If There Were No One to Pity, There Could Be No Pity
Pity would be no more, / If we did not make somebody Poor.
--William Blake, Songs of Experience (1794)
The path leading up the mountain was not wide; a stone path, worn smooth by countless footsteps, wound its way up from the edge of the Settlement, flanked by dense thickets of shrubs with intertwined branches.
At the beginning of the stone steps, a Buddhist shrine stands quietly by the roadside.
The niche was small, its wooden roof blackened by wind and rain, with a few wisps of withered yellow grass hanging from the eaves, suggesting it had been empty for a long time. However, the statue inside the niche was newly made.
It is evident that the sculptor put a lot of thought into carving this statue. In order to fully present the enormous size of the Mountain God, the size of the statue was deliberately adjusted to match the proportion of the niche. At first glance, it looks like a giant that has been crammed into a small box.
The entire statue is grayish-white, made of the most common Blue Rock found in Peony Mountain. The carvings are rough, but the lines are delicate and clean.
Sylvan stood in front of the niche, gazing intently at the statues inside.
The statue depicts a creature without a traditional head, with a prominent spine and lifelike muscle definition on its back, and robust animal feet as its lower body.
Its most striking feature is the huge purple eye that used to be on its head.
That eye was almost the only colored part of the entire statue. Deep purple paint was applied layer upon layer to the stone surface, and after it dried, it formed a texture similar to glass. There were extremely fine cracks on the surface, and some brighter purple light spots seeped out from the cracks, flickering as if breathing.
"Rook," Sylvan said the name unconsciously.
Oren jumped down from Sylvan's arms, circled the shrine, and squatted at the statue's feet, tilting his head to look at the purple eye. His tail twitched involuntarily, and the silver vertical pupil reflected the dark purple eye. "Hmm, I have that feeling too. This sculpture is of Rook."
Rain stopped at the top of the niche and looked down at the statue.
Marechiyo Ōmaeda stood a few steps away, arms crossed, his gaze sweeping from the statue to Sylvan's expression. "So, is this the companion you're looking for?"
Sylvan was about to speak--
Boom--!
A muffled, loud thud came from the mountaintop, followed by a violent clash of Reiatsu. The two forces collided and tore at each other in mid-air, and the aftershocks of the Reiatsu poured down the mountain ridge, making the stone steps beneath their feet tremble.
Marechiyo Ōmaeda's pupils contracted sharply. He jerked his head up to look at the mountaintop. As the aftershocks of Reiatsu cascaded down the ridge, that familiar feeling made the hairs on his body stand on end. "Tenken! This is the Reiatsu of Tenken!"
"The Zanpakuto that Zanpakuto injured its wielder, Captain Komamura, on the very first night of the rebellion!" Marechiyo Ōmaeda's expression was grave. "I have no doubt about that Reiatsu. I never expected to encounter it here..."
Sylvan, however, was concerned about another Reiatsu.
That Reiatsu was heavy and viscous, as if it came from a murky swamp, yet it possessed boundless vitality and clashed with the fiery and fierce Reiatsu of the Tenken. It felt like a mountain pressing down on one's chest, containing a silent and unyielding pressure.
Rook.
"Hurry!" Sylvan activated Oren and stepped onto the black and red waves that Oren had transformed into, gripping his cane and rushing upwards, with Rain following closely behind.
The mountain path grew steeper and steeper underfoot, the stone steps became irregularly spaced, and in some places they even broke off completely. The higher Hanataro climbed, the Hanatarō his face became.
"Why is this happening? What are they trying to do?" He walked at the very back. Along the way, there were shallow craters created by the Reiatsu, vegetation was overturned, and soil was piled up by the roadside, as if they had come up the mountain to plow the land, plowing wherever they went.
Upon reaching a platform halfway up the mountain, which appeared to be a place for resting, the scene suddenly became horrific.
Half of the hillside was sheared off, exposing the grayish-white rock layers underneath. Broken stones were scattered on the mountain path, some as tall as half a person.
Trees along the way were uprooted and lay scattered haphazardly on the slope, their roots still attached to large clumps of soil, as if they had been pulled from the ground by a giant hand. Some trees were broken in half, with jagged cuts and debris scattered all over the ground.
What shocked everyone even more was the whole body lying inside.
The first person discovered was a middle-aged man. His lower body was buried in rubble, with only his chest and above exposed. His hands were limply resting on the surface of the rubble, his face was covered in dust, his lips were purple, and he was already unconscious.
