47 Illuminating Darkness

Seeing the two-to-three-hundred people making up the majority of Squad 9, Ohta muttered, "Man, they really are understaffed..."

Once all the members of Squad 9 had arrived, excluding those who were off-duty or injured, the person Ohta was waiting for made an appearance, a dark-skinned man with muted purple dreadlocks. He sported the usual white Haori of a Captain over a standard-issue Shihakusho but added a touch of individuality to it with a purple sash around his waist, lavender foot coverings, and an orange scarf that came to a point behind his head.

As Ohta observed the man, Tosen Kaname, from a distance, he wasn't too surprised when the dark-skinned Captain gazed in his general direction. It was challenging to become a Captain even with all five senses intact, so it wasn't an exaggeration to say Tosen had one of the most attuned spiritual senses in the history of the Gotei.

Following his Captain's gaze, Tosen's Lieutenant, a man who resembled Ichigo but with narrower eyes, three lines running down the right side of his face, and a tattooed 69 on his left cheek, tensed when he saw Ohta brazenly sitting in the open atop one of the many walls lining the streets of Seireitei.

Stopping the man before he could cry out or give the order to attack, Tosen raised his right hand, stating, "It's fine, Hisagi. Inform the other Squads and lead our own to form an encirclement. I will do my best to defeat him or buy some time."

"But, Captain Tosen...!" exclaimed Hisagi, a man Ohta had dubbed Mr. 69 in his mind.

Instead of sticking around to hear what his Lieutenant had to say, Tosen executed a distinctly 'silent' version of Shunpo that saw him reappear a few meters from Ohta, standing atop the same partition.

While placing his hand on the orange hilt of his Zanpakuto, Tosen asked, "Am I mistaken in assuming you are Yamada Ohta, the arrogant man who has disrupted and continues to disturb the sanctity of this sacred place?"

"Looks like I'm beginning to gain a reputation," mused Ohta, rising to his feet as he asked, "Are we doing this here, or did you have another place in mind?"

"..."

Though he briefly considered moving their battle someplace that wouldn't imperil the lives of his men, Tosen ultimately drew his blade, declaring, "I am Tosen Kaname of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, Captain of Squad 9. I abhor violence, but for your crimes against the Soul Society, I have no choice but to have you captured and held accountable..."

"I see..." replied Ohta, sporting a cheeky smile as his heart began beating faster. It was likely because she intentionally concealed it, but Soifon had nowhere near the same 'momentum' as Tosen, the result of unleashing his Reiatsu without fetter. Ohta didn't crumple like when he was first exposed to Reiatsu, but he could feel the surrounding air and the roof tiles beneath him trembling as Tosen said, "Defend yourself..." in a cold yet courteous tone.

Disappearing silently, Tosen reappeared next to Ohta, sweeping the long, thin, slightly curved blade of his Zanpakuto in a swift, concise arc across the latter's chest. At least, that's what he had planned. At nearly the exact moment he executed Shunpo, Ohta performed his own, reappearing a few meters away and observing Tosen with interest.

Causing Ohta to smile, Tosen remarked, "You're fast..." before vanishing. Instead of appearing next to Ohta, however, he arrived next to one of the 'imprints' Ohta was using to simulate the energy signature of Shunpo.

("I should go to Hell for this...") mused Ohta, taking a seat and concealing his presence as he observed Tosen attempting to 'outmaneuver' him. An attuned spiritual sense was useful most of the time, but it could easily be used against you without your other senses supporting it...

Realizing that Ohta was 'stepping' in the same locations multiple times, Tosen briefly paused his pursuit, a trace of a scowl marring his usually neutral expression as he whipped toward Ohta, extending his left index finger and shouting, "Hadō #4. Byakurai...!"

Without moving from his position, Ohta's smile broadened as a laser-like beam of bright blue lightning shot from Tosen's finger, its intended mark his right shoulder. Unfortunately for the blind Captain, it didn't get within 300cm of its target, impacting an invisible, ostensibly spherical barrier as it curved around Ohta's body.

"I suggest trying something above seventy next time," said Ohta, slowly rising as Tosen 'watched' him in silence.

Causing Tosen to regret his inaction, Ohta extended his left hand, fingers spread wide and palm facing outward as he shouted, "Thunderclap, strike from the Heavens! Become a Spear that pierces the Darkness! Fang of the Divine! Hadō #77, Tenka no Raijin...!"

Though he abruptly felt as if all the heat was drawn from his body, the result of using more than fifty percent of his Reiryoku in a single go, Ohta didn't regret it as the look on Tosen's face was priceless. Tenka no Raijin was a spell that produced a thick, exceptionally violent band of arcing, seemingly sentient lightning, so the goggle-wearing Captain had to evade desperately to avoid being caught in its destructive path.

"Hmmm...?"

While his attack continued to rampage, Ohta looked up as the Lieutenant with the number 69 tattoo attempted to get the jump on him, falling from above with a pair of kusarigama-like weapons linked by a long black chain, each with two scythe-like blades, one facing inward and the other outward.

"Take this...!" shouted the man, grasping the chain of his right scythe to spin it above his head before throwing it at Ohta, creating a high-pitched whistle as it traveled.

"Sure," replied Ohta, surprising the man he believed was called Hisagi by grasping the rapidly spinning blade with his 'bare' hand.

Before Hisagi could recover from his shock, Ohta grabbed the chain and summarily gave it a momentous tug. However, instead of drawing Hisagi toward him, all he did was cause the chain to become longer, generating what seemed like a hundred meters of slack.

"Huh..."

