Chapter 33: Training in the Art of Killing
Xia Mu thought that learning kendo from Unohana Retsu was through actual combat with Unohana Retsu, and gradually mastering various techniques of swordsmanship in battle.

But it's not.

Even though Unohana Retsu was an executioner who killed people without blinking an eye in the past, that was those days after all.

Now, she has put away her edge and looks like an extremely gentle person.

Her teaching style has also changed compared to the past and is now extremely gentle.

The first thing Xia Mu did when he learned the art of swordsmanship from her was to read books.

Lots of books.

According to Unohana Retsu, these books all contain secret kendo and sword techniques that were once circulated in Soul Society, but now, with the passage of time, most of them have been lost in the years.

Xia Mu did not ask why these out-of-print ancient books appeared in Unohana Retsu's hands.

He just flipped through the books quietly.

Assassination, assassination, poisoning, sword drawing, double sword style, and stroking, all kinds of kendo and sword style techniques were read by Xia Mu one by one, and then he memorized them in his heart. Some of the techniques were really difficult to associate with kendo.

For example, sprinkling something like lime powder in front of people to confuse their eyes, and then attacking them when they are unprepared, can this also be considered kendo?

But there are so many of these techniques, and there are always many useful ones among them.

If you can master all these skills, you will have a lot more means to fight the enemy.

According to Unohana Retsu, the essence of fighting is to defeat the enemy, so the means used are actually not important.

What matters is the result.

But having said that, Unohana Retsu himself seemed to have changed a long time ago.

What she enjoyed more was the process of fighting that brought her joy, rather than the result.

Reading, and reading.

Although Unohana Retsu still hasn't taught Natsuki in actual combat, Natsuki has made a lot of progress just from reading books.

Naturally, when there was a battle, he would not hesitate to apply the combat skills learned from books to actual combat.

As Gosuke became the new captain of the 11th Division, he was promoted to vice-captain. In addition to assisting Gosuke in handling team affairs as before, the combat tasks falling on him were also heavier.

The deputy captain and the third seat have different identities and therefore undertake different combat missions.

However, Xia Mu had no complaints. On the contrary, he longed to fight against stronger people. He himself did not realize that after he became the God of Death and chose to fight against the Hollows, he gradually got used to this kind of fighting life.

Fighting became a hobby of his.

Time is really insignificant to the god of death.

In the blink of an eye, several years passed.

Xia Mu has completely gotten used to the life of deputy captain.

In the 11th Squadron, some team members died in battle and new members joined the team. After the replacement of the old and the new, Xia Mu also went from being a newbie who just joined the 11th Squadron to a real veteran.

Xia Mu took the death of his teammates in the battle lightly.

He has gradually become accustomed to matters of life and death.

Everyone will die, including him.

All he could do was to make himself as strong as possible to avoid death.

In the fourth squad.

Xia Mu held the shallow strike, and his figure crossed with Unohana Retsu. As the shallow strikes collided, the two figures suddenly approached each other, and then suddenly pulled away.

After a long period of reading, Unohana Retsu's teaching of the art of killing had finally reached the stage of actual combat.

Unohana Retsu may seem gentle, but when he attacks, he is actually ruthless and fierce.

Even after years of fighting, Xia Mu has considerable practical experience.

But the Xu he had faced in the past were all guys who didn't know any fighting skills and had clumsy movements. As long as he was fast enough and attacked hard enough, he could easily kill them.

This is not the case with Unohana Retsu. She has mastered superb fighting skills and her movements are more flexible than those of a Hollow.

So during the first actual combat, Xia Mu was directly suppressed by him.

But his growth was also rapid.

Because he had read many ancient books provided by Unohana Retsu beforehand, he was familiar with various fighting techniques.

As Unohana Retsu continued to feed him moves, he gradually transformed the theories in his mind into skills that he actually mastered.

By now, Natsuki has been able to fight back and forth with Unohana Retsu for a long time.

"Deputy Captain Natsuki has made great progress!" Unohana Retsu withdrew her hand and put the Asado into the scabbard. She was no longer as heroic as she was in the previous battle, but returned to her gentle appearance in the past. She spoke softly to Natsuki.

"This is all thanks to Captain Unohana's good teaching." Xia Mu complimented Unohana Rei.

Unohana Retsu smiled faintly and gladly accepted Xia Mu's compliment.

Then he added: "But in the next period of time, I'm afraid you will be busy. I hope you can be more serious and don't die. At the same time, take advantage of the opportunity of actual combat as much as possible to hone your own sword skills."

There was a solemn tone in Unohana Retsu's voice.

"Does Captain Unohana know any inside information?" Xia Mu raised his eyebrows slightly when he heard this and couldn't help asking.

Although he is the vice-captain, in the Gotei 13, unless you are the captain, there are some things you are not qualified to know.

Not every captain's meeting allows the vice-captain to participate.

There are some important meetings that only the team leader is qualified to participate in.

The captain knows many secrets that even the deputy captains don't know.

This can be seen in the original work when Aizen first heard of the existence of "Squad Zero".

The existence of Squad Zero was no secret to many captains, and they casually talked about Hikifune Kiryu's promotion.

But for the deputy captain under him, it was still a shock to suddenly learn about the incident.

I just don't know if Aizen's shocked look was just fake, or if he really didn't know about the existence of Squad Zero before that.

Natsuki is more inclined to the former. After all, at that time, Aizen had already created the Hogyoku, and it was only a few years since the captain's hollowification incident.

But his pretended ignorance revealed a lot in itself.

This proves that the deputy captain's right to know is not as good as that of the captain.

"It's okay to tell you about this in advance. After all, you will know it soon."

Unohana Retsu's tone was gentle, with no intention of hiding anything. "The war between the Shinigami and the Quincies is about to begin. After a series of assessments on the dangers of the Quincies, the Central 46th Chamber issued a war order to the Gotei 13, deciding to annihilate all the Quincies in the world. The existence of the Quincies has seriously destroyed the balance between souls."

"Your Eleventh Division, as a combat team, will be the main force in the battle against the Quincy!"

(End of this chapter)