"Hatred and vengeance are the tools of destruction. I used them only to protect the peace." — Itachi Uchiha.
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The roar from the Kushanāda shook the landscape around them so fiercely that pools of acid around them spilled over everywhere like a tidal wave and washed over where Itachi and Kokutō stood, with them not coming to harm as in response to the Kushanāda's bravado Amaterasu had rose up like a proud queen that never failed to put her subjects in place.
For the Eternal Flame of the Abyss, the Kushanāda's consistent interruptions were akin to blasphemy. Hell was having an effect on Amaterasu, one that both she and Itachi could feel, and while it gave Itachi a healthy amount of caution towards the unknown realm, Amaterasu on the other hand was greatly amused.
Neither of them knew the exact reason for this reaction towards Hell and why it was acting specifically hostile towards them but they both wanted to find out, the degree in how much they wanted it was what differed.
In this case, Amaterasu threw away every avenue of subtlety and loudly demanded the reasons for Hell's impertinence.
Her flames halted the raucous liquids that dared raise a voice in her presence and her rebuttal swift as they were all buried away with not even smoke left in their erasure.
"What are you doing?" Itachi asked with a frown as he was cloaked in black flames. "I don't have time for this."
He didn't exactly have time to humor Amaterasu's whims with what was at stake, a sentiment she was supposed to share, so this outburst of hers genuinely surprised him.
His kept his words neutral but she could clearly pick up his silent dissatisfaction. As long as Tōshirō was yet to be saved he didn't care about whatever secrets Hell held, nor did he care about the Kushanāda's hostility towards him.
"What the hell are you doing? Let's get out of here! We're almost there!" Kokutō shouted desperately.
The black wave of fire and the Kushanāda's anger stilled him in place as a heavy premonition washed over his heart. Everything that could go wrong was slowly going wrong.
The Kushanāda, towering in size compared to its progenitors and a fountain of acid running down its body, opened its mouth and spat out a volley of densely compressed acid, only for it to be swallowed up and devoured by Itachi's flames, which only seemed to enrage it more.
"It's feeding off the tainted Reiatsu of Hell." It was a slow realization but it didn't make it any less damning.
"You think?" Kokutō shouted." Where do you think this is?"
The Kushanāda started charging up a deep green energy blast from its mouth as it stared hatefully at Itachi with its unexpressive bone-masked face.
"This is Hell; we live, breathe, and feel agony in our every waking moment. Do you even have any idea what that thing is? You think we haven't tried killing them? There is a reason we don't, and it's simple — you can't kill them. They don't die. They don't sleep. They don't tire. They'll keep on coming until that strength you hold as sanctuary is destroyed." There was a maddening gleam in his uncovered eye as he spoke. The light in it looked so far away and so deep that his entire image felt soulless as he looked on at the charging blast aimed dead center at them.
Itachi turned away from the Kushanāda to look at Kokutō who was looking at him fervently.
"And yet you still want me to kill them. That is why you lured me here, isn't it?" Itachi said. "But killing them is just a means to an end, a farcical one given that they come back stronger. It'll only be a matter of time before I'm overwhelmed and killed, but that is way too much trouble to go to just to kill me when we have no previous history. If anything, I'm guessing it has to do with why Amaterasu seems so excited."
The words were spoken so casually and without a speck of hostility that it left Kokutō stumped on how to reply to the suddenness of it.
"How did—"
"The one thing that doesn't factor in is why Tōshirō. It is a highly effective reasoning, I'll give you that, but how did you know that? That is what I still can't wrap my head around. You would either have to have a way to observe, not only the World of the Living but also Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, or someone else reached out to you. The problem with either of both is great; if you can unabashedly observe the Seireitei with no one sensing you then that means that there's been an egregious oversight in regards to Hell. As for the other, it's even more terrible as it means that someone out there beyond my sight, but I'm clearly in his, is able to subtly reach into Hell and manipulate its denizens in a way no one expected. The similarities are not one I'm comfortable with."
