Chapter 32: Shimiya Takeru's Backup Plan
Endonemii's Reishi Fission could amplify spiritual pressure by a hundredfold within eight seconds.
It was a brutal but perfect match for techniques like Seven Flash and even Only Flash, both of which demanded absolute focus and were built entirely around killing efficiency.
Even so, no one had expected this much power.
The sword pressure alone from that strike would have been enough to erase an Adjuchas on the spot, even without the full edge of Only Flash behind it.
The atmospheric reishi across the entire city trembled faintly, as if echoing with a distant, drawn out sword hum. The air people breathed in carried a metallic tang like rusted steel. Hearts everywhere began to race, unable to calm down.
At the entrance of an abandoned factory, a barrier shimmered faintly overhead. Hirako Shinji stared up into the sky, lazily spinning the beret he had taken off on the tip of his finger.
"Hey, baldy, what are you gawking at? Didn't you say we should at least clean up the small fry at the entrance? If you plan to stand there and watch me do everything, I am going to smack you in the face with a slipper."
Hiyori stood beside him, arms crossed, urging impatiently.
"Idiot, you really cannot feel that spiritual pressure? My hair is standing on end and crimping like I was just electrocuted. I cannot even wear my hat right now."
"Huh? You just got cold because of that bald head and decided to blame it on spiritual pressure, right?"
"…You actually guessed right this time."
"?"
Hiyori froze for a second, staring at him in confusion.
When she saw how serious Hirako's face had become, she finally calmed down a little and fell silent. After a while, she asked quietly,
"So… are we still going out there?"
"Go out and do what?"
Hirako clicked his tongue.
"I do not know what kind of phase Aizen, that baldy, is going through, that he can put up with a monster like that walking around under his nose. Maybe this whole gathering of Hollows was even arranged for him. Either way…"
He turned his back on the sky and swept his gaze over the other Visored who had appeared at some point.
"This round is not our turn to meddle."
…
At the front of Urahara Shop, another small group had reached the same conclusion.
"This is what you call a timely rain," Urahara Kisuke said cheerfully, tapping his fan against his shoulder. "I thought I would have to pull an all nighter, so I even bought some strong tea at a high price. They say it is amazing for staying awake."
"Is that so?"
The black cat crouched at his feet calmly licked a paw.
"Then can that expensive tea help you work out how to clean up this mess?"
"Huh?"
Kisuke widened his eyes in wounded innocence.
"This is not my fault, so why am I the one who has to clean it up?"
"If you do not step in now, how are you planning to use this chance to get close to Ichigo Kurosaki and that so called strongest prodigy in Soul Society's history and make them trust you?"
Yoruichi snorted, sounding like she had already seen through every one of his schemes.
"Do not forget their relationship with Aizen. The three of them get along almost like teacher and students. You do not have many cards left to play. We still do not know the details of what Aizen is plotting, but the longer this drags on, the worse it gets for us. I can feel him playing some grand game, and if he completes it, the result will be unimaginable."
"Miss Yoruichi's intuition is something I have always trusted, but…"
Kisuke's smile turned bitter.
"Sometimes the jokes fate plays are even more unreasonable than people's schemes. The more you plan, the easier it is to walk yourself into a dead end."
"For instance, Mr. Kurosaki's son dying. I never saw that coming."
"As for going back to Soul Society and ending up being targeted by Aizen, with how close they are, that feels almost normal to me. It is Aizen, after all. He lives to toy with people's hearts."
He let out a low, humorless chuckle.
"So it sounds like you have no intention of doing what you always do. You are not planning to cozy up to them, play the kind helpful shopkeeper, and slowly guide them to discover Aizen's conspiracy?"
Yoruichi narrowed her golden eyes in surprise.
"That would not be something a good person does. But being called a black hearted merchant never bothered me." Kisuke shrugged. "The problem is that this time I am not sure that method would even work. In fact, I am more worried it would backfire, and the odds of that are pretty high."
"So."
"So?"
"Why not try going along with the muddy current of fate for once?"
"Speak human language."
"Ow."
Kisuke staggered back, face covered in fresh scratches from Yoruichi's claws. He covered his nose and grumbled,
"I meant that even if Mr. Kurosaki's son is gone, there is still one very special individual here, is there not?"
"You mean… Inoue Orihime?"
Yoruichi sounded doubtful.
"I do not see what is so special about that girl."
"It is exactly because she seems ordinary that she stands out," Kisuke replied without hesitation.
His answer made Yoruichi fall into thought.
