When I began to wake up from my unconscious state, I noticed almost immediately that something was off. Before I even opened my eyes, I could hear the sounds of water rushing down a stream or a waterfall. More importantly, I could feel that everything from my neck down was submerged in warm water.
I opened my eyes and sighed before asking, "How is it that you found the time to fit the both of us in a hot spring? Don't tell me Rukia's execution has already come to pass, has it?"
"Tch," Yoruichi clicked her tongue and she leaned even further back to accentuate her bare chest, "Still no reaction, huh? You're not as fun as the sweet and innocent little strawberry. Anyway, to answer your question, it's because we're strapped for time that I chucked you into the hot springs. The only chance of you waking up in time is if we used the healing properties of the hot springs to help you recover. By the way, Rukia's execution date has been moved up, so there's only a couple of hours left for you to train to get your Bankai like Ichigo."
I could hear the sounds of clashing blades and explosions as the water and earth about the hot springs trembled. Of course, they were distant enough to not concern me immediately, so instead of addressing the more important things going on, I asked, "And you're in your human form, naked, because? Shouldn't you be overseeing Ichigo's training or something?"
"There's not much to the training beyond getting your Zanpakuto Spirit to submit. There's nothing I can do to help him. Besides," Yoruichi sighed, "I've been training to hone off how rusty I've gotten after a hundred years without fighting. I need to recover just as much as you and Ichigo do if I want to stand up to the likes of the Captains."
"Well, it's been… an experience," I said as I stood up and sized her up, "but I really should get out there and run sabotage. Thanks for taking me here and accelerating my recovery, but I'll take care to avoid suddenly blacking out like I did."
As I rose out of the hot springs, I flash-dried my new Shinigami Robes with a Kiai. I went to summon Katayoki's knife and as expected a standard Asauchi blade appeared sheathed at my side. Nothing else had changed visibly, but intrinsically, the Shinigami Form was well worth its Legendary Rarity.
First and foremost, assuming it changed my body into that of it's Soul State — you know, that borderline undying state that allowed me to fight with countless fatal wounds like they weren't even there? That, alone, was like adding a layer of invulnerability and immortality to Salem's Curse.
More importantly, it gave me access to the Shinigami Robes and Asauchi. The Shinigami Robes weren't really all that practical a fight beyond giving me access to clothes so long as I had Spiritual Power; that meant no more being left naked in the face of getting nuked. The Asauchi on the other hand was a game changer. It took away the biggest drawback I had every time I summoned Katayoki's knife. Now, I would no longer need to give up half my Spiritual Power just to sustain my Zanpakuto.
If virtually doubling my already insane Spiritual Power wasn't enough, now that I could assume a Soul State, that meant everything that dealt with Spiritual Power was considerably more efficient. Those bootlegged Kido Spells I used by following Byakuya's experiences and memories? My Shikai and Bankai techniques and abilities? Everything I was capable of with Hollow energies? All of that just got some untold power multiplier.
Speaking of my Hollow powers… Since my Spiritual Power pretty much doubled because assuming a Shinigami Form removed the cap for maintaining Katayoki, my Hollow energies also rose to match them because of Saint & Sinner. So, yeah, I was a little excited to see just how ridiculous my power had grown just from the one Legendary Gacha pull.
Complex Soul, however, was just alright, I guess. It didn't really do much besides compliment and facilitate my Ability to enter a Soul State — becoming a Shinigami — at will. This Legendary Perk was more of a growth or potential kind of boost than a direct power multiplier. Supposedly, it was a vital component in being able to take spiritual and soul-based power systems to a higher dimensional level. It sounded impressive until I understood a "higher dimensional level" to just be "more compact and concentrated energy;" it wasn't anything like I imagined, about messing with space, time, or a fourth direction.
Wait. No… That last bit was wrong. I had been willfully limiting myself to just the spiritual power system of Shinigami's and Hollows. When broadened to include the fact that I could use Aura, however—
"Well damn," I found myself muttering as I superimposed my Aura with my Spiritual Power. The vantablack void of my Aura made the normally bright shade of my Spiritual Power darken to a navy blue.
Uh oh, Complex Soul just rose from being "alright" to "my second biggest cheat, right below my Bankai."
"Before you go, can you at least show me your Bankai," I heard Yoruichi call out as she stepped out of the hot springs. "I know you've been claiming to have it, but I'd feel a lot better about letting you run out there all alone, if I saw it for myself. Moreover, since we're already here, it'll only take a couple of minutes more in the hot springs to recharge any of the spiritual power you expend to unleash it."
"Fine," I sighed, before pointing at her and adding, "But only because you asked nicely."
I drew out my Asuachi and looked at it oddly for a second before my instincts took over and I fearlessly stabbed the blade into my chest. In the same vein as Byakuya would summon his Bankai by dropping his sword into a seemingly liquified ground, my blade pushed into my body and out the other side came out Katayoki.
"Bankai: Kanzenten Katayoki," I said.
Apparently, having become an honest-to-god Shinigami changed a few aspects of my Bankai. Or, well… It could have also been the Complex Soul, the fact that I'd gotten a Semblance Evolution or the Black Hearted Perk after the Battle of Beacon.
Whatever the case, my Shinigami Robes had taken on an ethereal black flame-like quality to them. Katayoki's silhouette was much the same and I had the feeling there was something else added to either his Shikai or Bankai abilities.
"Really dude? You call me out for this? What am I, a circus act?" Katayoki whined.
