Gateway 43

“Boom, Fuji Kujaku,” I heard Yumichika say from behind me, prompting me to follow in kind.

“Now you know all, was it worth, an eyeball?” I incanted.

I dearly wished to activate my Runes, but that’d defeat the purpose of taking the mission in the first place. I had to actually bond with my Zanpakuto beyond its use as a tool, and that meant using it.

A Hollow broke the treeline heading for me, it looked like a grotesque and deformed ape with a scorpion’s tail. It was fast, but with my Authority active, I could easily see his punch was a diversion for the real attack with his tail.

I sidestepped his charge, letting his tail approach me, and with a quick and violent slash, I cut it off. Prompting it to, with a scream of rage and pain, launch itself at me.

All of its limited strategy was gone, with just rage and instincts guiding its attacks. I let the punches come, dodging just enough that they barely missed me, waiting for the moment when…

I jumped, rolling in the air and slashing downwards into the first Hollow, who used my ‘distraction’ to attack me from behind, my Zanpakuto biting deep into its shoulder. But the real damage was done by its ape-like friend, who kept blindly punching in its direction.

I landed softly and risked a glance at Yumichika, who was fending off three Hollows a dozen or so feet away, the shadowed nature of the valley doing him no favors even though the light I gave him kept following him around.

But I couldn’t help him yet. The two Hollows had settled their little mix-up and seemed pretty intent on taking out their failures on me. And from the spiritual pressure coming from behind them, the last two Hollows hiding decided to finally enter the fray.

Deciding to end things before the next two Hollows showed themselves, I Flash Stepped behind the first Hollow and chopped at its neck, cutting its head off.

What I didn’t expect was for the ape to instantly punch me, its reaction time much quicker than before.

The punch didn’t do much damage, but it sent me on a careening path directly to where one of the hidden Hollows was waiting. Instead of turning, I pointed my left hand’s index finger in its direction behind me.

“Hado #1: Sho,” I cast, sending a wall of force in the Hollow’s direction and blowing it away.

The ape Hollow launched itself at me with one fist cocked back while the second hidden Hollow jumped into the air and started to fly, circling my position.

With my left hand still free, I decided to take inspiration from Zaraki’s style and match the ape’s leading punch with my own. Our fists hit each other with a shockwave of force. But, despite the Hollow’s size, I was just stronger, so the crunch of its hand breaking distracted it enough that it didn’t see my Zanpakuto until the point was an inch from its eye.

Dislodging my Zanpakuto from the ape’s skull, I turned my attention to the flying Hollow, who decided to dive bomb me when I chose to fight the ape head-on on but now that it noticed me looking at it, it was trying to slow down by expanding its bird-like wings.

Too late. With a burst of Shunpo, I was already in front of it, my left hand holding its beak and my Zanpakuto buried in its chest, a platform of spiritual particles under my feet preventing us from falling.

The Hollow’s eyes widened in shock. Its sharpened wings rearing back to attack, when, with a brutal slash, I tore my Zanpakuto out of its chest, letting its body fall back down.

I looked back at my last opponent, its small form had stopped moving towards the fight, and instead took shelter under a bush. I didn’t bother hiding the disgust I felt at its cowardice, nor did I believe it deserved a chance to fight back. So, using the locomotion spell, I sent my Zanpakuto hurtling towards it at breakneck speeds.

The impact was, explosive. I had forgotten to use my wand when casting it, so instead of being simply stabbed and pinned to the ground, the Hollow exploded on impact while the ground cratered.

With a sigh, I summoned my Zanpakuto back to me, finally turning my attention back to Yumichika.

He was having a tough time. His right arm had a big gash on it, while one finger from his left hand was visibly broken. The other Hollows were not as unscathed, one missing an arm, and the other two with cuts throughout their bodies.

But he was the one on the back foot. The Hollows were working together to outmaneuver him, one attacking from the front while the others attacked from the sides or back. Yumichika barely had time to counter before backing off.

I thought about helping him, I did, but his opinion on magic stayed my hand. With a cursory glance, I Flash Stepped to the branch of a nearby tree and waited.

The fight continued for a little while. The pattern of attack and defense both sides were using showed itself to have become routine by the time I arrived, turning the conflict into a fight of attrition.

It was during one of these clashes that one of the Hollows made a mistake: it hit Yumichika’s face.

As everyone in the 11th knew, Yumichika’s main characteristic was vanity. He cared about beauty to an unhealthy degree, and that went way too far when it came to his appearance.

So being hit in the face, even if it was only a minor scratch, was a major concern of his. And it was obvious when he realized, as his first action was to instinctively dodge the other Hollow’s attack while he used his sword to carve out the face of the Hollow that hurt him.

I couldn’t help but clap. If he focused more on his viciousness and less on how he looked while fighting, he’d be a much stronger fighter.

“You could help, you know?” He called out, dropping the Hollow’s body and turning his eyes on me.

