In North Rukongai, districts seventy-one to seventy-three bordered the Outer Sekkiseki Mountains. These were the last civilized districts under the rule of Soul Society. Further out was the vast lawless expanse, for districts seventy-four and greater only existed on official papers as planned territorial expansions, all the way up to district eighty in each cardinal direction.
Ichigo was bathing in the sun's warmth, watching a line of armored cavalry in front of a square formation of marching infantry. They were a brown liquid mass washing over rolling plains. Bronze armor. This wasn't some disorganized raid by a few dozen savage men. This was medieval war. He had seen this before in historic documentaries shown at Karakura High. The so-called bandit tribes from the north were here to reclaim their land.
What would happen from here was up to one teenage boy. Fate was in his hands.
Rukia whispered, "When the time comes, don't be lenient."
He was taken aback. There were hundreds of them. "You want me to kill them all?"
"Did I say that?"
"I'll follow your lead." He scratched an itch on his nose. He didn't know why he'd assumed they all had to die. Was is it his Hollow side again?
Rukia's fingers wrapped around his thumb. "How much of this have you foreseen?"
"Only flashes. From days after this. Should I release my Shikai? I can go higher up into the air."
In a tenser voice, her answer was quick: "Not yet, you may not have to act at all."
"Have you done this before?"
"Twice. There's a standard protocol. Hanataro will go out alone."
Amazement stung his face. Saliva spilled into his windpipe. "Does the protocol ask for Hanataro by name?"
"Not by name. The weakest Shinigami present must confront a band of lawless invaders."
"Alright, I'll be right behind him."
A shallow breath fogged in front of Rukia's hood. "Bakudo 26: Kyokko." Multicolored light shimmered. Her spiritual pressure vanished before her body blended into low-drifting clouds. True invisibility.
With spirit energy moulded into a vessel etched with hexagonal indents, he invoked, "Bakudo 26: Kyokko." From his perspective, nothing happened apart from a trickle of spirit energy maintaining the spell. He could see his own hand.
"North gate," Rukia said.
His leaping Flash Step nearly broke invisibility, the vessel cracking at the apex with a loud shrill. He repaired it with a slather of spirit energy. His next dozen Flash Steps were leisurely. In thirty or so seconds, he was at the north gate. No one was here. No guards. No reinforcement. No bystanders. The whole northern half of the town had evacuated to the south, as per Rukia's command.
Only Hanataro stood outside the gate, a paper scroll in his feeble hands. His unblinking gaze was cemented on enlarging horses and banners of tattered brownish-yellow cloth. Between banners were taller wooden constructs, like masts of pirate ships; Ichigo couldn't make out what dangled from their arms. An uneasy feeling sank into his gut. Something was very wrong about those masts. They weren't siege weapons.
Hanataro peeked over his shoulder. His boyish eyes were wide. "Haruka, are you still there?"
Haruka's amused voice called from the left, "I am. Why would I not be?"
"If I die here," Hanataro said, "I want you to know I love you."
Hot air ballooned Ichigo's cheeks.
"No you don't," Haruka said. "Stop being silly, you won't die."
Hanataro glanced back again, pouting. "Last time I had five broken ribs. Both my lungs were punctured. This time it could be my skull."
Haruka's sigh was wispy. "You have a Captain and Lieutenant here with you."
"He's not a real Captain," Hanataro mumbled.
Haruka said, "If Ichigo even lets a drop of your blood touch soil, I'll make him watch you fuck Rukia and fill her up with your hot creamy—"
"What the hell?!" Ichigo blared. Jealous fire erupted from his waist into his face.
"Oh there he is," Haruka chirped. "I'm just kidding around."
"Don't go Hollow on us," Rukia said snidely.
Haruka tittered. "I bet he would if we have a three-way with Hanataro."
"I don't doubt it," Rukia said.
Ichigo bit his tongue. These crazy girls were merely trying to bolster Hanataro's confidence. Nothing more. Eyes closed, Ichigo settled into a meditative stance. Their slutty chatter quieted in his ears. A trio of morning birds sitting on the Palisade sang a cheerful tune fit for a birthday celebration. Ichigo's birthday was in a month. He would be sixteen. Back in the living world, he would be old enough to drive a motorcycle. He had wanted to rent one, travel the countryside, preferably with a hot girl on the back seat clinging to him. Now he was traveling a countryside, with a hot girl, about to fight a marching army. The worst part of it, he already knew which side was going to win.
The drumming trots of horses grew louder. The combined spiritual pressure of several hundred powerless souls was weaker than Ichigo had reasoned. It didn't quite add from one individual soul to the next.
Rukia sharply inhaled.
As Ichigo's eyes opened, his control over his spiritual pressure was tested to his limits. Stomach acid splashed into the back of his mouth. He couldn't look for longer than one maddening heartbeat, but his eyes betrayed him. From those masts hung naked corpses of young teenage girls. Every last corpse was a girl. All in early adolescence. All beautiful, even in death. One girl with sandy-blonde hair had a peaceful resting face similar to Yuzu's. They were all around Yuzu and Karin's age.
