Chapter 4

The figure was tall and rather nondescript, since he wore a tattered soul reaper outfit with a hood to cover his face. He stood at the center of the spot where I laid down Tenteikura and looked around, assuming that I left. I silently approached him from behind. I didn't have many options; whoever this man was, if he was an enemy, I would have to take him out quickly. After all, he may have been a soul reaper, but that didn't mean he was incorruptible. I thought through many strategies in preparation for the worst case scenario. I wiggled my sword around, hoping to get a response; however, I felt no spirit pressure within Jikan. If this man turned out to be an enemy, I would have to use my abilities to defeat him. I surprised the stranger by lightly poking Jikan in the middle of his back.

"Stop there. Don't turn around. Tell me, who are you? Whose squad are you with? Answer me before I get a little bloodthirsty."
The big man started to laugh, and I had no clue why. I stopped him laughing by lightly smacking the back of his head. This was so mysterious. Why couldn't I sense any spiritual pressure, even when he was right in front of me?

"Is this how you treat all of your rescuers, by bashing em in the head?"
His voice was heavy and dark. Whoever this was, he would definitely be a handful.

"Shut up!" I hit him again, harder this time. Only in this time, his hood dropped down a bit and I saw a glimpse of white on the back of his head. It was a fragment of a hollow mask.

An Arrancar!

I didn't expect this. I kept cool, hoping he didn't notice that I'd noticed. This was my first encounter with an arrancar; I never knew that they could hide their spiritual pressure. My sword was still on him, but he would probably notice sooner or later that Jikan couldn't lay a scratch on him. Still I had it trained on him, hoping I could at least get some information.

"Listen buddy, give me what you know and then I'll let you go."
"What? You don't want to be rescued?"

I saw what he was playing at, trying to get me to drop my guard.
"How many are with you? Tell me, and I might let you live, Arrancar."

He realized that the jig was up, yet he didn't move himself away from my position. For some reason, I sensed that he was strangely pleased.
"Ah I see, so there's no point in pretending."

He withdrew his hood, revealing his face. He had a dark skin tone, and half of his face was a hollow mask. He turned and faced me, with determination and self-confidence in his eyes. Truly, I made a mistake. There was no fear in his eyes. Then suddenly his eyes examined my body and noticed something with wonder.

"It's been a long time since I saw a shihacho as new as yours."
I ignored him. "Now tell me, how many are with you. I have friends here too you know!" I yelled.

"No you don't," he answered coldly.
"What?" I was shocked by his response.

"No soul reaper would dare come back here, especially after we kicked their asses last time."
I see. So this Arrancar isn't as intelligent as I thought he was, which gives me something of an advantage.

"To answer your question, Soul Reaper, I'm just a scout sent to find you. I'm lucky to find you intact and all. Glad you weren't killed by some hollow."
I didn't drop my guard. An arrancar's agenda is really quite simple: kill any and all soul reapers in the name of Lord Aizen.
"Now I can play with you. All by myself." Then suddenly his hands started to glow crimson red.

I reacted quickly, instantly planting both of my feet into his head, performing a backflip, and finishing the move off with Shakkahō.

As I landed and looked toward the smoking crater, I sensed that my enemy wasn't dead. Far from it, He even let out a burst of laugh, mocking me. "So, this is going to take more than a few simple kidō to kill this bastard, I have to find some other way to at least slow him down," I thought to myself. He directed his hands toward my direction and began to fling crimson blasts rapidly. The energy blasts were incredibly fast. I dodged nearly all of them with my knowledge of flash step. Only a few shards managed to graze my left leg and a side of my ribcage, leaving small streaks of blood.
It could have been a lot worse. I thought that these bursts of energy must be the Bala that I heard rumors about. Running down the street as fast as I could, I noticed that my enemy seemed to be overconfident, as he used this technique wildly. "I have to come up with something, I can't use flash step forever. Wait!"

