Bleach: Raging Spirits

by Siegfried86

When 2 human souls are reborn as a Hollow and a Shinigami and wake up without their memory, both embark on a journey full of adventure, joy, hardship, sadness and loss to rediscover who they were, so that they can decide who they want to be. (Story acts as sequel to Bleach with OC's as main chars, rated M for some violence, gore, mature themes, and heavy language use throughout)

23. Chapter 22

Chapter 22: The mission part 2

"Run!", Makoto shouted at the group of people standing below him. When the Garganta above him had disappeared he thought it would be acceptable to relax a bit, but he had been very, very wrong. Now instead of one big one in the sky, six smaller ones had suddenly appeared on ground level.

But the pile of shit Makoto found himself in just kept stacking and stacking, because while the Garagnta above him was gone, the army certainly wasn't. That meant the twins had to deal with that threat themselves, leaving him alone to deal with the Hollows down here.

Which in and on itself wouldn't be a problem, if he also wouldn't have to make sure he had all the attention so the others could get away undetected. "Might as well ask me to reason with captain Zaraki", he muttered to himself pissed.

"Now now, it won't be that hard", he heard the voice of his Zanpakutou in his head. "With your current Reiatsu level you're practically born to be bait."

"Inspiring as per usual buddy."

"At your service", his partner retorted and Makoto could almost hear his smirk.

"Got any actual advice for me?"

"To be honest, I'd raise the pressure even more, it would upgrade you from bait to straight up magnet, but then the kids are gonna be crawling on all fours. Let's just make some noise for now and make sure the attention stays on us."

Makoto smiled. "Shouldn't be a problem."

He jumped up a few more meters to make himself plainly visible, then he shouted: "Yo Hollow scum! I'm up here you little shits. A tasty, juicy little snack waiting for you to eat me!"

He didn't have to wait very long until the first Hollow came out of hiding and jumped up from the labyrinth of buildings to respond to his very tempting invitation. "Well that was easy", Susanoo snickered.

It was. In fact it was almost as easy as dispatching of that very Hollow. With the current strength Makoto was at it only took a single strike to disfigure the monsters entire body and face. It fell to the ground and immediately began to fall apart and dissolve.

The next few Hollows followed the first one's example, both in methods of attack and death. He went like that for several minutes, just waiting for Hollows to attack him and then killing them. After a while, he managed to create a window for himself and check on Kiara and Akito.

They were almost at the entrance point for the invisible tunnel. Additionally, the six Garganta on ground level suddenly disappeared, just as quickly as they had opened. For a moment Makoto got worried and feared more would just reopen somewhere else, but nothing happened. He was a bit sceptic at first, but the longer he went on while continuing to take care of the Hollows that kept coming at him, the more he felt reassured. Their numbers kept going down more and more and after a quick scan of the area, he knew for sure that there were no more pathways through which reinforcements could come through.

Makoto breathed a sigh of relief and immediately cursed himself for believing they had been through the worst. Again. Somehow, he got the feeling his attitude was too optimistic for this day. A very familiar feeling ran down his back. A cold and unpleasant sensation that someone was watching him.

"Yo Mak-"

"Yeah, I know. He's here. I don't know where but he's definetly here." He looked around frantically, trying to get a visual on the enemy he had confronted about half a year ago, while casually slaughtering the last of the Hollows that tried to get the jump at him.

"Got one positive though. The girl and the others should have made it out by now."

"Yeah they have, I can feel it. They made it into the tunnel. We gotta give the twins a heads up, so that they can go Shikai and-" An ice cold shudder ran through his entire body. Someone or something was behind him. Something with a frighteningly dark and yet familiar aura… Out of pure instinct, he used Shunpo to jump forward a few meters and immediately turned around…

…to see a hooded figure standing in front of him. The very same hooded figure who he had fought six months ago when he had stolen the Garganta equipment from the research derpartment. His face was obscured by a mask of cloth, while a desert brown mantle was hiding almost all of his features.

"Who are you?, he asked after a few very tense seconds. The hooded figure gave no answer. "Who are you!?", he asked again, this time with more intensity.

"You don't need to know that", the hooded figure finally answered.

"Well excuse my persistence, but I disagree", Makoto said with a sturdy smile. The kids were gone now and he took full advantage of that by upping his Spiritual pressure by a significant amount. He took a fighting stance and tried to calm himself, to moderate success.

"First things first Mak. Get up to the twins, tell them they can go full power. We just have to hold out for a bit with this guy and then it'll be three on one."

"Yeah, you're right." He slowly shifted his feet to get in a more convenient jumping position. The hooded figure tilted his head a little and took out an arm with a deformed Zanpakutou from underneath his mantle. The blade was pretty broad and had a dark, almost black color with a reddish glow in the middle section and had more resemblance to a saber than a Katana.

He's in Shikai already.

That would be a problem, especially since hte 4th seat still didn't know said shikai's special ability. Makoto blinked and shook his head. He could focus on details later, first he had to get to the twins. A drop of sweat was running down his face and as soon as it dropped of his chin, he jumped up towards the twins as fast as he could, but immediately had to stop.

The hooded figure had used Shunpo to get above him and cut him off half way. "I won't let you do that", he simply said and took at wild swing at Makoto. The latter blocked it with his sword and instantly countered with a barrage of slash attack himself.

Sparks flew through the air as every single one of his attacks was blocked by the opponent. However, Makoto was still able to throw him off with an especially powerful strike, catapulting his enemy away a few meters. He used the short time window to prepare a Kido attack. He quickly focused his Reiryoku in the palm of his left hand, where it materialized into energy in the outside world by becoming Reiatsu and fired it off. "Hado 33: Soukatsui!"

That attack should have hit at point blank range. He used the opportunity to circle around the hooded figure and just used Shunpo to cover the rest of the way, but his enemy caught up with him once again.

Damn it, did that Kido blast not hit him?

They were both flying upwards side by side and his opponent wound up for another slash at him. He backed away and charged another Kido blast, but he wasn't fast enough.

This time it was the hooded figure that circled around him via Shunpo and tried to stab him in the back. He used the flat side of his great sword as a shield and put it diagonally over his back. He felt the attack connect with his blade, held it in place and whirled around, all the while never stopping to charge his Reiryouku for another Kido blast.

"Hado 58: Tenran!"

He blasted the hooded figure at point blank range once again and this time, he clearly saw how his enemy was blown away. He didn't waste a single moment, immediately turned around and jumped up to where the twins were at. "Kenjiro, Hiroshi!", he yelled to get their attention. "Go Shikai!"

Those two words were more than enough to communicate the message and both their Spiritual pressures skyrocketed almost instantly. Makoto didn't wait to watch them do that though, he put his focus right back to where his enemy was blasted to-

Correction, should have been blasted to. He wasn't there. On high alert, Makoto checked every direction, but didn't feel anything. Not until his opponent appeared right next to him. Makoto turned around and was surprised to see his enemy having prepared his own Kido blast. Except it wasn't Kido.

The Reiatsu he was reading was far too dark and twisted to have been the Reiatsu of a Shinigami. The hooded figure fired his blast at him and Makoto was barely able to react, evading the attack at the very last second.

He gained some distance and readied himself for another incoming attack, but the hooded figure remained where he was, almost surprised that Makoto wasn't hit by a point blank blast attack.

"That attack just now", Makoto panted, "was a Cero, wasn't it?"

No response.

"It's alright, you don't have to answer", he continued and recovered from his initial shock. "I know I'm right." He straightenend his back and took a more neutral fighting stance. "Do tell, how come a Shinigami resorts to Ceros rather than Kido?"

Still no response.

Alright, let's try a different question. "Half a year ago, somebody with an identical get-up stole something from the research department. That was you, right? What were you doing there?"

"In what way does it concern you?", the hooded figure countered.

"We don't know if he recognizes us. Don't tell him you were there that night. The fewer people know the better", Susanoo warned him.

"In no particular one", Makoto said with a smirk. Finally, a response. "I'm just nosy, that's all."

"Well, you know what they say", the hooded figure began. "Curiosity killed the cat."

"Lucky me then", Makoto managed to utter before his opponent vanished into thin air. Makoto didn't see him reappear anywhere, but he had a suspicion and readied himself. As if on cue, the hooded figure appeared behind him, to which Makoto responded with the same maneuver and shunpoed behind his enemy.

"I'm not a damn cat." He attacked with a downwards swing, which was blocked by his opponent. For a few seconds they were locked in a struggle to overpower the other, which the hooded figure broke off right before Makoto was able to push him away. He tried to run and gain some distance, but Makoto wouldn't let him. He engaged in a pursuit and made sure to follow the hooded figure wherever he tried to flee.

