Return of the Mask

"Eh?? Go back with me?!" Ichigo pointed at himself twitchingly.

"Of course," Yinshu looked at him and said with a sly smile, "I'm going to find Hirako tomorrow, and Rukia needs to be taken care of tonight, so of course I'm going back with you."

"But, but..." Ichigo swallowed his saliva, and after a while, he said with a distorted face, "It's really too strange... and you will definitely make Dad—"

"Isn't it all right to go in through the window?" Yin Shu took his words expressionlessly.

"..."

"Okay, okay," waving his hand, Yinshu helped up Lucia who had regained some sanity, "Go back quickly, the boy needs enough sleep."

"I'm not a teenager anymore!!"

"Huh? Are you saying you are an uncle? Like Urahara Kisuke? You will be cast aside."

"Speaking of it, why are you either a boy or an uncle! Are there only these two types of men in your world?!"

Ichigo complained while watching Tone Tree help Rukia walk away gradually.

After a while, he turned his head and looked at Hitsugaya standing silently in the same place.

Noticing his gaze, the boy closed his eyes habitually, frowned and said, "You should go back quickly, we can just leave this place to us."

"Ah," after a pause, Ichigo said, "Gennai should be back soon, Toshiro, you..." After that, he hesitated and didn't know what to say, because even he didn't know what happened to Otoki whats the matter.

Hitsugaya opened his eyes, and his lake-green eyes looked at the ground covered with moonlight.

After a while, he said slowly: "...Call me Captain Hitsugaya."

After returning home, he helped Yinshu put Rukia on the bed. Ichigo heaved a sigh of relief, then frowned and said, "Are you really all right? Are you hurt like this?"

"Please believe in the quality of the medicine produced by Captain Unohana." Yin Shu sat down by the wall and said lazily with his chin propped on one hand.

"Unozhihua..." Ichigo froze for a moment, then frowned, "Ah, that's... the captain."

"The pause in the middle is really meaningful, Ichigo."

"...It's annoying!"

Glancing at Yinshu, Ichigo pulled the chair beside the desk and sat down, frowning and asked: "Speaking of which, are you still not going to tell Toshiro about yourself? Others don't mind... I always I thought he was special to you."

Otoki was taken aback, and looked at Ichigo.

After a while, she changed her posture, folded her arms around her chest and looked out of the window, saying: "This problem cannot be solved, and telling others will only make people worry, and it won't do anything. I think so... It's like you know the weakness in your body, and you worked hard to support it but didn't tell others." Seeing Ichigo's expression of wanting to refute, Otoki raised his eyebrows and pointed the finger at him.

Ichigo choked immediately, unable to speak.

"And even if you want to tell him," Yinshu said helplessly after a pause, "you have to clear my mind."

"So...you went to Hirako for this matter?" Ichigo looked a little surprised, "Does he know?"

"I'm not sure. If he didn't know, he was so confident at the beginning and told me that if there was a problem, he would go to him." After a pause, Yinshu's expression suddenly became a little fierce, "Kill him."

Ichigo's mouth twitched.

"But since you said 'this problem can't be solved', why did you go to Hirako Mako?" Ichigo said with some doubts.

"Because I want to understand how serious the matter has become," Otoki looked at Ichigo like an idiot, and then said with a serious face, "It's like a terminally ill patient who knows that he will definitely die, but Before dying, I still often ask the doctor about my own situation, and I must know how much time I have left to live."

"Is there such a metaphor..." Ichigo Black Line said, but he was stunned for a second, and his face suddenly changed, "You mean...you will die?"

The room was silent.

Yin Shu turned his head, closed his eyes and smiled.

"God of death...the life is always accompanied by death, whether it is someone else's or your own."

At dawn the next day, Otoki and Ichigo slipped out of his house together.

"Speaking of which, how do we find him?" Ichigo stood in the middle of the road, frowning and said.

"Go find his spiritual pressure," Yinshu said standing behind him, "I'm not very good at perceiving spiritual power, so you should do it."

