'Would it have turned out differently?'
Komamura Sajin lay on the ground barely alive, unable to stop his thoughts from wandering.
Because Soul Society's system had been unjust from the start and protected the murderer. Because of that, Kaname Tosen, who had completely lost faith in justice, chose without hesitation to walk toward Aizen, who was willing to listen to him.
And because Aizen gave Kaname Tosen the power to take revenge and let him personally carry out the greatest justice in his heart, to repay that understanding and fulfillment, there was nothing wrong with what Kaname Tosen did.
'Then if I have been the one to help Kaname Tosen, would the result have been different?'
'Not only that...'
Komamura Sajin sadly realized that after hearing Aizen's words, he even felt Rosse might actually be right.
'Has Rosse really done anything wrong?'
'It seemed he really has not.'
'He was always doing the right thing, doing things beneficial to Soul Society.'
'Instead, it was us captains who all had our own calculations.'
'If we have not carried those selfish thoughts, then under Rosse's guidance, could Soul Society have had a brighter future?'
Even more so. If today, the people gathered here had not come aggressively to force the issue and question him, if instead they had let go of those prejudices that never should have existed and sincerely asked Rosse about ways to solve the crisis of the Three Worlds, calmly discussing solutions together, would the ending have been different?
When Komamura Sajin honestly asked himself, he realized he never truly had that much prejudice against Rosse.
Whether Rosse came from another world or whether he was the king of Hueco Mundo, there was no denying that he was also the Captain-Commander of Soul Society, carrying out his own justice.
If people developed prejudice against someone because of their identity, was that not itself an act of injustice?
If one put aside that traditional righteousness which was already built on prejudice and simply looked at the facts, during the years Rosse served as acting Captain-Commander and later officially took power, the new policies he introduced gave commoners in Rukongai a chance to rise, and gave the Gotei 13 vitality it had never seen before.
His achievements and vision truly far surpassed Captain-Commander Yamamoto.
So Komamura Sajin concluded that if he were truly walking the path of justice, then he should not have dragged Rosse down at this moment.
He should have firmly stood on Rosse's side and, in turn, cleaned up the others causing chaos, with everyone facing the problem together instead of flipping the table and causing things to become irreversible like now.
"What a shame..."
Komamura Sajin quietly lay in the pool of blood. His life was rapidly fading, and his vision was becoming blurry.
"Too late... I can't see that ending full of possibilities anymore..."
In his fading final moments, the sky reflected in Komamura Sajin's dimming pupils.
He saw ripples spreading through the sky high above.
Two godlike figures were stepping down from the heavens one step at a time, as though walking invisible stairs, calmly descending toward the battlefield below.
The tall figure walking in front was someone he could never mistake.
"Captain-Commander... Rosse..."
Komamura Sajin's lips moved slightly. In a voice only he could hear, he whispered the final words of his life.
"Maybe I, Komamura Sajin, was the truly foolish and unjust person all along..."
"My whole life, I talked about righteousness and called myself justice itself. But in the end, I never once carried out true justice that could save the weak... I also never had the resolve or ability to cast aside old beliefs and follow the justice in my own heart..."
Komamura Sajin stared fixedly at that descending upright figure.
His huge eyes remained open as the final trace of light representing life in them completely disappeared.
Komamura Sajin, dead.
[T/N: I was hoping, Rosse would give him a chance after he admitted his fault. But, I guess not.]
———
In the sky, Rosse slowly stepped downward as though walking on invisible stairs.
But midway through the air, his tall figure paused slightly for half a second.
He looked down over the scorched battlefield below, his gaze passing over countless fallen bodies before landing on the giant wolf corpse that no longer breathed.
The next moment, Rosse calmly raised a hand. Across a thousand meters of empty space, his fingertip lightly brushed downward.
On the battlefield, a tiny breeze made from spirit particles swept across Komamura Sajin's blood-covered face.
Those eyes that had remained open even in death, filled with confusion and regret, quietly closed under the touch of an invisible hand.
Even while inside the Soul King Palace, every detail below had remained within Rosse's perception.