Their blades clashed once or twice each time they stopped before they began all over again with their cat and mouse game. Makoto hadn't payed attention for the span of a few seconds and the other guy had suddenly blasted him with a damned Cero. And if he could use a Cero, who knows what other Hollow abilities this guy was capable of using.

So, Makoto made sure to keep the fight up close and personal. While their fight went on, the other currently ongoing battle was finally showing some real progress. Makoto couldn't see how, but as soon as they had released their Shikai, the twins had stepped up their game by a couple notches. He was only about five minutes into his own fight after he had given them the news and the army of Hollows standing in the sky was turning into a rain of disintegrating bodies at an exceptionally fast rate. Makoto didn't allow himself to take a moment and enjoy the relief this time though, he just kept pressing his opponent.

Which worked to a moderate amount. Thanks to his high Spiritual pressure and the great sword form of his Shikai (which he was honestly more adept to fighting with than the Katana), he was able to keep the battle in his favor. He chased the hooded figure around in circles, bombarding him with barrage after barrage of slash attacks and was able to keep him from using any Hollow based attacks.

All but one. Something Makoto had only read in reports about and as a result vastly underestimated: the Bala. According to the data kept in Soul Societys freely accessible combat documentation vault, the Bala was a weaker, much faster version of the usual Cero.

If it hadn't been for that one little technique, Makoto would have won their fight some time ago. But each and every time he had an opening to land a fatal hit, his enemy just busted out this annoying ass move and balanced their battle out again.

Worst part about that was that this attack required practically no charge up time and was basically instantly usable, not just once, but several times in succession.

Makoto had just managed to create an opening again and was so sure he'd be fast enough to land a blow this time, but no, he was just greeted by several Balas which he barely managed to block with the flat side of his blade.

"You know", Makoto panted in between breaths after having blocked the last Bala, "I'm getting real tired of your second rate exit strategy bullshit." He grunted angrily and jumped straight back into combat.

"Yo Mak", Susanoo said after a while, "I think it's time we resort to some fuckery ourselves, wouldn't you agree?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself partner", Makoto responded with a grim smirk. And finally made use of his tattoos.

The tattoos on his arms served one purpose and one purpose only. A Kido incantation shortcut. At first glance, they just looked like some random lines drawn across his arms. On closer inspection however, one would realize that those were just very small kanjis. Each and every tattoo line on his arms, from start to finish, was an incantation for one spell, which he could actvate by viewing the lines as a sort of conveyor belt. He put in the raw materials (Spiritual energy) at the start of the incantation and literally warped the energy into the spell via the incantation on his skin.

Thing was that half the spells on his arms weren't even that strong, but extremely useful when applied with their maximum strength. No matter how skilled or strong the user was, a Kido spell could only be used to its full potential by using the entire enchantment for it.

For his next attack he chose a spell on his arms that had a special place in his heart. Instead of just one single enchantment, it was three same enchantments lined on top of each other. In other words, the spell was activated three times in the same space, at the same time, making it all the more powerful. The spell he was using was basically uselss in its original form against his current opponent. In that modified form however, well, it was disgustingly useful.

He jumped back to gain some distance and aimed for the hooded figure. "Hado Nr. 1", he said loud and clear so his opposite could hear what he said and be confused by it, which he was. He directed the palm of his left hand towards the enemy. "Sho!"

In mild surprise the hooded figure scoffed and braced himself for a minor impact of kinetic force, only to be completely caught off guard and blown back a few meters, much to Makotos statisfaction. He used the little time window to get close to his opponent with Shunpo, attacked with a wild swing from above and locked swords.

With a smile, he put his left hand on the blade of his sword and used another one of the spells on his arm. "Hado 11: Tsuzuri Raiden!"

Electricity traveled from his hand to his sword and over to his opponent putting him in temporary paralysis, giving Makoto another window of opportunity, one he definetly wouldn't waste. He knocked away the other sword, whirled his own around and aimed for the chest of his enemy. The strike was about to connect…

…and was suddenly interrupted by a flash of silver that knocked his sword away and delivered a punch to his stomach. Makoto gasped for air and managed to back away a few meters to recover. He blinked and tried to get rid of his momentarily blurry vision to look at the newcomer.

In front of him was a knight. A literal knight. Old school silver armor, from top to bottom, he was even wearing a cape, the full set.

"Didn't know it was carnival already", Susanoo commented.

Makoto ignored him. "Not to be sore loser or anything", he grunted slightly pained, "but this little asshole deserved to be hit by that one just now. Do you have any idea how annoying he's been over the past couple minutes?"

"I do think I have a slight idea, yes", the knight answered. He sounded like an older man, his manner of expression was cultivated. "He does tend to resort to quite the… mentally vexing sort of fighting style."

"Nobody asked you to get involved Gingiri, I had that", the hooded figure said with an annoyed tone.

"Quiet Hattaska", Gingiri uttered, "we both know very well that you certainly did not "have that."

"Yeah so what", Hattaska countered. "I'm just warming up. Give me a few more minutes and I'll make quick work of this one. Been thinking about it ever since he almost blew me to pieces six months ago."

Gingiri turned to Makoto as if he was studying him and tilted his head. "Your report was pretty accurate in regarding his looks, although he doesn't appear to be even close to as strong as you described him to be. Are you sure he is in between lieutenant and captain level?"

"I've been spying on him long enough, so I'd say that I'm very sure", Hattaska said. "He's just not using his Bankai yet."

"Excuse me people", Makoto said out loud a little annoyed. "I'm right here. I can hear you talk. Don't you know it's rude to talk about someone when they're right in front of you?"

"Apologies", Gingiri said with surprising honesty. "How rude of us indeed. But since you are so voluntarily trying to bring yourself into the conversation, allow me to appretiate your initiative and ask you a question: are you in fact able to practice Bankai?"

"Seems like they know", Susanoo commented.

"It can't hurt to still try. I'm a little worried the twins will maybe pick up a thing or two they're not supposed to hear if these two keep talking at that volume. I'm gonna shit talk us some time, let's prepare the thing", Makoto continued the conversation internally for the first time this battle.

"You sure that's a good idea? If you use that, then the asshole in the hood has confirmation that you were the one trying to literally filet him half a year ago. And don't forget Mr. Shiny over there. We got no idea what he has up his sleeve."

"If we even have half a charge, I can take 'em both out in one go. We gotta charge slowly though, maybe they won't realize it."

"I'm sorry what now?", Makoto asked in pretty convincing fake confusion. "I think you're confusing me with someone else here. I'm Makoto Souken, 4th seat of squad 11 of the Gotei 13-"

"We know who you are", Hattaska cut him off.

"Stalker alert", Makoto said with slight mockery. The silver markings on his sword began to glow with a red hue as his sword was filling up with Reiryoku. "If you also know my favorite food, hobbies and the place where I hid the underwear from the super sexy lieutenant from squad 10 I'm filing a restraining order on your asses."

"Oh rest assured, we possess no knowledge about your preferred foods, freetime occupations or… other activities you pursue at your leisure. Simply your name, status and abilities." Gingiri spoke in a very civilized tone, almost as if Makoto had not been trying to make minced meat out of his comrade just a few seconds ago. "Although I find those recorded documents to be somewhat inaccurate. They didn't enlist you as a Kido expert at all and yet here you are, using the most basic Hado techniques with terrifying effectivity. You are a most peculiar one, Makoto Souken, most peculiar indeed."

"I'm not sure if you're complementing me, or if you're calling me a weirdo and frankly I'm not okay with that. Peculiar how?"

Gingiri put a hand to the chin of his helmet, as if he was stroking a beard. "Peculiar as in your very presence here indicates you harbor no ill motive towards Soul Society and yet you broke into their laboratory to steal a device of theirs, so there's clearly something you are hiding from the rest of the world."

"I still got no idea what you're talking about", Makoto kept playing dumb. "Who even are you? Where are you coming from and what's your deal?"

This time it was Hattaska that answered. "I already told you, you don't-"

"I heard you the first time", Makoto straight up ignored him. "Doesn't change the fact that I'm still curious."

"What are you-" Hattaska attempted a question, but Makoto just overtalked him again.

"There are just a couple things I don't understand you know? Like, for example", he started to casually pacing around. "Why are attacking us? I mean you are fellow Shinigamis yourself, so why attack. I thought former captain Sousuke Aizen was the only one who had beef with Soul Society."

"That's none-", Gingiri attempted, but Makoto ignored him just like Hattaska.

