"Do you know them?"
Higashino Shuuichi asked Nagasawa Satomi.
Because of the samurai's sudden intrusion, the hungry civilians by the roadside collapsed one after another. The reiatsu that didn't seem strong to Shuuichi was still far too much for ordinary people.
Satomi only shook her head and got to her feet. Staring at the commoners the samurai had knocked out, anger filled her eyes.
"Who are you? Why do you know me?"
The black-helmed samurai didn't answer. Like a machine, he repeated, in the same flat pace and tone,
"Nagasawa Satomi. Zuobu-sama summons you. Come with me at once."
"Can you even understand human speech?
I don't know you, and I don't know any Zuobu-sama. Why should I go with you?!"
Satomi was angry. These samurai were beyond unreasonable.
Shuuichi, off to the side, saw it clearly enough.
This black-helmed samurai—and the red-helmed riders behind him—didn't seem to be real people at all.
Beneath the fully sealed armor there was an indescribable sense of emptiness.
"Nagasawa Satomi. Zuobu-sama summons you. Come with me at once."
The cold words sounded again as the black-helmed samurai drew his blade and advanced on Satomi step by step.
The pitch-black blade scraped the ground with a hiss. Satomi set her right hand to the pendant at her chest.
At Shuuichi's side, Kisaragi Shūsuke moved to act, but Shuuichi stopped him.
"Shuuichi-sama…"
Shūsuke didn't understand. In his view, Satomi's reiatsu was at best on par with an ordinary seated officer, while that black-helmed samurai's reiatsu was at least upper-seated level. She shouldn't have any power to resist.
If they didn't act, Satomi would be taken by force.
Shuuichi understood exactly what Shūsuke was thinking, but he only shook his head—and silently added in his heart, You think that because you don't understand Fullbringers yet. People who fight purely by borrowing fragments of the Soul King's power don't follow the rules of Shinigami combat.
Fighting above your weight is their daily bread.
Sure enough, Satomi slipped off her pendant. It changed in her hand into a pure-white lotus bud.
Shuuichi looked closer. Around the small lotus receptacle were only three sparse, overlapping petals.
Then the lotus fell.
"Shinsō: Rengyoku (Divine Phase: Lotus Orb)!"
The lotus vanished. At Satomi's feet—and at the black-helmed samurai's feet—phantom lotuses appeared.
A closer look showed that the two ghostly lotuses were identical to the white jade lotus that had fallen from Satomi's hand.
The black-helmed samurai, however, seemed oblivious. He continued to drag his blade toward Satomi, step by step, until he stood before her and issued his command one last time:
"Nagasawa Satomi. Zuobu-sama summons you. Come with me at once."
"I'm not going!"
Her answer was as firm as before.
This time the black-helmed samurai finally reacted.
"Those who refuse—die."
He raised his long sword. The ice in his voice held no trace of emotion.
Then the blade fell.
"Shuuichi-sama!"
Shūsuke cried out, tense.
But Shuuichi still didn't move to stop it, merely resting one hand on the zanpakutō at his waist.
Just as the sword was about to cleave down on Satomi's head, a mysterious force gathered on the blade—and in an instant the black-helmed samurai was flung backward, skidding dozens of steps.
"What…?"
Shūsuke was stunned.
What he saw defied his understanding.
There'd been no surge of reiatsu—so why was the black-helmed samurai bounced away?
It made no sense!
By contrast, Shuuichi was ready for it—and he noticed more.
For example, the phantom lotus under the samurai's foot: of the original three petals, only two remained.
And the phantom lotus beneath Satomi: one of its white petals had been dyed black.
That meant the "accident" had been caused by Satomi's ability. As for the exact mechanism…
Shuuichi glanced at the red-helmed samurai dismounting in response to their comrade's setback. He figured he'd soon see more.
"Those who resist—die!"
The black-helmed samurai, just knocked away by Satomi's power, now unleashed his reiatsu fully. His voice was as cold as before, but his movements had turned hurried.
He was angry.
What Shuuichi didn't expect was that instead of charging again with a stronger burst of reiatsu and sharper swordplay, the samurai began to chant in place:
"O kingly one! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, fluttering wings, the thing that bears the name of man! Heat and strife, the sea barrier surges south—step forth!
Hadō #31: Shakkahō (Red Fire Cannon)!"
A fireball gathered before the samurai's blade, then, with a sweep, arced like a crescent toward Satomi.
This time Shūsuke couldn't hold back. His instincts screamed that Satomi couldn't withstand a fully chanted Shakkahō.
"Bakudō #39: Enkōsen (Circular Shield)!"
In two quick strides he jumped before Satomi and caught the blinding blaze.
"Shūsuke-kun!"
Even Satomi hadn't expected him to dash in front of her.
But in truth, Shūsuke's worry was unnecessary.
The Shakkahō didn't fly even five meters before it fizzled into nothing in midair.
"Spell failure?"
Shūsuke frowned.
Shuuichi knew that wasn't it. He immediately looked to the phantom lotus beneath the samurai's feet.
By his earlier guess, Satomi's Fullbring might block any lethal blow aimed at her with one petal per block.
But the phantom lotus under the samurai still remained, and the two white petals at his feet still flickered.
Clearly, Shuuichi's guess was wrong.
"Or… does one lotus petal target one enemy?"
