"System, transform this door into wine for me."
Shiba Kuroba's eyes gleamed with a drunken gleam, yet a rare seriousness flickered beneath them as he boldly gave the command.
As a member of the once-glorious Shiba Clan, Kuroba had long known that experimentation was the mother of breakthroughs.
"Ding—convertible material detected…"
"Transformation complete. Result: One gourd of Supreme Grade Spirit Wine (Divine-Class)."
"Effect: Upon consumption, host temporarily gains an increase in spiritual pressure. When used as an offensive tool, the wine absorbs the enemy's spiritual power. Duration: 24 hours."
The system's ethereal prompt echoed through his mind.
Kuroba looked down at the obsidian-like wine gourd in his hand. His lips twitched.
The surprise was as intoxicating as the wine itself—but his gaze quickly turned to the space around him.
The entire wall of seki-seki stone cells had vanished.
He didn't just convert the cell door… he'd converted the entire row of high-security, reiatsu-dampening cells.
Seki-seki stone, mined from special veins in the Soul Society, could suppress spiritual pressure and was used exclusively in places like the Central Underground Detention Facility. To see it turned into wine like cheap furniture made his scalp tingle.
"This system is more reckless than I am," Kuroba muttered, pinching his temples.
But thinking carefully, a single cell's seki-seki door might not have been enough material to synthesize divine-grade spirit wine. There must've been a conversion threshold.
Still, as he stared at the empty cell block, Kuroba sighed.
"How am I going to explain this? Am I going to get banned from the Seireitei the day I arrive?"
He glanced at the gourd.
"…Can divine wine be converted back?"
There was no reply. Only the low growl of spiritual fluctuations outside.
With the suppression field broken, the nearby incarcerated Hollow hybrids and mutated Plus souls were already beginning to stir.
He cracked his knuckles.
"Time to test extreme-level Hakuda in a sober state. Can't rely on being drunk every time."
In the Soul Society, Hakuda was one of the core four Shinigami combat arts—focusing on hand-to-hand combat. Most Shinigami specialized in Zanjutsu or Kido, but Kuroba, by some divine twist, had achieved mastery in Hakuda after a drunken outburst.
He couldn't always count on sake to save him. It was time to forge real combat instincts.
Outside the prison block, in the Rukongai District near the detention center, Abarai Renji spotted Rukia Kuchiki approaching from a distance.
"Done so soon?" he called, raising an eyebrow. "Looks like you really care about that guy. There's still ten minutes until visiting time. Care to chat?"
His voice was casual, but there was a tension underneath it.
Renji and Rukia had grown up together in Inuzuri, the 78th District of South Rukongai. They'd joined the Shin'ō Academy together, but everything changed when Captain Kuchiki Byakuya adopted Rukia into the Kuchiki family.
Renji had told her to accept it. He thought he was helping her, offering a way to escape poverty—but the gap between them had only widened since.
"Thank you for the support today, Renji," Rukia said quietly, bowing. "I'm sorry you had to be on cell duty. But Shiba Kuroba was personally recommended by Captain Ukitake... He was granted permission to take the entrance exam to join the Gotei 13."
She hesitated, then added, "And… I'm worried he might cause trouble."
Renji gave a skeptical snort.
"That guy? I checked his spiritual pressure myself. It barely measures at Level Three—Sanzeki class. Nowhere near enough to break out of a seki-seki cell."
He crossed his arms, dismissing the idea. "Even if his Hakuda's decent, he's got a long way to go before joining the Gotei. And that story you told me—about him blowing up a mutated Hollow with one punch—maybe the Hollow was just weak."
Renji didn't like how much he was talking. He usually didn't say this much.
Maybe because, deep down, seeing Rukia anxious over another man made something ache.
"Renji, no matter what you say, today is the final day of the Shin'ō Academy entrance exam. I must carry out my orders and escort Kuroba for assessment. This is a direct command from Captain Ukitake."
Rukia's voice was firm, her eyes resolute.
She didn't doubt the results Renji mentioned regarding Kuroba's spiritual pressure reading. Before placement into the Kuroseki-mu (Black Cell), each detainee undergoes scanning via a spiritual particle detector—a device that measures spiritual pressure to categorize detainees and ensure security.
While not perfect, these detectors rarely yield wildly inaccurate results.
Spiritual pressure at Shin'ō Academy was historically ranked in levels, colloquially referred to as "bamboo marks" among students:
Five bamboo marks: Minimum standard for admission.
Six: Elite candidates, often from seated officer families.
Seven to eight: Considered prodigies.
Nine: True peerless talents, comparable to the level of vice-captains.
Ten: Hypothetical; no recorded individual had ever reached this level upon admission—except, perhaps, for the founder-level Shinigami like Genryūsai Yamamoto.
"Captain Ukitake?" Renji's expression darkened slightly. After a moment, he gritted his teeth and stepped aside.
"Fine. I won't interfere with your orders—but remember, Rukia, he and you come from completely different worlds. You're a Kuchiki now. He's from the fallen Shiba clan. He couldn't even graduate properly."
He didn't say what was truly on his mind. That would've been too cruel. After all, he himself came from the Rukongai—and Rukia had once stood high above him too.
But Kuroba? From what he knew, the guy barely registered at three bamboo marks. There was no way someone like him could pass the exam, let alone make waves at the academy.
"Renji, this isn't about nobility. I'm just following orders. Whether or not he can graduate isn't my concern," Rukia replied, frowning slightly. "But… I have a bad feeling. Didn't your unit confiscate all contraband? There shouldn't be any alcohol in the black cells."
"Alcohol?" Renji scoffed and turned to unlock the cell. "That's impossible. These are high-security cells—there's not even a hint of saké in here. And that guy barely has Sanzhū spiritual pressure. No way he could cause—"
The moment the seal was released, Renji's sentence broke off.
The corridor beyond should have been lined with occupied cells. Instead, it was empty—eerily so.
Gone.
All the prisoners, all the reinforced cells—they had vanished.
Renji's eyes widened in disbelief, his body instinctively tensing.
"Get inside!" Rukia ordered, already rushing past him.
What met their eyes made her blood run cold.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of prisoners were sprawled across the floor, unconscious or incapacitated, their faces twisted in shock.