Faced with the sudden interrogation aimed at his friend, Tōshirō's good mood, full of expectations and not yet fully recovered from the warmth of a pleasant memory, was instantly shattered.
"Who are you!"
His hand gripped the hilt of the sword behind his back as he stepped forward, moving past Suō Tsukasa.
His eyes narrowed, and he stared at the rude and unfamiliar student in front of him with an unfriendly expression, issuing a cold reprimand.
"I..."
The student was intimidated by Tōshirō's icy stare and the spiritual pressure leaking out due to his anger, leaving him momentarily speechless.
"Tōshirō, what are you doing here!"
Just then, a gentle, sweet female voice broke the standoff.
Hearing the voice, Tōshirō turned his head only to realize the speaker was his childhood friend, Hinamori Momo.
"Hinamori, long time no see."
Even with an acquaintance present, Tōshirō's tone only softened slightly as he offered a brief greeting, still maintaining his guard against the unfamiliar newcomer.
The atmosphere became awkward.
"Is there something you need from me?"
Suō Tsukasa, the person being sought, naturally wouldn't hide in the back to watch the drama. He stepped forward, a faint smile on his face.
Everyone present was someone Suō Tsukasa knew, even if some of them didn't yet know him.
The boy with the red spiky hair, the boy with yellow hair, a black-haired girl with two small buns behind her ears, and another black-haired girl with an 'onion head' hairstyle.
Abarai Renji, Kira Izuru, Hinamori Momo, and Rukia, who was not yet Kuchiki Rukia.
The three Vice-Captain candidates were classmates, and the shared experience of near-death during a field training incident had forged a bond of shared life and death. It was not surprising to see the three of them together.
Though Abarai Renji and Rukia were not in the same class, they were childhood friends from the same district. It was also not surprising to see her with the other three.
What did surprise him was why Abarai Renji would come looking for trouble with him.
Suō Tsukasa was quite taken aback, not expecting his encounter with these few individuals to happen under such circumstances.
"Abarai, that Suō-kun is a friend of someone Hinamori knows."
"So he's practically an acquaintance. Maybe we should just let it go."
Kira Izuru, who had not yet joined the 3rd Division, did not have the gloomy expression of his future self; instead, he looked quite gentle. He placed a hand on Renji's shoulder and softly tried to dissuade him.
His first impression of Suō Tsukasa was very good—someone who could maintain a smile even when someone came looking for a fight. He didn't want his friend to start a needless conflict.
"Yeah, Renji..."
Rukia also spoke up appropriately.
But before she could finish, Abarai Renji shrugged off Kira Izuru's hand and took a step towards Suō Tsukasa.
"Where's the 'Senior'? Where's the 'Senior'?"
"You need to show the proper respect to your Senior, kid!"
Embarrassed and annoyed that he had been momentarily cowed by a kid so much shorter than himself, and angered by Suō Tsukasa's dismissive use of casual language instead of honorifics, Abarai Renji strode up to Suō Tsukasa, stared him in the eyes, and shouted.
"Senior? That depends on whether you deserve the title."
"If you want to fight, follow me."
The reason for the sudden confrontation was irrelevant to Suō Tsukasa; he was in no mood to ask why, as it certainly wasn't an attempt to make friends.
Abarai Renji's personality in the early parts of the original story was not very likable, largely due to the harsh environment of his upbringing.
Hailing from District 78 of the South Rukongai, he carried a deep sense of inferiority, even comparing himself to a stray dog in front of Kurosaki Ichigo.
His status as a student at the Shin'ō Academy was perhaps one of the few pieces of 'dignity' he currently possessed.
While Suō Tsukasa could rationally understand and guess at the source of his inexplicable emotions, that didn't mean he would indulge him.
The smile just now was his offer of a peaceful retreat. Since the other party refused to take it, he didn't mind teaching him a lesson.
"Hurry up, I'm in a rush."
With a sneer, Suō Tsukasa dropped the smile from his face. After throwing out the challenge, he turned and walked toward the practice grounds.
While the Shin'ō Academy prohibited private fights among students, it did allow duels under limited rules.
Where there are people, there will be conflict, and such things are unavoidable.
Furthermore, the Academy was not a greenhouse for delicate flowers. Preventing conflict through controlling it is better than trying to block it completely. For this purpose, the Academy had specially set up a dueling arena for students to vent their frustrations.
Seeing Suō Tsukasa leave, Tōshirō glanced at the anxious Hinamori Momo beside him, said nothing, and followed.
Abarai Renji's face grew even darker.
He hadn't expected the purpose of his visit to be realized in such an unconventional way. With a cold expression, he also strode to follow.
"Renji..."
Rukia tried one last time to call out but failed to stop him.
"Sigh, let's follow..."
The three remaining outside the door exchanged glances, sighed, and had no choice but to follow.
The quiet courtyard was quickly left behind as the group formed a line, walking toward the dueling arena.
The morning sun was still bright, but the atmosphere in the air grew tense.
This sudden conflict was not without reason.
The root of everything lay in a single word: 'Reputation.'
Suō Tsukasa's outstanding performance in class, spread by teachers and the high-grade students assisting with instruction, quickly made him famous throughout the Shin'ō Academy.
Gossip has a tendency to become distorted and exaggerated through word-of-mouth.
Lately, Suō Tsukasa had even been hailed as the most outstanding student in the Academy in the last century, an absolute genius with whom no current student could compare.
It was only because the Academy's curriculum was heavy and demanding, combined with some misrepresentations of his appearance in the rumors, that the students' attention and focus had been diverted.
Therefore, his student life hadn't been greatly affected during this period.
Abarai Renji was one of the 'victims' of these rumors.
Despite constantly being defeated in the original story's battles, he was undeniably the top student in the elite class of the 2066 cohort.
His homeroom teacher, Ōunabara Gengorō, was someone who valued fame and profit and had a less-than-pleasant temper.
It was precisely because of this that Renji was constantly being compared to Suō Tsukasa, the super rookie of the 2069 cohort.
"Your Kidō level can't even compare to a first-year student. Do you even still want to become a Shinigami!?"
"How ridiculous!"
A few days prior, Abarai Renji had been sharply reprimanded by Ōunabara Gengorō in front of many classmates during a break.
The expression on the teacher's face, which clearly read, "It's all your fault for embarrassing me in front of the other teachers!" was like a sharp thorn piercing his sensitive heart.
The anger and resentment that had been suppressed for days finally boiled over on the first morning of the holiday, leading him to rush off to confront and vent his feelings on Suō Tsukasa.
He wanted to see with his own eyes how formidable this supposedly godlike genius was, and more importantly, he wanted to defeat him to prove that he was not as incompetent as his teacher claimed.
As for Rukia, she had overheard Kira Izuru and Hinamori Momo trying to dissuade Renji from looking for trouble and, unable to feel at ease, had come along.
Thus, the current scene, thick with the smell of gunpowder, was set.
Rumor, pressure, and youthful pride intertwined, all pointing in the direction of the dueling arena.
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