Chapter 38: Going Off Script From The Get-Go

Soul Society - Seireitei

August 05, 2001 - 1:14 PM

When I entered the Scenario, I found myself moved from standing in my apartment back in Vale, to lying on a mat on the floor. Turning my head to one side, I saw Ichigo was sleeping on a different mat. He looked like he'd been put through a meat grinder with all the bandages covering him under the torn-up parts of his black robes. What little skin showed through wasn't even spared from deep miscolored bruises.

To put it bluntly, he was fucked up.

I turned to my other side and found myself staring at a black cat. I kept staring at the cat as it occurred to me that this was the first time I'd seen one in… well, since I woke up that fateful day on Remnant all those weeks ago. Since then, I'd seen plenty of Faunus and non-Human creatures — Grimm, Hollows, Mentals Minions, whatever the hell "The Destroyer" was, a talking turtle, etc. — but a run-of-the-mill cat or dog? Something a civilian might keep as a pet?

This was the first time I'd laid eyes on one.

For a second, I considered that baffling. I mean, during the days I spent roaming around Vale aimlessly, I surely should have ran into some undomesticated cats and dogs right? But, no. I couldn't recall ever seeing one; not that I bothered to look for them, but still.

Anyway, the black cat I was staring at was staring right back at me. I probably should have been focused on ignoring it in favor of doing some side quests before resolving the Scenario, but it was right there and looked friendly enough. So, I reached out my hand slowly… and it actually came over to let me pet it!

Maybe I'm just a cat person or maybe this was just one really nice cat, but I was under the impression that felines were the inferior mascot. Dogs were supposed to be the friendly and warm type, while cats were known to be cold and conniving assholes, right?

"Ah, yes, right there. Scratch me a little harder," the cat said— And Holy Fucking Shit, it had a deeper voice than Katayoki!

I froze as I looked down in horror. It felt wrong to elicit that kind of reaction with such overt sexual overtones from a man — For me, that is. I didn't particularly care if someone was gay or whatever else, but I was straight and this was weird to me.

Then I looked a little further down from where I had my paralyzed hands on the cat's soft belly and my logic ran into an error loop. The cat was definitely female, but its voice was male? What kind of a cracked-out create-a-character bullshit was this?!

"Come on, kid, I've been without scratches for the last four days. Are you really going to do this to me?" The cat looked pitiful as it asked.

I was halfway disgusted with the idea of continuing to touch it when it sounded like a fifty-year-old chain smoker, but… It was just a cat in the end. Even if it wasn't a female cat, there was no denying I enjoyed petting it's soft body. This didn't have to be weird just because it was my immediate first thought. It's not like I had any room in my heart for people other than Velvet, to say nothing else about a cat.

So, I continued petting the cat for a while as I considered the Scenario at hand.

Namely, there wasn't a Scenario to resolve at all. Turns out, this whole thing hinged on the premise that I didn't have my Bankai. In that case, it would have subjected me to training for it much like I did to get my Hollowfication and Spiritual Powers; either achieving it or die trying.

Because I already achieved Bankai, I could theoretically end this Scenario the moment I started the training, materialized Katayoki into the real world and beat him. I wouldn't do that, though, because there were opportunities to seize going on in the periphery of this Scenario. Namely, a group that Ichigo was leading had stormed into Heaven Itself to take back their friend who had been kidnapped and set to be executed.

The reason the Scenario was yet another time crunch of three days was because that was all the time we had before our would-be rescuee got killed off by the "Guards of the Celestial Court…" or something like that. My Directives had a bunch of odd terms I didn't already know about, so I filled in the context to come up with the limited understanding I had of the Scenario.

"Alright, that's enough of that," I said as I took my hand away from the black cat. "I should probably go out and make this invasion the real deal," I added as I stood up from the mat on the floor.

"What? Why would you do that?!" The cat snarled as it stood back on its haunches, poised to attack me as it said, "We're only here to save Rukia!"

"Yeah? And, how well has that been going for us?" I stared down at the cat. "Everyone is split up and there are countless Shinigami looking to catch or kill us. It's a miracle nobody has died yet. Just look at our fearless leader and the state he's been left in since he tangled with just one of the Captains."

