Chapter 74: No Light, No Savior, But There Is Us
The sudden, thunderous blast was no less shocking than the release of the Sokyoku.
And the Palace of Penitence was right next to Sokyoku Hill.
Which meant that, in effect, someone had dropped a spiritual nuclear bomb in the center of Seireitei.
There was no mushroom cloud, but the city was nearly leveled.
In the wide plaza of First District, Yoruichi suddenly appeared with Soi Fon in tow.
Both Captains were covered in dust. That grime was not only from their earlier battle, but also from the debris and ash whipped up when they escaped the explosion. The skin exposed by their Shunko-rent clothes was mottled with burns.
"Let go!"
The moment her feet touched the ground, Soi Fon violently shook off Yoruichi's hand and tried to sprint back toward the explosion site.
She had only managed two steps when her legs went weak and she pitched forward.
Yoruichi, former Commander in Chief and a renowned powerhouse, was still a wall. Even without her Zanpakuto, she could fight on par with Captains, and forcing her to that edge was no simple task.
Soi Fon, on the other hand, had already used her Bankai.
That was a trump card she could only play once every three days.
It was perfectly natural for her body to be emptied out.
"Calm down, Soi Fon. This is not your fault."
Yoruichi stepped forward with an unusually solemn look, knelt beside her, and lightly patted her shoulder.
"Of course this is not my fault. It is yours and Urahara's!"
Collapsed on the ground, powerless and furious, Soi Fon could only fling that rage at Yoruichi.
And it was not as if her anger had no basis.
"If Urahara had never created the Hogyoku, if you had not saved him a hundred years ago, none of this would have happened!"
"And even so, with your Shunpo, you absolutely could have made it in time. But you chose to save me. You chose to save an enemy who almost killed you instead of a comrade fighting on your side. Yoruichi, do you really like abandoning the people who support you that much?"
That bloodstained accusation made Yoruichi's heart twist with complicated emotions.
"I have no way to argue back against that," she admitted. "Maybe this is just how the Shihoin family is. When it comes to our comrades, no matter what choices they make, we usually choose to support them. I am like that. The heads of the Shihoin clan before me were like that. That is why we never quite got along with the so called good children. We always looked unconventional to everyone else."
"I do not care about your clan's quirks right now. Get out of my sight before I get my strength back and kill you. This time, do not expect anyone to come and save you again."
Soi Fon glared at Yoruichi, eyes cold with hatred.
Yoruichi sighed and slowly rose to her feet.
"Soi Fon, I am not saying all this to make you forgive me. I just want you to understand one thing."
"…Understand what?"
"People who can live alongside unconventional types usually have very tenacious lives. Otherwise, they would have been pushed out, suppressed, and unable to survive long ago."
"?"
Soi Fon snapped her head up, staring at the ruins ahead, her face frozen in disbelief.
Not because she had understood the deeper meaning in Yoruichi's words.
But because she had felt a familiar spiritual pressure.
Over the shattered city, a sea of fire stretched and climbed into the air, thick smoke billowing everywhere. By all logic, no living thing should have had space to survive in that inferno.
Yet within those crimson flames, there was a spiritual pressure hotter still, blazing like the midday sun.
Boom.
The sea of fire was forcibly split apart.
A silver and black figure stepped out of that man made disaster with steady, unhurried strides.
His feet crunched over rubble and charred earth.
Compared to the scorched world around him, his presence felt almost unreal.
A pitch black cloak like condensed night streamed behind him.
Slim silver armor wrapped his arms, legs, and torso in a uniform layer of light metal. It did not look heavy or cumbersome at all; it radiated the sharpness of a drawn blade.
Rather than a knight, he looked like a fighter.
Rather than a fighter, he looked like struggle itself given form.
Patter.
At some point, dark clouds had rolled in over Seireitei.
A fine, steady rain began to fall.
If the world had sent this rain to try to smother the unnatural blaze, then Takeru's appearance smothered the raging fire in Soi Fon's heart.
Even with her hair plastered to her face and the droplets on her cheeks blurring together so she could no longer tell rain from the other wetness in her eyes, Soi Fon still refused to blink.
She forced her eyes wider to keep the strange figure in her sights.
"Takeru…?"
"Yeah. It is me."
