Chapter 4: Field Test in the Human Past
The air in the Senkaimon corridor shimmered with the sterile scent of the Dangai. Kuroto, along with twenty other sixth-year students, marched in tense silence, their new Shihakushō still stiff and unfamiliar. This was the final field test: a three-day deployment to the Human World, 450 years before the bustling modernity Kuroto faintly remembered. Their objectives were simple: perform Konsō on lingering Pluses, observe Hollow activity from a safe distance, and survive.
Captain Retsu Unohana, her presence a paradox of gentle warmth and bone-deep authority, oversaw the deployment. "You will go in pairs," she said, her voice soft yet carrying perfectly. "Observe the protocol. Protect the living from the dead, and guide the dead to peace. Do not engage Hollows unless absolutely necessary. Signal for backup. Your lives are not yet currency to be spent lightly."
Kuroto was paired with Yuna, a diligent, sharp-eyed girl proficient in Kido. It was a good pairing; she was competent but not overly curious, focused on procedure.
The Senkaimon opened, and they stepped into a world of muted colors and raw smells. The "town" was a collection of wooden and plaster houses with thatched roofs, separated by dirt roads that turned to mud under the constant drizzle. The air smelled of smoke, earth, dung, and unwashed humanity. Peasants in coarse clothing shuffled through the streets, their spiritual pressure faint and dim, completely unaware of the Shinigami walking among them. It was a world of quiet hardship, a stark contrast to the ordered grandeur of the Seireitei.
Part 1: The Routine and the First Taste
For two days, it was monotonous work. They found Pluses clinging to their former homes, confused and sorrowful. Kuroto watched Yuna perform the ritual first—the respectful approach, the gentle touch of the hilt to the forehead, the soft glow of the soul being sent to the Soul Society. When it was his turn, he mimicked her actions perfectly. He focused on his reiryoku, channeling it through the Jigokuchō emblem on the hilt of his Asauchi, visualizing the forming of the butterfly-like chain. The soul, a weeping young man who had drowned in the river, looked at him with desperate eyes. Kuroto touched the hilt to his forehead.
"Pass on, and be at peace."
A soft light enveloped the Plus, its form dissolving into a gentle stream that soared upward, invisible to the living. A sense of quiet satisfaction, different from battle prowess, settled in Kuroto. This was the core duty, the fundamental act of balance. He performed it a dozen more times, the action becoming smoother, more instinctual. Yuna nodded in approval. "You have a calm touch, Sato-san. It's important."
Part 2: The Hollows and the True Test
On the third day, they sensed the first Hollow. Its spiritual pressure was a greasy, hungry smear on the edge of their perception—a base, mindless creature drawn to a cluster of souls in a rundown shrine. Following protocol, Yuna prepared to send a Hell Butterfly signal.
"Wait," Kuroto said, his voice low. "It's alone. And small. We are supposed to learn to assess threat levels, right? We can observe from the treeline. If it notices us or goes for a living human, we signal and engage defensively."
Yuna hesitated, then nodded. It was a reasonable, by-the-book suggestion. They concealed their pressure and watched.
The Hollow was a pathetic thing, a twisted fusion of a large boar and a screaming human face, scuttling on too many legs. It was feeding on the grief-energy of the Pluses, too weak to actually consume them.
"Stay here," Kuroto whispered. "I'm going to circle around and drive the Pluses away. Once they scatter, the Hollow will likely leave. Less risk."
Before Yuna could argue, he moved, using basic Hohō to blur through the dense forest, circling wide. This was his chance. Not to show off, but to measure.
He emerged downwind of the Hollow. He didn't draw his Asauchi. Instead, he focused inward, on a modest, humming mirror in his Gallery—the one holding the Paralyzing Dagger. With a thought and a trickle of reiryoku, his Asauchi shimmered and was replaced by a simple, bone-white stiletto in his palm. The cost was negligible.
