After giving Yi Feng his instructions, Jue left the halls of the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters without another word, his form vanishing into the wintry air. He returned to Hell's Kitchen, his mind already working several steps ahead. The rumors about the elixir of immortality were spreading, but mere whispers wouldn't be enough to truly ignite chaos. To push the world's most dangerous factions into open frenzy, Jue needed one last spark.
That spark was Madam Gao.
She sat in a heavily guarded chamber atop the Hand's headquarters, directing her people in their latest bid to eliminate the street-level vigilante who had been interfering with their operations. At her side was a black briefcase—one that Jue knew contained a vial of the Hand's most closely guarded treasure: the elixir of immortality. Each of the Hand's five leaders kept their own private supply, ensuring they could survive almost any threat.
Jue's infiltration was swift and surgical. Years of luxurious living had dulled Madam Gao's once razor-sharp instincts, and she never saw the attack coming. With a fully chanted Hadō #31: Shakkahō (Red Fire Cannon), Jue blasted through the reinforced walls, the chamber erupting in crimson light. Before Gao could react, he struck with precise force, knocking her unconscious.
The room's elite guards—veteran assassins of the Hand—barely registered his presence. His reiryoku cloaked him in perfect invisibility, and his movements were faster than their eyes could track. Without engaging in unnecessary combat, Jue seized Gao and the briefcase, disappearing through the smoking breach he had created.
The explosion rocked Hell's Kitchen, and New York's media swarmed like sharks to blood. By morning, the headlines were ablaze: Terrorist Strike in Hell's Kitchen – Criminal Empire Hit at Its Core. The footage ran on every channel, reporters framing the attack as a catastrophic failure of city governance.
What most people didn't realize was that the real story—the elixir—had already begun its viral spread. Yi Feng's carefully seeded message ricocheted across the digital world, jumping from device to device at a speed that even Jue hadn't predicted. Within an hour, every major player in New York's underworld, as well as certain watchful eyes in Washington, knew the truth: the Hand had been breached, and their most sacred secret was now in play.
The remaining four leaders of the Hand were thrown into panic. For centuries, they had operated from the shadows, untouchable. Now, with Gao captured and the dragon bones exposed, their anonymity was gone. If the elixir became publicly tied to the Hand, there would be nowhere on Earth for them to hide.
Far from Hell's Kitchen, Frederick—one of the Serpent's most ruthless operatives—acted without hesitation. He ordered his New York strike force to capture Alexandra, another Hand leader, before she could slip away.
Alexandra was overseeing a covert operation at a Hand-controlled port, using Murakami's soldiers to lay a trap for a group of enhanced targets. She had barely begun directing the mission when Serpent agents surrounded the docks.
But Alexandra was no amateur. Seeing the enemy in the open settled her nerves. Hidden foes were dangerous; visible ones could be fought. She rallied her troops with precision, unleashing a barrage of heavy weaponry meant for superhuman prey. Machine guns roared. Mortars cracked.
The port transformed into a warzone.
Across the city, New Yorkers—who minutes ago had been sipping coffee and debating stock prices—froze as the distant thunder of gunfire rolled through the streets. The images streaming on their screens looked less like Manhattan and more like a war-torn corner of the Middle East.
Executives who once prided themselves on negotiating million-dollar deals now trembled in their skyscrapers, coffee spilling onto bespoke suits. Socialites who wore their arrogance like armor felt it shatter in the face of death's echoing drumbeat. In that moment, every person—rich or poor—was leveled by the same cold truth.
In Hell's Kitchen, the war for the elixir had begun.
The battle that tore through New York City began with thunder. At the docks, Hydra's soldiers—clad in custom-made combat gear—charged forward, only to be met with a relentless hail of machine gun fire and shoulder-mounted rockets from the Hand's entrenched forces. Even with their superior armor, the first wave of Hydra troops fell in staggering numbers.
Recognizing the disadvantage, the Hydra field commander ordered an immediate shift. The soldiers scattered into the dockyard's maze of shipping containers, using Hydra's hallmark small-unit, special operations tactics. But the Hand's elite—drawn from the most lethal assassins across their global network—turned the narrow alleys into killing zones, striking with blinding speed and precision.
