As the meal progressed and the tension slowly simmered into a guarded truce, the rest of the restaurant's patrons couldn't help but stare as new people came in. It wasn't every day you saw five of the nation's most famous S-Rank hunters figures who were essentially A-list celebrities and national heroes sitting casually with two teenagers in crisp white jackets who looked like they should be in a prestigious private school rather than a war room.
Tatsumi, who had remained a silent observer for most of the meal, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He had noticed the subtle flash of phone cameras from across the room.
"The attention is getting bothersome," Tatsumi said with a low voice, "People are starting to disturb our peace, and the mystery surrounding you two is only going to make the paparazzi more aggressive. If we stay, there will be a crowd outside the door within ten minutes."
He stood up, signaling the waiter for the check with a curt nod. "We should move. This place is no longer private, and I'd rather not have our 'Consultants' on the front page of the morning tabloid before Goto-san is ready."
The group filtered out of the restaurant, Kenzo stepped to the front of the group, turning to look at the two brothers with a polite, yet sharp smile.
"You know," Kenzo said, a competitive glint dancing in his eyes that hadn't been there during dinner. "I've been thinking. Reports are one thing, and seeing you move in a dungeon is another. But I'd really like to get to know you guys better. And in our world... The best way to know a hunter isn't through a steak eat out. It's through a spar."
Grimmjow stopped walking and turned around with a slow, wild grin spreading across his face, the first genuine expression of joy he'd actually shown since eating with them. The boredom that had been gnawing at him for a week vanished in an instant.
"Now you're talking!" he barked, his voice echoing off the rain-slicked pavement. "I was wondering when one of you would have the balls to ask. I was starting to think you guys were all talk and no bite."
Akari clapped her hands together, her energy spiking. "Ooh! A sparring session! This is going to be way better than dessert. We can use the Guild's personal training facility, the subterranean dome. It's reinforced with the same mana-absorbent alloys they used for the All-Asian Summit training. It can handle almost anything we throw at it."
Twenty minutes later
They were deep beneath the Draw Sword Guild headquarters. The S-Rankers' training room was a massive, white, hemispherical dome, nearly three hundred meters in diameter. The air inside was cool, the floor was made of a specialized, self-healing synthetic material, a white surface designed to withstand the devastating impact of S-Rank abilities without shattering the foundation of the building.
High above, in the observation booth, the other S-Rankers gathered. Ippei, Akari, and Tatsumi leaned against the reinforced glass, watching as Kenzo and Kei stepped onto the white sands of the arena. They faced off against the two brothers, who looked remarkably small in the vastness of the dome yet the pressure they exerted told a different story.
"Rules are simple," Kenzo shouted, smashing his two fists together with a heavy thud. A confident, hungry smile stretched across his face. "The first one to land a definitive blow or force a surrender wins. No permanent maiming is allowed, we need everyone in one piece for the future raid, after all."
At the mention of a "future raid," Ulquiorra and Grimmjow shared a brief, knowing glance.
'Future raid? So Goto is already planning to throw us into the fire. Fine by me.' Ulquiorra thought.
Grimmjow stepped forward without manifesting his Zanpakutō or anything at all, He kept his hands tucked casually into the pockets of his trousers, "Sure, sure," Grimmjow said, his blue eyes locked on Kenzo. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, pal. Just try not to break too easily."
Ulquiorra stayed back, his emerald eyes fixed on Kei. The large hunter was now wearing a specialized breathing mask over the lower half of his face, the filters glowing with a faint blue light.
'An ice mage. From what I recall, he suffers from the same respiratory mana-clogging issue as Hunter Cha. But he wasn't wearing that earlier... he must only need it when he intends to exert his full atmospheric pressure.'
"Do you truly wish to do this?" Ulquiorra asked, his voice flat and echoing in the vast, hollow space. "The disparity in our density will make this... difficult for you.
"Don't worry about us, Ulqi!" Akari's voice crackled over the intercom, her excitement practically vibrating through the speakers. "Kei and Kenzo are one of the best frontline duos we've got! Show us what thr Amazon taught you!"
