Bleach: Starting From Joining Squad 6

After leaving the Squad 12 barracks, Yoruichi Shihōin vanished early the next morning. Nagasawa Masaru figured she was either off reporting to Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto or... just off fooling around somewhere.

Of course, he was leaning toward the latter.

Returning to the Squad 6 barracks, Nagasawa once again marveled at how right his choice had been.

Though it lacked the comfort of modern furniture, the Squad 6 barracks emphasized a kind of refined elegance. And thanks to his third seat status, he'd been directly assigned a decently sized private courtyard.

Just as Yoruichi had said, the first day of joining a squad was usually meant for adapting to the new environment. With no missions assigned, he peacefully passed his first night in the Soul Society.

The next morning, as he lay staring up at the traditional wooden ceiling in classic Japanese style, a faint sense of unreality still lingered in his heart.

But what comforted him was that he was not only still alive—his work in Squad 6 also suited him perfectly.

Shinigami duties, excluding the stealth operations of the Onmitsukidō (Squad 2), the healing role of Squad 4, and the research and spiritual monitoring tasks of Squad 12, generally boiled down to two categories: patrols and incident response.

Patrols were simple. Whether in the Human World or the Soul Society, each squad had its own jurisdiction. The key was to ensure the proper conduct of soul burials—guiding spirits to the Soul Society and dealing with those who had turned into Hollows.

As for incident response, it was even easier to understand. Unless it was a special order from Squad 1, it usually involved dealing with things like uprisings in Rukongai, intrusions from the Human World, missing Shinigami, or invasions from Hueco Mundo.

And as the noble squad among the Gotei 13, Squad 6's jurisdiction naturally covered only one place.

The Noble District.

Only the wealthy or powerful could reside there—including the Five Great Noble Families and the Central 46 Chambers.

Over time, privilege inevitably gave rise to its own unspoken rules. Mid- and lower-ranking nobles were bound by higher-ranking ones, and the high nobles in turn answered to the Central 46.

Squad 6 wasn't so much the enforcer of order in the Noble District as it was the caretaker of these visible and invisible rules.

To put it bluntly, as long as there were no emergencies, Nagasawa's job was absurdly easy. He even managed to sleep past noon without a single Squad 6 officer coming to summon him.

And just as he was getting bored enough to start fantasizing about owning a game console, the system in his mind finally completed its formal update.

[Congratulations, host. The Official Version of the Strongest Shinigami System has been successfully activated.]

Level: Background Character, Peak Shinigami Trial Card time remaining: 8 days, 22 hours, 37 minutes, and 24 seconds. (Great power built on false prosperity. Once the trial card expires... what will you have left?)

↓ Expand to view status panel

Expectation Value: 0 (No one expects anything from you.)

↓ Expand for notes and expectation acquisition record

Fate Value: 0 (Those who cannot change fate will never be protagonists.)

↓ Expand for notes and fate progress

Skill: Marlon Brando's Peak Acting.

Talent: Hyper Absorption (You possess a spiritual absorption rate far beyond that of ordinary souls. In some sense, this might even qualify you as a genius.)

Abnormal Status: Hollow Deficiency (Although your Soul Sleep and Soul Chain have been repaired, your unique body and abnormally fast absorption rate have made your already frail body even more injury-prone. Once you begin using spiritual pressure, your chance of injury doubles and increases by 1% every second. After stopping spiritual pressure use for 30 minutes, the injury rate resets.)

To be honest, Nagasawa was thrilled when the system officially activated.

This was his ticket to getting stronger. Even if the system came with a built-in sarcasm module, he could live with that.

I mean, seriously—who gets reincarnated into another world with a system and still lives a mediocre life?

No way, right? No way, no way, right?

Sure, the status panel and fate value were just as pathetic as expected, but the [Hyper Absorption] talent gave him a real jolt of excitement. He even started rethinking his earlier plan to laze around on a government paycheck and considered going full "shonen protagonist."

But then... he saw the abnormal status named [Hollow Deficiency].

His face went green on the spot.

It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head on a sub-zero winter night.

If you can't come up with a name, just leave it blank. No need to make up garbage like this!

What do you mean hollow? What do you mean deficient?!

Ahem...

Clearly, Nagasawa's priorities were a bit off.

After calming down a bit, he gave a mental giant red X to the idea of becoming a main character.

This was beyond the realm of "slacking off."

The Shinigami combat system was split into four categories: Zanjutsu (sword), Hakuda (hand-to-hand), Hohō (movement), and Kidō (spells). But all four were fundamentally built on one thing—spiritual pressure.

If a Shinigami lost their spiritual pressure, they couldn't even swing a Zanpakutō properly. Even a slightly tougher Hollow's skin would be impervious to barehanded strikes.

Let alone actual battles between experts, where a single moment decided everything.

If he fought for just a few minutes, his injury chance would spike through the roof.

What if he threw out his back mid-fight? Or cramped a toe muscle? He'd be dead before he hit the ground.

"So the system wants me to be Ultraman, huh? Three minutes and out?"

The only saving grace was that this abnormal status seemed tied to his physical fragility. If he could strengthen his body, maybe he could get rid of it.

Rubbing his temples, Nagasawa pondered for a moment, then decided to set the issue aside. He turned his attention to the two most promising things: the so-called Expectation Value and Fate Value.

The expectation value was straightforward. When he expanded the note panel, the system explained it clearly.

Basically, it was like a watered-down version of Goku's Spirit Bomb. As long as someone in the world had expectations for him, those feelings could be quantified.

The cap was 100 points. Once he reached that, he could draw a three-day trial card of any ability.

That was actually pretty reasonable. It meant that even after his peak Shinigami card expired, he wouldn't instantly become a powerless scrub. He'd still have a chance to survive.

Of course, probably to prevent players from hoarding cards, the system placed restrictions.

You could only activate a trial card immediately upon drawing it. If you wanted to switch skills mid-use, you'd have to accumulate another 100 points to draw a new one.

A fair, balanced limit.

As for Fate Value? Now that was more metaphysical...

OG Author's Note (PS):

It seems like some readers are confused as to why an abnormal status appeared right after clearing the previous negative one. Let me explain a bit.

This [Hollow Deficiency] is not a negative status. I won't go into the whole "Chinese is a nuanced language" spiel, but basically, this status has both pros and cons. You'll see later, it's not plot armor-breaking nonsense.

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