Gateway 47

Even though I had transfigured Isane’s shihakusho, I still cast a Disillusionment charm on both of us, just in case the Hollow recognized her on our way to it.

Isane’s expression upon seeing me cast it on myself was a thing of beauty. I knew I had a convert to my ways of magic when she saw the house, but now? Now I had a believer. I doubted it’d take a full day after our return to the Seireitei for her to start training.

Casting the spell on her, I thought she’d take a few moments to acclimate herself to not being able to see me or herself. However, it appears that the ability to sense spiritual pressure extends further than I thought, as she seamlessly transitioned to using it instead of her sight. Although I heard her muttering under her breath about it not being ‘good enough’ compared to one of the Captains.

Ignoring that, we started our walk towards the Hollow. And it was a slow walk. One of this Hollow’s main skills was stealth, and that meant the thread of spiritual power Isane found was hard to follow. Our luck was that she managed to catch it on Kie, but one wrong move and she might lose it. Making us waste precious time and leaving us exposed while she searches for it again, which might give the Hollow time to notice us and run away.

So we walked in silence, calmly dodging anyone who came into our path and the fights that seemed to break out continuously in the district.

___

It took us the better part of an hour, but we finally reached our destination: a small hovel somewhat central to the village.

The hovel looked to be almost falling to pieces, but from the way everyone around unconsciously avoided it, I knew we were in the right place.

We got ready for battle as we made our way towards it, but once we got a few feet away from it, things changed.

Suddenly, everyone around us stopped what they were doing and turned to look at our exact position.

“It sensed our spiritual pressure!” Isane whispered, the hilt of her Zanpakuto in hand as she looked around us.

I pointed two fingers at the closest group, focusing on the modified spell Aizen and I had come up with as I performed the ‘wand’ movements. I didn’t have the time for a full incantation, but considering how well their effects could combine, I didn’t think that’d be necessary. Plus, this was the perfect situation to test it.

“Bakudo #1: Immobulus Sai,” I cast, making the 15 or so people in front of us instantly topple to the ground.

I smirked at Isane’s look of shock, “This is what Aizen and I were working on while you were sleeping that day at the Captain’s Library, ‘Immobulus Sai’ or ‘Freezing Restraint’ binds and freezes all targets in an area, making escape almost impossible without outside help.”

Noticing other groups approaching, I pointed to the hovel. “I’ll deal with this and make sure no one interferes with your fight, now go! Free your friend,” I said, looking back at another group coming at us and preparing another spell. But not before I saw Isane’s eyes shine for a moment before steely resolution filled them again.

And with a nod, she ran inside.

“Now, what interesting mixes should I use on you lot?” I mused. “Aizen and I spent a lot of time theorizing for me not to use it, y’know?” I finished, feeling a wide smile stretch on my face, while I picked the next spell mix most likely to work.

___

Isane Kotetsu

She barely closed the door on the small house when she felt another spike of spiritual pressure, followed by Alex shouting, “Bakudo #4: Incarcerous Hainawa!” And the sounds of dozens of metal chains moving.

Holding herself back from turning, she checked the place the Hollow had made its home for however long it had been there.

It was a small one-bedroom house, barely big enough for a couple to live a cramped life. But it was bare, no furniture or anything else existed inside, except for a dirt stairway leading down into the darkness.

Isane peered down into the darkened stairway, and without any sight of an end to it, she cast one of the few of Alex’s spells she managed to master.

“Lumos,” she muttered, making the two fingers she used to make the ‘wand’ movements glow bright enough to illuminate a good area around her.

With that done, she started the descent to the one she swore to free all those years ago.

___

Isane slowly made her way down, senses straining to notice anything amiss in case of an ambush. This Hollow had survived a fight against a Captain, after all. It wouldn’t do to become another one of its victims due to carelessness.

“And I also wouldn’t want to fail and leave Alex to deal with everything by himself,” she thought, a slight blush coloring her cheeks.

Alex always surprised her. Be it his interesting magic when they first met, using his position as Lieutenant to care for Yachiru, or standing before a Kido Master, a Captain, as an equal in the magic arts.

