Your Excellency Is Strong, but My Style Is Above Yours!

Helpless, Iori could only hold the Rifle-type Imperial Regalia he had just acquired in his hands. It was like carrying a hand warmer outside in winter: not particularly effective, but still better than nothing.

Unfortunately, he was still a pure Bleach. If he could break past the boundary and learn a Quincy's Reishi aggregation, he would be able to actively extract the Reishi within objects instead of slowly "warming himself up" like this.

Things would probably be better if he had an Imperial Regalia on hand, but unfortunately, it had been stored at another, safer supply depot.

With all that considered, Iori could only control his spiritual pressure as carefully as possible to reduce consumption. It did noticeably improve his concentration, and Saito's guidance clearly had applications beyond Flash Step.

That day, as the Empire's hounds searched the valley for Akame's trail, Revolutionary Army elites emerged from hiding and ambushed them, dealing a harsh blow to the scattered Military Police Unit and assassins. Akame seized the chance to escape the encirclement and headed northwest without hesitation.

Seeing this, Iori guessed that she must have had some arrangement with Nadjeta. Now was the perfect time for a dragon to enter the sea!

He had thought that would be the end of it. With only a third of his spiritual pressure remaining, Iori had planned to return directly to Soul Society. But something that happened afterward changed his mind, and he hid in the treetops to watch the show with great interest.

I love watching women fight, especially beautiful JK girls in short skirts~

"Cough... Kurome, why are you...?"

"Hehe, you let your guard down, Sister."

A short-haired girl who resembled Akame, though she lacked some of her coldness and possessed more sweet, innocent charm, stood before the wounded Akame in a black sailor uniform, a Tachi in hand.

Even an uninformed passerby would instinctively assume they were sisters.

The dangerous girl with pitch-black eyes and a fake smile was Kurome, Akame's younger sister. The two had grown up together and survived the Empire's brutal training, only to be forcibly separated because blood relatives were not allowed in the same assassination squad.

Yet even so, their hearts had always remained close. Even now, with blades turned against one another, they were each other's one and only treasure in this world...

Before planning her defection, Akame had tested Kurome. But the short-haired girl had been deeply brainwashed by the Empire and flatly refused even her own sister's invitation. Akame had intended to persuade her several more times, but Nadjeta's situation forced her to defect ahead of schedule...

She had never imagined that, when she was only one final step away from freedom, her own younger sister would stand in her path.

"Move aside, Kurome... Otherwise—"

"Are you going to kill me? How sad. When we're the only ones in this world who can rely on each other."

Kurome smiled at her sister. Behind that adorable face, something dark and murky seemed to be hidden, making Akame's heart sink.

"At first, I thought it was a joke. I never expected you to truly want to betray the Empire... and betray me as well."

"Kurome, listen to me. The Empire only treats us as emotionless weapons, but we can say no!" Akame made one final effort. "If we let the Empire continue oppressing the people however it pleases, then this dark society will never—"

"Enough!"

Kurome suddenly shouted. The smile vanished from her face, and the upper half of it seemed swallowed by shadow as she stared coldly at Akame.

"What do the people and society have to do with me?! Why can't you just obediently be a 'tool,' Sister? As long as we obeyed, the two of us could stay together!"

"Kurome..."

"You said it. You clearly said that no matter what happened, you would never leave me. But now... now you want to betray me?

Even so... I won't let you escape, Sister!"

Kurome raised her Tachi high. "March of the Dead!"

"Don't!"

"It's too late. Sister, become my 'doll' too! Then we can stay together forever!"

I Am Your "Bleach"!

Pfft!

As Kurome raised her Tachi, the ground before her suddenly bulged upward. A savage beast resembling a gorilla burst from the earth and lunged at Akame like a black shadow.

"Ugh!"

Akame had an injury on her side, a wound left from the earlier pursuit. She was not as agile as before and could only barely evade the broad, powerful attack.

Bang!

The gorilla-like Dangerous Species possessed astonishing destructive power. Its clasped fists crashed down and smashed a half-meter-deep pit into the soft earth, sending waves rippling outward and kicking up a storm of fallen leaves.

Whoosh—

It did not behave like a beast. The instant its attack missed, it leaped forward again, intending to crush Akame beneath its bulk.