"I didn't hear you complain when I made up my mind to bring you out. Why are you being such a whinny bitch, now?" I asked.
"This is such bullshit," Katayoki continued to whine. "But, I guess it's fine for the most part," he said as he stared shamelessly at Yoruichi's body, "Cats are definitely better than bunnies."
"Well, aren't you a nice Zanpakuto Spirit," Yoruichi purred as she approached him. "I don't know what that's all about, but I like you." She turned into a cat and began to weave in between his legs while rubbing herself up against him.
"Hell yeah! Can we keep her?" Katayoki asked as he sat down and began to pet and scratch her while staring at me.
"Motherfucker, we're in a Scenario! Even if we weren't, that's a centuries-old Death God," I yelled at him. Really, he knew exactly what to say to rile me up.
"I'm not hearing a 'No.' Not from you and not from her," He grinned.
I stared at the cat and balked when she turned her head to deny me the denial I was expecting her to give him. What the hell? Had she no shame or dignity? We were talking about her as if she were a house cat!
"You know what? Whatever. The drain on my new reserves of energy to keep you materialized is barely even noticeable. Keep playing with Yoruichi if you want. I'm going to go beat up all the Shinigami I can find."
Katayoki waved me away in a shooing motion while Yoruichi delighted in his ministrations. In other words, I was being told to "fuck off" as indirectly as possible.
Grumbling and embittered by their attitude, I decided to blow off some steam in a particularly destructive and creative way. I'd been sitting on a few powers and abilities for a while and this just so happened to be a very good opportunity to set up a combination of all of them.
First, by drinking an Invisibility Potion, then by activating Stealth, next I powered myself up with all the speed enhancement and powers at my disposal, before finally using Pesquisa to map out a route towards every Shinigami — and Pure Soul outside the Seireitei — within several hundred miles in all directions.
Running around at what was probably nearing a percent of the speed of light, I began knocking out everyone in my path and accrued hundreds of Unique Gachas every second. I probably would have been getting more Gachas over ten times faster, but I was too busy trying to carefully apply just enough force to knock people out and, at worst, heavily injure them, instead of outright killing everyone with a casual slap.
Occasionally, I was notified that I'd earned an Epic Gacha and after using Stolen Valor on an unsuspecting Shinigami, I recognized that it was because their source was from Lieutenants that were just under the Captains. As I made my way through the thousands of Shinigami, eventually the remaining Lieutenants and Captains began to react.
Unfortunately for them, by then my Ghost of Zhongtian Perk had boosted me to several times my original max speed and I was only getting faster with each new unsuspecting knockout. What good was reacting to the fact that thousands of their comrades were seemingly dropping like flies and having their Spiritual Power wane to the point of being helpless embers, when I was moving as quickly as I was while invisible?
How was Ghost of Zhongtian working even though I was going out of my way to not kill everyone I attacked? The short answer is Alchemy and the long answer is, by lacing everyone I attacked with a heart-stopping concoction that left them clinically dead for around a minute. Apparently, that was good enough for the Perk to work which I hadn't been all too sure about. Though, to be honest, it was more of a "cherry on top" kind of deal, since I was mostly using the alchemical concoction to ensure everyone I knocked out stayed knocked out for a good while.
Clinical death for over a minute was not something even a strong Shinigami could wake up from and shrug off. Only people with absurd levels of power, be it spiritual energies, Aura, or Ki, could ignore that upon being resuscitated after the death-like state wore off. Also, because my annoying Zanpakuto Spirit was "occupied" at the moment, I had accepted a Unique Grade sword simply called "Nameless" whose only redeeming quality was the fact that I could charge it with any type of energy to administer the doses of the heart-stopping drug.
Anyway, eventually, my seemingly unstoppable force met an actual immovable object and I attacked someone who didn't immediately crumple over.
"Oi, oi," Zaraki Kenpachi, Captain of the 11th Division, said after grabbing my hand and yanking the blade I'd impaled him with out of his body, "Who the hell are you?" He grinned. His grip on my hand was strong enough to break my wrist and cancel my invisibility.
[Congratulations! For defeating a Captain x5, you have earned a (5) Locked Legendary Gacha Coin(s)!]
[Congratulations! For defeating a Lieutenant x8, you have earned a (8) Locked Epic Gacha Coin(s)!]
[Congratulations! For defeating a Seated Officer x134, you have earned a (134) Locked Unique Gacha Coin(s)!]
I flooded my body with energies and broke out of his grip. A moment later, a horrifying amalgam of different spiritual pressures exploded from various parts of the Seireitei.
"Welp, it was a good run while it lasted," I sighed before meeting the spiritual pressures with my own to let everybody know where to focus their attention on. It wouldn't do if what remained of the Gotei 13 assumed the worst and went after Rukia, Ichigo or Yoruichi.
"Now we're—" Kenpachi started only to catch a hitch in his breath as I went above and beyond to assume my Vasto Lorde Form.
With all my new powers and bonuses to my soul, my spiritual pressure more or less matched the aggregated of all the others one being cast out by the remaining Captains and their subordinates.
"Hahaha!" Kenpachi, insane as I understood him to be from the memories I'd gotten through Stolen Valor, ripped the soul-suppressing eyepatch he wore off his face and raised his own spiritual pressure to combat mine.