"I wasn't finished", he said and playfully started whirling around his sword. "If you've got pent up aggression against the Gotei 13, why didn't you join captain Aizen during his coup? Would have been a lot easier than just trying to do this on your own. If you're pissed at some of the captains, well; if your anger is directed towards any of the following ones, such as captain Komamura, captain Unohana, captain Ukitake, well then tough luck, they're already dead. If you're pissed at captain commander Genryuusai; though luck, he's already dead. If you're pissed at the Soul King; tough luck he's already dead and been replaced with a new one. So who are you pissed at?"

All he was getting from his opposites were cold auras of deception.

"Quit stalling already, you're just delaying the inevitable", Hattaska pointed out with annoyance.

"Not quite", Gingiri corrected him and pointed to Makoto's ever brighter glowing sword. "He's buying time." Gingiri lifted his sword in front of him. "Honor the righteous, Kettoshin!" As soon as he uttered the words, his sword changed its form from a katana into a rapier.

"And that's my cue", Makoto said with a grim smirk. He charged a tattooline on his right arm where he kept some of the most useful Bakudo spells. "Bakudo Nr. 21: Sekienton!" An explosion of red smoke covered his entire surroundings, rendering his enemies unable to see him.

And that's when he activated his Zanpakutous special ability: time delay. This ability enabled him to slow down time to a certain degree for everything else but himself in a limited area. It was a powerful and mighty ability, but it also came with a downside.

First he had to charge a certain amount of energy to activate the technique and even when he had a full charge, he could only slow down time for no longer than ten seconds. Now however, he only had half a charge. But that was all he needed. With the delay activated, he used Shunpo to get behind his enemies and aimed to take out both of them with one hit.

His blade was almost connecting when Gingiri suddenly whirled around at normal speed and blocked Makotos swing. For a moment he was shocked and lost his focus. The five seconds weren't over yet. He was certain that they weren't and yet his enemy reacted to his attack as if nothing had happened. For a moment Makoto was worried his ability hadn't taken effect at all and checked on his surroundings. Hattaska was to his left and while he was turning towards Makoto and Gingiri, it was like he was moving in slow motion. The red smoke from his Bakudo spell was almost frozen in midair. Everything was slowed down, as it was supposed to be.

Just not Gingiri. The five seconds passed and time was moving normally again. Hattaska whirled around and his sword was coming towards Makotos throat with alarming velocity. He broke out of his lock with Gingiri and backed away. At a loss for words, he tried to process what just had happened.

"Am I crazy, or did he just ignore that we slowed down time?", he heard Susanoo say in his head, equally as baffled as Makoto himself. Makoto wanted to retort something, but he couldn't. He was simply too perplexed by the fact that someone was actually able to circumvent his ace technique.

"Confused?", Gingiri asked with a surprising amount of sinister glee.

"You could say that, yeah", Makoto answered. "What the actual fuck?"

Gingiri chuckled. "Don't worry young man, you aren't the first one to give me that look during a fight. Now, I could go on and elaborate as to how I was able to counter the very interesting and dangerous ability you have just displayed, but then again, I would give away one of my possibly biggest advantages and well", he shunpoed behind Makoto. "That would be quite moronic, wouldn't it."

The only thing that saved Makoto in this very moment were his reflexes. Out of pure instinct, he whirled his great sword around and was rewarded with a high pitched noise from behind him that indicated two blades had just found contact with each other. He whirled himself around and began to attack the opposing knight with a barrage of swing attacks all the while making sure to keep rotating his sword while attacking to build momentum.

Just as he had built up enough, he made use of one of his more preferred techniques for the second time this day. "Hado 58 modified: Tenran Tatsumaki!"

It turned out he had timed the usage of his technique just right as Hattaska had appeared behind him and tried to sneak attack him with a Cero. Both of Makotos adversaries were blown away by the whirlwind and found themselves several meters away from their target.

"Hattaska!", Gingiri shouted all of a sudden. "Kazuka is already on her way to this side. She will deal with the two troublemakers above us. I will make sure to deal with this one right here. I think I'm more suited for dealing with him than you are."

"You really think it's a good idea to let Kazuka fight alone?", Hattaska asked and actually sounded a little concerned, which made Makoto suspicious.

"Have you already forgotten Hattaska?", Gingiri asked and sounded almost like a scolding grandfather: "We take no prisoners today."

"Oh right, nevemind then", Hattaska retorted and got Makoto to go from suspicious to pretty worried. "In the meantime", Gingiri continued, "would you be so kind to take care of our lovely little runaways down below?"

(Bleach OST: Encirclement Battle)

Before, Makoto had just been worried. Now though, every alarmclock in his head was ringing at full volume. In an instant, he began to charge his sword again, throwing all subtlety out the window this time. That way he was able to prepare the energy needed for his time delay much faster. Gingiri noticed what he was doing and immediately took an attack stance. Makoto didn't pay it much attention and just kept charging until he was at max capacity. Additionally, he activated a tattoo line on his left arm and made sure it was one of his stronger Hado spells. Then he activated his time delay, this time for the entire ten seconds.

And immediately turned around towards Hattaska. He stretched out his left arm and shouted: "Hado Nr. 73: Souren Soukatsui!"

The spell in his hand discharged with a beam and found its way straight towards the bearer of the dark bladed Zanpakutou. Then he whirled around to direct his attention towards the actual threat here, the one who was appearantly immune to time manipulation. Only to find he wasn't there. Another thing that made him suspicious was that there had yet to be an explosion from his Kido spell.

He turned around to Hattaska again, only to find himself to be even more alerted. Instead of a mutilated corpse, he was greeted by the sight of Gingiri who had appearantly just effortlessly deflected a level 73 Hado spell with a flick of his wrist, leaving the other aggressor unharmed. The giant blue flame traveled further upwards and finally exploded after coming into contact with a dissolving Hollow corpse. Time was beginning to move at normal speed again, but Makoto wouldn't give up just yet.

It didn't matter if he could actually defeat Gingiri that was a question for later. No, his number one goal right now was to obliterate every trace of Hattaska's existence so that he couldn't get down to the kids. He could deal with Gingiri later, but Hattaska had to die right this fucking instant. He charged his sword again to release another time delay, but this time he was intercepted by Gingiri.

The silver knight attacked him with a ferocious combination of thrust and slash attacks, until they interlocked swords again. Hattaska didn't hesitate and used the opportunity created by his partner. He catapulted himself downwards to the village and went straight to the entrance.

In his desperation Makoto raised his Reiatsu to the currently possible max, violently pushed Gingiri away and heaved him upwards to the sky with a wild swing attack from below, which the silver knight barely managed to block and was sent flying as a result. Makoto immediately pursued Hattaska by bringing up all the power he had and launched himself to the entrance as well. "Get your ass back here!", he shouted after the hooded figure.

Makoto kept kicking himself downwards off of spiritpaticles in the air and kept coming closer to his target. He was almost there. He had almost reached him. He was only a few moments away from finally landing a fatal hit on the bastard. He wound up for a deadly strike…

…and was once again interrupted by Gingiri suddenly appearing between him and his target, blocking his attack in the process. Through Makotos immense momentum, they still traveled towards the ground a few dozen meters, but ultimately came to a halt with Hattaska gaining distance again and coming dangerously close to the entrance.

"As I've already said", Gingiri grunted under some effort, "I shall be your opponent."

Makoto grunted in anger and proceeded to bombard his current very persistent and annoying opponent with one wild array of attacks after another. He had to get rid of him as fast as possible. He had to kill him and then kill Hattaska and then get the twins and get the hell out of here before shit got even worse, if that was even possible-

As if the universe was winking at him and saying "it is possible", a panic-seizure inducing bloodlust overtook the whole battlefield and froze everyone in their place for a moment.

"Ah yes", Gingiri uttered almost a little taken aback after a few seconds, "that would be Kazuka."

ooo

With wild anticipation, Kazuka Aizawa stepped out of the Garganta. Her long blue hair was bound together into a ponytail, her upper body was simply covered by a few bandages around the chest area and her Shinigami pants where white instead of black. It had been a long time since she had actually gotten the opportunity to let loose. Sparing matches against her comrades were always boring, there was no real thrill to it.

She could immediately sense a high Spiritual pressure down below, but it was right next to Gingiris signature, so that was out of question. For now. Who knows, if she didn't find somebody who could actually give her a good time or if her opponents just died too fast out of weakness, she'd snatch that one away from the old man.

Hattaska was also around somewhere, but she couldn't feel him in near vicinity of the village. If she had to be honest, she couldn't give less of a damn where he was, so long as he didn't interfere with her fun. Speaking of…

There were two more people around. Their signatures were very similar, maybe they were related or some shit. They were currently dealing with the last of the lower Hollows that had been sent through the Garganta. She could still see the last of them dissolving in mid air. She searched for them with her eyes and realized they were already using Shikai, since they weren't fighting with swords anymore.

