If someone were to say that Zenkichi was afraid, they'd be right.
After all, what normal person wouldn't be afraid of tall, grotesque looking monsters coming after him in the dead of night while he was wearing sweatpants? While having arms that looked like they were made from steel and fists as large as boulders, or have sharp large blades for arms.
He fought bullies, delinquents, gangsters, and a cyborg before, but this? Nah.
This was something straight out of a Shonen manga or anime.
Zenkichi was just an average kid.
Okay, considering the average kids he faced could take a metal pipe to the face and recover the next day, he was pretty "average".
But a running bitch, he was not.
As the razor sharp blades of the Hollow came dangerously close to his face, Zenkichi's survival instinct kicked in hard and pulled out a baseball bat from his inventory.
With a fierce shout, he swung it with everything he had.
*Bonk!*
The Bonk connected squarely with the side of the mantis Hollow's mask, golden light flared brightly along the wood for a split second. Its head snapped back violently.
"Keeeeee!"
Its mask fractured with a sharp crack, and the creature let out a pained screech as it was sent tumbling backward across the grass. One of its mantis blades snapped clean off at the joint from the sheer force of the impact.
Zenkichi blinked.
"Well, that was unexpected."
He wasn't one to hesitate and immediately sprinted towards it, his bat ruthlessly beating down on the dazed unholy creature.
"Begone foul creature! I exorcise thee!" He declared, pounding harder and harder.
He brought the wooden bat down again and again in a ruthless, merciless barrage. Each strike landed with a loud, cartoonish bonk and a flash of golden light.
The Hollow tried to raise its remaining blade to defend itself, but Zenkichi just kept pounding away like he was tenderizing meat.
"Keeeee!"
"W-What the...?" Rukia and the other Hollows froze, completely confused.
Are they seriously seeing a Hollow getting beaten up by a normal human with a wooden bat?
Yes, yes they were.
Rukia sighed in relief and turned back to the other Hollows with a serious expression.
Although she didn't understand how Zenkichi was beating up a Hollow with a bat so easily, that just shows how capable he is.
Which means she could handle the rest on her own without worrying of his safety.
Rukia slightly smiled and raised Sode no Shirayuki, white ribbon fluttering behind her as she dropped into a graceful battle stance. "This makes it much easier then."
"Grrr."
The other Hollows growled warningly, clearly a bit cautious now that the Shinigami in front of them wasn't being held back by their prey.
The lead green bipedal one flexed its massive rock-hard arms and charged forward, while the other three spread out to flank.
Rukia moved like flowing water forward.
"Some no mai, Tsukishiro!(First Dance, White Moon)"
A focused pillar of ice erupted beneath the rushing Hollow, freezing its lower body solid instantly. She followed up with a swift, elegant slash of Sode no Shirayuki, shattering the frozen legs into glittering shards and sending the massive creature crashing down with a heavy thud.
The flanking Hollows encircled her quickly, uncaring that one of them had already went down, and tried taking her down. They closed in from multiple angles at once: tentacles whipping, claws slashing, jaws snapping.
Rukia spun in place, white ribbon dancing behind her like a living thing.
"Too slow!"
"Some no mai, Tsukishiro!(First Dance, White Moon)"
As Rukia calls out the name of the dance while holding her Zanpakutō upside down, the blade glows with a pale blue light. With a graceful motion, she drew a perfect circle on the ground with the tip of her zanpakutō.
The glowing ring expanded rapidly outward, encompassing all Hollows in one clean sweep, before getting out of the circle with Shunpo.
The circle flashed once, and the entire space within it froze.
A massive pillar of brilliant white light erupted upward from the ring, reaching high into the night sky. Everything inside the circle was instantly encased in thick, crystalline ice. The Hollows' roars were cut off mid-scream as their bodies turned ice solid.
Rukia waited for a few moments, staring at the ice pillar.
As it began to crumble and break apart, she let out a sigh of relief.
"Fortunately, only low and mid level Hollows have appeared. It's actually a miracle that there's only Hollows. If Curses, Demons and other dangerous entities were to appear, then I wouldn't have any choice but to..."
She shook her head sharply, cutting off the thought. She shouldn't go there. This was part of her duty as a shinigami, after all.
Rukia and other people from the supernatural forces didn't understand why, but newly awakened individuals emitted a sort of attractive "scent" to dark creatures like Hollows, Cursed Spirits, Demons, and worse. It was like blood in the water, an instinctive lure that drew them in from miles away.
The stronger the awakening, the stronger the pull.
But the worst part of it all was what happened if these creatures managed to devour the newly awakened.
Their overall power would skyrocket by several to hundreds of times.