Komamura Sajin's sorrowful muttering before death, Like sleep talk, had also reached his ears completely.
It had to be said, this show really was wonderful.
A nearly invisible curve rose at the corner of Rosse's mouth.
His life would be very long. Aside from his endless pursuit of evolution, human nature would forever remain his favorite seasoning.
Human nature was complicated.
And it was precisely because of that complexity that fragile creatures like humans could shine so brightly in desperate situations.
Whether it was Kuchiki Ginrei's resolve, Hirako Shinji's foolishness, Zaraki Kenpachi's madness, or Komamura Sajin's self-trapping justice, every kind of humanity pushed to its limit was scenery Rosse enjoyed the most.
He liked making good people fall, making bad people improve, helping those with weak will become firm, making strong-willed people lose their way, making righteous people stain themselves with sin, and making sinners forever fail to get what they wanted.
Of course, this kind of cruel amusement was only aimed at enemies standing against him.
If someone was willing to lower their head and become one of his own people, Rosse had never minded showing the tolerance expected of a king and fulfilling any wish they had.
This was the bearing he should possess as a king standing above the heavens.
It was not because he needed to deliberately please his subordinates, but because those willing to entrust their loyalty and lives to him deserved to have their wishes fulfilled under his protection.
But Komamura Sajin was different. He would never become one of them.
From the very beginning, no matter what choice he made, the rigid righteousness at the core of his nature ensured he could never walk toward the same future as Rosse.
So Komamura Sajin's ending had already been decided the moment Rosse descended into this world.
Because he called himself righteous, Rosse and Aizen used the cruelest and most merciless method to tear apart his pride and bring him toward a tragic ending.
The ending of this play had unfolded exactly as Rosse wished, and he felt very satisfied.
"Look, he's here."
On the ground, Aizen also slightly raised his head.
He casually flicked the blood droplets from Kyoka Suigetsu's blade, adjusted the spotless black-rimmed glasses on his face, and smiled as he looked up at the two descending figures in the sky.
"Rosse! You... what did you do to the Soul King?"
Hyosube Ichibe used his thick arm to forcefully support himself against the ground and struggled to raise his upper body.
He suddenly coughed up a large mouthful of blood mixed with pieces of internal organs. His bloodshot eyes, wide as bells, glared at Rosse approaching closer and closer with both fury and fear.
He could not sense even the slightest trace of spiritual pressure from Rosse. It was like staring into endless emptiness.
But since Rosse had already gone to the Soul King's inner palace and now appeared here completely unharmed while also severing their connection with the Soul King.
In Ichibe's understanding, there was now only one possibility.
The Soul King had completely perished and been devoured cleanly by this bastard before them like a beast feeding.
"He's dead. I helped free him."
Facing Ichibe's questioning, Rosse still sounded casual.
"He spent millions of years in this tiny cage as a limbless human kept out of sight. As a remnant of the old era, it was time for him to enter his eternal sleep."
"Dead... dead? Hahaha... HAHAHAHAHA!"
Hearing that definite answer, Hyosube Ichibe suddenly burst into loud laughter like a madman.
His laughter carried despair and misery. Tears mixed with blood dripped continuously from his charred beard.
"Then it's all over! Just as you wanted, outsider! Without the wedge, all of Soul Society and even the Three Worlds will collapse now! Look well, you idiots! This is the Captain-Commander you chose to follow! He's a complete destroyer!"
Supporting himself with his arms, Ichibe roared hoarsely toward the silent Shinigami around him.
At this moment, Ichibe truly could not think of any way to turn things around.
In terms of absolute strength, even combined together, their entire rebel alliance could not get past Aizen, much less Rosse in the sky who had just killed the Soul King.
As for intelligence and planning, the two men before them had toyed with them like puppets from beginning to end.
Not only Ichibe. The surviving Shinigami still clinging to life all stared hopelessly at Rosse standing easily in the empty air, their minds blank, completely unable to think of what to do.
Against someone who could casually kill the Soul King, the swords in their hands looked laughable.
Within that suffocating silence, Kyoraku Shunsui painfully used his broken Zanpakuto to support himself against the ground and forced his swaying body upright.
