The members of the Tsunayashiro clan arrived before The Cleaner, which was constrained by a sealing art.
Two of them stepped forward and performed some kind of art on The Cleaner to adjust it.
A moment later, the art was complete.
"Lord Akito! Everything is ready. The sealing art cast by the Kidō Corps won't be able to restrain The Cleaner for long!"
They had enhanced The Cleaner's power so it could break through the seal cast by the Kidō Corps.
"Very good. As soon as The Cleaner takes care of Kakyō, we will immediately retrieve the Soul King fragment."
The Tsunayashiro clan members intended to go to the scene themselves.
The Cleaner is the entity of the Dangai, and it is surrounded by a raging current of time. Anyone struck by it would be swept into this current.
They needed to ensure Kakyō wasn't thrown too deep into the time current, otherwise even they would have a hard time finding the Soul King fragment on her.
However, they didn't expect a powerful Vasto Lorde to appear in the Dangai, completely disrupting their plans.
The group, wearing cloaks that concealed their forms, watched the battle between the Vasto Lorde and the Shinigami.
"Lord Akito... it seems things are getting out of our control," one of the black-robed men said in a low voice.
"Tsk, tsk. Didn't you say your plan was foolproof? It looks like an accident is about to happen," Tokinada Tsunayashiro said sarcastically.
"Shut up!" Akito Tsunayashiro said grimly. "It doesn't matter if Kakyō is killed by this Vasto Lorde. We can still find an opportunity to retrieve it!"
But the situation on the battlefield was changing rapidly. The Vasto Lorde, who had been slaughtering Shinigami just moments ago, was suddenly immobilized by Kana Azashiro and Kakyō.
Moreover, The Cleaner rushed out from the passage at that very moment.
"This Hollow is useless, can't even kill a student from the Spiritual Arts Academy!" Akito Tsunayashiro sneered. "There's no time. Act now, pull Kakyō and Katori Sora's other disciple into the time current."
He wanted to pull Kana Azashiro into the current as well.
Katori Sora had repeatedly thwarted the Tsunayashiro clan's plans, and Akito had been in charge of these matters. The repeated failures had significantly diminished his influence within the family.
Akito hated Katori Sora to the core. Now that he had a god-sent opportunity to kill another of Sora's disciples, he wouldn't miss it.
"Yes!" the black-robed man replied.
The Tsunayashiro clan had studied The Cleaner extensively; they could even slightly interfere with the raging time current that accompanied it.
They had ways to avoid being swept into the depths of the current.
The moment The Cleaner arrived, the group entered the periphery of the time current.
At the same time, two of the black-robed men threw out long white whips, pulling both Kakyō and Kana Azashiro into the raging current of time.
Szaelaporro, who was ignored by everyone, was knocked deeper into the time current by The Cleaner and disappeared without a trace.
...
After receiving the notification from Ayane Kotetsu, Sora rushed to the Dangai.
Seeing the situation there, his heart sank.
The casualties among the Shinigami were severe.
Furthermore, Sora couldn't sense the Spiritual Pressure of Kana Azashiro or Kakyō, and he began to worry.
Retsu Unohana was also there, treating the injured with her medical team.
"Captain Unohana, what's the situation now?" Sora approached her.
"The Kidō Corps has suffered heavy casualties. The situation is not optimistic," Retsu Unohana said as she treated a wounded Shinigami.
"What exactly happened here?" Sora asked.
"He's the leader of the Kidō Corps team. If you want to know what happened, Katori-kun, you can ask him," Unohana said, pointing to a Shinigami not far away.
Sora saw Instructor Sakai was also with the team leader.
Instructor Sakai was unconscious, and a medical team member was using Kaidō to treat her.
"Professor Katori, you're here too!"
"I came to see. You continue the treatment." Sora nodded to the medical officer who greeted him, then checked Instructor Sakai's injuries.
Sora found that her wounds contained a Hollow's spiritual particles.
"Cero..." Sora frowned.
From the state of the injury, he could tell at a glance that it was caused by an explosion.
