Yachiru Unohana

East District Two

The Thirteenth Division's headquarters was here.

Unlike the other divisions, the Thirteenth Division's barracks were not a single integrated building, but an entire cluster of courtyards.

The infirmary, training grounds, document office, and squad member dormitories were scattered across several streets in East District Two.

Saizo Sakigane had said that this was more convenient. With the members living apart, they would not all be wiped out at once if Hollows attacked.

But today, that scattered layout had become a disaster.

Blue flames rose among them.

Holy Soldiers surged out from the shadows, flooding the entire district like a white tide. Because of the dispersed layout, the Thirteenth Division members had no time to gather before they were forced to draw their blades and fight.

Saizo Sakigane's vice-captain, a middle-aged Soul Reaper named Washio, had his chest pierced by a Holy Arrow in the third minute after the battle began.

When he died, he was still standing at the entrance to the squad member dormitories, using his body to shield the wounded from the first barrage of arrows.

Then came the Third Seat.

Then the Fourth Seat.

Then the ordinary members whose names could not even be called.

Faced with the Holy Soldiers' sudden assault, those ordinary members were almost useless.

One member's Zanpakutō could create smoke, but before his smoke could spread, it was blown apart by the Holy Soldiers' Reishi arrow barrage.

Another member's Zanpakutō could accelerate his allies' Reiatsu recovery, but his own leg was pierced by an arrow first. He fell to the ground, and no one could save him.

Another member's Zanpakutō could heal wounds, but before her Reishi bow could fully form, a vice-captain-level Quincy cut her down from behind.

The Thirteenth Division members did not flee.

They fell one after another, but no one turned and ran.

Saizo Sakigane usually did not talk much, nor did he interfere much in his members' private lives. But the squad he had raised possessed a stubbornness in their bones. Even if they could not win, they would still fight. Even if they died, they would still take a bite out of the enemy.

But the casualties were too severe.

In just a few minutes, the Thirteenth Division had lost nearly half of its combat personnel.

Then Saizo Sakigane appeared.

He walked out from the room deepest within the barracks, one slow step at a time.

He leaned on his Zanpakutō.

Its sheath was planted against the ground, supporting his body like a cane.

Saizo Sakigane looked terrible.

Not because he was injured, but because he was old.

Saizo Sakigane was the oldest captain in the Gotei 13.

His body had long ceased to be what it was in his glory days. His Reiatsu remained, but his stamina, reaction speed, and the fluidity of his Shunpo had all declined. Normally, he relied on his Zanpakutō's ability to make up for those shortcomings.

Leaning on the sheath, he walked out of the room and stood in the corridor, looking at everything before him.

Holy Soldiers ran through the streets. Reishi arrow barrages covered the entire sky. Thirteenth Division members lay in pools of blood, their white Shihakushō soaked crimson.

Saizo Sakigane closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Then he drew his blade.

Black mist coiled around the blade, twisting like a living thing as it spread outward. The black mist filled the air, concealing Saizo Sakigane's figure and blocking the Holy Soldiers' sight.

"Rescue them, Nightmare!"

Saizo Sakigane's Shikai—Nightmare.

Its ability was visual interference and mental contamination. The black mist released by the blade could disrupt an enemy's vision, preventing them from seeing his location clearly. The Reishi particles within the mist could invade the enemy's consciousness, slowly eroding their minds and creating anxiety, fear, and hallucinations.

But it was not an ability suited for killing enemies head-on.

What Saizo Sakigane needed was not to kill the enemy, but to survive.

He moved through the black mist. His Shunpo was far slower than usual, but with the mist's interference, the Holy Soldiers could not catch his position at all. He suddenly emerged from the fog, cut down a Holy Soldier with one slash, then vanished back into the mist. He appeared from another direction, struck again, and disappeared once more.

Like a ghost.

The Holy Soldiers began to panic. They could not see their enemy, only their comrades falling one after another. The Reishi particles in the mist were eroding their minds. Fear began to spread. Some started firing arrows wildly, while others began retreating.

By relying on this method, Saizo Sakigane held out on the streets of East District Two for nearly ten minutes.

He killed more than a dozen Holy Soldiers and severely wounded a vice-captain-level Quincy.

But his stamina was draining rapidly.

Then he heard a voice.

"Soul Reaper captain!"

The voice was as thunderous as a clap of lightning. It came from the other end of East District Two, shaking the walls on both sides of the street.

Saizo Sakigane raised his head and looked through the black mist toward the source of the voice.

A man walked over.

His hair was red and spiked upward like a rooster's comb. He wore a white Quincy uniform, though its collar hung open, exposing his solid chest. He held no bow.

His Reiatsu was powerful.

The red-haired man strode forward. Every step landed heavily, and fine cracks spread through the stone road beneath his feet.

He ignored the Holy Soldiers around him, ignored the black mist, ignored the comrades who were falling, and locked his gaze directly onto Saizo Sakigane's position.

