Seireitei, at dawn.
Cole hugged the cool Sode no Shirayuki (Sleeve of the White Snow) in his arms and stretched lazily.
"Morning, Sode no Shirayuki."
The ice-snow beauty in his arms looked up with rosy cheeks. "Good morning, Cole-kun."
They washed up together, then soaked in the hot spring. Holding Sode no Shirayuki close, Cole sighed with contentment.
"This is the correct way to enjoy a hot spring."
Wrapped in steaming warmth with a chill-smooth beauty in his arms—ice-kissed skin against heat—it was downright heavenly.
Leaning to her ear, he whispered, "Sode no Shirayuki, could you… go under a little, first like this, then like that… In water this warm, it'll feel amazing…"
Her face reddened deeper than a cherry. She gripped Cole's arm, flustered. "Cole-kun…"
Cole peppered her frost-delicate cheeks with kisses, grinning.
"Sode no Shirayuki is the best. You're amazing. I like you the most. Great beauty Sode no Shirayuki, help me out…"
At last she couldn't hold out against his gentle persistence and, shyly, nodded.
The snow-white maiden bent her legs and slipped her little head beneath the steaming surface.
—An hour later—
Cole led Sode no Shirayuki by the hand back to the shore. After dressing, he happily headed toward Rukia.
Another hour later, Cole, still holding Sode no Shirayuki's hand, reached Rukia and Soi Fong. He couldn't help laughing.
"Rukia, Soi Fong, are you two cosplaying as pandas? What's with the dark circles?"
Both girls' eyes did carry faint shadows; their looks toward Cole were not kind. Whose fault was their current state?
But when they glanced at each other, their faces flushed and they didn't dare speak. Being caught peeking was mortifying. Thankfully, the person who caught them… had also gone there to peek. Birds of a feather. Otherwise, they weren't sure they wouldn't have killed to silence.
Seeing how meek they looked, Cole frowned, suspicious.
"Something's off… Why so well-behaved today? Did you do something guilty? Come clean."
Grinding their teeth with red faces, the two finally snapped and dove for him, their pink fists drumming his chest.
"Die, big perv!"
"Brat, prepare yourself!"
A moment later, Cole cheerfully took his leave of a pocket space.
Beside him, Soi Fong eyed him with displeasure. "Cole, where are you going? Didn't you say you didn't want to clash with the zanpakuto?"
Cole stretched, relaxed and pleased. "That's why I'm only going to absorb a little reiryoku."
Before, whenever he absorbed spiritual power, he had to sneak, fearful the Gotei Jūsan (Thirteen Court Guard Squads) would notice and send captains after him. But now Seireitei was full of manifested zanpakuto. Even if he sucked the place down to bare earth, the squads wouldn't be racing him to the death.
"Truly, heroes rise in troubled times. Fortune favors the bold—horses fatten on night grass. Hahaha… This incident is my road to the heavens."
Looking at him radiant with energy, Soi Fong rolled her eyes despite herself.
"You've got some nerve, looting while the house is on fire. Not afraid the old man will come out and fight you to the death?"
Cole chuckled smugly and pointed past the squad barracks toward the depths of Seireitei. "That's why this time we're robbing the nobles. Even old man Yamamoto won't have much to say."
Soi Fong blinked, then grew excited. "You're planning to clean out the Tsunayashiro Clan?"
Cole only smiled.
She tested further, "Don't tell me you've also got your eyes on the Ise Clan?"
He still didn't answer.
"You're not even sparing the Kuchiki Clan, are you?" she gasped.
A few seconds later, she swallowed nervously. "You—you're going after the Shihoin Clan too? Brat, don't you dare. Guarding the Shihoin is the duty of our Fon line."
Cole ruffled her hair, displeased with her blind loyalty.
"But Soi Fong, aren't those nobles infuriating? They lord it around day to day, and when danger comes, they all run—leaving you to bleed alone."
"That still doesn't make it okay…"
She clung to his arm, trying to talk him down from madness.
"I can't stand it!"
Dragging Soi Fong along, Cole strode toward the nobles' quarter.
The first sprawling compound before them belonged to the Kuchiki Clan—luxurious, solemn, exuding an invisible pressure. Cole licked his lips.
He set his hand to a wall.
The wood dissolved into blue reiryoku and streamed into his body like water.
When the buildings vanished, he eyed the ground, eyes gleaming.
"These greedy wastrels, these nobles who never have enough—even their foundations are made of reiryoku-forged bricks. They deserve censure…"
He pressed both palms to the earth.
Foundation stones winked out one after another.
Soi Fong's scalp prickled. She clutched his arm tighter. "You're not even sparing the foundations? When Byakuya comes back, he'll fight you to the death."
She could already picture it: Byakuya returning home to find not a single brick left—how furious would he be? He might go straight into a rampage and hunt Cole down.
Of course, imagining that scene also made her think of what awaited the Shihoin Clan… Probably not much better than the Kuchiki's.
Cole swept his hand grandly and declared righteously, "Byakuya has already betrayed Seireitei. I am merely using legal means to seize his clan's property according to law."
Soi Fong's face darkened. "Yesterday you argued he hadn't betrayed anyone."
"Some things are flexible!"
Smiling, Cole kept walking, devouring and absorbing walls and halls one after another.
The Gotei 13 had turned to rubble in the war, smashed masonry everywhere—awkward for reiryoku collection. The nobles were different: they'd fled to the Rukongai the moment trouble started, leaving their manors pristine. Easy pickings.
