Chapter 59: Susanoo, Second Form
"I—I'm calm! I'm calm!"
The sudden pressure of the blade against his skull instantly cured the man's stuttering; the effect was remarkable. He blurted out his answer in a panic: "The Gun Devil fragments are hidden in a—a safe on the rooftop! There are five or six hundred men upstairs, including about a dozen devil hunters!"
Chiya nodded slightly. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he drove the tip of his tachi through the center of the man's brow.
(AN-Damn that's cold)
He killed him on the spot, then dumped the body out of the Kamui dimension, tossing it carelessly onto the pile of corpses. Since this man had seen the interior of the Kamui space, he couldn't be allowed to live—not that yakuza scum deserved mercy anyway.
Seeing Vice-Captain Otonashi vanish for a moment only to reappear with a fresh corpse, the members of Special Division 1 realized that their leader's devil power was far more complex than they had imagined. Not only could he make bullets pass through him, but he could also transport people through thin air... and bring them back dead.
Was the incredible taijutsu we admired so much just the tip of the iceberg? they wondered.
Chiya scanned the room, confirming that the first floor had been completely cleared. But just as the team prepared to follow him to the second floor, Chiya spoke.
"You can head back outside, or stay here and hold the first floor. Actually, it's better if you go outside, so you don't get caught in the crossfire."
"That... alright."
Though they wanted to fight alongside him, they couldn't disobey a direct order. Furthermore, the word "crossfire" suggested that things were about to get very dangerous upstairs.
"Then we'll wait outside. Please be careful, Vice-Captain!" they said solemnly before retreating from the building.
The police officers waiting outside were confused when they saw the devil hunters withdrawing. They assumed something unmanageable had happened inside.
"What's going on? Is there something dangerous in there?" one officer asked.
"We haven't encountered anything we couldn't handle yet. Vice-Captain Otonashi ordered us out; he's taking the second floor and beyond alone," a member of Division 1 explained.
As they spoke, their own hearts were heavy. Who would believe that a single teenager intended to take down an entire yakuza headquarters by himself?
"By himself?!"
Predictably, the police officers looked like they had seen a ghost. They couldn't fathom why these professional devil hunters would let Otonashi Chiya charge in alone. He was a Vice-Captain, sure, but no single human could take down hundreds of armed men and devil hunters solo!
"Believe what you want. We're just following orders," the Division 1 members muttered, not bothering to explain further. It was hard to describe anyway; Chiya's strength was simply beyond common sense.
The police had nothing more to say. They could only follow their own orders: stay on standby and shoot any yakuza attempting to escape. The higher-ups had given a strict order of "no survivors."
To be precise, it was Chief Yoshimura who had pressured the police into issuing those "no survivor" orders. He was well aware that certain factions within the police force had long been in bed with the syndicate.
"BOOM!!"
Suddenly, a massive, deafening roar erupted from within the building!
A giant, cyan-blue arm burst through the outer wall of the skyscraper. Judging by the scale of the limb alone, it belonged to a colossus at least ten or twenty meters tall!
"What is that?!"
The police officers surrounding the perimeter were jolted by the earth-shattering commotion. Every rifle was instantly aimed at the giant arm; they were prepared to open fire the second they perceived it as a threat.
The police weren't the only ones shocked—the members of Special Division 1 were initially dazed as well. Fortunately, someone reacted quickly and shouted:
"That's Vice-Captain Otonashi's devil power! Do not fire! Don't hit our own man!"
Some of them had heard rumors about the Vice-Captain summoning an unknown giant at the night market, and the color matched the descriptions perfectly. As long as there was even a slight chance this was his power, they couldn't let the police fire blindly. If they interfered with the Vice-Captain, the consequences would be catastrophic.
The police officers were floored. Was that something a human could actually manifest? They had never seen or even heard of a devil power of this scale! However, the warning worked—they didn't dare pull their triggers. If that really was the Vice-Captain, the fallout of attacking him would be more than they could handle.
Inside the Building.
Otonashi Chiya was currently on the second floor. To end this quickly, he had unleashed Susanoo, pushing it straight into its Second Form.
His Susanoo had evolved past the initial skeletal stage, growing meridians and flesh over the bones. His vitality manifested as a cloak-like garment wrapping the entire construct, making it significantly larger than the first form.
The twenty-meter-tall Susanoo smashed through the ceiling of the second floor; its head tore through all the way to the fifth, while its massive arms shattered the exterior walls!
The yakuza members inside were paralyzed with shock. A few of the more hardened thugs tried to open fire, but they couldn't even scratch the surface. The bullets simply bounced off the Susanoo's cloak, leaving not even a faint mark.
"It's over! We're dead! We're all dead—!!!"
They had never felt such absolute despair. The feeling of facing an invincible foe drove them into a state of hysterical breakdown.
Chiya was beginning to realize that his "Vitality" attribute determined the power ceiling of his Susanoo. Setting aside special forms like Majestic Attire or Senjutsu, if the "Perfect Susanoo" was the limit of the form itself, then his Vitality determined the raw strength of that limit.
In his case, Susanoo was essentially his life force made manifest. It was a simple, logical principle.
Theoretically, the second form could now utilize a unique weapon, though Chiya wasn't yet sure what his specific Susanoo weapon would be.
Should I try the Sword of Wrath...?
The thought suddenly flashed through his mind. The only truly unique weapon he possessed was the Sword of Wrath.