dodge around."
"Good thing they suddenly started running. Otherwise I'd have had to ping you all and beg a pickup!"
"Sounds perfect. Maybe you didn't notice, but your face has been filling out lately."
"WHAT?!"
Ignoring Yayahara's panicked selfie check, Shinomiya tossed Ichigo a casual greeting as he walked up.
"Everything clean on your end?"
"Barely. And I could feel what you guys were doing from across town—like a war. For a second I thought the city was finished. I almost grabbed my family and bolted."
I was trying to keep the scale under control—minimize the effect on the living world,
Rindō said, the picture of innocence.
"I can tell. You look way better than she does."
Ichigo knew the two were comparable in strength.
There was no reason for Yayahara to be wiped while Rindō was fine—
unless one of them had better control.
Spend little, win big, and still have gas in the tank when it's over.
"Relax."
Shinomiya sounded very sure of himself.
"As for Yayahara, I can't say. But I guarantee I didn't hit a single human. Worst case, a little minor property damage."
"…"
Ichigo's mouth twitched. He had no words.
To be fair—
He didn't believe an inferno-lit skyline across half of Karakura counted as "minor damage."
But given the circumstances, the fact that no civilians were caught up in it was unbelievable enough.
He couldn't promise that.
Yayahara, relieved her cheeks were a false alarm, shot Shinomiya a glare. "Forget that. I want to know why this city suddenly drew in so many Hollows."
"For that, we'd better ask the local Soul Reaper."
Shinomiya folded his arms, leaning on a lamp post.
As he spoke, he turned his head toward a corner down the street.
Ichigo, Rindō, and Yayahara followed his eyes on instinct.
Two girls rushed into view—then froze when they saw the group.
"Uh…"
"?"
-------
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