He flicked his wrist. The dagger flew silently, embedding itself in the Hollow's fleshy side. The creature let out a choked gurgle. Instantly, a grayish film spread from the wound, locking its limbs in place. It toppled over, its malevolent eyes wide with confusion. Kuroto walked over, his steps quiet. The Hollow was helpless, a specimen. He placed his Asauchi (reformed in his hand) against its mask.
"Pass on, and be at peace."
The Hollow dissolved not into the Soul Society, but into the hellish cascade of a soul being cleansed of its sin in a much more violent manner. The feedback was jarring, a spike of chaotic energy. He absorbed the sensation. A direct hit with a low-cost reflection can incapacitate a basic Hollow. Good data.
He retrieved the spiritual impression of the Paralyzing Dagger before it faded, letting the Asauchi return to its base state. When he returned to Yuna, she only saw him sheathing his sword. "The Pluses scattered. The Hollow lost interest and moved off into the woods," he said simply. She believed him.
Part 3: The Gillian and the Supreme Price
Their confidence was short-lived. That evening, as a blood-red sun dipped below the horizon, the sky tore open.
A Garganta. And from it, a massive, lumbering form descended, crushing a deserted mill under its weight. It was a Gillian, a Menos Grande. A towering, white-bodied titan with a elongated mask and a single, blank eye hole. Its spiritual pressure crashed down over the village like a tidal wave of despair, cold and vast.
Panic erupted among the living, a primal fear they couldn't understand. Yuna's face went pale. "We run. Now. We signal and run." It was the only correct order.
But Kuroto didn't move. The Gillian wasn't attacking the village. It was shambling towards the dense forest, perhaps following a scent of stronger spiritual prey. It would pass within half a mile. And in that moment, a reckless, vital question burned in Kuroto's mind: What is the gap?
He needed to know the scale. The Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown had vaporized stone. What would it do to a Menos?
"Go, Yuna. Send the signal. Get to the extraction point," he said, his voice eerily calm.
"What are you doing?!"
"Creating a diversion. Drawing it away from the village. Go!"
He didn't wait for her reply. He flash-stepped away, not towards safety, but on an intercept course with the Gillian's path, staying concealed within the tree line. He could feel Yuna's reiryoku fading as she fled. Good. He was alone.
The Gillian loomed before him, a skyscraper of bleached bone and shadow. Its mindless aura was oppressive. This was insanity. This was necessary.
He drew his Asauchi. He would have one shot. He delved into the deepest, most costly recess of his Gallery, past the humming mirrors, to the one that pulsed with a cold, supreme authority. The Staff.
His reiryoku, deepened by months of brutal training, surged into Kagami no Sho. "Reflect it! Kagami no Sho!"
The silent shatter was a physical pain. The world around the tip of his sword seemed to crack like flawed glass. From the fracture, darkness poured forth, coalescing into the obsidian form of the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown. It slammed into his grip, and instantly, his spiritual energy began to hemorrhage. It felt like his soul was being vacuumed out through his bones. He had minutes. Seconds, if he attacked.
The Gillian, sensing the bizarre, alien pressure, stopped. Its single eye-socket tilted down towards the tiny spark of power at its feet.
Kuroto didn't chant. He didn't know spells. He understood the staff's core function: Amplification and Dominion. He pointed the crimson orb at the Gillian's massive leg, pouring every ounce of his will and remaining reiryoku into a single, undirected command.
"ANNIHILATE."
The world went silent, then roared.
A pillar of pure, condensed negative energy, wider than a house, erupted from the staff. It was not red or black, but a void of color that swallowed sound and light. It struck the Gillian's leg.
There was no explosion. There was erasure.
A perfect cylindrical section of the Menos Grande, from the knee downward, simply ceased to exist. The creature teetered, a silent monument of confusion, before crashing to the earth with a ground-shaking impact. The remaining white mass began to dissolve rapidly into motes of reishi, the collective souls within it screaming silently as they were purged.
Kuroto collapsed. The Staff disintegrated. He lay in the mud, utterly drained, his vision swimming, his body feeling hollow and brittle. He had done it. He had scarred a Menos. But the cost… he couldn't move. He was utterly vulnerable.
