Rukongai - Zaraki (District 80)

  A lithe woman with long, raven-bck hair cascading freely strolled through the swirling sands. A shallow-hilted bde hung at her waist, and the white haori draped over her jet-bck kimono fluttered fiercely in the wind. Her straw sandals tread upon the billowing dust, yet not a single grain clung to them, as though she were drifting on the breeze itself.

  Her delicate, refined features bore a shadow of mencholy.

  Long.

  Far too long.

  For a woman who had endured a millennium of sughter, who had come to see killing and swordpy as the very essence of her existence through endless periods, a life devoid of worthy opponents was an agony that stretched into eternity.

  To master the art of the bde, she had studied over eight thousand schools of swordsmanship across countless years.

  To refine the most exquisite techniques of death, she had swung her sword ceaselessly in this boundless world of the dead, cutting down everything her eyes could perceive until nothing remained.

  To prolong the thrill of killing and being killed, she had even twisted her own soul, molding her Zanpakutō, the mirror of her heart, into a form capable of healing both others and herself.

  Every strike drew blood. She savored the icy sting of an enemy’s bde piercing her flesh, only to regenerate at blinding speed and plunge her own steel back into their body.

  All of this, she did to revel eternally in the ecstasy of combat.

  She needed no reason to kill.

  Without a fight, how could she measure the worth of her swordsmanship?

  Without sughter, how could she know if her foe had truly given their all?

  “Battle is everything.”

  Such was Yachiru Unohana—a woman who, across untold millennia, had carved her infamy throughout the Soul Society with blood and bde, an unprecedented vilin without equal in its history.

  Yet, after this endless saga of carnage, she began to feel her days of battle slowly drawing to a close.

  As time marched on and her power grew, the woman known as Yachiru Unohana could no longer find anyone capable of touching her in combat as they once had.

  For a soul who yearned to be pierced by steel, to be enveloped by killing intent, this realization brought a profound emptiness—a void she could only describe as “living.”

  No purpose. No anticipation.

  Everything was a bnk ste.

  From Junrinan to Zaraki, those who could withstand even a single stroke of her bde were few and far between.

  Even when she traded her sword for a knife no longer than a finger, they all crumpled just the same.

  Life…

  So endlessly long.

  “If only I could fall into Hell,” she murmured.

  “Why, after killing so many, can I still not descend into that abyss?”

  “Is death truly the only way to get there?”

  The graceful figure of Yachiru Unohana paused in her tracks, her voice a soft, low whisper.

  “A pce that gathers the essence of a million years of the Soul Society, where all the mightiest fallen Shinigami converge… Even the dregs left behind would be irredeemable fiends of immense strength.”

  “If I could live in a pce like that, perhaps it would fill the void within me.”

  She longed to keep living, yet craved endless sughter to sate a heart emptier than any Hollow’s.

  Yachiru Unohana was a woman of insatiable greed.

  But just as she found herself lost in this familiar yearning for the umpteenth time, a figure emerged from the distant sands, approaching slowly.

  That silhouette clearly noticed her as well, freezing in pce the moment their eyes caught her form.

  This was Zaraki.

  A nd of utter desotion, savagery, sughter, and fear.

  The rgest, poorest, and most warped fringe of the Rukongai—a hellish arena on the edge of existence.

  Countless souls cshed with scavenged bdes, fighting tooth and nail for scraps of food and water, all for the sake of survival.

  Those “Wholes” who needed neither sustenance nor drink were devoured the instant they appeared by the ravenous “monsters” who craved flesh—for even their bodies were made of reishi, after all.

  What remained was a battlefield of the strong against the strong.

  Every soul encountered here was an enemy.

  Their appearance mattered not.

  Yachiru Unohana had been born in this very pce, so she understood its rules better than anyone.

  Yet the behavior of the child standing across from her was… peculiar.

  He lingered at a distance, watching her intently, hesitating for a long while before finally calling out from afar:

  “…Excuse me, are you from the Seireitei?”

  Yachiru Unohana cast him a fleeting, casual gnce.

  Weak reiatsu.

  For a frail little thing like this to survive in a pce like Zaraki—could it really be possible?

  She couldn’t decide whether to call him fortunate or pitiable.

  The flicker of sentiment within Yachiru Unohana sted only a moment.

  Having sin far too many over the endless years, she had grown utterly numb to the concept of “life” itself.

  Compassion, sorrow, fear—such tender emotions were even further beyond her grasp.

  With scarcely a pause, she turned and began to drift toward another direction.

  Weaklings held no allure for her.

  Yet, despite her clear mercy in sparing him, the boy—far from retreating—seemed to grow excited at the sight of her departure. He broke into a run, his steps eager, calling out from a distance:

  “Are you leaving this pce?”

  “Please take me with you!”

  “I’ve been starving for days. There’s no water around here, and I…”

  To Yachiru Unohana, the desperate cries of this feeble “Whole” were no different from the shrill wails of an infant rousing her in the dead of night.

  Irritating.

  And so, she stopped.

  She turned, her gaze meeting the boy’s stunned expression as she slowly drew a small, elegant knife—barely the length of a finger—from her sleeve.

  In the next instant, a fsh of brilliant white gleamed in the boy’s eyes.

  Cng.

  Metal cshed fiercely against metal, sparks fring in a dazzling burst.

  The boy’s face still carried that bewildered shock, yet his hands had moved almost instinctively, drawing a battered asauchi from his waist, its sheath worn and splintered.

  The sheath shattered apart, revealing a poorly maintained katana within.

  A glint of surprise flickered in Yachiru Unohana’s eyes.

  But by then, the boy had snapped to his senses. With a reflexive burst of Shunpo, he slid back a dozen meters in an instant.

  Wary.

  Every muscle taut.

  Only now did Yachiru Unohana truly look at the boy before her with intent.

  He appeared to have died at fourteen or fifteen—lean and wiry, with a face that could be called handsome. His long hair was tied back with a twist of grass roots, and he wore a tattered brown kosode, its right sleeve rolled up and bound with a frayed cord. The lower half of his garment had been roughly torn away for ease of movement, exposing thin, sinewy legs. His feet were bare, save for a single strand of grass rope dangling between his toes.

  He looked every bit the refugee, dressed for survival and little else.

  That asauchi at his waist—likely snatched from someone’s cold hands, she mused.

  Yachiru Unohana’s eyes narrowed slightly, her heart giving a faint, shallow thump.

  He was still weak.

  Yet in that fleeting moment when he’d swung his bde with a dazed expression, she felt an inexplicable jolt—a disorienting sensation, as though she were gazing into a mirror. Like her, this boy had forged swordsmanship into his very instincts.

  He’s trained his swordpy down to his marrow.

  Intriguing.

  A fine source of amusement.

  Unbeknownst to her, a faint, pleased smile had crept onto Yachiru Unohana’s graceful features.

  In the endless expanse of her life, it seemed there were still small pleasures to be found.