Using the tip of his tail, Ivan pulled out a pure black Shihakushō and an unsheathed katana with a heavily chipped blade from the hollow of the tree.
“This is a Shihakushō, and…
an Asauchi?” Ivan placed the tiny Zanpakutō in the palm of his massive hand.
He could clearly sense that the strange, flickering Reiatsu he had tracked down was emanating entirely from this Asauchi.
To Ivan’s current, colossal size, the Zanpakutō looked like a tiny toothpick.
He fiddled with the chipped blade for a moment, rolling it around in his palm the way someone in his past life might toy with an action figure accessory.
Then, a sudden whim struck him.
“I wonder if I can use this Zanpakutō?” Tentatively, Ivan began channeling his own Reiatsu into the Asauchi.
Thin wisps of dark gold energy seeped through his palm and slowly seeped into the blade.
The moment Ivan’s Reiatsu made contact with the residual Reiatsu sleeping within the blade, a flood of memory fragments rushed into his mind, playing out like a high-speed movie.
A handsome young man with purple hair, standing tall and proud, wielded a pitch-black spear.
He stood alone in the Forest of Menos, locked in a never-ending slaughter against a horde of Hollows.
Every horizontal sweep of his spear carried a terrifying, suffocating pressure.
With every thrust, a Gillian fell!
His name was Umi Itō.
He was originally a vagrant from District 77 of the West Rukongai.
District 77 was an incredibly dangerous slum with terrible living conditions, and as an orphaned street rat, Umi’s situation was even worse.
As a child, he wandered the streets alone, surviving entirely on theft.
He lived this way for years, growing from a boy into a young man.
Because he was naturally robust and had arms noticeably longer than the average adult, he held a massive advantage in street brawls.
His fighting prowess earned him the nickname “Gibbon” among the thugs of District 77.
Everything changed the day a pack of Hollows mysteriously invaded District 77.
The Seireitei immediately dispatched a squad of Shinigami to exterminate them.
That was the first time Umi Itō saw her.
Kumokawa Kasumiōji.
A noble of the Kasumiōji clan.
She struck with clean, ruthless efficiency, slaughtering the invading Hollows and saving Umi right from the jaws of death.
She was as blinding as the midday sun.
And Umi Itō, completely captivated by the beautiful, coldly elegant Kumokawa Kasumiōji, actually had the absolute audacity to walk right up and flirt with her.
The result was obvious.
With a single cast of Bakudō #1: Sai, Kumokawa bound Umi’s hands and feet, leaving him entirely immobilized on the ground.
Because a commoner had dared to offend a noble, the Shinigami accompanying Kumokawa drew their blades to execute him.
But the kind-hearted Kumokawa stopped them.
“I am Kumokawa Kasumiōji, the 13th Seat of the 11th Squad.
I only respect the strong.
If you truly like me, then put your life on the line and become stronger.
If the day comes when you can defeat me, then…” Umi Itō engraved those words into his very soul.
In his mind, the only people capable of defeating a Shinigami were other Shinigami.
The formerly lazy street rat actually went and took the entrance exam for the Shin’ō Academy.
To everyone’s shock, he passed on his first try, enrolled, and successfully graduated a few years later.
He specifically requested to join the 11th Squad, where Kumokawa was stationed.
Over the next few decades, Umi Itō, a completely unknown Shinigami from the slums, defied all expectations.
He rapidly climbed the ranks, eventually seizing the position of 3rd Seat of the 11th Squad.
His strength had long since surpassed Kumokawa’s.
Through fighting side-by-side on countless battlefields, the two fell deeply in love.
The Kasumiōji clan behind Kumokawa, recognizing Umi’s monstrous potential, eventually agreed to their union.
The condition was set: the moment Umi Itō was promoted to Lieutenant of any Squad, he could formally marry Kumokawa Kasumiōji.
But just as everything was moving toward a perfect, happy ending, devastating news arrived.