The sound of multiple flash-steps echoed around him. Reinforcements—a team of seated officers from the 13th Division—arrived, led by a grim-faced lieutenant. They saw the dissolving remains of the Gillian, the massive, cleanly obliterated crater in the earth, and the barely-conscious academy student lying nearby.
"Kid! What happened here?" the lieutenant barked, hauling him up.
Kuroto, using the last dregs of his will, feigned dazed confusion. "I… I don't know… It was there… then a light…" He let his eyes roll back, submitting to unconsciousness. It was the only play.
Part 4: The Selection
Back in the Seireitei, in the clean, quiet infirmary, the debriefing was tense. Yuna reported his "diversionary tactic." The officers found no evidence of another combatant, only the bizarre, non-Kido, non-Cero energy residue at the site and Kuroto's depleted state. The official report was vague: "Academy Student Sato engaged in unauthorized, reckless diversionary action against a Gillian. The Gillian was apparently destroyed by an unknown, intervening phenomenon. Student Sato severely exhausted, no major injuries. Disciplinary note added to file."
It was a black mark, but also a curious footnote. He was seen as either insanely lucky or hiding something, but his obvious weakness and the lack of any weapon but his standard Asauchi pointed away from the latter.
A week later, the squad selection list was posted in the academy courtyard. Kuroto stood before it, his body recovered, his spirit deeper and more tempered from the ordeal. The near-death drain had, in a terrible way, expanded his capacity.
His name was listed under multiple divisions, a middling candidate due to his average grades and now his disciplinary note. But he had choices.
· The 4th Division (Medical): Safe. Unobtrusive. A place to heal and hide. But under Unohana's gentle, all-seeing gaze? Dangerous.
· The 9th Division (Security & Magazine): Kensei Muguruma's division. Direct, combat-focused, but with a media wing. A place to be competent in the open.
· The 13th Division (First & Eastern Defense): The division that had responded to the Gillian. They had seen the aftermath. They might have questions, but they were also a front-line division with a broad mandate. A place where field action was constant, and a strange, unexplained event on one's record might be overlooked in favor of proven, if reckless, courage.
He felt a familiar, placid pressure beside him. Aizen didn't look at the board; he looked at Kuroto.
"A curious outcome to your field test, Sato-san. An 'unknown phenomenon.' The universe is full of such mysteries, isn't it?"
Kuroto kept his eyes on the board. "It seems so, Aizen-san."
"The 12th Division has a remarkable tolerance for mysteries," Aizen said softly, almost musingly. "They seek to understand the fundamental rules, so that even anomalies can be quantified." He paused, letting the suggestion hang. Then he added, as if an afterthought, "Of course, a more... action-oriented division might value decisive initiative, even if its source is unclear."
It was a nudge, but a subtler one. Aizen was presenting two paths: the intellectual dissection of the 12th, or the pragmatic utility of a combat division. Kuroto knew the 12th was a web of Aizen's design, a place where he would be dissected. But a combat division like the 9th or 13th… there, he could be a useful, if puzzling, tool. A weapon of unknown make. And tools, if sharp enough, are often left in their sheaths until needed, their inner workings ignored so long as they cut true.
His gaze drifted away from the 12th Division's listing. He thought of the Gillian's leg vanishing into nothingness, of the raw power he had touched and the terrible cost. He needed to master that, not be studied for it. He needed a forge, not a microscope. A place where strength spoke louder than questions, and where his carefully curated "reckless bravery" could be an asset, not just a mark.
He reached out, his finger hovering over the list. He would not walk into the gilded cage of the researchers. He would go where his type of chaos could be channeled, and where the expectations would be straightforward: fight, survive, obey.
His finger came down, making his choice. He would join the 9th Division, under Captain Kensei Muguruma. A division of fighters and writers, where he could hone his body and blade in the open, and hide the prismatic truth of his soul in the shadow of simple, violent duty.