His presence alone made the six Soul Reapers surrounding me stand straighter, their grips tightening on their zanpakutō. The seventh, still blissfully unconscious on the ground, suddenly seemed enviable.
"Ca-Captain Hitsugaya, sir!" Ryuzaki stammered.
A couple of them hesitated, eyes flicking between me and this white-haired kid who looked no older than my daughter Freya. But the two closest to me didn't waste the opening.
They struck fast, eager to impress their captain.
I wished my naginata hadn't dissipated when I'd lost focus earlier.
The first blade grazed my side, slicing through my jacket and drawing a shallow line of fire across my ribs. Pain flared white-hot for a split second before adrenaline drowned it out.
The world slowed—like bullet time in The Matrix—stretching that half-second into an eternity.
I twisted, spotting the second strike coming, and reacted on instinct.
I kicked the second attacker's hands, disrupting the blow's power, then hooked my left arm around the first one's weapon arm as he tried to yank the blade free.
No way was I letting him reset. I shoved off the other with my right boot, thunder-stepped hard, and rolled across the ground thirty feet away.
The Soul Reaper attached to my arm went flying and slammed into a wall with a crash.
The white-haired boy—Captain Hitsugaya—eyed me like I'd double-parked in a handicap spot and strolled into a supermarket without a care.
A chill ran down my spine.
Every instinct screamed run.
I stepped back slowly, Glock trained on Ryuzaki, and squeezed off a few shots. Just enough to distract them. Then I make a break for it.
I was dead wrong.
The kid moved like a blur. He appeared in front of Ryuzaki and casually deflected the bullets with his blade. Panic took over—I emptied the rest of the magazine straight at Hitsugaya.
The rounds should have torn through him. Instead, they crumbled harmlessly against his uniform and fell like spent casings, utterly useless.
He looked more annoyed than injured, plucking one from the folds of his shihakushō and inspecting it like a swatted fly.
"Did you just shoot me?" he asked, voice flat.
"How did you even smuggle a toy like that into the Soul Society? You can't have actually thought that would work against a captain."
Each word hammered my already crumbling ego.
"To be fair," I shot back, forcing a grin I didn't feel, "most kids play dead when I shoot them. Or fire back with sound effects. Y'know... pew pew pew." I whistled the effects for emphasis.
He arched an eyebrow, pausing just long enough for the silence to sting.
"I don't know who you are, but your idiotic games end here." He drew his long zanpakutō from the sheath on his back. The other Soul Reapers immediately gave him space. This kid was clearly far older—and deadlier—than he looked.
If Rukia was over a century and a half old, even someone half her age would have decades of combat experience on me.
Shit.
I channeled my reiryoku, blue-white lightning crackling between my hands as I formed the scythe. It felt unorthodox, unpredictable. Maybe that would buy me a few seconds.
"Alright, kid," I taunted, grip tightening despite the nerves clawing at my gut. "Tossing kids around is kind of a hobby of mine. No couches nearby, so don't expect a soft landing."
Why the hell am I taunting a captain? The words tasted like bravado and fear.
Hitsugaya's eyes narrowed. In the next instant, he lunged, closing the thirty feet between us in a blur of white and steel.
I felt the impact before my brain could catch up.
His blade hovered inches from my throat, stopped only by the crackling shaft of my lightning scythe. The weapon suddenly felt laughably inadequate. His turquoise eyes were ice-cold, and the weight of his reiatsu pressed down on me like an ocean current—crushing, suffocating, making every breath a conscious effort. He wasn't even trying to kill me yet.
He's testing me.
I saw his zanpakutō begin to bite into the glowing shaft of my scythe and reacted instantly—twisting left and snapping a hard kick toward his midsection with my right foot.
He leapt back effortlessly, creating distance, then came at me again. I tried to parry, but the force of his swing sent me stumbling.
Strike after strike followed in a ruthless rhythm, each one precise and devastating.