He raised his head, stared hard at Rosse, and suddenly spoke:
"You shouldn't be this kind of person. The Soul King may be dead... but things won't end this simply now, right? Rosse!"
Compared to the simple despair of the others, Kyoraku Shunsui understood Rosse's way of doing things more clearly.
He had personally been trapped by Rosse before.
Even though he usually acted lazy and unreliable, deep down the person he respected most was still old man Yamamoto, who was like a mountain and blazing fire.
And not long ago, it was he himself who had been misled by Kyoka Suigetsu and personally stabbed through Captain-Commander Yamamoto's chest.
Even though most of the misunderstanding had now been cleared up, back then, in front of all the Gotei 13 captains, old man Yamamoto had died in Kyoraku Shunsui's arms.
That sense of guilt was almost enough to completely crush his soul.
He had fallen into despair. He had felt hopeless. He had felt powerless.
The only reason he kept forcing his broken body to survive until now was because he wanted to personally see whether anyone could stop Rosse.
How exactly would this bastard who deserved to die ten thousand times meet his end, or how would he ascend to the top?
Now the result was clear. Rosse had indeed won.
But the way he won did not feel like Rosse.
In the understanding of traditional Shinigami like Kyoraku Shunsui, protecting the Soul King was the core of this war.
If the Soul King died and the Three Worlds collapsed, then everyone would simply die together.
Unless they could quickly defeat the now stronger Rosse, capture him alive, and turn him into a new limbless human wedge.
But that was clearly impossible.
However, from Kyoraku Shunsui's observations of Rosse, this man carried an absolute arrogance deep in his bones, as though he stood above everything.
A chess player who constantly toyed with them like a cat playing with mice and always had complete confidence would never secretly kill the Soul King first and then run down here to show off and clean up the aftermath like some sneaky thief.
That did not fit Rosse's personality.
In Rosse's logic, he likely never believed he could lose, so naturally there was no need to sneak attack the Soul King Palace.
Unless... in Rosse's eyes, the Soul King himself was not important at all and was not the key chip deciding victory today.
The reason he left Aizen here while he personally went first to the Soul King Palace was simply because he was bored and wanted to first take what belonged to him, while also waiting for Aizen to crush them and destroy their mental defenses.
"Sharp observation, Captain Kyoraku. Even in this situation, you can still think calmly. No wonder old man Yamamoto valued you," Rosse smiled slightly and stopped descending.
Standing in midair with his hands naturally hanging at his sides, he looked down at the blood-covered Kyoraku Shunsui with interest.
"Then before I answer you, in your understanding, what exactly is the Soul King's true nature?"
Kyoraku Shunsui took a deep breath, enduring the sharp pain in his lungs. After thinking for a moment, he answered, "A powerful being whose strength far surpasses the world's dimension. But now, he's only a wedge stripped of self-awareness and used to stabilize the balance of the Three Worlds."
This was the answer he had carefully considered, and also what he believed Rosse was thinking at this moment.
"And then?"
The smile at Rosse's lips deepened slightly.
Looking at Rosse's half-smiling expression, and recalling Ichibe's desperate conclusion from earlier, Kyoraku Shunsui suddenly understood everything as if electricity had shot through his brain.
His eyes widened, and his voice shook slightly from extreme shock, "So... this powerful being acting as the wedge used to be the Soul King, but now it can also be you. And the reason Soul Society did not collapse the instant the Soul King died, and why the spatial cracks have not continued worsening... is because right now, it's you, Rosse, supporting this world in place of the Soul King."
"If the broken Soul King could support the world, then naturally you can do it too!"
The moment those words came out, the entire battlefield erupted.
The Shinigami who had already closed their eyes and waited for death suddenly opened them again and looked at each other.
If Kyoraku Shunsui was right, if after killing the Soul King, Rosse had not destroyed the world, but instead was using his own power to support this endangered world even better, then the reason they had gathered here today and risked their lives fighting against Rosse seemed absurd and ridiculous.
What exactly were they doing? And what were they even fighting for?
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