"I had no intentions of deceiving anyone. It's just that none of you could understand… My true self." — Aizen Sosuke.
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Shadows rushed through the rocky terrains on the west side of the Seireitei, going further away from the West Gate. They moved in a chaotic order that blended their afterimages with the shadows cast by the lumped rocks and the nearby sparse trees.
They avoided the open air, appearing as nothing more than a blurring mass under the shades and an imagined smudge in the open air.
Itachi and Soi Fon remained at the forefront of the invisible group while the shadows trailed behind them. As the two of them moved seamlessly through the sparse land, a shadow smudged itself to Itachi's left.
"Snake."
"Carved out. All potential exits are cut off. They are waiting out their death sentence." The voice that came out was a cold and dead voice that denied every tonal inflection that living beings had.
"Just up ahead." The dead Snake said and faded away as he was wont to do.
Itachi turned towards Soi Fon for the first time since their chase started, who, as much as she tried, couldn't keep the scowl off her face.
This was a rare case of incompetence from her and her direct subordinates. There were no two ways about it. Subjects who were not supposed to be aware of their observation, not only fooled them into believing that they were, but also managed to break through their surveillance net in one fell swoop.
If it hadn't been for Itachi and Yoruichi's wider surveillance network, they would have escaped the Seireitei into the Rukongai which would have made tracking them magnitudes harder.
"This was not supposed to happen." Soi Fon bit her lips at the vocal admonishment. It was not just a casual rebuke. It was a harsh talking down dressed in fewer words and lack of visual cues.
It was a massive oversight that Soi Fon would have remained unaware of for some time had it not been for the swift notice from ROOT.
It has been decades, almost a century even, when she last made a mistake of this magnitude. It didn't matter that her targets were experienced enough to play over her surveillance as that was the exact reason why it was a deep stealth watch.
She remained silent as there was no reply she could come up with that would explain her failure or her target going under. She was so not looking forward to the joint verbal punishments from Itachi and Yoruichi.
The shadows that were trailing them created a perimeter as soon as they arrived at the point of contact.
The moment their feet came to a stop, Yoruichi appeared on Soi Fon's flank with a rare severe look on her face.
"The splinter heading towards the South Gate has been neutralized." She'd taken a detour and circled around them to cut down the obvious distraction before following behind to arrive at the same time they did.
"They are adapting t—" Yoruichi's words never saw completion as a spear whizzed through where her head had been a moment ago.
Soi Fon and Yoruichi flanked Itachi as soon as the failed sneak attack registered but that did not deter their assailant who stabbed the shaft of his spear into the ground and clapped his hands strongly as a Kidō barrier rose up in an instant and trapped the Shinigami trio.
"Kaizō Kidō…" They heard their assailant mutter as he finished setting up the peak level modified Kidō.
They were trapped within the barrier with the caster but he was set on making sure that their tiny detail becomes incorrect in the next moment.
"Hadō #96: Ittō Kasō!"
The sacrificial spell of destruction that used a part of the caster's body as fuel. It was one of the strongest destructive techniques among Shinigami, but instead of one of his limbs as the sacrifice, he was using his life as tribute which was seen in the red cracks that tore through his body.
Yoruichi and Soi Fon's eyes widened at the manic action and were in the midst of calling out whatever defensive technique they could when the red blade of cremation rose up to the sky and eradicated everything it came in contact with, barrier and all, even down to the Reishi particles.
The Ittō Kasō more than earned its reputation as a forbidden Kidō due to not only the parasitic nature of the spell's activation and also the fact that, other than the utter destruction it was capable of, weaker souls caught in its wake were at risk of being completely erased, soul and all, with not hope of reincarnation.
It was impossibly rare for someone to have a defense that could resist the Ittō Kasō, and in the likely event that they failed, due to its severity that affected even Reishi particles, for those below a certain level of strength it was akin to a Hollow dying to a Quincy. Their conceptual souls are completely destroyed, erasing them from every plane of existence.
A True Death. So was the way of the Burning Sword of Cremation.
The modified barrier was destroyed as well as everything within it, and as tribute to its name, dust was the only thing that remained from the burning cremation it enacted, and when the dust settles, the burial will be completed.
The dust settled… the cremation failed.
