“How many times is this now? Hasn’t the Research and Development Institute figured out what’s going on yet?”
The Shinigami who had just been forced to fight Hollows for another seven or eight hours was on the verge of a breakdown.
He had run into this anomaly three times before.
This was the fourth.
You have to understand that fighting Hollows is inherently dangerous work for a Shinigami.
The strongest ones showing up here were only the kind with special abilities, and he could handle those with some effort.
But these Hollows kept emerging endlessly, and fighting them one after another had already left him injured several times over.
If he had the bad luck to run into nothing but Hollows with special abilities, he reckoned he would lose his life right here.
The high end of Shinigami combat power was genuinely strong.
The vast majority of Shinigami, however, were cannon fodder.
In the manga, when Ichigo broke into the Soul Society with roughly the strength of a Lieutenant, he took down almost the entire Eleventh Division on his own, Captain and Lieutenant aside.
Madarame Ikkaku and the others going easy on him was part of it.
But it also showed exactly how weak the rank and file were, once you set aside the high Seated Officers, the Lieutenants and the Captains.
Which was why Lucas could kill these Hollows instantly and these Shinigami could not.
Nearing the end of his patience, the man contacted the Soul Society again to report the abnormal situation in Karakura Town.
“Captain, something has happened in Karakura Town again. This is the fourth time.”
In the Soul Society, at the Twelfth Division’s Research and Development Institute, several people stood in front of a large screen displaying a map of Karakura Town.
Over the past few hours, the edge of that map had been flashing red at regular intervals.
Karakura Town was a place of high spiritual concentration, so the Soul Society had always kept it under observation.
However, since that monitoring was cross-dimensional, they could not see any images.
There was only a reaction when a Hollow appeared, or when spiritual pressure exceeding that of a normal Soul showed up.
“I know. By the way, has the data come back?”
Kurotsuchi Mayuri asked.
During the first and second anomalies, the Institute staff had not informed him at all.
Mayuri spent the overwhelming majority of his time buried in his own research projects, so minor matters naturally were not going to disturb him.
So when it happened a third time, the news was reported to him.
Mayuri had been quite curious at the time, but by the time he arrived, the effect of the Hollow bait was already nearing its end.
So he built a reishi analyzer and had it delivered to the Thirteenth Division members stationed in Karakura Town.
When the fourth incident began, the analyzer absorbed and analyzed the surrounding reishi, then transmitted the results back to the Institute.
“The data has come back.”
Akon handed the report over to him.
“It really is Hollow bait. So there are still Quincy rats scurrying around Karakura Town. But what is this strange spiritual pressure?”
Mayuri knew perfectly well what Hollow bait was.
He had suspected as much last time, but with the effect already finished, he could not be certain.
This time, with data to back it, confirming it was simple.
What surprised him was the strange spiritual pressure mixed in with it.
Originally he had assumed that strange pressure belonged to the Quincy.
But judging by the analysis report, the essence of that spiritual pressure was actually closer to a Hollow.
You have to understand, Quincy power and Hollow power are complete opposites.
The two are poison and antidote to each other.
So he could say with certainty that the strange fluctuation at the scene was not from a Quincy.
“Akon. Check the database. See whether there are any records of similar spiritual pressure.”
Akon ran the search again.
“Found it, Captain. It can basically be confirmed as the spiritual pressure of a Fullbringer. The essence of their power is closer to a Hollow.”
“A Fullbringer? That is rare. After the business with Ginjō Kūgo, Fullbringers vanished practically without a trace. I did not expect one to surface now.”
Mayuri narrowed his eyes.
He knew about Fullbringers, naturally, and he had even researched them himself.
However, he had never managed to research anything useful out of them, and after the Ginjō Kūgo incident broke out, Fullbringers disappeared almost completely, so he had stopped paying them any attention.
“A Fullbringer showing up isn’t surprising. A Fullbringer using Hollow bait, which is a Quincy tool, now that is interesting.”
Mayuri was very interested in the matter, because he wanted to know what the other party’s purpose actually was.
Why go to the trouble of drawing Hollows into the human world only to kill them?
Judging from the previous incidents, this was the fourth time Hollow bait had been used, and all four uses had come within a short span of time.
Furthermore, the person was not capturing Hollows for experiments.
They were killing them.
Mayuri even wondered whether this Quincy was cut from the same cloth as the battle junkies in the Eleventh Division.
Otherwise, why take on such a thankless task?
While he was puzzling over it, what happened at the Research and Development Institute naturally became known to Aizen.
Aizen had always monitored the movements of the entire Soul Society, and the Institute was a particular focus.
It was there, after all, that Urahara Kisuke had created the Hōgyoku.
In his view, Mayuri was somewhat inferior to Urahara Kisuke.
But Mayuri was still a prodigy in his own right, a man who could always tinker together something genuinely useful.
Which was why the Research and Development Institute remained a key object of his surveillance.
He had also been keeping an eye on Karakura Town.
The town was the key to his creation of the Ōken, and it was also where Ichigo lived.
Aizen, that “father” to Ichigo, had been following the boy’s growth closely.
By now he was already laying the groundwork to set Ichigo on the path of a Shinigami.
But a single Fullbringer did not warrant much of his attention, so he gave the information from the Institute very little thought.
After all, he had researched Fullbringers himself, and had similarly come away with nothing at all.
You could only say that the power of the Soul King was simply too overbearing.
The core of a Fullbringer is a fragment of the Soul King’s power.
Only those who carry that fragment of power can achieve the awakening of a Fullbring.
Without it, even if a mother were attacked by a Hollow, awakening would be impossible.