Chapter 1: Possession

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I had possessed Ryunosuke Yuki.

Who was he? An extra from a manga called Bleach.

He was such a minor character that even a Bleach fan would have trouble remembering him from his name alone.

As far as I remembered, he was the Soul Reaper assigned to Karakura Town at the beginning of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc, replacing Imoyama as its resident representative in the World of the Living.

He was an extra whose role was to make the protagonists look good—appearing only to be ganged up on by a horde of small-fry Hollows and beaten to a pulp.

...Maybe I should forget about becoming a Soul Reaper and just live an ordinary life?

*

The first problem anyone possessing another person faced while adapting to their new world was the original body's family.

You could forget the name of the man next door, but forgetting your own parents' names was a problem.

An excuse like, Come on, how am I supposed to know when they never appeared in the manga? obviously wouldn't work.

Ryunosuke's body had been that of a five-year-old child when I possessed him, but even then, I couldn't simply insist on something like that.

Fortunately, the problem was easily resolved by everyone concluding that I had amnesia.

I didn't even have to pretend.

When I first opened my eyes in Ryunosuke's body, I found myself in a hospital room. As I stared around blankly and repeatedly asked, "Who are you?" everyone else came to that conclusion on their own.

Apparently, Ryunosuke had a habit of falling asleep regardless of the time or place. This time, he had fallen asleep in a tree and tumbled out of it.

I'm lucky....

It felt as though all my luck had run out the moment I possessed him, but thinking negatively wouldn't help. I would consider myself lucky.

After that, I remained hospitalized for a while under the pretext that I needed rest and observation.

Ryunosuke's parents seemed busy with work, as they only stopped by briefly after sunset. His older brother, Rikichi Yuki, was the only one who remained by my side for long stretches of time, chattering away about one thing or another.

He mentioned plenty of distinctive terms like Soul Reapers and the Seireitei, so it didn't take long for me to realize that this was the world of the manga Bleach.

And then—

"Look, Ryunosuke. This is the hair ornament you always used to wear."

The moment I saw the hair ornament Rikichi had brought, I remembered who Ryunosuke was.

"St... Status Wiiiiindow!!!!!"

I screamed in despair at the tragic fate of an extra who was beaten into a bloody pulp within a single episode of his debut, but no radiant blue window appeared.

All I accomplished was giving myself the extra trouble of calming down the startled Rikichi.

Afterward, I considered living without becoming a Soul Reaper, but the location of Ryunosuke's home posed a problem.

Ryunosuke belonged to the Yuki Family, a family of lower nobility, and lived inside the Seireitei.

And one day, the Seireitei would be devastated by the Quincy invasion.

That meant even souls who weren't Soul Reapers would find their lives in danger as long as they lived inside the Seireitei.

I remembered that Mareyo Omaeda, another character from a family of lower nobility, had gotten a hole blown through her stomach and nearly died.

But if I left the Seireitei and went to live in Rukongai, I had a feeling my life would consist of surviving on nothing but rainwater and dust.

As a modern person who had lived surrounded by the comforts of civilization, that couldn't even be called living.

My goal had to be finding some way to survive inside the Seireitei, the only place in Soul Society where I could enjoy anything remotely resembling civilization.

...First, I should try to become a Soul Reaper as quickly as possible.

I didn't know whether I had any talent, but it had to be better than doing nothing.

"Why are you spacing out again? Does your head hurt?"

"No. I just have a few things to think about."

Rikichi, the guy sitting beside me, was a talented Soul Reaper who had risen to Third Seat in a short span of time.

Ryunosuke was his younger brother, so surely this body had some talent as well.

The original Ryunosuke seemed to have been so lazy that he did nothing but sleep all day. That must have been why his talent never had the chance to bloom.

It had to be.

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