It was true.
An ordinary girl from a completely normal background had become a Substitute Shinigami.
Meanwhile, someone with an extraordinary bloodline and a destiny that practically guaranteed greatness had died young.
The irony was almost painful.
What made it stranger was that this Substitute Shinigami girl, despite being so ordinary on paper, did not actually seem ordinary at all based on her performance so far.
The Shinigami power she had received from someone else had broken a certain balance.
On top of that, the absence of a certain person's spiritual pressure, which had always weighed on the area like an invisible lid, meant that one more factor had been removed from the equation.
That suppression had vanished.
The result was that Inoue Orihime now carried a kind of unpredictable, unknown quality.
No one could say what she might become.
At first glance, it resembled the "potential" people talk about, the possibility of great growth. But on closer inspection, it felt like something a little different.
As Yoruichi had said, she did not give off the feeling of vast potential.
Even so, she was full of change.
No matter what the future brought, as long as she was there, you got the sense there would always be a sliver of light in the dark, something that made you feel like you could still take another step forward.
In other words, she felt like "hope."
Yoruichi felt a strange chill run down her spine and shook her head hard, as if to fling the idea away.
There was no way a mere human girl could reach that kind of height. At best, she was an "exception" that had appeared by chance among humans, something that had happened before in history.
Plenty of heroes had started from nothing, only to rise with the tides of their era.
Karakura Town, as one of the most spiritually active places in the modern world, already had a strong spiritual nature. It was not strange for one or two natural "oddities" to appear here.
Thinking that far, Yoruichi finally relaxed a little.
"Tonight's commotion is also tied to that girl," she said. "To be safe, I will go take a look."
"Then I am counting on you, Miss Yoruichi," Kisuke replied with a light tone.
"Do not just stand there, either. With all this noise, Soul Society will not sit back quietly. You better start thinking seriously about your next move."
Kisuke watched Yoruichi's silhouette vanish into the night and let out a thin, wry smile.
"…You are right. I need to think about countermeasures."
"I wonder if sitting down with Aizen and having a nice chat would convince him to give up on all those pathetic ideas of his… Ahaha. That joke really deserves an audience like Miss Yoruichi."
His bitter, complicated laughter dissolved into the heavy, spiritual pressure laden night wind.
…
The wind, scorched hot by spiritual pressure, blew across Takeru's face.
The light radiating from his body dimmed rapidly, like a life flame sputtering toward extinction.
Hachihara and Rindo Yu immediately stepped forward, ready to support him, but Takeru waved them back.
"I am fine."
Seeing that he still had enough strength to form footholds of reishi beneath his feet and stand in midair, the two of them finally relaxed.
What they did not know was that Takeru had already triggered both of his daily uses of Compound Potion the moment his Shikai ended.
In the World of the Living, where reishi was thin, recovery was painfully slow. On top of that, the situation was still far from settled. There was no way he would allow himself to collapse now.
"Takeru, you look harmless on the surface, but your Zanpakuto's ability is completely insane," Hachihara said, clicking her tongue as she eyed him. "This is only Shikai. I do not even dare imagine what your Bankai would be like. Are you planning to blow up the world along with yourself?"
"You jinx."
Takeru shot her a flat stare.
"If you are right, I will stuff you into a firework and launch you first."
"Ahaha, relax, relax, that will definitely not happen. There is no Bankai in this world that can destroy the world just by releasing it."
Hachihara let out an awkward laugh, patting her chest as if trying to reassure herself.
"Forget Bankai for now," Takeru said. "The Hollows in this area are mostly cleared out. Next we split up and move toward Kurosaki's position until we regroup."
Seven Flash and Only Flash could draw out the full potential of his Shikai.
Now that he had tasted just how much they benefited from Endonemii, Takeru was very curious to see what this special Soul Funeral Analysis would bring him in the long run.
They had a lot they wanted to say to him, but in the end, Hachihara and Rindo Yu, as always, chose to trust him and hold their tongues.
After the two broke off and headed in different directions, Takeru, who had recovered some of his strength and spiritual pressure, finally moved as well.
He turned toward the center of Karakura Town.
There, several strong spiritual pressures were clashing fiercely. The battle was reaching its peak.
…
Uryu Ishida was a Quincy.
He was genuinely proud of that.
He also carried the determination to shoulder the glory of all Quincies as the Last Quincy.
At the same time, he was neither a self styled champion of justice, nor a clown who laughed arrogantly at every turn.
As a warrior, his only real flaw was his frail body.