At the time, Instructor Sakai had also joined the Kidō Corps in using Hadō against Szaelaporro, so she was caught in the Cero he fired in retaliation.
The Kidō Corps leader was nearby, also being treated by a medical officer.
However, the team leader was conscious.
After learning that the Kidō Corps was responsible for Kakyō's assessment, Sora had gone to see Hachigen Ushōda to catch up and had met this team leader. They were acquaintances.
"Let me help." Sora took over the treatment of the team leader. "Yoshino-kun, what kind of accident did you encounter in the Dangai to cause such heavy casualties?"
"Professor Katori, you're here..." The team leader looked ashamed. "It's embarrassing to say, but I broke my promise. I failed to take good care of your student."
"Yoshino-kun, you're being too serious. No one can predict an accident on a mission." Sora shook his head gently and continued, "I sense the power of a Hollow in your wounds. Did you encounter a powerful one?"
"Yes, we encountered a powerful Vasto Lorde. He called himself Szaelaporro. He was incredibly strong. With just one Cero, he inflicted massive casualties on us." The team leader broke into a cold sweat just thinking about Szaelaporro's terrifying Cero.
Szaelaporro's Gran Rey Cero was already powerful, and the narrow space of the Dangai made it difficult to evade, maximizing its destructive power.
"Szaelaporro!" Sora frowned. He remembered that name. He was one of the future Espada of the Arrancar.
He was indeed a powerful Hollow.
However, at this point in time, Aizen Sōsuke had not yet taken control of Las Noches and created the Arrancar, so Szaelaporro should not be an Arrancar yet.
"Where are Kana Azashiro and Kakyō? And how did you manage to repel Szaelaporro?" Sora asked.
Szaelaporro was not an Arrancar at this point, but that didn't mean he was weaker than his future Arrancar form.
The future Arrancar version of Szaelaporro had been split, greatly reducing his power.
Although becoming an Arrancar could compensate for some of the power lost due to the split, it was hard to say which form was stronger.
After all, the complete Szaelaporro had been designated by Aizen as the original Espada Cero.
At this time, Szaelaporro was a top-tier powerhouse in Hueco Mundo. Sora didn't believe that under normal circumstances, the Shinigami from the Kidō Corps and the 3rd Division could have repelled him. Something else must have happened.
"Kana Azashiro, Kakyō, and that Vasto Lorde were all hit by The Cleaner. I'm afraid they've all been swept into the time's raging current..." the team leader sighed. "If it weren't for Kana and Kakyō holding him back, that Vasto Lorde wouldn't have been hit by The Cleaner either."
"The rest of us survived thanks to them!"
Sora's heart sank.
Being hit by The Cleaner meant being swept into the raging current of time.
If it was just a small time fluctuation, Kana and Kakyō might reappear in a few days or months.
If they were thrown centuries into the future or past, their spiritual bodies would likely be torn apart instantly by the current.
"Why would The Cleaner appear? Weren't you repairing the Dangai's barrier? You should have restricted its movements beforehand!" Sora remembered that the Kidō Corps should have been able to restrain The Cleaner.
"That's what I find strange too!" The team leader frowned. "The first thing we did when we arrived was to seal The Cleaner in place to prevent it from disturbing our work, but it somehow broke free from the sealing art we set up..."
"Your sealing art failed?"
"I just went to check. The sealing art was broken through by The Cleaner... It's the first time I've ever seen such a thing. I haven't found the reason yet."
The team leader had been in the Kidō Corps for one or two hundred years and had performed many missions to maintain the Dangai barrier. He was very familiar with the sealing art for The Cleaner, but what happened now was something he had never seen before.
"This has become complicated... I don't know to what point in time Kana and Kakyō have been sent..." Sora's brow furrowed tightly.
"If they weren't swept into the depths of the time current, they wouldn't be sent too far..." the team leader said.
The Dangai barrier still needed to be repaired, and the Kidō Corps would continue to dispatch teams to fix it.
Sora also stayed in the Dangai to search for Kana and Kakyō.
