Chapter 214: People I Don't Want to See
Compared to the Naruto world, the traps buried in Soul Society were almost… merciful.
The deepest pit in this place was Hell. As the shadow behind the Three Realms, Hell lingered like a silent blade at the spine of existence, a threat that could overturn everything at any moment.
Yet even Hell felt manageable.
Back in the Naruto world, the Hokage had to stare into the unknown of the cosmos. The moment Aizen heard there might be enemies that came from beyond the stars, his first thought was not defiance, not heroics, not some grand vow.
It was escape.
That was not cowardice. It was common sense dressed in honesty.
Anything capable of crossing the universe and carving out a foothold in that kind of brutal environment was, by definition, an existence that could not be measured with local logic. The universe was not a village feud. It was not a single realm's politics. It was an endless battlefield where power and survival were written into the same sentence.
In contrast, Soul Society was almost comfortable.
Yamamoto's Bankai, Zanka no Tachi, could eventually vaporize Soul Society itself, and that was the ceiling of his threat. But destroying a world was not unique. If someone truly wanted to, they could push a moon from another planet into the ground and achieve the same result. Compared to cosmic predators, life here felt oddly pleasant.
As the internal holes of Soul Society were peeled open one by one, the outline of another pitfall became clearer.
The Wandenreich.
Aside from Hell, this was the largest shadow in the system. The enemy of the Shinigami from a thousand years ago, surviving on the far side of Soul Society, waiting for a chance to bite into the throat.
Aizen understood all of that.
Still, he had no intention of dragging the Wandenreich into the open just to blind the Shinigami with panic.
That would only stitch the fractured Seireitei back together.
Everyone knew the oldest trick in the book. If you wanted an organization to stop fighting itself, you gave it a single enemy to hate. The Invisible Empire fit that role perfectly. Humans who became Quincy, hatred fermented across a thousand years, fanatic conviction, and Yhwach's desire to return the world to chaos, forcing all beings into an eternal madness that was neither life nor death.
If that banner was raised, Seireitei would unite in an instant.
So Aizen chose to cover it instead, guiding the flow through smaller currents, through hints and omissions, through controlled information. As for his conversation with Kisuke, Aizen had faith in intelligent people. Even if Kisuke did not personally join the changes, he would not oppose them without thinking. A clever man never bets his entire future on a single card.
Kisuke's loyalty was tied to Yoruichi, to the dark skinned woman who had once saved him, the person he respected most.
But did Yoruichi truly respect the high nobles and their families?
That was another question.
The five great noble families were, in their own ways, fascinating.
The Shiba were straightforward, they supported freeing the Soul King so innocent lives could breathe. The Kuchiki were stricter. Byakuya, the model noble, had long wanted to cut away the rot within aristocratic custom. He lived by the ideal of nobility, and because of that, he despised those nobles who broke the rules while hiding behind their titles.
He was unruly himself at times, and hypocritical in his own way, yet he genuinely opposed the nobility's absolute authority.
The Shihouin held a similar attitude. Even the current head, Yoruichi's younger brother, was dissatisfied. But the Tsunayashiro were… a different species entirely. They consistently placed the low and middle nobles on the side of oppression, and that only sharpened the conflict.
To some extent, Tsunayashiro Tokinada also loathed aristocratic life. The difference was what he did with that disgust. Others leaned toward reform, toward heroism, toward pulling the world forward.
Tokinada chose to become a villain.
He positioned himself as a demon king, committing atrocities with a manic clarity, even offering up his own life as fuel, as if hoping a true hero would eventually rise and cut the chains of despair.
None of these people had lived through a real great war. They were not insecure idealists scrambling for meaning. Many were willing to revolutionize their own lives if the price made sense.
That was why, after the catastrophe in Seireitei, the major noble families remained strangely quiet. The small and middle nobles were panicking like insects on a hot plate, because they understood what chakra meant. It was the end of their absurd comfort. But the great families, aside from a few ministers, did not move.
That silence made Seireitei sluggish, stiff, and brittle.
So long as Yoruichi did not take a hard stance against Aizen's direction, Kisuke would not firmly oppose him. And unless a major external threat appeared, Seireitei would not unify.
Time, at least for now, belonged to Aizen and Ichigo.
This was not fate. It was trend. It was the same choice repeated by countless hearts. When higher gains were visible, and when personal interests were not harmed, or when the risk of loss felt distant, people always gambled.
Even as Ichigo and Ganju Shiba continued spreading chakra and planting the Divine Tree, they noticed it already.
Some Shinigami with knowledge and connections had begun to acquire chakra related power. In secret corners, people trained. They copied. They tested. They learned whatever they could.
That was expected.
Everyone liked good things. And even those who pretended not to, still benefited from seeing the world expand beyond their old cage.
The more Shinigami learned, the more they were pulled toward the side of pioneers.
The deeper chakra spread, the wider its signal became in the void, like a beacon. That beacon did not attract just anyone, it attracted what was similar. Chakra itself carried a cohesion that ignored worlds. As the signal grew, it would inevitably anchor more locations, draw closer coordinates, and eventually call the Naruto world again.
In Aizen's eyes, that convergence would become the best moment.
What sparks would fly when two worlds, or even three, began to exchange knowledge and collide?