Unfortunately for him, my spiritual pressure was considerably stronger, but it was not enough to impede him as he rushed at me and began to slash away without caring the slightest bit about collateral damage. Every time I blocked, a shockwave from our blades clashing would destroy the floor and walls for hundreds of meters in every direction. Everything I dodged, the residual power of his slashes would cut through buildings or leave trenches on the ground that were hundreds of meters deep.
I tried to fight slightly above the level he was capable of and grind him down, but the crazy son of a bitch purposefully leaned into fatal attacks and seemed to be getting stronger the longer I let the fight drag on! I'd slashed at his neck, punctured his lungs, and covered him in more slashes than Byakuya had managed to land on me when we fought, and Kenpachi continued trudging along despite the fact that he kept leaking blood like a broken faucet.
Sensing the massive blights of spiritual pressure getting closer, I decided to dial my power up by a few degrees of intensity and cut off his limbs.
[Congratulations! For defeating the Captain of the 11th Division, Zaraki Kenpachi, you have earned a Locked Legendary Gacha Coin!]
"Gahaha!" He laughed uproariously even as he lay helplessly without his arms or legs to continue fighting back, "That was fun, brat! I never knew it'd be so nice to fight someone I can't even touch."
I ignored him as I executed a Sonido to the nearest source of extreme spiritual pressure. I appeared right behind Gin Ichimaru, Captain of the 5th Division, and tried to knock him out by dosing him with my heart-stilling drug, but the man was fast enough to parry my attack.
"Bankai: Kamishini No Yari."
With the way we were currently locking blades, it was impossible for me to dodge when his short sword rapidly expanded at several times the speed of sound with virtually no discernable point where it began and ended accelerating; and that was while my perspective was dilated by the effects of all my powers ups and the Sandevistan.
An impossibly long blade cut through my Hierro like it wasn't even in effect and, just as quickly, the blade retracted back to its original shape. Anyone else probably would have died after getting their jugular vein torn to shreds and their head almost completely lopped off by such an attack, but not only did I have Health Potions to fall back on, but Salem's Curse was enough to reverse the damage at a rate that was visible to the naked eye.
"Hoho," he smirked smugly, "Regeneration of that level is rare to see even for a Vasto Lorde level Arrancar. How precarious this situation has become for me," he mocked.
"You're sounding awfully smug for someone whose Bankai just failed to kill me," I gave him an odd look.
"But did it, though? Did it really?" He asked while pointing to his Zanpakuto. When I looked at it, I noticed a fragment of it was missing from the blade's body.
"Korose, Kamishini No Yari," he said and 95% of my neck disintegrated, leaving my head only connected to my body by thin flaps of skin.
"Scary," I admitted as my absolute regeneration worked its magic and restored my body back to normal.
"End the Madness, Katayoki," I called out for my Zanpakuto to reform and unleash its Shikai state before I threw Katayoki's knife at the shocked Captain. When he tried to block it, the knife cut through his Zanpakuto and stabbed a couple of inches into his body before I teleported over to it and delivered a decisive kick that launched him through a couple dozen buildings.
[Congratulations! For defeating the Captain of the 3rd Division, Gin Ichimaru, you have earned a Locked Legendary Gacha Coin!]
I used Pesquisa to check if I had any hopes of catching one of the remaining Captains alone, but sighed as the chances of that happening dropped to near zero. I then frowned and turned to the Senzaikyu where Rukia was supposed to be kept until tomorrow as I felt her already insignificant spiritual power drop to dangerously low levels. When I focused on the other signatures around her, I was intrigued to find that there was an individual with Captain-level reserves near her.
I gripped Katayoki's firmly before launching him towards the Senzaikyu. Less than a second later, I felt through my connection that it had started breaking through walls, so I teleported over to it and used a couple instances of Sonido to appear by Rukia's side.
"What did you do to her?" I asked the man I recognized to be Sosuke Aizen. It was odd to see him alive and healthy when he had supposedly been murdered in cold blood a day or so prior. More importantly, it looked like he was responsible for creating the Hollow-like hole that was currently occupying a cavity in Rukia's chest.
"I simply took back what was mine," he said while holding up some sort of obscure artifact that I couldn't identify. "Now, if you'll be so kind as to answer one of my questions. How did a Visored like you come to be? The chaos you caused provided a better distraction than I'd plan for to get back the Hogyoku, but the fact that an anomaly like you exists warrants special attention."
"Visored, Arrancar… I'm starting to regret not using Stolen Valor on any of the Captains I beat before coming here if only to have some concrete definitions," I muttered. I probably did have the definitions back when I'd stolen Byakuya's memories, but because I'd blacked out before I could properly record them, they'd been lost once the effects of Stolen Valor ran out a day later; and right now I was running on Stolen Valor from considerably less powerful and influential Shinigami.
"You don't even know what you are?" Aizen smiled what should have been smugly or even a smirk, but I honestly couldn't consider it more than a genuine smile. "Visored are Shinigami who have conquered their Inner Hollow. Arrancar are Hollows who have gained Shinigami powers by ripping off their mask. I presume you must be a Visored by the fact that your Hollow energies do not dominate over your standard spiritual power. Though, I suppose if you have unleashed your release state as an Arrancar it would be impossible to tell considering you look exactly like a Vasto Lorde."
"Ripping off my mask will make me an Arrancar?" I asked, though it was mostly a question to myself instead of to him.
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"Only if you were actually a Hollow and not a Shinigami," Aizen patiently explained. I rather liked how calm and relaxed he was despite the grave situation surrounding us.