At that dangerous instant, Akame suddenly exerted herself and shot forward like an arrow, meeting the immensely powerful gorilla head-on. Her slender body brushed past the wind of its fists like a willow branch, while several icy flashes appeared at once.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Woman and beast crossed paths. Blood sprayed from the gorilla's limbs as the blade precisely severed its wrists and Achilles tendons.

Against a normal opponent, Akame's strike would have been enough to determine victory, because the Tachi in her hand was a powerful Imperial Regalia known as One Hit Kill: Murasame.

So long as it cut its target, regardless of the wound's size, the victim would inevitably be afflicted by lethal cursed poison. There was no cure, and it took effect rapidly—a literal death at the sight of blood.

But this time was different. The injured gorilla was not affected by the cursed poison at all. Even with its muscles and tendons severed, its movements remained unhindered, and it spun around to charge at her again with undiminished momentum!

As expected, dolls that can ignore cursed poison are too troublesome...

Akame did not choose to confront it head-on. With a light leap, she flew over the gorilla's head, causing the beast to miss again.

In the end, the thing had little combat skill. It possessed nothing but brute strength, and even injured, Akame could deal with it calmly.

But she had to remember that her opponent was not merely the gorilla—

Shhk!

A swift and vicious ambush. The short-haired girl successfully slashed open Akame's forearm with her first strike, leaving behind a long bloody wound.

"Kurome!"

"You exposed an opening, Sister."

Kurome smiled faintly. Rather than pressing her advantage, she controlled the gorilla to entangle Akame once more, refusing to give her even a moment to catch her breath.

At the same time, the ground bulged again. A beautiful woman dressed like a cowgirl and holding two guns rose from the earth, expressionlessly aiming both barrels at Akame as she fought.

The number of dolls had increased again. Akame's heart sank, but she also steeled herself.

Then I'll have to stall for time and wait for Revolutionary Army reinforcements... or wait for Kurome to summon more dolls. Just one more—if she summons just one more, there'll be an opening!

She knew Kurome's fighting style well, so she waited for Kurome to activate her ability again. But Kurome seemed to understand that as well. She merely smiled as she watched Akame being besieged by the dolls, one hand never leaving the hilt of her blade.

—The two sisters were both betting on who would expose an opening first!

Judging from the battle, Kurome, who was uninjured and in peak condition, undoubtedly held the advantage.

The Tachi in her hand was also an Imperial Regalia, called Eight Branches of the Dead Army. Its physical killing power was average, and it was not coated with deadly poison, but it possessed an utterly terrifying ability:

Control the dead!

The Imperial Regalia's user could use curses to control those slain by this blade, commanding up to eight corpse dolls at the same time. The dolls retained their condition from when they were alive and most of their combat ability, though they lacked flexibility.

This was practically a low-grade version of Impure World Reincarnation!

If she carried sufficiently powerful dolls, Kurome alone would be equivalent to an army. In a direct confrontation, she naturally far surpassed Akame, a lone-wolf assassin.

However, Kurome was not entirely free of concern. The more corpses Eight Branches of the Dead Army summoned, the more it reduced Kurome's own abilities, making her actual body weaker.

She understood her sister well. Akame was not an opponent to be underestimated. To prevent herself from being ambushed, she had to ensure her abilities did not drop low enough for her to be instantly killed in one strike, so she could not summon too many dolls.

Of course, this was also related to her lack of particularly powerful dolls. After all, she had not possessed this Tachi for long and had not built up enough strength.

"Saving your energy so you can ambush me? But I won't give you that chance, Sister."

As Kurome watched Akame grow increasingly disheveled and gradually lose the ability to hold on, an extremely complicated emotion flashed through her eyes before finally being swallowed by obsessive fixation.

"Isn't your resistance a little too fierce? I don't want to damage your body too badly, or I won't even be able to make you into a doll."

"Kurome... wake up! We don't have to take things this far!"

"That's only what you think. To me, your actions are betrayal!"

Kurome snapped, "I'll kill you, and then you can stay by my side forever!"

Before Akame could respond, a voice filled with lingering fear came from above the battlefield.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. So this is what a real-life yandere Heavy Woman is like? Completely insane... What was I thinking back then? How could I ever have liked that type?"

