Original God, But Chat Group

Sasuke asked in confusion.

"Just aim it at your body, then let your soul lie down into it."

Following Li Yue's instructions, Sasuke let his soul lie down and merge with his body. Then Sasuke's body opened its eyes, got up from the ground, and stared wide-eyed in shock.

"My Chakra is gone!"

"Becoming a Soul Reaper means you have to abandon your ninja powers, so naturally, Chakra disappears."

Chakra is a product of the combination of body and spirit, but its essence is still a power attached to the soul. The Chakra within Sasuke's soul had been completely washed away by Reishi. He was now a pure Soul Reaper! His very species had changed, so naturally, his power system had changed too.

"Here, this is your Zanpakuto."

Li Yue pulled an Asauchi out of a private red envelope from the Chat Group and tossed it to Sasuke. He'd gotten it from Aizen.

"Zanpakuto?"

Sasuke caught the Asauchi, looking very confused, then a thought struck him as he glanced at the Enma's Blade at Li Yue's waist.

"Is it the same as your sword?"

"That's right. A Soul Reaper wields the power of the soul, and the Zanpakuto is a power born from your soul. Everyone's soul gives birth to a different power—it will be your most important strength."

Of course, there were cases where two people gave birth to the same Zanpakuto.

"Every Battle Soul Blade has its own name. My Zanpakuto is called Enma's Blade. As for yours, you'll have to ask it yourself what its name is!"

"Right now, this sword is called an Asauchi. Only when you truly ask for your Battle Soul Blade's name will it gain its own name. And the name represents power. Once you know your Zanpakuto's name, you'll gain strength strong enough to kill Uchiha Itachi."

Li Yue was curious what kind of Zanpakuto Sasuke would give birth to.

Aizen in the Chat Group was equally curious.

He'd given out two Asauchi. The first had let Li Yue awaken the Enma's Blade, which could travel between worlds. What kind of ability would the second one awaken? But Aizen didn't have time to come over right now—he was still in the Pure Land helping Li Yue find Senju Hashirama's soul.

"What do I need to do?"

Sasuke stared at Li Yue, already eager to learn his Zanpakuto's name.

"Having you do Blade Meditation definitely won't work, because you're not the calm type."

In Li Yue's view, Sasuke's personality was a bit like Ichigo Kurosaki's. Ichigo would charge in and swing first no matter how strong the enemy was—if he couldn't win, he'd just pull out a cheat. Sasuke, on the other hand, would charge in recklessly as long as he thought he was strong enough—if he couldn't win, he'd just eat a loss. Though the outcomes might differ greatly, in a way, they were both the type to fight first and ask questions later.

And Sasuke was supposedly Indra's reincarnation, yet his talent for controlling Chakra wasn't even as good as Sakura Haruno's.

"So, I plan to let you experience this power directly with your own body!"

Li Yue drew the Enma's Blade from his waist.

Kisuke Urahara could awaken Ichigo Kurosaki's Zanpakuto in a few swings. Li Yue figured he wouldn't need a few swings—a few hours should do it. As long as he didn't die, he'd just keep slashing!

"Hmph! Then bring it on!"

As soon as Sasuke heard it was a real fight, he got excited. With new power and the prospect of gaining strength to defeat Uchiha Itachi, he was already hyped up!

Then... he got wrecked.

Li Yue stared at Sasuke, who was lying on the ground with only the hilt of his sword left, lost in thought.

No way. You successfully became a Soul Reaper, which means you do have talent for it. Even though the Spirit Blade I conjured is only at Seated Officer level, you didn't show any reaction for hours—are you really that bad?

Li Yue deliberately mimicked Urahara's method of cutting Ichigo's sword, slicing the Asauchi in Sasuke's hand from tip to hilt, one cut at a time. To avoid cutting too fast, Li Yue only shaved off about a centimeter per slash. A perfectly good Asauchi was carved into thin slices, nearly minced into bits.

Throughout the process, Li Yue kept taunting him, applying pressure both physically and mentally.

But Sasuke showed no reaction at all. You're Indra's reincarnation, damn it! Is it really the Indra family tradition to always eat a loss?

What was missing?

Li Yue looked at Sasuke sprawled on the ground and started thinking about what element was lacking.