Anyway, feeling like I had nothing to lose by trying to become an Arrancar, I attempted to take my mask off as a Vasto Lorde. It was seemingly fused into my face, so my first try was a failure. After kicking it up a notch and using my full spiritual power, the mask started cracking. It held fast until I added Aura to the mix and raised my strength five-fold with Body Augmentation.
[Congratulations! For surviving the process of taking off your mask as a Hollow, you have earned a Locked Legendary Gacha Coin!]
My body started trembling uncontrollably as my absolute regeneration kicked in and tried to restore my mask. It couldn't because the moment my mask was restored it shattered, so the process looped and drained my stamina and spiritual power at a concerning rate. I took a gamble and accepted my latest earned Locked Legendary Gacha Coin and it paid off as the reward was exactly what I was hoping for.
[Results: Rarity — Legendary 999,999 (Locked) | Arrancar Form (Ability - Bleach Canon)]
[Congratulations! For replacing a superior version of an Ability (Arrancar Form) with that of an already existing Ability (Vasto Lorde Form), you have earned a Locked Mythical Gacha Coin!]
This was insane. A Mythical Locked Gacha Coin? I had half a mind to just accept it right here and now, but I knew that with my luck it'd probably knock me out again or instantly bring me out of the Scenario.
"Amazing," Aizen's words got my attention, "I've calculated the odds of an Arrancar naturally forming to be less than one in a hundred even among Vasto Lorde Hollows. For you to so effortlessly achieve it is nothing short of a marvel."
"Uh, thanks?" I hesitantly said, wondering what his deal was and whether or not he considered me an enemy. So far all he'd done was hand me the keys to my first positive Mythical Gacha Coin and talk amicably.
"Yes, that kind of power would serve me quite well," He said under his breath as he reached for his sealed Zanpakuto.
Wary of the possible cheats he may have in store, I kept my eyes peeled and guard up for any possible attack. My spiritual power and various other powers and energies churned violently under my skin as I waited for him to give me a reason to smite him down.
"Shatter, Kyoka Suigetsu," he released his Shikai and… nothing happened.
"I'm confused. Are we enemies or not?" I asked as I looked between him and Rukia, whose hollow-like chest cavity was noticeably smaller than it had been when I first arrived.
"We don't have to be," Aizen said. "If you choose to submit to my command. I'll even look past you defeating my other subordinates, Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tousen."
"How about no," I asked rhetorically, tensing my legs in preparation for a fight to break out.
"And why not? I could offer you more power and prestige than you could even imagine, with this," he raised the Hogyoku. "Once I kill the Soul King and change the Soul Society, your heart will be without want or need for anything. All you'd have to do is follow me. Otherwise, I'd have to kill you where you stand."
"I mean, you could try, but—"
My chest was caved in by twin slashes that I could not perceive. The wounds didn't go far enough to reach my visceral organs, but it was concerning when I couldn't tell I'd been hit until after the fact.
"Enemies, it is," I sighed before virtually teleporting right next to him with my elevated speed as an Arrancar and stabbing at his chest.
He blocked my knife with a single finger, stunning me so harshly that I just stood there for a moment with my jaw dropped. He flexed his finger down on Katayoki's knife and that action managed to take out both eyes as well as cut a few more terrible wounds all over my body.
"What the hell kind of cheats are you running?" I asked as I flickered a few hundred paces back to buy some time for my eyes to recover.
"I don't blame you for being unfamiliar with my Zanpakuto's Shikai ability. No one except my followers know its true power. The Gotei 13? They were led to believe Kyoka Suigetsu was a water-based Zanpakuto with the tame ability to provide a home-field advantage for me when I erected its mist domain. In reality, everyone who has seen my Zanpakuto the moment I release its Shikai form is forever subject to its perfect hypnosis. Do you understand, now? You can't win. I also can't let you leave if you refuse to submit, so choose now. Follow and survive or die."
Perfect Hypnosis? That was a truly devastating ability. It was a cheat on a level that completely ignored my current levels of Mental Resistance if the fact that I couldn't even tell I'd been under its effects until Aizen told me about it meant anything. That didn't mean I couldn't counter it if I absolutely needed to, my Bankai would remove the effect if I used it on myself, but I would have to give up Salem's Curse to do that and I was really starting to appreciate the absolute regeneration.
"Have you forgotten all those boosts and powerups to your Soul you've gotten?" Katayoki sarcastically asked. "I didn't think I'd have to tell you directly since, you know, my appearance has changed yet again. But, since you need me to spell it out for you… we can deal with the effect without having to give up the curse. You can't take on more than one permanent effect for yourself, but I can take a secondary effect from anyone else until you dispel me."
"Bankai: Kanzenten Katayoki."
"It doesn't matter what your Bankai can do," Aizen shook his head disappointedly, "If you can't hit me, you can't win. And if it turns out that your ability delivers some sort of mass-scale destruction that might damage me, you'll only end up hurting the people you've been trying not to kill. With the Hogyoku, I can survive just about anything and if I experience an attack once, I'll make sure I'll never needlessly take it again."
As Katayoki phased out of my body, he came right back and beamed as he stabbed me. When he pulled his knife out of my body, it glowed a soothing purple hue.
"I can't believe this weirdo is a part of me," I cursed before turning to Aizen. He looked at me with disbelief when I looked at his real body and not where he had been projecting himself to be.
"Let's get this over with," I said as I flipped Katayoki's knife once before assuming a throwing position.
"Impos—" I cut him off by throwing my knife at him.
