Bleach: No cheat codes, he joined Aizen's side.

Chapter 140, 138. Where did these Quincy come from?

How do you kill yourself in a fictional future?
This is the question that Higashino Shuichi thought about most after becoming the captain of the 11th Division in this fictional future.

Because this is ultimately a capability outside of his understanding, and there is no past experience to refer to.

Fortunately, the arrogant persona he created at the beginning was enough to allow Higashino Shuichi to remain aloof and unapproachable for a period of time, and to maintain sufficient vigilance against anyone who wanted to get close to him.

And it seems that Akimi didn't intend to keep Higashino Shuichi waiting for long.

Just three days after Higashino Shuichi took over as captain of the 11th Division, a group of uninvited guests, like ghosts, broke into Seireitei without triggering any alarms. Their only target was Higashino Shuichi.

Sitting in the captain's lounge in the Eleventh Division barracks, Higashino Shuichi looked at the three "guests" who had suddenly appeared in front of him, all wearing matching white hooded cloaks, and was somewhat surprised.

"Is me your first target?"

Higashino Shuichi was not surprised by the appearance of these Quincy, but rather by the fact that he was the first person they approached.

Logically speaking, even if Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni was killed by accident, these people should go directly to the current Captain-Commander Kyoraku Shunsui.

But they were the first to approach him, whose official identity was that of someone who had just returned from hell.

Higashino Shuichi could only come up with one explanation for this: the person who designed and arranged the Quincy invasion in this fictional future was very clear about their own identity.

In this fictional future, who else would know their own identity?

You didn't actually put a Hasward disguise on yourself, did you? Qiu Shi.
Higashino Shuichi thought to himself with a headache.

This is still a relatively good result. If Qiu Shi had put on Yhwach's skin, that would have been really difficult to deal with.

"It sounds like you know a lot about our identities?"

Among the three "guests," the tall man with long, black hair parted in the middle, no eyebrows, and a black mask covering his face below the eyes with multiple cone-shaped objects, spoke arrogantly to Higashino Shuichi.

"I suppose so. For example, I know you come from the shadows of Seireitei, and I also know you are Quincy, belonging to the Sternritter of the Wandenreich you call yourselves,"

As Higashino Shuichi spoke, he stood up from his seat, while the three Sternritter members standing opposite him wore expressions of disbelief and shock.

"For example, I also know that your name is Ace Nott, code name F, the guy on your left with short black hair and nice eyes is named Cang Du, code name I, and the guy on your right who looks like a big lump of iron, if I remember correctly, is named Bi Jay Quinn, right?"
The code name should be K, right?

"Who are you?! Why do you know so much about us?!"

If just seconds ago Ace Nott was filled with arrogance and condescension towards Captain Shuichi Higashino, the Grim Reaper, then now he was filled with fear.

That was the psychological fear of being completely seen through by the enemy.

"Who I am is not important. What is important is that you have come to our Seireitei as guests today, so don't think about going back. As the new captain of the 11th Division, I am still very hospitable!"

After saying that, Higashino Shuichi's figure disappeared from the spot, released his spiritual pressure, and landed in front of Ace Nott. He swung out a slash, taking advantage of the latter's still stunned state, and ended his brief appearance with a single strike.

At the same moment, almost the entire Seireitei's vast majority of Shinigami felt the immense spiritual pressure emanating from Shuichi Higashino, which was not concealed in any way.

"Commander-in-Chief, what's wrong with Captain Higashino?"

Inside the First Division barracks, Ise Nanao, who had accompanied Kyoraku Shunsui to the First Division and was serving as the captain's assistant, adjusted her glasses and glanced worriedly in the direction of the Eleventh Division, saying...

From the very beginning, she objected to Kyoraku Shunsui's simple appointment of a Grim Reaper who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere as the captain of the 11th Division during this sensitive postwar period.

"Go and see!"

Kyoraku Shunsui was also filled with confusion about this.

He believed in his assessment of Higashino Shuichi, a Shinigami who still felt a certain sense of belonging to Soul Society; otherwise, he wouldn't have been so restrained in his battles with Madarame Ikkaku and the others.

But what's going on now?

Openly unleashing one's full spiritual pressure within the Seireitei is more than just a violation of the law.

There are quite a few Shinigami who share similar thoughts with Kyoraku Shunsui, and some of them acted even faster. One of them is Yoruichi Shihouin, the current captain of the 2nd Division, who returned to Soul Society after the Battle of Karakura Town and took back the captaincy from Soi Fon, the former captain of the 2nd Division.

