Chapter 87: The Soul-Forged Path
Akatsurugi felt no moral quandary about his plan. What did it matter if the dead died a few more times? They were already dead.
He took to the skies, his flight swift and silent. It didn't take him long to locate a bandit encampment in a remote region. To his mild surprise, the bandit leader was a Genin—a low-ranking shinobi who had apparently found a more profitable, if less honorable, line of work. Akatsurugi captured the man, along with his second-in-command, a wandering samurai with no chakra but a decent sword arm. Their strength was irrelevant; they were merely vessels for a test.
Returning to the seclusion of the Shikkotsu Forest, he threw the two terrified captives to the ground. Their fear was palpable; the man who had captured them could fly and had subdued them with sealing techniques before they could even react.
Ignoring their pleas, Akatsurugi focused, recalling the intricate hand seals and formulae for the Impure World Reincarnation. He moved with practiced precision, applying the special talismanic paper to the two men's bodies. Before their eyes, their forms began to shift and warp, their features melting away to be replaced by those of the Third Raikage and the former Two-Tails Jinchuriki, Takahashi.
As he completed the final seal, their eyes snapped open. Confusion gave way to sharp recognition.
"Akatsurugi!" they exclaimed in unison, then stared at each other. "Takahashi?" "Lord Third?"
They tried to move, but found their bodies unresponsive, held in place by Akatsurugi's maintained hand seal. He had no intention of inserting control talismans; he didn't need obedient puppets, just living targets.
He released the seal. The restrictions vanished. The Third Raikage instinctively lunged forward, only to stop mid-stride, staring at his own hands in disgust.
"So... weak," he murmured, a few pitiful arcs of lightning sputtering around his fist. "What is this body?"
Beside him, Takahashi struggled to muster even a wisp of chakra, let alone access the power of the Two-Tails. This vessel couldn't even produce a respectable Fireball jutsu.
Akatsurugi raised an eyebrow. So that's the limitation. The jutsu was still crude. It required more powerful sacrifices to approach the original's strength. No wonder Orochimaru had dedicated so much of his life to refining it; it wasn't a ready-made weapon.
"Akatsurugi, you—" the Third Raikage began, but his words were cut short.
In a flicker of movement, Akatsurugi was beside him. Ryūjin Jakka slid into the Raikage's chest with a soft hiss. A faint wisp of soul energy was drawn into the blade—a minuscule amount—and the reincarnated body crumbled into dust. Above, the spectral form of the Third Raikage looked down, its expression unreadable, before dissolving into motes of white light and vanishing.
Akatsurugi frowned. He had felt it—a tiny, almost negligible increase in power. To accumulate enough for Bankai this way would take an eternity.
He turned to Takahashi and repeated the process with the same result. As the Jinchuriki's soul departed, a new realization dawned on him. His zanpakutō didn't just absorb souls; it seemed to liberate them from the Impure World Reincarnation's bindings. It was a natural counter to the forbidden technique.
For a moment, he almost felt pity for the future Orochimaru. To have his ultimate trump card so utterly neutered by a single blade... it would be a devastating blow.
It was a small consolation.
Sitting cross-legged again, he pondered his next move. Would he have to become a soul-reaping specter on the battlefield?
"Wait," he muttered. "The last time my soul left my body... I attracted the Shinigami."
His eyes narrowed. The Shinigami's soul power was immense. If he could claim even a fraction of it...
He acted on the thought immediately. Performing the Mind Body Switch Technique, his soul, clad in its shinigami-like shihakushō, emerged from his body. He hovered in the air, watching his physical form below.
He didn't have to wait long. Within half an hour, the air grew cold and heavy. The Shinigami appeared, its monstrous form towering, its single eye fixed on Akatsurugi's soul with naked, ravenous hunger.
"It took the bait," Akatsurugi thought, a thrill of anticipation running through him. Last time in Konoha, he had retreated to avoid exposure. Here, there were no witnesses.
Gripping his spiritual Ryūjin Jakka, he shot forward. A flicker of contempt crossed the Shinigami's face before it swung its massive scythe in a brutal, cleaving arc.
The collision was thunderous. To the Shinigami's shock, it was the one forced back, stumbling four or five steps, its gaze now one of stunned recognition and fury. This soul... the one from before.
I have existed since the dawn of time, it thought, its rage building. My soul power is vast as the ocean. I will not be humiliated by a mortal wisp!
A blinding white aura erupted from the death god, its form swelling, expanding, until it stood over a hundred meters tall, a true colossus of the spirit world. It looked down at the ant-like Akatsurugi and brought its scythe down again.
This time, the force was overwhelming. Akatsurugi was smashed from the air, his spiritual form cratering the ground as he skidded to a halt.
He pushed himself up, staring at the gargantuan entity. So it could amplify its power. This was a real fight.
"Hehehe!" The Shinigami's laugh was a grating, skeletal rasp. It charged, its scythe aiming to cleave Akatsurugi in two.
A fierce grin spread across Akatsurugi's face. "Reduce all creation to ashes... Ryūjin Jakka!"
The blade in his hand erupted into an inferno. He swung it in a wide, defiant arc.
"Torch!"
A cataclysmic tornado of fire erupted from the ground, a roaring pillar of incineration that engulfed the charging Shinigami. The flames burned with the heat of a sun, spinning at a terrifying velocity, seeking to consume everything within.
Trapped inside the maelstrom, the Shinigami's triumphant glee turned to a shrill, piercing shriek that tore through the spiritual plane. The sound was one of pure agony and terror, the cry of an ancient entity facing true, soul-scorching pain for the first time.
The fire tornado raged on, spinning faster, burning brighter, mercilessly devouring the divine form within its heart.