"And what do you think you'll accomplish with your invasion?" The cat sneered, "You may not know this, but the only reason we haven't been rounded up and executed yet is because the Gotei 13 haven't put any effort into catching us. The moment you start killing off Shinigami instead of sparing them, all restrictions on the Captains will be lifted."

"Who said anything about killing off Shinigami?" I gave the cat an odd look. I honestly didn't even know why I was even arguing with it in the first place. "Look, I'm not a fan of this nonsensical reason for executing Rukia and I have enough common sense to not just start killing everyone in my way if I want to prevent her from being executed any sooner. All I'm saying is, that if all the people here are busy focusing on me, you guys will have a better shot at rescuing her."

"You think you are a match for any of the Captains? Kenpachi was the one who did that to Ichigo and he's the only one without a Shikai or Bankai; arguably the least troublesome of the lot to deal with… if you can get past his absurd amount of Spiritual Power."

I opened my mouth to speak, but Ichigo began to stir from his unconscious state.

"What's going on? Where… Am I?" He asked. He didn't wait for a response before rapidly sitting himself up as he shouted, "No! There's no time. The others are in danger!"

He grimaced as blood began to soak into his bandages; a clear sign that he had aggravated his wounds.

I shook my head as I walked over to him and began healing him with Magic as I asked, "Can you not do that? You'll bleed out if you keep that up… Maybe," I admitted, "I'm actually not sure how much damage it will take before a Soul will die."

"It would have taken only a tiny bit more for Ichigo to have died, had he not kept this mask on him," the black cat said. "For the record, half his organs had been crushed and it was only due to the mask protecting him that he hadn't been cut in half."

"Oh?" I reached for the mask once I was done healing Ichigo. "You too, huh?" I asked him.

"What?" Ichigo asked while the black cat stared at me intently.

"This is a Hollow's mask. It fits your face so I'm guessing that means you too can use Hollowfication. Am I wrong?" I asked.

"Hollowfi— Huh?!" Ichigo, with all the sage and wisdom in the world, asked.

"This," I summoned my own Hollow mask before exiting the Hollowfication state. I usually let the mask evaporate back as part of my residual Spiritual Power, but for obvious reasons, I didn't do that now.

"It sucks that mine is so much more basic than yours. The only thing I have that sets it apart is the lopsided horn, but yours has these sick tribal markings. Oh well, at least it all evens out when I fully transform," I muttered to myself. Comparing base Hollowfied masks, his was definitely superior, but once I turned Vasto Lorde, I felt like the whole helmet thing with the added tattoos beat him out. Then again, I was biased.

"Did you just… Turn into a Hollow?" Ichigo, it seemed, had not yet recovered all his IQ points.

"No, but I could turn into one if I wanted to. I'll probably have to, to beat some, if not all, of the Captains I come across once I get out of here."

"You're a Visored?!" The black cat yelled.

"I don't know what that is, so no, unless that's the term for 'guy who beat his Inner Hollow.'"

"Do not bring enter that state outside of this room!" The cat demanded, "They'll put out a kill-on-sight order on you if you do!"

"Let them," I chuckled, "Sounds exactly like the kind of thing I'd need to do to kick my plan into high gear and take all their attention away from you guys."

"You'll die without a Bankai!"

"How lucky of me to already have unlocked mine," I smirked.

"Bullshit! If you don't prove it to me, I won't let you go out there and get yourself killed!" The cat stared me down.

I narrowed my eyes down at it, getting ready to let it know exactly how little I cared about its strange obsession with my safety — or was it just being a control freak? — But stopped as a wave of spiritual pressure descended on me.

"Hmm? Is someone trying to send out a signal?" I asked, wondering why such a mild spiritual pressure would be cast out so willy-nilly like this. Going by the alarmed look in Ichigo's eyes, it seemed my guess was extremely far off the mark as the spiritual pressure I considered a "mild breeze" apparently shook him to his core.

"It's him!" Ichigo jumped to his feet.

"Byakuya… And, the pressure is coming from the Senzaikyu," the black cat solemnly said.

"Crap, what do I do?! Hanatarou and Ganju were making their way over there. If I don't go there they'll die!" Ichigo said.