One of them had weird black bandages wrapped all around both of his arms with armor plates on his forearms and the other one was fighting with… were those guns? She squinted her eyes to be sure. Yeah, one of them was actually fighting with freaking revolvers. She chuckled, cracked her knuckles and said: "Now this looks like a party."

Her chuckle turned into a gleeful laughter as she drew her sword and stormed towards the two unlucky bastards. She wasn't sure which one to attack first, so she just went with the simplest solution and went for the one that was closest to her. One of the Hollows got between her and her target, so she shredded it into tiny pieces before she got to take a swing at him. He noticed her just in time to block her attack by crossing his arms.

What she had initially perceived as simple armor plates turned out to be a lot more sturdy than she thought; she couldn't get through them. He grunted under the strain of the power behind her attack. "Well aren't you a lively one", he managed to press out. She just snickered and kept pressing her sword against his arms to see if she could break through his block with brute. He noticed what she was trying to do and seemed surprised for a moment, before dawning an ominous smile. "Bakudo Nr. 9: Geki!"

He began to permeate a red aura that engulfed her entire body and suddenly rendered her immobile. He backed away and stretched out both of his arms, started to chant an incantation all while emitting some serious Spiritual pressure. For anyone else, this situation might have seemed alarming and worrysome, but not for Kazuka. All it did was put a smile on her face.

"Rampage and slaughter, Onikoroshi!" Her Zanpakutou dissolved and grafted itself onto the skin of her forearms and forming blades at the sides of her arms. With the rapid increase in physical strength her Shikai provided, she broke through the bind her enemy had bestowed upon her. Completely unfazed by the fact that she had just ripped through his earlier enchantment through sheer force alone, he simply stopped mid-incantation, adjusted his aim and fired his Kido spell.

"Hado 34: Kongoubaku!" A large fireball erupted from the palm of his hand and hit her point blank range…

…or at least, that's what it would have done, if she wouldn't have raised her own Spiritual pressure to literally cut through the spell with her blades and storm towards her opponent. She planned to cut him clean in half, but that didn't come to fruition. As soon as she lifted her arm to wind up, it was hit by a small projectile, to which she was thrown back a few meters.

She looked up to see that the other opposing Shinigami had just shot her with one of his revolvers and was now aiming at her with both of them. He consecutively shot one round after another at her, all of which she cut in half, but had to let the one close to her escape in return. After 11 shots in total the onslaught stopped. Slightly confused, she checked to see why, only to find that her enemy was reloading his guns. With a vicious smile on her face she shunpoed to his location and cut his chest open from bottom to top.

But there was no blood. The body also wasn't moving, it was simply suspended in mid-air, until it just faded away, revealing another same looking guy just a few meters further front of her, clocking the chambers of his guns back into position, fully loaded. "An afterimage", she concluded slightly impressed. "What's your name, gunslinger?"

With a relaxed smile, he playfully whirled around one of his revolvers on his index finger and answered: "Kenjiro Kaemon, member of the 11th division. But gunslinger sounds pretty cool too, I'm keeping that one. What do you think bro?"

"Yeah, gotta admit it's got a nice ring to it", a voice responded from behind her. She whirled around to see Kenjiro's brother standing right in front of her, with both index fingers pointed at her head. "Hado Nr. 4 modified: Double Byakurai!"

Kazuka managed to react just in time and shunpo sideways a few meters before her opponent unleashed his attack upon her. She saw the two beames unleash and hit nothing but air. A smile found its way onto her face as her heart was racing from having just escaped near death. "And you are?"

"Hiroshi Kaemon. I would say pleased to meet you as that is usual polite ettiquette…"

"…as would I have, but we literally just met you…", Kenjiro continued the sentence.

"…and if the current situation is any indication…", Hiroshi took over again.

"…this fight is gonna end with at least one of us dead…"

"…so while we would most certainly love to do nothing more than chit-chat the entire day…"

"…we're gonna skip formalities and get straight to the killling you part."

"Are you always doing that? Completing each others sentences?", she asked, purely out of interest.

"Sometimes…", Kenjiro began.

"…when we feel like it."

"Adorable", Kazuka commented.

"Thank you", both of them answered in unison with a smug attitude.

"Oh, you two are going to be a lot of fun", she said with giddy anticipation, more to herself than her opponents. Her Spiritual pressure rose together with her excitementn "Let's get down to it!"

ooo

"Can't these people chill out for like, a minute?", Kiara grunted as she struggled to stay on her feet.

It had only been a couple minutes since Makoto had yelled at them to run. Ever since then, the fight behind them had gotten more and more intense. Powerful, paralyzing waves of rising Spiritual pressure had come down on Kiara and Akito in short, consecutive and brutal manner.

It was hard to walk. It was hard to move around. Hell, after the second to last impact wave that was directly resulting off someone raising their Spiritual pressure, it even got hard to breathe and they were hundreds of meters away from the fight. The villagers were luckily much, much further in front of them. Common sense had kicked in rather quickly with these people and they had remembered how to run for their lifes pretty fast.

On Kiaras request, they had stayed in near vicinity of the village, but far away enough from the battlefield. Despite Makotos pleadings, she still wanted to observe what a real fight looked like. Plus, they had enough distance between themselves and their enemies and they were in the midst of a forest, so they should be safe from any attackers. Or so they assumed. An assumption that was shattered by the horrifying sight of one of those attackers flying directly towards them.

Almost immediately afterwards, a wave of Makoto's Reiatsu had hit them, which had been the one that made it difficult to breathe. But the last one… The last one had been insane in a whole different way. It wasn't so much the sheer pressure of it, but rather the emotion conveyed in it. The pure bloodlust was… bone chilling to say the least. Luckily, the twins kept busy who or whatever it was that had such a hard-on for murdering people. Makoto was occupied with one in a shiny knight armor so him coming for the rescue was out of the question.

Which was a very concerning circumstance, given the fact that the last one of the attackers was in close pursuit, while Kiara and Akito almost couldn't stand upright without having to lean on a tree.

Great. Just Great.

Soon they'd have to realease their own Spiritual pressure so they could at least move a little better, but as long as they hadn't been found yet, they didn't want to present themselves on a silver plate. On the other hand, them being found was something that was bound to happen very soon, because they could already hear their new opponent rummaging through the woods behind them.

As fast as they could, Kiara and Akito each took cover behind a tree. They slowed down their breathing and drew their swords.

He was coming closer.

They both closed their eyes and suppressed their Reiatsu as much as possible. At the same time, they both focused on their enemy to grasp his position. A cold feeling was creaking up her spine as she locked on to him and was immediately thrown back by the cold, bitter hatred he was emitting.

He was very close to them now.

Judging by her hearing, she'd say he was about three or four meters behind them. Her heartbeat was racing, sweat was dripping from her chin, her breath trembled and she had to grip her sword very hard to stop it from shaking. She gulped and looked over to Akito, only to see that he wasn't really faring any better. His face had lost a few shades of color and upon making that observation she wondred if she looked the same. He looked to her and nodded to see if she was ready. She nodded back and slowly raised her sword to get ready to strike.

The attacker took a few slow steps towards them. And then stopped.

And suddenly appeared in between them via Shunpo. In her shocked state she was unable to move for a few moments. A few deadly moments, that would have cost her her life, had Akito's Reiatsu not skyrocketed, immediately followed by a wild attack towards the head of the hooded figure. It looked like it was a sure fire hit, but it was blocked by a dark saber at the very last moment. Right after that, Kiara shook off her paralysis, raised her own Spiritual pressure and aimed for the head of the hooded figure with a strike of her own.

And then their attacker chaught her blade with nothing else but his bare left hand.

"Oh fuck."

She wanted to get her sword free, charge a Kido attack, anything that would get her moving and away from this man standing right in front of her with the blade of her sword between the iron grip of his fingers. But she was simply powerless and way too slow to evade the kick to her stomach that catapulted her through several trees and pressed all the air out of her lungs. She couldn't see what happened to Akito, but guessing by his scream, his treatment probably wasn't any better.

After a few more crashes she came to a halt and rolled out on the ground, where she couldn't do anything but lay around and and gasp for air while her body was writhing in pain. Makoto had never been merciful with his treatment, but this was on another level.

Slowly and carefully, she managed to get up on all fours and almost collapsed back on the ground again as she was overcome by a coughing fit. Something liquid was finding its way up her throat and she threw up. At first she thought she had just vomited, but when she recognized that all too familiar metallic taste in her mouth and saw the red puddle underneath her, she reconsidered that assessment.

