Promotions in the Gotei 13 were supposed to bring glory, prestige, and endless paperwork.
For Kazuma, it meant securing the best nap spot in the Tenth Division.
His new private quarters sat in the quiet corner of the officer wing, complete with a sliding paper door, a sturdy brass latch, and a small wooden porch overlooking an overgrown koi pond.
For five whole years as the Seventh Seat, Kazuma ran his squad with a single, unyielding philosophy:
*If a problem can be solved tomorrow, do not look at it today.*
His squad members loved him.
Under Kazuma’s command, the Western patrol unit had the highest morale, the lowest injury rate, and the most comprehensive tea-break schedule in the entire Seireitei.
Until the Grand Hollow Cull of the Western Ridges.
It was an unseasonably hot afternoon.
Kazuma was lying on his back in the middle of a shaded grass clearing three miles outside the Seireitei’s perimeter, a bamboo reed between his teeth and his officer badge dangling lazily from his sash.
Thirty yards away, his squad of six unseated recruits was diligently engaged in their assigned duty: eating cold watermelon in the shade.
“Seventh Seat Kazuma,” one of the recruits called out around a mouthful of melon.
“Shouldn’t we check the spiritual beacon at the third boundary marker?”
“The beacon has stood there for ninety years,” Kazuma muttered, not opening his eyes.
“It is not going to sprout legs and run away.
Give the beacon some personal space.”
“Understood, sir!”
A sudden, sharp drop in atmospheric pressure shattered the quiet.
The birds in the canopy went instantly dead.
The grass beneath their sandals flattened as a foul, suffocating spiritual pressure crashed down from the sky like an iron anvil.
The sky tore open.
A jagged black rift in the fabric of space cracked above the tree line, bleeding dark purple miasma.
From the void stepped a Gillian-class Menos Grande.
It was a towering, pitch-black monolith fifty feet tall, wearing a bleached white, long-nosed mask.
Its hollow, soulless eyes stared down at the clearing, and within seconds, a blinding sphere of crimson energy began to coalesce at the tip of its mask.
A Cero.
“M-Menos Grande!”
“A Gillian in the outer ridges?!”
The recruits dropped their watermelon slices, their faces draining of all color.
Their legs locked up in pure, paralyzing terror as the red light bathed the forest in violent crimson.
At that charging speed, the Cero would vaporize the entire hill in three seconds.
Kazuma let out a long, deeply irritated sigh.
‘Right in the middle of my nap,’ he thought.
‘If this giant idiot fires that blast, the explosion will draw three seated officers, two Captains, and four hours of mandatory incident interviews.’
Kazuma stood up.
He didn’t draw his sword.
He didn’t take a stance.
He just took half a step forward and locked his eyes onto the massive charging sphere of crimson light.
*Jakumetsu: Kinetic Reversal.*
He didn’t flare his spiritual pressure.
He simply snapped his fingers. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
The massive, compressed sphere of destructive Reishi finished charging—and instead of firing outward toward the forest, every single vector of its kinetic velocity inverted violently backward into the Gillian’s own throat.
*FZZZZ-CRUNCH.*
The Cero detonated entirely inside the Gillian’s mask.
There was no grand outward blast.
The sheer kinetic implosion collapsed the monster’s skull inward with a muffled, wet thud.
The massive black body swayed once, its spinal column completely shattered from the internal recoil, and it tipped forward like a felled redwood tree.
*BOOM.*
The fifty-foot giant slammed face-first into the rocky dirt, perfectly impaling its chest on a jagged, three-foot granite outcrop sticking out of the ravine floor.
The monster dissolved into gray ash, blowing away into the quiet mountain breeze.
Total elapsed time: four seconds.
The six recruits sat in the dirt, their eyes wide, their mouths hanging open in utter, catatonic disbelief.
Kazuma walked over to the edge of the ditch, looking down at the pile of fading ash with a look of profound sorrow.
He turned back toward his trembling squad, shaking his head.
“Did you see that?” Kazuma asked, his voice filled with grave concern.
