Three days later, after reluctantly sending Nana Sawada off at the airport, Tsunayoshi had just started heading back toward Karakura Town when his phone rang.
It was Ichigo.
"Tsuna, something's happened!" Ichigo said quickly. "I just sensed abnormal Reiatsu in Karakura Town. Ishida and I went to check it out, and we ran into Captain Soi Fon of Squad Two!"
"What happened?" Tsunayoshi asked while accelerating toward Karakura.
"Soi Fon says Hitsugaya has defected. The entire town is full of Shinigami from the Seireitei searching for him."
"Hitsugaya… defected?"
Tsunayoshi froze for a moment.
He quickly ran through the plot in his head. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't recall any storyline where Hitsugaya defected.
And Aizen's group had only recently betrayed the Soul Society. For Hitsugaya to do the same now would basically be dancing directly on Yamamoto's last nerve.
Unless Hitsugaya had followed Aizen to Hueco Mundo.
But that was impossible.
There was no way Hitsugaya would join Sōsuke Aizen—the man who had nearly killed Momo Hinamori.
If anything, Hitsugaya would be more likely to chase Aizen down and cut him apart.
"Anything else?" Tsunayoshi asked.
"No," Ichigo replied. "Right now we're helping the Gotei Thirteen search. Hopefully this is all just a misunderstanding."
"I'm on my way back," Tsunayoshi said. "Hitsugaya definitely wouldn't defect. If Soi Fon and the others get too aggressive, try to hold them back a bit."
Night — Karakura Town
Rain poured heavily across the city.
After getting out of a taxi, Tsunayoshi frowned.
How were they supposed to find someone in weather like this?
If Hitsugaya Tōshirō wanted to hide, locating a captain-level Shinigami wouldn't be easy.
Tsunayoshi stretched his stiff back.
Regardless, he decided to head home first. Before leaving for the airport, Nana had prepared a whole table of food and stored it in the refrigerator.
But as he approached the house—
Something felt off.
The entrance and courtyard looked perfectly normal.
Yet his instincts told him that someone had entered the house while he was gone.
Arnold's Handcuffs appeared on his finger.
Silently, Tsunayoshi unlocked the door without making a sound.
The house was pitch black.
Everything looked exactly the same as when he had left.
Still, his gaze sharpened.
Suddenly—
He burst forward into the entrance hall and hurled the handcuffs toward the corner.
Clang!
The cuffs struck something metallic.
But Tsunayoshi instantly recognized the sound.
Not ordinary metal.
A blade.
So someone had broken into his house carrying a weapon.
If his mother had left just a little later, the intruder might have succeeded.
Purple flames erupted along the chain of the handcuffs.
With a rapid series of metallic clicks, the Cloud Attribute Flames multiplied.
The cuffs snapped around the blade, rapidly splitting and expanding to restrain both the weapon and its wielder.
"Wait! Tsunayoshi—it's me!"
A familiar boyish voice rang out.
Tsunayoshi snapped his fingers.
The room lights flicked on, and the curtains shut automatically under the control of his Fullbring.
Just as he suspected.
The only people capable of sneaking into his home without being detected were captain-level Shinigami.
And the only one who would sneak in like this—
Was the man currently accused of defection.
Hitsugaya Tōshirō.
Hitsugaya was completely soaked from the rain. A deep diagonal slash ran across his chest.
His face was pale as he crouched weakly in the corner.
"What's going on?" Tsunayoshi asked knowingly. "I heard you defected."
Hitsugaya didn't respond immediately.
He simply bit his lip, then slowly shook his head.
"Let me stay here for one night," he said quietly. "I'll leave tomorrow."
Tsunayoshi already understood why Hitsugaya had come here.
Aside from him, no one else lived in the house.
Scratching his head, Tsunayoshi switched to Sun Attribute Flames, healing Hitsugaya's wound while drying his soaked clothes.
As his strength returned, Hitsugaya's expression returned to its usual icy composure.
"…Thank you."
"You came at the perfect time," Tsunayoshi said.
He opened the refrigerator and reheated the dishes Nana had prepared.
Soon the table was filled with food.
"Let's talk after dinner."
They ate in silence.
Only after finishing did Tsunayoshi start washing dishes using Fullbring.
"So," he said casually, "talk."
"You're not the type to abandon your responsibilities and suddenly defect."
Hitsugaya hesitated.
"I have some personal matters to handle. So I left."
"That's it?" Tsunayoshi replied.
"Do you know your entire division is under investigation because of you? Do you think this is worthy of the haori Captain Isshin left behind?"
The worn haori Hitsugaya was wearing was clearly one Isshin Shiba had given him.
With Hitsugaya's personality, he would never damage such a precious item.
Only someone like Isshin could treat it so casually.
After a moment of silence, Hitsugaya removed the haori.
Carefully folding it, he handed it to Tsunayoshi.
"Please return this to Captain Isshin."
Tsunayoshi raised an eyebrow.
