No wonder he still refused to leave even after the hospital was abandoned.
"Hey! You're not allowed in! Did you pay before you walked in?!" The Jibakurei shouted at the staff. "I'm gonna slaughter you all!"
"Even if he yells like that, the people who can't hear him still won't," Orihime Inoue said, tilting her head. "And how would we even give him money? Even if we could, he wouldn't be able to spend it."
"That's what people call a vengeful spirit," Muten Natsu said, "somewhere between a harmless ghost and a harmful evil spirit, repeating the same grievance over and over even though no one can hear."
Then he had an idea.
"Hey, if we put money right in front of him… and he can't pick it up, or he picks it up and realizes he can't spend it, what do you think he'd say then?"
Tatsuki Arisawa's mouth twitched.
"That depends on how many swear words he knows."
Rukia Kuchiki's gaze flicked between Orihime Inoue and Muten Natsu.
They'd clearly thought of the same thing, yet somehow the vibe was completely different.
"This hospital… it was supposed to be handed down to me from my old man…" The Jibakurei kept ranting. "Then I could use this hospital to make a fortune and become a rich man!"
"I should've been driving a pink Cadillac, drinking pink Dom Pérignon, wearing a pink suit, strolling freely across a pink dance floor and enjoying a pink life, but… but my old man gave it to his younger brother! Unforgivable!"
Tatsuki Arisawa looked exhausted.
"This guy's obsession with pink feels even stronger than his obsession with the hospital."
"We're about to start filming!" The director's voice boomed through the loudspeaker. "Five-second countdown!"
"Ooh!" Rukia Kuchiki lit up with excitement. "Something's about to start!"
Muten Natsu tilted his head.
"You don't even know what it is. Why are you this excited?"
"Idiot, that's exactly why I'm excited," Rukia Kuchiki snapped. "Because I don't know. If I already knew, what would there be to get excited about?"
"There are still things you can get excited about even when you know what they are," Muten Natsu argued.
Rukia Kuchiki tilted her head.
"Like what?"
"Like…" Muten Natsu almost said "deliveries," but then realized he hadn't received any in the past three years, and there was no way to explain what that even meant in a couple of sentences.
He rubbed his ear, searching for a different answer, and his gaze drifted downward out of habit.
Rukia Kuchiki suddenly realized what he was doing and jerked her small foot back.
"Pervert!"
Muten Natsu froze.
"I'm not! I didn't! Don't say stuff like that!"
Rukia Kuchiki ducked behind Orihime Inoue.
"Then don't look around like that!"
"It's a habitual movement!"
"People who have that kind of habit are perverts, what else would they be?!"
"Shh~" Orihime Inoue hooked an arm around each of them. "It's about to start."
Watching the three of them, Tatsuki Arisawa could already guess what their everyday life looked like. Just thinking about it made her feel tired on Orihime Inoue's behalf.
But then she remembered those days when Orihime Inoue had been home alone, crying while watching comedy shows, trying her hardest to make herself feel better…
For Orihime Inoue, life now was probably easier than it had ever been.
"Four! Three! Two! One!"
The director finished the countdown, and the slightly chubby host with glasses they'd seen on TV began reading his lines.
"Good evening, everyone. Tonight's Ghost Bust brings you an emergency live broadcast from an abandoned hospital in Karakura Town."
The camera turned toward the derelict hospital.
"It's said that every night, the cries of vengeful spirits can be heard here. Local residents don't dare approach this abandoned hospital. So what will he do tonight?"
"Now, let's bring him out!" The host's voice rose higher and higher as the atmosphere heated up and the surrounding crowd burst into cheers. "The super-popular spiritual medium of the new millennium! The messenger from Hell! Mr… Don Kanonji—!"
"How's it going?" Amid roaring winds and the clamor below, Kanonji's voice rang out from the sky. "Are you all doing well today, babies?"
Dressed in his usual flamboyant attire, Kanonji leaped straight out of the helicopter.
"SPIRITS ARE ALWAYS WITH YOU—!"
As the crowd roared, he deployed his parachute at just the right height.
"Wahahahahahaha!!!"
A large swath of the crowd copied his pose, arms crossed over their chests.
"Wahahahahahaha!!!"
Muten Natsu: "..."
He really wanted some AD Calcium Milk.
"Oh!" Rukia Kuchiki clenched her small fists, eyes shining. "So he's today's main attraction! That entrance is so special! I don't really get it, but he seems amazing!"
Orihime Inoue was also startled by the spectacle. "Seeing it live really is different from watching it on TV~"
After landing, Kanonji calmly unhooked his parachute and began speaking with the host.
The host praised him with admiration. "Such an over-the-top entrance suits this program perfectly. Truly worthy of Mr. Don Kanonji!"
"It's nothing, really." Guided by the host, Kanonji turned toward the abandoned hospital. "That thing's been making a racket, radiating an incredibly strong spiritual presence." He deliberately slowed his speech. "That thing basically…"
"SMELLS LIKE BAD SPIRITS!!!"
The crowd shouted his signature line in unison.
"He can actually see it…" Tatsuki Arisawa said in surprise. "I thought it was all just an act."
Muten Natsu found himself agreeing more and more with what Rukia Kuchiki had said earlier.
"So you really do have to try to understand things to discover more."
You really couldn't tell whether Kanonji could see spirits just by watching him on TV.
"By the way," Tatsuki Arisawa pointed toward the Jibakurei, "are you really just going to stand there and watch?"
"I already had to push myself just to come here," Muten Natsu said solemnly. "Don't expect me to play along."
"I'm not asking you to play along," Tatsuki Arisawa said worriedly. "Didn't Rukia just say he might turn into a Hollow? Aren't you going to perform Konsō?"
"No need to worry," Rukia Kuchiki turned to explain. "Becoming a Hollow takes a long time. He won't suddenly transform within an hour."
"And with this many people around, acting rashly would be a hassle," Muten Natsu added. "Judging by his condition, unless something unexpected happens, it'll take at least half a year for him to become a Hollow. We just need to deal with it before then."
"Unexpected?" Orihime Inoue asked curiously. "What kind of unexpected things?"
"Things like being surrounded by multiple Hollows, or suffering a severe emotional shock," Rukia Kuchiki explained calmly. "Ah, right, and any stimulation to the hole in his chest…"
As they spoke, Kanonji had already been observing the evil spirit for quite some time. After failing to communicate, he decisively raised the skull-topped staff in his hand and slammed it into the Jibakurei's chest.
"SPIRITS STICK!"