Over several days of exploratory training, Seijūrō had formed a clear picture of Byakuya Kuchiki's foundation. His swordsmanship had been personally taught by Ginrei Kuchiki, the base was rock solid. His Shunpo had come from pointers by Yoruichi Shihōin, and among his peers he had virtually no rivals. His Kidō, though, was almost a blank slate. In the Kuchiki clan's education, Kidō ranked behind swordsmanship and Shunpo. Byakuya had learned only a handful of basic Hadō and Bakudō; his incantations were passable, but incantation abandonment he had never practiced at all.

That evening, Byakuya Kuchiki arrived at the Kidō Corps training ground on time. He wore plain gray training clothes, his kenseikan holding his black hair neatly behind his head. After the battle a few days ago, the way he looked at Seijūrō had changed. The undisguised sharpness was gone, replaced by something heavier, a quieter gaze, like he was waiting for something.

Seijūrō had not brought any lesson materials. He stood in the center of the training ground and waited until Byakuya walked up before him.

"Starting today, I'll teach you Kidō. But first, one question."

Byakuya came to a stop.

"Your grandfather teaches you swordsmanship. Yoruichi gives you pointers on Shunpo. Both take years of continuous practice. Add in the Kuchiki clan's etiquette, family precepts, obligations to the other noble houses — how much time do you actually have each day for Kidō?"

Byakuya was silent for a moment. "Not much."

"Then I'm not going to teach you many spells," Seijūrō said. "With Kidō, mastery matters more than variety. Memorizing incantations for dozens of Hadō and Bakudō until they roll off your tongue is worth less than honing the few spells best suited to you until you can cast them under any circumstance. Incantation abandonment, one-handed release, injured and flat on the ground — no matter the posture, no matter the condition, those few Kidō must be able to fly from your hands."

Something flickered in Byakuya's eyes. It settled just as quickly. He nodded.

Seijūrō raised his right hand and pointed his index finger forward.

"Hadō Number One: Shō."

A faint shockwave shot from his fingertip and struck a Reishi post a few paces away. A small ripple spread across the post's surface, then faded.

"The lowest-tier Hadō. No incantation required, Reiatsu consumption almost zero. Its power is negligible." He pulled his finger back. "But its casting speed is the fastest of all Hadō. You might think a spell this weak isn't worth learning."

Byakuya did not deny it.

"Shō isn't for killing. It's for interrupting," Seijūrō said. "When you're closing in with Shunpo and your opponent is already gathering Reiatsu for a Kidō cast — if you don't have time to draw your blade — a single Shō to their fingertip breaks their concentration. The faster the cast, the less gathering time needed, the easier the interruption. Shō is the fastest Hadō there is, and the easiest one to fire mid-Shunpo."

Byakuya was quiet for a moment. Then he raised his right hand, index finger forward. No incantation. A shockwave fired from his fingertip, not one. Three, almost simultaneously. They struck different spots on the Reishi post, sending three separate ripples across the surface.

Seijūrō looked at him and nodded.

"Hadō Number Four: Byakurai."

A bolt of pale lightning shot from the index finger of his left hand and struck the post. It left a small scorch mark on the surface, edges still trailing wisps of faint smoke.

"Byakurai hits harder than Shō, but it's still low-tier. No incantation required, casting time slightly longer than Shō, but its piercing power is far greater. Shō interrupts; Byakurai retaliates. When Shunpo can't close the distance and you need to pin someone down at mid-range, Byakurai is your best option, low cost, fast, precise, and it releases with one hand. Your other hand stays on your blade."

Byakuya raised his left hand and pointed his index finger at the post. Lightning gathered at his fingertip for an instant, then fired. The scorch mark landed almost exactly over Seijūrō's. He lowered his hand and looked at his left fingertip, brow furrowing slightly.

"Releasing with the left hand is slower."