"God damn it", she uttered with a shaking voice. With great care and slow movements, she got back on her feet and examined the damage on her body. Her stomach area was numb for the moment, but she guessed that at least some ribs were broken. Her breathing seemed okay, so nothing was punctuating her lungs, which was a small relief. Her back was hurting all over, but nothing could be broken there either, or else she wouldn't be able to stand. So as far as she could tell, it was only her ribs.

Great, so that was at least… something?

She tried to walk, which sent a stinging pain up the left side of her chest at first, but it got easier the longer she walked. Now she looked around for her sword, which had been knocked out of her hand somewhere during her not so majestic flight through the woods. She found it a few meters in front of her and got to it to pick it up.

So far so good. She had her sword, she could walk, all that was left now was the fight and- "Oh shit, Akito!" Throwing all care and grace out the window, she frantically looked around to search for the other two combatants, moving around as fast as her body allowed her to and, as soon as she had reoriented herself, ran back to her comrade half limping and half actually running.

Oh please don't be dead, please don't be- She kept repeating that one prayer as she finally reached the scene and almost didn't dare to look and when she did she found…

…Akito alive. More than alive, he was actually fighting this terrifying… thing in a hood and was able to somewhat hold his own. Akito didn't pressure him or anything, he looked like he was at the upper limit of what he could do and he already had cuts and bruises all over his body, but at least he was alive. Kiara didn't know any high level Kido that would be of use here and judging by the current status, she'd probably just get into Akitos way in her current condition.

But there had to be something she could do to help.

"Focus. Analyze the flow of the fight. Find and create loopholes", she talked to herself. Maybe she didn't know an impressive Kido spell, but she could at least support her partner with the little knowledge she did have. She put her sword back into her sheath, stretched her arms out and started to recite an incantation. As soon as that one was done, she focused and finished the spell in one hand, ready for release. Then, she went on to the next one, finished that one as well and focused it in her other hand.

Then she observed the fight and searched for an opening. While doing so, she noticed something odd about Akito, more specifically his fighting style. Whenever she had been sparring with him, he had been battling with a neutral to defensive style. But the way he was fighting now was anything but that. It was much more aggressive and offensive, sometimes completely forsaking defense for the sake of offense. He also put his sword back into the sheath just to draw it again multiple consecutive times. But the weirdest part about all of that was that he seemed way more proficient with this way of fighting than with any other style she had ever seen him use.

She was so infatuated with his new way of fighting that she would have almost missed her window of opportunity. Almost. Akito got hit by a very hard strike, was sent to the ground and the hooded figure raised his blade to give him the finishing blow. She released her first spell and aimed at his sword, which he held high up into the air.

"Bakudo Nr. 4: Hainawa!" A thin yellow rope erupted from her hand and shot towards the swordhand of the enemy, entangling it and his entire arm with it. Next, she fired her second spell towards his feet. "Hado Nr. 1: Sho!" Against all odds, she managed to get the hooded figure to lose his balance. He toppled backwards away from her partner, to which she yelled: "Akito, NOW!" The other Shinigami didn't hesitate for even a second, got up from the ground and slashed his opponents' throat with deadly accuracy.

Which is what would have happened, if said opponent wouldn't have caught his blade mid-air just like he caught hers, ripped it out of his hand, threw it away and sent Akito flying with a punch to his chest. Then he raised his free hand and aimed at his other arm.

From one moment to the other, a lighting fast red flash of energy destroyed every trace of the rope around his arm, after which he turned around and looked at her. She wanted to move, but his Spiritual pressure spiked and froze her in place. Once again, she was paralyzed by the sheer amount of hatred bottled up in the person in front of her. She could feel its very weight on her entire body, not able to move a single muscle. He disappeared and almost instantly appeared in front of her again, raised his sword…

…and violently rammed it through her body.

He was very close to Kiara now, his aggressive emotions were almost crushing her on the spot. She was afraid to look down. She knew what had happened, she had felt the impact of his blade when it carved its way into her body, but she didn't dare to look down, almost as if it wouldn't be real if she didn't see it. She breathed heavily, trembling with fear as she finally lowered her head, not being able to resist. And then she saw it.

His sword had gone through her stomach in its entire length, with the guard resting at the skin of her abdomen. They lingered a few more seconds in that horrifying moment, before he forcibly tore the dark blade out of her body. In shock, she stumbled a few steps backwards and sunk down to the ground on her knees, as her robes were slowly colored with her own blood.

In sheer panic she tried to apply pressure to the wound with her hands, but to no avail. The blood kept flowing out of the wound, no matter how much she tried to stop the bleeding.

She looked back up to her attacker, who simply scoffed, turned around and walked away, leaving her to die. She felt cold, so so very cold. Her entire body was shivering, she herself was almost driven mad by her inevitable death coming closer and closer with each second.

And then suddenly, she heard a voice.

"What a disrespectful asshole. He's not even gonna finish you off, he's just leaving you to bleed out."

Confused, Kiara turned around to look for the owner of the voice. Only to find that she was no longer in the forest, nor was it any longer daytime. No, she found herself inside of her inner world.

"It's a shame really", the girl who was now in front of her said. "I wish I could have fought alongside you at least once." She walked up to Kiara, sighed and sat down right in front of her. She looked at Kiara and tilted her head a little. "But when I look at you now, with that same confused look on your face that you always have, I reckon you can't even understand me. Again. Which would mean that the last time where you could actually hear me was a fluke. And that means, my partner is gonna die without having ever even said my name. It would be funny, if it wasn't so sad."

"I can still understand you, you know", Kiara interrupted her.

"Wait, you can? Holy shit I- Then why do you still have that look on your face?"

"Because about a second ago I was dying and now I- OH SHIT I'M DYING!" In wild hectic she tried to continue to stop the bleeding, only to find that there was none. The wound was still there, but no blood was coming out of it anymore. "What the- What's happening?"

Her opposite snickered. "You're in your inner world honey. Whenever you're on the verge of near death, time kinda works differently here. Judging by the situation, I'd say we've got a couple minutes before you lose consciousness on the outside due to blood loss. But now that you can hear me, that changes everything. We may not be able to beat this guy, but I think we can still get one good shot at him."

"Uhm… how are we supposed to do that? Just in case you haven't been paying attention, he's been throwing me around like a ragdoll the entire time and he fucking stabbed me in the gut. Which, by the way, sucks."

"Oh", her opposite said and smiled mysteriously. "I'll tell you, but first things first…"

ooo

(Bleach OST: Turn the tables)

Kiara opened her eyes, took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. Then she slowly took her right hand off her wound and drew her sword. It was a little strange, but she felt weirdly… determined. Yes, she was dying and would probably be dead in the next couple minutes, but she had also found an unexpected ally in her peril.

She stretched her sword out in front of her and pointed towards her opponent. She filled her lungs with air and then shouted: "FORGE…

ooo

Her opposite almost seemed like she was getting a bit excited. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this. My name is…"

ooo

"KYOKU NO BAN'NIN!"

A sudden, immense surge of power was coursing through her entire body, electrifying it to the very tips of her fingers. The pain of her wounds faded into the background. The panic that had been filling out her chest shrunk and was replaced with confidence. Her power was now so enormous for her standards, that it started to radiate off her body in form of a massive, slightly dark violet aura of Reiatsu.

So this was the power of Shikai. With joyful anticipation, she stood up and looked onto the sword in her hands. Only to find it wasn't exactly… different. I was different alright but not nearly as much as she would have hoped. The length or form didn't really change, it was just thinner. Additionally, it had lost its silver color and had taken a much more blueish hue, the kind that freshly heated steel took when it cooled down.

"Well that's… unexpected."

"Hey!", she heard her partner exclaim in her head. "I kinda take offense to that."

"Alright, alright I'm sorry. Now tell me again how we can kick this guy's ass while I got about a minute of consciousness left?"

"Right, right got caught up in the moment. Take all the Reiatsu you emitt right now and focus as much as you can on the edge of the blade."

Focusing Reiatsu into a certain point? Kiara smiled. Now that, she could do. While she did what she had been relentlessly practicing for weeks, her enemy turned around and dedicated his attention towards her once more.

"Huh", he scoffed and with that talked to her for the first time since he had begun to mow down trees by throwing her through them. "Impressive. So what's this, your second wind or your dying gasp? Judging by that red puddle beneath your feet", he said and tilted his head a little, "I'd say it's the latter. But thank you."

Slightly confused, Kiara raised an eyebrow.