Without a single word of goodbye, Kumokawa Kasumiōji had joined the Hollow Relief Expedition and deployed to Hueco Mundo to hunt Menos Grande.
Kumokawa was a member of the Kasumiōji clan.
Even if she was from a branch family, she was still a noble.
Under normal circumstances, there was absolutely no way she would be drafted into a suicide squad like the Expeditionary Force.
Deeply suspicious, Umi stormed the Kasumiōji estate multiple times demanding an explanation, but the clan only offered vague, dismissive excuses.
As a commoner, Umi was completely powerless against a major noble house.
Left with no other options, he threw away his position as a seated officer and enlisted in the next wave of the Hollow Relief Expedition, praying he could reunite with his fiancée in Hueco Mundo.
Tragically, the moment his unit stepped out of the Garganta, they encountered a bizarre spatial distortion.
Instead of arriving on the surface, they were dumped directly into the Forest of Menos, landing right in the center of a massive Hollow ambush.
Overwhelmed by the endless swarm, the rest of the expedition was quickly wiped out.
Relying entirely on his overwhelming strength, Umi Itō was the sole survivor.
For the next several years, he wandered the Forest of Menos, slaughtering Hollows while desperately searching for any trace of Kumokawa.
He never found Kumokawa, but the mountain of Hollow corpses he left in his wake was staggering.
Eventually, his slaughter caught the attention of two Adjuchas.
They mobilized their personal Gillian armies and cornered him.
But Umi Itō proved exactly why he was the 3rd Seat of the combat-crazed 11th Squad.
His combat power was firmly at the Lieutenant level.
Facing an army of over a hundred Gillians, he carved a bloody path through the horde.
Even when critically injured and standing on the absolute brink of death, he managed to drag the two Adjuchas to hell with him in a final, suicidal clash.
The final memory fragment flashed across Ivan’s mind.
“Bathe in blood, Kamikaze Maru!” With a soft chant, the Asauchi in Umi Itō’s hands transformed into a pitch-black spear.
Wreathed in roaring, razor-sharp gales, Umi charged headlong into the sea of Hollows, never once looking back.
With that final image, the faint Reiatsu lingering on the Asauchi dissipated completely.
“Damn.
Umi was a real man.
It’s just a shame he didn’t have much of a brain…” Piecing together the rough storyline from Umi Itō’s residual memories, Ivan didn’t even need to think hard to figure it out.
Kumokawa Kasumiōji’s disappearance was absolutely orchestrated by the Kasumiōji clan.
Why the hell did Umi blindly charge straight into Hueco Mundo to look for her?
Granted, Ivan had the benefit of meta-knowledge.
After all, he remembered clearly from the anime that the Kasumiōji clan was practically the poster child for shady, backstabbing conspiracies.
As a mere seated officer, Umi couldn’t touch the Kasumiōji clan.
But what if he had become a Lieutenant?
If a Lieutenant still wasn’t enough, what about a full-fledged Captain?
For a Shinigami with a lifespan stretching across centuries, Umi Itō’s rise was incredibly short and explosive.
Simply put, he possessed Captain-class potential.
That was the exact reason the Kasumiōji clan hadn’t opposed the marriage in the first place.
If Umi had simply stayed back, mastered his Bankai, and shown up at the Kasumiōji estate wearing a Captain’s haori, would they have dared to play games with him?
A Captain of the Gotei 13 was an existence that not even the Four Great Noble Families dared to underestimate, let alone the Kasumiōji clan.
“Sigh.
Umi, Umi, Umi.
Why couldn’t you just keep your cool?
If it were me, I would have just laid low and grinded my stats until I was an absolute powerhouse.
Once you have absolute strength, every conspiracy shatters upon impact!” Even though they were on completely different sides, Ivan couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pity for Umi Itō.
In the end, all he could offer the fallen Shinigami was a long, heavy sigh…