Amazingly, even after getting as strong as I currently was, Aizen was still strong enough to block me. He was definitely slightly weaker than me, but not enough for my Spiritual Power to just cut through his sword and knock him out. Someone as strong as him was definitely worth using Stolen Valor on, so after a couple hundred clashes, I finally managed to nick him in the forearm and—
Dear gods… I'd been skating on thin fucking ice!
He was more ridiculously powerful than I could have imagined. He was a master of every style of Shinigami Techniques— Kido (Spells), Bakuda (Hand-to-Hand), Zanjutsu (Swordsmanship), and Hoho (Movement Techniques). He had Spiritual Power that, he believed, only paled in comparison to the Captain Commander who led all the other Captains of the Gotei 13.
He had been planning and scheming a coup of the current system that governed the Soul Society (What I called Heaven initially) and after getting the Hogyoku, had been planning on erecting an army of Arrancar in Hueco Mundo (The Hollow World I was once dragged into) to eventually kill the Soul King and replace him.
He was on a level beyond all the other Captains I'd managed to beat and that was before taking into account his absolutely broken Shikai Ability. I could not afford for him to break out the Reality Warping bullshit that was his Bankai, so I attacked him relentlessly and gave him no chance to use his release command. Even if it resulted in him winning an exchange of blades with me, I let him stab at me and even cut off a few limbs if it meant he didn't get the chance to bring out his Bankai.
Unfortunately, it seemed I would not be able to resolve our fight by knocking him by the time the rest of the Guards arrived. But I absolutely could not risk this unhinged psychopath using his Bankai, so I went all out and took lethal angles of attack.
Ironically, I managed to not kill him when I finally managed to land a fatal hit through his heart. I thought I did until I got the notification from my Gacha powers.
[Congratulations! For defeating the Traitor and True Threat to Soul Society, Sosuke Aizen, you have earned a Locked Mythical Gacha Coin!]
Souls were made of steamer stuff than bodies made of flesh and bone, but usually even the strongest Shinigami died when their hearts were obliterated. Aizen, however, was merely knocked out. Standing over his tattered body, I could see his wounds begin to wriggle and writhe as they sought to close autonomously.
Had this been the real world, I would have considered just killing him and being done with it. But, this was a Scenario and I was running on borrowed time. As messed up as I'd left him after our fight, he wouldn't be getting up any time soon. And, when he did eventually recover, I could sense by the rapidly waning amounts of his Spiritual Power that he would be awakening to a weakened state.
Still, with Aizen's memories and experiences, I couldn't help but consider whether or not it would be wise to Fast Travel out of this Scenario once the remaining Captains descended on my location. The only people left were arguably the three strongest Captains plus Ukitake and Byakuya who I'd already beaten once.
These people would probably break out into their Bankai the moment they had a chance. Actually, by the feel of one of their spiritual pressures which dwarfed all the others, I had the distinct feeling that Retsu Unohana, the only one whose Bankai didn't involve indiscriminate and large-scale effects, had already activated hers.
I wasn't all too confident in my ability to deal with all of them at the same time when I only had one additional Bankai or effect I could negate with Katayoki now that I didn't need to hold onto Kyoka Suigetsu's effect on my body. Then again, if I played my cards right, I probably wouldn't have to deal with more than one or two of them at the same time without their Bankai effects clashing against each other.
Decisions, decisions…
I could always risk taking any of the Legendary or Mythical Gacha Coins I'd been sitting on to increase my chances of success. It would probably end in tragedy if I just so happened to knock myself out by intrinsically changing the nature of my soul yet again, but was the risk worth it?
I mean, I really, really wanted to get all the Legendary or Mythical Gacha Coins I would be entitled to by beating the remaining Captains and I honestly couldn't be killed by any of their Bankai even if I let them all hit me with theirs at the same time. Nothing they had could destroy me on a subatomic level so the worst-case scenario was being captured which I could just escape by using Fast Travel.
In effect, by taking the Mythical and Legendary Gacha Coins I was sitting on, I'd only be gambling on whether or not I'd temporarily be captured. If things went my way and I increased my power without getting knocked out, I'd get all the remaining Gacha Coins on the table. But, if I got knocked out, the worst thing that would happen is I'd eventually wake up to find myself sealed off somewhere or in the middle of being experimented on.
It inspired a bit of dread and existential horror to consider what I might wake up to if someone like Mayuri Kurotsuchi got ahold of my body. But… It'd end the same way if I lost to the Captains because I didn't power up now while I still had the chance. And I would make a stand against them. How could I not when there was so much on the table?!
Was this psychotic compulsion to play into my Gacha powers the reason I had them?
"I am a slave to my vices," I sighed, giving into my desires. Like the helpless and guileless blight on morality that I was, I rationalized my decision by offering no one but myself a pointless compromise.
'I'll just accept one Mythical Gacha Coin instead of both of them and the Legendary ones I have in reserve. That way the chances that I'll get knocked out are drastically lowered, right?'
No, you absolute moron! That's not how probability works when every Locked Gacha is set! It wouldn't even matter if this was standard Gacha as the possibilities were so varied that they were practically unchanged by the number of coins I used. There were probably just as many countless outcomes of me getting something that knocked me out as there were of me getting something that wouldn't.
But I didn't care.
Gacha was love. Gacha was life.
And, so long as mine wasn't at risk, I was ashamed to realize that I didn't give a shit what else might happen to me as a consequence aside from it suddenly ending.
