XXXXI.
A Duel of Words
Dated: Gotei Thirteen Era Five
- - - - -
Here, we begin our story as it should have been. Here we see the truth. For now the Karite all lie dead at my feet, and I am the only survivor. My six companions are slung across my back, and I feel no sorrow for them. Perhaps I am corrupt, or evil, but none remain who can tell me for sure.
Thus begins my tale… the Karite Ki
- The Reaper Chronicles –
- Chapter I –
- - - - -
Yasutora Sado braced himself against Kyoraku Shunsui's twin blades. They came quickly, crashing down on his shielded arm. He countered with a blast from his other fist, but the elder man dodged easily.
"You've grown quite a bit, Chad."
Abuelo… forgive me, but to protect my father, I must attack another.
With his silent thought, he drew back his arm, launching another attack.
"Hana kaze midarete, kashin naki, tenpū midarete, tenma warau, Katen Kyōkotsu" The Eight Squad Taichou muttered, as his blades shifted, taking on larger and more powerful forms, as the massive bolt of pure reiatsu flew toward him.
With a quick flourish of his blades, he knocked the blast away. For his efforts, he was left with a bleeding shoulder.
"You've grown much more powerful, Chad."
Chad grunted.
"I'm sorry for this. Before, you had a noble reason for coming here. Now, however… you wish to kill Yamamoto-sensei. I cannot allow that."
"You cannot stop me." Chad stated in reply, his voice solid and unquestionable.
"Really?" Shunsui muttered. "We shall see."
The elder of the pair swung his blades in a quick pair of slashes. Chad felt the air around him change, a moment before he was picked up off his feet and thrown through the air, colliding with a stony wall that marked the edge of the Seireitei street.
Slowly, the boy rose to his feet. Blood seeped through his grey shirt.
"You can strike me again and again… it will not change me."
In response, Shunsui swung his blade again. This time, the billowing in the air was visible. Chad lifted his shielded arm, blocking the mighty blow. His baggy black pants billowed in the hurricane-wind, but he stood his ground. His response was yet another attack from his other arm.
This time, Shunsui dodged the blast. His movement did little help him, though, as the blast picked him up and flung him through the open space like a rag doll.
It was his turn to slowly drag himself to his feet. He reached slowly up to his shoulder, ripping his pink kimono in half as he tore it from his back.
"Very well, Yasutora Sado… Perhaps the time has come."
Chad remained silent.
The Eight Squad Taichou grimaced in pain as he rolled his shoulders, rejoining them with their sockets. Then he leveled his gaze straight at his foe.
Chad spun reflexively when he felt the gush of wind across his shoulders. His shielded arm caught both blades cleanly.
He drew back his left hand in a fist, but Shunsui was gone long before it could connect.
He felt the wind change behind his back, and he found himself flying again through the air. Using the wide face of the shield on his right arm, he was able to right himself, landing feet first against the wall behind him.
"You cannot defeat me, Chad."
Chad grunted. "I'm sorry; Abuelo, I must deny your wishes one last time." With that, he charged forward, drawing back both arms in a stance of determination.
Kyoraku Shunsui drew back a step, whirling his blades around him, creating what appeared to Chad as a wall of steel.
"Bankai! Shippuu Tengo!"
The blast of reiatsu should have knocked Sado to his feet. Instead, the boy pushed against the maelstrom, slowly gaining ground.
Tornadoes appeared around him, swarming towards him. With a few awkward motions of his left arm, he blasted them away, leaving nothing in his path.
Then, suddenly, he reached the eye of the storm, and with it, that cold sickening feeling that the peace is worse than the violence around him.
Both of the blades on Shunsui's weapons were gone. In their place was a pair of misty blades, which seemed only half real. Their misty forms rose into the air, connecting them to the raging storm.
The Eighth Squad's noble Taichou swung down with the blade in his right hand. Sado reached over his head, grabbing the weapon in his left hand. Blood dripped from between his fingers, but his grip only grew stronger.
Desperately, the Shinigami swung with his left blade. This one Sado knocked away with a swing from his shielded right arm.
A tornado came down from the sky directly above Chad, pulling him in with a vicious intensity. He looked up at it momentarily, not with hatred or rage, but with a sort of quiet acceptance that he would have to kill his foe, even though he did not seek to kill.
With that, he reached up with his shield-arm, seizing the whirlwind in his iron grip. It should have been untouchable, a figment of air, but Chad was able to seize the whirling reiatsu within it and throw it off into the horizon.
"Do you want to give up?" He asked his foe, leveling that same accepting gaze back at the man.
"I would die for Yamamoto-sensei a million times, as he would for me."
Chad sighed in unwillingness at his duty.
Forgive me, Grandfather…
He stepped slowly toward the man, who matched him backwards, step for step. His retreat was ultimately his downfall, as he tripped over a block behind himself, falling on his back.
Chad lifted his shielded arm over his head.
"Goodbye, Shinigami-san."
He brought his arm down in a single solid motion. The edge of the shield collided with the Taichou's neck. A moment later, the storm faded away, leaving Chad standing alone in the middle of the wide pile of wreckage. Slowly, he released his arms, restoring them to their natural state.
I am so sorry…
He turned, leaving the beheaded figure to lie on the cold stone in the midst of the ruined streets. He had endured enough violence for his time. Now he only sought to re-unite his friends… to guard and protect, as he had sworn so long before.
