Asahi The Prodigy, Kaioken and Steps To Godhood

15 chapters in my Pat.reon. Pat.reon.com/Saintbarbido.

(Elsewhere Asahi - Bleach)

"Zankesoki. Those are the principle arts behind a shinigami's power. Basic Shinigami fighting techniques. Zan refers to sword fighting techniques. Ken refers to unarmed fighting techniques. So refers to moving techniques. Ki refers to Kidō."

The teacher droned on. Asahi half listened while his mind wandered. He had come to this world in the era before Isshin, Ichigo's dad had lost his powers and left the soul society. He didn't have a correct timeline but it was somewhere along those lines.

"Today we are going to dig deeper into Zanjutsu. Each of you will get a Zanpakuto, the primary power each Shinigami possesses. Over the 6 years you'll stay here in the academy, your task will be to connect with your Zanpakuto and awaken it. You awaken it by learning it's name…"

Asahi looked out at the window and saw the breeze softly rocking the leaves on a Sakura tree. He breathed in and felt the reishi in the air. It seems like he had retained some innate abilities from his cultivator's essence. He could sense the energy in the air and even absorb it if he wanted.

"Ok students, grab a boken from the side and then pair up in twos."

Asahi's attention was brought back to the class by the shuffling of feet from his fellow students. He followed them and pulled a boken from the rack. No one approached him and most kept a distance from him. He sighed and turned to pair with the teacher before he felt a tap on his shoulder.

"I heard you're a prodigy"

He turned back and came face to face with the very definition of an arrogant young master. The young man was dressed flamboyantly even while dressed in the standard uniform. His was a bit outstanding. His hair was long and braided colorfully, his skin smooth and a prideful smirk on his face. Asahi felt like wiping that smile off his pretty boy mug.

He sighed as murmurs sprang up from his classmates. The young man levelled his boken at Asahi.

"The name is Shimazu Kagehara from the noble family of Shimazu. We might not be one of the five but my family is very influential here in the soul society. They have spared no effort to prepare me for the Shinigami academy and I will not sit idly by and let an upstart…"

"So what do you want?"

Asahi interrupted him, already feeling bored. Kagehara looked put off. 

"Let us pair up. I want to see what makes you so special."

Asahi looked over at the teacher, who simply smiled but did nothing. He sighed again.

"Ok."

They had been learning kendo forms for a few weeks now but this was the first spar the class had ever had.

The 30 students all faced each other to make pairs of 2. Asahi looked at his Boken and appraised it silently, swinging it to get used to it's weight. His eyes lifted from the practice weapon in his hands to study his opponent. Kagehara was settled in a basic sword fighting form. One leg at the front, bent and the other pushed to the back for balance. His boken was raised up in preparation. 

"Begin."

Asahi's boken rose up to meet the first strike, loosely held in his hands. Kagehara pulled back and swung the weapon from the side even faster. His boken made contact with Asahi's and he stepped in close before pulling the weapon along Asahi's to unbalance him. 

Asahi complied but the swift action made Kagehara extend his boken too far and he felt the cold wood of his opponents boken on his neck. His opponent looked at him disinterestedly and muttered.

"Dead."

Fury gripped Kagehara. This…this nobody wasn't even taking him seriously. Kagehara flash stepped to Asahi's left and swung the boken. The strike was blocked lazily without him even looking. Kagehara didn't lose hope, the only thing left in his mind was to teach a lesson to Asahi. It didn't matter that he was called a prodigy due to his immense spiritual energy, Kagehara would show him!

The other fights going in stopped as everyone else including the teacher watched intently at what was happening. All the students could see were blurry forms and flashes of brown from the boken as it swung. Kagehara moved faster and faster, swinging, thrusting, hacking, stabbing and slashing to no avail.

Asahi was too swift, his single hand was a blur as it parried, blocked and countered while his body never left it's position. The wind picked up from the fast movements before finally, a loud crack was heard and everything stopped. Kagehara's boken shattered into pieces after a particularly hard swing. 

His eyes locked onto his opponent's stormy gray ones and blinked. When he opened them, blood flew up from the long slash on his chest, he stared at the scene of his blood in the air. The pain hadn't registered yet. The only thing on his mind as he passed out was,

'So that's why he's a prodigy. The guy managed to cut me with a wooden blunt boken. Crazy.'

(Brian's P.O.V)

I slammed onto the ground again and speared through the layers of the earth. The water underneath bubbled as I powered up. 

"Kaioken ×5!"

A deeper coating of scarlet ki appeared above my original golden ki. I shot through the soil leaving behind a crater that shook the whole area aiming for the god of destruction looking down at and on me, bored.

My first blow was met with a finger block, I snarled and threw another and another and another. All of them were blocked by a finger.

I fell back breathing heavily. 

"I grow bored."

A voice sounded out from behind me, I looked back and saw a beating heart clutched on Beerus' hand. He smirked devilishly at the stumped expression on my face.

"Your punishment for not making this interesting…is death."

I opened my eyes and clutched my chest. A glow appeared above my heart as Extremis worked to heal the invisible wound. I sighed as I got up. Beerus was strong. Really strong. I knew that of course but even while using all my tricks and powers I never managed to beat him in all sessions of the image training.

"How far did you take it this time?"

King Kai asked.

" Times 5"

Sweat dripped from King Kai's forehead…

"T…times 5!? It's only been a week!"

A smile appeared on my face. 

"That's only because I've been taking it easy. I've had a problem with controlling massive upsurge of energy before King Kai, so I wanted to get a feel for the technique first before I used it. Plus I don't want to accidentally destroy your planet."

