Sometimes It Just Happened That Suddenly
The young man followed the wheel tracks along the dirt road, considering what to do next.
"Zanpakuto, how strong does someone need to be to give me a name? Lieutenant-level? Or Captain-level?"
"I'm not really sure. It's hard to say without a comparison. But with your current spirit body, which hasn't undergone any training, it shouldn't be too difficult. As long as you can reach a town and find the way to Shin'ō Academy, getting a name shouldn't be hard. After all, you can hear me clearly, so you should have at least some talent as a Soul Reaper."
The young man nodded and continued walking. Suddenly, a commotion came from the distance, mixed with the clash of weapons.
"Sounds like two groups are fighting up ahead. What should we do?"
"What else? Go around them! We're unarmed. Even going over to watch could be dangerous." As he spoke, the young man started to turn around.
"That's strange. Why do I feel certain you're going to go over and take a look? I'm a reflection of your inner self, you know." At those words, the young man stopped halfway through turning around.
"You do want to go look, don't you?"
"No, I don't, but my body won't move."
"Huh?"
My body's out of control? No, I'm the one who doesn't want to move. It's as if turning around and leaving would be a disgrace, as if doing that would insult my honor. But my ordinary life shouldn't have given rise to thoughts like these.
"How can you call your life ordinary?" The Zanpakuto seemed to have read the young man's thoughts. "You didn't even flinch when you fought the Demon Emperor single-handedly in the Demon World."
"That happened in a game."
"But I really do feel like that was something that happened in your life."
His body gradually began to tremble. The young man could barely breathe under the weight of that sense of shame. Rather than be crushed to death by it, he would rather charge into the fight between the two sides.
"Damn it!" the young man shouted, running toward the battlefield ahead.
At the center of the battlefield, several masked men with swords struggled silently against the guards. A woman's rebuke came from the carriage. "Stop this at once! The carriage you're attacking belongs to the Fon Clan, a lower noble family!" Then a woman in a formal kimono pulled back the carriage curtain so everyone present could see her face. "And I am Princess Shaoling of the Fon Clan! If you continue this outrageous behavior, the Fon Clan will not let you off!"
"The youngest sister of the family of Soi Fon, Second Division Captain of the Gotei 13. An impressive display, but unfortunately, none of you are leaving here today," one of the masked men said coldly. With that, he shoved away the guard he was struggling with and charged straight at Fon Shaoling. At that moment, the young man in the white yukata arrived and sent the masked man flying with a punch.
"Isn't it a bit much to draw a blade on a woman?" the young man said to the masked man he had sent flying a long way off, while inwardly stunned by his own strength:
How am I so strong? Or is this guy just too weak? Can a punch really send someone flying that far?
Both sides were briefly distracted by the sight of the masked man flying away. They drew apart for the moment and looked at the figure standing in front of the carriage.
The masked man recovered and slowly climbed to his feet. "There's another guard? Looks like Soi Fon really does take this mission seriously."
A guard? Did they mistake me for one? The young man glanced back at the girl in the carriage. Her gaze was resolute as she stared straight at the masked men and shouted, "Of course! This case concerns the stability of Rukongai. As nobles under the Shihoin family, our Fon Clan must get to the bottom of it. Captain Soi Fon would naturally assign people to guard against madmen like you!" She then looked at the young man, a hint of appeal in her eyes.
The young man saw the girl's body trembling slightly and thought, This little girl's talking tough, but she's still nervous and scared inside. I might as well play along. He looked back at the masked men.
"That's right. If you want to bully our princess, you'll have to get through me first. Come on." With that, the young man naturally assumed a fighting stance.
With a low shout, the masked man lunged forward, his blade sweeping from the lower left to the upper right. The young man merely shifted slightly to one side and blocked diagonally downward with his left fist like a shield, striking the flat of the blade precisely with the side of his fist. Clang! A sharp ring sounded as sparks and fragments of blue Reishi burst out. The swordsman felt as though his blade had struck an anvil, the impact numbing him. Using the slight force of the collision, the young man pushed off with his rear leg and drove his right fist straight at the man's face like a cannonball. The masked man retreated hastily, but the wind from the punch still grazed his chest, shredding his clothes and scraping the skin beneath, drawing thin trails of blood.
In that single exchange, the young man had gained a decisive advantage. "What's wrong? Come on, keep going." He sounded perfectly calm, but inwardly, he had entered a strange state:
My body feels so light. I can see through everything he does at a glance. Even barehanded, one strategy after another for dealing with him keeps coming to me, as if I've been through this sort of thing countless times before. What on earth is going on?
The masked man regrouped and charged at the young man again, his sword point aimed straight at his throat. He tried to use the length of the blade to keep the young man at a distance.
But the young man instinctively slid forward, his figure blurring for an instant as he slipped inside the sword's reach. Startled, the masked man changed his move, pulling his blade down to slash at him directly. The young man had already ducked, however, and his right leg swept out like a battle-axe (Beowulf's low kick). Rather than kick the man himself, he swept hard against his ankle. The moment the man lost his balance, the young man's left fist rose from below (a variation on the opening move of the Rising Dragon Kick) and struck his jaw. The masked man staggered back, blood spilling from his mouth. The black cloth covering his face was soaked with blood, which continued to drip from it.
The girl in the carriage showed a hint of surprise after seeing those movements. Was that Shunpo? This man should be a Whole who was only just sent here by a Soul Reaper in the human world. Why can he use Shunpo? And that punch he used to strike the back of the blade earlier showed traces of Reishi. Did he use it unconsciously? I originally intended to have him put on an act while I silenced all these guys myself, then continue the mission. It looks like I can keep up the disguise. After all, if these people all die, the group behind the scenes will surely go into hiding again, just like before. It's been almost a hundred years. No matter what, I'll personally wipe out the culprits who caused Yoruichi to leave this time!
Back on the battlefield.
The masked man who had been tripped and sent flying had bloodshot eyes. "How dare you insult me!"
Abandoning defense for an all-out attack, he raised his sword overhead with both hands and gathered all his strength, intending to settle the fight with a vertical slash from the front. His blade came down with a shrill rush of wind. This time, the young man neither blocked nor dodged—he faced the blade and drew his right fist as far back as he could. The light radiating from his fist, a steadily burning blue Reishi flame, suddenly compressed into a single point of blinding white (third-stage charge complete). When the blade was only an inch from his forehead, he twisted his waist and drove his shoulder forward, blasting the long-charged destructive burst of light straight ahead.
"Boom!!!"
The deafening sound was not the clash of metal, but the muffled thunder of an energy burst. The instant the sword touched his fist, the raging light blasted it into countless fragments. The force of the punch continued unabated, landing squarely in the center of the masked man's chest.
His chest caved in completely and burst open. The swordsman's feet left the ground, but the young man's combo was not over—almost at the same moment the heavy punch connected, he turned with the motion and swung his left leg upward with all his might, like a whip and a hammer (the complete "Rising Dragon Kick/Rising Sun"). The sharp force at his foot struck his opponent's now-undefended torso dead center.
"Boom!"
Wrapped in an arc of blue-white light, the masked man's body flew straight backward like a kite with its string cut. He crashed into several of his companions, sending them flying, and traveled more than ten meters before finally slamming into a tree and going still.
The young man slowly lowered his limbs and returned to his stern, side-on boxing stance. Thin smoke rose from his left leg and right hand as his gaze swept over the shattered remains of the sword on the ground. "Who else wants to give it a try?"