Hanatarō threw down his medicine basket and knelt in front of the rubble, starting to dig through the stones. "Wake up, wake up quickly, hold on, stay conscious!"
At Marechiyo Ōmaeda's signal, Gegetsuburi went to help, prying the large rocks apart one by one, and Hanatarō took the opportunity to pull Cheng out from between the rocks.
Immediately Marechiyo Ōmaeda also made a discovery: a young woman trapped in the mud, with only one hand sticking out. When Marechiyo Ōmaeda pulled her out of the mud, she had already stopped breathing.
Hanatarō came over and forced out the muddy water stuck in her throat, and she gradually regained her faint breathing.
They were searched out one by one, some crushed under fallen tree trunks, others thrown by Reiatsu shockwaves and slammed against rock walls, their backs bleeding from the rough rocks.
Ichigo walked beside Sylvan, his fists clenching tighter and tighter, his face growing increasingly grim. He knew very well that battles with Soul Reaper were extremely dangerous, and he could accept being injured in the process. But here, the Reiatsu was almost zero; this was tantamount to drawing one's sword against the weaker party.
"Those guys... don't they have any conscience at all?" Ichigo gritted his teeth. "What do they think this place is?!"
"What did you take it for? It was just a regular procedure, of course."
A voice came from above the mountain path, clearly reaching everyone's ears under the influence of Reiatsu. Ichigo looked up and saw a figure slowly walking down the stone steps of the mountain path.
It was a man wearing a white undershirt and a blue outer jacket, with a white turban wrapped around his head, holding a slender long stick in his hand, and carrying a small house-shaped decoration on his back.
His steps were slow, but the oppressive aura grew stronger as he approached.
"While neither I nor Tenken intend to make things difficult for these people, we also don't have the sensibility to leave a way for those buried in the ground to breathe."
"What did you say!" Ichigo step forward, his hand already on Zangetsu behind his back.
"But I didn't expect this." Gonryōmaru's gaze passed over Ichigo and landed on the mountainside behind them, where the faint afterglow of the clash of Reiatsu could still be seen. "The seemingly gentle Fourth Division actually harbors such a ferocious weapon, even managing to entangle Tenken. It seems coming to this mountain was the right decision."
"This Reiatsu is exactly the same as Captain-level..." Marechiyo Ōmaeda's palms were sweating. He turned his head and whispered to the Gegetsuburi behind him, "Gegetsuburi, do you know anything about this guy?"
Gegetsuburi also looked grave. "This guy seems to be called Gonryōmaru, but he's never mentioned whose Zanpakuto it is."
"Gonryōmaru? I feel like I've heard of it somewhere Marechiyo Ōmaeda frowned. With such a powerful aura, Marechiyo Ōmaeda was convinced that this couldn't possibly be an unknown Zanpakuto.
"That sound familiar too." Ichigo stared at Gonryōmaru and asked directly, "Hey, whose Zanpakuto are you anyway?"
"How could I possibly tell you?" Gonryōmaru slammed his long staff into the ground, the staff vanished, and black clouds began to surge from the small house decoration on his back. Layer upon layer of clouds pressed down towards Ichigo, lightning flashing between them. "Penetrating!"
Ichigo dodged to the side, and a bolt of lightning struck the stone slab at his feet, sending shards of stone flying and leaving a charred crater in the slab.
Everyone scattered at the same time. Marechiyo Ōmaeda dodged to the left, Gegetsuburi rolled to the right, Sylvan hid behind Ichigo, and Rain and Oren each jumped behind a rock.
"Gonryōmaru, Gonryōmaru..." As he dodged, Marechiyo Ōmaeda frantically searched his memory. He was certain he had heard the name somewhere before, but he just couldn't remember where.
While hiding behind Ichigo, Sylvan whispered, "Ichigo, this guy's Chōjirō Sasakibe is Zanpakuto's."
"Oh!" Ichigo frowned slightly, then his eyes lit up as a memory flashed through his mind:
On the Sōkyoku Hill, when he covered Renji's retreat with Rukia, he defeated many Lieutenant, including the holder of the Gonryōmaru.
"I remember now!" Ichigo stood up straight, pointed at Gonryōmaru and shouted, "You're that mustache guy's Zanpakuto from the First Division, right? We met on Sōkyoku Hill, but that guy fell down so fast I couldn't remember for a moment."
Gonryōmaru paused noticeably for a moment, then his body began to tremble slightly, and the dark clouds in the sky began to churn violently.
