Chapter 12-15 - Defanged
15 - Defanged
“Shit...shit shit shit shit!”Ichigo’s inner world slowly began collapsing. In a wake of panic, he took a few steps back, trying to set up an escape for himself and the rest of his comrades.
“So that was the case, was it not?!” Voices in the seats roared louder and louder. “Your job was to lead him to us!”
“Fuck...he’s coming here!” Someone in the audience couldn’t bear that thought anymore.
“No, that’s-”
“Is that true? This was your goal all along?!” Heidrich asked, he himself devoured by a sense of impending, unavoidable doom. Sounds of rifles being loaded filled the room, accompanying the widespread mental distress and despair.
“It is not!” Jian quickly replied. The ground shook again, much more powerfully this time. All over the area, loud sirens began whaling.
“Quick, we need to get the fuck outta here!” Zawadski yelled, rushing towards the exit.
“Too slow!” Jian said, already having taken aim at one of the walls. With tremendous impact loaded in a single shot, she broke the wall apart completely, revealing the outside world to them. They quickly jumped out.
“Damn it...” Heidrich thought, watching the four soulfuls escape. “So this is it...”
“He’s on his way here, huh?”
“Everyone, man your stations! We’re protecting this base even if it costs us our lives!” Heidrich exclaimed. The few officials that didn’t flee in absolute terror froze in place, saluting their commander. “If any of you are caught deserting, I’ll shoot you down myself! Initiate all levels of emergency breach protocol!”
The soulfuls rushed outside, falling outside of the building, and they ran as fast as they could.
“The presence is coming from the west...which is...right fucking behind us.” Ichigo said. “We need to find a way to get out, fast.”
“We’re already breaking our legs here!” Zawadski replied, angered. He tapped on his earpiece. “Sakuto, we’re in deep shit. Kaito’s about to catch up to us. We’re currently-”
A quake stronger than all the previous ones combined shook them, causing Yuuka and Zawadski to trip and fall down. Ichigo looked back, witnessing the aftermath of an exceptionally powerful explosion - and an afterimage of pure, white flames.
And in the sky, far away but way too close, he saw something bright in the sky, and its presence was strong enough to plunge those unfortunate enough to sense it into a deep, dark abyss of hopelessness.
“So this is where you are, you filthy soulless vermin...” Kaito said to himself, soaring above the fortress city. Moments later, the military fought back.
They fired at him with anti-air guns and surface-to-air missiles, none of them accomplishing anything, despite being the highest quality of weapons. Kaito, disappointed but also growing more and more infuriated by the second, began descending. Heidrich, rushing to the roof of the building to mount one of the guns, saw just that. A divine presence descending from the skies. He let go of the gun he was trying to mount and grabbed his own assault rifle. He took aim.
The bullets weren’t even sensed by Kaito. With an oceanic calm and a deep dark concentration, he landed on the ground.
In just two flying slashes, he dismantled the building. He propelled himself closer to it, walking through all the gunfire and explosives being fired at him. Following after him was a small army of voidflames, who cleaned up whatever was left alive. Powerful, almost surgical slashes took care of the heavy equipment, and the flames that spread around the area painfully tortured and murdered the personnel.
A small series of low-yield flaming arrows destroyed chunks of the building.
“Considering that this is where the Heisei is, they came here to negotiate, did they not?”
He flew up to the last standing parts of the roof, where he saw the commander responsible for protecting the world against him.
“How fascinating, a soulful , burdening the salvation of the soulless...” Kaito said. As Heidrich took a fighting stance, Kaito blitzed him and held him by his neck. “Where are they?”
“Who...?” Heidrich said, trying to resist as Kaito held him above ground.
“The treacherous dogs of the Heisei.” Kaito said.
“I...I have no clue...” Heidrich said. “I have no obligation to help the likes of you, you psychopathic-”
“Then shut the fuck up. I’ll find them myself.” Kaito said. A white, burning rope wrapped itself around Heidrich’s body, trapping him in place. A pair of voidflames approached him to guard him.
“No matter how many deals you’ve struck with them, they’re still soulfuls. They cannot escape me.”
Kaito took off again, flying just above the skyscrapers, carefully checking every single street he flew above, smelling and following the scent of the soul presences that the soulfuls had.
“No good, he’ll catch up to us.” Yuuka said, her voice trembling a little. “Kyah, fuck it! I’ll use my divine acclamation on him and fry his brain again!”
“If he withstood while weakened by every soulful under the sun, he’ll withstand it now for sure.” Zawadski said, continuing to run. “Fucking hell, the presence is getting closer and closer...”
“We cannot outrun him.” Jian said. “Ichigo, can you extend your optical camo onto us? If we have something distracting him, and...”
But Ichigo wasn’t listening.
“You’re right...”
“We can’t outrun it. Our only option is to hide.“
“Ichigo! Can you make that work?!” Jian asked. “Ichigo? Are you listening to me?!”
”We can’t make ourselves invisible, either...”