"Then practice until it isn't. You're used to holding your blade with your right hand, but your left has to be able to release Kidō independently. In a fight, your right hand might be injured, might be locked down, or you might need to parry with your blade while your left fires a suppression. Kidō isn't about pulling back to throw Hadō from a safe distance. It's a card you play from any distance, in any posture."

Byakuya said nothing. He raised his left hand again and gathered Byakurai.

Over the next few days, Seijūrō taught him Hadō Number Thirty-Three: Sōkatsui.

"Sōkatsui is a mid-tier explosive flame Hadō, far stronger than Shō or Byakurai. A fully incanted Sōkatsui can blanket a wide area in a detonation. Incantation abandonment still works, but the power drops considerably. That said, you don't need to rely on raw destructive force." Seijūrō raised his hand. "Sōkatsui's other purpose is the explosion itself."

Blue-white flames gathered at his fingertip and shot out, striking the post. The blast detonated across its surface, not much of a scorch mark, but the post shuddered hard.

"Sōkatsui is an area denial tool. You don't have to hit your opponent directly. The goal is a big enough burst to cut off their vision. The moment the flames detonate in front of their face, their line of sight goes completely dark. When they can't see where you are, that's all you need."

Byakuya raised his finger and chanted the incantation. Blue-white flames gathered at his fingertip, brighter than Seijūrō's. Not because his control was better, but because his Reiatsu naturally carried something purer, more concentrated. The blast spread across the post in a wave almost twice the size of Seijūrō's, the post humming with the impact. Then he raised his finger again. This time, he cut the incantation halfway through. The blast still formed. Weaker than a full cast, but the spread was still more than enough.

"Incantation abandonment with minimal power loss," Seijūrō said. "This one suits you."

Bakudō Number Sixty-One, Rikujōkōrō, was a spell Byakuya Kuchiki grasped almost the moment it was shown to him. Six blades of light shot out from empty air, locking onto the target from 6 directions at once. His swordsmanship background gave him an understanding of space and angles that most people simply didn't have. Rikujōkōrō demanded precise prediction of the target's movement, and he could read where an opponent would retreat to at the exact moment he drew his blade.

"Bakudō and swordsmanship are one and the same," Seijūrō said, watching him. "Rikujōkōrō is an extension of your blade. When the light pins down the opponent's movement, your sword lands where they can't parry."

Byakuya nodded. A flick of his fingers, and six blades of light materialized around the Reishi post, locking it firmly in place.

The last spell was Bakudō Number Eighty-One: Dankū.

Seijūrō did not teach him the incantation. He raised his hand, and the translucent defensive wall of Dankū unfurled before him. Then he lowered his hand and looked at Byakuya.

"Dankū completely blocks every Hadō below number eighty-nine. This is your strongest shield against Kidō-type opponents. Train it until you can abandon the incantation and release it with one hand. No matter how many Hadō your opponent throws at you, a single Dankū buys you enough time. Time to close in, or time to protect whatever is behind you."

Byakuya raised his hand. No incantation. Reiatsu gathered in his palm for an instant, and then, nothing. He pulled his hand back, adjusted the frequency of his Reiatsu, and raised his hand again. Failed. A third time. A fourth. On the seventh attempt, a small section of the defensive wall finally formed in front of his palm, barely the size of his hand, edges trembling faintly, but the shape was correct. He withdrew his hand, and the wall shattered into particles of light. His brow furrowed in the exact same way it had a few days ago when his left arm had been sealed by the Tear Trace Lock.

"This is difficult," he said.

"That's why you practice it. You don't need to master it in a few days. But within these 6 months, you need to be able to release it one-handed at any time, in any posture."

Byakuya didn't answer. He raised his hand again.