"Your miserable little life—"

The man raised his right hand, spreading all five fingers as Reishi gathered in his palm into a blazing fireball.

"I, Bazz-B, will be taking it!"

Saizo Sakigane tightened his grip on the hilt.

Black mist gathered before him, forming a barrier.

South District Two

Eleventh Division Headquarters

When the Quincy pillar of blue flames rose here, the first wave of Holy Soldiers had not even fully crawled out of the shadows before blade light arrived.

Yachiru Unohana did not wait.

She had never waited for anyone.

The instant the pillar of flame rose, she had already charged out of the barracks. She plunged into the mass of Holy Soldiers, cutting down one with every swing. Clean and decisive, without a single unnecessary movement.

The Holy Soldiers did not even see who was cutting them down.

The first Holy Soldier's throat was sliced open. The second's chest was pierced through. The third had his arm and Reishi bow severed together.

Blade light darted through the crowd like a silver-white serpent. Every flash took a life.

The Eleventh Division's vice-captain, a horse-faced Soul Reaper named Isamu Shimura, reacted in the third second after Unohana charged out. Without hesitation, he drew his sword, raised his arm, and shouted, "Eleventh Division! All hands, break out!"

Eleventh Division members poured out from the barracks and followed their vice-captain, fighting their way toward the south gate.

There was an unspoken rule within the Eleventh Division: once their captain drew her blade, no one was to disturb her.

The vice-captain led the squad through a bloody path toward the south gate. The Holy Soldiers tried to intercept them, but Unohana swept in from behind.

She cut into the rear of the Holy Soldier formation, combing through them like a blade from east to west, then south to north. Wherever she passed, no one survived.

Holy Soldiers.

Holy Soldier squad leaders.

Vice-captain-level Quincy.

Before her, there was no difference.

All it took was one slash.

The Soul Society's second strongest Soul Reaper, and the titles "Demon of the Sword" and "Yachiru," were not empty boasts.

Below Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto, Yachiru Unohana was the strongest.

Her swordsmanship had surpassed the limits of every school. Eight thousand styles had passed through her, leaving behind only herself.

Her Reiatsu was bottomless. Her blade was too fast to see. Her combat experience stretched beyond most people's lifetimes.

The Holy Soldiers began to fear.

Not because they could not win. They had known from the beginning that they could not.

It was because they were dying too quickly.

This was not battle. It was slaughter.

Corpses piled beneath Unohana's feet, one atop another. Blood flowed from beneath the heaps, gathering into thin streams in the cracks of the stone road. Within mere minutes, the streets of South District Two had turned into a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

Unohana stood atop the pile of corpses, surrounded by Quincy bodies.

Her brows were flat, neither angry nor pained, but carrying an almost tranquil concentration.

Her eyes were deliberately opened a little wider, flames and blood reflected in her pupils.

Her lips were slightly parted, as though she were breathing—or tasting the scent of blood in the air.

Her face was cold and expressionless, but that coldness was more terrifying than any rage.

She turned her head slightly.

Her pupils shifted sideways.

She looked at a Holy Soldier who was still alive.

The Holy Soldier stood below the mound of corpses. The Reishi bow in his hand had already dispersed. His legs trembled, and his lips quivered.

The instant Unohana's gaze swept over him, his entire body froze in place as if he had been encased in ice.

Yachiru Unohana's Reiatsu.

It was not an explosive release, nor an oppressive crushing force. It seeped in little by little, like icy water seeping into the cracks of bone, like darkness pouring in from every direction.

That Reiatsu was so dense it warped the light itself, leaving almost black, solid streaks in the air.

The Holy Soldier saw those black spiritual lines spread from Unohana like tentacles, winding around the corpse pile, around the pools of blood, and around his own ankles.

He broke down.

Pure, primal, uncontrollable terror.

He turned and ran.

His shoe slipped in the blood, and he fell to the ground. He staggered upright and kept running.

He even forgot that he had Hirenkyaku. He merely ran with his legs on instinct, toward the pillar of flame, toward the shadows, toward any direction that could take him away from this place.

Blade light flashed.

The Holy Soldier's body toppled forward and slid several meters away, leaving a long trail of blood across the stone road.

Yachiru Unohana sheathed her blade and stood atop the pile of corpses, her gaze sweeping across the battlefield.

She sensed presences coming from all directions, wave after wave like a rising tide, each one approaching her.

Not Holy Soldiers. Not vice-captain-level opponents. True Sternritter members.

The number kept growing. Ten. Fifteen. Seventeen. Eighteen.

Unohana stood where she was, gripping her blade and counting those Reiatsu signatures.

She tilted her head slightly, her gaze sweeping over the surrounding buildings.

On the rooftops, at the end of the street, beside the pillar of flame, white figures appeared one after another.

They wore identical Quincy uniforms and the same cross-shaped star emblems on their chests. Their Reiatsu had different qualities, but each one was enough to make an ordinary Soul Reaper suffocate.