"If it's like that, I can offer to teleport us over there if you want. I would have gone on my own anyway, but if you really want to come with, I won't deny you," I said.

Going to the Senzaikyu, where the execution platform was set up and "our" friend was set to die in a couple days, would allow me to kill birds with one stone if I managed to both defeat the Captain there and secure Rukia. The longer I could keep her from getting killed off, the longer I could remain in this simulated world and reap all the Gachas available.

"Let's go!" He said as he picked up his massive sword, which I just noticed was definitely different than the one he used during the Hollow Hunt Gone Wrong Scenario.

"Oh no you don't!" The cat barked out before exploding into a plume of smoke, not at all that different from when my Shadow Clones popped.

…And out of the smoke came out a naked woman.

"Ah ha! So, the masculine voice was just to troll people after all," I said, feeling vindicated by the revelation.

As Ichigo covered his eyes and sputtered like a clueless virgin, the black-cat-turned-woman put on some clothes and said, "Neither of you are going anywhere until you can call out your Bankai."

"Forget her," Ichigo said as he pushed past his embarrassment to look me in the eyes, "Just take us to the Senzaikyu before our friends get killed!"

I gave the woman a helpless look as if to say, "What can you do?" before grabbing Ichigo's shoulder, summoning my knife and throwing it out of the building. A few consecutive teleportations later we found ourselves falling down on to the source of that spiritual pressure from earlier.

It was right on time to watch the owner of the spiritual pressure use his power to cut one of Ichigo's friends with a thousand cherry-blossom-like blades.

"Ganju!" Ichigo yelled out as he landed on the bridge and took a defensive stance with his fallen comrade collapsed behind him.

As I touched down right next to them, I healed Ganju and let out a low whistle before saying, "Wow, this is some really nasty work. None of these cuts go deep enough to kill, but they are deep enough to cause as much pain and suffering as possible the moment he tries to move."

"It is a measure to prevent my targets from escaping," Byakuya said while raising the hilt of his sword up in preparation for another attack.

Before he could swing though, a new person flickered into view and caught his hand. This white-haired stranger said, "I think that's enough. You've already gone too far by releasing your blade."

"Wartime laws are in effect, Ukitake. Now, if you'll excuse me," he shrugged the man's grip off, "I have trash to dispose of."

As another wave of his spiritual pressure on the environment, I turned back and saw Rukia and the one I presumed was Hanatarou collapse down on their knees. Their plight was not aided by the fact that Ichigo decided to flaunt his own spiritual pressure and more or less match Byakuya's.

I looked at Ukitake and asked, "Hey, is this like some sort of posturing I'm not familiar with? Or is there some benefit I don't know of for casting out one's spiritual pressure?" To me it seemed like a pointless dick-measuring competition, but what did I know? I didn't know any of the intricacies of the spiritual power system like I'd started to learn about Aura.

"You seem entirely unaffected by this level of power," the white-haired man simply said. "The point of this posturing is that a person with lesser levels of spiritual power would feel sluggish while under its domain. Behind you, is a perfect example of what happens if the gap in power is too large."

"So it is posturing after all," I nodded. At the murderous look from Ichigo, the unimpressed glare from Byakuya and Ukitake's interest, I explained, "I mean, why keep it up for this long if it only takes a moment to show off one's power and prove they are at the same level?"

"Don't insult me," Byakuya lowly said, "The only reason I haven't crushed the lot of you under the full weight of my power is because the prisoner would die along with you. None of you are worthy of experiencing my unsupressed spiritual power, anyway."

"If you say so," I shrugged as I took my hand off Ganju. He was still unconscious and there were no wounds on his body despite all the blood that covered him.

"Now, are we going to fight or—"

The not-Faunus-but-still-technically-a-cat-woman from before dropped in much like Ichigo and I had a little while ago.

"Yoruichi!" Ichigo called out. "Thanks for coming to help, but please stand aside, I—"

She jabbed her hand through his chest and instantly knocked him out.

"Whoa, there," I said as I slapped her other hand from trying the same trick on me. "I thought we were allies?"

"We are!" She glared at me angrily.