Over the following half year, Byakuya Kuchiki had very little free time. The heir to the Kuchiki clan carried far more than an ordinary Shinigami, swordsmanship, etiquette, family precepts, obligations to the noble houses, each one pulling at his attention. He came to the Kidō Corps training ground infrequently. Some weeks he managed 2 or 3 visits. Sometimes half a month passed between them. But every time he showed up, Seijūrō could tell he had been working outside their sessions. His left hand fired Byakurai noticeably faster than before. His incantation-abandoned Sōkatsui wasn't a coin flip anymore, it landed every time. His Rikujōkōrō no longer needed a full arm movement; the moment his blade cleared the sheath, the light had already locked on.

Dankū was still the hardest. It took Byakuya nearly 3 months to succeed consistently, and even then, the barrier's edges would still tremble faintly in the air for several seconds after each cast. But he never stopped. One evening, he raised his hand, and the translucent wall of Dankū unfurled completely before him. The palm-sized fragment had grown into a wall that could shield most of a person's body. The trembling at the edges was barely there.

Seijūrō stood beside him and watched the barrier glow with flowing silver light. "To reach this level in half a year is enough."

Byakuya withdrew his hand. His kenseikan held his black hair in place, his collar without a single wrinkle. His pale violet eyes looked at Seijūrō, gaze still direct.

"Teacher. These Kidō, Hadō Numbers One, Four, and Thirty-Three. Bakudō Numbers Sixty-One and Eighty-One. Five spells total. You had it planned from the start, what position to use each one, what posture, what purpose." He paused. "This wasn't just teaching me Kidō. You built a complete fighting style around me."

Seijūrō didn't deny it. Byakuya held his gaze for a moment, then lowered his head and bowed. Not the Kuchiki heir's precise bow, measured as if by a ruler. Just the bow of a student to a teacher.

"Thank you."

Seijūrō looked at the crown of his head and nodded.

"What's left is repetition. Train until Shō and Byakurai are reflex, until Sōkatsui lands clean without incantation at any distance, until Rikujōkōrō locks the moment your blade moves, until Dankū opens one-handed from any position. These five spells are enough for a lifetime. With Kidō, mastery matters more than variety."

Chapter 30

The Hollow disturbance in Rukongai's East District was put down around dusk. Three aberrant Hollows had crawled through a rift in the Barrier and sent a ripple of panic through the residential outskirts. The Onmitsukidō moved fast, Squad 2's vanguard sealed the area before the Hollows could fully materialize, and Seijūrō arrived shortly after, locking down all three Reiatsu circuits at once with three simultaneous casts of Hyakurankan. Start to finish, the whole thing took less than the burn of a single incense stick. No soul casualties. Among similar incidents in recent months, that counted as the best possible outcome.

By the time he returned to the Kidō Corps headquarters, the sky had gone dark. The corridors smelled of sumi ink and talisman paper. Corps members on duty stopped and bowed when they saw him. He nodded and walked straight to the Grand Kidō Chief's office.

The door wasn't fully shut. Sounds that had no business coming from an office were drifting through the gap. Seijūrō pushed it open.

Grand Kidō Chief Mahiru Tokito was sprawled on her back in the wide chair, her Kidō Corps uniform hanging loose from her shoulders, her highlighted dark-brown hair draped over the backrest. Two young male corps members pressed close against her, one on each side, their clothes half-off. The three of them looked completely at ease about it.

Mahiru lifted her head from the backrest. Her perpetually drowsy eyes found Seijūrō in the doorway, and the grass stem in the corner of her mouth tilted up. "Oh my, Vice Kidō Chief. Perfect timing. Want in?"

Seijūrō paused for two breaths without speaking. Then he stepped sideways, clearing the doorway. He looked at the two corps members. His face was flat, no anger, no disgust, nothing extra at all. But the moment they met his eyes, every trace of color drained from their faces. They practically scrambled over each other getting up, snatched their clothes off the floor, and squeezed past him out the door without stopping to put their shoes on.

The door closed again. Mahiru tilted her head toward the entrance, the grass stem shifting to the other side of her mouth. "So you wanted me to yourself. You could have just said so — I would have sent them away."