The Sternritter.

Unohana's gaze settled on two people.

One was huge, with knotted muscles and unnaturally grayish-white skin, like a moving slab of rock. His Reiatsu was heavy and dull. Every step he took cracked the stone road into spiderweb patterns.

The other was slender, pale, and almost bloodless, like a walking corpse. His Reiatsu was cold and hollow, without a trace of life.

Schrift Q.

Schrift T.

Unohana looked at the two strongest among them, and her excitement only grew.

Eighteen captain-level Quincy.

Even her calm, blank expression could not conceal her excitement and anticipation. This was the fighting spirit that surged from the bones of the strongest swordswoman when faced with powerful enemies.

She tightened her grip on the hilt and charged forward.

Battle erupted in an instant.

All eighteen Sternritter members attacked simultaneously. Reishi arrow barrages, Schrift abilities, Hirenkyaku assaults—attacks of every kind rushed at Unohana from all directions.

Unohana moved through the gaps between the attacks. Blade light flashed. Every swing forced back an enemy, and every dodge barely brushed past the edge of an attack.

She was injured.

The first wound came from Schrift T, the pale Quincy. His ability was "Toughness," raising his body's hardness to the extreme. Her blade struck him as though it had struck steel, numbing her hand.

In the gap between slashes, she was hit in the shoulder by his fist, and a faint sound of cracking bones rang out.

The second wound came from a Sternritter wielding a Reishi spear. The spear swept beneath her ribs, carving a deep gash. Blood immediately poured out, soaking the side of her clothes.

The third wound came from Schrift Q. The gray-skinned giant's ability was "Quake."

He could create earthquakes and control the ground to strike ground-based targets. Using an earthquake, he created stone spikes and caught Unohana off guard.

This was something Yachiru Unohana had not experienced in a long time.

Injury.

Bleeding.

Pain.

She did not retreat.

The battle continued. Unohana's blade grew faster, her footwork more elusive, and her Reiatsu more intense. The eighteen Sternritter members began to feel pressure, not because she had become stronger, but because she was not defending at all.

She only attacked.

Every slash was aimed at killing. She did not care whether she would be hurt, how many enemies there were, or how many new wounds covered her body. Her blade was always one step faster than the enemy's attacks because she simply did not care whether she was hit.

One Sternritter member had his arm cut off, blood spurting from the severed stump.

Another had his chest pierced by her blade. His eyes widened in disbelief.

A long wound was carved across Schrift Q's chest, exposing dark red muscle beneath his grayish-white skin.

Schrift T's cheek was cut by the tip of her blade, and a bead of blood seeped from his pale skin.

But Unohana's wounds were increasing as well.

Her left arm had been pierced by a Reishi arrow, leaving a bloody hole in her forearm.

Her right leg had been slashed by a Sternritter wielding a scythe. Blood ran down her calf to her ankle, leaving bloody footprints on the stone-paved road.

A Holy Arrow had grazed her back. Her black uniform had been burned through over a large area, exposing the scorched skin beneath.

Unohana stopped.

She stood in the middle of the battlefield, surrounded by eighteen Sternritter. Beneath her feet lay shattered flagstones and mottled bloodstains.

She was covered in wounds, her clothes soaked through with blood. It was impossible to tell which blood belonged to the enemy and which was her own.

Yet she stood perfectly straight.

Her right hand gripped the hilt, the blade held across her chest, while her left hand seized the edge.

Then she pulled outward.

The blade began to change in her hand.

Its metallic gleam faded, replaced by a flowing, viscous crimson like blood.

The blade melted in her hand, becoming a flowing blade of blood. Droplets fell from it, landing on the ground and gathering in the cracks between the flagstones.

A pool of blood began to form.

Centered on Yachiru Unohana, blood seeped from the ground—not blood flowing from corpses, but blood that emerged from Reishi, from the air, from nothingness itself.

The blood pool rapidly spread, flooding the entire street, rising past ankles and then calves.

"Bankai."

"Minazuki."

Yachiru Unohana's voice was quiet, but every word was like a blade stabbing into the ears of everyone present.

The pool of blood boiled.

The blood within it began spreading in all directions, pursuing the Sternritter like a living thing.

One Sternritter was splashed on the ankle by the blood. His skin immediately reddened, blistered, and ulcerated.

He screamed and leaped up, trying to escape with Hirenkyaku, but the blood had already spread to his knees.

His flesh began to dissolve.

It was not corrosion, nor was it a burn. It was dissolution, like sugar dissolving in water. His muscles peeled away from his bones and became part of the blood.

He lowered his head and saw white bones emerging from the dissolving flesh of his legs.

He saw his organs slipping down within his abdominal cavity.

He let out a shriek. None of them understood what was happening.

Some screams were filled with despair, some with collapse, and some were screams beyond words.

Then came the second.

The third.

The fourth.

Overhealing.

Only then did they realize that they had merely been reduced to bones—they were not dead.