Task
The equine Hollow reared up, pincer-arms snapping in the air threateningly.
Keigo barely paused as he sprang forward and slashed it clean through the mask, landing in a run even as the would-be threat dissolved away.
To his sides, ahead, and behind him, all of his brother and sisters-in-arms ran with him, mowing down the mob of loose Hollows that blocked their path. The monsters had the very obvious edge in numbers, but the band of warriors in training were driven and focused, intent only on completing Zaraki's given mission, even if thousands of Hollows stood in their way.
Slightly ahead of him, Asano watched as a barbed appendage nearly disemboweled Yono, raking along his ribs and leaving uneven slices in his shirt and skin. But even as the mismatched creature moved in for another attack, Yoshiara appeared as if from nowhere, neatly deflecting the blade like tail off the flat of his katana as he wrapped an arm around Yono and vanished again, all within a heartbeat and a half. Then a backhanded swing from Tatsuki as she passed cleft the Hollow in the neck and it screeched in pain as it perished.
Like a wave of steel, resolve and no small amount of lunacy, the New Reapers (Keigo rather liked that name and wished he'd been the one to come up with it) pushed through the Hollows, thinning out their infestation of this sector of Soul Society until the scant few left wised up and departed either through Gargantas or by slinking off into the surrounding woods. The New Reapers would hunt them later, but for now...
Panting and sweating, Keigo slid to a halt, wiping away the dirt that had accumulated on his damp face and spitting out whatever had gathered on his tongue. Everyone else slowly joined him - all of them winded, some of them bloodied, and only a few of them with enough breath to laugh.
Before them, at the end of a mile long clearing through the heavily wooded forest that they had just purged of predators, sat a small, squat hut that didn't look like it could house more than three people at once. On one side of it, stacked up against the wall, were surprisingly well-crafted wooden crates, closed and sealed from the elements. On the other were three extremely large pots, each capable of acting as a bath for a grown man if need be.
And standing in the doorway, looking as absolutely unflustered as could be, was a shriveled old man with faded but still luxurious silk garments and inspecting them all with eyes foggy from age but still holding that daunting edge of a seasoned business man.
"Am I to believe that you lot are customers, or did you merely wish to cause as large a racket as was humanely possible and scare away any actual buyers?"
Keigo, usually the spokesperson for their group, floundered. He had had no idea that this man even existed, let alone that he was operating some kind of establishment in the middle of Hollow country. They'd just been told to wipe out any of the dark creatures in their path and let nothing stop their rush.
"Aw, but why'd you need other buyers when you got us?" Kenpachi boomed, suddenly at the head of their group when he hadn't been there a second before.
The old man had to crane his neck upwards a few degrees to look Kenpachi in the face, but when he did an exuberance lit up his wrinkled and craggy face and seemed to give him the energy of an adolescent for he bounded forward and clasped one of Zaraki's long hands in his comparatively miniature ones.
"Oh, my dear, dear friend! I had heard rumors that you still walked among us, but I had feared that to not be the case. How glad I am to be proven wrong!"
Kenpachi grinned toothily at the elation directed his way, letting the small man continue on as such for a few seconds before speaking over him and cutting of his plentiful thanks to the powers that be.
"Hey, listen up Oyakaa; we came here for your business, and while it's good to see you too, I'd rather we catch up when m'boys are properly rewarded."
The old man, now identified as Oyakaa, glanced around the towering form of the last Captain and appraised the ragged group with a different intent. "But of course! Allow me to fetch you the first crate."
As he hustled off, Keigo and Tatsuki strode up to stand at Kenpachi's sides. "So what was all this about? You wanted us to kill dozens of Hollows just to find an old man in the forest?" Keigo rather bluntly demanded. But as Oyakaa returned with one of the crated just barely held in his thin arms, Zaraki didn't give his student's tone much mind.
"Not just any old man:" he reached down and pried the lid off the crate with his bare fingers and extracted a slate colored bottle stoppered with a wax plug, "the last Sake Baron in the entire Soul Society!"
At the word 'sake', the rest of the New Reapers surged forward to attack the other crates being brought to them, pulling out the bottles and gleefully downing the booze without bothering with formality.
Keigo painfully slapped a hand to his face as Tatsuki groaned and let her head droop backwards. Leave it to the Kenpachi to risk his entire group just to get plastered. How had the Eleventh survived as long as it had?!