"That is."

However, when Yoruichi Shihouin arrived at the battlefield, she was stunned at first.

Why are the two people fighting with Kenpachi Higashino using Quincy abilities?
No, the real question is, why didn't these captains receive any warning when Quincy broke into the Seireitei?
"Flying Sickle Kick!"

"Gatling!"

Cangdu and Bi Jie Quinn were completely disregarding the leader's prior instruction to finish the battle quickly.

Because they discovered that the Grim Reaper they were about to face was not only excessively strong, but also seemed to know them far too well.

Throughout this battle, the Shinigami captain has never unleashed his Zanpakuto; he has simply relied on sword techniques and Kido to fight.

This rendered the star badges they had prepared specifically for these Death Captains completely useless.

As a result, both of them now have to use their Quincy ultimate forms, Perfected, to fight.

Even with both of them activating their perfect holy bodies, it seemed they couldn't defeat this Death God Captain in the short term.
Li Fuzhan!
Thanks to the demands of his previous battles in the real world, Higashino Shuichi was forced to utilize his powerful control over spiritual particles to develop the second form of the Fuzan technique, which compresses spiritual pressure and spiritual particles to the extreme within the blade.

Compared to the original version's pursuit of unparalleled destructive power in its slashing motion, the form developed by Shuichi Higashino is more about suppression and an unreachable distance.

Because of the convergence of countless spiritual particles, the slash ultimately collapsed. Even though Cang Du and Quinn dodged the slash's trajectory at the first moment, they found that their bodies seemed unable to move.
"No, it's not that it can't be moved."

Sweating profusely, Cang Du realized that even if he used the Flying Scythe Kick to its fullest extent, he could not escape the space that had just been cleaved apart by the Grim Reaper Captain named Higashino Shuichi.

That space was like a black hole, constantly emitting a deadly attraction that drew him in.

Although, as the stalemate dragged on, the cleaved space seemed to gradually weaken and close up again.
Higashino Shuichi is a person who kicks someone when they're down.

He took a step forward and arrived in front of Cangdu.

No extra movements are needed; simply raise your Zanpakuto above your head and then quickly bring it down.

"Shadow Realm!"

Seeing this, Quinn on the other side immediately controlled the spirit particles to be injected into the shadows of the two.

Normally, Cangdu could use this opportunity to instantly hide in Quinn's shadow. However, the spatial slash created by Higashino Shuichi not only affected Cangdu and Quinn's bodies but also their spiritual particles. Therefore, Cangdu's movement to hide in the shadow was ultimately a beat too slow.

"what!"

Cangdu's painful screams rang out as a severed arm fell from mid-air.

His right arm was easily severed by Higashino Shuichi.

"This move."

Standing on a distant rooftop, Yoruichi Shihouin stopped the other Shinigami members from rushing over to provide support. Watching Shuichi Higashino "execute" Souto, she couldn't help but think of the former Captain-Commander.

Regardless of any past grievances or misunderstandings between them, all of that vanished after his death on that day.

I thought that the captain's moves would be lost forever, but I never expected to see them again in this way.

However, it seems that the time has come for her to take action.

Yoruichi Shihouin watched as Shuichi Higashino turned and attacked the Quincy named Queen, even though the latter seemed to see through Higashino's movements and always managed to respond in the most correct way.

However, being able to see through something never means being able to deal with it.

Clearly, Quinn's physical movements couldn't keep up with his thoughts.

Therefore, after persisting for a few more minutes, he still had his left leg cut off by Higashino Shuichi.

This also signifies the beginning of its collapse.

"Eighty One of the Binding Dao, Duan Kong!"

A transparent spiritual barrier suddenly appeared between Higashino Shuichi and Queen, but it wasn't to protect Higashino Shuichi from Queen's attack. Instead, it was Yoruichi Shihouin who specifically used it to protect the two Quincy named Queen and Sou.

"What do you mean by this, Captain Shifuin?"

Faced with Yoruichi Shihōin's attack, Shuichi Higashino naturally could no longer continue his reckless assault.

"We can't kill these two yet. The key is to keep them alive and get them to tell us how they sneaked into Seireitei!"

Yoruichi Shihouin only told her half of the story; the other half was what she wanted to know: what exactly were these Quincy?

What was the reason behind the special forms of Cang Du and the others? Even Yoruichi Shihouin, the head of the Shihouin family, one of the five noble families, had never seen a Quincy in such a special form.