"You've shown me once again that my hatred for the Shinigami", he continued, "might be a justification to let them suffer for blindly following a corrupt regime, but it still shouldn't keep me from being efficient. So with that, I'll give you a generous warning." He crouched and took a stance. "I'll be going for the head this time."

"When he comes at you", her partner said, "just strike at him. I'll take care of the rest."

"Got it", Kiara nodded.

And then he came at her. His feet dug themselves into the ground from the sheer force he was propelling himself with.

All radical thinking went out the window and Kiara acted purely on instinct now. As soon as he had jumped towards her, she slashed the area in front of her. Her guess turned out to be right, as he almost ran into the blade through his sheer speed. However, he was still able to somewhat slow down and block her attack. Of course he was, after all he was still stronger than her, even with her current power-up.

"Whatever it is that you're gonna do, now would be the time!", she shouted towards her Zanpakutou spirit.

The next words she heard in her head were so saturated with confidence, Kiara could almost hear her partner smile.

"You got it."

From one moment to the other, all the energy Kiara had gathered on the edge of her blade focused into one single point, where her and her enemy's blade were making contact, and exploded in a wave of sheer destructive power that was solely directed towards the opponent.

Kiara could feel the sudden lack of resistance from his blade and after the dust had settled, she could see that she had actually managed to blow him away a considerable distance. The grass on the ground was gone and replaced with a crater of burnt earth and almost everything in front of her was either burnt away completely, or had massive scorch marks.

"Holy shit", she uttered in amazement.

"You got that right. I pack some heat!"

"Yeah, literally", Kiara chuckled. The dust settled and she finally got a good look at her opponent. Whose hood had been blown off, finally revealing his face. His hair was red, but unlike hers, it had a more lighter, firey hue to it. He kept it short on the sides and grew it out slightly longer on top of his head. His face was actually pretty normal too. He had light blue eyes and a long scar going over the right side of his face, beginning at the top of his eyebrow and ending slightly above his chin. And then there was the fresh wound. It was going from the middle of his right cheek all the way down to his right collarbone.

He slightly touched his new wound and grunted a little. "Now that's a surprise", he said and licked his finger. Pride filled out Kiaras chest. She actually managed to wound him. She smiled as she took a battle stance. She was about to shout at him that there was more where that came from, when reality kicked in. Her vision was getting blurry, her legs began losing strength and her arms felt like lead.

Fuck. She forgot a very important detail; her blood loss. She fell down to one knee as her enemy kept talking, his voice fading out more and more with each word.

"Gotta admit, as far as last ditch efforts go, this one ranks moderately high on the totem pole. But, to be honest, I'd like it to be your actual last one forever. So", his voice got deeper as his next sentence was spoken with way more menace. "Let's make it official, shall we."

And before he even stormed towards her, she blacked out.

ooo

Hattaska got ready to make one final sprint towards the girl. He was almost impressed by her last attack. It packed a real punch and had respectable power behind it. The girl also had some spunk. She didn't give up in the face of inevitable death and Hattaska had to commend her for that.

However that was about the only thing. He used Shunpo to get right in front of her and lifted his arm. This time, he'd make sure she wouldn't get another chance at getting the jump on him. She was unconscious, with her face towards the ground. She was kneeling with her right leg, while supporting herself on her sword which she had subconsciously rammed into the ground earlier.

He brought his blade down with all his power and aimed to cut open her skull…

…when she suddenly caught his wrist. Completely taken by surprise, he ceased movement for a few moments. The girl had just blacked out right in front of him, so how was she able to catch his arm? He quickly regained his composure and attempted to rip his arm free, but her grip was iron tight. It was so tight in fact that it even started to hurt. Actually unsettled now, he tried to assess the situation. His confusion didn't last long however, because the girl was now lifting her head.

(Bleach OST: Treachery)

And the eyes that were staring into his own were not the ones of a Shinigami. They were the eyes of a Hollow. Black with golden irises, they stared at him with glee and malice. Her face was decorated with a vicious smile and she growled with a distorted voice. A phenomenon Hattaska was all too familiar with.

Hollowfication.

But how in the world did this girl have Hollow powers? Wasn't she just a normal novice? His astonishement soon turned into concern, when the girl quickly rose up to her feet, drew the sword from the ground, wound up and repeated the same energy attack from earlier, but charged much faster this time.

Out of pure instinct, he raised his Spiritual pressure to its limits, but the hollowfied girl was left cold by that and showed no signs of being affected. Instead, she spoke.

"Tough luck big guy", she said with a darkly amused tone. "Maybe next time, you go for the kill right away, instead of being a prideful little bitch who thinks he's too good for all the dirty work. Or maybe it lies in your nature to never finish things off and follow through with them. I don't know and honestly I don't care."

Her vicious smile got bigger. "So long, moron." And with that, she hit him again with the same attack from before. Once again, he was blown away, but fortunately for him, ever since he had acquired his own Hollow powers, Hollow Reiatsu didn't do as much damage on him as it normally would have.

While he was sent flying, he was able to catch himself and find his balance fairly easily, now that he knew the vague extent of that attack's power. However, now he had a different problem. He had to fight a hollowfied Shinigami, much worse even, with the Hollow in control. He'd have to finish this quickly. The longer this fight would go on, the more powerful the girl would become. He cursed and got ready to put on his own Hollow mask.

When he got up this morning to overview their little experiment, he did not expect this.

He was about to hollowfy himself when he noticed the girl was back on her knee again, coughing up blood. Steam was coming out of her wound as the bleeding subsided and it began to close.

She cursed as her eyes went back to being those of a Shinigami and she lost consciousness again.

He took a deep breath and relaxed. So her inner Hollow wasn't really that powerful just yet, or else it wouldn't have taken all of its will to close a wound while losing control over its host body in return.

"No risks this time", he told himself and lifted his hand to charge a Cero. He'd charge it to its absolute fullest to obliterate every trace of the girl. Somebody like that couldn't be left alive.

ooo

Akito grunted as he coughed up some blood and got back onto his feet. He shook his head to get a clear vision again and tried to ignore the ringing in his ears until it disappeared. Last he could remember, he was catapulted through a lot of trees and the pain he felt acoss his entire body only seconded that. An especially sharp wave of pain was coming from his chest where he had been punched and his left arm. He soon realized that he probably had a fracture in the arm. Then he remembered more of the last few minutes and his heart skipped a beat.

Kiara.

As fast as he could, he began running towards the general direction of his enemy, which was easy to determine given his unique Reiatsu signature. When he finally got to the scene, he was horrified by what he saw. Kiara was lying on the ground without consciousness in a pond of her own blood while the enemy was charging an energy attack aimed directly towards her with a considerable distance between them.

"Oh god damn it", he mumbled. Akito had never prided himself to be the smartest person in the room, because he knew he wasn't. But he recognized whe na situation left him only with one solution and he hated that solution. "Sorry Sensei", he sighed. "Looks like I gotta break my promise again."

ooo

Hattaska was done charging his Cero and was so very close to firing it towards the girl, when he was once again taken by surprise by a sudden spike in power from the boy. He scoffed and ignored it. First he'd blast the girl, then he'd take care of the boy.

That ignorance came to bite him in the ass however, as the next few words uttered by the boy genuinely shocked him.

"Hado 88: Hiryu Gekizoki Shinten Raihou!"

ooo

Makoto was in the midst of a fevery exchange with Gingiri when the first sudden spike in Kiara's Reiatsu happened. Despite everything that was going on at the moment, he was still amazed by the sheer amount of power she was displaying. It was beyond anything she had ever shown. For a moment he actually thought she'd have a chance of fighting her own battle and buy enough time for him to get to her and kill Hattaska.

Then her power collapsed in itself as quickly as it had grown and his previous concern doubled.

He needed to kill Gingiri. He just had to do it or else he wouldn't get through to his protège, his opponent cut off his escape route evreytime Makoto tried to get to her like it was his life's purpose. But weirdly enough, Kido and energy based attacks in general didn't work on the guy. He straight up ignored Makotos time delay (which was still very fucking freaky), deflected offensive Kido with a flick of his wrist and binding Kido simply melted off of him.

The only thing that did show an effect were physical attacks. And Makoto was already dishing out plenty of those. He couldn't count on the twins to get there and save the kids, they were busy dealing with… whatever it was they were dealing with. Judging by the Reiatsu of the newest of their attackers, he didn't really envy them.

He was just about to engage in another lengthy exchange when Kiara's second spike in power happened. But this time it was… severly off. Her power was even bigger than before, but it was distorted and twisted. Even Gingiri stopped dead in his tracks out of sheer surprise.

