One of the Four Gates protecting the Seireitei...
The western gate—Hakutōmon!
This place was personally overseen by the Gotei 1st Division...
Amid the raging flames, a figure who was not particularly tall yet radiated authority strode silently over the corpses littering the ground.
Beneath his feet lay the bodies of fallen Soul Reaper soldiers, as well as the remains of Quincy whose bodies had been half-burned away, roasted alive by the flames!
Yet neither the mountain of corpses nor the wails and pleas echoing across the battlefield could give him reason to halt. His heart was iron, his gaze steel...
It was not until the man received Araki's Tenteikūra that he stopped advancing.
"Hm? That brat Araki suppressed the unrest at Shūwamon so quickly?"
"That does make me see him in a new light..."
The man muttered under his breath, clearly surprised by Araki's speed.
But when he recalled that Araki had been the first of all the captains to depart, he understood.
"Die! Soul Reaper!!"
Just as the man spoke to himself, several Quincy clad in white knight uniforms burst through the towering wall of flame and charged straight at him.
"Foolish!"
The man holding the flaming sword looked up at the Quincy charging toward him, disdain in his eyes.
"All things in creation, turn to ash! You too shall become remnants beneath my Ryujin Jakka!"
Yes, the man walking alone across the battlefield with a flaming sword in hand was none other than the Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13, Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni. He swung the blade in his hand, which unleashed endless waves of fire, at the shouting Quincy.
Boom!!
Violent flames erupted from the Zanpakuto in Yamamoto Genryūsai's hand, transforming into a massive "fire dragon" that devoured everything before him!
Whether it was the rain of arrows shot at Yamamoto or the several Sternritter members leaping through the air toward him, the instant they touched the raging flames, they were all reduced to ashes that scattered through the sky...
Vanishing alongside those Sternritter members were the ordinary Quincy kneeling on the ground and wailing, as well as some ordinary Soul Reaper soldiers who had lost the ability to fight and any chance of rescue, lying half-dead on the ground.
"Rest assured! Your sacrifices shall not be in vain! Once this war is over, I shall present the heads of the enemy commanders to console your departed souls..."
After wiping out a vast number of Quincy, Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni spoke to himself...
His words sounded both like self-talk and like words addressed to those Soul Reaper soldiers who had "died gloriously," already dispersing into Reishi and returning to the cycle of Reishi.
Yamamoto did not know how to protect others. He was not skilled in Kaido, which healed others; he only knew Hado, which destroyed enemies! His Zanpakuto had no power to heal anyone either! His blade was the Zanpakuto with the greatest "attack power" in all the Soul Society, so powerful that even allies who approached him would be injured by the aftershock it released. Thus, after the war began, he chose to advance alone...
But Yamamoto was not heartless. He had seen every effort the Soul Reaper soldiers of every division had made for the Seireitei!
So, in Yamamoto's eyes, there was only one thing he could do now: kill!
Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill every enemy!
And thereby console the Soul Reaper soldiers who had perished resisting the Quincy.
A moment later...
As Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni sheathed his Zanpakuto, the battlefield at Hakutōmon on the western side of the Seireitei had become an uninhabited sea of fire. Other than Yamamoto Genryūsai, not a single living creature remained within the flames.
"Chōjirō..."
After sheathing his Zanpakuto, Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni called coldly into the empty remnants of the battlefield.
"I am here, Lord Genryūsai!"
The moment Genryūsai's words fell, a gray figure appeared behind him.
The arrival was none other than the vice-captain of the 1st Division, Chōjirō Sasakibe.
"Inform the entire division that the enemy forces attacking Hakutōmon have all been personally slain by me!"
With his back to Chōjirō Sasakibe, Genryūsai spoke with absolute confidence.
"Understood..."
Chōjirō Sasakibe froze for a moment upon hearing this, then immediately bit open his thumb and drew circle after circle of patterns across his arm.
