Ch. 105 – Fighting Captains and Hati & Sköll
After healing Zaraki and repairing his sword, I watch him get dragged away by his Lieutenant.
I stand up and look around at all the Captains who have gathered and surrounded me.
Two of them stand out to me, Captain-Commander Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto and Sosuke Aizen.
But looking around, I count only ten out of thirteen Captains present.
'Zaraki was just taken to be looked after by the healing Division, led by Captain Unohana, so it makes sense for those two to not be here, but who's the third one?' I wonder to myself, right before I instinctively move my head to the left as I watch an outstretched hand, with a stinger-like blade on the middle finger, rush past my head.
Upon seeing the weapon, I immediately realize this person's identity. Soi Fon, Captain of the 2nd Division and head of the Onmitsukido, or 'stealth force'.
I grab her wrist with my left hand, step aside and in one clean move, I cut off her arm.
"AAAARGH!! You bastard!" Soi Fon yells in anger.
Now that she's been neutralized, I enhance all my senses, since I'm not willing to be caught off guard again.
I immediately notice two things. One, in spite of being able to hear a heartbeat and being able to smell him, there's no soul standing where Aizen is standing. And two, there is a soul standing close to me while I don't hear a heartbeat and I can't smell anything.
I take Soi Fon's severed arm and in a quick motion, I throw it at Aizen's true body with all the strength I can muster.
Immediately, the illusion is broken for all to see, as Aizen suddenly fades into mist from his previous location and is suddenly revealed lying next to me with Soi Fon's stinger firmly lodged in his forehead.
"Well, that was hilariously anticlimactic." I comment aloud.
"Tosen! Stop!" I hear Captain-Commander Yamamoto's hoarse voice resound.
I immediately look to Captain Kaname Tosen's direction as he just Shunpo'd right in front of me. He's a blind, black man wearing a pair of sunglasses.
He holds out his katana in front of him. It's a plain-looking katana with a ring attached to its guard.
Tosen puts his palm to the ring as it immediately starts spinning. "Bankai! Suzumushi Tsuishiki: Enma Korogi. (Cricket final form: Devil Cricket.)
I'm immediately robbed of all sight as I'm surrounded by a black containment dome. As my sight fades, I hear a cricket chirping right before most sound fades as well.
"What do you think of a world without light or sound? Isn't it frightening?
Only one can escape this hell... the one who wields Suzumushi."
As I hear Tosen speak, I can't pinpoint where the sound is coming from. I close my eyes and stop listening to my surroundings. Instead, I focus on my other senses, primarily smell and touch.
I smell less than I should be able to as I notice this dome is also trying to inhibit my sense of smell but fails to do so.
I open my eyes and alter them to pick up heat instead of light.
As I look straight at Tosen, he takes a step back in shock. "You can see me?"
Without hesitation, I use Shunpo, I disappear and then immediately reappear right behind Tosen, as his head drops to the floor and the sensory deprivation dome fades away, revealing Tosen's corpse to his fellow Captains.
I immediately create another dome shield, covering myself, the corpses of Aizen Sosuke, Kaname Tosen and the unconscious Soi Fon who is rapidly dying of blood loss.
I approach Aizen's corpse and take out Soi Fon's stinger.
I then put my hand on his forehead as I hear a few people attacking the shield dome with repeated attacks.
I look at Aizen's memories and quickly learn a lot more about Zanjutsu (sword arts, focused on using a Zanpakuto) and Hakuda, the unarmed close-combat style used by Shinigami.
I also learn the finer intricacies of Reiryoku and how it can be manipulated by certain technologies that were created using materials that were refined with purified Reiryoku.
'Hogyoku... interesting concept, but ultimately an unfinished, half-baked attempt at omnipotence. Might have its uses later though.' I think to myself before I raise my hand and start projecting Aizen's memories on the dome barrier for all to see.
The Captains watch Aizen sacrifice hundreds of Shinigami and Rukongai citizens in his experiments to create the Hogyoku. They then watched how he turned Shinigami into Hollow hybrids, proving the innocence of the dozen or so Shinigami who ran away to the human world after they were hollowfied.
The Captains watch Aizen commit betrayal after betrayal with the help of Captain Kaname Tosen and Captain Gin Ichimaru.
As the Captains are watching Aizen's memories, I turn to Soi Fon, who's rapidly dying of blood loss due to her severed arm.
I walk up to her with her severed arm in my hand. I lay the arm on the ground, aligning it with the cut perfectly. I point my index finger to her chest and fire a pulse of healing light as a healthy blush returns to her face immediately and the arm reattaches to the shoulder.
I touch her hand and look at her memories as well, gaining more insights into Shunpo (flash-step) and Hakudo (hand-to-hand combat), but not much else that Aizen didn't already know.
At this point, I'm pretty sure the only person left here with significant knowledge is the Captain-Commander himself.
I lower the barrier and look around as some of the Captains and their Lieutenants look at me fearfully, despite me being nice enough to heal most of the Shinigami I've defeated so far.
