The girl Senna, who had just been slaughtering enemies left and right, had somehow vanished into thin air!
"?! Where did she go?!"
Yusuke rubbed his eyes in disbelief, looking around. "Botan! Did you see where Senna went? She was just standing right here!"
Botan was equally bewildered, spinning around a few times in mid-air. "I... I didn't see! My attention was entirely on you guys just now, I completely missed when that girl disappeared!"
Asuka and Shinobu were in the same situation, so Asuka quickly pulled out the metal radar given to him by Kisuke Urahara.
On the screen, the red dot representing the Shinenju hadn't disappeared; instead, it was moving toward the depths of the thick fog at an astonishing speed.
"She ran off," Asuka said, staring at the radar screen.
"Ran off? Why would she run?" Yusuke was completely baffled. "Wasn't she just helping me fight the monsters?"
"...It's complicated, but now isn't the time to dwell on that." Asuka tucked the radar back into his pocket, his expression turning solemn. "She's moving extremely fast, and the trajectory is unnatural. It doesn't look like she's running on her own."
"It's more like she fled from us, only to be forcibly taken away by something else."
"What?!" Yusuke's heart tightened, and blue Spiritual Energy surged around his body once more.
Although he had known Senna for less than half a day, he absolutely could not sit idly by while that girl—who had a bright smile, bickered with him, and even stepped up to help him fight in moments of danger—fell into peril.
"Botan, help us scout from the sky! We have to get Senna back!"
"Understood! Leave it to me!" Botan revved her oar, turning into a streak of pink light as she soared into the grayish-white sky.
The group dashed rapidly through the fog-shrouded streets.
As they ventured deeper into the central area where the Valley of Screams overlapped with the World of the Living, the surrounding scenery became increasingly bizarre.
Modern asphalt roads and towering skyscrapers gradually vanished, replaced by desolate graveyards, dilapidated ancient shrines, and shattered tombstones floating in mid-air.
The space here was distorted to the extreme. In some areas, gravity had completely lost its effect, and ruined walls could even be seen hanging upside down in the sky.
Beep beep beep beep—!
The radar in Asuka's pocket let out a piercing alarm, and the red dot on the screen stopped less than a hundred meters away from them.
"Just ahead."
The group passed through a patch of floating ruins and arrived at an extremely spacious plaza.
In the center of the plaza stood a ruined torii gate.
Beneath that torii gate, Senna lay collapsed on the ground, seemingly unconscious, with Mirokumaru dropped by her side.
"Senna!" Yusuke shouted, about to rush over.
"Stop!" Asuka reached out and yanked Yusuke back. "Look around her!"
Yusuke focused his gaze and realized that several hazy figures were standing around the area where Senna had fallen.
Those figures wore uniform light green kimono, layered with armor bearing ancient noble crests.
They wore various hideous demon masks on their faces and gripped differently shaped blades in their hands.
The aura emanating from them... made one feel extremely uncomfortable.
Standing right in front of these people was a tall, middle-aged man without a mask.
He had long gray hair and a cold, arrogant face, looking down condescendingly at the unconscious Senna.
"Finally caught you, precious Shinenju."
"Who are you?!" Yusuke roared furiously. "Let Senna go!"
The man raised his head, his gaze sweeping over Yusuke with the arrogance of a superior before landing on Asuka and Shinobu Kocho.
"Oh? To think Soul Reapers actually managed to track us down." His tone was full of contempt and mockery. "And it's a nameless, small-fry Soul Reaper whose face I've never even seen."
"I am the head of the Ryudoji Clan, Ganryu Ryudoji." The man arrogantly declared his name. "Are you lapdogs driven by the Gotei 13 ready to face my wrath?"
The Ryudoji Clan?
Asuka was completely unfamiliar with this name, but Shinobu seemed to recall something, her expression turning grim.
"Asuka! Be careful! I saw this name in Captain Unohana's archives!" she said in a low voice. "A millennium ago, a severe internal rebellion broke out in the Soul Society..."
"They are the rebellious nobles who failed to usurp power in the Seireitei and were exiled to the Dangai by the Captain-Commander! One of those lineages is the Ryudoji!"
"Rebellious nobles?" Asuka sneered. "Putting on airs, when you're just a pack of exiled stray dogs."
"Shut up!" an aide beside Ganryu shouted angrily. "Lapdogs! We already know that your Captain-Commander Yamamoto has been murdered!"
"Our Ryudoji Clan has endured in the Dangai for a millennium, waiting for this very opportunity to exact our revenge on the Soul Society!"
"As long as we utilize the power of this Shinenju, we can completely fuse the Valley of Screams with the Soul Society, bringing total destruction to that rotting Seireitei!"
Ganryu raised the longsword in his hand and slammed it heavily against the ground.
"Foolish Soul Reapers, in this abnormal space depleted of Reishi, your powers have been drastically weakened. You can't even fully release your Zanpakuto, can you?" Ganryu laughed triumphantly. "But we can turn all of this to our advantage!"
Ganryu simply waved his hand.
From the dense grayish-white fog surrounding them, a massive number of mutated Blanks suddenly emerged.
These Blanks did not attack the members of the Ryudoji Clan; instead, like moths drawn to a flame, they willingly threw themselves into the samurai wearing light green kimono.
A bizarre scene unfolded.
The samurai of the Ryudoji Clan actually opened their mouths and directly inhaled the colliding Blanks into their bodies!
And as the Blanks continuously poured in, the original Spiritual Pressure on these samurai began to skyrocket madly.
The Zanpakuto in their hands also emitted a blinding light, with violent grayish-white air currents wrapping around the blades as they each transformed into their respective released states.
"Do you see? This is the power we command!" Ganryu roared arrogantly. "In this world, we are invincible!"
"Tear them to shreds!"
"Kill!!!"
Several Ryudoji samurai, their Spiritual Pressure surging after absorbing the power of the Blanks, brandished their weapons and lunged at Asuka and the others.
"Damn it! To actually treat those memoryless souls as food to replenish your strength!" Watching this scene, the anger in Yusuke Urameshi's heart erupted, completely forgetting how many of those exact same souls he had just shattered...
He gathered dazzling blue spiritual light in both hands simultaneously and met the two leading samurai head-on.
"Double Spirit Gun!"
Two thick pillars of blue energy blasted out, directly striking the chests of the two samurai.
However, to Yusuke's surprise, the two samurai were not blown away.
A layer of grayish-white light rippled across their light green armor, forcefully withstanding the impact of the Spirit Gun!
"Brat, although your Spiritual Energy is unique, it's completely useless against the secret armor of our Ryudoji Clan!"
One of the samurai grinned savagely, viciously swinging a club down toward Yusuke's shoulder.