I'm really not the number one slacker in Soul Society.

So what is this dizzying and terrifying news?

All eighteen members of the forty-sixth chamber were cut into flower shapes and hung on the double scythe, their deaths imbued with a great deal of artistic flair.

—It is said that the investigation team vomited on the spot upon witnessing this scene.

Nearly half of the ruling class's representatives were turned into human art and hung in the most conspicuous places. Such a thing would be a disgrace in any political system, and the perpetrators would be brought to justice until they were found and their remains were scattered.

This is not the same as Kisuke Urahara's rebellion or the battle two months ago. In fact, even during the Quincy War, the members of the 46 Chambers never died so many times at once. This is an unprecedented event.

Now the problem is very clear!

Shikatori Hakunsai, along with her two companions who claim to be visitors from hell (though they don't actually claim that), are plotting a massive conspiracy to overthrow Seireitei and even the entire Soul Society.

Can this be tolerated?

It's always the Seireitei that destroys other people's families, there's no such thing as the other way around. So what if it's Hell? This arrogant bastard is really pushing his luck!

—This was the first reaction of the First Seat of the Forty-Sixth Chamber upon hearing the news. The original words were quite long, but for the sake of readability, let's shorten and summarize them.

Therefore, the Seireitei immediately declared a state of war, halting all civilian activities. All Shinigami except the Fourth Division were mobilized to find even the slightest clue and then kill all those arrogant rebels.

—This was also an order from Room 46.

Although the search was destined to be futile, Seireitei still mobilized its highest level of resources.

They even summoned back most of the Grim Reapers who were on missions outside, including Shunsui, who had been missing for several days.

That evening, Old Man Shan convened an unprecedentedly serious meeting of team leaders.

..........................................

"Ah... I was only gone for a few days, and such a serious thing happened..."

With dark circles under her eyes, Chunshui sighed almost weakly, "Is this what they call a turbulent time?"

"What can we do?"

Mi Zhen chuckled dryly: "Anyway, that's how things are. Look at me, I haven't had a moment's rest for months."

The two were on their way to the First Division, along with Ukitake, Kaien, and Isshin. The captains had just finished dealing with the internal affairs of their divisions, assigning tasks and making up stories, which finally calmed down the restless people.

Chapter 195: Why are you forcing me?

At this moment, they all showed varying degrees of fatigue, especially Ukitake. After the daytime standoff and nearly ten hours of intense work, his complexion was so bad that it wouldn't be surprising if he kicked the bucket on the spot. It was a miracle that he could still stand up.

However, he insisted on attending the meeting, and no one could stop him. Everyone could only let him go. Haiyan looked extremely nervous, as if he was afraid that Fuzhu would collapse on the spot at some point in the future.

“Mima, how could you say such things in front of others?” Chunshui sighed. “Even I… sigh, I haven’t had a vacation in months. When will this end?”

Mizhen chuckled casually, then changed the subject, saying, "Speaking of which, Captain, what have you been busy with these past few days?"

“I went to investigate something…” Chunshui sighed, “but I don’t even know what it is. I can only follow the two clues I have, sniffing around like a hunting dog. After several days, I haven’t made any progress.”

This group of people were all suffering from a recent surge in workload, and they got along quite well with each other. So, before reaching their destination, they poured out their grievances to each other—if they didn't say it now, they probably wouldn't have the time later.

Thinking about it carefully, this is probably trouble he brought upon himself...

No, this is all Hell's fault. A bunch of dead bastards insisted on running to the mortal world, causing this huge trouble. When we catch them in the future, we must give them a good beating. Killing them a hundred times wouldn't be enough!

While they were inwardly complaining, they finally arrived at the First Division.

A somber atmosphere pervades the area.

The soldiers coming and going all had somber expressions and hurried steps, each carrying large stacks of documents, clearly the results of investigations by their respective squads. As is customary, this data would be filtered before being distributed to the Fifth and Eighth Squads for integration and processing, in the hope of extracting even the slightest bit of useful information.

Rounding it off means that Mi Zhen will have to do a lot of work for nothing...