"Is that him?"

"An enemy!"

The sisters revealed entirely different expressions. Without a second thought, Kurome leaped lightly, stepping between several large trees and rapidly reaching the top in two bounds. She drew her blade and slashed toward the source of the voice.

The slash came down, severing a thick branch, but there was no one behind it.

Then a tremendous sound rang out—

Boom!

Kurome hurriedly looked down. A man entirely concealed beneath a trench coat had somehow moved into the center of the battlefield. He held a strange silver spear level in one hand, its muzzle faintly red as though it had just been fired.

Looking again, the gorilla Dangerous Species Kurome had summoned had been blasted several meters away and lay overturned on the ground. There was a thumb-sized hole in its forehead...

"A gun?" Kurome found it absurd. Fortunately, her connection to the gorilla had not been fully severed. This doll should still be usable.

But soon, something even more absurd happened.

The female gunner doll fired repeatedly at the unknown man with both guns, but his figure flickered and vanished from where he stood. He abruptly appeared before the woman, raised his hand, brought two fingers together, and lightly touched her forehead.

The doll could have dodged, yet for some reason, it stupidly remained still.

Bzz!

A glowing ancient-style sigil bloomed from Iori's fingertips, imprinting itself on the female gunner's forehead before slowly sinking in.

A universal Bleach ability: Soul Burial Ritual!

O resentful soul, wherever you may be headed, I shall release your bonds. Depart now, and cross over to the other shore of this world~

An invisible spiritual radiance blossomed. The surrounded female gunner displayed a vivid expression unbefitting a doll, gratefully smiling at Iori before the spiritual light scattered. The female doll's corpse then collapsed limply to the ground.

"Wha..."

Kurome naturally could not see the colors of souls. From her perspective, Iori had simply pointed at her doll and destroyed it... Yet incomprehensibly, there was clearly no wound on the female gunner's forehead!

The short-haired girl jumped down, gripping her Imperial Regalia Tachi tightly as she demanded with hostility, "Who are you? What did you do?!"

"Me?"

Iori turned around. The expressionless white mask seemed to reflect the calmness in his heart.

"I am your 'Bleach'!"

Turn Her into a "Sister Slave," Gyaaah!

"Playing tricks!"

Kurome's eyes turned cold. After her earlier shock, she quickly recognized the notorious criminal known throughout the Empire as the Faceless One.

"So the Faceless One is also a member of the Revolutionary Army... With information from rebels supporting you, no wonder the Military Police have never been able to catch you."

"I'm with the Revolutionary Army? Heh, you think too highly of them." Iori could not help laughing.

"Enough nonsense. Do you think having two people means you can definitely defeat me? I don't know what method you used, but since it requires physical contact, I'll just make sure you can't get close!"

Kurome raised her Tachi again to summon a new doll, but this time she did not get her wish. Iori, who had been observing her movements, suddenly erupted the instant she lifted her hand and closed in within a moment.

Clang!

Faced with the heavy, powerful slash, Kurome could only dodge. Yet Akame launched her own attack in coordination with Iori at the same time, the cursed poison Tachi of one-hit kill striking toward Kurome from behind.

"Damn it!"

She barely blocked the strike in a posture similar to drawing a blade from behind her back. Relying on her nimble footwork, the girl spun gracefully and exchanged another slash with Akame, brilliant sparks bursting in the air.

Kurome knew very well that her technique was inferior to her sister's. She had previously held the advantage only by using superior numbers to suppress the injured Akame. In a one-on-one clash, she would gain no advantage whatsoever, not to mention the addition of the mysterious Faceless One.

She had to find a chance to summon dolls as meat shields!

Thus, the short-haired girl unleashed a flurry of slashes. Her fierce assault forced the exhausted Akame to temporarily lose the rhythm, allowing Kurome to break away.

Her slender figure leaped high into the air toward a thick branch. In her haste, Kurome glanced at the Faceless One, only to discover that he made no move to pursue. He calmly watched her escape before raising his fingers as he had before—

Kidō #61: Six Rods of Light!

Six blades of light flew from the void, forming a circle as they shot toward Kurome. The girl had no way to evade in midair and was bound firmly by the light in horror!

Crack!