[Results: Rarity — Mythical 3,666,999 (Locked) | Resurrección: Segunda Etapa (Ability - Bleach Canon)]
'Oh fuck, that's so awesome. And I didn't even get knocked out! How about just one more?' My hopeless self thought.
[Results: Rarity — Mythical 5,000,000 (Locked) | Hogyoku's Wish (Perk - Bleach Canon)]
YES!
GAMBLING PREVAILS!!!
I would have considered breaking out into a cringy song and dance if the Captains I'd been dreading hadn't suddenly appeared surrounding me. What was that stupid saying people on the internet said about gambling, that, "99% of Gamblers stopped right before winning?" I guess I must have been a part of that prestigious 1% because my newest Perk was exactly what I'd been hoping for to resolve the mess that was my Mythical Curse.
Hogyoku's Wish made my desires manifest, which was just a fancy way of saying it could get rid of my Mythical Curse. Or… I could use it to just manifest another Mythical Perk, Item, Ability, or Skill. It could make just about anything that Gacha considered Mythical Grade or worse, but the higher the rarity of the thing I desired ended up manifesting, the longer it would take before I could make use of the Perk again.
So, I could wish for my Daily Dose of Catastrophe to go away, but that would put the cooldown for using the Mythical Perk again to about half a year. If I was as I'd been before taking on my first Mission, I would have done it without hesitation. But now that I was several times stronger, to the point where I didn't even know how strong I'd end up being once I used Resurrección…
I don't know. Maybe I was being too cocky or arrogant. Maybe my lucky break was affecting my behavior. Whatever the case, I think I might just be strong enough to accept and resolve "Mankind's First Extinction." After all, I didn't have to be strong enough to resolve it. I just needed to be fast and durable enough to survive long enough to Fast Travel away from whatever insanity lay in store for me on the other side.
I mean, I was apparently already strong enough to be capable of acquiring Mythical Grade reward by defeating multi-continental, if not planetary, level threats. So, maybe I was also ready to take on the nearly Mythical Grade Scenario. I was sure that if I stuck to whatever the actual Directives were to resolve the Scenario and didn't go out of my way to mess with surrounding factors, that I'd be fine.
Better to save my semiannual wish on some other Curse I might get by rolling standard or risky Gacha, right?
"Ryoka, you've made quite a mess out of my Gotei 13," Captain Commander Yamamoto said with a grave tone. It was nice of him to still be in a talking mood when we were literally standing next to the grievously wounded body of one of his Captains. It didn't matter that Aizen was a traitor since nobody present knew about it besides me. The others that knew about it — Gin and Tousen — were in on the coup.
"Yeah? What about it? You called us invaders and I suppose we are. What did you expect, that we'd just let you execute our friend for such a stupid reason?" I played into the lore of the Scenario. Though, to be honest, even if I didn't know Rukia as a person, I wholeheartedly agreed with my statements. It was stupid and foolhardy to condemn her to death, just because she gave Ichigo his Shinigami powers. Had she not done that both of them would have died.
I might have had a different opinion if she had willfully broken the rules for no reason or even if she had created a monster as was the reason for the rule's existence. But so far, Ichigo had been nothing but the ideal candidate for becoming a Substitute Shinigami. Hell, the guy had even gone out of his way to do Rukia's job for her while she had been recovering her powers in the Human World.
"Such disrespect," Yamamoto shrugged off his white over coat. "Are you sure you want those to be your final words?"
I shrugged.
"Then so be it," Yamamoto said before I was slammed by thirty light prism rods.
The incantationless Bakudo Spells were powerful as they came from five Kido Masters, but I was amped up and in my Arrancar Form. It barely even stopped me for a moment before I broke through the spells by walking out of the hold.
I shook my head before focusing on Shunsui Kyoraku. Of all the people around, his Shikai and Bankai were the most aggravating to deal with. Changing the way a fight works based on games that his Zanpakuto decides on? Forcing everyone affected by his Bankai to take part in the macabre theater play that ends with him always winning?
I'd win in the end because in essence all his Bankai would do is pit my Spiritual Power against his, but I did not want to be forced to play into his game and be left any weaker with all the other insanely strong people that would be left around.
"Resurrección—" I found my body nearly completely bisected by a diagonal slash that an unhinged-looking Unohana delivered. The attack ran from my right shoulder to the left side of my hip, but I ignored it as I continued to galvanize Hollow Energies I wasn't all that sure as to where I'd been hiding in the depths of my soul, "—Segunda Etapa."
The ground for miles cratered and instantly sunk in on itself, leaving only the small pillar Unohana and I were standing on, as the sky darkened. I wasn't sure if it was me, but it almost felt like the very air around me was vibrating.
[Congratulations! For achieving transcendental power, you have earned a Locked Divine Gacha Coin!]
This is getting ridiculous at this point… All I did was use my new ability! Shouldn't just possessing it have given me this prompt? Also, Divine Gacha? How many more levels were there to this game?!
I threw my knife at Shunsui but miscalculated how much stronger I'd gotten and accidentally skewed right through him before I fumbled yet again and recalled Katayoki to my hand. The tear in space that remained proved indomitable as Shunsui's body fell through it.
[Congratulations! For killing the Captain of the 8th Division, Shunsui Kyoraku, you have earned a Locked Mythical Gacha Coin!]
