It was a smile filled with the love of a parent.
In the past, when she had been confined by her father, was such a smile ever directed at her?
Ah, I can’t remember any smiles. I wonder if my father did love me. I wonder if my mother, whom I never met, did too.
Though her consciousness began to wane intermittently, still Aura continued to extend her spiritual pressure into the space around her. Exerting enough force that she was practically unraveling, destroying her very own cells and converting them to spiritual pressure, Aura continued to let emotions she had never had before pour out of her.
When Tokinada saw Aura in that state…
“How amusing.”
A sadistic smile adorned his face, and he spoke with a voice that was filled with more joy than ever before. He continued to keep Ginjo and the others in check using Gagaku Kairo and the flames of Ryujin Jakka as he said to Aura, “In that case, what do you think of this? What will your face look like as…the very one you are risking your life to protect cuts you down without any emotion at all?”
Tokinada continued speaking to Aura, who was weakened to the point that she could no longer reply. “Oh, oh! How about I give the order immediately? I’ll tell Hikone…to kill you!”
Then, as though to increase the turmoil, he tried to call out to Hikone above his head, but…
“Not a chance in hell.”
At Ginjo’s voice, the Fullbringers went on the move.
Giriko brushed aside the strange creatures of Gagaku Kairo with his swollen muscles while Tsukishima inserted his bookmark into the flames and rewrote their history so that they had “extinguished ten seconds ago,” as Ginjo ran along the path that had been cleared of obstacles. He had transformed his appearance just a moment earlier and had white hair as well as clothes that sported a skull motif. He hit Tokinada with spiritual pressure that exceeded the Soul Reaper’s.
“So this is how far you’ve come in mastering the power of a Hollow! I see, you are indeed suitable as a candidate for the Soul King! Then how about you kill me as well as Hikone now and take the throne yourself?”
Tokinada said that as though to test him, but Ginjo snapped back, “Eh? Me as the Soul King? Sure seems like a real bargain for a throne.”
“Of course it’s not. Do you know how Fullbringers are born?”
“I think I can make a guess… It’s through the Fragments of the Reio, isn’t it?”
Why was it that Fullbringers were targeted by Hollows from the time they were in the womb?
Ginjo guessed the reason had to do with something that intertwined itself into their konpaku before they were born.
He had no idea what kind of influence the different parts of the Reio could have, but if a Soul Reaper becoming possessed by a part like Mimihagi had ended up like that, then when a fragment fused with a human, he guessed it would have an influence similar to the Hogyoku.
The Hogyoku—a device that would alter the very world as it fulfilled the desires of those around it. If one were to use the Fragments of the Reio in its place, it wouldn’t be strange for them to be invoked using Fullbrings that turned attachments into abilities.
So it was possible that defensive instincts would bloom in young souls that had been intermixed with peculiar spiritual pressure, if they were being attacked by highly perceptive Hollows. Or in the opposite case, that people like Orihime Inoue and Chad, who had passed down the Reio’s factor generation after generation, would have their defenses bloom alongside Hollow attacks.
Though Ginjo didn’t know whether his guess was correct, a bold smile broke out over Tokinada’s face at Ginjo’s words.
“If you know that much, then what do you think? If someone such as you, who has the power of Soul Reapers, Fullbringers, and Hollows, were to become the Soul King, you could destroy or reshape the world exactly as you wish.”
“Got no interest in that. We’re going to turn the world upside down the way we want to.”
“In that case, why are you lending a hand to Aura? Is it for revenge? Then again, it was the main family, not me, that ordered your friends killed.”
Tokinada snickered as he uttered that unverifiable accusation. Ginjo answered at the same time he locked his sword with the man. “I haven’t got any interest in that either. Even if I find out who did it, I still became the enemy of the Soul Reapers—that wouldn’t change.”
At that point, Ginjo narrowed his eyes and drove in his blade as a sinister look crossed his face.
“I’ve just got one grudge against you.” The smile disappeared from his face, and as he recalled the face of a single Soul Reaper, Ginjo spat out these words: “Ukitake didn’t tell me the truth…because of you.”
“Gaha…ha ha ha ha! You heard that from Aura? I had a surveillance spirit bug on her, so how did you share the information? Also, don’t you think she may have lied to you?”
“I’m not going to tell you our tricks.”
In actuality, Ginjo hadn’t been informed by Aura. That was why the surveillance spirit bugs’ sham brains that Tokinada controlled couldn’t have detected Aura’s betrayal.
However, Ginjo knew everything.
His fellow Fullbringers Yukio and Tsukishima had ensured that.
Through those two, Aura’s will had defied the flow of time and been conveyed to Ginjo.
What Aura had done to Yukio was simple. Using her own ability to rearrange her body even at a molecular level, she had etched a certain pattern into the backside of the business card she had given Yukio. It consisted of multiple QR codes etched not in black, but in a light gray hue nearing white. They were so light that at first glance they only appeared as a background pattern or the grain of the paper itself.