"You drugged him, didn't you?" Ukitake said as he looked at Ichigo, "Is that your plan? To tranquilize them and leave?"

"Do you actually think I'd let you?" Byakuya asked.

"Ugh, this is starting to drag on for way too long," I said as I materialized Katayoki and walked past Yoruichi. Without turning back to look at her, I said, "I'm going to just take these two out so we can be done with this. Try not to get yourself or the others killed."

"Fool," Byakuya taunted me as he lashed out with his scattered petal-like blade amalgam.

The swords came at me at supersonic speeds, but I was still fast enough to dodge or block as they didn't all attack me from countless directions at once. I couldn't tell if that was because the man couldn't micromanage such a complicated action or if he was just not taking me seriously.

Whatever the case, I threw my knife at him and teleported after it connected to rip it out of his abdomen and kick him off the bridge. I wasn't even using my Aura for anything beyond executing the Stolen Valor Ability. I was immediately glad I did so as I gave Ukitake my undivided attention.

The first thing I'd looked for in Byakuya's memories was information on how dangerous he and Ukitake were as they were the most immediate sources of danger. I didn't expect both of them to be so much stronger than they were currently portraying themselves to be and I most certainly didn't want to fight against Ukitake and his bullshit Bankai if it was possible to stop him from using it.

So, I maximized my speed to prevent the man from acting on the threat I'd just revealed myself to be. My Aura, Spiritual Power, Ki and Sandevistan were all put to use and as the world slowed down to a near stopping point from my perspective, I ran over and accepted a "Sketchy Drug" from my list of unaccepted "rewards" before injecting it into the man.

The -7,768 Unique Grade Item would force pretty much anyone without very specific resistances into going unconscious. Thankfully, Ukitake was not among the individuals who would remain unaffected as he instantly slumped over anticlimacticly. I did not want to deal with the insanely wide range of his Bankai.

Not only was Ukitake's Bankai a force multiplier that would likely put him on a level comparable to me while going all out, but it would do unspeakable amounts of collateral damage; said damage, potentially being enough to probably end the Scenario if it managed to kill Rukia, Ichigo or Yoruichi before the the circumstances arose in which the later would present the way I was supposed to achieve Bankai in three days.

[Congratulations! For defeating the Captain of the 13th Division, Jushiro Ukitake, you have earned a Locked Legendary Gacha Coin!]

A fraction of a second after Ukitake fell over, Byakuya returned with what I now recognized was a Flash Step. "Who are you?" He asked as he took his reformed blade with both hands.

"I'm the guy who's going to use you as a testing dummy," I said while raising a finger in his direction. "Let's see… Hado Number Four: Byakurai."

A pulse of lightning shot out of my finger and made a show of branching off for miles like a tree as it flew up and away from the bridge in a massive array of energy. Unfortunately, Byakuya dodged, but that might have been for the best as the look of distress on his face let me know that he might not have survived the hit.

Wow, that was just a test to see how well I could put his own experience in using the technique against himself. I didn't think that my Spiritual Power was so much higher than his that a half-baked incantation-less Kido Spell might have killed him if it landed. From what I knew of his experiences and memories, they were supposed to be exponentially weaker when cast the way I had.

Byakuya held his blade point straight into the ground as his Spiritual Pressure skyrocketed to the point where I could perceive it as a weight. He said, "I didn't expect one of you filthy peasants to be an actual threat. Your power is one that demands I meet it at my strongest."

He let go of his sword and as it slowly sunk into the earth, he said, "Bankai: Senbonzakura Kageyoshi." As a hall of blades appeared out of the bridge to either side of him, he added, "Scatter," and they all exploded into millions of pieces that made up his Shikai.

Knowing that he was moments away from commanding all those millions of blade fragments to attack and grind me into a bloody mess, I used Body Augmentation, Hierro, and raised my Spiritual Power to its max in my base state to tank the attack. I didn't use the forcefield effect of my Aura because doing so would just liquidate it in the blink of an eye and focusing on strengthening my defenses should provide the best outcome in case the fight becomes one of attrition in the end.

