"…."
"Hmm…."
Both Unohana and I fell into an awkward silence the moment the topic of love was broached.
It wasn't particularly strange. After all, we were a woman who had spent her life slicing people apart and a man who had spent his life tearing them to pieces.
Unless the conversation was about how to kill someone effectively or how to mend a patient, it was only natural for us to run out of words.
To both of us, 'love' was exactly that.
Something we didn't know. Something we hadn't been taught. Something we hadn't practiced, nor experienced.
That was why it was difficult.
If only it had a clear answer like a mathematical formula, but love was nothing of the sort.
For a while, we sat facing each other in silence until, as if by unspoken agreement, we both lifted our heads to meet each other's eyes.
The one who broke the silence was none other than Unohana.
"Master... for a sinner like me to harbor such feelings... I know that adoring you is something that should not be."
I had no way of knowing exactly what Unohana was thinking, but I could tell it wasn't anything good.
If it weren't, she wouldn't look so pained.
"I know full well how selfish I am. For a bloodthirsty killer to speak of love now... it is a laughable story. However… even if my feelings remain unrequited, I do not care. I only ask that you please do not push me away."
Unohana took a moment to catch her breath and closed her eyes like a criminal awaiting a verdict.
She was waiting for my answer.
What am I supposed to say at a time like this?
No, that's not it.
The important thing here is my own heart.
Giving a heartless answer would be nothing more than a deception of the other person.
In the first place, wasn't the reason this conversation started because I admitted I didn't know how to respond to Unohana's affection or love?
Then, what about me? Do I love Unohana?
I certainly have affection for her, but if you ask if that's love, well….
'It's difficult.'
As expected, I couldn't answer.
This wasn't an answer about whether I liked Unohana or not.
After all, the answer to that had already been decided.
It was true that I loved Unohana. That was a fact.
But I had been trying my best to ignore it. Why?
Because I was afraid. Yes, afraid.
I crossed my arms and pondered for a long time, then let out a sigh and scratched my head.
"Well, since you've spoken honestly, I should give you an honest answer in return."
"Yes."
Taking a deep breath, I calmly began my story.
"Having lived for nearly a million years, how many people do you think I've met who I could truly call a bond?"
At my question, Unohana swallowed hard and spoke cautiously.
"I imagine... a number beyond counting."
"No."
The Soul King, the Monk, Shiryu, Myoren, Rasatsu, Jomon, Kagaya, Nimaiya, Hozuki, Tenjiro.
And Senjumaru... I only received clothes from her and have never seen her face, so exclude her....
"There are exactly ten."
Separate from my memories of the original series, in the vast span of a million years, I couldn't recall the names or even the faces of anyone other than those ten.
"Do you know why?"
"…I'm not entirely sure."
Countless emotions flickered across Unohana's face as she spoke.
She probably had mountains of things she wanted to say, but felt suffocated being unable to speak them.
I gave a bitter smile at that expression and shrugged.
"There are mountains of reasons. Because I'm bad at making friends, because I'm too old and have forgotten everything, because I didn't travel much...."
"I-I didn't think any of those things for a single second...!"
"I'm not saying you thought that. I'm saying that's what I would have thought—and in fact, that is what I think. If an old fogey who's lived for a million years only knows ten people, then clearly, he's lived his life all wrong."
"That's.... Master's life could never be…."
"It's my life. I know it best."
I gave a faint smirk, closed my eyes, and slowly looked back over the path I had walked.
Except for those ten people I remembered, the faces of everyone else were obscured as if someone had splashed them with black ink.
It wasn't that the Monk had manipulated my memories.
In the first place, there was no way a guy who couldn't even manage to name me—and got beaten up for it instead—could tamper with my memory.
It was just... that I had forgotten because I wanted to forget.
Because I didn't want to remember.
"The truth is, I'm a terrible coward. I was so afraid of the parting that would eventually come that I didn't form any bonds. Even if I did, I tried my best not to become attached. This is the result."
