Chapter 11: Meditation
Ever since I possessed this body, my foremost goal had always been to grow stronger.
So I would not be killed by some tissue-paper Hollow.
So I would not have to live as a pauper in Rukongai.
So I could live a more comfortable life.
So I would not be swept away and erased by Aizen.
So I would not die and vanish amid the chaos of war.
All of it had been for my own preservation.
But at some point, other goals began to emerge.
I made friends. I gained comrades. I found mentors.
As I clashed and became entangled with them, feelings took root between us.
Those invisible, weightless feelings swelled like a rolling snowball, until their gravity began to shake me without mercy.
Those who should have been mere characters had become people standing by my side.
When would I finally be able to act as my heart desired?
When I achieved Bankai and gained the strength of a captain?
When I became strong enough to defeat the Espada?
Or would it be when I became strong enough for Yhwach to name me a Special War Power?
Was Kurosaki Ichigo—the protagonist—able to live so freely because he possessed overwhelming potential befitting his role?
["...You already know the answer, don’t you?"]
I slowly opened my eyes at the sound of the voice.
What greeted me was not the familiar training ground, but an entirely different vista.
My inner world.
The blue sky was fractured in a chaotic web. Light hung like veils between the cracks—sometimes golden, sometimes white, and sometimes red.
Clank—clank—
In the city behind me, enormous gears as large as mountains turned without pause, roaring as though the entire place were one colossal factory.
Before me stretched a vast beach and an endless sea. There were no people, no fish, and no birds.
["We’ve been seeing each other often, Master."]
A girl stood there, with long hair that rippled like the midday sky and eyes that illuminated the world like the setting sun.
"I’d like to see you ‘outside’ soon too."
["How does your body feel? Is it comfortable?"]
"...."
["Have you found somewhere you want to go?"]
"Do I need one?"
The sea reflected in my eyes was vast and utterly still, without so much as a wave.
["There are paths everywhere. You can go anywhere you wish. That’s why you were given legs."]
She did not answer my question. She merely said whatever she wished to say.
As though every word she would speak had already been decided.
["You know that, don’t you?"]
**
I had begun training to attain Bankai. As a result, I was now lying in the infirmary of the Fourth Division, the Gotei 13’s specialist relief and medical unit.
The reason I had ended up in the Fourth Division’s infirmary instead of using the secret hot spring beneath Sōkyoku Hill was simple.
It had all begun with the completion of the "Reishi Flow Conversion Acceleration Barrier," or the "Reishi Flow Conversion Array" for short—an improved version of the Reishi Convergence Array that Captain Jushiro Ukitake and I had developed together.
The Reishi Flow Conversion Array had been created by discarding everything about the original design except its central premise: training in a harsh environment.
As an analogy, the Reishi Convergence Array had been designed to reproduce the pressure of the deep earth, while the Reishi Flow Conversion Array sought to create an environment akin to a raging storm and allow someone to train within it.
The original Reishi Convergence Array worked by artificially creating a massive lake of Reishi. The Reishi Flow Conversion Array, meanwhile, was installed where multiple natural currents of Reishi converged, then twisted and accelerated those currents to create turbulence.
I had formally submitted a paper to my superiors and received certification that the design was safe. It had also passed a low-output test after we installed a barrier on a small mountain at the edge of Rukongai.
The problem arose when we tried to put it into practical use by raising the barrier’s output to a level suitable for training.
We needed a place where several Reishi currents converged, but there was nowhere suitable. There were plenty of places where the barrier could technically be activated, but none strong enough to use for training.
Training in a gentle breeze would accomplish nothing beyond setting the mood.
The only suitable location I found was the secret training ground beneath Sōkyoku Hill.
The place was already filled with a chaotic tangle of Reishi currents, which also explained why it was so easy to conceal the location and erase any traces of it.
In any case, I could not exactly tell anyone that the secret training ground existed. So I tried installing the barrier by myself, and the result was—
Boom!
"Gaaagh!!"
I was spectacularly blown to hell.
The Reishi Flow Conversion Array had been installed successfully. The problem was its intensity.
The Reishi began surging with propulsion far beyond anything its creator had anticipated and slammed me into a wall in an instant.
My internal injuries were severe, but I could not even enter the healing hot spring. The center of the currents was directly above it.
The barrier’s center had shifted far away from the position in the original design.
Looking back, I was certain that the hot spring—a replica of Tenjirō Kirinji’s hot spring in the Royal Guard—had influenced the barrier somehow.
I had designed the barrier so it could be deactivated from its center, but forget deactivating it—I could not even approach the center in its current state.
I had created the barrier to train for Bankai, yet the result was an absurd barrier that no Soul Reaper without Bankai could even enter.
After that, I crawled out of the secret training ground and somehow dragged myself to the Fourth Division. That brought the story to the present.
...Before putting it into widespread use, I needed to develop a way to deactivate it from outside. If another accident occurred, there was no telling who might get hurt.
Slide—
Just then, I heard the door to my hospital room open.
"Ah, Lieutenant Isane... Oh, it’s you, Captain Unohana."
"My apologies for being me."
"Not at all. I can only be grateful that you’re treating me personally, Captain. I was merely surprised."
"Is that so? What a shame."
"...?"
The person originally assigned to treat me was Isane Kotetsu, lieutenant of the Fourth Division.
