"But Captain, compared to Third Seat Reikawa, I'm the real rookie here. I don't even have any experience fighting Menos Grandes…"
Don't think going on missions to the World of the Living is some kind of cushy job. It's not just free food and sightseeing—actually, the Soul Society requires a mountain of paperwork just to send someone there, and after coming back you have to file endless reports. Other than clueless greenhorns, hardly any shinigami want to be dispatched to the Living World.
"Well, you said it yourself earlier—Reikawa is a woman, after all. And Kaien strongly recommended you, saying with your ability there should be no problem."
The real reason Jūshirō suddenly handed this mission to Minami Yojuro wasn't because Third Seat Reikawa was a "young lady" who needed special consideration, nor was it because Kaien gave Yojuro a personal recommendation.
It was because, during their conversation, Jūshirō realized Yojuro was far too much of a slacker. Clearly one of the most promising young talents in the squad, yet already acting like he planned to retire and live out his days lying flat. That simply wouldn't do.
Leaving the Rainy Dry Hall, Minami Yojuro wore an expression of deep annoyance. He had originally planned to go drinking with Rangiku tonight.
That busty girl had entered the Gotei 13 around the same time as him—he joined the Thirteenth Division, she went to the Tenth. Recently, with the Tenth Division missing a captain, a mountain of responsibilities had fallen onto her shoulders. Most nights she vented her workplace frustrations through drinking.
Rangiku didn't have many close friends in Soul Society, so Yojuro counted as one of her few drinking buddies.
Her drinking manners were terrible, and she often pretended to be drunk just to dodge paying the tab. Out of ten times, at least nine ended with Yojuro footing the bill. But he never really minded drinking with her.
Why? Because she was… generously built. Even the loose black shihakushō couldn't hide her figure. Add in her bold, carefree drinking style, and every now and then Yojuro got some unexpected little "perks."
After wading through all the paperwork and formalities, Yojuro finally prepared to depart for the World of the Living.
For the Thirteenth Division, tasked with purification duties, trips to the Living World were nothing special. In fact, all shinigami stationed in different cities across the Living World were actually members of their division.
Shinigami are beings composed of reishi, and since the Living World also contains reishi, a shinigami usually only needs a Hell Butterfly guide and a Senkaimon gate to travel there.
The Senkaimon in Soul Society was a tall gate-like structure, flanked by two towering square wooden pillars. On the Living World's side, however, it appeared as nothing more than a simple wooden sliding door.
For this mission, Yojuro didn't feel much pressure. Even though a Gillian-class Menos could crush most rookie shinigami, with his current strength, killing one shouldn't be a problem at all.
Yet as he stepped into the Senkaimon, a heavy sense of unease stirred in his chest!
A few minutes later, zanpakutō in hand, Minami Yojuro's face turned grim. He was standing in a dark corridor, and the writhing, near-looming Kōtotsu was almost upon him.
Traveling through the Senkaimon wasn't without risk. After all, it connected two different worlds—if the coordinates were even slightly off, accidents could happen. Like now: Yojuro had been thrown into the Dangai!
The so-called "Dangai" was the space between the World of the Living and the Soul Society, completely surrounded by raging currents of time.
Multiple layers of ruptured space overlapped here, with the torrent of time encasing it entirely. Inside, the density of time compared to the outside world was overwhelmingly high—about two thousand times greater, if put into numbers.
In other words, the flow of time here was such that two thousand years in the Dangai equaled only one year outside.
But that wasn't even the most troublesome part. Inside the Dangai existed the Koryū (restrictive currents) and the Kōtotsu (the Cleaner). Any shinigami who encountered them was almost certainly doomed.
The Kōtotsu only appeared once every seven days. It was basically the "street sweeper" of the Dangai—unlike ordinary beings, it didn't rely on reiryoku to exist. Instead, it erased anything in its path, cleansing the corridor completely.
And shinigami were utterly helpless against it. The Kōtotsu was the natural enemy of reishi itself—and since a shinigami's very body was composed of reishi, they were destined to be annihilated if caught.
The only reason Aizen could obliterate the Kōtotsu was likely due to his Hollow powers—or perhaps because of the Hōgyoku.
But regardless of the explanation, Minami Yojuro had no such capability.
The chance of a Senkaimon malfunction dropping someone into the Dangai was less than one percent. And to then also run into the Kōtotsu—which only appeared once every seven days—that was a probability of less than one in a thousand!
If he didn't have absolutely zero ties to the big bosses, Yojuro would've sworn someone was setting him up.
Pouring out his full reiryoku, gripping his zanpakutō tight, he mimicked a "Getsuga Tenshō," unleashing a slash of dense reishi straight at the incoming Kōtotsu.
But the Kōtotsu was the Dangai's Cleaner. It devoured and erased reishi itself. To it, Yojuro's overwhelming reiryoku was utterly meaningless.
The slash—strong enough to kill a Menos Grande—struck the Kōtotsu… and did absolutely nothing.
Seeing this, Yojuro was just about to turn and bolt when suddenly his body froze. A flat, emotionless electronic voice rang out in his mind.
"Host detected within special dimensional environment. Conditions fulfilled. Dimensional Traversal System activating.
System booting: ten percent… twenty percent… During initialization, host must remain still to prevent accidental anomalies."
Hearing the voice, Yojuro nearly cursed out loud. Finally, a third-party cheat program had arrived—late, sure, but better than nothing. Having a system at all was always a good thing.
The problem? The timing was awful. Forcing him to remain immobile while the system initialized, right when the Kōtotsu was bearing down on him—what kind of scam was this?!
Honestly, the Kōtotsu wasn't even that fast. Even if Yojuro couldn't defeat it, he could at least run. But now, stuck in place? Wasn't this just serving himself up on a silver platter?
No one knew what happened to shinigami swallowed by the Kōtotsu. After all, not every shinigami was the world's golden child like Ichigo.
The Kōtotsu was drawing closer and closer. Yojuro stared at the progress bar crawling forward—only fifty percent so far—and his face grew increasingly pale.
What kind of garbage system was this?! Other transmigrators got their cheats early. But him? He had slogged through over years!
And to make it worse, it didn't activate early, didn't activate late—it chose this exact critical moment to wake up, complete with a "no movement allowed" restriction. What was this, an E-rank luck stat?