Chapter 31: Voluntary Sacrifice
"Enjoying the view?"
—The Soul King really had said those words directly to him.
"…???"
Mizuma froze.
It felt like watching Sadako crawl out of the television screen—
a moment so absurdly impossible that it shattered his sense of reality.
So this… is Yhwach's father? The true Almighty?
To speak across a gulf of a million years—
what else could one do but be awed into silence?
The Soul King tilted his head slightly, and as if amused by Mizuma's stunned expression, asked again, voice a little louder this time:
"Can you hear me now? You've been watching for quite some time—surely you have something to say. I'm merely… curious."
At those words, the white-haired girl kneeling beneath the throne lifted her head in surprise.
"My lord, what are you—?"
"Pay it no mind, Rinka," the Soul King said with a gentle smile. "I'm merely conversing with a guest from afar. I've heard your report—it was excellent. Remain here a while longer, though; I'll need your help to sustain this connection."
Urahara Rinka. That was the girl's name.
And in that instant, the truth clicked in Mizuma's mind.
Back at Shin'ō Academy, the very first history lesson he had attended had been about the Soul King and the Five Noble Clans—Kuchiki, Tsunayashiro, Shiba, Shihōin… and Urahara.
Yes—that Urahara.
Unlike the other noble houses entrenched in Seireitei's politics, the Urahara family lived far beyond its walls.
They took no part in governance, no place in the Central 46.
Their sole duty was to guard the Gate of Hell on the outermost edge of the Soul Society—
to watch the damned, to coordinate with the jailers of Hell itself, ensuring the balance never fractured.
But records about the Urahara line were sparse to the point of nonexistence. Even when Mizuma had asked Kisuke Urahara himself, the man had simply smiled and dodged the question with his usual irreverent charm.
And now, history itself was opening before him—revealing the truth he'd never expected to see.
…Though, to be fair, the Soul King's sudden awareness of him was slightly more pressing.
Rinka obeyed immediately, showing no doubt or hesitation. She stood beside the throne, the camera—no, the viewpoint—following her movement.
The Soul King's gaze followed as well, and Mizuma felt the hairs on his neck rise.
Then, the being at the center of all creation smiled.
"Relax. I mean you no harm," he said kindly. "Not to one of the souls born under the Three Realms."
Liar! Mizuma screamed internally. You paved Hueco Mundo with people's ashes! That's what your 'no harm' looks like?
But reason—and survival instinct—won over sarcasm. He swallowed his retort, forcing his trembling voice out:
"Y-You… how can you… see me?"
Ten minutes ago, he'd been the one making others stammer. Now the wheel had turned. Karma truly works fast, he thought bitterly.
"How can I see you?" The Soul King pointed toward his own eyes—four irises gleaming with eerie calm.
"There are many ways to perceive the future. Sometimes through these eyes, sometimes through my abilities… and sometimes, by using certain 'bridges.' Tell me—do you know the principle behind Fullbring?"
"The fragments of the Soul Ki—"
Mizuma stopped mid-sentence, shivering violently.
The Soul King himself had spoken the word Fullbring.
That technique… was born from the fragments of his own flesh—
the remnants of his body fused with humans touched by Hollows.
Which meant…
The Soul King knew. He knew what his own future self would become.
From the scenes of the war he'd witnessed—the annihilation of the ancient Hollows, the overwhelming might—the Soul King was a being before whom even the Five Great Houses and the Royal Guard were nothing.
There was no way such a being could have been defeated.
He hadn't been killed. He had chosen to be divided.
"You may think of it like a tree," the Soul King said softly. "I am the trunk. My fragments—the leaves. The trunk knows every state of its leaves."
"So you knew you would…" Mizuma hesitated, then asked outright, "become a… 'tool'?"
"That's right." The Soul King nodded without the faintest pause. "I saw it clearly.
I saw what the Tsunayashiro heirs would plot.
I saw what my own offspring would do—out of fear of death and rebirth."
"I've always known."
He knew—yet he hadn't stopped it?
"Then why?" Mizuma demanded. "Why let them do it? You could have crushed them with a thought! Why let a swarm of ants destroy you?"
The Soul King regarded him quietly for a long moment.
Then, instead of answering, he asked, "Are you angry because of that?"
Mizuma clenched his fists and nodded.
Angry? That word didn't even begin to describe it.
He was disgusted.
The world he lived in—the stability of the Three Realms—was built on a betrayal.
The noble houses had butchered the very god who had granted them existence, tearing apart his body, breaking his heart and organs—
all for power. For a seat atop a mountain of blasphemy.
Even after forcing himself to accept that as history, Mizuma couldn't stop the nausea twisting in his chest.
The Soul King smiled again, his expression serene, almost fatherly.
"You see the difference in scale between me and my children. If I were to govern everything myself, I could easily extend my will into every shadow—make all souls bask in equal light, forever.
Tell me… would you think that a good world?"
Mizuma's first impulse was to nod.
But then he thought—and froze.
Because hidden in that ideal was something terrifying.
If true equality came only from one will, then the world would no longer be equal.
There would exist an eternal divide—an unbridgeable gulf between god and man.
A single being whose whim decided all things, unchecked, unopposed, forever.
That wasn't peace.
That was the stillness of an unending cage.
And for the first time, Mizuma understood—why the Soul King had chosen to fall.
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TL: Idk man I don't think I agree. Btw for a Slacker he sure is quite the personality.
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