Sora assumed they were swept away with Szaelaporro. If they managed to escape the time current, it was very likely they would appear together with him.
In that case, they would have to face the threat of Szaelaporro again.
...
Several months later.
Somewhere in the Dangai.
Several figures in black robes appeared in the passage along with Kana Azashiro and Kakyō.
"Who are you people?" Kana pulled Kakyō up and watched the figures warily.
She didn't know whether to call it good luck or bad. During their fight with Szaelaporro, they encountered The Cleaner.
Although they were swept into the turbulent time flow, they also escaped from Szaelaporro's grasp.
Previously, Kana had thought the long whips were thrown by Szaelaporro to pull them into the time current.
It turned out the whips were thrown by these black-robed people.
Now it seemed likely that these people had been watching from the sidelines in the Dangai from the very beginning.
Kana did not think these people were allies.
Hiding in the Dangai, spying on the Shinigami's battle, and then pulling her and Kakyō into the time current—they clearly had ill intentions.
"Are you Shinigami?" Kakyō asked.
"I am your fiancé, Miss Kakyō!" Tokinada Tsunayashiro threw back his hood, revealing a twisted smile.
For this woman who dared to refuse him, Tokinada had long since placed her on his kill list.
"Tokinada Tsunayashiro!"
Kana and Kakyō exclaimed in unison, both shocked.
Neither of them expected to see this face here.
"Stop wasting time and retrieve the Soul King fragment!" Akito Tsunayashiro urged.
He wasn't sure how far that Vasto Lorde had been carried by the time current. To avoid any accidents, it was best to retrieve the fragment as soon as possible.
"You're Vice-Director Tsunayashiro!" Kakyō recognized Akito's rather distinctive voice.
"Were you the ones who broke the art sealing The Cleaner? No wonder it appeared so suddenly!" Kakyō said in shock.
For the past two days, she had been working with the Kidō Corps examiners and knew that The Cleaner had been sealed by an art.
They sealed it specifically to avoid being disturbed while repairing and improving the barrier.
However, The Cleaner broke through the seal set up by her examiners and appeared before them.
The sudden appearance of The Cleaner was not normal.
Combined with the current situation, she quickly guessed that this was a trap set for her by the Tsunayashiro clan!
She never imagined that simply because she refused to marry into their family, they would set such a trap to ambush her.
She didn't even know Tokinada Tsunayashiro. Her refusal should have been a matter of course, yet they made things so difficult for her, even trying to kill her.
It was utterly malicious!
What was worse, her senior, Kana Azashiro, had also been dragged into it.
Kakyō felt a deep sense of guilt.
"So it was you!" Kana stood in front of Kakyō, bending down to draw her sword.
A flash of light shot out from the scabbard, rapidly striking towards Akito Tsunayashiro.
Clang—
"A mere seated officer, daring to show off in front of me!" Akito raised his sword horizontally, blocking the flash of light.
In his youth, Akito had been a vice-captain and was considered a veteran powerhouse. He looked down on Kana's strength.
Moreover, there were several Tsunayashiro elites here whose strength was no less than that of seated officers or vice-captains.
Few families in the entire Soul Society could assemble such a lineup!
With their strength, taking down a seated officer and an ungraduated student should have been child's play.
But the next moment, an even more dazzling flash of light arrived in an instant from the depths of the Dangai.
Puchi—
Akito's disdainful expression quickly turned to shock. He felt a cold sensation on his neck, and his vision began to spin.
Before he could react, his neck was torn apart by the instantaneous flash of light.
Akito Tsunayashiro's head spun in the air.
The head rolled on the ground.
Only then did Akito see countless streams of blood spraying from his own headless corpse.
Akito's remaining Spiritual Pressure was keeping him alive, but his severed throat prevented him from speaking a complete sentence.
"Is this... Katori Sora's sword... How did he get here so fast..."
A final thought flashed through Akito's mind, and then he heard a gentle voice from above:
"Since you're tired of living, I'll see you on your way."
A foot stepped out from the darkness and crushed the head on the ground.
----------------------
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