Chapter 31: Divine Speed Drawing of the Sword
A sword wielding warrior cutting down evil spirits and a hero appearing out of nowhere.
If that hero is also a loved one thought lost and then returned, the feeling at that moment goes beyond simple happiness. It crosses into something close to bliss.
Karin proved that point a second later.
"Ichigo… you jerk!"
Eyes red, the black haired girl rushed straight at Ichigo, swinging her metal baseball bat at his head.
"Whoa! What are you doing, Karin? That is dangerous!"
Ichigo twisted aside in a panic, narrowly avoiding the blow, but in the next instant an even smaller figure launched herself at him. The younger girl, sweet as sugar, dove in and landed a flying headbutt that knocked him flat.
"Ichigo! I missed you so much!"
"Yuzu…"
Ichigo had been about to snap back, but when he saw his little sister bawling into his chest, the anger melted out of him. Guilt welled up instead. The complaints on the tip of his tongue turned into a long, heavy sigh.
"I am sorry."
"You think just saying sorry is enough, you idiot? You think you can act all high and mighty just because you are the older brother? If you are the older brother, then you should…"
Karin dropped the bat, grabbed him by the collar with one hand, and drew back her fist.
Ichigo did not dodge.
But the punch never landed on his face.
Her hand lost all strength halfway through the swing and fell against his chest instead, along with the tears spilling from her eyes, soaking into the collar of his school uniform and leaving a damp chill on his skin.
"…Just live, you moron. Stop making Yuzu and me cry every day…"
"I have not been able to sleep at night. At dinner, Yuzu still unconsciously sets out a bowl of rice for you. At school, my classmates keep checking on me and forcing me to remember your stupid face. Do you have any idea how much trouble you have caused us?"
"I am sorry."
Ichigo let his Zanpakuto slip from his hand and reached out with both arms, gently resting his palms on his sisters' heads, a lonely smile tugging at his lips.
"I already said, an apology is not enough."
"I cannot help it. I wish I could talk as smoothly as that guy, but this clumsy mouth is all I have. So cut me a little slack, okay? I am still your older brother."
"What kind of older brother begs his little sisters to cut him slack…"
Karin muttered, puffing out her cheeks.
"Ichigo, are you really resurrected? Did that soul summoning game I learned from my classmates actually work?"
Yuzu lifted her tear streaked face and looked up at Ichigo with a mix of pitiful doubt and desperate hope.
"…You know that is impossible," he said, rubbing her head. "I already felt how much you missed me, so do not mess with things like that again. You might actually summon something bad."
Ichigo grumbled, then lowered his voice.
"As for how I came back… it is kind of complicated. I will explain it to you two later. For now, go hide in your room. I will watch over Dad."
Roar.
Moonlight filtered weakly through the sky, blocked again and again by the hulking bodies of the Hollows floating overhead.
The ominous shadows they cast and the bloodthirsty gaze behind their masks made Karin and Yuzu's backs go rigid with fear.
A moment later, a figure stepped in front of them again.
"Hey. It is one thing to interrupt a family reunion, but looking at us with those disgusting eyes on top of it… there is a limit to how blind you can be. Watch closely. I am going to beat every last one of you down."
Feeling the greedy hunger reaching out from the depths of the Hollows' souls, Ichigo raised his Zanpakuto and pointed the blade straight at the monsters gathering outside the house. His eyes blazed with anger at seeing his bottom line trampled again.
…
Karakura Town, Kitakawase district, on the opposite bank of the river from Minamikawase, where Kurosaki Clinic stood.
Takeru stood at the top of the large bridge spanning the river.
The night wind howled at a height of nearly one hundred meters, whipping his black hair into a storm of dark waves. His hand rested lightly on his sword hilt. His gaze was calm, yet a killing intent radiated from his entire body.
He was wearing a standard academy uniform, but on him it somehow carried the gallant air of a Shinigami swordsman, like a member of the Shinsengumi walking the streets of the Human World.
Click.
The long blade slid a fraction of the way out of its sheath, exposing only a short length of steel. The moment that cold light flashed, all the Hollows rushing in from every direction, including several towering giants, met the same fate.
They were all cut neatly in two by a single strike.
What sliced through them was not the physical sword, but seven strands of Kido, invisible to the naked eye.
Seven threads.
Seven kills in an instant.
One more strike than the six basic directions of up, down, left, right, front, and back.
So in that instant, not only were all the Hollows attacking him shredded, but the additional slash wiped out the stragglers behind them as well.
"Yaaahooo!"