He believed the answer would be beautiful.
Ichigo did not understand every mechanism behind it. He did not care about the mathematics of it.
He only believed one thing.
Wandering spirits were people.
They deserved a normal life.
And even from the perspective of a Shinigami, he did not want the world to remain a toy for nobles, stripped of will and dignity.
In that sense, this was not only Aizen's plan.
It was everyone's ideals, twisted in different shapes.
No matter how hard Yamamoto persisted, the outcome had already been decided the moment the Zero Division confirmed they would not descend. Their defeat was sealed, not through death, but through assimilation.
This was not a battle of life or death.
It was a process, ugly and unavoidable, aimed at a better life.
Even Yamamoto and Aizen wanted to preserve as much as possible. The founder of the Gotei 13 was a trove of knowledge and secrets, a treasure for the world. He had lived for a thousand years, endured a thousand years, and proven himself with strength that could not be denied.
Yet there was one system Aizen watched with particular caution.
One threat he considered a victory so long as it stayed quiet.
Fullbring, as a fragment of the Soul King, would be recovered sooner or later. It did not qualify as an organized danger.
The true troublemakers, the ones Aizen did not want stirring the water, were the Quincy.
They were Yhwach, already regaining power, already moving to sanctify every half Quincy.
Throughout this world, everyone carried ideals, ambitions, and stances.
Ichigo was not foolish. He knew the ugliness of the Shinigami system. In the end, once he protected his friends and family, he would likely choose to live in the Human World rather than bind himself to Soul Society's politics.
Soul Society maintained the balance of the Three Realms, trying to prevent collapse. Aizen's thoughts could sound enigmatic, but at the core, he wanted the world to stop crushing others, to become a place where people could understand each other and stop trampling one another. Or, if nothing else, he wanted to avoid becoming isolated and alone.
Only Yhwach was different.
This man who called himself the son of the Soul King was a shape that even his own people struggled to accept.
Others wanted progress. Yhwach wanted regression.
He wanted to return the world to chaos.
Aizen did not deny Yhwach's right to exist. After all, this was a world, and Aizen had enough arrogance, and enough power, to tolerate an enemy's ideology.
And after everything was resolved, Kurosaki Isshin, Ichigo, Ishida Ryūken, Ishida Uryū, and others would still want revenge. Aizen had no interest in stripping vengeance from those who earned it.
But Aizen forgot one detail.
Yhwach was truly confident.
Hidden in the shadows, feeding on the power of Quincy hybrids as he steadily recovered, he prepared to seize the Soul King Palace and restore the world to its original chaos, a world without life or death, a world without awareness.
With the power of omniscience and omnipotence, always choosing the best future, Yhwach did not seriously consider the possibility of failure.
If an ominous thread appeared, he would send it to Haschwalth, his trusted blade, letting that man bury the danger beneath fortune and balance.
To Yhwach, nightmares were just dreams.
He woke, and victory was still his.
So he moved forward, wanting to drown everything beneath his benevolence, to end suffering by ending meaning, to let his Invisible Empire last forever.
Aizen did not comment much on that.
He only judged one thing.
He hoped the Quincy would stop interfering with Soul Society's internal transformation.
At first, Aizen also believed the Quincy would not be reckless enough to strike directly, not foolish enough to hand Seireitei an excuse to unify.
Then the white robed Quincy stepped out of the shadows, blocking the passage that cut through space.
Aizen realized he was wrong.
Yhwach was not being careless or cautious.
He simply had not fully awakened before.
Now he had.
And the moment he received news, he sent someone.
In the corridor between places, a man in a pure white military uniform stood waiting. Gold rimmed glasses sat on a face groomed to perfection. Quincy emblems were etched into his presence, into his posture, into the way his calm expression barely concealed aggression in the tension of his jaw.
He looked polite.
He looked dangerous.
"Are you Aizen Sōsuke, and Kurosaki Ichigo?" the man said, voice smooth. "His Majesty is very interested in your existence. He wishes to invite you to the Wandenreich for a discussion."
Silence answered him.
The man's smile did not change.
"It does not sound like an invitation, does it?" he continued, as if amused by his own performance. "I cannot help it. His Majesty's orders are simple. Either I bring you there, or I keep you here so you do not interfere with His Majesty's plans."
He spread his hands slightly, as if presenting reasonable terms.
"So I still hope you can welcome His Majesty."
Aizen remained silent. Ichigo's eyes stayed fixed forward.
The Quincy's smile sharpened.
"I am Quilge Opie," he said. "My Schrift is J, The Jail. Unless you are a Quincy, there is no way to escape my prison. Do you understand?"
Then he laughed, loud and maniacal, as if the sound itself was meant to crush resistance.
"Hahahaha. His Majesty only asks that you behave yourselves for a while. I would prefer our discussion remain peaceful and relaxed. But since you are ignoring my good intentions, things will become ugly from now on."
The laughter faded into a cold stare.
Aizen finally turned his head slightly, not even looking impressed, only mildly inconvenienced, like someone who had stepped in mud on a clean floor.
"Can you handle him, Ichigo?" he asked.
Ichigo nodded once, calm and certain, already walking forward.
"One minute will be enough."
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