Scalding brain matter mixed with blood sprayed outward like a sudden downpour.
The massive Kurokisa Hollow collapsed in a lifeless heap, its shattered limbs clattering against each other with the harsh ring of metal on metal before crashing to the ground. Dust billowed skyward in a choking cloud.
Kisaragi Akira withdrew his fist—still dripping with viscous brain matter—and wiped it off against the Hollow's rigid, armored hide. His chest heaved with rough, uneven breaths.
"Yeah… no way I could've taken that thing down without stripping the top layer off."
Even after channeling the power granted through his ritual—strengthening his body in every possible way—he was still miles away from matching the Kurokisa's raw might.
So the moment their fight escalated into a kill-or-be-killed struggle…
The Hollow's instincts exploded to maximum. Its desperate will to survive pushed it into a frenzy, forcing Akira to unleash everything he had. The clash was so brutal that his zanpakutō had been knocked clean out of his hand and flung somewhere across the battlefield.
Which left him no choice but to go bare-chested, fists flying, smashing through the Hollow's iron-plated hide blow after blow until he finally punched the last spark of life out of its monstrous body.
And in the process, Akira ended up taking a beating severe enough to make a medic faint.
To be fair… facing an Adjuchas-class Hollow, this was the very definition of going all-in.
Ritual power, anomalous spirit modes, Byakura lightning bursts, his personal system perks, Aizawa's remote support…
If it was usable, he'd used it.
Honestly, for a student at his current spiritual pressure level, managing to kill an Adjuchas at all was absurd.
Normally—not to mention Adjuchas—even a Gillian required a vice-captain-class Shinigami to put down.
At minimum, someone with a fully mastered shikai.
And the textbooks at the Spiritual Arts Academy even mentioned that some Hollows of this caliber technically fell under the jurisdiction of the Royal Guards.
Meanwhile, Akira had been enrolled for less than six months. Forget shikai—he didn't even know what his zanpakutō was called yet.
And he still punched an Adjuchas to death through sheer stacked buffs.
Standing atop the Kurokisa's shattered skull, Akira turned toward the direction that spiritual pressure was approaching from. The moment he saw the outfit worn by the man in front…
He clicked his tongue in disdain.
The "victim"—actually, the perpetrator—was already off reporting to the authorities. And now these guys show up? What, were they here to mop up the mess and write the incident report?
The young man leading the group wore a white captain's haori over the standard black uniform, long blond hair drifting elegantly behind him. From the back alone, he could've passed for a legendary bishounen heart-throb.
Too bad he was a guy.
Hirako Shinji stood opposite Akira, staring at the scene with a face drained of color. His shock had long surpassed the limits of what he thought possible.
He'd rushed over the moment he received Nemu's emergency signal; he'd been afraid he would arrive too late and end up doing nothing but body recovery and area cleanup.
Turns out he still couldn't avoid those duties—just… not in the way he expected.
The Hollow was dead.The boy was alive.
And more terrifying than anything was the figure standing atop that Hollow's skull, drenched head-to-toe in blood, wounds of every shape and size split open across his body like gruesome red petals.
But the eyes looking back at Shinji—
Their gazes met, and Shinji's heart clenched on instinct.
The killing intent hadn't faded yet.It wrapped around him like cold steel pressing into his chest.
Behind him, the 5th Division members stiffened in terror. Even without releasing a shred of spiritual pressure, the blood-soaked youth atop the corpse made their instincts scream. They'd witnessed many Hollow-slaying missions, but never—not once—had they even heard of a Shinigami smashing an Adjuchas to death with his bare fists.
The squad members shrank behind their captain, eyes trembling as if Akira might suddenly leap over and deck them all.
And the instant Akira's eyes swept across them, a shiver rippled through the entire troop. Every pore on their bodies snapped open, icy dread flooding straight into their nerves.
The fear deepened.
Akira, meanwhile, had no intention of talking to this group.
Once he confirmed the Kurokisa Hollow was completely dead, he hopped down from the corpse's towering frame and—
Began digging through the battlefield rubble.
Several curious gazes focused on him, Shinji included. Confusion was written all over the captain's face.
He opened his mouth, about to ask if the kid needed help, when Akira's voice suddenly rang out:
"Aizawa! Help me find my zanpakutō!"
After rummaging around fruitlessly for a while, Akira realized sheathing the sword and leaving in style wasn't happening today. So instead, he left only a dramatic back view for the cleanup crew—well, that was his intention.
Aizawa could only sigh helplessly as he watched the boy shift corpses around in search of his own weapon.
Even though Akira had reached the point of being able to fight solo… his airheaded recklessness hadn't improved. If anything, it'd gotten worse.
He'd read countless battle analyses in the Academy textbooks. He'd devoured piles of strategy manuals from the library.
And never—not once—had he heard of a Shinigami losing his zanpakutō in the middle of a fight.
Even the most reckless brutes of Squad 11 didn't do that.
"A Shinigami and his sword live and die together."That was the very first lesson of Sword Meditation class.
Oh, right.This idiot never listened in theory courses.
Well, that explained everything.
Still—discarding one's zanpakutō was ridiculous even by ridiculous standards.
"Ah—found it!"
Thanks to the combined efforts of the surrounding Shinigami, Akira finally yanked his sword free from a broken limb of the Kurokisa. He wiped the blade with obvious satisfaction before sliding it neatly into the scabbard.
He looked… terrible.
His shrine-style training robes were shredded beyond recognition, blood oozing from countless wounds until he looked more like someone who had crawled up from a literal mountain of corpses.
Shinji stepped forward, ready to question him about what exactly had happened—but before he could speak, the barrier behind them suddenly burst apart.
A flood of Kurokisa lesser Hollows poured out, surging toward them like a black tide.
Dozens of sharp, metallic limbs clattered together in a spine-tingling cacophony.
Their instincts kicking in, everyone immediately turned toward Akira.
"What're you looking at me for? You don't actually expect me to keep fighting, do you?"
Akira shouted angrily, raising his blood-stained right arm.
"I'm an injured patient, damn it!"
Shinji glanced at that same fist—the one that had just killed an Adjuchas—and let out a heavy sigh.
His intuition told him this kid was nothing but trouble.If he could help it, Shinji hoped to never have to deal with him again.
"Form defensive positions! Protect the two students!"
His expression sharpened as he issued the command. Then he turned to the incoming swarm.
"These intruders… I'll handle them."
The moment the words left his mouth, he vanished in a flash step, plunging alone into the roaring tide of Hollows.
Within a heartbeat, his white haori was swallowed by the flood.
Then—
A crushing wave of spiritual pressure erupted from within the horde, detonating upward in a pillar of light so intense it tore through the sky.
Akira watched the dazzling spectacle unfold, envy glinting in his eyes.
"Aizawa… if my spiritual pressure reached that level…"
"How many cleanup squads do you think I could flatten?"