Deep gashes appeared along the scythe's blade and shaft, blue-white reiryoku sparking wildly where the metal met spiritual pressure.
Damn it. I'm completely outclassed.
Desperation clawed at my chest. I spun into a flurry of wide, flashy arcs and rapid circular sweeps—the kind of showy movements that looked impressive in training but felt suicidal here.
Hitsugaya dodged every one with nimble, almost bored grace, his expression never changing.
"Damn it," I growled, the words tumbling out with the first stupid thing that came to mind. "It's like fighting Yoda! I finally get Sith lightning and energy swords, and the universe throws a goddamn Yoda at me!"
"I don't know what a 'Yoda' is," Hitsugaya replied crisply, not missing a single beat in his assault, "but I'll assume it's some meaningless insult from your pathetic human world."
I barked a breathless laugh, more nerves than humor. "The fuck you mean you don't know who Yoda is?! All this ghost magic and you can't even get basic Spirit Cable? Star Wars came out in the '70s, kid!"
That actually got through.
For the briefest moment, his rhythm faltered. A flash of genuine confusion crossed his face, quickly followed by disbelief and then the familiar irritation of someone who had zero patience for nonsense. He straightened slightly, zanpakutō still held ready, and fixed me with a withering glare.
"I have neither the time nor the inclination to waste on whatever ridiculous nonsense you're babbling about," he said coldly. "You intrude into the Soul Society, attack my subordinates, and now you expect me to care about some… human fairy tale from decades ago? Pathetic."
He raised his blade again, the temperature around us dropping sharply.
"But if you're so eager to talk," he continued, voice flat and cutting, "then perhaps you can explain yourself after I've frozen that insolent tongue to the roof of your mouth."
The air grew heavier, colder. My breath started to fog. Every instinct screamed that the real fight was about to begin—and I was nowhere near ready for it. My mind flashed briefly to Freya and the others back home, then—unhelpfully—to Rukia. The memory of her face, the heat of her body in that dark room and the shower afterward, hit me like a cheap shot. Not now, I thought desperately.
Focus, you idiot.
Sweat stung my eyes despite the dropping temperature. I tightened my grip on the damaged scythe, lightning still crackling unevenly along its length.
"Yeah… well," I muttered, forcing another grin even as my heart hammered against my ribs, "you're still shorter than I expected for a big bad captain."
Hitsugaya's eye twitched — a tiny crack in that icy composure that sent a spike of satisfaction through me despite everything.
I couldn't afford to hesitate. I flung three crackling lightning cards at him and raised my index and middle fingers to my forehead, gathering every scrap of reiryoku I could muster. For the first time, I thunder-stepped at the same time. The world blurred into streaks of motion.
Once.
Twice.
Now!
"Special Beam, Byakurai!"
A spear of blinding white lightning erupted from my fingertips and slammed dead center into the emblem on his haori. For a fraction of a second, triumph flared in my chest.
"Shit!"
The afterimage of his robes faded. That bone-chilling presence was suddenly behind me.
"First the insults and bad jokes," Hitsugaya said, voice sharp as frostbite, "and now you insult us further by bastardizing our spells."
The flat of his blade slammed into my back like a freight train. The world tilted violently. I flew past the stunned Soul Reapers, their faces a hazy smear of shock as I tumbled through the air. I hit the ground hard, rolled, bounced once, and skidded to a stop on my knees. Copper flooded my mouth. I coughed up blood, ribs screaming with every shallow breath. Pain radiated through my torso like shattered glass.
He hadn't even bothered to cut me. The message was crystal clear: You aren't worth the edge of my blade.
Somehow, that stung worse than the hit itself.
Rage boiled up from somewhere deep and primal — animalistic, ugly, and impossible to ignore. I didn't fully understand it, but I didn't need to. My reiatsu flared violently, blue-white lightning snapping and humming through the air around me like a living storm.
