The moment those words fell, Makoto drew the Zanpakuto from his waist, adopting a mid-guard stance. His calm gaze leveled the blade's tip at the ochre-hued Adjuchas emerging from the earth.
"Makoto, I…"
Yorita, standing behind, let out an instinctive cry.
Makoto, back still turned, cut in abruptly:
"Shiba-san."
"Do you know what's more important than a single life?"
Yorita blinked, fumbling, "Is it… two lives?"
"Duty!"
Makoto snapped, exasperated, shattering the poor attempt at levity.
How could this guy derail such a grave mood?!
Hadn't he just struck a perfect pose for nothing?!
"So, go." Makoto sighed.
"Quickly."
Truth be told, he had no clue how long he could hold off a Vasto Lorde.
At that, Yorita fell silent.
With one last glance at Makoto's back, he turned and bolted.
The earthen Adjuchas watched quietly, chuckling, "I wouldn't mind if you fled too, you know."
"So long as you don't spoil our stroll, a little thing like you can scamper anywhere, no one'd care."
Makoto's lips quirked into a smile.
"Really?"
"Then, could you kindly lift those hands pinning the ground?"
The Adjuchas's tone dropped, its stare piercing.
In the same breath its voice faded, both Makoto and the Adjuchas vanished.
From afar, the female Vasto Lorde observed, her delicate features frozen in a near-vacant stare, devoid of human warmth.
Clearly, this Vasto Lorde, freshly evolved, hadn't yet forged a full personality.
The Vasto Lorde issued a soft command.
"Buchā."
"Don't die."
With a bellow stretched to its limit, the Adjuchas dubbed Buchā plummeted from the sky.
"No!"
"Problem!!!"
Its massive hands wider than a grown man's height crashed down like twin hammers, unleashing a dull, earth-shaking thud. The ground rippled as if struck by a boulder, trembling in waves.
That single blow fractured the distant terrain, rising like a living beast into a colossal, arena-like wall, trapping Buchā and Makoto at its core.
Even Makoto paused at the bizarre ability.
An Adjuchas trailing a Vasto Lorde indeed had tricks up its sleeve.
But not enough!
Makoto leaped back from the cascading shockwaves.
As the tremors eased, his eyes flared wide, feet erupting with a dense reiatsu burst.
His form streaked through the air like a black line.
"First Form: Cleaving Strike."
A fierce volatile reiatsu compressed into the Zanpakuto's minuscule edge, sharpening it to an extreme, cloaking the blade in a faint, translucent sheen.
He raised it, then slashed.
Buchā threw up a massive arm to block.
Yet the fragile-looking blade sliced through like a hot knife through butter, severing the limb with a shing, unimpeded by its Hierro.
"How?!"
The stout arm collapsed along the cut's path, stone shards scattering midair.
The edge gleamed mirror-smooth.
In the distance, the female Vasto Lorde's brow twitched.
A flicker of surprise.
But before Buchā could register pain, Makoto's pupils shimmered with cyan light. Without pause, he charged forward from the severed arm.
"Bastard!"
"Daring to underestimate me?!"
With a guttural roar, Buchā's other arm swept sideways kicking up a dust storm that blinded both.
Makoto's Shunpo halted, vaulting off the arm into a midair flip, gaining meters.
Yet before he could land, a black-red streak pierced the haze, rocketing toward him.
Boom!
When dust scattered, a straight cylindrical tunnel carved through the air.
Opposite, Buchā braced both hands like a cannon, maw gaping at Makoto.
Makoto's gaze sharpened.
That arm… it even had High-Speed Regeneration?
Then came an unrelenting barrage of Bala, spraying like machine-gun fire.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Makoto circled half around Buchā, explosions trailing him in a seamless roar. The soil erupted like a bombarded sea, gray pillars surging skyward.
From above, the ground traced a charred, petal-like arc around Buchā.
Bala were fast, weaker than Cero but only to Hollows.
For a Shinigami without Hierro, one hit spelled death or ruin.
Buchā, with his hulking frame, had survived Hueco Mundo for years, honing tactics against agile foes.
