Chapter 211: Which is Superior and Which is Inferior
Some time had passed since Aizen Sōsuke humiliated them, yet the sting still clung to Seireitei like smoke that refused to dissipate.
Shunsui did not hesitate to share his judgments. Piece by piece, he laid out what he had seen, what he had felt, what he feared. In the end, that seemingly unreliable man, who was far more reliable than he looked, arrived at a clear conclusion.
And Mayuri Kurotsuchi confirmed it.
Clownish mask or not, near death misjudgment or not, everyone knew the truth about Mayuri. His research ability was no less terrifying than Kisuke Urahara's. He might not have created a foundational miracle like Kiryu Hikifune, but in terms of analysis, selection of materials, and the precision of his derived theories, he stood among the very best.
Researchers did not gamble with the future.
If they called something a gamble, it was usually because everyone else had mistaken calculation for luck.
For men like Mayuri and Urahara, eccentricity was only a skin. Beneath it was a frightening sincerity, the kind that could burn for centuries and still demand an answer.
Now, after several days of work, after combining every crucial detail Shunsui provided, Mayuri finally deciphered what he held.
"Chakra," someone blurted. "How did you even find something like that?"
Mayuri's body swirled out of smoke again, as if he had crawled from a laboratory vent, then he turned his head with a grotesque twist, nearly one hundred eighty degrees, and stared at Soi Fon.
His smile was cold.
"Snatched it from that seemingly stupid traveling monster."
Soi Fon's expression hardened, but she did not interrupt.
Mayuri's voice sharpened, filled with irritation that had nowhere to go.
"No matter what, I paid the price of my entire Bankai for this. If it does nothing, I will be very disappointed. This special energy is the power Aizen Sōsuke mentioned, the power that can change the world."
He clicked his tongue, disgusted.
"Tsk. That bastard looks down on me. He deliberately let me obtain it. Revolting."
The moment he gained control of chakra, Mayuri understood something that made his face darken.
Chakra could only remain behind if the giver wanted it to remain.
Otherwise, no matter what he tried, it would never stabilize. It would simply dissolve back into the atmosphere. And without manipulation, chakra and spiritual power repelled each other, as incompatible as fire and water forced into the same vessel.
Meaning, there was only one reason he had succeeded.
Aizen had left it.
Deliberately.
He had made Mayuri discover it.
He had handed the key to a new world to Seireitei's researchers, then stood back, smiling, as if watching them scramble to unlock the door.
The gift was real.
The method was unforgivable.
Komamura's deep voice rumbled from the side. "Is that traveler in league with Aizen?"
Mayuri's eye twitched.
"Otherwise?"
Komamura stood there with a wooden bucket in his hands, looking absurdly out of place in a room full of captains. Mayuri glared at him anyway, then spoke with growing impatience.
"It is far too convenient to claim coincidence. A strange traveler appears, and suddenly the world changes, and you all run in circles like headless butterflies. If your information is correct, then everything since Rukia Kuchiki's arrest was manipulated by Sōsuke Aizen."
He waved a hand dismissively, then began to rise into one of his tirades.
"Facts prove my judgment has always been the most correct. If you had listened earlier, this would not have happened. If you had installed my physical detection devices throughout Seireitei, or conducted the purge I suggested, and fitted everyone with my spiritual pressure detectors, you could live far more comfortably in this world, you would not be stumbling around like incompetent—"
"Captain Kurotsuchi," Yamamoto cut in, voice deep, eyelids barely lifting. "State your conclusion."
The room stilled.
In Yamamoto's eyes, Mayuri was undeniably talented. He stayed calm under pressure, chose decisive methods, and pursued victory with ruthless efficiency. His only flaw was his obsession with measuring himself against certain shadows.
Kiryu Hikifune.
Kisuke Urahara.
Mayuri lived as if their names were blades pressed to his throat. He wanted surpassing them to be acknowledged by the whole of Seireitei, as if the world itself had to validate his brilliance.
That need was not a sin.
But Mayuri's habit of using provocation to prove himself was often where divisions began.
So Yamamoto did not deny him. He simply demanded the answer that mattered.
Mayuri tilted his head, appearing almost pleased to be treated seriously. His gaze swept across the captains, across faces still raw with anger, then drifted upward toward the ceiling as if searching for the simplest words to hand to lesser minds.
"For most of you," he said lazily, "whose intelligence does not even reach one tenth of the living, it is difficult for me to explain this without injuring your fragile brains. So I will give you the conclusion."
His smile widened.
"It is possible."
Several captains blinked. "What?"
"The things Aizen Sōsuke said," Mayuri continued, picking at his ear with maddening casualness. "This energy can do them."
A stunned silence.
"Ha?"
Mayuri looked almost bored. "Do I need to repeat myself? Chakra can accomplish everything he claimed."
He raised a hand.