A calm, metallic voice sounded from within the armor, not from the head.
It made it feel less like he was wearing the armor and more like he had become one with it.
"Captain Soi Fon, do you remember the question that was troubling me?"
"…?"
Even though she was stunned beyond belief, Soi Fon's mind was at its clearest.
She had to determine whether what she was seeing was real or some illusion.
His words stirred the memory of that not so distant night.
"A question? The thing that frightened you most so far? You said you had already resolved it. Is this form… your Bankai?"
"We did say we would talk about it next time we drank."
Takeru stretched out his right hand, catching the falling rain, then tilted his head back to look at the blazing sun hidden behind the storm clouds.
"But this scene does not feel like a bad place for that talk either."
"When I was five, someone told me there was no light in this world."
"At the time, I did not understand anything. I just felt vaguely disappointed. When I grew older and finally grasped what reality was, I realized how terrifying that fact truly is."
"So if you ask me what I have feared most so far, it is without a doubt this."
"That there is no light in this world. No savior who will protect everything."
Bang.
He suddenly clenched his fist.
Even the falling rain and the air around his hand seemed to shatter along with the gesture.
Both the heavy meaning of his words and the raw force of that motion made Yoruichi and Soi Fon shiver.
Takeru lowered his gaze from the sky and looked straight at them.
"Brother Kurosaki and I are different," he said. "I was born in an era where morality is rotten. If he fights with courage, then I fight with malice."
"So the Zanpakuto born from the shape of my soul, even if it can shine, does not warm hearts like the sun. It can only protect me. It cannot protect everyone."
"There are many things I cannot do. Those can only be done by others."
"By people who carry courage and can kindle that courage in others."
"If that is the case, then there is no way we are wrong."
"Conversely, anyone who stands in our way is wrong."
"…"
The rain drew the warmth out of Soi Fon's body.
Gradually, she calmed down.
She pushed herself upright as if she were standing against Takeru himself and demanded, almost defiantly,
"So you are saying I am wrong? That I, who follow the rules and protect Soul Society, am wrong?"
"Is that not obvious?"
"Takeru."
"Are the rules you follow really Soul Society's rules?"
"!?"
His sudden question froze her furious expression in place.
"You keep talking about rules. You act more devoted than anyone. But the only rule you have ever followed from beginning to end is this."
"You must sacrifice your life for others."
As he spoke, Takeru released his Bankai.
The armor peeled away from his body, clattering off in pieces of silver light.
His eyes, now fully visible, gleamed with a clarity that seemed to pierce straight through to the bottom of a person's heart.
"Following Soul Society's rules, carrying out orders. All of that is just a way to cater to your own drive for self sacrifice."
"Soi Fon, you are nothing more than a suicide warrior. Do not throw around words like rules and order so carelessly. And do not use them to question the man standing in front of you right now."
"Because he is the one who truly wants to save those rules."
"The rules of Soul Society should not look like this."
"No one's blade should be pressed against an honest person's neck."
"I was not lying when I said I wanted to save you. Because if you obstruct us again, I will have no choice but to smash you, this stumbling block."
"Once you understand that, behave yourself."
"?!"
By the time he finished, the declaration Takeru had been holding back erupted like thunder.
His spiritual pressure shook the rain right out of the air.
Soi Fon's body trembled uncontrollably. Her mind went blank.
This was the first time she had ever seen Takeru truly angry.
Yet that anger was not unfamiliar.
It was far too similar to the way the Captain Commander looked when he was enraged in her memories.
So when Takeru turned his back on her without waiting for a response, walked past, and left together with Yoruichi, she did not even realize it at first.
Only when the rain stopped, and the sun pushed its way back through the clouds, a golden ray piercing her eyes, did Soi Fon startle and look up.
They were long gone.
Her body, forced to stay upright by sheer will, finally sagged and dropped back to the ground.
Unlike before, this collapse carried a strange lightness, and an unfamiliar sense of security.
"He did not even use an honorific… a mere academy student calling me by name like that…"
She clenched a fist against the cracked stone, her lips curling into a faint, stubborn line.
"Just you wait."
<><><><><>
[Check Out My Patreon For +40 Advance Chapters On All My Fanfics!]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]
[Join Our Discord Community For Updates & Events]
[https://discord.gg/MntqcdpRZ9]