He'd bet this Shinigami wouldn't dare tank them.
As he herded his prey toward a preset trap, a cruel grin split Buchā's face.
"Aha!!"
With a bellow, the ground beneath Makoto flared with blinding light.
The spot where Buchā first stood.
Delayed Cero
One of his signature tricks.
The blast tore the earth apart, dust cloaking the land as radiant flames pierced the clouds, illuminating half the sky. Muffled booms echoed.
"Gotcha, huh?!"
"Too naive!"
"Shinigami!"
Buchā's rasping laughter rang out, his aged voice croaking in glee.
Until a crisp tear of steel skin sliced through from behind.
Shick!
Makoto's blade swept horizontally, severing Buchā's slender waist with a long, luminous arc of Cleaving Strike.
Silent.
Buchā's laughing mask froze, the crack fixed in place.
His upper half toppled forward, dragged by the weight of his massive arms.
Sliced above the chest.
Makoto flicked the blood from his blade, puzzled.
"Odd."
"Didn't I call out your trap at the start?"
"Were you dumb enough to think I'd still fall for it?"
"Hngh..."
Buchā could only wheeze faintly.
His stare locked on a figure in the distant haze.
The afterimage faded.
Bakudō 26: Kyokkō.
Less about true invisibility, this Kidō's real strength lay in bending light.
A simple ruse.
Makoto stepped toward Buchā's head, raising his asauchi.
A white arc descended.
Clang!
A pure-white, twin-coned bone lance deftly parried his strike.
Makoto froze.
Cold sweat prickled his spine.
Even while battling this Adjuchas, he'd tracked the female Vasto Lorde's every move.
But...
Until that last second, he'd sensed no motion.
Instinct screamed danger.
He looked up at the female Vasto Lorde beside him.
She gazed down, her soft refined face still expressionless clashing starkly with the menacing bone helm above her head.
"M-My lord…" Buchā rasped weakly.
Her demeanor was less serene than indifferent.
"If I play with you instead, will you spare him?"
Makoto met her eyes. The chill stiffening his face melted into a strained, ugly grin.
'She says fight, so we fight; she says spare, so I spare?'
A clarion burst of pure reiatsu flared from him. Below captain level, yet among the Soul Society's elite rippled outward, white shockwaves pulsing endlessly.
His Zanpakuto gleamed with reiatsu and will, honed to a razor's edge.
Pressing down relentlessly.
Until the blade, wreathed in pristine reiatsu, forced the bone lance toward Buchā's mask.
Makoto looked up, "…And if I refuse?"
Cyan reiatsu rose from the Vasto Lorde, coiling around her lance, steadfastly shielding Buchā.
White and azure clashed, birthing spiraling vortices of reiatsu large and small sweeping the ground bare.
Clouds unfurled across the sky.
Her voice stayed flat, "I'll apologize."
Clang!
With a flick, she lifted her lance sending Makoto and his blade reeling.
Or rather… she'd never used her full strength, wielding the lance one-handed with casual ease from the start.
Makoto skidded back a dozen meters, bracing with one hand. The white-and-pink tabi charms on his scabbard flapped like perverse banners.
A grin of reckless abandon split his face as he roared, "When you apologize, bare your breast completely! That's the bedrock of Shinigami etiquette!"
"Carve it into your bones and remember it well!!"
His form shattered the air, blade tracing a brilliant streak.
The edge aimed for the Vasto Lorde, slashing forth.
In his mind, the gremlin's gleeful cackle erupted, practically bouncing.
[Hell yeah! You finally growing your ball!]
[That's it! Spit out your impulses honestly, you pride-stuffed idiot!]
[No mercy! Shove me hard into that centaur lady's warm body!]
[I'll building a three-room suite in her big boobs!]
***
Bonus Chapter:
100 Power Stones = 1 BC
300 Power Stones = 2 BC
500 Power Stones = 3 BC
700 Power Stones = 4 BC
1000 Power Stones = 5 BC
***
If you want to read up to 50 chapters ahead, don't hesitate to visit our patron: pat reon . com / XElenea (remove space)