- A few minutes earlier -- Unknown POV -
"Barrier Squad, what"s your status?"
A youthful voice rang out into a mic. He had dark grey eyes and spiky black hair that reached his shoulders. He was wearing the standard academy uniform with his sword mounted on the back. A "69" was tattooed on his left cheek and was wearing a choker.
This youth was Hisagi Shuuhei, a relatively well-known senior, who had failed the examinations twice but due to his efforts was known as a future seated officer. He was the one in charge and was leading the freshmen for their training.
They were just finishing up when he decided to contact the barrier team
"Hey, Respond!"
He started to get a bad feeling due to the lack of response.
"What"s wrong, barrier team?! Can you hear me?!"
"Hey, answer me!"
"Hey!"
Getting no response, his cla.s.smate next to him questioned,
"What"s wrong"
"Something"s not right, no one from the barrier team is responding"
Just as he finished speaking, the same teammate felt something and turned around,
"Hisagi-kun!"
Hearing this, he also turned around and what he saw shocked him.
A gigantic hollow stood there and swept his claw towards his teammate stabbing right through her body.
"Kyaaaaaa!!!"
A freshmen"s scream bought him out of his daze as he unsheathed his sword.
His cla.s.smate next to him screamed as he ran forward to attack.
"How dare you kill Kanisawa!"
The hollow, seeing this swept his claw and threw the girl"s body to the side and once again swept its claw at its attacker. Hisagi just saw another friend die right in front of him.
"d.a.m.n, how could a high-cla.s.s hollow reach here"
"Freshmen, run away!"
Saying this he took out a receiver and started contacting soul society
"Soul Society, requesting a.s.sistance. This is sixth year student, Hisagi Shuuhei. Under attack by a high-level hollow at living world point no.1026 northwest, mark 2128…"
As soon as he said this, he saw the hollow charge up a ball of reiatsu and shot it towards him. Luckily, he was able to just about dodge it. However, it was just the true beginning of despair.
No matter how he attacked, he couldn"t do any damage on to the hollow. Before he knew it, the hollow had swiped its claws and scratched just over his right eyes, leaving three long scratch marks. He was now blinded with one eye.
The hollow this time increased the number of claws in one hand and directly attacked him. Realising that he couldn"t block it, he prepared to fight to death.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, three figures appeared blocking the claws from three different directions.
"You guys…"
The one who replied was a youth to his left. He had blue eyes and short, s.h.a.ggy blonde hair that"s bang just rested above his left eye. He wore the standard academy clothes for males.
"Our deepest apologies, we are disobeying orders"
To the right was a youth with a hair full of red hair pulled into a ponytail and brown eyes. He also wore the standard academy uniform for males. He continued,
"We came to save you, so overlook it, alright senpai?"
Lastly, to his left, covering claws coming from the bottom was a pet.i.te girl with brown eyes and black hair tied into pig tails at the base of her neck. She wore the standard academy uniform for girls.
After the three pushed away the claws, they brought out both their hand and chanted
"""Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south!"""
"""Hakudo #31, Shakkaho"""
The strength of the three combined was able to push the hollow back, enough for them to make their escape.
Running away they questioned why a high-level hollow was able to get here unnoticed and the only answer was that it was able to hide its reiatsu. Turning a corner, they knew that they wouldn"t be able to defeat such a hollow and could only wait for a.s.sistance from Soul Society.
However, this time they felt true utter despair.
A distortion occurred in front of them where dozens of high-level hollows appeared. One by one they appeared and slowly surrounded them as the students were slowly losing hope.
"This many huge hollow…"
"Impossible"
"It"s not real…this…no…I don"t want to die, I don"t wanna die"
The blonde one seemed to have snapped while the girl had a hopeless look in her eyes and despair written in bold letters on her face. Only Hisagi and the red hair had some sort of fighting intent as they looked around.
The hollows slowly crept forward but suddenly all shook at once as an intruder flew above them. An eagle"s cry was heard attracting the attention of the four students. The students and the hollow all looked up at the white eagle circling around them.
Hisagi looked shocked at the new intruder,
"That"s…"
He had a faint idea of who arrived and started to look around.
Suddenly, footsteps were heard as another intruder walked up behind them. The intruder didn"t say anything and just looked at the four students.
"The red one should be Abarai Renji, the blonde one is Kira Izuru, the girl should be Hinamori Momo and the one-eyed guy should Hisagi Shuuhei"
Itsuki had just arrived and started walking towards them as he slowly sheathed his sword. The hollows also saw this and jumped towards him
""""Watch out""""
Itsuki gave a fleeting glance at the hollows when he got a sudden impulse. Upon fully sheathing his sword he spoke out
"Omae wa mou shindeiru"
"Nani!"
Suddenly, all the hollows exploded into dust when Itsuki stopped speaking. Don"t get me wrong, the one that screamed after wasn"t the hollows, it was Renji in front. Seeing the one that shouted, Itsuki thought inwardly,
"Don"t shout that if you"re not the target"
You couldn"t blame Renji, he was too shocked to see the hollows that seemed so imposing suddenly get defeated within an instant.
"Who exactly is he?"
