The moment Shiki Mirai stepped through the Senkaimon, an overwhelming stench hit his nose like a punch.
Burnt wood. Dust kicked up from trampled earth. And worse—an acrid, metallic tang, like rust and blood fused into one.
His ears were instantly filled with noise—shrill clashes of metal on metal, the broken screams of dying humans, the dull pounding of war drums, and the roar of countless voices crying out in rage and fear.
He steadied himself, eyes quickly scanning the scene.
They had arrived directly on a battlefield.
Either the Senkaimon had been set without avoiding the danger zone, or the battlefront had expanded so wide there was no "safe" place to land.
All around him stretched a ravaged plain, torn to pieces by battle.
Broken banners lay scattered. Shattered armor and deeply embedded arrows littered the ground, along with countless chunks of blackened, unidentifiable debris.
Human figures clashed across the field in a frenzy, blades flashing under the pale morning light. Every strike carried murderous intent.
And beside the fallen corpses, pale translucent forms were beginning to drift upward—souls, freshly torn from their bodies.
Each had a faintly glowing Chain of Fate trailing from its chest, still anchored to its corpse.
But the chains were weak.
Many snapped within seconds—snap—gone before the soul could even rise fully into the air.
And then—
With their last expressions of pain or terror still etched on their faces, the newly dead would turn and, seeing the soul of the enemy who had just killed them, charge back into battle with feral hatred.
They tore at each other again—this time as spirits—fighting with more savagery than they ever had in life.
Back during his field training, Shiki had performed plenty of soul burials.
But those were peaceful spirits, long detached from their physical deaths.
He had never seen anything like this—death followed by instantaneous hatred, the battlefield reigniting in the spirit world before the bodies had even cooled.
"Everyone! Begin soul guidance immediately! Do not let them continue fighting! If the resentment builds, they'll fall to Hollowfication in no time!"
Shiba Kaien's voice rang out, cutting across the chaos. His face was grim, commands flowing rapid-fire.
"Yes, sir!"
The 13th Division Shinigami responded in unison, scattering like trained squads—three or five to a team—charging toward the worst zones where the soul-fighting was most intense.
Standing beside Shiki was Ashido.
The 11th Division Vice-Captain remained still, calm eyes scanning the field, seemingly ignoring the 13th Division's rush to action.
Shiki glanced at him, puzzled. "Vice-Captain Ashido… aren't you going to help with the guidance? It looks like they're short on hands."
Ashido lifted a hand without a word and pointed toward the horizon—toward the smoke-stained, blood-reeking sky at the far edge of the battlefield.
Shiki followed his line of sight.
The air above the far reaches of the war zone was writhing.
Every so often, without warning, the atmosphere ripped open, revealing jagged tears of swirling blackness.
From those rifts, chaotic Reiatsu poured out—followed by grotesque monsters forcing their way through.
Hollows.
Once-human spirits that had fallen, twisted by rage and hunger, turning into soul-devouring beasts.
Their forms varied wildly. Some resembled giant insects. Others looked like malformed beasts. A few were little more than slithering sludge. But all wore the same pale, expressionless mask—proof of their transformation.
The moment they appeared, they shrieked or growled and dove straight toward the densest concentration of souls—drawn by the chaos, pain, and spiritual residue flooding the field.
Ashido lowered his hand, voice as flat as ever.
"Our job in the 11th Division is to eliminate those Hollows. Keep them from feeding. Prevent the outbreak from escalating."
No sooner had he finished speaking than a blur of white shot past him—
"Haha! They're here! First come, first slash!"
Kuryashiki Kenpachi's booming laughter exploded across the battlefield.
He hadn't even drawn his Zanpakutō.
He launched himself into a small cluster of emerging Hollows, and with one punch—spirit pressure howling around his fist—shattered a charging Hollow into a thousand glimmering Reishi fragments.
"Captain! Wait for us!"
"Charge! Last one to get ten owes drinks tonight!"
"Like hell I do! You're buying!"