Bakudo #77: Tenteikūra!!
"Calling all divisions! This is Chōjirō Sasakibe, vice-captain of the 1st Division. The enemy forces attacking Hakutōmon have all been personally killed by Lord Genryūsai! I repeat! The enemy forces attacking Hakutōmon have all been personally killed by Lord Yamamoto Genryūsai!!"
Chōjirō Sasakibe deliberately repeated Genryūsai's words twice, particularly emphasizing to the captains of the Gotei 13 that the Quincy attacking Hakutōmon had all been killed by Old Man Yama alone.
"Mm! Chōjirō, you did well!"
Genryūsai had likewise received the message transmitted by Chōjirō Sasakibe. His gaze toward Sasakibe was filled with appreciation, and he nodded in great satisfaction.
"It was merely a trivial matter. There is no need for your praise!"
Chōjirō Sasakibe smiled slightly at Genryūsai.
As an aide who had followed Genryūsai for many years, Chōjirō Sasakibe had long understood Genryūsai's heart completely. From the moment Genryūsai received Araki's message and began fighting at full strength...
Sasakibe knew that after learning Araki had single-handedly suppressed the enemy forces at Shūwamon, Genryūsai had developed a competitive streak!
Based on Sasakibe's understanding of Genryūsai, Genryūsai probably believed that as the Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13 and Araki's master, he could not possibly lose to Araki, his subordinate and disciple. Otherwise, he would be too ashamed to face anyone!
"Enough. Next, have the entire Gotei 13 withdraw toward the interior of the Seireitei!"
"Since that Quincy 'Emperor' whom Araki repeatedly warned us never to underestimate is neither at Araki's side nor mine, he most likely will not be at either of the other two gates!"
"Perhaps, while our Gotei 13 has been fighting the enemy forces invading the four gates of Hakutōmon, Seiryūmon, Kokuryōmon, and Shūwamon, that man has already led his personal guard directly into the Seireitei..."
"This is becoming troublesome! I underestimated that man's ambition and his understanding of the Seireitei's internal structure! But so be it. Let him continue causing trouble! I shall personally cut him down within the Seireitei with a single stroke..."
After Genryūsai finished speaking, his eyes turned toward the depths of the Seireitei, where a different kind of danger seemed to be lurking.
As though to confirm Genryūsai's suspicions...
No one could have imagined that Yhwach, the Quincy "Emperor," had not chosen to entangle himself with the Gotei 13. Instead, he used the armies he had stationed at the Seireitei's "Four Gates" as bait while personally heading straight for the territories of the great noble clans within the Seireitei!
At this moment, the area where the nobles lived—once filled with magnificent palaces rising and falling one after another, exuding a luxury ordinary Soul Reaper soldiers could never even imagine in their dreams—
The true "leaders," "holders of power," and "rulers" of the ancient Soul Society!
Had become a sea of fire! Just from the ruined buildings, one could imagine that a fierce battle had indeed taken place here.
"If I wipe out the heads of these five families whose veins run with the blood of the 'baseborn' all at once, then you will no longer be able to remain in the heavens, watching idly as I destroy the earth, will you?!"
Amid the corpses covering the ground, Yhwach, the Quincy "Emperor," raised his head toward the sky. His cold eyes stared directly at certain beings in the heavens as he spoke in a chilling voice.
From the very beginning, his objective had not been on the ground...
...but in the heavens!
Yhwach attacking the nobles here was meant to fulfill a point from the official novel "CFYOW": after Yhwach's invasion a thousand years ago, Central 46 established a rule that whenever the heads of the Five Great Noble Clans held a meeting in the exclusive meeting room for the clan heads beneath the Seireitei, only four heads could attend each time, while one had to remain in the Seireitei, to prevent the five clan heads who "held the highest authority in the Soul Society" from being wiped out all at once.
Lastly, please send some votes! Later tonight, I will do my best to write a few more chapters!
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