He had the Asauchi, he'd reclassed as a Soul Reaper, and he could feel Reiatsu. What exactly was missing?

Li Yue recalled his own process of awakening his Zanpakuto. Oh, his own Zanpakuto was a troll, so it couldn't be used as an example. When other Soul Reapers awakened their Zanpakuto... Li Yue's eyes suddenly lit up!

Got it! I know what's missing!

It's Style Points! I forgot about Style Points!

As everyone knows, besides Reiatsu and the Zanpakuto, the most important factor in a Soul Reaper's fight is Style Points. If your Style Points can't match your opponent's, you're going to eat a loss!

Li Yue snapped his fingers, activating the Dream Domain ability. The original training ground suddenly transformed into a gray-white desert. The sky shifted from day to night, with a crescent moon hanging high above.

A sudden cold wind made the unconscious Sasuke slowly open his eyes.

Facing the suddenly unfamiliar environment, Sasuke was a bit confused. He struggled to his feet, gripping the sword hilt, and looked around at the gray-white desert, bewildered.

"Where is this? Shouldn't I be... in the training ground?"

He looked at the sword hilt in his hand. Right, his sword had been sliced into pieces by Li Yue, leaving only the hilt. But why... why was he here? And where was Li Yue?

Was it a genjutsu?

Sasuke grabbed a handful of sand and frowned. It felt real. Was it not a genjutsu?

Confused, Sasuke looked around for any useful clues, but aside from the crescent moon hanging in the night sky, there was nothing else.

"I'd better leave here first."

Sasuke lifted his leg to leave, but the moment he did, the air suddenly grew heavy, and an eerie melody began to play.

It was BGM! BGM: On the Precipice of Defeat!

"This feeling..."

The sudden weight on his body reminded Sasuke of when Li Yue had suppressed him with Reiatsu before.

"Is it Li Yue?"

Sasuke spun around, but instead of Li Yue, he saw a massive face—a giant bone-white mask larger than his entire body, covering the face of an ape at least ten meters tall. The ape was looking down, its glowing yellow eyes fixed coldly on Sasuke from within the mask's eye sockets.

"This is..."

"Hee hee hee~~"

An eerie laugh echoed from beneath the giant masked face.

"Look what I found—a lone and weak Shinigami!"

Weak!

That word struck a nerve in Sasuke. The last thing he'd seen before losing consciousness was Li Yue's disappointed face: You can't even awaken your Zanpakuto—you really are weak!

"A Shinigami who dares to enter Hueco Mundo without even a Zanpakuto—how bold!"

"Zanpakuto..."

Sasuke looked at the hilt in his right hand. Li Yue had said awakening a Zanpakuto was easy, but after hours of being cut down by him, Sasuke still hadn't awakened it—he'd only ended up gravely wounded and unconscious.

"Oh? Feeling sad? Don't worry—you won't feel sad for long, because I'm going to eat you!"

The giant ape monster's white mask split open, revealing a mouth big enough to swallow a person whole, and it lunged straight at Sasuke.

Sasuke rolled aside to dodge, then swung his blade at the monster in passing—only to realize after the strike that his sword had no edge at all!

"Damn it!"

With no other choice, Sasuke reached into the tool pouch on his back with his free left hand, pulled out a shuriken, and hurled it at the monster.

Bang bang bang—

The shuriken clanged against metal, sparked, and fell into the sand.

Damn it—I've got no Chakra left, or I could use Ninjutsu!

The monster, seemingly enraged by the shuriken hit, swung a backhand slap that sent Sasuke flying.

Pfft—

Damn it!

He'd finally gained new power—was he going to die before even awakening it?

Sasuke hit the ground and spat blood, then struggled to his feet, right hand gripping the hilt, drenched in blood and looking utterly battered as he watched the ape monster lumber closer.

Just as despair began to set in, the eerie music in his ears shifted—from ominous to urgent. It was BGM! BGM became: Number One.

For some reason, listening to this new BGM, Sasuke's heart steadied with every drumbeat.

I'm not dying here. I'm going to use this new power to kill that man. There's no way I'm dying in some random place like this!

Slowly, Sasuke raised the hilt in his right hand and held it horizontally before him.

If Li Yue said you're my power, then damn well tell me your name and become my power!!

