“Eh?
Ginjō Kūgo?” Ichiryu said, all matter-of-fact.
“I’ve already said—when Central 46 worried Captain Ukitake was involved with him, I believed in Captain Ukitake.
I guaranteed it repeatedly.
What’s the point of bringing it up now?”
But Ukitake was about to cough himself to death right in front of him.
Sentarō and Kiyone looked ready to draw their swords.
Ichiryu accepted the dismissal.
He turned to leave.
“Captain Ukitake, please focus on your health.
Whether it’s the intruders or Shinigami duties, I will handle it…” He paused, as if catching himself.
“Huh?
I didn’t mention Ginjō Kūgo this time?
Okay, okay.
I’m leaving.
No need to see me out.”
He hummed a tune to himself as he returned to the 2nd Division barracks.
Ask me what role I’m playing?
I looked at my identity and said that I am—a sunny and cheerful boy~
As soon as he arrived, he felt Captain Suì-Fēng’s reiatsu in his own room.
The sensation was direct—the other party was broadcasting it on purpose.
Ichiryu opened the door with a touch of guilt.
Inside, Suì-Fēng was using his tea set, preparing tea for herself.
“What were you doing?” she asked.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to rest?”
“No, well… I heard Captain Ukitake has been quite ill lately.
I went to visit him.” His excuse was sanctimonious and readily available.
“Oh?
So Captain Ukitake enjoys conversing with you?” Suì-Fēng asked mockingly.
“Of course.
We were chatting and laughing just today, if he hadn’t started coughing so violently…” Ichiryu nodded without a shred of embarrassment.
“If you’re that bored, come to Rukongai with me tomorrow.” First, Suì-Fēng felt this man had no grasp of “low-key and cautious.” Second, she genuinely needed help.
None of the other squad members would do.
“Rukongai?” Ichiryu immediately retreated.
“That’s not really necessary.
Central 46 also said there’s no need to leave the Seireitei.”
The Inspection Corps wasn’t for decoration.
It directly contradicted the Captain-Commander’s order.
Yamamoto had conveyed an order from Central 46: the Gotei 13 must guard the Seireitei, wait for the intruders to fall into the trap or leave on their own, and leave Rukongai alone.
Unlike the relationship between rulers and commoners in the modern world, the “administration” of Rukongai wasn’t about civilians and Shinigami.
There was no taxation, no corvée labor.
For Shinigami, administering Rukongai meant disposing of recyclable materials and managing resources so they weren’t consumed by Hollows.
It required a general tidying up.
For the districts farther from the Seireitei, even establishing rules was superfluous.
A glance around to ensure they weren’t being devoured too much by infiltrating Hollows was sufficient.
They intervened only if attacked by Hollows, or if the sudden death rate grew too high and affected the balance between Hueco Mundo and the Soul Society.
Since thousands of years ago, the souls of Rukongai had the opportunity to become Shinigami and enter the Seireitei.
The proportion was minuscule.
When Byakuya wanted to marry a commoner, in everyone’s eyes, it was a great noble with a serious peculiar fetish.
Ichiryu could guess Suì-Fēng’s intentions now.
As a lower-ranking noble and a retainer of the Shihōin clan, Suì-Fēng’s family were confidants of the previous clan head, Yoruichi.
She held deep affection for Lady Yoruichi.
She was also bursting with a sense of responsibility.
Suì-Fēng was furious about Yoruichi’s defection.
Not out of loyalty to Soul Society, but because—you only wanted to defect with that bastard Urahara and didn’t take me with you?
For Suì-Fēng, Yoruichi’s defection was a personal betrayal.
Ichiryu couldn’t fully understand Suì-Fēng’s feelings for Yoruichi.
At the same time, influenced by Ichiryu, she had greatly improved the Punishment Force, significantly boosting its intelligence-gathering capabilities.
Originally, the Punishment Force was the first legion of the Onmitsukidō, responsible for internal executions, with slightly inferior intelligence capabilities.
Now they had discovered a black cat arriving with the intruders.
So now, the orders from Central 46—or Captain-Commander Yamamoto’s commands—could no longer restrain her.
The intruders could be wiped out after entering the Seireitei as Central 46 said, but that black cat… she didn’t want to wait a moment longer.
Ichiryu didn’t want to get involved in this sort of thing.
He didn’t want to meet the old master.
“They must be in West Rukongai,” Suì-Fēng said.
She had made up her mind to search them out.
“Do you want to choose the first 40 districts or the bottom 40 districts?”
“With such a large area, sending out the Punishment Force and the Inspection Corps is useless.
How are the two of us supposed to find anything…” Ichiryu saw she offered no opportunity to refuse.
“Fine.
I’ll choose the first forty districts.
You can suffer with the later ones.”
He had already decided—tomorrow would be a good day for slacking off. Get faster updates on g.com.
The scope of Rukongai was vast.
It would be perfectly normal not to find those intruders.
There were four Rukongai districts: east, south, west, and north.
Each was divided into 80 districts.
Each district contained hundreds of millions of souls—ordinary spirits.
The total number of souls in the Soul Society exceeded 300 billion, thirty times the number of living humans in the present world.
Only souls who died young in the present world would come to the Soul Society.
If they died here, they would reincarnate on their own without passing back through.
Souls also experienced birth, aging, sickness, and death in the Soul Society, but it was different from life in the present world.
Apart from death, they had a better way to return—reincarnation.
The number of reincarnations was limited.
In the present world, with the advancement of civilization, the population was increasing.
The number of slots for reincarnation wasn’t determined by that, but by a deeper reason.
The most basic spirit body didn’t need to eat; it only needed to freely absorb the reishi particles in the air and drink water.
This kind of spirit body had the weakest power and the shortest lifespan.
There was no real life, just waiting for death.
A relatively strong spirit body was needed to conceive new life.
This had little to do with Rukongai.
Over ninety-nine percent of the wandering souls in Rukongai didn’t have this opportunity.
The vast majority simply died in this world.
Food and other necessities were produced differently here, requiring no farming or industrial production.
The area of each district wasn’t that large.
It consisted basically of residential zones and wilderness.
Most residential areas in Rukongai were like the most crowded slums.
You could cram many wandering souls into any space, with no regard for arable land, industrial zones, or even basic reason.
Comfort was irrelevant.
In each direction of Rukongai, the higher the district number, the closer it was to the Seireitei.
The more abundant the available materials, the more complete the rules—no one wanted to live in a garbage dump.
Now that Suì-Fēng and Ichiryu were splitting the search area, Ichiryu would choose the more comfortable area with the higher numbers.
Then he would engage in some leisurely slacking.
The poor, remote districts at the tail end offered no entertainment for him at all
Done with the chapter?
You got thoughts?
Drop them.
Simple as that.