The Bakkōtō squad departed this world in peace.
Though these members of the Executive Militia from Omnitsukido were handpicked to assassinate the scourge of the Genji shinigami and undoubtedly skilled operatives but their prowess paled in the grand scheme.
Let it not be forgotten, that the war between the Seireitei and the Genji School had raged for over two years.
Most of the Executive Militia's elite were rare talents who emerged once every few decades or centuries had perished in the conflict's nascent days. They fell during the relentless, saturation-style assaults aimed at Yamamoto. The vast majority were reduced to ash; a scant few left charred husks, buried somewhere to nourish the trees, their graves unmarked.
The Executive Militia of today? Calling them a ragtag bunch of misfits wouldn't be the slightest exaggeration.
Even armed with the Kasumioji's meticulously crafted Bakkōtō, they were no match for the Shinigami of the Genji School survivors hardened by the Hueco Mundo Rift incident. In their presence, these foes were far from formidable.
The pursuit was a one-sided massacre from the start.
…
Run! Run! Run!
Sweat drenched Saramasa Nukui as he pushed his Shunpo to its absolute limit, flickering through the pitch-black forest with near-blinding speed. He ignored the writhing Bakkōtō fused to his right arm, summoning every ounce of his reiatsu in a desperate bid to escape.
It wasn't death he feared!
Long before these blades were grafted onto them, every Executive Militia member knew their fate, to exhaust their reiatsu slaying mighty foes, dying gloriously on the battlefield.
But he hadn't known he'd face Makoto Fujimiya!
Between life and death lies a terror unfathomable!
At this moment, Saramasa grasped that truth with visceral clarity, he absolutely refused to become a human donut with his head shoved into… well, there!
Had Makoto glimpsed the assassins' thoughts, his feelings would have been a tangled mess. On one hand, the Seireitei's propaganda machine had worked wonders, bamboozling even its own ranks. On the other... damn it, how had a perfectly decent charming Soul Society youth like him been twisted into this monstrous caricature!?
"Argghh!!!"
Just as Saramasa began to relax, sensing the pursuing reiatsu fade, a shrill and wretched scream pierced the distance.
In an instant, his blood ran cold and all of his hair stood on end!
That cry came from an Executive Militia veteran, someone forged in the crucible of anti-torture drills, pain conditioning, and trials of an unbreakable will since childhood!
What agony could wrench such a pitiful, girlish wail from them?
Could it be....!
Had Makoto that depraved demon already…?
The thought sent a shudder coursing through Saramasa's frame.
Nobles with their perverse penchant for entertainment, often defied the limits of ordinary imagination—because they'd done these atrocities, and reveled in it.
No wonder! No wonder they hadn't caught up!
They were toying with them, hunting them down as they'd once tormented Pluses, a cruel game of cat and mouse!
A slaughter not just of the body, but of the spirit!
In that moment, clarity gripped Saramasa's heart.
As he grappled with this realization, a dark figure materialized beside him with a soft rustle.
"Finally stopped, huh?"
Makoto's form appeared atop a tree, gazing down at him with quiet detachment.
Saramasa's bloodshot eyes locked onto the shadowy silhouette, veins bulging across the whites like those of the souls he'd once tormented to death. He roared hoarsely.
"Come!"
"Makoto Fujimiya! Show me what you've got!"
His raw and ragged voice cracked as his rigid frame erupted with a surge of reiatsu... an apex reached in this fleeting moment, teetering on the edge of his lifetime's peak.
The Bakkōtō coiled around his arm pulsed in response, its writhing tendrils unfurling with a terrifying burst of reiatsu, radiating violent halos in all directions.
"Tear him apart, Panya!"
With a bellow steeped in fury, Saramasa launched himself at Makoto via Shunpo.
The blade he called Panya morphed into a grotesque form, massive white tusks sprouting from his arm, twisting into a spear-tip aimed straight ahead.
Makoto faced the strike with cool indifference, slowly drawing the Zanpakutō at his waist.
Panya's ability was straightforward: it drastically amplified its wielder's speed. Yet the simpler the power, the more devastating its mastery. To an average Shinigami, this charge would be a blur too swift to track.
Shing!
Saramasa's form streaked forward, his Bakkōtō Blade slicing through the air like a ribbon of white light, shrieking as it rent the night. His body seemed to meld with the darkness itself.
Yet to Makoto, it was as if nothing stood before him.
As he'd learned countless times before...
Against a non-rule-based Zanpakutō, reiatsu was everything.
"Second Form - Silent Stream."
The near-point-blank slash veered aside effortlessly. Makoto's blade dissolved into fragmented streams of light, weaving and darting unpredictably.
They plunged straight for Saramasa's chest and abdomen.
With scarcely a pause, the two passed one another.
A strained, feral grin twisted Saramasa's face.
At last…
He'd escape a fate of abject humiliation.
But before he could process it, Makoto's voice called out to the approaching Genji shinigami in the distance, "Hey, drag this guy back to the medics."
"That thing on him's interesting, make sure to remove it intact."
"Yes, sir!"
The shinigami responded in unison.
Saramasa's expression froze, his gaze snapping to Makoto in stunned disbelief. A wail tore from his throat.
