Chapter 112: Patchouli! GO!
The intruder moved incredibly fast. Less than two seconds after Satoru noticed them, they had already quietly slid open the door to his room.
In the darkness, Satoru squinted as he watched the door slowly open by itself.
Gotta admit, it was pretty damn creepy.
As the door opened, a figure wearing a straw hat appeared in the doorway.
Satoru manipulated shadows to form two elongated hands that crept along the wall, gently lifting the veil beneath the hat.
The moment the veil was lifted, Satoru froze in surprise.
Rennosuke Kamikawa?
Then his face lit up with excitement.
"Guards! Apprehend—"
But before he could finish, Rennosuke also broke into a delighted grin.
"Bankai!"
"Enkō Kiryū!!"
Satoru: "?"
Under his what-the-fuck expression, dozens of thick vines and tree trunks suddenly erupted from Rennosuke's body, enveloping both of them in less than a second.
Staring at the writhing, twisting tree trunks around him, Satoru exclaimed in amazement,
"You're not a Kamikawa! You're a Senju!"
Rennosuke: "?"
Watching Satoru's excited expression as if he'd discovered something groundbreaking, he couldn't help but frown slightly.
However, his overwhelming joy quickly made him disregard this.
As the forest—ahem, as countless branches completely enclosed their surroundings, the scenery around them had already transformed entirely.
Satoru was astonished to find himself standing in the middle of a tropical jungle.
Towering straight trunks piercing the sky, enormous leaves blotting out the sun, and tangled thorny vines gave him an almost surreal sense of displacement.
Not far away, Rennosuke stood beside a massive tree, taking a deep breath with an intoxicated expression.
"Ah... as expected, this place is the most comforting."
Satoru held his Zanpakutō and poked a nearby tree with its scabbard.
The feedback felt real.
Testing it with artificial spiritual particles also yielded tangible results.
"Your Bankai is quite interesting..."
"It's not an illusion but the creation of an actual space."
"Did you help the Night Raid team fight Heteromorphs back in the day?"
Rennosuke didn't understand Satoru's words.
In fact, he was somewhat accustomed to this by now.
Suddenly, dozens of flexible branches shot toward Satoru from all directions, their sharp tips aimed precisely at him!
Bang! Bang bang bang!!
Satoru reversed his grip on his sword, adjusting the blade's angle with minimal movements to deflect each incoming branch.
Then, he abruptly looked upward.
A massive hardwood trunk came crashing down toward him like a cannonball!
"Well, damn."
Satoru stepped with Shunpo, his figure flickering as he appeared a short distance away.
BOOM!!!!!
A massive hardwood trunk crashed into the ground, instantly creating a hemispherical crater over twenty meters in diameter.
Then, a second trunk suddenly materialized out of thin air and plummeted from the sky.
BOOM!! BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!!
One after another, the hardwood trunks fell at an increasingly rapid pace, leaving numerous deep hemispherical craters across the surrounding terrain.
Suddenly, as Satoru landed from another Shunpo, several roots—as if lying in wait—shot up from the soil and coiled around his legs.
Three hardwood trunks and ten spear-like branches attacked simultaneously!
Witnessing this scene, Rennosuke's eyes lit up.
Success!
His Bankai, Enkō Kiryū, had the ability to drag everyone within his line of sight into a special space and unleash indiscriminate attacks.
The more enemies he killed—and the stronger they were—the more intelligent and cunning his Bankai would become.
From the very beginning, he hadn't come here for Marenoshin Ōmaeda.
Instead, he had planned to exploit Satoru's protective stance toward Marenoshin to isolate and eliminate him with his Bankai's power!
As Satoru's sworn rival (self-proclaimed), Rennosuke devoured every scrap of information about him.
Naturally, he was aware that Satoru had served as an examiner for a captain's promotion assessment and had defeated Kensei Muguruma in a direct confrontation.
Rennosuke wasn't particularly surprised that Satoru had won.
After all, the brat had even beaten Yasushi Takada—what was defeating Kensei Muguruma compared to that?
But even if he could defeat Kensei, it didn't change the fact that Satoru was still a "rookie" who had only recently broken through to the third level of Reiatsu and hadn't even fully mastered his spiritual pressure.
No matter how strong his combat skills were or how terrifying his assassination abilities might be, within the confines of his Bankai, Satoru would eventually exhaust his stamina under the endless onslaught and collapse!
He had gone to great lengths to execute this plan.
Fortunately, it had finally succeeded.
Soon, Satoru would die within his Bankai, becoming fresh nourishment for "Enkō Kiryū"!
Rennosuke curled his lips into a smirk, eagerly awaiting the sounds of Satoru being crushed and impaled.
The next instant, his eyes suddenly widened.
Under Rennosuke's horrified gaze, a pure, dense pillar of spiritual pressure erupted from Satoru's body, shooting straight into the sky!
The third-class spiritual pressure seemed to solidify into a tangible force, radiating outward endlessly from his body.
The lethal attacks charging toward him were instantly scattered like sandcastles crushed by a tidal wave!
Even the surrounding air trembled violently under the influence of Satoru's spiritual pressure, undulating wildly!
Rennosuke: "…?"
What the hell was this?
Leaving aside the fact that Satoru had only just broken through recently—meaning he theoretically shouldn't be this proficient in wielding his newfound power—
Even if he could control it, where the hell was this absurd, overwhelming quantity coming from?!
Under Rennosuke's stunned gaze, Satoru retracted the pillar of spiritual pressure.
"Hey… Renjirou, just to confirm—"
"It's Rennosuke Kamikawa!"
"Rennosuke, are you sure this barrier completely isolates us from the outside?"
Rennosuke nodded reflexively.
Then, he suddenly realized something was off.
Receiving Rennosuke's confirmation, Satoru broke into a relieved smile.
"I see. So it's completely isolated."
"If you'd just said that earlier, I wouldn't have had to hold back so much."
As he spoke, the pillar of spiritual pressure surged from his body once more.
Even for a captain-level fighter, this would normally be an immense drain—yet for Satoru, it seemed inexhaustible, showing no signs of strain whatsoever.
Countless attacks, each capable of killing a high-ranking officer in a single strike, rained down on Satoru from all directions.
Yet, before they could even get close, they were obliterated midair by the terrifying spiritual pressure radiating from him.
"How… how is this possible?!"
Witnessing this unbelievable scene, Rennosuke couldn't help but wonder if he was dreaming.
Within the pillar of light, Satoru raised his sword and gave it a casual swing.
Then, shaking his head, he nonchalantly stabbed it into the ground beside him.
Next, he grabbed the sides of his shihakushō and yanked it off his upper body.
Under Rennosuke's horrified stare, he grinned.
"Patchouli! GO!"