The world exploded into a hellscape of heat and fire as Yamamoto unleashed his Shikai and began to spread its fires arbitrarily. If my understanding of his Bankai from Aizen was right, then he was setting up his Bankai to be used to a devastating effect even if it meant possibly sacrificing any nearby — defined as "within a couple dozen miles" — Shinigami under the Captain level.
That might end up being bad news for me, but not as bad as it might be if I took out the remaining other Captains around. It'd be a gamble to attack the Captain Commander now as not one-shotting him would probably end with him using his Bankai anyway. Getting rid of Unohona, Byakuya and Ukitake would at least ensure that if I ended up having to face his Bankai, I wouldn't have to worry about high-level barriers or sealing Kido being thrown my way and potentially giving the man a chance to land a critical hit.
I was confident I could survive the incinerating effect of his Bankai, but I wasn't all that eager to test my invulnerability against something Aizen considered "capable of burning anything it cut out of existence." If I didn't have to take a sketchy hit, why would I?
I used Sonido to appear behind Byakuya and stabbed him with my laced Nameless sword. When a nanosecond passed with Gacha failing to inform me that I'd defeated him, I gave him a helpless look before smacking him away and doing the same to Ukitake.
[Congratulations! For killing the Captain of the 6th Division, Byakuya Kuchiki, you have earned a Locked Legendary Gacha Coin!]
[Congratulations! For killing the Captain of the 13th Division, Jushiro Ukitake, you have earned a Locked Legendary Gacha Coin!]
I felt bad about killing them, but that was only for show as I was really invested in completely clearing out all the Captains before ending this Scenario. I'd already irreparably fucked things up, so what point was there in caring about killing simulated people?
Unohana Flash Stepped next to me and slashed at me again. Feeling like I should repent for my terribly unethical thoughts, I let her blade run across my bare skin.
In my current state, one above the Vasto Lorde Full Release of an Arrancar, I would have returned to had I undergone simple Resurrección, all my Hollow armor was gone. Apart from my torso which was not covered at all, the rest of my body was smoldering in vantablack void flames much like Katayoki's new appearance. I was completely naked, but also had my modesty covered by the flame-like constructs. Also, my Vasto Lorde tattoos had become more elaborate, my unilateral horn had grown longer, and the hole in my chest was marked with a trail of blood-like darkness that made it look like my Hollow hole had been punched into my body instead of forming naturally.
Anyway, despite being seemingly less defended now that my bone armor was gone, the same blade that nearly cleaved me in half while under my base Arrancar Form slid off my body without so much as drawing blood. It did scratch me with the blade digging a couple millimeters into my skin, but I was way too tough with all my other powers and defensive techniques on full display.
At that thought, I gauged my energy levels and grimaced at how quickly they were evaporating. If I kept everything up as I had been since I'd run into Kenpachi, I would empty what was left of my reserves in a little under five minutes. Though, while that sounded pathetic, I was moving and doing battle at a rate where nanoseconds were being considered, so…
Nevermind, I guess.
I smacked Unohana away and miraculously, she was neither knocked out nor killed by my grossly overpowered state. She simply came back at me like a vengeful spirit, looking only slightly more haggard than her previously unhinged appearance. Unfortunately, while a halfhearted smack didn't do her in, an actually serious stab from my knife definitely did.
[Congratulations! For killing the Captain of the 4th Division, Retsu Unohana, you have earned a Locked Mythical Gacha Coin!]
I turned to the Captain Commander and found myself taking a step back from the baleful aura he projected at me with his glare. I think this is what people talked about when they mentioned "killing intent" in martial arts.
I was just about to attack when I hesitated at how quickly all the flames surrounding us were drawn into his blade. I could feel the temperature of the very air around us quickly rose at an exponential rate. Fortunately, despite the rising heat, my body, though capable of registering it, was not affected by it at all.
"Bankai: Zanka no Tachi," he said.
Honestly, I was a little underwhelmed. I was expecting it to be this unfathomable power based on what Aizen knew of it but—
I blocked Yamamoto's charging downward slash and buckled under the horrifying weight and power behind the blow. My wrist was broken, my palm was split open and I had absorbed the overwhelming majority of the energy behind the blow, but the ground and everything behind and below me had vaporized into nothingness for thousands of meters.
"Damn, you're the real deal," I impulsively said as my hand healed and waved his sword away from me. Maybe it was a little crazy of me to think this way, but I was kind of glad some of the hype I'd been feeling for him was paying off. At least now I might have something to accurately gauge where the max of my power lay.
Until I accepted all the other Gacha Coins I had waiting for me, that is…
His Spiritual Pressure multiplied by a factor of ten and actually managed to stun me for just long enough that I couldn't avoid another slash. I could, however, raise my own Spiritual Pressure to my max — and dear god, it was actually a little weaker than his — before I attempted to block again.
This time, I managed to block the slash without suffering any injuries, just a ludicrous amount of collateral damage I'd rather not think about. I was also prepared to follow through with my block to deflect his sword away and launch my own attack. As a similar phenomenon of the world behind him being obliterated happened once he blocked my blade, his body erupted into a pyre of flames. These flames were so ungodly hot that I was actually slowly accumulating burns by just holding my knife so close to his body.
Good thing, my gimmick as a Shinigami lay in long-range knife throwing.
I backed up a hundred paces before throwing my knife around him over twenty times in the span of a few microseconds. He had been moving to attack me the entire time, but as the cutting tears appeared, he had less and less possible places to dodge until I got the perfect chance to guarantee my knife would hit him if I threw it at him.
