CH 85: CALM BEFORE THE STORM (1)
In a large square, a group of shinigami wearing different uniforms could be seen acting in concert.
They were the members of the different special departments in the Seireitei.
Even though the mission that was about to happen was average ranked in priority, since it involved such a large-scale deployment, the higher-ups still put a bit of importance on it.
The system of missions in the Seireitei was rather basic but clear.
What mattered was not just the number of divisions necessary and the rank of the highest officer.
Any missions that did not need the intervention of a vice-captain level or higher were deemed as low-class one.
The moment a captain was necessary, it would be considered close to average importance.
The current mission had Gojo, Akon, and Soi Fon as field officers. This was enough to show how much importance the nobles ported to this mission, while at the same time, showing that the Gotei 13 did not really care.
‘Even the dead cannot escape from politics. How funny.’
Thinking this, Gojo, with his recognizable blindfold, walked with a relaxed gait. Everywhere he passed, the shinigami would stop a little to nod to him and go back to their work.
Those actions, while subtle, already showed the amount of recognition Gojo enjoyed in Gotei 13.
Gojo was not someone humble, and he never cared about the perception of others. In his opinion, this was nothing more than a waste of time. Perception could change in an instant. The only thing that stayed true was one's own might.
Reaching further in the make-shift encampment, he could see a man wearing a lab coat with three horns on his forehead. He recognized the man easily since he had read the information pertaining to those who would participate.
Beside Akon, he could see the usual mismatched duo of Omaeda and Soi Fon.
The relationship between the two always baffled him. From what he could see, even though Omaeda was a man full of haughtiness and a lazy bum, he was extremely loyal to Soi Fon. At the same time, even though Soi Fon always complained about him, she still trusted him as her right hand.
His approach didn’t go unnoticed as the other turned toward him. He could see Omaeda stiffen a little before stuffing his head in his bag of chips. Clearly, he still remembered how their last encounter had ended.
On the side, Akon’s sight only briefly paused on him before settling on the woman walking beside him. It was none other than Nemu.
If it was all, Akon wouldn’t really care. But he could see that even though Nemu was still wearing the same style of clothes, a short skirt and a slightly open kimono that showed her cleavage, the color of her uniform was not black but rather, pink.
In all the Soul Society, there was only one department that used this set of colors.
‘Since when did Nemu join the healing department?’
Even though each department was related to a specific division, it was necessary to mention that in theory, you didn’t have to be part of the said division to enter the department.
For illustration, being a member of the 2nd division didn’t mean you were automatically a member of the secret force. Furthermore, it wasn’t impossible for members of other divisions to join the secret force. In the same way, you didn’t need to be part of the 12th division to be part of the research department.
But, all of this was only in theory.
In reality, people could not step on two boats at the same time. For anyone with the slightest ambition, doing so would essentially seal their future prospect. For obvious reasons. After all, even though the divisions of the Gotei 13 worked together, they were pretty exclusive.
It didn’t help that officially, Nemu was the vice-captain of the 12th division. Even though in reality he was the one who took care of most things, Nemu was still their vice-captain.
So it came as a shock for him.
Thankfully, as a scientist, his control over his emotions was incredible. Now wasn’t the time to deal with this situation.
Soi Fon raised an eyebrow at this sight, but since it wasn’t her problem, as long as it did not negatively affect the mission, she did not care.
After Gojo reached them, Soi Fon ignored his cheeky greetings and spoke,
“Now that everyone is here. Explain the procedure.”
Akon sighed before pointing to the small detector in his hand.
“Our mission is to explore through the Garganta and eventually enter the Dangai, explore and find our target. Thankfully, our intelligence allowed us to grasp the potential coordinates of the targets and reduced the perimeter we needed to explore. Otherwise, even thousands of years wouldn’t have been enough.”
Gojo nodded, the Garganta was a sport of large void that connected all the worlds and dimensions. In theory, it should be infinite or near-infinite.
Since everyone was on the same page, Soi Fon took over the discussion,
“Moving through Garganta is a heavy task that requires a certain level of skill. For these reasons, only a very small group of elite individuals would be allowed for missions of this type, or at least that would be the case normally.”
She cast a meaningful glance at Gojo.
Since Garganta was a void where the very notion of space was nothing more than imagination, the only way to move through it was to create reishi platforms.
The problem was, even though the percentage of reishi was lower than in Soul Society, it was still high enough that only people at the level of vice-captain at minimum could do so.
“I see. I wondered why I was specially asked for this mission. So, I became a special travel agency.”
This was indeed the variable. It would be impossible normally to deploy a large scale platform, but it just happened that Gojo’s zanpakuto allowed him to manipulate Reishi.
For Soi Fon, the existence of Gojo at this moment was like a godsend.
After all, no matter how powerful she was, the mission this time wasn’t just an extermination one, but first and foremost, a large-scale hunt.
Akon nodded, “Soon we will open a Keikaigi [1] to open the gate and enter Garganta. From our calculation, the Kototsu [2] will not be active for a while. So this the perfect opportunity.”
At the mention of the Kototsu, most shinigami that had knowledge of Dangai shuddered a little.
The Kototsu wasn’t a particularly powerful monster in itself, but it was like the nemesis for any spiritual creatures, be it Shinigami or hollows.
No spiritual attack could hurt it. In fact, if a zanpakuto touched it, said zanpakuto would be slowly decomposed to nothingness.
If space was meaningless in Garganta, then time became crazy in Dangai.
In that dimension, the current in-time difference was of a ratio of 2000 to 1. What’s more, contact with Kototsu would allow a distortion in the space-time continuum and could send people to the past.
When this discovery was first made, shinigami had been pretty ecstatic. Though after hundreds of experiments and thousands of deaths, it was proven that while time travel was theoretically possible, the distortions were so much that one would be immediately and completely atomized during the travel.
Of course, the chances of success weren’t zero. They were just so low that it was in the realm of impossibility. This was why, after years of fruitless efforts, the central 46 forbade anyone to enter it and only members of the research department could do regular study.
Gojo sometimes wondered if the members of the central 46 got a hard-on from forbidding things and giving the death penalty to any transgression.
Still, all that did not matter.
What mattered though, was that he could finally enter Dangai.
As for the Kototsu. Even though that thing was a counter to his zanpakuto, he wasn’t afraid. Once he obtained the coordinates, he would be able to enter it by himself with his shadow teleportation. As long as he was careful, it wouldn’t be a problem to make use of it.
‘Well then, time for a new adventure I guess.’
He hoped that those exiled shinigamis wouldn’t be a disappointment.
(AN: Remember how I said that time travel through Dangai was a death sentence? Well, Ichigo managed to do it by luck during the Soul Society arc. Entered Soul society 7 days earlier than they should have. Well, he is the mc of Bleach so this level of luck is normal.)
[1]: World tying rite
[2]: Wrestling surge