I thought,
"There is that 18-story building that had a garage inside, maybe I can use it to my advantage." Taking my chances, I descended into the car garage. It was dark and easy to hide, which suited me. I could see him walk inside. I tried my best to blend in with the shadows. However, there was one thing that I failed to consider. The Arrancar was using his balas as a weapon and it left a bright crimson glow, easily revealing my position.

"Damn. I might as well die here. At least it doesn't smell bad. Hold on a second..." An idea popped into my head. "It's crazy but it might-" Damn, he had found me. Dodging his balas shouldn't have been a huge problem; the thing was that he was getting more and more accurate. "If one of those hits me directly, it will kill me instantly." As I ran around the sides of the garage dodging his blasts, I hid behind the support pillars, but to no avail. The cover they provided me lasted for merely a second. As I said, balas were are fast and powerful, but they were not ceros. If they were, then there probably wouldn't be anything left of me. It wasn't until only one pillar remained, conveniently the last pillar supporting the entire structure. As I hid behind it and tried to catch my breath, I knew that my enemy was victorious. He tried to catch his breath as well, but his reasons were different from mine: he was laughing too hard.

"Very good, soul reaper, I haven't had this much fun in a long time. You really are pathetic." He ended with a maniacal laugh.
I ignored him and concentrated on my breathing. I need to use all of my energy if this is going to work.
I whispered softly. "Disintegrate, you black dog of Rondanini. Look upon yourself with horror."

"Sadly, our time together has come to an end." His palms turned crimson red again.
Just as he used a powerful bala against the supporting pillar, I instantly dodged it and ran with all of my strength towards the exit while finishing off my chant. Apparently the pillar barely held on to the structure, which gave me time to finish.

"AND THEN CLAW OUT YOUR OWN THROAT-"

I had just reached the exit when suddenly a huge pain shot through my body. The pain was intense, unlike anything that I had ever felt before. This pain came as my left leg was directly hit by a bala. As far as I could tell, half of my leg has been completely obliterated, replaced with a mind numbing pain. I managed to fall onto the concrete in front of the garage.

"You almost escaped me there soul reaper. When will you realize that I have won?" As he walked victoriously towards me, he smiled and straightened his arm towards me, preparing to fire a cero. "Any last words, Soul Reaper?"

Although the pain was intensely great, it was adrenaline that allowed me to finish me. I flipped my body over onto my back and with any strength I had, I directed my hand towards my enemy and gave my last words.

"BAKUDŌ NUMBER 9! GETI."

My kidō worked, paralyzing my enemy in a crimson aura that surrounded his entire body, leaving him unable to move and unable to finish off his cero.
He laughed again for a moment, making me lose my rising confidence.

"What are you doing that for! You idiot! After your spiritual pressure runs out, you're going to-"

"Die?"

That stopped him in his tracks. He was curious to see what my plan was. I allowed a smirk to cross my face, regardless of the incredible pain I was feeling.
"Look above you!"

As he looked, he realized my plan. The entire roof was caving in and he couldn't move. As debris began to fall on him, I could hear him screaming loudly as he struggled to break free of my kidō and flee from the place. But it was to no avail. As I slowly dragged myself away from the building, his screaming stopped as the whole building collapsed on him.

"Goodbye Arrancar."

I laid on top of my back, proud, knowing that even if I died, which seemed imminent, at least I took my enemy with me. As I lay and looked towards the cloudy sky, I felt kinda sad that Jikan wouldn't be here to celebrate with me. "Whats really a shame is that I'll never hear that angelic voice eve-"

"Wait! Please hang on!"

My eyes flashed open. This sounded new! The voice was telling me to hold on. "Well, sorry to disappoint you angel, but it's-"
"Now what happened here?" I heard another mysterious voice say. But this was different. This second voice came from a man several feet away from me. I couldn't tell who the man was as my vision became blurry. But by his side was the most beautiful girl I had ever lain eyes on. "It's sad that I didn't get to know her," I thought as I passed out. Happy.

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