Alas, a direct hit didn't mean much when he could just block it. The fact that I'd gotten him to stop to block, however, was enough for me to bring out Trick Vanish and do away with the flames that made him unapproachable. He still had his ridiculous Spiritual Power, and Bankai-enhanced blade, but at least I was now capable of mixing in close combat teleportation into the mix.
"Zanka no Tachi: Kaka Jūmanokushi Daisōjin," the old man stabbed his sword into the ground and out came a literal skeleton army from the depths of hell.
"Bankai: Kanzenten Katayoki," I relented, just to give myself some extra breathing room as literally all of the skeletons that began to claw and grab at me had what felt like Captain-levels of Spiritual Power.
As my Zanpakuto Spirit stalled the Captain Commander for a moment, I charged up a black Cero and then instinctively cut open my finger to feed the point of light a drop of my blood. The core of the point glowed an eerie blue that grew more pronounced until I capped out on the amount of energy I could compress into it.
When I let the Cero loose and held the beam active while sweeping the skeleton army, it erased it and everything else it touched for as far as the eye could see. Even the walls of the Seireitei were punched through dozens of miles away, with only the Kido barrier surrounding the Seireitei persisting, though they warped and bent violently until I released the technique.
[Congratulations! For killing a Seated Officer x321, you have earned a (321) Locked Unique Gacha Coin(s)!]
[Congratulations! For killing Orihime Inoue, you have earned a Locked Unique Gacha Coin!]
[Congratulations! For killing Uryu Ishida, you have earned a Locked Epic Gacha Coin!]
Whoops…
Let that be a lesson for the future: Don't indiscriminately shoot deadly lasers.
I smiled at my joke, but, internally I felt like the biggest failure in the world. This was a simulated Scenario, but the fact of the matter was that most of the actions I'd taken were probably the same as I would have done in the real world. Barring the obvious, like killing people just to get Gacha Token — Mythical, Divine, or even beyond — I honestly hadn't even considered the implications of using my Cero, which would obviously be vaporized through everything leading all the way over to the Seireitei's borders.
I knew fighting Yamamoto in his Bankai risked massive levels of collateral, but I hadn't been expecting most of it to come from me. Now here I was triumphant over his skeleton army and about to join Katayoki to hopefully put the old man down for good, but it had come at the cost of inadvertently killing hundreds of people who had nothing to do with the battle and two of my supposed allies.
If this had happened in real life…
"Get your ass over here!" Katayoki demanded as half his body was driven into the ground by one of Yamamoto's overhead slashes. "I'm getting fucking destroyed over here!"
My ill-fated Zanpakuto's words drew me out of my slump. I could worry about the "what-ifs" and "might-bes" later. Right now, I needed to beat the old man before I inadvertently did something to force my way out of the Scenario. I needed it or else all the mistakes I'd made would have been for nothing.
Timing a knife-throw for precisely the moment Katayoki blocked one of Yamamoto's attacks, I appeared right next to the Captain Commander and at last drew blood as I stabbed at his liver. He ignored the deep wound and slashed down at me, but I blocked it to give Katayoki the chance to stab him in the neck.
Katayoki was considerably weaker than me since most of his strength lay in his special ability when we weren't not forced to be equally matched within the confines of my Soul, but he was still strong enough to drive his knife nearly two inches into the old man; more than enough to cut his jugular. Unfortunately, a punctured liver and severed jugular would not put our final enemy down immediately, and like a man possessed, he simply continued to fight back without regard for worsening his wounds.
He focused all his attention on me and his perilous state seemed to bolster his Spiritual Power to even greater lengths as my knife started to crack and my body began to break down under his every subsequent attack. All the while, Katayoki took every opening he got and cut the old man dozens of times over.
When my Zanpakuto Spirit managed to take out his eyes, I took a step back and chanted, "Bakudo Number Seventy-Nine: Kuyō Shibari."
Nine black suns appeared around the Captain Commander for the slightest moment before he broke through the binding spell. Unfortunately for him, that fraction of a second was all Katayoki and I needed to land a decapitating blow.
[Congratulations! For killing the Captain Commander of the 1st Division, Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto, you have earned a Locked Divine Gacha Coin!]
Standing over his corpse, I felt just about every negative emotion a person could.
Lament, regret, shame, disgust, self-hate, loathing, guilt, anxiety, fear…
I wondered if it was alright to not care about the destruction my carelessness had caused in this fake, simulated world. I then recalled Katayoki's advice about studying psychology and the basic understanding I'd gotten from what little my Shadow Clones had managed to study before I realized I didn't know enough to make up my mind.
Maybe it would feel worth it once I accepted all the Gacha Coins back at my apartment on Remnant. Maybe the fact that I'd lied to Yoruichi, gone back on my word and committed various deplorable acts that I would probably seek action again had I seen someone else commit, was a step too far to be justified.
Whatever the case, I was pretty worn out from all the fighting and terrible things I'd done.
So, I used Fast Travel for the first time and appeared where I'd set it, back at the roof of the restaurant I worked at, Bistro Cafe. I undid my various layered transformations and dropped the multitude of Skills and techniques I'd been stacking to keep up with Yamamoto before making my way down from the roof and slowly walking back to my apartment.
It was still hours away before the sun rose over the horizon, but I wanted some time to be alone and without any thoughts plaguing me while a new squadron of Shadow Clones took off to continue studying psychology for me.
Hopefully, when all was said and done, I would find something to redeem myself. It sucked having to live while doubting myself like I was.