The embodiment of a War God stood in its place, covered in an armor so dark its shade could only be found in the deepest nightmare. It held a shield in its hands, a bulwark of certainty in the face of anything, even Death.
The Susano'o, kneeling as it was, was the captured essence of a god descended.
Slowly, it lowered its shield and sound returned to this dead space, while all the shadows hiding in their dark perches looked on in stunned silence and great trepidation in their hearts.
'What manner of man is this?' Similar thoughts echoed in their hearts as they remained transfixed on the divine construct that was slowly lowering its arms.
The Yata Mirror was completely lowered after which it dissolved into black flames that melded back into the Susano'o.
With the gigantic shield out of the way, the shadows could finally see the Captain, his Chief Commander and his Lieutenant, protected inside the armored head of the giant warrior.
As if to deny the watchers their trepidation, the armor started fading away as licks of flames and soon it was completely gone – like a memory that felt like a dream.
"Itachi, are you okay?" Tempered concern blended into Yoruichi's words as she looked over at him. Soi Fon, who had been too shocked by what had just happened, started into focus as her head whipped to the side to see a sight that put a harsh frown on her face.
His entire left sleeve was gone and the arm was completely covered in blood.
Itachi looked down at his arm with a frown as he rose up from his half kneeling position while being supported by Yoruichi with her hand on his back.
"I'm fine. It's mostly surface burns." A grimace showed on his face before it was smothered back into a dead calm mask. "I was a fraction too slow in summoning the Yata Mirror."
Both women looked at Itachi's arm and studied his face for a moment before nodding and taking a step back.
"Where's the rest of them?" Itachi asked Snake who'd appeared behind the two women.
"Herded." He replied. "They led us here. Smart, but unsettling."
The moment he finished saying those words, a rain of Kidō fell on them but instead of dodging they all drew out their Zanpakutō – none in Yoruichi's case – and sliced through every single Kidō spell.
Their eyes fell on the seven Shinigami from the Shihōin at the same time but Itachi was the first one to move.
They saw his approach and increased their ferocity, their Shikai already released, as they attacked him as a tight group.
The first one turned around and stabbed through his unsuspecting teammate's head while another one severed his spine from behind.
Two others combusted into black flames who amidst their dwindling screams lunged at the nearest Shinigami and engulfed him in their funeral pyre. The last two were engaged in a fierce fight but one managed to break out of the illusion only for a sword to run through him and his ally/opponent, and they too were engulfed.
Itachi flicked his Zanpakutō as the flames ate away the bloodstains and sheathed it.
"I don't like this, Itachi." Yoruichi said as joined him to watch as the last body burned away to nothing. "It feels like…"
"Like we are being prodded." Itachi looked at the ground zero of the Ittō Kasō and this time his frown was expressive. "They are making moves to draw out reactions. And they somehow got the Noble Families involved."
Yoruichi scowled in turn. "Or someone from the Noble Families is behind it."
The wide area of destruction was an ugly reminder. None of them expected the Ittō Kasō. It was not something any Shinigami could do and expecting it right out of them never occurred to any of them.
It was a desperate move from the other party that forced him to use the Susano'o. Except it wasn't a desperate action as revealed by the set up modified Kidō.
Something…. Someone was prodding them and for what Itachi had no idea.
"They can take it from here," Yoruichi implied to the shadows flitting around. "Go to Unohana and get that healed up. I'll talk to the Head Captain about how someone pulled off an Ittō Kasō."
Itachi looked at the destroyed radius and couldn't help but think that something was grossly out of place.
....
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A/N: Well this is embarrassing. I think it's been a month since I been active anywhere, and even the previous months were at an abysmal rate. I don't want to call it an excuse but I got a new job last month, a better job than my last one pay wise, and the morning to evening schedule doesn't really let me write as much. This last month+ was an adapting period(hopefully it sticks) since I had to build my entire schedule around my work which doesn't give me much time.
I think I've adapted pretty well to my new schedule so hopefully that translates to more chapters. Another thing is that the longer I go without typing/posting, the longer it takes me to get back to it, which poorly translates to weeks without chapters.
But no matter how harder it gets, I'm committed to finishing Crows x Souls this year. I'm working on the skeleton that would lead to the final arc. I already know what will happen in the end but it's plotting the road down to it that I'm knocking heads with.
Hopefully this sticks, for you and me both.
Quack Out.