4-1 Reunion

It's been too long, Shunsui. Since you had me sent to the Maggot's Nest, if I'm not mistaken.

Was that the last time? All I've heard is that you've been under house arrest for a few hundred years.

Lies, propagated by simpletons. My family is too ashamed to bear the burden of my sins,

so they are attempting to convince the world that I never was.

If they were willing to go to such lengths, why not simply give me due process, punish me accordingly, and expel me from the family instead? What did their hesitation to rid themselves of this sinner get them?

Behold. Their sinful shame has now taken everything from them.

Can I take that as a confession that you had the previous head of the clan assassinated?

Oh, please. I'm obviously just pointing out the irony of it all. But hypothetically, even if it were true, I'm already the new head of the clan.

Now, no matter what I do, I can erase it from history without any trouble at all.

Not like the reduction on my sentence for cutting down my wife and her friend. I can make my very sins themselves disappear without a trace.

I wonder if it'll go that well. The Central 46 have changed from how they were back in the old days.

But the society of we nobles has not. You know that, don't you?

While you all have closed ranks after nearly being wiped out by that flock of Quincies,

the majority of the nobility in the Seireitei have still not changed their ways.

I, of course, am no exception. I'm the same man I was long ago, including my detest for you, Shunsui Kyoraku.

That's misplaced resentment, if you ask me. All I did was stop your runaway acts of violence.

What a complete miscalculation that was.

No one was supposed to notice. I was to play the anguished widower tragically betrayed by my friend and wife.

Who would have thought a skirt-chaser such as yourself would be so sharp? You brought my crimes to light most thoroughly.

I didn't bring anything to light. You killed your friend after a quarrel, and your wife after she angered you.

As soon as that became the only possible conclusion I could reach, there was no way to tell what was the objective truth.

There is one thing I should apologize to you for.

What? You? Apologize to me?

Don't tell me you're going to apologize for making my crimes public and ask for my forgiveness?

To be honest, until I learned the truth, I was a little suspicious that you were the one behind the big uproar surrounding Rukia's execution.

Oh, so thanks to Aizen, you were going to pin the crime on me? I'm curious as to why.

I have no motive for wanting Rukia Kuchiki to be executed, after all. I've never even met her.

I didn't need a reason. I just felt like harassing someone to kill time. Someone in a noble family that caught my eye.

......

You went as far as you did just because you felt like it. That's your true nature, isn't it, Tokinada?

Bite your tongue, Shunsui. You're merely the Head Captain of the 13 Court Guard Squads, and you dare to talk about me?