Gunfire, explosions, and the clash of steel filled the night. Hydra had expected a swift, surgical victory. Instead, their underestimation of the Hand's power had transformed the ambush into a grinding war of attrition.
From his headquarters in Los Angeles, Frederick kept his fury in check. He couldn't allow New York's police to interfere—not when so much was at stake. Orders went out for Hydra's embedded units to stall the NYPD by any means necessary: staged car crashes, deliberate fires, targeted disruptions. Many of these operatives were double agents from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Los Angeles branch. If even one was captured—or worse, killed—the exposure would cripple Hydra's network.
The city descended into chaos. Police convoys rushing toward the docks were stopped cold. Remote-detonated explosives ripped through highways, flipping patrol cars into twisted wreckage. Hidden snipers, armed with specialized rounds, blew apart engines from hundreds of meters away. Black-market armored trucks roared through intersections, machine guns blazing, engaging the police in brutal running battles.
It was greed and pride—two of humanity's most destructive vices—that doomed Frederick. Decades of power had left him arrogant. His craving for the Dragon Bone blinded him to caution. And so, when the moment came, he threw Hydra's full weight into New York, dragging himself into a conflict he couldn't fully control.
But Frederick was not the only predator drawn to the scent of the Dragon Bone. The arrival of Hydra had forced Jue to change his plans. What had begun as a subtle recruitment drive now became a purge—a deliberate testing of the world's hidden powers. Even without his fully unsealed Zanpakutō, Jue's mind was a weapon far more dangerous than any blade. It was a truth even Aizen, in the shadows, quietly acknowledged with caution.
For Frederick, the equation was simple: seize the Dragon Bone or lose everything. The Serpent God Bureau could not be exposed. Every body had to be recovered. Every trace had to be erased.
At the docks, the tide began to turn. Alexandra, one of the Hand's leaders, had entered the battle with confidence, rallying her forces against Hydra's push. But confidence eroded quickly when each loss was personal, each death a reminder of her own mortality. She had lived like royalty in this world and was not ready to give it up. When the fight ground to a stalemate, fear overwhelmed her. Under the cover of chaos, she fled with her surviving forces.
Without her leadership, the Hand's lines fractured. Hydra seized the advantage. Watching from Los Angeles via hacked feeds, Frederick saw Alexandra's retreat and immediately ordered a full withdrawal. Serpent operatives dragged away their dead, leaving nothing behind—not even a shell casing.
Hydra's pursuit was relentless. Alexandra was now their primary target. The Hand's remaining leaders split their forces into four directions, retreating into the city. The dockyard fell silent except for the groan of steel and the hiss of smoldering fires. No bodies. No survivors. Only bloodstains and rubble remained.
But the war spilled into the streets. Both factions raced through New York in reckless convoys, trading fire from moving vehicles, stray bullets tearing through storefronts and glass towers. Cars spun out of control, slamming into buildings in showers of sparks.
Within minutes, the city had suffered damage more fitting a war zone than Manhattan. And then—suddenly—another force entered the fray.
Black armored police transports roared in from side streets, cutting off both convoys. The masked officers who emerged were heavily armed and moved with chilling precision. Surveillance cameras along the route were systematically destroyed. Hydra's encrypted communications went dark in an instant.
Far away, Frederick's monitors flickered to black. His hand slammed against the console.
"Pierce… damn you, you're fast."
The newcomers were not NYPD at all—they were Maxwell's men, Pierce's loyal subordinate and head of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s New York branch. Maxwell had known about the battle almost from the first gunshot. He'd sent two reports—one official, a Level 6 alert to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, and one through Hydra's own covert channels, marked Level 9. The second included damning intel: Frederick's agents were trying to take the Dragon Bone.
Pierce wasted no time. He ordered Alexandra captured alive, the Dragon Bone seized, and Maxwell to "teach" the Los Angeles faction a lesson they wouldn't forget.
The lesson was brutal. Alexandra was dropped by a sniper's tranquilizer round. Everyone else—Hand or Hydra—was executed on the spot. Maxwell's men gathered every body, destroyed the damaged vehicles, chemically erased the blood from the pavement, and vanished along a route where every camera was under their control.
By dawn, the streets bore no evidence of the night's carnage. But in the shadows, the war for the Dragon Bone had only just begun.