- - - - -
"Do you feel it?" Ikatsue laughed, taunting Yamamoto as he pushed off the flaming blade with his scythe. "Your first pupil is gone…"
Yamamoto had already felt the force fade, and even had he not; he could have seen the hurricane disappear, even during the battle.
Fire whipped through the robes of both figures, only seeming to accentuate the might that flowed rapidly through their souls. Neither could afford to make a mistake. That much had not changed since the last time they had met.
All those years ago, on this godforsaken hill…Yamamoto recalled. I shouldn't have given him to Hell… Now I have only a single hope for redemption…
Then he felt the scythe scratch his shoulder.
"You're getting tired, old man."
Yamamoto grunted coldly amidst the flames. "You have no place to speak of age, demon. It should be you in this decrepit body."
Ikatsue smiled.
"You were always weak, Yamamoto. I thought I could change that, but you come from a long line of failures. You were a failure to me. Your father was a failure. Of the four Great House Lords, he was by far the easiest to kill. I barely had to focus."
Yamamoto's eyes burst into flame at mention of his father.
"I was right!" Ikatsue's grin was not of happiness or humor, but of sheer twisted evil, like a tumor upon the face of Heaven. "You claim that you want to kill me to avenge all the souls I have taken… all the men I have destroyed, and all the evils, all the horrible sins that I have ever committed, but you lie every time. All you have ever wanted was to avenge your father!"
And then the rage swept into his soul as a sheer wildfire, hateful and uncontrolled.
"You shall continue practicing, Shigekuni." His father had muttered, a millennia and a half before. His tone had implied "You have failed me yet again."
"Father…"
"Do not speak, son." Again, his tone was condescending.
That had been after his first battle in the wars that waged between the Great Houses.
Then, nearly a hundred years later, after a lost battle, the worst words came.
"You are a failure to me, Shigekuni. You have no value to this house, or family. You shall never be the Lord Yamamoto."
He had cried that day.
Then, after meeting the one they called Karite Ikatsue, it had all changed. He had been so close to earning his father's approval.
And his beloved Sensei had taken it away in a single vicious stroke of a blade.
"You are truly a failure, Yamamoto… just as your father, and as his father."
Yamamoto's charge was wordless, but the silence was far more terrifying. A normal man would most likely have died from his sheer wrath.
Ikatsue smiled ever wider as he blocked the blow.
"Shall I tell you a secret?"
"Damn you, Reaper!"
Ikatsue laughed. "Do you know why I call your grandfather a failure?"
Yamamoto's brow creased in response.
Ikatsue pushed off the flaming blade. As he flew through the air, he flipped the blade of Masamune off his back, catching lightly in his waiting palm.
"Hanto-Chi… Genryusai Sajani."
Grandfather…
- - - - -
Orihime gasped again as she and Isshin flew through the air.
"Did you touch him again?" Isshin asked quickly.
"No… It was Chad. He's killed someone… a Taichou, although I can't say who."
Isshin skidded to a halt as Orihime scanned the air with her eyes closed.
"Why did you stop?"
The voice that responded was not Isshin's.
"I haven't seen you in a long time…"
"Retsu?" Isshin gasped. The tall woman smiled back at him, eyes closed, as her braided hair blew in the wind.
Orihime's eyes shot open.
"Well, well… and Inoue Orihime too. You do get around, don't you? Just like the old days."
"Things have changed, Retsu." Isshin muttered, helping Orihime off his back. He turned quickly to her. "I have to settle this myself."
"But Isshin-san…"
"No. You don't need to see this." With that, he reached to his waist, drawing his katana.
"Do you really think I want to fight you?" Unohana asked quietly.
"No. I know that you have to because I am trying to get to Yamamoto, and you cannot allow that… Orihime, run."
Finally, she reluctantly turned and fled from the battle.
- - - - -
Mayuri smiled his devilishly wide smile.
"How amusing. How utterly entertaining."
Ryukken stared in amazement as Kurotsuchi Nemu held his blue, glowing arrow in midair. She had caught it easily with a single flick of her wrist.
"I thought your son was the last Quincy archer… this is magnificent. After all my encounters with you…" His eyes flickered briefly to the younger of the Ishidas. "…I devised a new experiment for your kind. Even better, it is a startling success." He lifted a white hand into the air, and then swung his wrist around. Nemu smashed the arrow, and it dissipated.
"How…?"
"Ignore the girl. She's not our target." Ishida Uryu muttered to his father as he dashed to his right, trying to get a clear shot at Mayuri. Absentmindedly, he knocked the arrows out of the air with his still-sealed blade.
"Try again, Uryu-kun… try, try again." His mocking voice came.
Unlike his son, Ryukken did not fire any large volley. Instead, he concentrated his energy into a single massive arrow. This one, Nemu dove to catch. Her hands wrapped around it, and she was dragged easily twelve feet on her back before it lost its momentum
"You mustn't fall over, Nemu…" Mayuri muttered. "It leaves me open to attack."
"Forgive me, Mayuri-sama."
A voice whispered into Mayuri's right ear.
"It's too late for forgiveness." Ryukken drew back his arm to fire an arrow.
It was then that his eyes flickered down for two last realizations. The first was that he was slightly slower in the arm than Nemu. The second was that as he was focusing on Mayuri, she had turned the enormous arrow around to face him.
A moment later, the only noise was a scream from Ishida.
"Father!"
Shunsui's Bankai translates: Hurricane Steel
If you don't know the Shikai, find it from the original source (When he and Ukitake are fighting Yamamoto)
Sorry about the delay in updating - I've been busy.
The poll options are now updated, so be sure to vote.