"Back then... Chōjirō was just careless!" Gonryōmaru's face flushed red as his voice suddenly rose, and the thunder in the clouds surged like an enraged beast, the frequency of the lightning increasing several times over. "Otherwise, how could someone as unskilled and shoddy as you possibly defeat him!"
"Boom--!"
A thick bolt of lightning struck Ichigo directly, Ichigo dodged it to the side, leaving a large, charred crater where he had just been standing.
"Idiot, Kurosaki, don't provoke him!" Marechiyo Ōmaeda shouted at Ichigo while dodging.
"Who knew he had such a bad mentality!" Ichigo retorted while continuing to dodge.
Just then, Ichigo caught a glimpse of the side of the mountain road out of the corner of his eye.
Hanatarō was kneeling beside a man named Zheng, his hands pressed against the man's chest to Kaidō. Zheng's body was covered with dense electric crackles, as if he had been struck by lightning.
Meanwhile, in the sky, thunder continued to brew.
Gonryōmaru's lightning didn't just target Ichigo; the range of the lightning strikes covered the entire mountain road. Under the cover of dark clouds, lightning rained down like a dense barrage, and scattered lightning struck both sides of the mountain road, leaving scorch marks on the rock walls.
Hanatarō was carrying the whole thing to a sheltered place when a bolt of lightning struck him.
"Oh no! Hanatarō!"
Ichigo charged forward, his Reiatsu exploding beneath his feet. His black Shihakusho fluttered in the wind as his Reiatsu burst forth.
At the Bankai moment, he unleashed his Bankai, with the two Tensa Zangetsu crossed above his head. Black and red Reiatsu rapidly condensed on the blades, and a bolt of lightning struck them directly.
Lightning exploded, arcs of electricity cascading down from both sides of the blade, the Heat distorting the air behind him.
Ichigo's arm was trembling; the force of the lightning bolt had exceeded his expectations, and the electricity transmitted through the blade sent a tingling sensation through him.
"Are you alright, Hanatarō?"
Hanatarō didn't even look up, his hands pressed against the injured man's chest. The green light of his Kaidō slowly flowed in his palms as he tried to stabilize the creature beneath him. "I'm fine. But—if your Bankai's Reiatsu continues to oppress these creatures like this, they won't last long."
Ichigo's pupils contracted slightly.
He looked around. Hanatarō had been silent since the beginning, which made Ichigo almost forget he was there. Now, seeing the bodies that Hanatarō had silently moved under cover, he realized what Hanatarō had been doing without saying a word.
Now, those who had been settled looked somewhat uncomfortable, clearly suffering from the pressure of his Reiatsu. If they continued fighting here, their already weak breaths would probably cease altogether.
"I see."
Ichigo Tensa Zangetsu into his waistband, his Reiatsu suddenly receding before erupting again, his entire body rushing towards Gonryōmaru like a gray lightning bolt.
Gonryōmaru's pupils contracted sharply, clearly before he could react, Ichigo had already grabbed his collar and pulled him off the mountain path.
"Sylvan, Marechiyo Ōmaeda!" Ichigo's voice came from afar, "You two go up first! I'll be there in a bit!"
Ichigo, dragging Gonryōmaru along, disappeared into the depths of the forest, leaving only the distant rumble of thunder and the crisp sound of breaking branches.
The mountain road became quiet.
Marechiyo Ōmaeda stood there, looking in the direction where Ichigo had disappeared. He turned to look at Sylvan, but before he could speak, a voice came from behind him.
"That Mountain God named Rook, that's your target, isn't it?"
While tending to Cheng's injuries, Hanatarō spoke, his complexion not good, his forehead covered in sweat, his face bearing scratches from the rubble, blood streaming down his cheeks, yet he seemed oblivious to it:
"Then please go up there first; that's your battlefield. This is my battlefield."
Sylvan looked at Hanatarō and suddenly realized that the soft and sweet Hanatarō in his memory, who would blush when called "sir," was also the seventh seat of the Fourth Division and the leader of the Advanced Rescue Team.
No Seated Officer could be found under Captain Unohana's command.
Marechiyo Ōmaeda was the first to react; he patted Sylvan on the shoulder. "Let's go."
Sylvan didn't look any further. He turned around, gestured to Oren and Rain, and then stepped on Oren as he rushed towards the top of the mountain.
Marechiyo Ōmaeda followed closely behind.
Hanatarō remained where he was, and when he had a moment, he looked up and glanced at the stone steps leading to the top of the mountain. A hint of anger flashed in his eyes. He looked away, calmed himself down, and lowered his head. The green light of the Kaidō lit up once again.