And that frailty was also his greatest flaw.
"Faster… faster…!"
Uryu gritted his teeth and pulled his bowstring again, ignoring how the skin on his fingers had split and was bleeding. His arrows shot down the Hollows swarming through the sky.
Every one of those monsters could take someone's life.
And that responsibility was on him.
There was no point in dwelling on why the bait had gone so wrong. What mattered was dealing with the Hollows in front of him, regaining control, and atoning for the sin he had committed.
His arrows were sharp and never missed.
But it still was not enough.
"If only I had even half of that spiritual pressure…"
The pressure he had felt earlier had been beyond anything he had ever sensed before.
Incomprehensibly vast.
Unbelievably strong.
There was no doubt about it. That was a Shinigami.
Not just one. A group of Shinigami had arrived.
They had thrown themselves into the battle without hesitation, almost as if they were flaunting their strength, delivering direct, devastating blows to the Hollows swarming the World of the Living.
Even Uryu had to admit they were doing their job.
But the more he watched, the more uneasy he became.
"How can I let Shinigami clean up my mess?"
Driven by that thought, he had fought like this all the way until now.
The number of Hollows around him had not gone down.
On the Shinigami's side, however, he could sense only a handful of Hollow spiritual pressures left.
The overwhelming gap in power made Uryu's hands shake.
At the same time, he despised his own weakness.
If he had the choice, he would gladly lose his Quincy power in exchange for half of that Shinigami's strength.
He would not hesitate for an instant.
"You felt the Shinigami's spiritual pressure and still chose not to stop."
A voice drifted down from above him.
"This stubborn refusal to listen when people talk sense really is inherited."
Uryu's heart lurched.
He looked up and saw Takeru floating in the air.
"You…!"
Uryu's pupils shrank.
He did not recognize the other's face, but he recognized that spiritual pressure immediately.
Takeru either did not notice how tense Uryu had become, or simply did not care. He went on, voice calm.
"I am only going to say this once. Stop. You are already close to your limit. As one of the last remaining Quincies in the world, you should value your own life. Only then can you play a bigger role in the future."
"…Maybe you are right," Uryu said after a brief silence. "But right now, I only want to correct my mistake, or at least stop it from getting any worse. For that, I am willing to give my life."
"Then you should stop even more."
Takeru's tone did not turn mocking. If anything, it grew more direct.
"Knowing when to hand things over to the right people is also wisdom."
"The right people," Uryu said, his eyes narrowing. "You mean you Shinigami? Because from where I am standing, you do not exactly look like you are in great shape. Are you really okay?"
His prejudice toward Shinigami made it impossible not to talk back.
"I have a question too," Takeru replied.
"Your current condition is terrible, but instead of using guerrilla tactics to circle the Hollows and pick off the active ones, you planted yourself here and turned into bait. Why?"
He tilted his chin slightly as he asked.
"A boring question."
Uryu frowned.
Tsubakidai, near Kitasegawa, was the area that belonged to Karakura General Hospital. His father was the director of that hospital, and Uryu knew every inch of this district.
But that was secondary.
The streets around the hospital were packed with tall buildings, including the television station tower, the tallest structure in all of Karakura Town.
By staying on the roof, he had a clear view of the entire area.
By positioning himself here, he could draw the Hollows away from the ground, attracting them upward and toward himself, reducing the chance of people on the streets being attacked, while at the same time saving stamina and focusing solely on shooting the Hollows out of the air.
Wait.
Did this guy also come here for that reason…?
A realization flashed through Uryu's mind and he stared at Takeru in shock.
Takeru, however, had no interest in continuing the conversation or explaining himself.
He drew his Zanpakuto from his waist, then suddenly flung it into the sky.
With a sweep of his arm, he slashed upward and split the blade in two.
What followed was nothing short of miraculous.
High above, the moonlight seemed to thicken, pouring down like liquid.
Bathed in that white light, the Zanpakuto shattered completely.
"God must grant me… Endonemii."
Takeru quietly spoke the release command that even Ichigo and the others did not know.
The shards of his Zanpakuto, like scattered human souls reorganizing into a Hollow, gathered again.
Using moonlight as a catalyst, the fragments fused into a new life. The shape expanded and grew, a head taking form, followed by sharp claws and a coat of pure white fur.
Uryu's pupils trembled.
His fingers loosened on the bowstring without him realizing it.
Standing in the shadow of the building, he could only stare up at the creature born from the moonlight.
A divine bird.
No.
An aberrant dragon.
A dark dragon.
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