"Oh? Quitting your captain position too?"
"You think since Isshin's around you can just dump the job on him?"
"No," Hitsugaya replied firmly.
"Once I finish what I need to do, I will personally return and apologize to Captain Isshin and Captain-Commander Yamamoto."
"Alright," Tsunayoshi said, lying comfortably on the sofa after a quick Shunpo.
"Let me ask another way."
"As the guy who just healed you, I have the right to know where that wound came from."
Hitsugaya sighed quietly.
He had expected this.
Tsunayoshi was impossible to fool.
"Today," Hitsugaya began, "Squad Ten was assigned a secret mission to escort the Ōin (Royal Seal)…"
"The Royal Seal?" Tsunayoshi interrupted. "What's that? I've heard of the Ōken, but not that."
"I'm not sure either," Hitsugaya admitted.
"But once every hundred years, the Royal Seal must be transported west. A special guard unit handles the transport, while Squad Ten secretly protects them."
"But during the mission, the escort team was attacked."
"Rangiku and I went to investigate."
"We discovered two humanoid creatures with Hollow-like Reiatsu attacking the convoy."
"Arrancar?" Tsunayoshi guessed. "Did Aizen send them?"
"No," Hitsugaya said firmly.
"It wasn't Aizen."
"You know the attacker, don't you?" Tsunayoshi said immediately.
"So you left your division without a word to chase them down personally."
"Someone important to you?"
Hitsugaya was stunned.
He had no idea how Tsunayoshi had deduced the entire situation so accurately.
Meanwhile Tsunayoshi looked at him like someone watching a juicy drama.
"So who is it? Male or female? Someone even closer to you than your childhood friend?"
Hitsugaya's face darkened.
After thinking it over, he decided to tell the truth.
Otherwise Tsunayoshi might spread some ridiculous romance rumor across the Soul Society.
"The one who injured me…"
"…was Hyōrinmaru."
"Hyōrin—"
Tsunayoshi paused.
Then suddenly shouted:
"Another Hyōrinmaru?!"
Hitsugaya's expression changed.
"How did you know there was another Hyōrinmaru?"
Tsunayoshi stared blankly at the ceiling.
So it was that storyline.
The Bleach movie plot—the one with another Hyōrinmaru user.
Now it made sense.
"So what are you planning to do?" Tsunayoshi asked.
"Get revenge? Or something else?"
"The person's name is Sōjirō Kusaka," Hitsugaya said quietly.
"He was my best friend at the Shin'ō Spiritual Arts Academy."
When Hitsugaya first arrived at the academy, his introverted personality made it hard to adapt.
Kusaka had been the one who helped him.
They studied together.
They grew stronger together.
Until the day they attempted to learn the true name of their Zanpakutō.
Both of them were acknowledged by Hyōrinmaru.
But the Central 46 ruled that the Soul Society could not allow two identical Zanpakutō to exist.
They ordered the two of them to duel.
Only the survivor could keep Hyōrinmaru.
"I refused," Hitsugaya said.
"But in the end… we were forced to fight."
"I won."
"After that… Kusaka disappeared."
Later, when Hitsugaya checked the records of Central 46, he discovered the truth.
After losing the duel—
Kusaka had been secretly executed.
"No matter the outcome," Hitsugaya said quietly, "we were never allowed to remain friends."
Tsunayoshi nodded slowly.
"So the one who attacked the Royal Seal convoy was Kusaka."
"You think he's still alive."
"And because you feel guilty about defeating him back then, you decided to face him alone."
"And giving up your captain's haori means…"
"You're even prepared to repay him with your life."
Hitsugaya stared at him in shock.
"How did you know?"
"Because the attackers couldn't even seriously injure your lieutenant," Tsunayoshi said bluntly.
"Yet you took a direct hit."
"That's called holding back."
Hitsugaya had no answer.
Normally he always used Bankai in serious battles.
But against Kusaka—
He hadn't.
"Alright," Tsunayoshi said, waving dismissively.
"The guest room is down the hall."
"Get some rest. Finish your business quickly."
"There's a much bigger battle waiting for us in the future."
"You're not going to stop me?" Hitsugaya asked.
"You're just acting out of guilt right now," Tsunayoshi replied.
"You love correcting people when they forget to call you Captain Hitsugaya."
"So I refuse to believe that same captain has zero sense of responsibility."
He had no interest in counseling someone trapped in a mental dead end.
Someone like Hitsugaya would probably wake up after a couple of slaps anyway.
"…Thank you."
Hitsugaya bowed slightly.
"I'll be heading to the Seireitei tomorrow," Tsunayoshi said.
"If anything happens here in the Human World, ask Ichigo for help."
Then he muttered:
"Seriously… you couldn't even leave a letter."
"Acting like a moody kid while pretending to be an adult."
"If you just explained things to that old man Yamamoto, half these problems would disappear."
Hitsugaya forcibly suppressed the urge to draw his sword.
Without another word, he walked toward the guest room.
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