“I thought I’d let you show the might of the 11th!” I said back, noticing the Hollow’s remaining had stopped to let us talk. “I sure thought you’d have an easier time if you could bind them with Bakudo #1: Sai, or push them away with Hado #1: Sho. But what do I know about the usefulness of low-level Kido?”

He gritted his teeth, looking to be building up to a proper rant, when I decided to take the wind out of his sails.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, I’ve been preventing you from showcasing your true might this entire fight, haven’t I?” I said, enjoying as his confused expression turned to panic when I pointed at the orb of light still floating beside him. “How about I turn that off so you can really show us what you’re made of?”

There was a wide range of emotions that passed through his face at that moment: Panic, rage, dread, defeat, and everything in between, but I was more focused on the Hollows, who seemed to almost jump for joy at hearing my words.

The morons really believed I’d let them kill my friend over this, not realizing that, no matter what he choses, their deaths would be the lesson.

“Fine!” Yumichika screamed. “You win, ok? Kido is useful! Now could yo-”

I didn’t let him finish, Flash Stepping behind the Hollows and instantly cutting on down while kicking the other towards Yumichika.

“Was that hard?” I patronizingly said, calmly approaching him as he flicked away the blood from his sword, the dead Hollow at his feet already dissipating.

He gave me a disgruntled look.

“Yeah, yeah, you didn’t actually mean it, I know,” I waved it off, reasheating my Zanpakuto. “I have some ideas on how to change that, not only for you but the entire division.”

A look of mild interest, but still no words.

“The silent treatment, really?” I rolled my eyes at his childishness. “Well, no matter, I’ll deal with this bullshit when we get back, come on.”

Saying so, I took hold of his shoulder and stepped through my office’s door in the 11th’s barracks.

___

The 11th was deserted.

I never thought I’d miss those meatheads, but without them around, the place was eerie. Silence didn’t belong in the 11th, not even at night.

“Alex, wait!” Yumichika called, stopping me from going to check out what was going on.

“What?” I asked in irritation. “There’s no one around, this shit’s weird.”

“I don’t know what is going on exactly, but the Captain ordered me to keep you away from the Seireitei for a few days,” he sighed. “I thought we would go back to he village to deliver the news, probably spend the night there, then come back using Shunpo…”

“You forgot I could bring us back directly,” I said.

“I did,” he nodded.

“So now what?” I asked, my patience dangerously close to running out. “I could bring us back there, but we’d be back by tomorrow morning. If that’s the case, I’d rather we fill our reports about those…” I snapped my fingers in his direction.

“Adjuchas.”

“Adjuchas, and let the higher-ups know what’s going on. If it’s too important, I can spend the night on the 5th or 4th.” I was sure Aizen would let me into the Captain’s Library if I asked. Even though he hadn’t contacted me yet about his little show the other day, he didn’t feel like a guy who would leave me hanging like that.

“Fine,” he sighed. “But stay here for now, I’ll talk with Captain Kenpachi and see what he thinks.”

And with that, he walked out of the office.

___

“Alex!” Zaraki barged into the office a while later. His standard vicious grin in place.

“Zaraki,” I nodded from behind my Western-style desk. “What’s going on?”

“Can’t tell,” he shrugged. “But you can’t be in the Seireitei for a few days.”

“So, what am I supposed to do?”  I asked in annoyance.

“You’ve progressed well in your training, so I think it’s time for you to go all the way.”

“How do you mean?” I couldn’t keep the curiosity out of my voice.

“You can spend the night here and your room today, and I’ll get someone to bring you dinner later, but tomorrow you’ll go to the 80th district and stay a few days there.”

“Isn’t that the ultra-violent district?” I questioned.

“It is!” He laughed. “The next step of your training is for you to hone your intent, so that every action you take has meaning behind it.”

“And I’ll just, what? Go there and kill a bunch of people?”

“If you want, sure,” he shrugged. “The 80th is the place where base instincts are law. Where you do whatever you want, whenever you want, and only someone stronger can make you stop. If you want to kill, kill. If you want to spend your entire time saving people, do it. If you just want to watch other people do whatever they want without getting involved, go for it. It doesn’t matter what you do, because whatever you do there, you’ll do it with meaning behind it!”

I never thought Zaraki would be the philosophical type, nor the type to give passionate rants about anything other than fighting. But there he was, doing just that. I couldn’t just discount it as him trying to get me out of his hair, either. Because everything he did, he did with intent. He didn’t bother doing things without meaning, which matched with his speech about the 80th.

I sighed. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t like it there, not at all, but it wasn’t as if I liked any other part of my training up until that point, so knowing that it could be over faster if I went helped quite a bit.

And besides, maybe I’d find inspiration for a spell I could use as vengeance for all the sneak attacks and the paperwork.

“Fine, I’ll go,” I sighed, rolling my eyes at his psychotically cheerful reaction.

___

A/N: And that’s that.

As always, thank you all for your support, and see you next week!