The buzzer for the start of the match hadn't even finished its tone before the air in the dome shifted. Grimmjow's grin stretched to a manic width. In a sudden, explosive boom of static noise and then, he vanished. He used the Sonido, a technique that bypassed mere speed and entered the realm of spatial displacement. To the S-Rankers in the observation booth, he became a blur of white and blue that even their enhanced eyes struggled to track.
BOOM!
A massive shockwave rippled outward from the center of the arena. It wasn't a gust of wind, but the raw, displaced force of a physical impact. Kenzo had managed to cross his armored forearms just in time, but the sheer, unadulterated weight of Grimmjow's casual kick was staggering. The impact sent Kenzo skidding fifty meters backward across the arena floor, his heavy boots carving deep, jagged furrows into the self-healing synthetic ground.
"What the—!" Kenzo gasped, his lungs burning as he struggled to draw air. His arms were vibrating so violently from the kinetic transfer that he could barely clench his fists. "That wasn't even a skill! No mana flare, no chant... that was just a kick!"
On the other side of the sands, Kei didn't hesitate. Seeing his partner blown back, he slammed his palms into the ground. Instantly, massive, jagged spikes of ice erupted from the floor, racing from all directions toward Ulquiorra. This wasn't ordinary ice; it was a high-density, mana-infused frost designed to pierce through reinforced steel and flash-freeze anything it touched.
The spikes converged on Ulquiorra like a closing trap as a forest of lethal blue diamonds.
Ulquiorra didn't do anything until the ice were close enough and then, he simply raised his left hand, his pale fingers outstretched. Just as the leading edge of the ice onslaught reached his chest, he swung his hand in a short, dismissive arc.
A hideous scraping sound followed by the thunderous shattering of crystal filled the dome.
The arena went dead silent. Kei's eyes went wide behind his breathing mask. The entire ice formation lay in sparkling ruins at Ulquiorra's feet, reduced to harmless hailstones. Ulquiorra's hand remained raised, his skin as smooth and pale as marble without a scratched or even a small bruise at al. Kei had expected the stranger to evade, to warp away, or perhaps to use a shield. But to simply swat the attack aside and break his strongest mana-infusion with a bare hand?
"Is this the extent of your 'S-Rank' power?" Ulquiorra asked with a chilling monotonous voice as a faint wisp of steam rose from the back of the pale palm he had used to shatter the ice, the thermal energy of the friction dissipating into the cold air. "It is... underwhelming."
On the other side of the dome, the air was screaming. Grimmjow was hunting, he lurred across the white sands, chasing Kenzo with a predatory cackle. Kenzo, showing why he was an elite, managed to twist his body mid-air to evade a direct haymaker, but the sheer wind pressure from the miss ruffled his hair like a hurricane.
Kenzo roared, launching a heavy barrage of mana-infused punches, Grimmjow who still hasn't drawn his hands from his pockets at first, bobbed and weaving with a bored expression until he finally saw an opening. With a lightning-fast motion, Grimmjow performed a vertical backflip kick. His heel caught Kenzo squarely on the shoulder with the force of a falling meteor, launching the S-Ranker backward.
"Told ya, Ulquiorra!" Grimmjow shouted, landing gracefully on his feet. "These guys are all talk! Come on, Kenzo! Hit me harder! I want to see if you can actually make me blink!"
High above in the observation booth, the silence was absolute. Akari and Ippei were pressed against the reinforced glass, their breaths fogging the surface. They had expected a high-level exchange, but this wasn't a spar, it was a dismantling.
"They aren't just S-Rank," Ippei whispered, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the metal railing. "The way they move... the way they don't even use mana to reinforce their skin... they're a different species entirely."
Down in the arena, Kenzo pushed himself up from the crater his body had formed. He coughed slightly, spitting a bit of dust to the side, but a manic, desperate grin was forming on his face. The thrill of facing something truly superior was finally overriding his caution.
"Alright... I guess we don't have to hold back anymore," Kenzo panted, his green mana flaring until it formed a visible aura of emerald flames. "Kei! Formation Delta! Let's show these 'Amazon' boys why we run this country!"
Kei nodded solemnly behind his mask and the entire dome began to tremble as a massive, swirling vortex of frost and wind began to coalesce around the two Japanese hunters..
The overhead lights flickered and buzzed, the mana sensors in the walls screaming in a high-pitched whine as they struggled to calculate the skyrocketing pressure.