King Kai was astonished by my words.

"Destroy my planet? What…"

I laughed while getting up. He had no idea how far I could take Kaioken. Hell, neither did I. If I had my potential unlocked again by Guru, I would be scared of myself. Too bad Guru is dead. Wait…the old Supreme Kai can unlock potential too right? There's an idea. But I doubt I can get to him without sensing his Ki, he is in the land of Kai's after all. A divine plane…wait…there's a teleportation ability that Kais used right?

"Hey King Kai? I was wondering, could you teach me Kai Kai?"

I asked him. He stopped flipping his dad jokes book and looked at me in curiosity.

"You also know about that?"

"Mmh, I'm an adventurer King Kai. The better question would be what don't I know."

He closed the book.

"That is a good line. Unfortunately mortals cannot learn Kai Kai. Even with your prodigious talent and great energy control you would still not manage it."

My competitive spirit reared its head. That felt like a challenge.

"Let's make a bet King Kai. If you show it to me and I manage to learn it…then you'll teleport me to the land of Kais." King Kai's changed to one of unexpected shock at my impossible request. My hand rose up to stop his protests.

"If I'm unable to learn it…I will get you the fifth edition of Dad jokes."

He rubbed his chin in thought. 

"Ok. Watch closely because I am only going to demonstrate it once."

I turned True Reveal on and stared at King Kai. His Ki had a different…flavor to it. It also moved weirdly. He disappeared and then reappeared a second later, 2 meters from his previous position. I pulled up the Interface.

( Create a model of that ability and merge it to dimensional Jump.)

[Analyzing… processing…action cannot be completed.]

For the first time ever, the Interface failed. I was stumped, a frown on my face as I quickly turned to the display.

(Clarify)

[User lacks divine Ki]

The answer came in quickly and I sighed in realization. Of course. It wasn't that the Interface had failed. It just that my mortal was still restricting my chances. That needed to change.

(Set up a new sub-routine called, Steps to Godhood, calculate and verify the chances of success based on my current condition and dimension and output a step by step process of how I can acquire divinity.)

The results the Interface gave me were surprisingly simple. The first step begun by pushing my body to the limit using a fucking black hole. Really Interface? You trynna kill me?

Before I could do any of that though, I decided to first of all master Kaioken to a sufficient level. It would help me a lot while completing the steps.

So we all know that the maximum number Goku could push Kaioken was times 100 when he was facing Lord Slug. It wasn't exactly canon but the thing is, it showed that the technique did not have a limit. King Kai had said that the limit was 20 times but Goku proved him wrong. Who's to say that Goku had fully mastered it? 

Granted it only worked because he had absorbed the spirit bomb giving him a lot of stamina to burn through but I also had my own advantages. So the aim now was to push the skill to Kaioken x 110. 10 times more than Goku. 

"King Kai. I'll be gone for a short while but I promise I'll fulfill my end of the deal and bring you the book."

"How long will you be gone for?"

"Not too long, hopefully. I just need to master Kaioken somewhere I won't be distracted.  And like I said, I don't want to destroy your planet incase I lose control of that energy."

He nodded and I teleported to the spatial coordinates of the planet I had sparred with my clones on. I appeared in the atmosphere and smiled once I realized that it still existed in this timeline. The rocky terrain felt oddly welcoming to me. I found a hill overlooking the open landscape and admired the red soil.

"Could you believe it if I told you that this planet used to be beautiful? With green lush forests stretching out across the landscape. The indigenous people were like humans, actually. Only they had wings and could fly."

I blinked and suddenly found myself not alone. Asuma appeared next to me while smiling. 

I stared at him and something clicked inside my brain. I felt like I had forgotten something important. Something that…I was only supposed to forget if I…saw him again. I instantly cut my thought process from going down that road. I trusted myself and if it was something I didn't need to know then I didn't need to know.

"What are you doing here?"

I finally asked.

He snapped a finger and the world changed. The rocky terrain was suddenly changed to a jungle with tall trees. A river snaked from the hill we were on down to the forest and disappeared among the trees. Birds started chirping and different animal calls sounded. I spread out my ki sense and realized he hadn't turned back time like I had expected.

The terrifying reality is that he had created all this by the snap of his finger. I looked at him as if I was seeing him for the first time.

A seat rose from the ground and he laid himself upon it. He picked his nails absentmindedly.

"I'm upset with you Brian. A god? Divinity? That's all? That's what you're working towards? If so, let me end you right now and save myself the disappointment."

Disappointed? Is he for real?

"We all have to start somewhere. You call my ambition shallow. But I am a realist. If I reach godhood I'll start working to get to the next level. My current goal is clear and leaves me free of distractions."

My answer seemed to have made him mad. He stared at me impassively and I shot the look right back at him. Tension rose up between us and even the outside world went silent. He was the first to break contact by closing his eyes.

"Good. You still have that fire in you. I'm sorry, I got a little impatient."

I swallowed and nodded, forcing a smile on my face.

"It's understandable."

"Mmh." He hummed looking lost in thought. 

"5 years. That's what I give you to reach my level. You fail and I destroy. Body and soul. I'll wipe away every single trace of you."

He told me, dead serious. I looked deep into the eyes of my tormenter. He's giving me an ultimatum? No this time, things will happen on my own terms. I didn't want to feel as weak as before. I couldn't fall back into that state again. I. Hate. Weakness. I stared at him and my heart stopped beating wildly. All traces of fear cleared from my mind. Fuck this guy.

"No. Not 5 years. 3 years and I'll end you. For all the shit you've put me through, Asuma. I will kill you."