I thunder-stepped again, empty-handed this time, closing the distance on pure fury.
"If you like our spells so much, let me show you how they're done. Hadō #33: Sōkatsui!"
A roaring tidal wave of blue flames exploded from his palm straight into my face. For a heartbeat the street went deathly silent.
The dust and fire cleared. My dense lightning wedge — a makeshift barrier I'd thrown up on instinct — shimmered between us, heavily cracked but holding.
"I got my own spells," I panted, trying to sound like I had some elaborate system instead of half-assed improvisations I'd thrown together weeks ago. "I call this… uh, Raikido #2: Raikumo, Thunder Cloud Barrier."
Hitsugaya's expression didn't change. "Call it whatever you want. You still made a huge mistake."
Before I could retort, a chain tipped with a crescent blade snaked around my ankle, yanking me clean off my feet. The barrier shattered the instant my focus broke. I hit the ground hard and did the only thing I could think of — I formed a rod of pure lightning in my fist and drove it straight into the chain, pinning it to the earth and pouring every volt I had into it.
The electricity surged along the metal, racing toward him in brilliant arcs. Sparks exploded across Hitsugaya's body. For one glorious second, I'd actually caught the kid off guard.
I did it. Message received. You might still beat my ass, but you'll remember me.
I would like to say that's where it ended.
It didn't.
The temperature plummeted even further. Hitsugaya's reiatsu surged like an arctic gale.
"Reign over the frosted heavens, Hyōrinmaru!"
From his blade erupted a massive, furious dragon of ice and spiritual pressure. It roared silently as it slammed into me. Ice exploded across my body, freezing me in place instantly. The cold burned — deeper and more vicious than anything I'd ever felt. It clawed the heat straight out of my bones, turning my blood sluggish.
I'd grown up shoveling snow in brutal winters, walking around shirtless in sub-zero temperatures where spit froze before it hit the ground. This made all of that feel like a mild autumn breeze.
I ended up suspended awkwardly in a jagged block of ice, floating a few inches off the ground like some grotesque museum exhibit. Only my head remained exposed.
"Okay…" I rasped, voice hoarse and strained. "You win this one. Can we possibly talk things out? Rukia is probably wonder— oh…"
She stood just behind Hitsugaya, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her face was a storm cloud of irritation, worry, and barely-contained anger.
Next to her loomed a taller man — about 5'10", short white hair, no sleeves on his shihakushō, and a captain's haori draped over his shoulders like an afterthought. He looked every bit the rough, rowdy battlefield grunt.
I couldn't tell if he was trying to suppress a grin or if he was pissed off and barely holding it together.
My stomach dropped. The rage drained away, replaced by a messy tangle of relief, dread, and something warmer and far more dangerous when my eyes met Rukia's.
Of all the ways for her to find me…
"Orion, you absolute fool," she snapped, stepping closer to the ice. Her tone carried that perfect mix of exasperation and restrained fury.
Her petite frame marched up to face me with. An angry woman wasn't something new to me, I had a way of pissing people off unintentionally.
Her glare pierced through me, our reiatsu mingled between us for barely a second but I didn't need that to tell me she was worried.
Hitsugaya lowered his sword and the intensity of the cold seemed to ease up.
"Am I correct in assuming this Human is yours Lieutenant Kuchiki?" his tone was as frosty as his ability.
She searched my eyes for a moment then turned to bow politely to him, I couldn't help noticing that he was even shorter than Rukia, now that I saw them together.
"He is, this is Orion Hunter, the human who assisted in the soul parasite incident recently with Hiro Tanaka of squad six." She replied with elegant military efficiency.
"I was assigned to bring him in for a debriefing with captain Mugurama— He was supposed to stay put." she added, shooting me an irritated glance.
He nodded, then looked at me.
"That doesn't explain why I found him fighting with some of my men," Hitsugaya said.