This is even worse than being slashed by the old man in the mountain again.

With such grief in his heart, his expression turned serious, and he quickly followed Chunshui into the conference room.

The sight that greeted me was astonishing.

All the active captains and vice-captains of the Gotei 13 were present. For squads like the 12th Division, which lacked management personnel, the three seats were used instead. Even Kenpachi Zaraki, who had just been woken up, was here. Not only that, all the remaining members of the 46th Chamber were also sitting inside. With their guards, the originally spacious meeting room was as crowded as a vegetable market.

As for why Room 46 would be here... it's simple, they're afraid of dying.

Now that Shikatori Hakunsai has clearly expressed his attitude of declaring war on Seireitei, coupled with the deaths of the eighteen members, even the most foolish member of the 46 Chambers knows that they are a high-priority target. If they don't find a way out, they will die either way, so they can only swallow their pride and seek protection from Yama-no-Tsukasa.

If I remember correctly, there are seven or eight people here who are related to the Tsunayoshi family. I don't know where they get the nerve...

Upon closer inspection, one could see that these twenty-eight old men all had a certain degree of haughty arrogance on their faces.

It's hard now, its fists are hard.

We should go and catch them all, one by one, and kill them all. Anyway, there are plenty of replacements. Whether eighteen or forty-six die, it doesn't really make a difference.

The meeting room, which should have been quiet, was filled with whispers. After half a day of dissemination, the news had quietly spread, and everyone had their own speculations. With their excellent imaginations, they devised many brilliant conspiracy theories in a very short time. Even Mi Zhen was deeply moved by the most outstanding ones and immediately decided to plagiarize them.

Old Man Shan sat in the seat of honor as always, remaining silent.

He had already cleaned up his slightly damaged image, and his face no longer showed any obvious emotions, but no one dared to provoke him at this time. Even Ukitake and Shunsui only greeted him cautiously, afraid of making their teacher's mood worse.

After some time, all the people who were supposed to attend the meeting had arrived.

"quiet!"

The old man slammed his cane into the ground with a loud thud, drawing everyone's attention.

It is well known that holding meetings is a bad culture.

Meetings where you not only don't get any benefits but also get a lot of work out of nowhere are even worse culture. Just thinking about the cause of these things makes Mi Zhen feel an urge to find a purple suit to wear and repeat a famous saying of an ordinary office worker.

I just want a peaceful life, why are you forcing me?

But things have already come to this, and he has no choice but to make the best preparations to meet the challenge.

—I still don't have enough power. If I could cleave hell in two with one strike, would I have to worry about such a trivial matter?

Mi Zhen sighed inwardly, maintaining a fairly serious attitude, and focused her attention on the old man.

"You should all be aware that the traitor Shikatori Hakunsai is going to join forces with the forces of Hell to launch an attack on Soul Society."

The old man said in a loud voice, "The reason I've gathered you all here today is to discuss how to deal with the impending crisis."

The crowd fell silent, awaiting the old man's further pronouncements.

"First, let Mayuri Sanne of the Twelfth Division present the results of our investigation so far."

As soon as he finished speaking, a commotion arose at the back of the conference hall. Everyone turned around and saw Mayuri Kurotsuchi instructing two members of the Technology Development Bureau to push a huge, old-fashioned monitor (let's call it that for now) up. After operating a few buttons on a row, a low-quality image appeared on the screen.

—It was noon at the Shinigami Academy.

The video began playing when Shiroku Hakuunzai revealed his true face. Although there was no sound, many people in the conference room turned green with shock, especially the members of Room 46, who were most likely to become the next batch of victims.

"This footage was taken by surveillance insects placed inside the college by the Technology Development Bureau."

Mayuri Kurotsuchi explained, "It records the entire process of the conflict so that everyone can understand what exactly happened."

The footage was clearly sped up, quickly transitioning to a confrontation between the three captains and Shikatori Hakunsai.

—Thankfully there was no sound, otherwise this conversation would have been completely muted.