So Soi Fong watched, helpless, as building after building of the Kuchiki compound vanished. Street walls disappeared a face at a time. In the end, Cole even went after the paving stones, ensuring not a single brick remained.
Her mood shifted from anxious to numb. She watched him eat from west to east, carving a literal moat of emptiness through the Kuchiki estate.
It helped that the Kuchiki had deep pockets and wide grounds—otherwise Cole could have swallowed it all in half a day.
Time passed. Day turned to night. The moon hung like a white jade plate, its pale light sweeping Seireitei's darkness. After a full day's absorption, Cole looked over the moonlit void and said with pride:
"Soi Fong, this is my realm—what I've carved out for you."
She kicked him, speechless. "What are you raving about now? I don't want this pitted wasteland. If you'd left the buildings, maybe."
To her, it was wasteful beyond words—so many exquisite halls, all slurped away as mere reiryoku.
Cole didn't mind the kick. With his current reiryoku, her strike was a tickle. Gazing at the open ground, he grew only happier. He swept Soi Fong up and spun her in circles.
"Up we go! Someday I'll build you an enormous home—won't that make you happy? Hahahaha!"
Soi Fong's cheeks went scarlet. She pounded his chest with little fists, hissing, "Brat, stop it! Put me down! I'm a captain—if anyone sees us, it'll be mortifying."
She was the Commander-in-Chief of the Onmitsukidō (Stealth Force), effectively leading Seireitei's largest army. She always wore an iron mask of cool severity. If her rank-and-file in the Penal Force saw this, she'd die of embarrassment before she lost the captaincy.
Only then did Cole reluctantly set her down.
Elsewhere—
A hidden corner of Seireitei.
Muramasa scowled at his wounds, teeth grinding. "Why won't they heal? What's with that human's zanpakuto? How can its ability be so bizarre?"
He'd had a host of healing-type zanpakuto tend to him since last night. The results weren't nonexistent—merely pitiful. After a full day and night, he'd recovered a patch the size of a fingernail.
Seichu said gravely, "It seems that kid's zanpakuto prevents treatment. We'll need another way."
Muramasa's face was gloomy. He'd thought of every method he could, yet recovery crawled. If the shinigami were given time, with their science they might devise counters to manifested zanpakuto.
Thinking of this led him to Mayuri—and a flicker of fear.
"That mad scientist…"
Before knowing what would happen if a manifested bankai died, Mayuri had cut down Konjiki Ashisogi Jizō (Golden Leg-Cutting Jizo) without hesitation. When Muramasa tried to entice it again later, Konjiki Ashisogi Jizō showed terror of Mayuri and refused to betray him under any circumstances. If more zanpakuto became like that, those he'd swayed would turn on him entirely.
At that point…
Muramasa clenched his jaw and recalled Aizen's earlier proposal.
"As the sword is, so is the master. Aizen… must be a schemer through and through."
But he was out of options.
"Byakuya," he said at last, "open the prison holding the Hollows. I'm going to devour Menos."
Across from him, Byakuya—cold-faced in a white captain's haori—nodded calmly. "Understood."
Katen frowned. "Devouring Hollow power is disgusting."
Zanpakuto weren't shinigami, but their attitude toward Hollows was aligned—they saw them as evil incarnate.
Muramasa turned to her. "Then can you use your bankai—Katen Kyokotsu: Karamatsu Shinju (Single-Pine Wedding)—to heal me?"
He remembered she'd used an ability to shift damage onto Cole.
Kyokotsu shook her head. "If I didn't cause your wounds, my bankai form can't help."
Muramasa's eyes cooled. "Then don't stop me. Everything I do is to free zanpakuto completely."
Bitterness flashed through him. If Minazuki (All Things End) had obeyed, he wouldn't need to swallow Menos. With that bankai's outrageous power, it could have healed him even half-ruined. But Minazuki's bloodlust drowned out his coaxing; it still clashed savagely with Unohana as they spoke.
Byakuya silently drew his blade and made a delicate cut in the air. Space split with a prismatic seam—and from within came earth-shaking roars. Evil reiatsu washed over them, making many zanpakuto present frown. The sudden flood of Menos pressure stirred a chopping itch in their hands.
"This prison holds one hundred and seventy-seven Gillian-class Menos," Byakuya said coolly. "They were captured during expeditions to serve as practice for soon-to-graduate students."
Even as he explained, eight Gillian with bone-white masks thrust up like black mountains, howling without reason and clawing to squeeze out.
Seichu glanced at Muramasa. "Are you truly trusting this man? He's a shinigami."
Around them, dozens of manifested zanpakuto eyed Byakuya with suspicion. Muramasa's whispers had already seeded loathing for shinigami in them; they saw the wearers as oppressors and abusers. Byakuya's recruitment had been bizarre from the start—he'd volunteered to join them, which only made them trust him less.
Muramasa smiled gently. "It's fine. Byakuya can be trusted. I vouch for him."
He turned to Byakuya with a kindly tone. "I am Kuchiki Koga's zanpakuto. I even held you when you were little—you called me Uncle Muramasa back then. Help me free my master, and the Kuchiki will be the sole noble house in Soul Society. The whole realm will kneel to your blade, and you will be its most exalted man."
Byakuya nodded faintly. "I wish to see Uncle Koga as well. I opposed Grandfather's decision then, but I could not save him."
Muramasa nodded, then let himself be supported forward toward the Hollows.
In an instant, the Menos seemed to liquefy into black streams, surging into him in a ravenous tide.
Muramasa screamed in agony. "Aaaaah!"
(End of Chapter)
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