A shout, hotter than midsummer wind, rang out high above Takeru's head.
Hachihara charged at a Gillian wading through the river like an overgrown golden retriever. The ten nails on her fingers, each painted a different color, glowed with condensed spiritual energy. Her relentless combo of attacks turned the Gillian's massive head into something resembling a honeycomb.
A few smarter Hollows saw an opening and lunged in for a sneak attack, but they had no idea there was a hunter stalking the hunter.
[Be born].
Rindo Yu traced the word across his blade. The Zanpakuto released and transformed into something whip like. A closer look revealed it was made of countless linked paper dolls.
When he wrote the character for insect again, all the white paper pieces scattered and morphed into a swarm of bugs that darkened the sky, swallowing up every Hollow that tried to ambush them from behind.
Takeru watched quietly.
Then, without looking back, he suddenly lifted his hand and pointed at an empty stretch of air beside him.
A high level Hollow emerging from a fresh crack in space let out a frantic screech.
"Wait, I will just go ba…"
The word back never left its mouth.
A blinding white bolt of lightning blasted down from the sky, piercing straight through its forehead. The Hollow crashed to the ground and crumbled into drifting black particles.
"Hahahahaha, this is amazing! Is that seriously all you have got? Hachihara sama has not even warmed up yet."
Even Menos Grande, treated with such solemn respect in the textbooks, had been ripped apart by her. Hachihara was on an incredible high, feeling like she had finally caught up a little to those two monsters, Takeru and Ichigo.
Caught up in the moment, she pulled out her denreishinki and cheerfully snapped two selfies with herself and the half destroyed Menos Grande corpse in the background.
"Huh?"
Looking through the photos, Hachihara suddenly froze.
Something in the background of the picture looked very wrong.
Her face stiffened and she slowly, mechanically turned her head to confirm what she was seeing.
Right behind the half destroyed Menos Grande, an entire army of more than a dozen Gillian was lined up shoulder to shoulder, slowly advancing like a living mountain range.
[You got too excited].
Rindo drifted over, expression as flat as ever, with just a hint of exasperation in his eyes.
"Uh…"
Hachihara scratched her cheek, embarrassed.
She had lost control of her Reiatsu in her excitement and let it flare wildly, which in turn had dragged in a whole crowd of Gillian.
"But this was also part of the original plan."
Takeru appeared at her side at some point, voice calm.
"Good work, Hachihara."
"Hehehe. Hearing you say that makes me happy, but is that not a few too many of them? How about we split up and take them down one by one? Otherwise…"
The night sky suddenly turned red.
Blinding light, darker than any bonfire, spread across the heavens like a dozen miniature volcanoes about to erupt all at once.
Hachihara stared at the Gillian horde in the distance, watching as they raised their heads in unison. As if sensing danger, they gathered their Cero at the same time. She swallowed hard, finishing her sentence in a stiff voice.
"…Otherwise something like this happens."
Menos Grande's signature technique, Cero.
Its power surpassed that of most formal Kido spells.
Taking a direct hit would almost certainly mean serious injury.
A bombardment of multiple Cero at once could scarcely even be called survivable.
"When I said you did well, I had already taken this situation into account."
Faced with the overwhelming sight, Takeru remained utterly composed.
He used Shunpo and streaked toward the advancing wall of Gillian.
His Reiatsu surged, rising rapidly until it reached its peak.
He wrapped his fingers around his sword hilt and whispered the release command.
"Eight Phases Manifestation…"
"Endonemii."
Radiant spiritual light burst out around him again, like the shadow of a Buddha descending. Terrifying divine might poured from his body. Every strand of his hair shimmered as if crystallizing, both awe inspiring and chilling to behold.
Boom.
Over a dozen Cero fired in unison.
The scenery of the human world blurred and vanished.
There was nothing left but blood red, blood red, blood red.
And an unavoidable, inescapable tide of spiritual pressure crashing down.
In the next moment, Takeru narrowed his eyes and drew his sword.
"Only Flash."
In a world where even sound seemed to have been stripped away, the clear click of a blade sliding back into its sheath rang out.
The blinding red world split cleanly in two.
As neatly and sharply as a knife slicing through paper.
The upper halves of more than a dozen Gillian slid slowly apart and crashed down.
The clouds in the sky exploded with a thunderous roar.
Every Hollow in that direction was ground to dust before any of them ever touched the sword light.
Even the fractures in space itself were forcibly smoothed over.
That impossibly fast slash, something that could only be sensed through spiritual perception, reached all the way to the horizon and then raced on toward Tokyo Bay.
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