"N-No don't!!!"
…
Unohana sat quietly at the campsite.
Between her slender, pale fingers twirled a small golden orb resembling an eye.
The core of a Bakkōtō.
By slaying other shinigami or channeling the wielder's own reiatsu, it could endlessly absorb reishi, amplifying the blade's power to unimaginable heights.
This core was, in essence, a synthetic organism.
Yet in Unohana's hands, it seemed little more than a trinket to toy with. Her densely concentrated reiatsu rendered it incapable of siphoning a drop.
After a cursory glance, she tossed it back to Makoto with mild disinterest. "A heretical tool, nothing more."
"For a shinigami's growth, it offers only drawbacks."
Her gaze shifted to him, her tone sharpening beyond its usual calm.
"You're not to use it."
"Yes, ma'am."
Makoto had no intention of equipping it himself. Still, it struck him as faintly reminiscent of bio-armor or an exoskeletal organism.
If it could be mass-produced, perhaps future shinigami would storm the field shouting "Henshin!" like a Power Rangers.
An amusing thought.
He'd hand it over to Senjumaru for study once they returned.
A brief interlude did little to slow their momentum.
At the break of dawn the following day, the 11th Division, under Unohana's command, pressed onward toward the rendezvous point in District 20.
Their strategy this time was elegantly simple.
Each unit would scatter and charge forward, swiftly clearing the nobles along their path to prevent the 4th Division, stationed at headquarters, from being encircled. Once they converged at the designated location, they would drive straight into the heart of the Seireitei.
The initial advance unfolded smoothly. The noble resistance forces barring the Genryū Shinigami's way were largely familiar foes, remnants of past defeats who'd barely escaped with their lives. Fortunate then, pitiful now.
Facing them again, they fled even faster than before.
For them, this assault was less a battle and more a prolonged march.
The Seireitei as a whole seemed locked in a state of passive resistance.
Makoto couldn't shake a nagging suspicion, was the enemy plotting something?
After all, if Senjumaru's accounts from days past held true, the Tsunayashiro's resources should far exceed this feeble display.
That unease lingered until they crossed into District 20.
At last, an answer emerged.
…
Rumble!
On the distant horizon, tendrils of explosive dust spiraled upward, piercing the sky.
The distance was vast; when Makoto turned to look, he caught only the faint, mushroom-like spread of the disturbance. Only by focusing intently could he sense two titanic reiatsu signatures clashing, their collisions rippling outward in waves.
"Unohana-sensei?"
He glanced at her, his tone probing.
Unohana's brow furrowed slightly as she, too, gazed toward the eruption of reiatsu.
"That's… Obana's reiatsu."
Danjirō Obana, the current Captain of the 5th Division and former overseer of South Rukongai's Districts 30 through 50. Like Kuruyashiki Ryoma, his Bankai unleashed formidable close-quarters dominance and explosive power.
Yet with a single glance, Unohana reached her verdict, her voice icy.
"The enemy is strong and fast."
"He's nearly finished."
Makoto faltered, momentarily stunned.
Before he could process her words, Unohana's voice had barely faded when he felt it, a reiatsu that moments ago blazed like a newborn sun, now plummeting into oblivion.
"W-What in the world…?"
"They're here!"
Before Makoto's murmur could settle, Unohana's gaze snapped skyward, her low tone cutting through.
Yet on that ever-calm, impassive face, a chilling smile crept forth unbidden.
Boom!
A deafening blast erupted at the heart of their scattered formation.
A massive white stone pillar plummeted from the sky, its violent impact scattering the surrounding crowd. It lodged diagonally into the earth.
Perched atop the pillar stood a man with an afro and a sleeveless vest.
In his hand, he hefted a blood-drenched brute.
With a thud, the unconscious Danjirō Obana was flung to the ground, sending a jolt of dread through the encircling Genji shinigami.
"T-That's... Captain Obana!!"
"How the fuck is that.."
"Who the fuck are you?!"
Chaos erupted among the 11th Division, voices tangling in a clamor.
The man who'd stormed brazenly into the center of their army was a boulder hurled into a still lake, ripples of shock spreading wide.
Yet the figure atop the pillar stood unfazed, hands on hips, surveying the scene like a king over his domain.
Only when the shouts reached him did he fling his arms wide, proclaiming his arrival with the flair of a hip-hop rapper.
"Style!"
"So cool!"
"Who am I, you ask? I'm the Number One Zanpakutō creator!"
"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, and down to four and three!"
His ten fingers shot skyward, dropping one by one in a freestyle rhythm, curling into fists.
Until, at last, he thrust a single thumb toward himself, flashing a grin of gleaming white teeth.
"Ōetsu Nimaiya!"
He stood atop the pillar with reckless abandon, shading his brow with his right hand, peering about like a monkey as he bellowed.
"Hey!"
"Where's the strongest one among you?!"
"Come out quick!"
"I'm on a tight schedule here!"
***
Bonus Chapter:
100 Power Stones = 1 BC
300 Power Stones = 2 BC
500 Power Stones = 3 BC
700 Power Stones = 4 BC
1000 Power Stones = 5 BC
***
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