"Aizen Sōsuke, that man with something wrong in his head, his nonsense about creating a new world, leaving a mark on the world, and whatever other poetic trash he enjoys, chakra can do it all. In small scale tests, it changes according to thought itself."
Then his tone turned clinical, precise.
"I used a special catalytic method to push its growth within Shinigami and wandering spirits, then projected its future behavior. The result is excellent. It forms a complete energy system from bottom to top, and I found no trace of external control."
His finger lifted, warning.
"But there is something worth noting. Low level chakra is almost incapable of resisting high level chakra. Also, chakra combat is closely related to the physical body and to technique."
He spread his hands again.
"To summarize, chakra can indeed do what Aizen Sōsuke said."
The room became strange.
If chakra was real, if chakra could truly rewrite the world, then the question no longer sat safely outside them.
Now it sat in the center of the room, smiling.
Who was the traitor, really?
Mayuri did not stop at words. He was, as always, an effective salesman. He demonstrated.
That Hell Butterfly, formed from a tiny portion of chakra, displayed one unsettling transformation after another. It became inanimate, then living, then water, then stone. It took on the appearance of a captain, then shifted its shape and fluctuations again, as if the energy itself delighted in proving it had no fixed limit.
Chakra danced.
And in that dance, the captains finally understood why Aizen could stand before them in two states at once, why he could scold them, toy with them, and leave them alive.
With this power, anyone could play.
Once the authenticity was confirmed, the real weight fell onto their shoulders.
Yamamoto watched without visible emotion. No grief, no anger, no relief. Just observation, as if he were measuring a blade that might cut the world in half.
Komamura clenched his fist, then clapped his hands once, unconsciously, like a child hearing impossible good news. He was the happiest in the room. He had always believed Aizen and Kaname could not truly betray them, and this confirmation, twisted as it was, fed that belief.
Ukitake's expression softened. He disliked underhanded methods, disliked forcing outcomes through shame and trickery, yet he had lived long enough to understand choices were not always clean.
Soi Fon frowned, instinctively rejecting the news.
Byakuya remained silent, calm as still water, unreadable.
Only Shunsui felt a deeper wrongness spreading through Seireitei, like hairline cracks in glass.
This generation of captains was, in many ways, the most enlightened, and the most impulsive. They were not monsters born from slaughter, nor were they simple killing machines. They believed they were guardians of order, rulers of balance, stewards of the world.
And many of them, Shunsui knew, despised the nobility.
Komamura, who pursued justice with stubborn purity.
Hitsugaya, young and hot blooded, who hated Aizen but also disliked the noble system at its root.
Byakuya, ambiguous, bound by duty yet disgusted by what duty protected.
If a true civil fracture erupted, those names would not stand neatly on one side.
As for Unohana and Kenpachi, they were not "allies" in the political sense at all. One was a blade sheathed in silence, the other was chaos in human form.
Soi Fon and Byakuya were nobles, yes, but they were also outliers among nobles.
In the end, the ones truly willing to stand for Seireitei as a system might be only Yamamoto, Mayuri, and Shunsui.
Even that was uncertain.
If someone offered Mayuri a better bargain, he might not choose Seireitei at all. He had come from the Maggot's Nest, a lawless experimenter given a uniform, and chakra was the perfect subject.
Shunsui lowered the brim of his hat, not wanting to see Yamamoto's face.
No one else seemed to notice what their hesitation did to the man who had forged Seireitei with his own hands.
Yamamoto had poured his life into building this order, shaping it, refining it, expanding it, believing it could become something meaningful.
Now, the Zero Division remained silent.
And even Seireitei's own captains were quietly calculating their own futures.
Aizen had been right.
They were equals.
And against that truth, Yamamoto, the invincible Captain Commander, suffered a defeat no flame could burn away.
Then Mayuri spoke again, as if dropping one more scalpel into the wound.
"By the way," he said lightly, "chakra is contagious. Like a virus."
Several captains stiffened.
"To be precise, it spreads through the heart."
Mayuri made an exaggerated gesture, illustrating invisible threads.
"Those who possess chakra can guide the actions of those who do not, through inner connections. Trust. Fear. Other emotions. Once it spreads, it will grow exponentially."
He smiled, delighted by the horror on their faces.
"You may think there is no problem now, but in the next hour, everyone in Seireitei and Yukimura may receive the chakra signal. And it is easy to train. The method to refine it is simple. There are no special difficulties."
His tone turned almost boastful again.
"With a thought, I can change its nature and state entirely."
He spread his arms, inviting.
"If you want to learn more, or if you want to add something different to this world, the Technology Development Bureau welcomes you."
No one responded.
The room held too many expressions, too many calculations, too many fears that could not yet be spoken.
Mayuri did not press. Under those complex gazes, he nodded once, a faint bow that counted as respect from a man like him.
Then, after using chakra to contact his so called ally, he vanished without a trace, leaving only silence behind.
And the unsettling certainty that the next battlefield would not be the streets of Seireitei.
It would be the hearts of those who lived in it.
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