Why had her superior come in her place? My injuries were certainly complicated, but they were not so severe that Isane’s Kaidō could not handle them.
"Lieutenant Isane took leave today because she had something to attend to. Hehe. I believe you may look forward to it."
"Look forward to what...?"
"Oh my, that was a slip of the tongue... More importantly, your injuries. You said you suffered them while training for Bankai, correct?"
The injuries caused by the barrier running out of control were unusual enough that I could not pass them off by claiming I had fallen down a mountain or something.
Fortunately, the trials given by the manifested true forms of Zanpakuto differed wildly from one to another, making that the perfect excuse. It was not a complete lie, either.
"Yes... Manifesting her wasn’t difficult, but she became extremely demanding after that."
"My, my... Achieving manifestation at your age is admirable. You should make a fine match."
"Thank you...?"
A match? Surely she did not mean as an opponent in a sword fight.
Retsu Unohana went without saying, and no matter how much Kenpachi Zaraki had sealed away his own strength, without Bankai I would simply be cut down in an instant.
"Your condition has improved considerably. Starting today, light exercise... No, even fairly strenuous exercise should pose no problem."
With that, she left. Thankfully, that was the only day Unohana came to treat me.
Her skill with Kaidō was second to none, but knowing that a murderous demon lurked inside her made it rather uncomfortable to have her nearby.
**
Kiyone Kotetsu, Third Seat of the Gotei 13’s Thirteenth Division, sometimes looked at her older sister, Isane Kotetsu, with anxious eyes.
As a Soul Reaper, Isane was more than capable enough to serve as a lieutenant. The problem was her life as a woman.
Never having dated a man in her life was one thing, but she did not even seem interested in meeting one.
One might expect her to meet other people on her days off, yet she visited Kiyone every single day without fail and spent all her free time with her.
Kiyone enjoyed their time together just as much, but she had begun to worry that the two of them might end up spending every holiday together for the rest of their lives.
When Kiyone happened to spot Ryunosuke and his classmates while meeting with her sister and asked to join their table, she had not been pursuing any grand scheme.
She had merely thought that since Ryunosuke and Isane had certain similarities in their personalities, he might become a good friend who could help Isane grow more comfortable around men.
"Um... Kiyone? Ryunosuke seems to have a lot of female friends around him... Like Rukia Kuchiki and Momo Hinamori."
"There’s nothing going on between him and either of them, Isane."
How could Kiyone ever have imagined it? Her sister had grown so desperate not to get any taller after passing 170 centimeters that she had lived on porridge, yet now she was showing interest in Ryunosuke, who had barely broken 160.
"Come on, Isane! Ryunosuke doesn’t like short hair, at the very least!"
"But if I change it too much, it’ll look as if I’m overly conscious of him...!"
"It won’t! Absolutely not! If you’re that worried, let’s only grow it out to a bob."
Kiyone saw Ryunosuke’s admission to the Fourth Division’s infirmary as a golden opportunity.
If she left her painfully insecure sister to her own devices, Isane would undoubtedly treat him in a purely professional manner and leave it at that.
But what if Kiyone herself stepped in?
With that thought in mind, she arranged for their days off to coincide and dragged her sister to a recently opened hair salon. It had become a sensation thanks to the development of a proprietary Kidō capable of adjusting the length of a person’s hair.
Other than Isane, the only person capable of treating Ryunosuke was her captain, Retsu Unohana, so Kiyone had expected getting leave to be the greatest obstacle. But after hearing Kiyone’s explanation, Unohana had readily granted permission.
And so Isane’s short cut, which had left her ears exposed, was transformed into a neat blunt bob.
Kiyone had to extend her own leave through the following day for Isane’s sake.
After all, she needed to shove Isane inside when she inevitably hesitated outside the infirmary where Ryunosuke was staying. For some reason, Captain Unohana had joined them as well.
Sliiide— The sound of the infirmary’s sliding door opening seemed particularly drawn out today.
For the sake of its patients’ peace, the Fourth Division’s infirmary was protected by a barrier that allowed sounds from inside to travel out freely while preventing outside noises from entering. It was perfect for eavesdropping.
"Um... Ryunosuke, how are you feeling?"
"Excellent. I don’t feel stiff or sore anywhere anymore."
For some time after that, all Kiyone heard was useless chatter about his physical condition and changes to the medicine he needed to take.
"This is bad... Please, Ryunosuke, just notice already!!"
Click, click. Kiyone gnawed at her thumbnail.
"Come to think of it, Isane, you changed your hairstyle."
"Y-Yes. I just... My sister suggested that I try changing it...."
"It looks good on you."
Crash!
Kiyone stared in horror as her sister came barreling out of the room.
What was she, a ten-year-old girl?!
"Wh-What are you doing, Isane?! You can’t run away at a moment like that!"
"But...!"
This was bad. In Kiyone’s experience, Isane was not easy to calm down once she reached this state.
"Isane, go back inside."
"C-Captain Unohana?"
The one who brought her under control was Retsu Unohana.
She spoke gently with her usual kind smile, but the chilling shadow cast across her face exerted tremendous pressure.
"I will say it once more. Go back inside."
"Y-Yes!!"
Retsu Unohana.
She had no interest in men herself unless they were running her through with a sword, but when it came to other people’s love lives, the chairwoman of the Shinigami Women’s Association was overflowing with enthusiasm.
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