Chapter 288

Chapter 288: Chapter 288

Rayleigh slept through almost the entire day after returning from the Dungeon.

He had expected to finish breakfast, lie down for a short rest, and wake sometime around noon.

Instead, by the time he finally opened his eyes, the sunlight through the bedroom window had already turned orange.

The stiffness throughout his body made it clear that his idea of a brief nap had failed rather badly.

He remained on his back for several minutes, staring at the ceiling while taking stock of himself.

His spiritual pressure had recovered considerably, the lingering weakness in his right arm from the signal root was almost gone, and even the deeper exhaustion left behind by Knossos no longer felt as close to the surface as it had during the expedition.

More importantly, the soul thread connecting him to Alfia was calm.

He could sense her somewhere else in the house, which meant she had apparently decided there was no reason to wake him merely to complain that he had overslept.

Rayleigh sat up and rubbed his face.

’Maybe she does have mercy after all.’

Alfia’s voice reached him from downstairs with perfect clarity.

"If you’re awake enough to think nonsense, you’re awake enough to get out of bed."

Rayleigh stared toward the door.

’Never mind.’

By the time he came downstairs, Alfia had already returned to her chair with a book in hand.

She barely glanced up when he entered, though a second cup of tea had appeared on the table.

Rayleigh sat across from her and picked it up.

"How long was I asleep?"

"Long enough that I considered checking whether you were still alive."

"That sounds concerned."

"It was practical. A corpse upstairs would eventually become unpleasant."

Rayleigh took a sip of tea and decided not to press his luck.

For all her dry remarks, the soul thread carried none of the fear she had felt after Knossos.

That was enough for him.

He had come home exhausted instead of half-dead, kept Bankai sealed exactly as promised, and for once there was no argument waiting for him at the end of a mission.

He spent the rest of the evening resting and repairing the minor damage to his equipment.

None of his five Zanpakutō had suffered anything serious, although Benihime needed a thorough cleaning after the prolonged fighting and Senbonzakura’s sheath had picked up several cracks during the expedition.

Ordinary maintenance felt almost relaxing after several days of monsters trying to study, absorb, and reproduce everything his blades could do.

The next morning, Rayleigh left the house only after checking the street outside and locking the door behind him as usual. Alfia remained upstairs.

No one passing through the neighborhood had any reason to suspect that one of Orario’s most infamous former enemies was quietly reading behind those walls.

...

Hephaestus intercepted him almost as soon as he entered the Familia headquarters.

Rayleigh had intended to go straight to the forge.

He had promised Tsubaki that Tobiume would receive maintenance today, and experience had taught him that making Tsubaki wait after promising her something was rarely worth the trouble.

He never reached the stairs.

Hephaestus appeared in the corridor and pointed toward her private room.

"Inside."

Rayleigh stopped.

"That sounded ominous."

"Status update."

"Oh."

Considerably less ominous.

He followed her inside and removed his shirt without needing to be told.

Hephaestus sat behind him, applied her divine blood to the Falna on his back, and began drawing out the Excellia he had accumulated since his previous update.

The process took longer than usual.

Rayleigh first noticed because Hephaestus had gone unusually quiet.

She normally commented whenever one of his attributes made a strange jump, especially now that he was Level 4 and his visible ability values had reset with the new vessel.

This time, she said nothing for long enough that Rayleigh eventually turned his head slightly.

"Something wrong?"

"No. Turn around."

"You’re staring at my back."

"I am updating your Falna. That’s generally how this works."

"I meant you’re staring more intensely than usual."

Hephaestus ignored him until the final line of divine script settled into place.

Only then did she copy the updated status onto paper and lean back.

Rayleigh waited while she read the page once.

Then again.

"Well?"

"You have a very annoying Skill."

Rayleigh smiled.

"Soul Blade?"

"What else?"

She handed him the sheet.

Rayleigh looked over the changes without immediately focusing on the individual numbers.

Every ability had risen substantially since his last update, with Magic increasing by the widest margin.

Considering what he had done in Knossos and throughout the lower Dungeon, that was hardly surprising. Dexterity and Agility had also grown sharply after so much close combat, Shunpo, sword work, and constant adaptation.

What caught his attention was the total.

It was too much for his own battles alone to explain.

Hephaestus tapped the Skill section with one finger.