"You really handed over the trouble to others with a calm face." After complaining, Ichigo closed his eyes.

The surroundings suddenly became quiet.

Yinshu frowned and waited.

Not long after, Ichigo suddenly stretched out a hand and pointed in one direction.

Opening his eyes, he smiled and said, "It's in that direction." Then he raised his legs and ran.

Yinshu quickly followed.

It didn't take Otoki and Ichigo much effort to find Hirako's gathering point.

Standing in front of a large warehouse, Yinshu looked around and said, "There is a big barrier around here."

"Boundary?" Ichigo frowned.

Yinshu stretched out a hand and slowly stretched forward in the air.Suddenly, a yellow film of light appeared around the hand, but the hand could pass through it smoothly.

Raising his eyebrows, Yinshu withdrew his hand, raised his leg and walked in through the barrier.

Ichigo was taken aback for a moment, then walked in after her.

With a "bang", the door of the warehouse was pushed open, and his eyes narrowed slightly because he couldn't adapt to the suddenly dark environment.

After a while, after seeing the people in the warehouse clearly, Yinshu smiled and walked in.

"Yo, you're finally here."

Hirako's voice sounded, and the next second, he came out from the corner of the warehouse with a slender knife on his shoulder.

Ichigo suddenly became alert.

"Ah, speaking of which, you really know how to find a place, you guys, did you sleep well?" Yin Shu satirized them unceremoniously as he walked.

"Ah, it's Xiaoyin!" Jiu Nanbai, who was wearing a white tights, pointed at Yinshu and yelled, standing up as if he was about to pounce on him!

Suddenly, her head was held down by a big hand, and a man wearing a vest appeared behind her, frowning and said: "Idiot, didn't Makoto say that he has seen her?"

"Eh?! Why don't I know, Kenshi."

"Were you sleeping then?"

"Otoki? Long time no see," Yamamaru Lisa, who was reading a manga and wearing a sailor suit, saw Otoki, put away the book, stood up, and then handed out the book in her hand with a calm face. , "I haven't seen you for more than 100 years, you should miss my comics too."

"I haven't been interested in it since more than 100 years ago." Yinshu also said calmly.

"Hey, Lisa," Aichuan Luowu, who was in green with his back turned to her, turned and pointed to the manga in Lisa's hand, "Can you lend me this one first?"

"Ah, no problem." Lisa spread her hands and threw the manga to him.

Looking at the two of them, the blond-haired Ross smiled helplessly, looked at Yinshu, and said, "Are you okay?"

"No problem." Yin Shu laughed.

"Are you here without any questions?" A female voice with an accent like Pingzi came from not far away.

Yinshu looked over lightly.

Hiyori sat on the stairs, frowning at her.

"Compared to dying directly, it is indeed much better." Yin Shu shrugged with a smile.

"Don't say such unflattering words," Pingzi said, leaning against the wall, with the corners of his mouth drooping, "It would be better if you just died."

"Mako..." Akita Bogen looked at Hirako, sweating coldly, then looked at Yinshu, and said with a smile, "Welcome back, Gennai."

"Long time no see, deputy captain of the Ghost Daoists." Yin Shu said with a smile.

"You are very familiar with these people..." Ichigo stood behind Yinshu, frowning.

"Because we were all companions 100 years ago." Yin Shu shrugged, then grabbed him and pulled him to the front, stretched out his hand to push him on the back, "Hey, Hirako, I'll leave it to you."

"Why, are you planning to join the Masked Army?" Hirako raised his head.

Yinshu folded his arms around his chest, raised his eyebrows, and remained silent.

When Ichigo heard Hirako's words, he just put away his surprised expression and pursed his lips tightly.

After a while, he said, "I won't join any masked army. I'm here to let you teach me how to fake."

It's okay to be handsome, and Otoki could almost guess Ichigo's straightforward answer at the beginning, but the next bitterness can't be avoided.

After a fight with Hiyori, Hirako stopped them both, and then promised Ichigo to help him learn to blur.

Otoki walked up to Ichigo, knelt down and patted his face.