"Why do you heal them?" Captain-Commander Yamamoto asks, looking calm and collected.
The only others who look as calm are his protégés, Captain Jushiro Ukitake, a frail and sickly looking man with long, white hair and Shunsui Kyoraku, a man with long, black hair tied in a pony tail who wears a kimono over his Captain's Haori.
"They're not really enemies. They were simply doing their jobs." I say, responding to the old man, before I notice one of the Captains is missing. "Where is Gin Ichimaru?" I ask them.
The Captains and Lieutenants all look around and notice he ran off while they were watching Aizen's memories.
"Idiots." I say, before I prepare a Bakudo Kido spell I came up with, based on another anime world. I spread my senses throughout Seireitei and close my eyes.
I hold out my hand and chant the name of the Kido spell. "Way of binding (Bakudo) Number 49: Universal Pull"
Within seconds Gin Ichimaru comes flying towards me through the air like a ragdoll.
His neck lands firmly in my grasp as I immediately slam him, face first, into the ground and start reading his memories while projecting them for all to see.
His motivation for betrayal stems from a desire to see Aizen dead after he saw him take most of Rangiku Matsumoto's Reiryoku when they were young and still living in Rukongai.
Done seeing his memories, I throw him to the other Captains. "Do with him what you will.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must meditate." I say before I erect a smaller barrier surrounding only myself.
I sit down on the ground and put my Asauchi on my lap. I close my eyes and start focusing intently as my consciousness is almost instantly sucked into my Zanpakuto's spirit realm.
The floor I'm walking on is just a small, reflective layer of water. A Sun shines in the distance, high above me on my right. And a Moon hovers high above me on my left. Despite the presence of a Sun, it is dark and stars are visible. It is as though I'm walking on water in outer space.
Suddenly, I notice two creatures approaching me. One from the Sun and the other from the Moon. As they approach me, I first notice how large they are.
They are wolves. The one that came from the Sun has beautiful dark brown fur and has red markings on its face. And the one that came from the Moon has white fur and blue markings on its face.
They land down before me on my left and right as they tower over me, truly enormous, standing at hundreds of kilometers tall.
They start shrinking down and in about five seconds they stand before me, looking me in the eyes.
"We are Hati.." The white wolf says. "..and Sköll." The brown wolf finishes.
""We serve you."" They proclaim in unison.
"Just like that? I don't need to prove myself worthy?" I ask.
"Who are we.." Hati says. "..to question a God?" Sköll finishes.
The next moment, the markings on their faces start shining bright as knowledge of their abilities is transferred to me.
----------
Outside, Captain-Commander Yamamoto has been watching as his Captains have been attacking the intruder's barrier in vain for about a minute.
"Enough. Stand aside." Yamamoto says, before he takes out his cane and walks up to the barrier while the wood of the cane peels off, revealing a katana inside.
As he approaches, Yamamoto notices the sword in the man's lap changing shape from a Greek Xiphos to an enormous bastard sword and then it shrinks down to a beautiful, gold inlaid, single-handed greatsword.
Suddenly the intruder opens his eyes as his right eye is now bright blue and the left is bright red.
"Yamamoto, let us fight." The man says before he lowers the barrier and stands up.
A black and blue wave of energy erupts from his chest and covers every single inhabitant of Seireitei in a thin, protective layer.
The man rises into the air, hovering a dozen meters above the ground when he spreads his arms out and starts chanting the name of an unfamiliar Kido spell. "Way of destruction (Hado) Number 98: Almighty Push!"
Directly below the man, on the ground an absolutely enormous and powerful kinetic shockwave starts pushing everything away in all directions.
Buildings throughout Seireitei are all toppled, in a perfect circle of destruction surrounding the man in a radius of exactly two kilometers.
Miraculously, no people die in the destruction. The thin protective layer of energy made sure of that.
The Captains and their Lieutenants were all kept rooted in their place by the black and blue energy, leaving them, along with the intruder to be the only people around.
Suddenly the man raises another barrier, but this time it's not a dome, it's a wall surrounding the large, empty field that was just created.
"The barrier will protect everyone outside from whatever happens inside. We can fight going all out, Yamamoto." He says, before he raises his sword to the Captain-Commander, who responds in kind.
As the Captain-Commander unsheathes his sword, the other Captains all take their Lieutenants and Shunpo away as fast as they can to the barrier, as far away from the two as they can get.
"What is your name?" Yamamoto asks.
"Fenrir."
"All Things in the Universe, Turn to Ashes. Ryujin Jakka." Yamamoto says, activating his Zanpakuto's Shikai. (first awakening/form)
"Chase the Moon. Hati." As fenrir activates his own Shikai, his Greatsword turns into a dark blue and golden Glaive.
The Sun suddenly disappears from the sky as it turns dark and the Moon takes its place in the sky as this phenomena is noticed throughout Soul Society, causing widespread chaos.