“We can’t...”
He suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“Everyone! Let go of all the soul prowess in you!”
“What?!” Zawadski exclaimed.
“Every single bit of soul prowess. We gotta reduce our presences to zero.” Ichigo said. “No reinforcement, no soul expression usage. The only thing we can do is hide.”
The white crow in the sky was getting closer and closer.
“Quick, damn it! He’s almost here!” Ichigo yelled.
Even when tasked with remaining covert, when soulfuls were told to conceal their presences to the maximum, they never completely got rid of it. They left at least some amount of soul prowess reinforcing their body, maybe even more in case they needed to absorb heavy damage or activate a soul expression. Forcefully reducing it to zero was not only straining and impossible without proper training in concealment, but also, to say the least, unwise. It equalized a soulful, a being capable of whatever Kaito was doing, to a mere mortal soulless.
And yet, that unwise method was the only correct solution to escape the white crow’s deadly claws.
The ground ran into and hid inside one of the buildings. Just as they went in, they saw a shadow of a bird slide across the ground. The sight filled them with a sense of terror and enough adrenaline to render any horror media absolute and powerless against them. Ichigo rushed to the other side of the room, which happened to be filled with corpses, and grabbed firearms and magazines for the rest of the group.
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“We gotta get out of this city before Kaito decides to erase it completely.” Ichigo said, tossing a firearm to each member.
“And how the hell are we gonna do that without soul prowess?” Zawadski complained.
“Just like our soulless friends over here were doing.” Yuuka smirked. “Old, classic, tactical way~”
They felt another, much lighter quake.
“He’s on the roof of the building we’re in.” Ichigo said. “So unless you wanna die for sure, you help us make our way out of here while following my plan.”
“Yeah, I uhh...I understand that much.” Zawadski said, his breathing a little heavy. “Shit, I know I said it’d be exciting, but this...? This is...”
“We’ll head towards the underground metro.” Jian said. “I’ve operated in these areas before. The metro arrives at regular intervals, we board it, gain enough distance to where we’re not overwhelmed by Kaito Kamiki’s presence, and we enable use of soul prowess again.”
“Right. Sounds like a plan.” Zawadski said, stressing out even harder.
“Z-Zawadski? I’ve never seen you like this...” Ichigo said, concerned.
“And I’ve never seen myself like this too, for fuck sake! Let’s get out!” Zawadski said, slowly getting ready to leave.
“We were stripped of soul prowess when retrieving Sakuto’s soul crystal. But we didn’t have to rush anything. Not in this way, at least.”
“Fuck...”
“Where did they disappear?” Ichigo asked himself, confused. He watched the streets, he almost shut down all of his senses in order to give room for soul presence detection to work at its maximum capacity...all he sensed was voidflames and Heidrich’s presence.
“Did they find a way to instantly transport themselves to another location? This is impossible.”
While in actuality, the Heisei just moved out of the building. They ran as fast as they could, trying to run as much as possible under other buildings’ balconies, through narrow pathways and alleys. They carefully peeked at every corner they turned to check for voidflames.
“In that case, I assume the voidflames will get the job done...”
“Oh...?”
He watched as Heidrich broke free of his restraints, killed the voidflames and attempted to flee. Coincidentally, he went in the same general direction as the Heisei...
“There it is! The underground metro station!” Ichigo called out. Just as he was about to run off, he saw a voidflame taking aim at him. Thankfully, his comrade was brilliant at handling ranged targets.
“Ichigo, be careful.” Jian said, quickly aiming and disposing of another such voidflame. They carefully and slowly pushed through the street, on their way, shooting down anything they saw - be it a voidflame or as much as something that moved a little too fast. They entered the station, and to their disappointment, found it littered with soldiers and voidflames fighting. The voidflames were en route to an overwhelmingly overpowering victory.
“Shit, fall back!” Zawadski yelled, rushing to hide behind a small indoor fountain. Gunfire hit the opposite side of it, with a few bullets even wheezing over Zawadski himself. Ichigo, Jian and Yuuka were all behind different parts of cover, they occasionally peeked to kill as many things as they could before hiding again.
During one such peek, Ichigo got shot in the shoulder.
“Fuck!” He yelled in pain, holding onto his shoulder.
“Ichigo!” Jian called out. “Where did you get hit?!”
“It’s fine...focus on killing the voidflames!” Ichigo said, peeking again. He got lucky, a bullet tagged his left ear.
“The wound may be dangerous, regenerate it!”
“I said it’s fine-”
“It is not fine! Use regeneration at this instant!” Jian commanded.
“We agreed, no soul prowess.” Zawadski complained. “Captain, with all due respect, doing that will get all of us killed.”
Jian, for a second, looked at Ichigo. After seeing the latter nod at her with affirmation, she took a deep breath and peeked herself. She mowed down five voidflames with careful, surgically precise shots.
“Perimeter clear! Move out!” Jian called out. She felt a soul presence approach them. And a few seconds later, a truly terrifying presence got close too.