Why?
Savage didn't cut it. Hollows weren't this terrible. This evil. No, these souls were something else entirely.
At fifty strides, the line of cavalry halted. Wind carried the pungent of smell of death. Horses neighed, oblivious to the corpses dangling above their heads. The horses were the only innocents among them.
One horse rode forward.
The man's face was full of twisted conviction. Unlike his troops, he didn't wear any bronze armor, no mail or helmet. He wore a robe, not unlike a male Shihakusho, except his was all white, a deliberate contrast to Shinigami attire. A Katana was strung around his back, his ruddy brown hair a similar color to the scabbard. His strong features morphed into a hideous glare aimed at Hanataro.
"Kneel!" the man shouted, drawing his sword with a flourish. Spiritual pressure pressed down on the area. He was a Shinigami.
Hanataro's knees bent, but he didn't kneel. He stood with his chin held higher than before. A quavering voice, he read off the scroll, "By order of the Central 46, lawless tribes of outermost districts are to surrender. Those who have transgressed the will and laws of Soul Society shall be fairly and justly tried, with his or her circumstances fairly and justly considered. All those who refuse this order will be forgiven in reincarnation." Hanataro paused, looking up from the scroll. "To those who come here, this is your one chance to repent from sin which you have wrought upon Soul Society. The one who stands before you is Officer Hanataro Yamada of Squad 4. I offer you repentance. Surrender yourselves."
The man grinned. In front of all those dead girls. And he was here laughing. Proud. Gloriously proud. As though his cause was righteous, to put corpses of young girls on display.
But why?
It couldn't be….
The man dismounted. "I, Tetsuo Kurogami, am offering you repentance, Hanataro Yamada. It is you and your Soul Society that has wrought unspeakable sin upon this holy realm of God. We all suffer in this Hell which you have created!" Kurogami swept his blade to his back, pointing to a brunette girl's corpse. "My own flesh and blood! This is what you have done! She chose to die over becoming one of your slaves in whoredom!"
His own daughter.
No, there had been no choice. All these girls had been murdered for being souls of great potential. Immeasurable wasted potential.
Hanataro said in a meek voice, "You killed your little girl?"
Kurogami spat on the ground. His spiritual pressure was heavier. "Don't twist my words! She chose to die! Because of what you devils have done to female souls, she chose to die! And I will bring justice to every one of you devils for it!" He charged forward, a two-handed diagonal uppercut.
Hanataro stumbled backward.
Ichigo had already jumped. The invisibility Bakudo broke into shards. Blades clashed. In sparking steel, all Ichigo felt pouring from Kurogami's heart was sad hatred amalgamated with greed. Unquenchable greed. This was a man who would sell or murder his own child for a twenty Yen note. His words were, for the most part, deranged lies. Somewhere in there, however, he believed what he had proclaimed about female souls, but it made no difference. His time had long come.
Ichigo's eyes were tired and cold. There was no forgiveness. No leniency. "This stops here."
The white Captain's Coat reflected off Kurogami's startled eyes. He backed up to his horse with clunky Flash Steps, presented a vertical palm. "Hado 33, Sokatsui!"
Weak.
A wall of Ichigo's spiritual pressure blocked arcs of blue electricity.
The Hado was an attack signal. Archers in their ranks loosed arrows tipped with blunt stone—explosive Kido talismans.
Ichigo let out a wave of spiritual pressure.
Horses squealed. Arrows detonated mid-air with red smoke plumes—the same smoke that his eyes had foreseen. It was already over.
"Hado 5, Yukidama," Kurogami snapped. A snowy ice ball shot forth at sonic speed, exploded into mist. And he used the mist as cover, remounting, yelling out, "Rise! Yurei no Kiba!" His spiritual pressure began to ooze a melancholic texture. His Katana lengthened and curved into a skinny scimitar. A greenish-black haze enveloped his horse.
Really, a Shikai.
Out of all souls, this vile man possessed a Zanpakuto and a Shikai. It was inconceivable that the Gotei 13 had not already put a stop to this. All those girls could have been saved. All those beautiful girls.
Kurogami was riding back to his powerless army. His Zanpakuto waved, glowing dark-green, and he growled unintelligible words. Black smoke trailed from the scimitar's edge into the corpses. Masts were tilted forward. Dozens of feet touched the ground.
One girl opened her eyes. Her fingers twitched alive as a ghostly blowpipe materialized into her grasp.
Then a second a girl.
And a third.
Followed by Kurogami's very own flesh and blood, his daughter. Or was it? They looked hardly alike. Yet another lie. For power and riches, his hands would stop at nothing. Even the dead weren't untouchable.
"Ichigo," Rukia whispered in an agitated voice. "End it now. Just end them. They're all guilty. All of them."
"Are you sure?"
"Are you blind? Look across the battlefield. What do you see?"