Renji spoke as the others looked on with admiration. Hisagi replied
"The Raijuu of Soul Society, 2nd Division Captain and Head of the Onmitsukido, Minamoto Itsuki"
"Itsuki-Sama"
A quiet voice was heard from Hinamori while Itsuki was in his own thoughts. He was fanboying inside. The group expected some sort of consoling words but all they got was a cold freezing look as he reached them. They could swear they saw ice flowers blooming around him when he walked.
"Oya, I seem to be one step late"
Another voice rung out. Hisagi turned to look at the newcomer, well newcomers.
"5th division"s Captain Aizen! Lieutenant Ichimaru!"
"It seems Captain Minamoto took care of the hollows"
Itsuki just looked at the Aizen and stabbed his sword into the air and twisted it. A senkaimon opened with Itsuki entering first. The students looked at each other and followed behind. While they were walking through the Dangai, a cold voice was heard,
"Most of your cla.s.smates are safe"
And back to silence.
They could tell that Itsuki wasn"t much of a speaker and they followed suit. Aizen, who was behind them, also didn"t speak as he kept his usual harmless smile on his face while Gin had his normal sarcastic one.
It wasn"t long until they left and members of the fourth members came to check on their injuries. What surprised the four was the number of females looking in their direction. The boys got happy but then cold water was poured over them in the form of Hinamori"s voice.
"Don"t get c.o.c.ky, they"re not looking at you"
This made them realise that they weren"t looking at them or at Captain Aizen behind them, but rather at their saviour in front. Itsuki turned around and gave them one last glance before disappearing from their sights.
It was night-time in the real world and with it being quite dark, it was difficult to get a proper look at Itsuki, but now they were able to get one. The three boys were shocked but then depressed while Hinamori"s eyes started shining.
Aizen also made his leave as he talked to Gin,
"Gin, did you see that?"
"I didn"t"
"Neither did I"
"Minamoto Itsuki, just how much are you hiding"
This event swept Seireitei of its feet as it was extremely rare for this situation to happen. The last time it happened was around sixty-six years ago, when Itsuki had his training.
Itsuki couldn"t be bothered about this as it just resulted in more paperwork and giving an explanation to Yamamoto about the happenings all took a long time. Soi Fon could swear a black aura showed up around Itsuki and a faint muttering could be heard,
"Death to paperwork, death to paperwork, death to paperwork, death to paperwork…"
She had never seen Itsuki so scary.
Currently, Itsuki and Byakuya had just finished sparring when Itsuki called Byakuya over to the side.
"I think I have found Hisana"s sister. Saw someone look exactly like her"
Byakuya was extremely surprised by this revelation as he and Hisana had been looking for her for years. This time, he used his authority as a captain and had gotten some clues but was still at a dead end.
In the anime, Byakuya had become a captain after he had adopted Rukia, roughly, forty-nine years prior to the main plot. But with the presence of Itsuki and his spars, Ginrei had handed him the t.i.tle of captain earlier. Although it was earlier than normal, it made no difference if Rukia was found now or a bit later. She would have only spent a year at the academy and would have directly joined the Gotei 13. It was about time when Byakuya found her.
Byakuya then invited Itsuki to come with him but refrained from telling Hisana, he wanted to be a surprise. She was still dead set on not being worthy enough for being her sister. So, since he could remember, Hisana had always asked Byakuya to take her sister as his own and adopt her.
First, Byakuya wanted to see her, what character she had. Even though it was Hisana"s sister, if her character was bad, he didn"t want Hisana to meet her. It may be detrimental for her as she might think it was her fault that she ended up like this. But then it hit him, wouldn"t she feel guilt over causing the death of her sister if she never met him.
Byakuya was an egg between a rock and a hard place. He could only hope that her character was good enough. And, boy oh boy, was he relieved. Itsuki could swear he saw tears of happiness streaming down his eyes as he laid eyes upon the report.
Byakuya then immediately took the housekeeper and made his way to the academy. This time the females of Seireitei had their dreams realised upon seeing Byakuya and Itsuki together. The old housekeeper, however, wasn"t having the best of times.
He could feel the resentful eyes boring through him as he walked alongside the two captains. Seeing this, the old housekeeper shrunk his neck and tried to keep his presence to the minimum. He could tell what they were thinking but the voices couldn"t be stopped,
"What is that old fogey doing…"
Many other harsh words were silently thrown around as the man got more and more pitiful. Does it look like I want to be here?
Luckily, the academy arrived, and they anonymously entered. The princ.i.p.al was extremely welcoming as bigshots had entered the academy. Upon noticing Byakuya"s intentions they were brought to a room where Rukia would then be called upon.
It wasn"t long until Rukia entered.
"I"m entering"
She looked up to see a couple unfamiliar men and one pair of familiar eyes.
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Author"s note
SUPRISE, weren"t expecting a new chapter were you!
I know, I know. But, I couldn"t hold back, I just got pumped up rewatching it.
I, myself am really excited when the plot starts.
Plus, think of this as my apologies for not giving you guys a chap and going on a bit of a small hiatus.
Lastly, when I meant by concentrating on my other book, I didn"t mean writing it out, but sorting out the auxiliary stuff like power levels etc.
In case you people have forgotten, I am still an amateur writer. This is my first book.
I didn"t put much thought on to the second book when I started it so I need to do now.
I need to learn how to properly t.i.tle my chapters. Been using just names recently.