Rukia had even heard that a couple decades ago, a Hollow had managed to devour a particularly strong newly awakened. The thing had evolved to a level that required three captains to be sent out just to put it down.
According to those rumors, they were...
Aizen, Ichimaru, Tōsen.
There were other cases over the years, making it top priority for every supernatural forces to prevent the newly awakened to be devoured. Fortunately, this scent would dissipate within a couple of hours.
Medaka would technically be called a newly awakened, but not. She's like a "seed" that was about to sprout but was luckily stopped in time by Rukia.
She couldn't handle protecting two people at once.
"And considering the speed of her spiritual power growing, she's certainly going to release a strong scent. Looks like I have to call on reinforcements. Ichigo better be awake at this time..."
After helping out with Zenkichi, she would need to go back and help out that girl.
Rukia didn't know what to feel at this moment.
Because she remembered something important right now.
'Oh soul king. I still have to make sure that guy wouldn't blab that I was watching and masturbating at him and his girlfriend having sex!! Aaaahh!' she inwardly screamed.
She could already imagine the embarassment she would be feeling if this matter were to be spread. Oh no, if her brother were to know...!
'Kill me...'
Rukia decided to put it aside for the moment and turned to look at the person she was protecting.
Her eyes widened.
"Look out!"
(A minute ago)
"Phew. Man this thing's durable," Zenkichi wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked down at the Hollow he had been beating, now scattering into dark particles.
"I should say the same thing to this as well." He glanced at the bat on his shoulder and inspected it again out of curiosity.
[The Bonk]
[Description: A legendary wooden baseball bat crafted by the Inugami to fight against evil spirits that have... inappropriate(horny) thoughts. It does its job well in hitting hard on normal target, but it deals effectively more damage against those with horny thoughts.]
[1st Form Requirement to unlock: One must bonk 69 perverts in order to unlock its first form.]
[0/69]
'Seriously, why did I get this? This is a weapon against perverts and I'm, well, a hentai protagonist according to the system. It doesn't make sense.' He scratched his cheek, deep in thought.
'Wouldn't this make me... some sort of Ally of Justice? Ha!' He chuckled and furrowed his brows, laying a hand on his stomach.
'What...is this feeling I have in my gut? It feels so—'
"Look out!"
Zenkichi's thoughts was quickly cut off by Rukia's yell.
But he didn't panic.
What kind of a fighter was he if he let down his guard in a unpredictable situation like this? That damned White Demon would've killed him already if he didn't have good spatial awareness.
Although... he had gotten rusty for a while.
He simply pretended to let down his guard, to force out whatever's been stalking him from the shadows.
*Swish!*
And as expected.
Zenkichi turned his head just in time to see the creature lunging from the darkness.
It was bipedal and vaguely humanoid, with dark-red skin, three glowing eyes, and six arms ending in clawed hands. An ominous, heavy dark aura radiated from its body like thick smoke.
It wasn't a Hollow.
It was a Cursed Spirit, or Curse.
It was a race of spiritual beings invisible to humans, similar to Hollows. But unlike corrupted souls, Curses are incarnated from the cursed energy that leaks out of humans over time due to their negative emotions.
Curses are created when cursed energy leaks from humans as a result of their harboring of negative emotions. Cursed energy thus gathers in one spot, building up like sediment until a cursed spirit takes form.
And this particular Curse... it was something.
It looked at him with hunger... and had something strange. That something was pointing hard to the sky from its lower body.
Zenkichi's expression instantly changed.
It was a mix of disgust and disbelief.
Before he could think, his body moved first.
His eyes, besides his pupils turning white, turned completely pitch-black. He tightened his grip on his wooden bat with two hands, the Bonk began glowing a dark eerie red light, veins popping around his hands and arms.
He then swung with savage force.
*BONK!*
*ZZZSSST!*
The bat connected with the side of the Curse's head in a brutal overhead strike. The impact produced a deep, resonant crack mixed with a sickening wet sound, as intense black-red lightning exploded outward from the point of contact.
"That's...!" Rukia's eyes widened. This was the first time she ever saw it, but it was widely known in the supernatural world. Specifically from the force that calls themselves Jujutsu Sorcerers.
It was a rare technique that causes a distortion in space which could only occur when cursed energy is applied within 0.000001 seconds of a physical hit. It offers several benefits to the user, but the most important thing about it was...
It was fucking badass.
And it was called Black Flash.
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
AN: Sorry for the late update, the internet went out and a blackout followed after. The next chapter's gonna be a bit late as well because of it. I'm currently on my grandparents' place, located high on a mountain just for a signal.
Shameless plug-in here:
pa/t/reon.com/FroztDouluo