Makotos mind was racing to solve that puzzle, when it suddenly dawned upon him.

"Oh no", he whispered. "Not now, out of all times not now."

Gingiri picked up on his mumblings and attacked, locking swords with him. "You get more interesting by the minute, young man. Given your startled reaction, you are somewhat aware of what is happening over there. Would you mind telling me why that unsettles you so?"

"Yeah, you nosy motherfucker", Makoto responded pissed. "I'd mind very much!" He heaved Gingiri away from himself with that last word and created some space between them. Just in that moment, Kiara's Reiatsu collapsed once more, followed by a rise in Hattaskas power. And that was very closely followed by a sudden very impressive rise in Akitos Reiatsu.

A giant wave of dark blue lighting was discharged from somewhere in the forest, that then exploded on impact with its target. Makoto took a look at Gingiri and was about to engage in battle again, when he noticed something. The knight was genuinely surprised, shocked even. In other words, he was distracted. A moment of distraction Makoto voluntarily abused to finally get to where he was actually trying to go the entire time.

After a few quick flash steps, he reached the forest and immediately searched for Kiara. He had only been looking for her for no more than a few seconds, when somebody ambushed him from behind. He whirled around and blocked the wild slash attack.

"Cheap shotting asshole- Can't I get one shitty second of peace for a change?" He recognized the signature right in front of him and identified it as Hattaska, but he was obscurred by the smoke that was still floating around from the earlier explosion. Hattaska backed off and created some distance between the two.

Then Gingiri appeared right next to Hattaska. "Are you alright?", the knight asked.

"Yeah I am, thanks", the man in the hood responded. "These kids just took me by surprise with some dangerous ass abilities, that's all."

"I noticed from afar. I reckon you still haven't gotten rid of that habbit of yours to let your opponents die slowly instead of killing them quickly and efficiently."

"Yeah well, I paid the price for that, didn't I?" The dust slowly settled, and Makoto was finally able to get a good look on Hattaska. Who was in way worse shape than Makoto would have expected. He had a slash wound from his face to his collarbone, his coat was torn off and burnt at places and he didn't really seem in that good a physical condition anymore.

So the little ones were actually able to do more damage than Makoto was. They had the element of surprise on their side and their enemy was severly underestimating them, so it made sense in a way. Though Makoto had to admit even he didn't expect the two novices to bust out abilities that powerful. The silver lining was that one of his opponents was wounded now, so that was a start.

As if the universe was hellbent on punishing every little speck of optimism Makoto even dared to think about, the twins both crashed into the ground next to him.

Both of them immediately got up and got into battle position, but Makoto only had to take one look at them to see that they wouldn't stay in this fight for much longer. They were covered in wounds and Hiroshi spat blood on the ground. What was worse was that their opponent had just appeared next to the other two. Makoto had never gotten a good look on her, since he had been busy dealing with his own shit.

She had long blue hair that was bound back into a ponytail, she didn't wear any clothing on her upper body except for bandages around her chest area and her face was twisted by a malicious smile.

"Now then, since we're all so nicely gathered here", Gingiri uttered and took a fighting stance himself, "let us finish this."

Makoto gulped. Kiara and Akito were nowhere to be seen, the twins were only a few attacks away from barely hanging on and all of his enemies were now standing in front of him. The odds were stacked against him so overwhelmingly high, it was almost laughable.

Well, he thought to himself, only one thing left to do.

"About time", Susanoo blurted out. "If you would've taken any longer, I'd have started to yell it into your ear on repeat."

"Oh shut up, I'm doing it now aren't I? Decency be damned if there's nothing left that we need to be decent about. We'll deal with the repercussions later, first we need to survive."

He took a deep, trembling breath and took the basic Bankai position. Hattaska realized what he was about to do and his entire body was tensing up as he put his left hand on his face. Gingiri remained the way he was, while the blue haired woman simply flexed her Spiritual pressure, probably in excitement, given her facial expression.

He was moments before uttering the words, when suddenly a Garganta opened up and another person was coming through. This one was pretty tall, had very defined muscles, tribal tattoos all over his topless body, was wearing white Shinigami pants had long black hair that was shaved on the sides of his head. Oddly enough, he did not carry a Zanpakuto.

All of the other people seemed genuinely surprised to see him. Hattaska was the first one to speak. "Rentoji, what are you doing here? You gotta get back man, we can't risk you dying-"

"You've been ordered to retreat", Rentoji overtalked Hattaska, but not in an arrogant way.

"What, why?", the blue haired woman now entered the conversation. "We're about to win, I swear they are this close to being fileted. Can't we have like, ten more minutes or so to deal with them?"

"I'm afraid not", Rentoji responded. "Because we barely have one left until their reinforcements arrive, and when they do, we're all done for. Garganta. Now please."

Hattaska was the first to comply and moved towards the black speck of space suspended in midair. He didn't waste any time and jumped right through it. Gingiri was next, but before he walked into the dark portal, he turned around to Makoto and said: "I do so very much look forward to our future engagements, Makoto Souken."

"I'm perfectly happy if I never see you again", Makoto retorted with a dry tone.

Last was the blue haired woman, who pouted her cheeks in almost childish manner, but eventually resigned herself and jumped through the portal with a scoff. Rentoji followed suit and closed the Garganta behind him, leaving Makoto and the rest in disbelief.

Highly skeptical, Makoto remained alert for a couple more seconds, but immediately dropped it as soon as he remembered that neither Kiara nor Akito were around.

"Kenjiro, Hiroshi, the kids are missing. Search for them. Now!" His command might have been a little harsh, but he didn't care right now. He just wanted those two found. Kenjiro disappeared via Shunpo to search the woods, while Hiroshi kneeled on the ground to start working on a search field.

Makoto was pissed and worried sick. Today had been one giant clusterfuck. Not only had they lost, an unknown enemy had shown their face and slipped away right in front of them. That and the kids were missing or presumably dead. If he only would have ignored his orders and just left them in Seireitei, then this whole thing would have never-

"Hey guys!" His train of thought was interrupted by Akitos voice tearing through the silence. "Are they gone? Because if they are then we really need some medical attention here!"

Makoto turned in circles, frantically looking for the direction from which the voice was coming from. And then he found it. Akito was walking towards them while half carrying, half supporting Kiara.

ooo

"…then I blasted him with an attack, grabbed her and got the hell out of there", Akito finished his description of their fight with Hattaska.

Reinforcements and with it the medic team had arrived on the scene only seconds after Makoto had found the kids. Since then, they had built a temporary camp where they tended to the wounded, mostly Kiara and Akito. While Akito had gotten his fair share of nasty blows, she was most definetly off worse. Several ribs were broken and she had a weirdly half healed stab wound in her lower abdomen. The fact that it had been half healed didn't change her blood loss however, which was critical.

The medics were working on her relentlessly and wouldn't let him get to her, so he had to get the story from Akito first. The two were in a tent themselves, while Akito was resting on the ground, with Makoto sitting next to him "You did good kid", Makoto complimented him. "You did really good. You can be proud of yourself. "

Akito nodded with a tired smile. "Thank you."

"But, uhm... what exactly did you blast him with? I wasn't really in a position to safely observe, but whatever it was, it wounded him. Which isn't easy or else I suck at my job. Seeing as I doubt it to be the latter and the fact that you hit him so hard his buddy was worrying enough to actually get distracted, I'm sticking "not easy". So what was it and why can you do it?"

"...I'd rather not answer that."

"Which one, the "what was it" or the "why can you do it"?"

"Yes", Akito grunted and grimaced in pain.

In that very moment, a medic opened the hatch to the tent they were in. "4th seat Makoto Souken."

"Yes?"

"You may see her now."

"How is she?"

The medic hesitated a bit, before she said: "She's been through the worst, but after you talk to her she needs to rest. A lot."

"Alright, thank you." He signaled the medic to go back to work and stood up. He immediately groaned a little as he felt the after effects of his rather intense battle kicking in once again. His whole body was sore and while they were nothing major, he had several cuts on his entire body from his fight with Gingiri. The old man was way too good at close combat, whoever he was.

"You're not off the hook yet, but for now get some rest kid. We're getting out of this shithole as soon as possible." Akito murmured a little to that and, from one moment to the other, instantly fell asleep.

Makoto smiled and stepped outside. The twins were already patched up and very busy by helping the reinforcements establish several defenses around their current camp.

They were so much more capable then Makoto would have ever thought. When he had first heard of them, he had believed them to be mere troublemakers like he had been and while they did turn out to be just like that, they also turned out to be fairly competent. No matter what he had thought of them up to this point, right now he was just grateful for their help.

