"With your ability, you will find it impossible to make me fall on even one knee." — Byakuya Kuchiki.
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Byakuya didn't really dislike Itachi Uchiha — not so much as he used to, but part of the sentiment remained — but he was cognizant of the fact that the man was reliable to certain degrees. He was not one to question the orders of the Head Captain but even he could see the fairly subtle reasons he was sent along with Itachi on this mission.
So yes, his thoughts regarding Itachi aside, he knew he could at least trust the man to carry out his duties with the utmost diligence and efficiency.
Rather reluctantly he could also admit that he had suggested Itachi go further so that the man would have a higher chance of saving his student. And while Itachi did that he would busy himself with this rabble of pissants.
"Like I said, I would appreciate it if you were to truthfully answer my questions." Byakuya turned around and looked at the three of them.
The rather fat one laughed haughtily, mocking and derisive as his voice sounded in Byakuya's ears. He had heard better sounds from wounded and dying animals.
"This one is arrogant. No surprise there, you Shinigami are all the same." Shuren said with a chuckle that belied something sinister.
"And yet here you still are," Byakuya replied with a passing glance. He held no stock of the three opponents in front of him. It would be a grave insult to his propensity if he saw them as anything other than the sum of what they were. He was not one to blatantly let his disdain show, so unlike what they thought, whatever he was feeling towards them wasn't anything as heavy as disdain. They did not have that weight.
"If you remain stubborn then I guess there is nothing of worth in you for me." Like he said to Itachi, there was no use in fighting the denizens of Hell, not when the concept of death was foreign to them.
…. Unfortunately for him, his wishes weren't their commands.
Unfortunately for them, he held no expectations from them.
They rushed as one, the weight on their souls removed, as they brought their full might to bear and descended on him. With the same temperament as that of the nighttime lake, his face remained unchanged even as they eventually fell on him.
He would have to commend them however as despite their foolishness and unfounded arrogance, there was a semblance of substance to the strength they wielded. In the grand scheme of things it was nothing — certainly not enough to support the laughable ambition they carried — but at least it gave them a substance to their name if nothing else.
The one with the springly arms, Gunjo, extended his arms, his intent to wrap him a cocoon plainly visible in his motions, with their spokesman, Shuren, waiting to set him on fire once Gunjo secured him in place. As for the fat one…
"Hadō #4: Byakurai." The surge of white lightning railed at Gunjo only for the surprisingly fast fat one, Taikon, to appear in front of him with a mouth opened on his stomach and swallow the Kidō spell completely.
"So that's what you do." Absorption.
A rage of fire came at him from Shuren, causing him to leap backward to stay free from the explosive range, while Gunjo pressed the charge in midair to put him on the back foot, with little to no success. He batted away the flailing limbs and kicked Gunjo in the gut, launching him into the nearby walls which he cratered through.
His eyes tightened in irritation as he deflected a short barrage of pink orbs of condensed energy, similar to Cero and yet not quite.
"So that's all you do." It was a faint trick.
Truly, as a group, along with their two dead members they had the makings of a small power bloc, not enough to excuse their ambition but at least they'll be fairly powerful. On their own they weren't that impressive, which came as no surprise, but they made quite the showing of respectable strength.
"Unfortunately for you, smaller ambitions have killed greater men than you."
Scatter, Senbonzakura.
His blade, from the hilt up to the tip, shattered into a thousand needle pieces that glinted with the hue of cherry blossoms.
Maybe their ambitions were the reasons they could survive this long in Hell. Maybe their ambitions had a solid basis, one borne from torture and resentment. Maybe they just wanted to do something so that people would notice that they were still alive — none of it mattered. The actions they took were a crime against every realm outside of Hell.
The fact of the matter remained that they were sinners, not fit for the Soul Society or even Hueco Mundo. It was in their very nature that they were the worst. Their plight meant nothing to him. They could weep and gnash their teeth all day and he would say that they deserved it.
The first was Shuren. The wild mouth spokesman stood in the air and rained down fire while he cackled loudly as if his abilities were anything to be impressed by. If the others were arrogant then he was just a babbling fool. He was the strongest of the lot but instead of wielding it like a tool, he used it like a crutch and when the reckoning came, he fell like a puppet off its strings.
Even before Byakuya went for him, he could already see how his death would play out. The fact that Shuren couldn't make himself even more pathetic in his eyes.
He dodged the rain of fire that rained down like the anger of a raging god, but a god the laughing fool was not. The fires consumed his body — the afterimage that had slowed down in his place — and Shuren was too much of a fool to notice when his enemy got behind his back.
He only noticed, late as it was, when Senbonzakura restructured into a glowing blade to take off his head. The only satisfaction his death gave Byakuya was that he would crawl through suffering as he was being reborn.
The other two looked shocked at the sudden death of their comrade and rushed at him with the fervor of men resolved to die for their ambitions.
It seems seeing Shuren die in front of them rang true the fact that should they fail here, they would be no escaping Hell for them. They would be cursed to forever relive the same hellish cycle they sought to escape.
"Don't curse at me now. Your friend, he is not truly dead… but I guess that's the part that makes it Hell." Byakuya's words further incensed them and forced them to attack him rabidly, selling him the undertones of terror in their souls.
Senbonzakura scattered and reformed in his hands in a constant loop, giving his enemies no avenue to ensure their attacks struck at his person.
In the same instant it reformed, he cut away at Gunjo's arms and kicked the man away again, only for it to scatter and form a barrier behind him to ward away Taikon's projectiles.
Despite not having the sheer destructiveness that Shuren had, the two of them fought with what they had and fought harder when it came up short. Not that it detracted from how helpless they were.
Truthfully, if they had been anyone else but damned souls in Hell… well he still wouldn't have any respect for them.
"Bakudō #8: Seki." The small blast of force was swallowed by the oblivious Taikon who suddenly found himself frozen as what he had eaten was a paralyzing Kidō spell. It did no form of damage and contained no volatile energy so when Taikon absorbed it, all he absorbed was a pure paralytic force.
"G-gunjo, I can't move." He stuttered out with panicked eyes, all manner of amusement long gone since Shuren's decapitation.
Gunjo seemed to get the memo but didn't seem to care either way as he attacked Byakuya with a barrage of flailing limbs that contorted like forceful whips. He faltered.
He looked down at the ground and around them and all he could see were cutoff portions of his limbs scattered around. His hands were currently stumps and no matter how much he tried he couldn't regrow them. He realized, only too late, how heavy his breathing was.
"I—"
"Your words, as synonymous with your life, mean nothing to me." Byakuya remarked coldly as the body before him fell in multiple pieces.
"You… you.."
Byakuya sighed. It had been nothing but a few minutes and he'd already grown tired of this. Senbonzakura surged and flew towards Taikon who'd managed to free himself from the spell he'd been under, only to be swarmed by thousands of blades. Mouths opened on every part of his body as he tried to swallow everything; and swallow he did, some of them, but he didn't have the time to digest it and spew it out as the hail of blades outside cut into his body while the ones inside cut outside through his body.
The petals flew back to Byakuya and reformed back into his dormant Zanpakutō as he got ready to leave… only for a deep bone tremor to course through the ground he stood on.
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