But these last surprises really showed what kind of man he was. Taking in and caring about a child he had just met, and accepting her resolve and holding the line so she could fulfil her oath meant more to her than he probably realized.

She hadn’t thought about romance in a long time, not since…

…Since that day, but she couldn’t help but feel that if he kept surprising her like that, she’d end up falling for him. And from the way Captain Unohana reacted when she heard Captain Kenpachi had sent him here, she couldn’t see her being anything but supportive.

And the less said about her sister, the better. She loved Kyone to death, but she dreaded how she’d react if she knew Isane was even thinking about it. The cries of ‘finally!’ and ‘who’s the stud?’ were already echoing in her mind.

Shaking her head, she focused all of her attention back on the path ahead. She could think about what-ifs after she got closure.

___

She had stopped being able to hear the sound of Alex’s fighting for a while when she finally spotted the end of the stairs. So, taking a deep breath, she steeled her heart and descended the last few steps to meet the creature who took one of her most cherished people from her.

The first thing she noticed when she stepped out of the stairway was that the underground area was much bigger than the small house above. It wasn’t a cave either. The walls were smooth, and the domed ceiling, while high, wasn’t a natural formation.

The second thing she noticed was her. Sitting in the middle of the underground chamber was Yurino Kamada, the woman with whom she had dedicated so many years of her life with.

But she was changed, gone was her youth and the perpetual cheer in her eyes. Now she looked past middle age and her yellow eyes with black sclera were bored as they stared at her.

“Well, took you long enough,” came the voice from Yurino’s mouth, but it wasn’t Yurino’s voice. It was distorted and grating to hear, nothing like Yurino’s soft tone.

“Sorry, but you’re a hard Hollow to find,” she said, slowly drawing her Zanpakuto. “If I knew where you were, we’d have done this years ago.”

“I meant the time it took you to come down the stairs,” the Hollow wearing Yurino’s face said. “But it looks like you’ve been looking for me. Did I kill someone you cared about?”

“Y-You!” Isane growled, gritting her teeth. “You’re wearing her face!”

“Ah, this old thing?” The Hollow said, pulling at Yurino’s cheek. “It was a lucky find,” it shrugged. “My hosts until her only lasted a few years at most. But a Shinigami? And one as young as her? It afforded me decades of use! So much so that I can’t go back to using random villagers anymore. I tried to get that old man Shinigami a while back, but he was too strong for me to get my hooks on him. But you?” The Hollow smiled. It was a vicious thing that had no place on Yurino’s face. “You aren’t nearly as strong as him. So as long as I keep your friend up above entertained, I can just take you over and stab him in the back when we meet up after my minions are ‘set free’ by ‘you’.”

“That won’t work,” Isane snorted, having figured out one of the Hollow’s weaknesses. “You don’t get the memory of your victims, otherwise you’d have recognized me, or even come back to Soul Society after you took over Yurino. Maybe used her past as a Shinigami to go after others,” she brought her Zanpakuto in front of herself, ready for the oncoming fight. “But instead, you hid. Deep underground, far away from anyone who could fight you, with an army of mind-controlled people ready to die for you, protecting the entrance to your hiding place.”

“What are you trying to say!?” The Hollow shouted, snarling at Isane while making a claw position with its hands.

“That you’re weak,” Isane said, letting her spiritual power start to rise. “That you’re afraid,” she kept going, her Zanpakuto glowing. “And that you’re going to DIE!” She shouted, feeling her spiritual power explode as she said, “Run, Itegumo!”

“BALA!” The Hollow said quickly, shooting a red ball of spiritual power at alarming speeds in her direction.

Isane dodged the attack with a short Flash Step to the side, only for a second Bala to hit her in the right shoulder and blow her backwards.

“Still think you’ll have an easy time against me?” The Hollow smirked.

Isane gritted her teeth while holding Itegumo, now with two smaller blades protruding from its base at 45-degree angles, to the thankfully shallow wound and saying, “Path’s End, Itegumo!” Making ice cover the wound.

“Was that supposed to be surprising?” The Hollow asked sarcastically before sending another Bala towards Isane.