Seijūrō bent down, picked up a Shihakushō jacket one of them had left behind, and tossed it onto her. The collar landed across her chest.

"Soul disappearances are still happening constantly." His voice was level. "3 incidents in East District 12 last week. 2 in Rukongai this week. And today, three aberrant Hollows crawling out of a Barrier rift." He looked at her. "What exactly are you doing? When you're not reading filth, you're calling junior corps members in here for entertainment."

Mahiru draped the jacket casually over her shoulders and leaned back. Her highlighted hair slid off the backrest and fell in loose strands across her chest. "Seireitei is enormous. No single person can cover all of it. No matter how much you carry, you can't watch every inch of Soul Society's Barrier without something slipping through. A few gaps here and there — isn't that just normal?"

"I've been increasing my inspection frequency." Seijūrō said. "Every Barrier maintenance report for the East District — I've reviewed every single one. Every reinforcement node in the North District's sealing plan — I've recalculated each one personally. But rifts keep appearing." He paused. "It isn't a problem the reviews are failing to catch. It's a problem that leaves no trace in the records at all. Nodes listed as reinforced in the maintenance reports haven't actually been touched. Someone is falsifying the gap between what's reported and what's done."

Mahiru yawned. "So?"

"I want a full internal investigation of the Kidō Corps. Every corps member who has handled Barrier maintenance. Every seated officer responsible for signing off on reports. All of it, traced back."

Mahiru watched him. The grass stem stayed still in the corner of her mouth for a moment. Then she smiled. "You're too serious about things. What kind of work doesn't have errors and accidents? Nothing is ever a hundred percent perfect. A few fewer reports today, a few lost souls tomorrow — isn't that completely normal? Same as me having my fun. Basic human needs."

She stood up from the chair. The jacket slipped off her shoulders and fell back onto the seat, leaving her in nothing but the loose uniform. Her highlighted hair spilled down her shoulders and back as she walked to where Seijūrō stood, chin tilting up slightly, languid smile in place. "You chased those two out. Then you come satisfy me."

Seijūrō looked at her. Then he turned, pulled the door open, and walked out.

"Go to hell."

The door closed behind him. Mahiru stared at it, the smile not leaving her face. She pulled the grass stem from her mouth, rolled it between her fingers, and settled back into the chair.

Out in the corridor, Seijūrō's escort fell in behind him from around the corner. Before the escort could say a word, the office door opened again. Mahiru leaned against the doorframe, jacket hanging loose off one shoulder, and waved a hand at the escort. "You. Go find me a few more people." She looked him up and down. "This time, one meter eighty or taller. Something like your Vice Kidō Chief's build. Yeah, find them along those lines."

The escort froze. He looked at Seijūrō's retreating back, then at Mahiru, then back again, with absolutely no idea which direction to move. Seijūrō didn't turn around. He kept walking.

---

He was passing through the Kidō Corps gate when a voice came from above.

"Looks like it didn't go well."

Seijūrō looked up. Soi Fon stood on top of the compound wall, spine straight, her blunt black bangs falling to either side of her face. She wore the white haori of a Squad 2 captain, black arm guards covering her sleeves to the wrist, the captain's white sash at her waist. The evening dark rose behind the wall and traced her slight frame in sharp relief. Her pale grey eyes looked down at him like two chips of cold glass, mouth curved in a faint, sardonic line.

"Soi Fon."

"That woman found herself more men." No effort to conceal the contempt in her voice. She dropped from the wall and landed in front of him. The white haori shifted in the evening breeze. "You're a pretty sorry excuse for a Vice Kidō Chief. Your own superior spends every day enjoying herself in that office and dumps all the work on you. You're not angry?"

"No."