The 11th Division Shinigami howled and sprinted after their captain, drawing Zanpakutō with grins on their faces, eager to dive into the chaos.
There was no pity in their eyes. No hesitation. Only excitement.
To them, this was the perfect assignment.
Ashido watched his squad disappear into the fray, then slowly lowered the hand he had half-raised to command them. His face grew even colder.
Shiki glanced sideways. "You're not going?"
Ashido turned to him. His eyes, calm but piercing, met Shiki's.
"My job is to watch you."
He paused, then added,
"Captain Kuryashiki's orders: Ensure the safety of 9th Division 5th Seat Shiki Mirai during his 'field research.' Avoid unnecessary casualties."
His tone remained emotionless, but Shiki caught the undercurrent of irritation.
"I don't quite understand why a 5th Seat of the Gotei 13 needs a personal escort on the battlefield."
Ashido didn't sugarcoat it.
"But orders are orders."
The implication was clear: if even a seated officer needed a babysitter, how were the foot soldiers supposed to manage?
It wasn't just a waste of manpower—it was borderline insulting.
At least, that's how Ashido saw it.
Shiki, surprisingly, was caught off guard.
He hadn't expected Kuryashiki Kenpachi—a walking battle maniac—to be capable of such… meticulous planning.
Was it concern that the "delicate novelist" might actually die? Or was there another motive?
Truth be told, despite the chaos around him, Shiki was more than capable of defending himself.
Standing around with a Vice-Captain assigned to "supervise" him honestly felt a little embarrassing.
A waste of resources.
He gave it a moment's thought—then said nothing.
Instead, he calmly raised his right hand and extended a single finger toward the right side of the battlefield.
There, a soldier's spirit had just strangled an enemy soul with a grotesque spectral arm. Now, the killer's head tilted upward, mouth parting with an unnatural rasp.
A puff of gray-white mist formed at his lips—a sign that Hollowfication was beginning.
Shiki's lips moved slightly. His voice was barely a whisper:
"Hadō #4: Byakurai."
A thin, concentrated bolt of white lightning cracked from his fingertip, slicing through the air with a faint crackle—
—and pierced the spirit's skull.
The soul froze. Its twisted expression hardened, then dissolved into flickering points of light that vanished into the wind.
No chant. No charge-up.
It was fast, fluid, effortless—as natural as breathing.
Ashido's brow twitched.
He turned to Shiki again.
"Byakurai… without an incantation. And with that level of power and speed."
His gaze sharpened slightly. "You could serve as a Vice-Captain with that Kido mastery alone."
Then, without hesitation, Ashido turned back to the battlefield.
"In that case, watch yourself during your 'fieldwork.' I'll resume my assignment."
"Go ahead, Vice-Captain Ashido," Shiki replied with a polite nod.
Ashido said no more.
In a blink, he was gone.
Dozens of meters away, his blade flashed—the clean arc of his Zanpakutō splitting a Hollow in two before it could reach a soul guidance squad from the 13th Division.
Shiki watched him vanish into the carnage… then turned his eyes back to the field.
This was clearly a decisive clash. Both human armies had committed everything.
A rough estimate placed the total number of combatants at over ten thousand.
Even if only a third died, that meant thousands of fresh, resentment-filled souls would be flooding the field.
And all they had were around two hundred Shinigami—13th Division full deployment and 11th Division support.
Add to that the constant emergence of Hollows from space rifts…
The pressure was immense.
His gaze swept the chaos—across dying souls, fighting Shinigami, rampaging Hollows—
Until it froze on the far left of the field.
There, away from the central bloodbath, stood what looked like a military command zone—intact tents, standing banners.
And near the edge of that sector, separated slightly from the main conflict, stood two figures in white.
Each of them gripped a freshly dead soldier's Chain of Fate, heads bowed, muttering some kind of chant.
Their spiritual pressure was… strange.
Not Shinigami. Not Hollow.
What are they?
Shiki narrowed his eyes.
Without alerting anyone, he gathered Reishi at his feet and slipped away like a shadow—heading silently in that direction.
...