The people walking around apart from him were either squad 4 or squad 11. Nothing special, no high ranking officer or anything, simply foot soldiers. Except for two people.

3rd seat Yumichika Ayasegawa and lieutenant Ikkaku Madarame, famous duo from the 11th division. If one of them was going on a mission, it was a safe bet to assume that the other was going with him. No wonder that the three mystery fighters were ordered to retreat.

Ikkaku Madarame, the mentor of his own mentor Renji Abarai, was the self proclaimed luckiest guy in the entirety of Soul Society, and a damn good fighter at that. Yumichika Ayasegawa was the beauty fanatic of the 11th division and was constantly changing his style every month or so. He was also lazy as fuck, a quality that all squad 11 members possessed. And yet, he was still very respected as a capable fighter.

Makoto had fought both of them separately as a strength messure exam upon his entry into the 11th divison, and while he had been able to hold his own, ever since then he had been getting the feeling that both were holding back their true power. But maybe that was just him. For now, he was just glad to have some other strong people around. He steered straight for the tent Kiara had been operated on and carefully entered.

There she was. Lying on the ground, still a little pale from the blood loss, her Shingami robe shredded, her upper body covered in bandages and unconscious.

He cursed himself, because her being in that condition was exactly the one thing he had been trying to prevent this entire time. Him picking her up after she'd been sent over to Soul Society so she wouldn't be subjugated to being a low life scum for the next hundred years. Taking her under his wing so she had the actual right to stay in Seireitei. Training her so she would one day be able to live her life without needing him anymore to justify her stay.

And yet, it had all been for nothing, because she still almost died and still could if things went wrong. Simply because he didn't take action fast enough. If he would have just used Bankai from the start, then this whole situation would have been over very quickly.

It would have brought up a lot of questions, yeah, and maybe he would have been linked to the break in half a year ago, but he would have rather taken that alternative, if it meant that Kiara had a better chance at surviving.

He had failed. Again.

He clenched his fist so hard that his hand started bleeding. He would have followed down that train of thought a bit more, but he was interrupted by his protège's coughing, followed by her waking up.

"What…? Where- where am I…?", she asked confused.

"Hey, hey, hey it's okay, it's okay, you're okay", he said reassuringly and kneeled down next to her. "You're safe."

"…did- did we win…?", she struggled to ask.

"Well, depends on how you define winning", he quipped. She just shot him a dry glare, to which he couldn't help but chuckle. "We're still alive. I'd say that's a win."

"Yeah. Barely", she pressed out.

He chuckled again and then put on a more somber expression. "How do you feel?"

"Miserable."

"Yeah, heard you had a pretty ugly fight."

"The asshole shoved his sword right into my stomach", she pouted accusingly and it was almost adorable how she was able to be this snarky again shortly after having been K.O.-ed.

"But there's also a bright side", she said and dawned a beaming smile while slowly reaching for her sword that was lying next to her. She pulled it close to herself cuddled it almost as if it was a teddybear. "I've got a new partner."

Makotos eyes whidened a bit. "You mean… you got it?"

Her smile got even bigger. "Yyyyyup. Had to almost die to finally get there, which kinda sucked, but I got it."

"That's amazing", he said and allowed himself to be infected by her pure joy. "And really fucking cool. So how's it feel to fight with someone alongside you?"

"Like you said", she answered. "Really fucking cool. I mean, we still have to put in a little work to find our wavelength, but it was great. I felt power like I never had before, and I even managed to wound that hooded bastard a little. Gave him a nice little scar as a reminder. Now he's gonna think of me everytime he takes a look in a mirror. Which admittedly, now that I think about it, is kinda creepy and weird and it makes me uncomfortable because that person is really, really, really scary." She shuddered a little.

"Hold on", Makoto had to stop her. "Are you talking about the wound he had on the right side of his face?"

"Yeah."

"That was you!?"

"Mhm", she hummed with a self-statisfied little smile.

"Oh my god that's hysterical", he almost shouted and was now amused himself. "First, he fought me and got out of it basically unscathed, but then he fights you and Akito and gets literally scarred for life. I'd give good money to see his face right now. Which is something that I didn't think I'd say this soon after finally being rid of him."

Something changed in Kiaras expression and she went from joyous to slightly concerned. "How is Akito?"

"Don't worry", Makoto said as comforting as he could. "He got off a little less bad than you. Basically, he got everything you got, except being stabbed in the gut. Instead of that he has a bone fracture in his left arm. He'll live."

She let out a little sigh of relief. "So… what happens now?"

"Now", he answered and took a moment to properly form the sentences in his head, "now we hang around a little until everybody is ready for travel, then we embark on the very tedious journey of going back home because we can't carry the wounded, so you and Akito, back the way we got you here. Then, you will go to bed for several days before you do anything else, since division 4 is pretty adamant when it comes to not letting people being outside said beds when said people can barely even talk much less move. Meanwhile, I will get so fucking hammered that I'll probably reinvent walking and wake up with the mother of all hangovers the next day just in time to stand in front of all the captains of the Gotei 13 to mumble my report and properly disrespect them in a way only I would be crazy enough to even dare thinking about. Any questions?"

She closed her eyes and smiled. "Nope."

He smiled himself, got up and before he turned around to leave said: "Now get some sleep, I wasn't exactly bitching around when I said our way home is gonna be tedious."

"Mhm", she responded already half asleep. He stepped out of the tent and looked to the horizon, where the sun was slowly setting. He closed his eyes and took a moment to enjoy the warm, gentle rays of sunshine touching his face.

"You still gonna tell her about "that"?", Susanoo's voice suddenly resounded in his head.

"Of course I am. Just not now, she's got more serious problems to worry about for the moment."

"What are you gonna do about the girls Hollow powers?"

"I'll wait and observe", he answered. "If it doesn't show up again, then that basically took care of itself. If it does, then I'll have to help her get it under control as fast as possible. Gonna be a bitch if she hates me by then because of "that", but I'll make it work somehow, I have to. When that creepy ass clown of a captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi gets wind of it, he'll want to do everything in his power to get her into his hands and let's be honest here, when a captain of the Gotei thirteen gets permission from the central 46 to make her his guinea pig, then her compliance isn't really a factor."

"Well then, let's hope that she doesn't hate you too much to distrust you or rat you out before it comes to that", Susanoo said and then went silent again.

"Yeah", Makoto said out loud. "Let's hope."

Author's Notes:

Straight up, I think this double feature is by far my best work. A lot of shit happens, but I don't think I overstuffed it. There's a lot of action and mystery, some characters are explored deeper and I think I shuffled in a fair share of surprises. I also might be patting myself on the back a little too much, but I really love the "rewind and see the same events from a wildly different perspective" I did in the last chapter and this one. It was so much fun to do that and I think I'll keep experimenting with doing new shit in fight scenes.

I've taken some creative liberties, for example Makoto's tattoos acting as a Kido short cut. I thought it was a fun idea and fitting for his character. Oh and uhm, Akito being able to do a Hado spell in the high fucking 80's? Don't worry, that has a reason. I'm aware that Hado 88 takes very long to learn, especially with a bypassed incantation. I'm also aware that it is ri-goddamn-diculous for a squad 11 novice to know something like that. And people: that's exactly the point. Why is he able to do that? The answer behind that question is the reason. I'm channeling my inner Captain Obvious here, I know, leave me alone.

Speaking of creative liberties: you might find yourself googling for Hado 34, so let me tell you right now: I made it up. The spell "Kongoubaku" itself exists, but it was never confirmed to be Hado 34. It was however shown to be of similar strength as Hado 33: Soukatsui, and since Hado 32 was already taken, I slapped the closest unused number on it.

Just felt kinda dulll to let everyone use Soukatsui or Shakkaho, so I changed it up a bit.

I also think I managed to make the villains are fairly interesting and diverse. Yes, the blue haired girl is a lot like Kenpachi, but that's not all she has going for herself. No, I will certainly not explain why Gingiri is immune to time delay and Kido, or why he wears a knight armor.

Oh yeah and Kiara has an inner Hollow. I admit it wasn't that obvious, but I did hint at it at some point. No, she won't become some kind of overpowered Vasto Lorde Shinigami like Ichigo. I've already stated that I won't make my OC's stronger than Ichigo, although I will admit that her having an inner Hollow is set up for conflict. Before any of you yell spoilers, I mean come on that much is obvious, this isn't rocket surgery.

All in all, I had a lot of fun constructing this first real fight that moves the plot forward on the Shinigami side of things and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

I once again apologize for my infrequency and thank all of you for reading anyway. I'm gonna try to update the next one a bit faster, but I'm not making any promises.