He thought back. That wasn't impossible.
From what he'd seen so far, Satomi wasn't the kind to be bluffed by a few words.
A girl who could judge from their tone and bearing that Shuuichi's group weren't enemies—and then turn his questions back on him to trick him—would only have yielded yesterday because she had concluded she couldn't escape from everyone present.
And why couldn't she escape?
If each lotus petal corresponded to a single enemy, then yesterday there had been five in the room—Higashino Shuuichi, Kisaragi Shūsuke, Kabuma Sayako, Kensei Muguruma, and Tsukabishi Tessai (Yoruichi Shihōin in cat form didn't count). She truly had no way to cover them all.
In a flash, Shuuichi had teased out seventy, eighty percent of Satomi's ability.
And if he wasn't mistaken, her ability likely had an activation condition:
Those she "planted" with lotuses had to attack her first.
He remembered that the lotus under the black-helmed samurai had lost a petal only after he was blasted back—
not at the very start.
"Those who resist—die!"
Not far away, the black-helmed samurai showed no confusion over his vanished kidō. He roared at Satomi again.
This time the uproar spread. The dismounted red-helmed samurai seemed to be "called," joining the chorus condemning her.
"O kingly one! Mask of blood and flesh—"
The chant for Shakkahō began anew.
But this time Satomi, sensing the turn for the worse, flicked a finger toward the black-helmed samurai.
"Kisō: Ren'o (Demonic Phase: Lotus Mire)!"
The blackened petal under her foot peeled away, oozing up as foul black mud. It raced along Satomi's body, sprang from her fingertip, and vanished in the air—
—reappearing beneath the black-helmed samurai.
It coiled, piled up, and swallowed.
In less than two seconds the samurai was mired as if in a bog. He struggled to launch an attack at Satomi, but could only watch as his body sank, inch by inch, until it disappeared completely into the black sludge at his feet.
Silent. Without a trace.
The black petal on the phantom lotus beneath Satomi also faded away entirely.
Seeing that, Shuuichi's understanding clicked into place.
"Fall back, Shūsuke. Without your zanpakutō, you're at a disadvantage here."
Coming up beside him, Shuuichi gestured for Shūsuke to suppress his reiatsu.
As defectors of Soul Society, they could get away with a bit of low-level kidō now and then in the World of the Living, leak a trickle of reiatsu for a short time—but if it went on too long, it became a problem.
Shuuichi knew Soul Society treated reiatsu in an unscientific way: everyone's reiatsu carried a unique signature.
He himself couldn't feel the difference, but plenty of people in Soul Society could. Like it or not.
If Shūsuke kept flaring reiatsu and the monitors in Soul Society picked it up, that would be… unpleasant.
The odds weren't high, but Shuuichi was cautious by nature.
"Understood, Shuuichi-sama!"
Seeing Shuuichi draw his zanpakutō, Shūsuke realized he meant to act himself and stepped back, barely suppressing his excitement.
It had been so long—he could finally watch Shuuichi-sama fight again!
"Those who resist—die!"
A line of red-helmed samurai in front of them shouted without emotion, like machines. They raised their swords like machines and charged.
Shuuichi slid his left foot forward and drew a slow breath.
His strength was still in the last two days of recovery after his gambit and hadn't fully returned—but for this sort of rabble, it was more than enough.
Press the blade—Nadegiri (Smooth Cut).
No reiatsu bled from the edge; all the force sank into the steel.
So there was no earth-shaking spectacle—only a suffocating stillness.
Where the blade passed, all things touched simply ceased to be.
Watching the red-helmed samurai vanish like dust on a breeze, Satomi was too shocked to speak.
"So this is a Shinigami…?"
She had only heard tales from the old woman who'd raised her. Even if Shinigami were strong, she'd thought they wouldn't be that much stronger than herself.
But what had she just seen?
A sickly-looking, frail Shinigami—one light stroke—
—and the red-helmed warriors who seemed so formidable were erased without a sound.
Like wiping away a few ants.
Then, in Satomi's sight, Shuuichi moved.
Slowly—like the elderly she passed on the street. But the blade in his hand moved fast.
So fast Satomi felt as if Shuuichi wasn't cutting at all, only strolling idly.
That was impossible.
With each step he took, at least two red-helmed samurai disappeared.
When he finished the seventh step, only one remained.
That last samurai showed no fear at his comrades' fate. Bravely, he launched his attack on this "resister," Higashino Shuuichi.
Light from Bakudō #8: Seki (Repulse) flashed along his blade.
Shuuichi simply pinched the raised sword with his left hand—and with a gentle draw of his right, his zanpakutō traced the samurai's neck.
Helmet parted from body. No blood spurted, no scream rang out—because there was nothing inside.
"No, Satomi—this is Shuuichi-sama. Only he can do this!"
Kisaragi Shūsuke, who had watched the whole thing, realized his hands had clenched tight. A flush crept across his cheeks.
His Shuuichi-sama would not be defeated so easily.
Hollowfication and the like would only make Shuuichi-sama stronger!
One day…
Shūsuke lifted his gaze to the cloudless sky.
One day, Shuuichi-sama would stand as Sōtaichō (Captain-Commander) and bring every last one of those who'd framed him to justice.
And he, Kisaragi Shūsuke—
would become the strongest blade in Shuuichi-sama's hand.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 20 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810