"Liar." The corner of her mouth curved, not a smile, exactly, but the arc of someone who's seen through you and finds it mildly interesting. "When you're angry, your face gets flatter. When you came through that gate just now, you could have used your face as a mirror." She let it go. "Anyway, thanks for dealing with those Hollows in the East District. I wasn't in the mood to argue tonight."

"The East District is the Kidō Corps' responsibility."

"Right, right. With a Vice Kidō Chief, the Kidō Corps runs itself. The Grand Kidō Chief is just furniture." Soi Fon turned and fell into step beside him. She barely reached his chest, but standing next to him she didn't lose an inch of presence. She tilted her head back toward the darkening sky, her voice flattening out. "Starting now, the Onmitsukidō will keep a closer eye on movements inside the Kidō Corps. This kind of work is exactly what we're built for. I'm a hound, after all."

Seijūrō glanced at her. "You don't have to care this much."

"I do." No fluctuation in her tone. "Lady Yoruichi left without taking me. I was her guard. I followed her from the time I was small. I made her my entire target. She abandoned the whole Onmitsukidō and walked away. No goodbye. Nothing." A beat. "I was just left behind. A stray dog."

Seijūrō said nothing. She didn't know how hard that choice had been, taking her along would have made her a traitor too, and the Shihōin Clan had already lost one exiled head. It couldn't afford to lose a successor as well. But saying any of that would only make things worse. Yoruichi had told him once: this one's too hard on herself. Every drop of the admiration she felt for Yoruichi she'd turned into a demand on her own performance.

"You're a stray too." Soi Fon glanced sideways at him. "A lovesick one. I could tell you had feelings for Lady Yoruichi. You were always finding excuses to show up at the Onmitsukidō, training together, bringing dango after, whatever. Written all over you. And then she left, and here you are. Same as me. Left behind."

A brief silence. "You're right," Seijūrō said.

Yoruichi's whereabouts. Yoruichi's secrets. All of that had to stay buried. Soi Fon needed somewhere to aim the pain, and he happened to be standing there. That was fine. Let her aim.

They stood together without speaking for a while. The night wind off the wall carried the smell of pine resin and stone. Soi Fon looked away. "Alright. That's enough of licking each other's wounds. Where are you headed?"

"The Kuchiki estate."

Seijūrō moved off down the stone avenue. He'd gone a few steps when her voice came after him.

"Ha. Why don't you go spend some time with the Tsunayashiro Clan and the Shiba Clan while you're at it? You might end up as a noble's attaché."

He didn't look back. The night deepened along the stone avenue, lamplight pooling on the blue-grey paving. The task Yoruichi had left him, look after Soi Fon, he'd been doing it the whole time. Backing up Onmitsukidō operations whenever they needed it. Quietly cleaning up after her. Letting her hold her captain's authority intact in front of her subordinates. Each thing small, each thing invisible. Soi Fon probably didn't know that none of those support calls had required the Vice Kidō Chief personally. He didn't mind. Some things didn't need to be known.

Seijūrō's silhouette shrank down the avenue and disappeared into tree shadow where the road branched.

Soi Fon watched him go. Then she raised her right hand, pressed two fingers to her lips, and let out a sharp whistle that cut through the dark. Before the sound had fully died, several black-clad figures swept silently from the shadows of the wall and knelt on one knee before her. Every one of them in the Onmitsukidō's black shinobi gear, masks wrapped around their heads with only their eyes showing, postures as matched and precise as different edges of the same blade.

"Starting today," she said, voice low and stripped of everything unnecessary, "every Kidō Corps member who has handled Barrier maintenance, and every seated officer who has signed off on reports, place them all under surveillance. Plain clothes, constant tail, daily reports back to me. Anything irregular comes straight to me. Don't spook them." A pause. "If you're discovered, handle it yourselves. Don't dirty Squad 2's name."

"Yes." They dipped their heads in unison and dissolved into the dark, soundless as water sinking into sand.

