Yamamoto closed his eyes and contemplated the last few seconds. He ignored the brightly colored whelp that hovered above him, as well as the weary glances from the other colorfully dressed people around him, and the bonfire of power that lumbered towards them.
One moment, he was disciplining those overly proud whelps; the next, he was somewhere else. He frowned at the sensation of being drawn into someone's teleportation.
After experiencing it once, he knew it could be resisted. The only reason he hadn't was the sheer novelty of the sensation. Few things could surprise Shigukeni Yamamoto, and this was one.
"I didn't expect you to come along to help," the persistent whelp stated from where he hovered above Yamamoto.
Yamamoto remained on the ground, the picture of fragility, with his eyes closed, back hunched, and hand resting on his cane. Then he replied, "Not of my will, I assure you. Yet it shall not happen again."
He felt the worm trying to crawl away in the confusion, a tilt of his head to it halting its movement with his attention.
"Holy shit, is that Jack slash?" A voice called out in surprise.
"Beneath all that piss and blood, it sure is." A cheerful voice called out. The armored woman from the bay, what was her name again- Challenger. "What are we going to do with him, especially with the endbringer truce in progress even if he didn't exactly volunteer."
"Hold him in a cell." A stern voice added. A new woman.
He had felt another reiatsu signature closing in. This one intertwined and lapped over the body in a strange way. He focused his senses on the newcomer.
"I saw the commotion Hero, is the old man a threat. Did he break the truce?" The newcomer demanded with that same stern tone of authority. This was someone used to being taken seriously.
"I don't think so, not purposely at least," the brat interceded on his behalf, assuming Yamamoto needed to be defended. "This is the old man I told you about a few hours ago—the trump I met at the north. I think one of the side effects of his abilities is some sort of exotic gravity effect that affects more than just the body."
Yamamoto tuned out the golden-clad hero's babbling with practiced ease once more. He had no interest in explaining himself, so whatever assumptions the hero made, flawed or otherwise, were what they were going to get. No, now he had his interest set on one thing only.
In this world of impossible curiosities, the being that still made its way to them was the most curious of all. Even from this far away, underneath the hurried footsteps of the fleeing denizens of the city. The colourful clad men and women taking positions, the groan of machines, and the blare of horns from the streets—he could feel it.
The vibrations that shook the ground every three seconds. They were too slight to be noticed by all but the most perceptive, yet they were there. Vibrations that Yamamoto easily interpreted as footsteps.
"Do you think he's of any help? Behamoth came out faster and closer than usual." the woman spoke up again, her tone cutting through to him in a way that let him know she was speaking directly to him, her focused gaze palpable even though he couldn't see it. "Eidolon is trying his best to slow him, and Strider has been working overtime to bring in more heroes, but there are few enough brutes that can survive Behemoth's death aura, and even with that, it's slow going."
Yamamoto heard the sound of fingers tapping before the whelp replied to his partner. "Speaking of Strider, judging by the waves he's generating, I think he's coming through now."
Yamamoto had felt it seconds ago. That sensation that had dragged him along. The sensation bore more similarities with the technique the Gillian ranks of the Hollows used to travel from Hueco Mundo to Earth than anything a Soul Reaper would use.
With no interest in being in the way when the new arrivals made their way here, he flexed his reiatsu and activated a quick shunpo, taking him to the skies, condescending the reiatsu to create a platform to stand on was second nature. This gave him another view of the city.
Yamamoto cracked his maroon eyes open and stared down at the cluster of humanity below him. Inefficient and unorganized. The residents of the city were still desperately trying to evacuate, and Yamamoto didn't need to see the future to know there would be casualties among the civilians.
Even now, as he actively sought it, he could feel the weakest of them snuff out in the press of human bodies. And he was forced to draw comparisons. The Soul Society might have slowly crumbled from the bastion of strength they had once been, but even at their weakest, they made sure humans never had to suffer in their presence during battle.
An act that even that upstart who sought to dethrone the King paid some sort of respect towards. Yet here they were, still struggling to evacuate while the beast continued to lumber forward. It was closer now.
Yamamoto felt it the moment the conversation between the woman and the golden-armored whelp ended. She rocketed toward the lumbering giant like a black streak, tearing through the sky and slamming into it with such force that it was forced to slow.
The whelp floated toward him, about to say something, but Yamamoto refused to allow it.
"You do not help your fellows in slowing the creatures progress. Why?"
The whelp drifted to a stop, perhaps surprised at Yamamoto showing initiative. Whatever it saw on Yamamoto's face made the whelp let out a sad smile.
"I'm in charge of coordinating the evacuation, as well as the incoming heroes. Despite what it looks like, I'm actually multitasking heavily at the moment."
Yamamoto spared the brat a glance before asking another question. The question that would decide everything.
"I had assumed you came to me so quickly because I disrupted your process with my arrival. Yet you finished your question and still came to me—that denotes something other than boredom or chance. It speaks of curiosity."
Yamamoto turned his full attention to the whelp and let out the slightest release of his reiatsu. "The question is, why?"
The whelp stared at him for a long second, then took a tired breath. All of a sudden, the joviality and enthusiasm the whelp had carried were dropped like a cloak. Even the glare and brightness of his armor dimmed slightly as he shifted his attention from Yamamoto to the lumbering giant ahead of them.
It was closer now, almost at the city limits. A green-cloaked figure, bearing the most potent reiryoku Yamamoto had sensed on the planet, seemed to slow it down with some sort of distorted gravity effect, matched by the black-armored woman forcing it to a stop every few seconds.
Few heroes could come as close as the duo to the creature, and most were forced to focus their attacks on its legs, considering its great height. The Endbringer had a field around him—a death aura that incinerated anyone who got too close, other than the very durable.