"The information about the first captain of the 8th Division, Shikatori Habuunzai, is already clearly stated in the wanted poster." Mayu Kurotsuchi's expression showed a hint of impatience from being forced to perform, but he still read aloud from a manuscript, sentence by sentence. "The key point worth noting is the accomplices who destroyed the 46th Chamber's meeting room and came to support Shikatori Habuunzai afterwards—because the residual spiritual pressure characteristics collected from both sites are consistent, it can be assumed that the two incidents were committed by the same group of people."

As they were talking, the scene shifted to the opening of the Gates of Hell behind Shikatoshi Hakunsai, with Yama and Kyoka Suigetsu emerging from within.

As the only person in Seireitei who has seen Saki's face in person, Mima's expression immediately changed.

"Regarding how the enemy uses the Gates of Hell to move around, the Technology Development Bureau can only make a few highly probable guesses at the moment. We will print out and distribute this intelligence later. Please read it carefully when you get back."

Kurotsuchi tapped the screen with her hand and continued, "Of Shikatori Hagensai's two accomplices, only one actually made a move—this girl directly withstood Captain-Commander Yamamoto's attack and retaliated with a technique no less powerful than the 95th or higher level of Hado. Based on these performances, her combat strength is at least equal to Captain-Commander Yamamoto in his Shikai state, and..."

Suddenly, Mi Zhen cleared her throat and raised her hand with a rather unpleasant expression: "Excuse me, may I say something?"

The old man turned his gaze over: "Watanabe Yama, the vice-captain of the Eighth Division, do you have something to say?"

“Well…” Mima swallowed hard, pointed at herself in the image, and said, “I’ve seen this person before.”

"what?"

"how is this possible?"

The conference room erupted in noise as almost everyone focused their attention on Mi Zhen, their questions swirling incessantly.

So the old man tapped the ground again with his cane and said, "Silence!"

After everyone fell silent, the old man in the mountain asked with a solemn expression, "Vice Captain Watanabe Yama, you said you had seen this person before, is that true?"

“Of course…” Mima appeared unusually nervous, “because she was… the one who attacked the rescue team ‘that night.’ If I hadn’t been operating in clone form, she probably would have been…”

The meeting room erupted in noise again.

Everyone knew, of course, which day Mima was referring to when she said "that night".

"Was it this woman who attacked Hirako Shinji and his group?"

"Could it be that Kisuke Urahara had long been colluding with such villains?"

"I knew it... the Urahara family was definitely involved in everything that happened in Hell!"

The members of the Gotei 13 and the 46 expressed their various uneasy opinions, and soon after, Kenpachi Zaraki seemed to suddenly remember something and said loudly, "Well... I've also seen this woman in Rukongai."

After saying that, he didn't care about the even more surprised looks on everyone's faces. In a few words, he recounted his experience of being defeated by this person, and then complained a few times, saying that he must win next time they meet.

This added another achievement to Saki's record, making everyone even more afraid.

After all, if a powerful opponent who had defeated Kenpachi and was on par with the Captain-Commander were to deliberately consider the Seireitei as an opponent... it would undoubtedly be a catastrophe for most of the people present.

Not to mention that she also has Shikatori Hakunsai by her side, who has proven his strength countless times in the past, and a guy who has not yet made a move, but no matter how you look at it, he is not weak.

Since the end of the Quincy War, Seireitei has never faced such a significant challenge.

Regardless of the final outcome, the Soul Society will likely suffer enormous losses.

Chapter 196: The Holy Grail and the Secret Weapon

In the blink of an eye, an atmosphere of panic spread through the conference room like a plague. In just a dozen seconds, a great deal of unease and panic filled the atmosphere among the nearly one hundred people present.

"How dignified!"

An immense spiritual pressure, as large as a mountain, descended with a furious roar.

Many officers were so overwhelmed by the pressure that they almost lost their breath. The performance of the attendees from the 46th Chamber was even worse. They were all pale-faced, sweating profusely, and some even nearly lost control of their bladders. After all, they were just weaklings who were not much stronger than ordinary people. It was still too much for them to withstand the spiritual pressure from the old man of the mountain.