Using the slack Ohta had produced, Hisagi made a whipping motion that seemed to breathe life into the chain as it attempted to wrap around the former. It succeeded, but, similar to Tosen's Byakurai, it came into contact with an invisible membrane, unable to entangle him directly.

With the intent of swinging Ohta around like a wrecking ball, Hisagi gave the chain a mightly pull, screaming vigorously before abruptly silencing as he nearly dislocated his arm due to the former not budging.

"Before I became a Shinigami, people called me Ohta, the Immovable," revealed Ohta, extending his right hand toward Hisagi as he added, "Let's find out how resilient you are."

Anticipating a Hado spell, Hisagi was surprised when an invisible force hit him like a runaway trolley. There was absolutely no lead-up to the attack, excluding Ohta's initial movement, so Hisagi barely even understood what had happened as he was sent soaring through the air, bloodied from head to toe and missing several teeth.

Shrugging off Hisagi's chains, Ohta returned his attention to Tosen just in time to see the man produce hundreds of 'afterimages' with a swing of his sword, each becoming very real as they launched toward him like spears of light.

Though he was fairly confident in his defenses, Ohta responded to the attack with another palm thrust, scattering and fracturing the blades on a direct course with his shield. This was the correct decision, as while they could not penetrate his barrier completely, the blades that impacted the periphery of Ohta's shield managed to slice into it a bit.

"That's a pretty scary attack," remarked Ohta. Unfortunately, Tosen didn't seem to be in the mood for banter, producing several additional waves of bladed projectiles in an apparent attempt to overwhelm him.

"It's show time..." muttered Ohta, narrowing his eyes and tensing his body as the usual tri-colored aura enveloped him, quickly becoming visible to the naked eye. Unfortunately for Tosen, he was blind...

With a smiling expression containing a hint of madness in his eyes, Ohta thrust both of his hands forward, creating a veritable column of psychic energy that dispersed Tosen's blades and slammed into him like a bullet train, pushing him back at hypersonic speeds and carrying him nearly ten kilometers before petering out in around three seconds.

"Damn, that felt good..." remarked Ohta, hovering in the sky, hair moving as if he were underwater while the tri-colored aura around him continued to condense. This was the form that Yoruichi had taken to calling his 'First Awakening,' but Ohta referred to it as demonstrating '1% of his true power,' a reference to a meme from his previous life.

Fortunately for Ohta, not so much for Tosen, the dark-skinned Captain managed to pull himself from the rubble of a destroyed building, several of his braided dreadlocks having come undone as he covered his mouth and coughed up a fair amount of blood. He had attempted to protect himself with a defensive Kido in the moments before he was sent flying, but Ohta's 'invisible' attack smashed through it like a baby deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck.

Falling to a knee, supporting himself with his sword, Tosen muttered, "I must report this to Lord Aizen...this man...is too dangerous to let live..."

Appearing in the sky just after Tosen finished mumbling to himself, Ohta asked, "So, you going to use your Bankai, or what? Because I'll be honest. It's starting to feel like I'm bullying a blind man..."

Forcing himself to stand, Tosen painfully grunted, "Go ahead...make your jokes while you can. You will not...be able to escape...justice..."

As Ohta began pressuring him with his concentrated Reiatsu, Tosen used his Zanpakuto like a cane to avoid being forced to his knees. Fortunately for him, even while severely injured, his Reiryoku was significantly denser than Ohta's. He couldn't exert any counterpressure, but he could endure Ohta's without yielding.

Clicking his tongue, Ohta said, "Well, if you're not going to use Bankai, I'm gonna wrap this up. Grit your teeth, blind man."

Though Tosen did as Ohta had instructed, it didn't matter as the latter appeared before him, grasping his shoulders before kneeing him in the gut. Doing so caused Tosen to projectile vomit blood, but thanks to the veil of psychic energy covering his body, Ohta didn't get any onto him as he released the man's limp body, allowing it to crumple to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

("Well, I guess Yoruichi didn't call him one of the weakest Captains for nothing...") thought Ohta, staring at Tosen's unconscious form, resisting the urge to punctuate the man's life with the heel of his foot. He hadn't heard Tosen referring to Aizen as his Lord, so without any evidence to link the two, Ohta couldn't afford to kill him outright.

*krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-*

Feeling every nerve in his body tense, Ohta whipped around to find a tall, somewhat lanky but muscular man with a wild, aggressive appearance sitting on a roof about two hundred meters away. He had a long face with pronounced cheekbones, vaguely resembling a skull, a scar running down the left side, no eyebrows, and a single, sharp-green eye. The other was covered in an eyepatch, and his black hair was styled into stiff stands that protruded away from his scalp, ending in tiny bells. Most notably, while he wore a white Haori denoting his status as a Captain, the sleeves had been torn away, and the hem near the base was extremely tattered.

Recognizing the man immediately, Ohta muttered, "Kenpachi of Zaraki..." as the psychic energy around his body condensed instinctually. The man showed no overt hostility, simply smiling at him, but Ohta felt like his neck had been bound in the lunette of a guillotine, waiting for its blade to drop at any moment...

Despite the two hundred meters separating them, Ohta could hear Zaraki as if the man were speaking in his ear, stating, "I heard you were strong..." before slowly rising to his feet, causing the already quaking air to become palpably tense with a powerful vibrational force.

Grinning like a demon from Hell, Zaraki brandished an inordinately long and jagged sword as he said, "Let's find out...". Then, as the building he was standing on abruptly exploded, he appeared right in front of Ohta...

...

..

.

(A/N: And this is why you don't bully blind people. Karma always gets its dues (O w O)...)