“Ichigo!” Zawadski yelled, angered.
“Wha- I didn’t use any soul prowess, nor did any of us!”
“Almost there...” Heidrich said. “Just need to gain some distance, get back into the headquarters, and access the annihilation code...”
“Too bad for you, I know this city too well.” He said to himself, getting close to the station’s grand entrance. Yuuka, turning around, was confused. But a second later, she yelled something that would save the group’s lives.
“Quick! To the escalator, he’s here!!!”
In a wake of utter terror, they all left their covers, jumping down at the escalators, trying their hardest to not break themselves too much from the fall. All of them except Ichigo, who didn’t manage to do so in time. He jumped to the other side of the fountain.
Kaito entered the building.
“An effort as futile as trying to escape me will not be fruitful for you.” Kaito said, his sheer presence strong enough to silence Ichigo completely. His breathing was stiff, almost silenced too.
“I don’t need to escape you. I’m willing to fight you head on.” Heidrich said, summon his soul-bound weapon. It was a longsword with silver decorations at its hilt. He launched a pair of slashes at Kaito, who absorbed them with ease. He expected that result, but it did disappoint him nonetheless.
Kaito stepped closer and a moment later, blitzed him again. He kicked him away, through the fountain and down the escalators.
Seeing Heidrich’s body fall essentially right next to them, the soulfuls, who were busy fighting off the remnants of the voidflames, had milliseconds to think. In that timeframe, Jian pointed at the train tracks. Zawadski jumped onto the ones close to him, and Jian and Yuuka took the one closest to them. They went a little deep into the tunnels.
The one at risk the most was Ichigo. Kaito, though unaware of his location, was approaching him. But thankfully, Kaito leapt over him - attempting to chase Heidrich down and deliver a proper beating to him. Ichigo’s heart shrunk in size.
Landing in front of Heidrich, Kaito continued approaching him, slowly and confidently.
“Come on.” Heidrich said, raising his weapon. “I’ll hold you off until you get me where I want to be.”
In the corner of his eye, he noticed a figure hiding in the tunnel. Before he made out what it was, Kaito had already gotten close. He grabbed him by his uniform and tossed him upwards with enough force to collapse the ceiling and the reinforcements above it, revealing the hollow sunlight.
Ichigo rushed down the escalator, and the rest of them left their covers.
“Ichigo, you managed to-”
Yuuka was interrupted by the sounds of gunshots coming from above. The hole in the ceiling allowed for voidflames to enter. Jian quickly shot down most of them, but a few managed to get down. Zawadski and Ichigo gunned them down.
“Yuuka, did you get hurt?!” Ichigo asked. “Everyone, how long til that damn train arrives?”
“Should be t-t-two minutes...” Yuuka said, sweating.
“Fuck...” Zawadski said, catching his breath.
Jian’s reflexes guided her to shoot down more of the emerging voidflames, but slowly, their sheer numbers were starting to become too dangerous to handle.
“We’re falling back.” Jian commanded, as the rest of them followed. The metro announcement gently played...
“What about soul prowess?” Yuuka asked.
“None. Too fucking risky...” Ichigo said, The ground quaked. Kaito’s presence was getting closer and further every other moment. “He’s still too close to us.”
“Then let’s make the damn escape already!” Zawadski said, running deeper into the platform. The group followed suit. After gaining some distance, they took aim at the incoming onslaught of voidflames.
They hid behind the columns and whatever could be used as cover, mounting their weapons and trying their hardest not to burn through ammunition. The issue with the voidflames wasn’t just their amount, it was their toughness too when faced with conventional weapons.
A strong gust of wind and a loud yet recognizable noise flooded the station.
“It’s here!” Zawadski cheered, as they held the line as much as they could.
Moments later, the train arrived. It slowly decelerated, opening its doors that spelled rescue. However, it was still impossible to get to them - the gunfire they’d absorb getting from their cover to the doors would probably kill them off.
“Quick, get in! I’ll deal with them!” Jian said.
“Focus.”
“A captain’s duty is to protect his soldiers.”
She took a deep breath. With almost divine accuracy, she switched from target to target, with accurate bursts that killed off the voidflames causing them trouble. They finally had an opening.
“Come on, now!” Jian yelled. She and Ichigo rushed into the train. Yuuka did too, but a voidflame’s bullet hit her in her arm. With her soul prowess down, it caused her quite a deal of pain. Enough to get her to stop, and for the voidflame to get an other chance to shoot...
“Yuuka!” Zawadski yelled, tackling her into the train.
Unfortunately for him, the bullet struck him in his lower chest. Two more bullets hit him, one in the leg and one more in the stomach. In shock, he collapsed on the ground.
“Zawadski!” Ichigo yelled, reaching for him. “Quick, use savestate!”
“No...” Zawadski coughed. “No...soul prowess...”
Just as Ichigo dragged him into the train, and the train departed, he lost consciousness...