Across the battlefield, thirty naked young girls were once again standing as though alive. Nooses were untied. Kurogami pointed that revolting scimitar, and all the reanimated girls aimed their blowpipes at—
Not at Ichigo.
They aimed the gate. At Hanataro.
That was Ichigo's limit. His left hand drew his Wakizashi. His inner well of spirit energy swelled. "Tensa Zangetsu." Black and white stormed.
Haruka's scream lasted for one heartbeat.
Horses collapsed.
Sharpened with killing intent, a tsunami of heavenly spiritual pressure, visibly golden, shredded through hundreds upon hundreds of souls. The battle was won in an instant. Sand was falling into piles. Only sand. And thirty-something innocent horses that he had spared, a gift for the townsfolk. Just the horses. Their bronze armor had also turned into sand, strange.
He had killed over five hundred souls.
He felt no guilt.
Rukia's invisibility Bakudo had broken in his release. Haruka's as well. The three Shinigami were looking at him with caution in their eyes, as though he were something alien. Not of this mortal realm.
Rukia was first to relax. "That was quick. Beautifully done."
"Thanks." Ichigo's smile was lukewarm. "No comments about your pussy?"
Haruka's eyebrows shot up.
"No," Rukia laughed. "That was far more beautiful than my pussy can ever be." She started walking, past his shoulder, onto sand. A larger Hell Butterfly, its wings dipped in red, was tailing her. Her cloaked silhouette glowed white. "It's been years since I've had to do this."
"Do what?" Ichigo asked.
Air distorted. Reality shattered, giving way to skulls on twenty-foot-high cast-iron doors. The doors swung open. Crimson light veiled the other side. Chains shot out, ripped a hole in space, and from darkness hauled out Kurogami's soul. Additional chains wrapped around flailing arms and legs, and around his neck for good measure.
"Any last words?" Rukia asked.
Kurogami yelled, "Fucking devil! I hate you! I hate you! I hate y—" A final chain around his mouth silenced him.
Rukia's fist unfurled. "By the power vested on me, I cast you into Hell's Pit. There you will remain for eternity."
The red-hot chains constricted. Skin ripped. Blood sizzled and gave off sulfur smoke. Arms and legs were torn off, fibrous muscle and fat tissue stretching, bones splintering. Blood gushed when Kurogami's head was twisted off like a cork in a wine bottle. His severed limbs were first dragged into the crimson light, then his torso, and finally his screaming head.
The Gates of Hell closed.
Haruka whistled a cheer. "Nice one!"
But Rukia wasn't finished: "Ichigo. Do you see now what happens to wicked souls?"
"Yeah, I do."
She jabbed his hip bone. "Keep in mind, you can have your sick way with me, for it is your right. But if you do the same to the girls in the town behind us, I may have to throw you into the Pit when your time comes. So don't get any ideas."
He placed a hand on her head. "I hear you, but this must be the twentieth time you've told me not to get any ideas."
"So?"
"It almost sounds like you're jealous that I've been looking at girls in the town." He untied the button at her chest. The velvety fabric bunched up at her ankles. Her white hair glowed. "Let's keep the cloak off from now on." He fondled her small breast through her Shihakusho top.
Her breasts weren't that much larger than that of the murdered girls. Such waste. They could have each been given to a sex-starved boy. To him. As these wicked thoughts stewed, he promised himself to never say it out loud. He was tumbling so far down the depravity hole. He was never going to climb out.
Rukia smacked away his hand. "I'm jealous? Your inner Hollow is feeding you delusions."
"I have to agree with that one," Haruka said.
Ichigo hopped over to the voluptuous blonde. He breathed in her tropical scent, fondled her D-cup breast. "I've forgotten what a real girl feels like. It's been too long."
Haruka's eyelashes batted. "You want to go?"
"Maybe I do."
Rukia's tongue clicked as she looked away, and her suppressed spiritual pressure quivered. "Fuck her, and I'll fuck Hanataro. You two boys can pass us back and forth. Want to go?"
That was too much too soon for Ichigo. He stepped away from the blonde. "Nah, I'm fine."
"Hmph, thought so."
Someone's stomach gurgled.
Hanataro. "Can we have breakfast?"
The mention of food stoked Ichigo's hunger. Bland fish again. Fine by him.
As Haruka ran back into the town to fetch the grill, Hanataro nudged Ichigo's elbow, saying with concern, "Are you okay? You lost your spirit energy."
Oh, right. They couldn't sense his spiritual pressure. Genuinely he questioned why. "You just can't feel it while I'm in Shikai."
Rukia did a double take. "I can feel you now."
That had to be a good sign. He didn't know why. But it was a good sign nevertheless.
Author's Note: So Kurogami's attack force was originally 3000-4000 strong in my outline. While I was writing this, I decided that's a bit too much, so I cut it down to 500-1000 max.
Review Responses:
- There won't be any Kenpachi-level characters that Ichigo will have to deal with during his travels in Rukon in coming chapters, but there will be a couple more like Kurogami.