That was why I didn't even make a name for myself.
I had used ridiculous titles like 'Nether King' as a substitute for a name.
Because if someone were to call me by my name, I would be unable to forget them even if I wanted to.
They would remain in my heart.
"I'm afraid of love."
"Are you saying... you are afraid of the act of loving?"
"No, I'm not afraid of the act of loving; I'm afraid of the emotion of love itself."
Because love is an emotion that requires you to be more honest with yourself than any other.
Call me a coward if you want.
The fact was, I truly was a coward.
Even when the very first Hollow appeared in this world, didn't I run away because I was scared?
Seeing that, my nature is clearly that of a coward.
Am I not afraid anymore, you ask?
I have power now, so there's no longer any need to be afraid.
But love is different.
What you have to face when standing before love isn't another person—it's yourself.
Love is having to look yourself in the eye and ask your own heart how you feel.
And that was why I was afraid.
Because I didn't have the slightest clue how much emotion I had forcibly ignored and crushed down for 990,000 years, or how much was sticking like sludge beneath it all.
Subconsciously, the vague fear that my mind might shatter the moment those feelings erupted was what had stopped me from loving anyone.
"The thought that someone I've grown to cherish will eventually die makes me so sad I can't bear it. Parting is always a agony. Love? For a coward who's terrified of goodbye? What a joke."
Since I didn't suffer physical pain, the mental pain of parting felt all the more crushing.
That was why my partings with Shiryu, Rasatsu, and Myoren—despite having more than enough time to prepare for them—remained as scars within me even now.
Even if I were to meet them again through reincarnation, they wouldn't be the people I remember.
That void, that futility was so painful that it remained as a scar.
Perhaps this scar will never disappear for the rest of my life.
"So I lived my life ignoring it all. Trying my best to forget, immersing myself in other things."
That was a pretty way of putting it; the reality was that I had hidden myself away like a frightened child.
My body had grown, but my spirit hadn't matured one bit.
That's why whenever others asked me for teachings, I always said this:
I'm just wrapping up some fancy-sounding words and tossing them out.
"The life ahead was so distant that even trying to picture the future felt like a fool's errand. So I ran away like a scared brat."
I lived my life without awareness of anything, just going wherever my heart took me.
If I just drifted along with the current, I wouldn't have to acknowledge the things around me.
To avoid recognizing the changes in my surroundings, I focused only on what I wanted to do.
Because of that, I still don't know who the other Kings of the Ten Kings are, aside from Jomon. I don't know their names, nor even their faces.
I sought out work with a fervor that bordered on obsession.
But eventually, the finite amount of work was bound to run out. Left with nothing to do and having lost my purpose, I just lay there like a corpse.
Yes, just like the Unohana before she met me.
The difference was that Unohana wandered to find an answer, while I knew the answer yet hid myself away, trying my best to ignore it.
"But how can a person live only doing what they want? This world isn't meant for living alone. This dojo was the start of my attempt to overcome that."
But since the fear was still there, I purposely set up the building right next to the Genji Academy.
Even attaching the petty excuse that I wanted to screw with them.
If I built a dojo right next to such a massive academy, no one but a complete madman would come seeking it out.
But there was one person who came.
"And that's how I met you."
The person who had lost her purpose, and the person who had achieved his purpose.
They say all paths lead to the same destination. Despite being at opposite poles, Unohana and I were hideously alike.
"You, who forgot your purpose by mistaking the means for the end, craved an answer. I, who had achieved my purpose and had nothing left to wish for, craved a problem. And then you asked me of love. You said you adore me, and asked if I adore you?"
Indeed. I had found the answer within me a long time ago.
I just hadn't been able to bring that answer out because I couldn't overcome the fear.
All that's needed now is the courage to take a single step.
After hesitating for a long time, repeatedly clenching and unclenching my trembling hands, I cautiously took a breath.
"Yes. I, too, adore you."
I finally offered up the answer I had kept hidden inside me until now.
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