"That was a bit of a misunderstanding mixed with me having an overreaction... I got a little lost after leaving the bathroom and those guys showed up. I was trying to comply, but then the dude starting to wake up over there twisted my wrist a little too hard and I ended up decking him. Does it help that I'm kinda sorry?"
I tried and failed to keep a casual demeanor despite the fact I couldn't feel my balls anymore.
"Can I please get out of this ice? I think I just lost feeling from the waist down, and I still need those parts." I said, more meekly than I meant to, trying to joke.
That earned a short bark of laughter from Captain Mugurama, which surprised me.
"This is exactly why humans shouldn't wander around Seireitei unattended. Alright, Hitsugaya, you gonna thaw this kid out or what?"
"Very well. Just keep him out of trouble, or I might freeze this buffoon completely next time."
He sheathed Hyorinmaru, and the ice encasing me shattered before dissipating like flower petals caught in a spring breeze.
I, of course, fell on my ass.
I was already beyond grace at this point.
"I'm sorry for all the trouble," I groaned as I slowly pulled myself to my feet.
The group of Soul Reapers I'd fought earlier passed with uncertain glares, along with one groggy look of confusion from the guy I'd knocked out, who was being propped up by one of the younger-looking Soul Reapers.
I couldn't bring myself to meet Rukia's eyes. It didn't take Soul Resonance to know she was upset... and embarrassed.
The awkward silence hung in the air a beat too long after Hitsugaya and the others left. Soon it was just me, Rukia, and the mysterious Captain Mugurama standing in the middle of the street.
"I'm sorry, Rukia... I hope you're not in trouble because of me."
Everything about the situation made me want to crawl into a hole and never come out.
"Well, you should be. All you had to do was wait."
Her tone was sharp. She looked like she wanted to smack me; her hand even lifted for a moment before falling back to her side. I assumed she'd thought better of it.
"Enough with the pity party already. It's over, and I still have business with you."
Captain Mugurama cut through the tension with obvious annoyance before giving me a shove in what I assumed was the right direction.
I could've sworn I caught the corner of his mouth twitch.
"You didn't do half bad for a guy who was outnumbered and severely outclassed."
It dawned on me.
"You were watching me? How long?"
I turned toward the pair with what was probably a very dumbfounded expression.
Rukia spoke before Kensei could answer. This time she couldn't meet my eyes, looking anywhere but at me like she'd done something horribly wrong.
"We were coming to get you after I sensed your reiatsu. We saw you fighting the group earlier, and Captain Mugurama said we shouldn't interfere... so we observed."
She was quieter than usual, though she still wore that professional mask.
They were watching me the whole fight?
It was obvious now that he was assessing me.
"You held your own and even managed to land a hit on a captain. Of course, you wouldn't have if he hadn't been holding back, but you should still be proud of yourself. A normal human wouldn't have gotten that far."
He sounded stern and analytical, like he was simply stating facts rather than offering praise.
"Uh... thanks, I think. Um, I'm Orion Hunter—but you already knew that."
I held out my hand out of habit.
Thankfully, he didn't leave me hanging like so many people had since I'd moved to Karakura.
He gripped my hand in a proper handshake, but I could feel the crushing intensity of his reiatsu where our hands met. I instinctively pushed back with my own, only managing enough resistance that my knuckles merely ached by the time he let go.
"I'm Captain Kensei Mugurama of Squad Nine. Now come on. We've wasted enough time."
"Right. Nice to meet you, Kensei."
That earned me another annoyed glare.
"You always jump to first names with people you just met?"
"Call it a cultural difference."
He shrugged but didn't press it any further.
We walked the rest of the way in silence.
Rukia fell into step beside me.
In a world full of soul-crushing spiritual pressure and violent authorities, her reiatsu mingling with my own felt like a warm weighted blanket. It was comfort I desperately needed. I wanted nothing more than to reach over and hold her, if only to feel a little more secure, but that just wasn't possible right now.
For now, the quiet warmth of her presence was enough.