"You earned plenty of Excellia yourself, but Soul Blade also recognized several achievements from the Zanpakutō you forged. Ais, Tsubaki, Ardi, and Lyra were all fighting beside you in the Deep Floors, and each of their blades played a direct role in destroying something far beyond an ordinary monster."

Rayleigh thought back through the expedition.

Gonryōmaru had overcome an enemy built specifically to reproduce its lightning, and Ais had learned to seize control of electricity the monster believed it had stolen.

Tobiume had repeatedly defeated creatures designed around countering its explosive power.

Nejibana and Arachne had both been essential to severing the roots that sustained the nest, and all four wielders had contributed to killing the source itself.

"That counted as a great feat for each blade."

"Apparently."

Hephaestus folded her arms.

"You were already receiving Excellia through Zanpakutō wielders before, but there are enough mature blades accomplishing serious things now that the effect is becoming much harder to ignore."

Rayleigh looked at the sheet again.

That had always been the frightening part of Soul Blade.

His growth was no longer tied solely to what he accomplished with his own hands.

Every Zanpakutō he placed into the world could continue developing alongside its wielder, and whenever one of those blades achieved something significant, part of that achievement returned to him as its creator.

He had understood the theory from the beginning.

Seeing four separate great feats reflected in a single update was different.

Hephaestus must have noticed where his thoughts were going, because she reached over and tapped him on the forehead.

"Don’t start calculating how many Zanpakutō you can scatter across Orario."

"I wasn’t."

"You absolutely were."

"I was considering the long-term implications."

"That is how you describe planning something dangerous."

Rayleigh set the sheet down.

"I still decide who receives one. That hasn’t changed."

Hephaestus’s expression softened slightly.

"I know. I’m not worried about the Skill itself. I’m worried about you seeing faster growth and deciding that means you need increasingly ridiculous things to fight."

Rayleigh considered Knossos, the Deep Floors, and the unfortunate fact that both incidents had happened almost back-to-back.

"That would be unreasonable."

Hephaestus stared at him.

Rayleigh looked away.

"Fine. More unreasonable than usual."

"That is not reassuring."

She took the status sheet back, folded it, and placed it with her records.

"You’re still Level 4, and you’re staying Level 4. Your vessel has plenty of room left, so don’t even start thinking about rushing another level."

"I wasn’t going to."

That answer, at least, was completely sincere.

Rayleigh had already learned the value of pushing his ability values beyond their ordinary limits. Throwing away that advantage simply because he had accumulated enough impressive achievements to satisfy the great-feat requirement would be pointless.

Hephaestus seemed satisfied and handed his shirt back.

"Good. Now go to the forge before Tsubaki comes looking for you. She’s already asked me twice whether you’ve arrived."

Rayleigh pulled the shirt over his head.

"I promised her yesterday."

"Yes, and apparently Tobiume has been complaining since sunrise."

"That sounds like Tsubaki’s problem."

"You created the sword."

Rayleigh paused on his way to the door.

"That argument gets used against me far too often."

"Get used to it."

...

Tsubaki was waiting in Rayleigh’s forge with Tobiume already laid across the workbench.

She had not exaggerated about the maintenance.

The modified flame-shaped blade still looked structurally sound, and the crimson liquid running through the groove at its center moved normally, but Rayleigh could feel the Zanpakutō’s irritation before he even touched it.

He sat down and closed one hand around the hilt.

Tobiume responded immediately.

Rayleigh shut his eyes for a moment, then looked at Tsubaki.

"She really is annoyed."

Tsubaki leaned against the workbench.

"I told you."

"Not damaged. Annoyed."

"There’s a difference?"

"A very large one."

Rayleigh lifted Tobiume beneath the forge light and examined the blade more carefully.

Tsubaki’s physical modification remained completely stable, which mattered because altering a Zanpakutō’s vessel only worked when the spirit accepted the change.

Tobiume clearly had no objection to the flame-shaped body Tsubaki had given her.

If anything, their bond had become stronger since the modification.

The expedition itself had simply been unpleasant.

"She didn’t enjoy watching monsters imitate her."

Tsubaki grinned.

"Neither did I."

"The repeated absorption bothered her more than the copies. A Zanpakutō is part of its wielder’s soul. Having something constantly pulling at the spiritual pressure around the blade feels invasive, even when it doesn’t cause permanent damage."