Could it be that the remaining Quincy in the present world have come back to life?

This is not good news for Yoruichi Shihouin, who has just experienced the Karakura Town battle with Ichigo Kurosaki and Uryu Ishida.

Because if this really is related to the Quincy in the present world, even she wouldn't be able to stop the other nobles of Soul Society from joining forces to harm the remaining Quincy in the present world.

And among them, Ichigo Kurosaki, the son of a Quincy, and Uryu Ishida, are certainly implicated.

"That makes sense. However, Captain Shifuin, the problem now is probably how we find them."

Having witnessed Soudou and Queen being pulled back from the shadows by two large hands while Yoruichi Shihouin was talking to him, Shuichi Higashino sheathed his Zanpakuto and spread his hands, saying...

This result was exactly what Higashino Shuichi had expected.

Aside from Ace Nott, who was completely caught off guard, Higashino Shuichi believed that the people in the Wandenreich were also closely monitoring the situation in Soul Society and would certainly not let him succeed so easily again.

Therefore, even without Yoruichi Shihouin's involvement, Higashino Shuichi estimated that those people in the shadows would have intervened and forcibly taken Sou and the other two back.

"what?!"

However, this is somewhat ironic for Yoruichi Shihouin.

At least on the surface, it was her intervention that led to the escape of the two Quincy.

If Yoruichi Shihouin didn't have the identity of the head of the Shihouin family and the captain, Shuichi Higashino estimated that Yoruichi Shihouin would have had to take a day trip to the Central 46 afterward.

"They were dragged into the shadows. If I'm not mistaken, they entered Seireitei in the same way, right?"

Fortunately, because Higashino Shuichi had unabashedly released his spiritual pressure earlier, several captains had already gathered outside the 11th Division barracks. Among them was Kyoraku Shunsui, the current Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13, who had come with his assistant. After seeing how Sou and the other escaped, he immediately revealed the mystery behind it.

In response, Higashino Shuichi nodded in agreement. "I agree with your idea, Captain-Commander. I was handling team affairs in the Captain's Lounge when these three Quincy suddenly appeared in my room without any prior warning."

If you were to emerge from the shadows, you could indeed do that.

Moreover, during the battle just now, both Quincy displayed extremely high skill in using shadows.

One could be a coincidence, but with two, I have reason to believe they have a systematic training method.

"So, according to your opinion, Kenpachi Higashino, you think they are hiding in our shadows?"

Kyoraku Shunsui, unusually, did not have a joking expression, but looked at Higashino Shuichi with a serious face and said.

Kyoraku Shunsui had a certain degree of trust in this mysterious Grim Reaper who had nominally followed the Kabuto family for hundreds of years.

After all, even he, as the captain, wasn't qualified to inspect everything.

He is not qualified to spend a long time reviewing the Great Spiritual Library unless there is a necessary matter to attend to.

As a retainer of the Kabuto family, one of the five noble families, and someone who has followed the branch in Hell for many years, considering that all the members of the Kabuto family in Soul Society have died, he was a Shinigami (a carefully crafted identity by Higashino Shuichi) who was specially sent back to maintain influence. Higashino Shuichi himself is qualified to have access to some secrets.

"I don't know, but I've always believed in the saying that it's better to be safe than sorry when there's a potential danger. Since such a possibility exists in front of us, it's not unreasonable to make this assumption and invest some resources to put it into practice. At least, we're not completely without resources right now, are we?"

As he spoke, Higashino Shuichi turned his head and cast his gaze at the corpse on the ground not far away, Ace Nott, the man who was killed by Higashino Shuichi with a single stab at the beginning.

"Heh, indeed, I overcomplicated things," Kyoraku Shunsui chuckled self-deprecatingly after being enlightened by Higashino Shuichi's words. He realized that since becoming the Captain-Commander, he had also become anxious about gains and losses. The Soul Society could not withstand another major upheaval. Rather than planning ahead, it would be better to act as Higashino Shuichi suggested. If there were any gains, great; if not, they wouldn't lose too much.

As Higashino Shuichi and Kyoraku Shunsui worked together to finalize the outcome of the matter, Yoruichi Shihouin stood in the middle, feeling like an outsider.

Thus, this prelude to the invasion of the Unseen Empire, which should have caused a huge uproar in Soul Society, failed to make a significant impact on the vast Shinigami population because it targeted the wrong enemy. Only captain-level Shinigami could sense the impending storm emanating from these uniquely shaped Quincy.

(End of this chapter)