The calm Reiatsu around Sasuke began to surge, spilling out of his body as a blue pillar of light that blasted outward in all directions.

The giant ape monster pushed through the Reiatsu pressure, stepped up to Sasuke, and opened its massive mouth to bite down.

Facing that gaping maw, Sasuke swung the hilt down with all his might.

"Open your eyes, Indra!"

The giant ape monster was cleaved cleanly in two, and the hilt in Sasuke's hand transformed into a blood-red Tachi. At the tsuba, a blood-red Three Tomoe spun endlessly. With his tattered Shinigami uniform, the surging blue Reiatsu around him, and the crimson blade in his hand, Sasuke's Style Points hit maximum in that instant.

85. Sasuke: Shinobi are nothing but weak trash!

Meme Lord: It's Indra, huh.

Hair Gel Man in the Sky: Ah, it's Indra, indeed.

Hair Gel Man in the Sky: When you gave him that Asauchi, Li Yue-kun, I suspected this might happen. I didn't expect him to actually awaken Indra's power.

Meme Lord: Well, Indra's Chakra was lodged in his soul—in a sense, it was half of his soul. After becoming a Shinigami, that half becoming his Zanpakuto fits the logic of Bleach pretty well.

Hair Gel Man in the Sky: I'm curious what his Zanpakuto's ability is—especially what it'll look like after Bankai.

Meme Lord: If Shikai's ability is the Three Tomoe Sharingan's power, then Bankai will probably be the Mangekyo's ability. Something like that, anyway.

Hair Gel Man in the Sky: If that's all it is, then it's pretty weak.

Meme Lord: Without Yin-Yang power, he can't awaken the Rinnegan. With just the Sharingan, his ceiling is about that high.

Li Yue relayed the news about Sasuke's Zanpakuto to Aizen, then shrugged helplessly as he watched Sasuke cackling while clutching the blood-red Tachi.

The ceiling of this world was the Otsutsuki clan. Later, in Boruto, new tattoos and even newer settings were added, but it all still boiled down to infighting within the Otsutsuki clan.

And the power of the Otsutsuki clan, before the Fourth War, was the era of eyes. The peak of eye power in that era was the Rinnegan and the Tenseigan—the level of Otsutsuki Hagoromo and Otsutsuki Hamura.

Unfortunately, Otsutsuki Hagoromo had already been captured by Aizen, so Sasuke had no way to upgrade to Hagoromo's level—he couldn't obtain the Yin-Yang Power.

But that didn't stop Sasuke from awakening his own Swagger Force.

You're right, that's Uchiha Sasuke for you. Every time he gains a bit of new power, he has to show off and pick a fight, loving nothing more than challenging opponents above his level, only to get slapped down instantly, then rely on his teammates to bail him out and lose all face!

Look, Sasuke's already started laughing maniacally.

Back in Shippuden, Sasuke only joined the Four Laughing Heroes later on, but now, before even graduating from the ninja academy, after awakening his Zanpakuto, he's already cackling away. The boost from the Zanpakuto's awakening went straight to his head, getting him into the Four Laughing Heroes three years early.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. How pathetic. Once you become a Soul Reaper, you can't afford to lose your Style Points—that spells defeat. With that laugh, your presence vanishes instantly, not a single Style Point left.

Smack—

Li Yue appeared behind the cackling Sasuke in an instant and smacked him on the back of the head, sending him sprawling to the ground.

"Who!"

Sasuke snapped out of his ecstasy and turned to look.

"Li Yue!"

Not only did he see Li Yue, but the night and desert from before were completely gone. He was back on the training ground. As an Uchiha, he immediately understood what had happened.

"Was that a genjutsu just now?"

"That's right. I was watching from the sidelines, controlling you with genjutsu. The way you got sent flying by Aether was really something."

Li Yue said this with a smile, making Sasuke burn with humiliation.

"How could that be Aether? You were pretending, weren't you!"

"It was Aether. Take a look at your injuries."

Sasuke looked down. There were no wounds from any gorilla monster—only the cuts Li Yue had given him earlier. That meant all the injuries from the gorilla monster in the desert were fake!

"But I clearly felt pain all over my body. Can even that be faked? Can wounds be faked too?"

Sasuke stared at Li Yue, the excitement from gaining power just moments ago vanishing without a trace.