(T/N: Hello everyone! Second Chapter, 1 more to go!!)
"Stop!" The white-haired man roared in fury as he saw Nanatsuki cut down several of his clansmen.
He drew the longsword at his waist. A dozen Blanks descended from the sky and were absorbed into the blade.
Once the blade absorbed the Blanks, it erupted with a radiant green light.
But before he could make his next move, a streak of light flashed past—and his last remaining hand was severed.
"Lord Ganryū!" the green-armored Shinigami shouted in shock.
"Too slow," Nanatsuki said softly. "You still haven't mastered the use of Blanks, have you?"
He remembered this white-haired man. In the future, these green-armored Shinigami would use Blanks to increase their strength. This man would even go toe-to-toe with an unrestricted Ichigo, and dream of destroying both the Seireitei and the World of the Living.
"Die!"
The green-armored Shinigami summoned another swarm of Blanks. Dozens exploded around Nanatsuki in a thunderous barrage.
Boom—Boom—Boom—
One explosion after another blanketed the area in sand and smoke, choking the air with dust.
Moments later, through the haze, the green-armored Shinigami caught sight of a massive black silhouette.
Then, a giant flaming sword cut through the smoke.
It wasn't until then that the long-haired man and the others saw it clearly—a towering flame-armored giant, exuding an overwhelming pressure.
Katori Nanatsuki stood at the core of the flame giant. The earlier explosion hadn't harmed him in the slightest.
Flamebound Armor of Dust.
The oppressive force of the giant alone was enough to sap the will to resist from both the long-haired man and the green-armored Shinigami.
The giant raised its massive sword high and brought it crashing down upon them.
With a thunderous impact, cracks spiderwebbed across the earth before the ground itself shattered into fragments.
BOOM!!!
The bodies of the long-haired man and the others were torn apart by the force and vaporized by the heat. Reduced to mere Reishi, they dissolved into the earth.
The fire on the flame-armored giant quickly died out, and its body crumbled and fell away.
Nanatsuki emerged slowly from the cascade of debris. Once he confirmed the enemies were dead, he used Shunpo to flash up to the mountain peak.
Saitō Akane had already been rescued by several students.
Ōmaeda Kishinosuke and the newly awakened Kuchiki Sōjun couldn't hide the astonishment in their eyes as they looked at Katori Nanatsuki.
It was their first time seeing him fight, and the display of power had stunned them.
'Even the vice-captains might not measure up to Katori-sensei… Has his strength already approached captain-class?' Kuchiki Sōjun thought.
"Sensei, something's wrong with her. We can't wake her up," said Azashiro Kana.
"Let me take a look." Nanatsuki crouched beside Saitō Akane and began his inspection.
The moment he probed her inner state, his brows furrowed tightly.
Inside her spiritual body was a strange, chaotic Reiatsu fluctuation—so intense it threatened to rupture her soul.
"This must be the Shinenjū," he said, noticing the orb embedded near her collarbone.
Shinenjūs were formed from the memories of Blanks. Deprived of their memories, the Blanks instinctively pursued fragments of their past lives—thus, they were drawn toward the Shinenjūs.
Ryūdōji Ganryū had implanted this Shinenjū into her body, attracting Blanks to it.
Earlier, when the white vortex appeared, some of those Blanks were absorbed into the Shinenjū, while others entered Saitō Akane's body through the wound at her collarbone.
The chaotic Reiatsu within her was the remnant pressure of those invading Blanks.
"Saitō Akane's soul won't last much longer. I have to remove the Shinenjū first—or they'll never leave her," Nanatsuki thought. He decided to act quickly.
With both a Reiatsu Blade and a glow of Kaido forming at his fingertips, he gently made an incision at her collarbone and extracted the Shinenjū.
Immediately, the Blanks still inside her felt the orb's departure and began surging out of the wound.
Nanatsuki stabilized her soul with Kaido, shielding it from the tearing force of the escaping entities.
The Blanks swarmed toward the Shinenjū in his hand.
Moments later, the flow stopped. No more came out. The wound began to heal under the influence of Kaido.
Yet even now, Nanatsuki could sense a lingering turbulence in her spiritual pressure.
After a deeper probe, he understood why.
While crowding inside her, the Blanks had torn away part of her soul—and when they left, they took that part with them.
Some of them had also been crushed and absorbed into her spiritual body.
Saitō Akane had lost a portion of her identity as a Shinigami… and gained something else.
Nanatsuki wasn't sure what consequences this might bring.
But one thing was certain—her spiritual pressure hadn't weakened much. The fragments she absorbed balanced out what she'd lost.
After some time, Saitō Akane finally woke up.
"Miss Saitō, how do you feel?" Nanatsuki asked.
"Where is this…? Who are you…?" Her head was spinning, and her memory was full of gaps.
'Did the Blanks take some of her memories?' Nanatsuki frowned slightly and asked again, "Miss Saitō, do you remember who you are?"
"I'm… Saitō Akane…" She rubbed her temples, confusion written across her face. "Why did I pass out?"
"I'm Katori Nanatsuki, a teacher at the Shin'o Spiritual Arts Academy. Can you recall anything else?"
She looked at him, then at the others in their academy uniforms. "I'm… at the Academy? What happened? I remember… preparing to transport something… what was it?"
"At least she's not confusing her identity," Nanatsuki nodded subtly.
She had clearly lost some memories. What worried him more was whether the Shinenjū had left her with fragments of someone else's memories, which could distort her identity.
He briefly explained the current situation—that they had been on a mission to deliver supplies to the Hueco Mundo expeditionary force.
"I see… So the Reishi turbulence blew the students into this Valley of Screams, and we encountered the exiled Ryūdōji Clan… Thank you, Katori-sensei, for saving us," she said sincerely.
Meanwhile, Hirako Shinji and the others were filled with dread.
They hadn't even reached Hueco Mundo, and already the examiner who was supposed to grade them had lost her memory.