“S-Seventh Seat…” a recruit stammered, pointing a shaking finger at the empty dirt.
“The Gillian…
its Cero…”
“A tragic misfire,” Kazuma stated firmly.
“The poor creature swallowed its own blast, suffered an acute case of spiritual indigestion, fell forward, and fatally impaled itself on that sharp rock.
An absolute tragedy of basic footwork.”
“It…
it swallowed its own Cero?”
“Happens to the big ones all the time.
Poor throat coordination,” Kazuma nodded solemnly, walking back to his spot on the grass and lying down.
“Write that down in the log.
‘Menos Grande defeated via self-inflicted respiratory failure and severe geological impact.’ Now finish your melon.
My shift isn’t over.”
Two days later.
Kazuma was summoned directly to the First Division Headquarters.
The grand assembly hall was cold, solemn, and smelled of ancient incense.
Standing at the far end of the chamber, leaning heavily on his wooden walking cane, was the Captain-Commander himself: Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto.
His one exposed eye burned like a smoldering coal beneath his thick white eyebrows.
“Tenth Division, Seventh Seat.
Kazuma,” Yamamoto’s deep, rumbling voice echoed off the high timber beams like rolling thunder.
Kazuma kept his head bowed low to the polished wooden floorboards, maintaining the most submissive, trembling posture he could muster.
“H-Here, Captain-Commander, sir!”
Yamamoto held up a parchment stamped with the Tenth Division’s official seal.
“A Gillian-class Menos Grande was found neutralized near the boundary line.
The official report states that the beast ‘suffered respiratory failure, choked on its own spiritual energy, and died on a sharp stone.'”
Kazuma swallowed nervously, making sure his shoulders twitched.
“A-A freak accident, Captain-Commander!
The terrain in the Western Ridges is terribly uneven!
I was merely lucky to survive!”
Yamamoto was silent for ten long seconds.
The spiritual pressure radiating off the old man was heavy enough to crush ordinary souls into grease.
Kazuma kept his internal power locked behind an iron door, showing only the faint, pathetic flicker of an average Seventh Seat.
“The Tenth Division Captain has been promoted to the Royal Guard’s outer reserve,” Yamamoto spoke slowly, closing his eye.
“Three Vice-Captains fell during the Hollow incursions in the Southern districts last month.
The Gotei 13 lacks calm, lucky men who survive impossible odds without getting their entire squads slaughtered.”
Kazuma’s gut tightened with sudden, violent dread.
‘No.
Absolutely not.’
Yamamoto struck his cane against the floorboards.
*CLANG.*
“By order of the Central 46 and the Captain-Commander,” Yamamoto declared, “you are hereby transferred to the Eighth Division and appointed as its Vice-Captain under Captain Shunsui Kyōraku.”
Kazuma’s soul almost left his body.
“C-Captain-Commander!” Kazuma stammered, genuine panic leaking into his voice.
“I am unsuited for such an honor!
I am lazy!
I enjoy afternoon naps!
I have zero leadership qualities!”
Yamamoto turned his back, walking slowly toward his desk.
“Captain Kyōraku specifically requested a subordinate who would not bother him during his drinking hours.
You fit his exact criteria.
Your appointment is effective immediately.
Dismissed.”
Kazuma walked out of the First Division barracks in a daze, staring at the polished brass Vice-Captain’s armband resting in his trembling hand.
He had tried to be a nobody.
He had blamed a monster’s death on a rock.
And now he was the second-in-command of the most notoriously relaxed division in the entire Seireitei—with his own private courtyard, a massive expense account, and an alcoholic Captain who spent all day sleeping under flower trees.
Kazuma looked up at the sky, a slow, dangerous smile finally breaking across his face.
‘Vice-Captain under Shunsui?’ Kazuma thought, fastening the wooden badge onto his sleeve.
‘I don’t even have to pretend to work anymore.
Shunsui will do the slacking for both of us.’
The path to a peaceful life was finally secured.
Or so he thought, until fifty years later, a quiet, bespectacled boy enrolled in the Shin’ō Academy.