With another Flash Step, Isane appeared a few yards behind the Hollow, holding her Zanpakuto parallel to the ground and quietly muttering, “Path of Draining, Itegumo.”

“No,” Isane said, dodging another Bala. “This is.”

The next Bala that came her way was blocked by Itegumo, prompting the ice on her shoulder to start glowing.

“Wha-AH” The Hollow screamed, turning to look behind itself to see Isane back off from her attack, the ice on her shoulder falling apart to reveal healed flesh under her damaged gi.

The Hollow wearing Yurino’s face snarled, pointing a hand towards Isane and screaming, “CERO!”

Holding back a sigh, Isane put Itegumo in front of herself and said, “Path of Absorption, Itegumo!”

The beam of red spiritual power hit, making her take a step back due to the force of the attack, but Isane held her ground as veins of softly glowing ice started to form under her feet. Most of the veins only extended a few feet out, but the one growing in the direction of the Hollow kept growing, slowly making its way towards it.

A few moments later, the attack stopped, the ice vein still a few yards from its target.

“Is that all you can do?” Isane asked, rage and sorrow warring in her heart at the sight of Yurino’s wounded form kneeling on the ground, panting.

“Hahahah!” The Hollow laughed. “No, it isn’t!”

And with that exclamation, it raised its hand upwards and brought it down with a scream of “CULL”.

Suddenly, red spiritual particles started flowing from the ceiling into the Hollow’s form, recuperating its spiritual power and making it rise beyond what it was before.

___

Alex

I jumped back to dodge a sword slash while keeping my head down so the sword coming from my right didn’t stab my temple. Backhanding the woman coming from my left, I Flash Stepped away.

The fight had started not long after Isane entered the hovel. Most of the cannon fodder had already been restrained, so I was waiting for the Hollow’s next move. A next move that didn’t disappoint.

A group of the strongest fighters the Hollow had at its disposal came charging at me from different directions, and just like with Kie, all of them attacked with a mastery that I doubted they consciously possessed.

No wasted movements, no flinching or overtly avoiding pain, and coordination so perfect I doubted any group not actively sharing their minds would be capable of. And that was without taking into account how each and every attack would have been perfect for the situation if they were fighting anyone but me.

From the way Kie attacked Isane, I suspected something like this was possible, so I eagerly took the opportunity to further hone my skills against groups of master swordsmen.

Of course, I had to restrain myself. They might have been powerful compared to the average Shinigami, but to me, they were not that great. Sure, they could cut me, but that’d take them hitting me, and with all of my movement options, that certainly wasn’t happening.

But I could see how an unprepared Captain could have a problem. Without a way to mass restrain the infected multiple times in quick succession, plus the Hollow joining in to attack, things could easily take a turn for the worse, and I didn’t even know who ran away that time, the Captain or the Hollow.

I got ready for the attackers to reach me when another one of my theories came to fruition: a mass of restrained infected broke down into red particles, which were quickly absorbed into the ground right over Isane was fighting.

“Damn,” I muttered, feeling the spike of power from the Hollow as I got back into the fight.

From all that Isane told me, it was obvious the Hollow would have an ability to quickly power up using the infected. Thankfully, the drain was based on proximity. Otherwise, Kie would be in danger of being absorbed.

But I wasn’t worried, not really. I figured that any absorption abilities would be based on distance, since if it weren’t, the Hollow would be vulnerable until the power reached it. And I trusted Isane to follow through on her resolve. She’s that monster’s Lieutenant, after all.

I parried an overhead chop while kicking the person behind me, taking a moment to look over where Isane was fighting.

“Now I just have to do my job of taking away the infected’s attention,” I muttered, inclining my head to the side to avoid a thrown knife. “While you set your friend free, Isane.”

___

A/N: And that’s that.

This week has been rough. My maternal grandfather passed away on Thursday, and my grandmother moved in with us. So things are pretty chaotic.

Take into account that no one in the family had the money (my mom and grandmother) or cared (uncle and grand aunts and uncles) to pay for all of the bureaucracy, and I have to profusely thank you all for your support. The money I’ve made here since I started was almost enough to pay for everything, and the rest I easily managed to put on credit.

So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, you all being here means the world to me.

And, as always, see you all next week.