The monologue ended with Itachi still looking at Kokutō while the world around them trembled a fierce thing.
"I only have one question for now: is Tōshirō in the layer below us?" Those red eyes of his bore into Kokutō's skull with a blanket apathy that the thought of telling a lie didn't even occur to him.
"He is," he swallowed. "How did yo—"
His words were cut short as Itachi turned back around to stare at the Kushanāda and its charging blast that was at its apex. "That is good enough for now."
The red sky of this infernal realm darkened as Itachi beheld the Kushanāda once again. The flames that billowed around him like a cloak seemed to still in anticipation as he opened his mouth.
"Seeping crest of turbidity. Arrogant vessel of lunacy. Boil forth and deny."
A curtain was raised in Hell. A blanket of darkness fell over the Warden, and stillness entered its limb.
"Grow numb and flicker. Disrupt sleep. Crawling queen of iron."
For a moment, Hell seemed to open its eyes upon the desecration that was about to take place. A taboo was to be born.
"Eternally self-destructing doll of mud. Unite. Repulse."
The Kushanāda's empty betrayed the sudden rise of an unfamiliar emotion in its dead state — it panicked. For the first time since it's inception, it feared death.
"Fill with soil and know your own powerlessness!!"
The curtain rose over the Kushanāda, blackened and shackled, infernal spears railed into it. Its screams— if it gave any— were silenced by the turbidity of warbling space beyond the curtain. It rose and rose again until everything was swallowed whole.
"Hadō #90: Kurohitsugi."
Night came upon Hell.
There was no scream nor was there any explosion of power. There was no plea for mercy nor would there be any reprieve. No shouts of defiance were heard as the coffin took all within it to the grave. The dead tell no tales.
A huge hole was created from where the Kurohitsugi was erected and it dug deep into the mountain, past the sea of acid, and into the next layer of Hell. A world of fire and brimstone.
Tōshirō was down there. He could feel the boy's dwindling Reiatsu from up here now that there was no realm ceiling obstructing his senses.
Someone landed behind him, their arrival so faint that had he not been paying special attention to his senses, he might have missed them. Might.
"I see you are one for overhead theatrics, Itachi." Byakuya said, looking impressively unimpressed.
"I was taking some preventive measures." Itachi rebutted as the flames around him dissipated.
Byakuya frowned lightly but still was not willing to easily let him off the hook. "You scared the rat away."
Itachi remained unperturbed in the face of Byakuya's light accusations. Well he did scare Kokutō away but walking consciously into an ambush in enemy territory without doing anything to disrupt it was… stupid.
"I backed him into a corner. If he was desperate before, now he'll be manic."
They both jumped down into the world of fire and liquid death, their Reiatsu fighting off the soul burning heat in this later of Hell.
"I have a proposition for you." Kokutō said from atop a rubble of carved stones. Behind him was Tōshirō bound in a tree that grew around him. "He doesn't have much time left before he is recognized as a part of this world. As you've realized, I never wanted him dead. I only took him because it'd bring you here."
"That's not a very wise thing to do." Byakuya said, his focus was more on Kokutō than it was Tōshirō.
"You'll find that I can be sufficiently… persuasive." Kokutō looked thoughtful as the two Captains stood in front of him. They could feel that he was apprehensive of fighting the both of them and yet he remained confident.
"Byakuya," Itachi started, drawing both attention to himself. "Take Tōshirō and leave."
"The Mission is not yet completed, but I'll be sending him back."
Byakuya was not about to leave at this juncture. Too much was at stake. Whether it was because of duty, sympathy or by sheer moral obligation, he was determined to stay and see this to the end. The Head Captain specifically sent him on this mission and it would be remiss of him to return halfway.
"Y'know, I actually liked you guys. It's a damn shame." Kokutō stood up looking mournful.
"That's a sentiment we don't share."
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