Only Marechiyo Ōmaeda remained, crouched at her side. The man was enormous, and he had done his best to wedge himself into the shadow of the wall, multiple chins stacked on top of each other, the smell of fried food trailing him as he leaned close. "Captain, do, do we actually have to, um, do that if we're discovered?"

Soi Fon turned her head. Her pale grey eyes rested on his mound of a face for a long few seconds. "You don't."

His eyes lit up. He hadn't even opened his mouth before she finished the sentence without a trace of expression.

"With a build and a face like yours, if a Kidō Corps member finds you, they'll just think some fat man wandered in trying to steal the offerings. It won't cross their minds that the Onmitsukidō is running surveillance."

Ōmaeda's face deflated like a punctured puffer fish, the whole man seeming to sink several inches. A low, muffled sound escaped him. Soi Fon ignored it. He pulled himself to his feet and brushed the dust off his Shihakushō. The lingering dejection still clung to his face, but the eyes buried in all that flesh were not stupid eyes. He watched her with them now.

"Captain. The Kidō Corps isn't the Gotei 13. Running internal surveillance on them without Central 46 authorization, if it comes to light, we get no credit for finding anything, and if we find nothing, we get bitten for overreach. All risk, no reward." He held her gaze. "Why bother helping that Vice Kidō Chief?"

Soi Fon's eyes went cold. Ōmaeda took a prudent step back, folded his considerable mass into the wall's shadow, and was gone, footsteps fading quickly into the dark.

She was alone on the wall. The wind came through and lifted a corner of her blunt fringe, briefly showing the clean line of her forehead.

She had no real reason to wade into the Kidō Corps' mess. Squad 2 had its own missions, its own duties, its own enemies. Whether the Kidō Corps had rot inside it was none of her concern. Whether that Vice Kidō Chief could hold things together under a useless Grand Kidō Chief was none of her concern either. And yet here she was.

After Lady Yoruichi left, the days inside Squad 2 had not been easy. At her inauguration, the whispers clung to her like flies, Yoruichi's castoff, won't last, first captain in history from outside the Shihōin Clan, probably dead in a ditch before long. Her subordinates obeyed her to her face and waited for her to fail behind her back. The outside pressure was a wall she woke up to every morning pressing on her chest.

She had always believed her purpose was to be Lady Yoruichi's guard, and to die in Lady Yoruichi's place on some mission somewhere, that was the whole point of her, the final destination of everything she was worth. Then Lady Yoruichi left, and shoved her into the captain's seat instead. She had stood in that seat feeling like a child left alone in an empty room. She had no idea what she was doing.

During all of that, only one person had been different.

That man, quiet, sealed off, saying nothing, had never once looked at her strangely. She was captain, and to him it was simply a fact, as natural as anything else. He kept appearing at Onmitsukidō operations, said nothing, tightened her containment plans, cleaned up behind her movements, made it all look like something he'd done in passing. Not worth mentioning. She called him a stray. He agreed. She mocked him for never catching up to Lady Yoruichi. He didn't argue. Not a single word in his own defense. As if letting her say whatever she needed to say was reason enough, and being the one she said it to didn't bother him at all.

She hadn't expected that. That, being looked at like she was simply fine, had held her up in the worst of it. She had a plan now, a clear shape of what she was building. She was going to make the Onmitsukidō the sharpest it had ever been, sharper than any generation under the Shihōin Clan. And then she was going to find Lady Yoruichi and cut her down herself. That was her obsession with Yoruichi. That was how she intended to say goodbye.

And after that, she was going to catch up to that insufferable, silent man. Not in the Shunpo sense.

Ōmaeda's voice floated up from below the wall. "Captain, there's still one surveillance report from the East District, "

"Get out of here and do your job."

"Yes — MA'AM!"

Silence below the wall. Soi Fon dropped down from it. The Squad 2 captain's white haori filled with wind. She walked into the dark of Seireitei, her stride sharp and clean as a freshly drawn blade.

➤ Next: What Is Known About Bleach