To my surprise, even with all those boosts stacked on top of each other, when the flowing tide of Byakuya's Bankai hit me, each of the tiny blades managed to leave tiny microtear scratches on my skin. Ten or even a hundred of these scratches would not be enough to draw blood, but with millions, it was enough to leave my skin flayed and raw after seconds of exposure.

"Let's try out an incantation next," I said, and by the time I finished, my absolute regeneration had already kicked and prevented even a drop of blood from escaping from the wounds he had managed to deal.

Byakuya frowned as he commanded the countless blade petals to reform into a domain of a thousand swords. I didn't wait for him to finish as I started chanting, "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh."

One of the thousand blades making up the domain flew over to Byakuya's hand before he Flash Stepped over to me — virtually teleporting in a manner reminiscent of how I used Sonido or the Afterimage Technique — and tried to cut me in half. I was fast enough as is to dodge, so I continued to do so as I continued chanting, "All creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man!"

He narrowed his eyes at me as he cast his own Kido spell, "Bakudo Number Sixty-One: Rikijokoro."

I ignored it when the six pillars of light crashed into my torso and locked me in place, making it impossible for me to move my lower body until its effect was broken or dissipated. Instead, I finished the chant, "Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south!"

Byakuya Flash Stepped right in front of me before impaling my chest with his sword. It stung something fierce, but didn't stop me from completing the spells and casting in point blank once I raised my open palm to the man's sternum, "Hado Number Thirty-One: Shakkaho!"

For a split second that felt like minutes, Byakuya and I just stared at each other as the horrifying mass of Spiritual Power that formed on my palm was converted into spiritual fire. If it were actual material fire, it probably would have turned into plasma the instant it appeared as a temperature reading would likely put it in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of degrees (Celsius) range.

Instead, the distinctly red flame-like blast shot out of my hand and flash-fried Byakuya before flying off into the distance, hitting the barrier that locked down the Seireitei and being absorbed without any fanfare. Byakuya looked about as bad as I did after being nuked by Arasaka in Night City, but unlike me, he couldn't just shrug off the fact that his skin had been scorched and charred to oblivion.

He took a step back, coughed up a spray of blood and then collapsed onto the floor. His body continued to steam disconcertingly, but somehow he was still very much alive by the clear rise and fall of his chest.

[Congratulations! For defeating the Captain of the 6th Division, Byakuya Kuchiki, you have earned a Locked Legendary Gacha Coin!]

"Welp," I turned back to Yoruichi and the others, "That was an interesting experience."

"You just took down two Captains!" Yoruichi gawked at me.

"Oh, trust me, it would have been way more difficult than that to beat them if I'd given them the chance to ramp up to their full power. When facing an unknown threat, I can't believe they followed their dumb rule of limiting their power to only the extent that they gauged would be needed to beat me."

"Still! Where have you been hiding all this power?! I didn't even know you knew Kido Spells," Yoruichi said.

"I didn't," I cheerfully said before pointing back at Byakuya with my thumb over my shoulder, "But then I hit the prick with one of my special abilities and stole his knowledge of them. I should probably practice some more before I start to forget," I added as an afterthought.

I should also use the two Legendary Gacha Coins I'd gotten as soon as possible as well. Knowing as much as I now did through Byakuya's memories about the Gotei 13, I knew I needed to take every power up I could get. The moment any of the Captains decided to take me seriously and fight me at their maximum potential, I would be in for a rough time.

Even with Salem's Curse and all my other cheats, I was not untouchable. The special abilities and sheer concentrated power these Captains had bordered on being cheats onto themselves. Moreover, just because I couldn't die conventionally, didn't mean I couldn't be stopped. I'd come to learn that there was a whole section of Kido Spells regarding sealing and barrier arts. Beyond that, there were nightmarish mad scientists like Mayuri Kurotsuchi around who might give me a fate worse than death if he managed to get his deranged hands on me.

With all that being said, I accepted both the Legendary Gacha Coins and promptly lost consciousness. My last thought before falling over was, 'Of course, I get knocked out. Why does this shit happen to me?'

[Results: Rarity — Legendary 100,000 (Locked) | Shinigami Form (Ability - Bleach Canon)]

[Results: Rarity — Legendary 100,000 (Locked) | Complex Soul (Perk - Generic)]