"Hey, are you dead?"

Ichigo, who was almost out of control because of the weakness in his body, raised his head and looked at her panting, then pursed his lips.

"...I'm fine..."

Pingzi walked behind Yinshu, frowned and said, "Leave this guy alone, and deal with your affairs first."

Yinshu was stunned, then nodded and stood up, sighing: "Your efficiency has suddenly improved a lot, Pingzi."

"I've always been productive, idiot."

After leaving these words, Hirako turned around and left, and Yinshu followed behind him.

She didn't expect that there was such a big practice room under the warehouse, which was almost exactly the same as the one under the Urahara store.

"By the way, you and Hiyori dug this up?" She said with a twitching corner of her mouth.

"What are you thinking about?" Pingzi glanced at her inexplicably, and even omitted the complaints.

Others followed them, including Ichigo.

"Stop rambling, let's get down to business." Pingzi held a knife in his hand and pressed it against the ground, looking at Yinshu with a pair of downcast eyes, with a rare serious expression on his face.

"You know what I want to ask you, right?" Yinshu said.

"I know what you want to ask, but I don't have an answer." Pingzi frowned.

Yinshu was taken aback.

"That fellow Mayuri must have told you something?"

Yinshu raised his eyebrows.

"He said that because I have crossed the boundary between Death God and Hollow, as an existence that breaks the balance, my soul will disappear without any external force at any time. Even if you say there is no answer, you must still know this, right?"

"Of course." Pingzi said without changing his expression.

"You are really indebted to me, Pingzi."

"Each other."

Hearing their conversation, no one else reacted, but Ichigo's eyes widened in surprise.

"Breaking the boundary between Shinigami and Hollow... Even if it destroys that balance, isn't Gennai standing here now?" He frowned and asked, "Is there really no way?"

"It doesn't matter if the balance is broken, there can be no balance in the world." Hiyori said with a frown.

"There is no other way," Lisa said slowly, standing there with her arms crossed, "it should be said that Yinshu has lived for more than 100 years, and it is already something to be thankful for." gone."

"So the next thing we can do is to know how long this fortunate thing can last, or to what extent." Ross followed Lisa's words, looking at Yinshu worriedly.

"What... mean?" Ichigo was stunned.

Yinshu also looked at Hirako with some confusion.

"At the beginning we thought we had crossed this balance, but after investigation, we realized that this kind of thinking is really ridiculous," Hirako looked at Yinshu and frowned, "No matter how proficient Nirvana Yuri is in Research, the information obtained without researching any mask or broken face cannot be very accurate."

"He will go crazy when he hears what you say." Yin Shu laughed.

"You're still in the mood to laugh..." Pingzi raised his eyebrows, "...Forget it, I can't be nervous even if I want to be with you."

"I can't get nervous seeing that face of yours."

"Why, do you want to play a game first?"

"Ah, that's a really good idea."

In the next second, the two drew their swords out at the same time!

Ichigo looked at the two of them in surprise.The others looked calm.

"I said, Gennai Yinshu." Hirako said with drooping corners of his mouth.

"What?" Yinshu raised his eyebrows.

"The disappearance of the soul is just the end, and the process of disappearing is definitely not as simple as what Nirvana Yuri said. Even if what will happen after the soul disappears, no one knows."

"Maybe you can come back to life again?" Yinshu said lazily.

"What an annoying conjecture, you," Hirako frowned, "In order to prevent this annoying thing from happening again, by releasing your own power indefinitely, you can understand what you can achieve degree."

"Your strength has a limit. Once you reach that limit, you can almost die."

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it's really a bad game." Yinshu said with a helpless smile.

Pingzi made a "tsk" sound: "You have to waste Reiatsu because of you, give me a quick solution."

"I won't show mercy." Yinshu raised his eyebrows.

"It's better to consider your own strength before saying such things," Hirako said calmly, looking at Yinshu with downcast eyes, "Don't worry about releasing the spiritual pressure, and take out the mask too."

"It's really out of control, we will beat you down again."