Bab 50: A Wandering Soul - Spirit 4.5
I glared at Urahara.
He ignored me.
I glared harder.
On the screen in front of us another battle played out between the Soul Reapers and Aizen's forces. Both of which were quickly being slimmed out by the battles. The Soul Reapers were winning, but most of the time winning simply meant the Hollow died and the Soul Reaper was too injured to move.
If Urahara had let even just me go out as support several of those duels could've been handled quicker, but no, he had a plan.
That plan seemed to be; bleed Aizen's forces as much as possible and dogpile him with whatever remained, but he was sacrificing the Captains that would help with that by allowing them to face off with equal level opponents. Even if they won, they were too injured to be more than a slight distraction for someone on Aizen's level.
Which I brought up several times with my nominal boss, to which he replied 'The Shinigami demanded we stay out of things as long as possible.'
Then he locked me in a barrier when I tried to ignore that bout of stupidity and join the fight.
Oh, I understood their reasoning. It's just that I found their reasoning stupid.
The Soul Reapers were going to handle as much of this mess as possible to placate their nobles, because who cares about the thousands of dead humans if they could prove they were the most powerful faction around. And if they needed help? Well then they would 'allow' our group to give them a hand.
Which was dumb because as far as they knew the only people around judging the strength of Soul Society, was Soul Society themselves.
I was seriously tempted to break out of the barrier and just join the fight on my own but I held back because while I was planning on ditching this place and it's annoying noble caste, Kisuke and Yoruichi would have to deal with them in the future. Causing my friends that kind of trouble just to jump into a fight that had practically been decided already, alone, didn't sit right with me.
It wouldn't stop me from letting Kisuke know exactly what I thought about this plan though.
Often and repeatedly.
The screen flickered from the scene of a wolf headed captain and a scarred lieutenant standing over the hollowfied fallen form of the former 9th division captain to where Aizen was still standing midair.
Aizen's forces were down to basically himself and Gin at this point. So really just himself, but it also meant that we were finally preparing to move.
As the barrier collapsed and we started walking toward the exit I tried one last time to alter the plan.
"You sure you don't want me fighting with you? We both know three on one still might not be enough to weaken Aizen enough."
Kisuke waved me off. "Nah, no point. Aizen already has us under his zanpakuto's sway. If we started winning then we might wind up fighting you. Better keep you as the follow up if we need it."
"I told you I took care of that already!"
"You mean you think you did. Besides you'll just cramp our style. Keep Ichimaru off of us and we'll handle our part."
-o-
When we arrived at the battlefield it was obvious Karakura Town had seen...better days.
What buildings hadn't been crushed, burned, or exploded looked like they had been split horizontally by a single attack that had just...cut a line in the city scape.
I also noticed Ichigo had made an appearance in the time it took us to get here. He was in the middle of fighting Gin on his own and not doing a terrible job, but he also wasn't attacking to kill so at best it was a stalemate, at worst he was slowly losing. A fact that was reinforced when Ichigo barely blocked a stab that sent him crashing into a building close to where Aizen was facing off against Isshin Kurosaki, who had shown up at some point. The other captains must have been defeated while we were on our way over.
I hung back while the others began confronting Aizen. They were right in that I would get in the way at this stage in the plan. The opening was going to be all Kido attacks and since I couldn't use them I had no place here. Instead I stayed just far enough that Aizen and Gin shouldn't pick up on my presence, but also close enough that I could be in front of the silver haired traitor if he tried to interfere at all.
Kisuke launched into a truly stunning display of Kido. Restraining Aizen with layered Bakudo spells before firing a fully encanted Hado in the nineties. Overall it did very little damage, in fact it seemed to merely accelerate the rate Aizen was mutating into a new form as he was covered by a white clothlike material, but it did allow Kisuke to place a seal that basically fried Aizen from the inside out using his own power.
Aizen exploded in a massive column of light, but once again it wasn't enough to do any major damage.
His new form was now a solid white shell that covered him head to toe, the only color was his purple eyes which matched the Hogyoku's own color and a black cross that radiated out from where the jewel was embedded in his chest.
After Aizen neutralized the Reiatsu seal, by tearing them out of his own wrists, Kisuke moved on to physical combat. He and Isshin attacked almost simultaneously, for all the good it did. Aizen seemed to be having fun with his new level of power as he blocked Isshin's attack by catching it with his foot while easily catching Kisuke's sword with his own.
Luckily it was a feint rather than a dedicated attack. As Aizen physically overpowered them, both ex-Soul Reapers slipped a thin chain around his limbs, holding him in place long enough for an armor wearing Yoruichi to dive bomb him out of nowhere and punch him hard enough that she kicked up a dust cloud that covered the entire block.
Aizen's retaliation followed shortly after. A beam of destructive energy shot skyward, destroying the armor on Yoruichi's left leg as she barely dodged out of the way in time.
When the dust and smoke cleared, Aizen stood in the middle of a massive crater. While his body language was completely unaffected, he now had massive cracks covering his body from the force of Yoruichi's attack.
It was proof that despite his power Aizen could be hurt by the three surrounding him...if they stopped messing around and actually fought him!
I palmed my face with a sigh as Yoruichi taunted Aizen by waving her leg around in the air. And while it did seem to distract her opponent -by confusing him if nothing else- it also seemed to weird out her allies more, going by how Kisuke was leaning away from her and Isshin's expression.
I shifted my attention as Aizen went back on the offensive.
While he was undoubtedly the biggest threat here, he wasn't my objective. And it seemed Gin was about to continue his duel with Ichigo if his stance was an indicator. I could let him and the annoyance fight it out, but Gin was an unpredictable element as far as the overall plan went. He wanted Aizen dead, and that should've made him an asset. But he was also obsessive enough about that that he might actually interfere if it looked like someone else was going to do the deed first.
Which meant I needed to either keep him busy until the next phase of the plan began or kill him because I knew for a fact Ichigo wouldn't be able to do that.
My chest grew warm as I started slowly drawing in some of the free flowing Reishi Particles in the air. Unlike in the Soul Society, I was able to control the rate I drew them in so I was no longer breaking myself in the process. That wasn't the only thing I was better at either.
I blurred into existence in front of Ichigo with Haste 3.0 and batted Gin's Shinso to the side with a sweep of an arm. A little amusingly, Ichigo reacted to Gin's attack but not my arrival and dove to the ground. I gave him an amused glance, which he scowled at, before turning back to Gin.
"Hello again, Gin. I'd rather you didn't do that."
The only indication the ex-Captain was surprised by my sudden intervention was his raised eyebrows, which he quickly lowered and then smirked at me. "Well now, if it isn't little miss Cross. I was worried ya didn't survive our last encounter when we didn't see ya with the little band that went to rescue the princess."
He shifted his sword back so the hilt was cupped in both his hands at chest level and the blade was pointed at me.
"But ya know those three probably won't be enough to beat Aizen-san on their own, hm? Or are you just too weak to assist them?" He said with a smirk.
"They can handle him for now." My left hand came up to point at him, palm out. "And once everything is ready, then I'll take care of Aizen."
Gin's smirk dropped. "Hmm, how scary. Ya actually believe that. Let's see if ya can back it up. Kamishini no Yari: Buto."
His Zanpakuto extended so quickly it was essentially a flash of silver...until it was stopped by a deceivingly delicate pinkish shield made of several layered petals.
"Rho Aias." I intoned smugly. "I was watching you earlier. You might have the fastest sword around...but that's useless if it can't pierce my defenses, isn't it?"
"Hmm, is that so?" Gin drawled. "Let's see how you handle this then."
Kamishini no Yari: Buto Renjin."
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