Then there was the lightning, superheated beams arcing out every few seconds—a more focused attack that struck the fliers led by another powerful human down. Already, Yamamoto could see some of them crashing into buildings with enough force that if the lightning strikes didn't kill them, their collusion did.
They had gotten too close in their hubris and paying the price for it.
"You're different from us," the whelp finally started. He had used the past few seconds to gather his thoughts, and Yamamoto had allowed it. He was in no true hurry.
"Every parahuman has a certain frequency of wave that emanates from their head—or the brain, to be specific. And if you're a serious member of the budding parahuman scientific community, the Corona Pollentia.
Every parahuman we've encountered over the past years has the same pattern of waves coming from them. There are only three exceptions to that rule."
The whelp turned to face him, sending Yamamoto some measure of the look he had given the whelp seconds ago. It was like staring at a cat trying too hard to be a tiger. Noting how ineffective it was, the whelp put a stop to it with an embarrassed chuckle before getting serious once more.
"Those three exceptions are The Endbringers—Behemoth, Leviathan, and the very first hero, Scion. That classification has stayed true and strong until a few hours ago."
"Me," Yamamoto stated, his gaze steady as it shifted back to the towering Endbringer. It was no surprise, yet still, it felt almost inevitable.
The whelp nodded, his voice steady but edged with tension. "Yes, you. I found out when i met you, hours ago. Even among anomalies, you stand apart. I don't know how, and while I'd like to rectify that, there are bigger and more immediate concerns." The whelp shot a glance at the Endbringer, its hulking form sweeping aside an overzealous hero with a casual backhand. Flesh and bone disintegrated into ash, an act that served as a reminder to the other fighters of what they faced—an unstoppable force of destruction. Yet they rallied and fought.
Yamamoto could feel it, the conviction rippling through the gathered heroes like a fragile but unyielding wave. In the face of a creature they barely scratched, they fought on. Every blow, every desperate attempt, was a battle for seconds—seconds that might mean life for the civilians still fleeing the devastation.
He found himself growing some level of respect for them. These capes present. There was fear, but it wasn't all that drove them. In their hearts flickered something more—duty. The purest form of conviction. Three more heroes darted into the death zone surrounding Behemoth, launching attacks aimed at its legs, trying to slow its advance. It was hopeless, but hope had never been the fuel for such actions.
Their bodies ignited, engulfed in sudden combustion, yet even as they screamed in agony, they fought. Their sword, fists, and exotic abilities lashed out at the creature, defiance burning as brightly as the flames consuming them.
"I will buy you the time you need to evacuate," Yamamoto declared, his voice like an ancient oath. "After that... we shall see."
The whelp turned, surprise flickering across his helmeted face. Yet the surprise quickly melted into trust and hope. Even without any real proof of what Yamamoto was capable of, the whelp nodded sharply. "Understood."The whelp began speaking rapidly into his communicator. Yamamoto didn't care for the details, nor the words exchanged. His mind was solely fixed on the enemy before him.
An Endbringer. Behemoth. The first of two, if Sachiko's words had held true. It was the embodiment of fire and destruction, a heat so oppressive that it warped the very air around it. The leathery, horned abomination reminded him far too much of himself in his youth, but more than that, it resembled the Vasto Lordes—beings of sheer, distilled power. Singular in purpose and concept, indomitable in their hunger for dominance over anything in their field.
He had felled their kind by the dozens, turning the once fertile plains of Hueco Mundo into endless deserts of white sand, each grain soaked in the blood of the fallen.
Yet he had been a young man then.
Still, something in him stirred at the sight of Behemoth. A reminder of who he used to be. His warrior's heart beat faster at the thought of the battle to come, the prospect of violence not just as duty, but as an exhilaration.
His blade had watered the sands of Soul Society, the human world, and Hueco Mundo red once. what was one more in a new world.
But now was not the time to indulge in such. He had tempered that part of himself. He was not bound to this world, not sworn to protect its people. And yet, the Endbringers were a threat beyond the scope of human comprehension. They broke the very balance of this world. And Yamamoto, whether he wanted to or not, was bound to uphold that balance.
Even here.
His gaze fell on two retreating heroes, one barely clinging to life as his partner—a woman with burns blistering her skin—dragged him away from the Endbringer's lethal aura. Her flesh melted beneath the heat, her clothes fusing into her skin, but she refused to leave him behind. Her loyalty, her resolve—it was pure determination.
That act of defiance drew Behemoth's attention.
A flash of lightning crackled from the beast, twisting through the air in a streak of death aimed directly at the pair. There was no time. The black-clad woman, moving with inhuman speed, darted forward to intercept, but she was too far, too slow.
"The first step," Yamamoto murmured, his eyes narrowing, "is removing its ability to strike from afar."
"Bakudō #81: Dankū."
A translucent barrier materialized between the lightning and its targets, absorbing the blow with a shimmer of refracted energy. Yamamoto's incantation had been barely a whisper, but its effects rippled through the battlefield like a seismic wave. The Endbringer stilled, its cyclopean gaze narrowing as it tried to understand this new variable. Yamamoto observed it from miles away, as it stared at the translucent barrier yet could not comprehend how it had put an halt to its strike.
For the first time in the battle, Behemoth stood still, its hulking form unmoving, as it shifted its narrowed cyclopic eye from the barrier to the old man standing in mid-air, as if gravity itself dared not impose on his presence.
This time, he heard the words the whelp spoke into his helmet, "Retreat even further! Legend and Eidolon, focus on artillery barrages from a distance with your long-range attackers. Alexandria! Draw back the brutes, we wait for another chance!"
That single Bakudō had already changed the battlefield. And Yamamoto was just getting started.