Chapter 122: Yamamoto Genryūsai and His Double.
An unknown pseudo parallel world, at a certain point in time.
The flames of war, deliberately ignited by the Wandenreich, swallowed Seireitei in the blink of an eye. Condensed reishi burned so fiercely it gathered into pillars of fire, shooting skyward like beacon smoke.
King against King. General against General.
There was no mercy to offer, and no room to negotiate.
To war meant one thing only: to kill.
"…It's over, Yhwach."
A fierce soul stood draped in sunlight.
At that moment, despite missing an arm and wearing black robes stained with dust like any ordinary old Shinigami, Yamamoto Genryūsai and the scorched long blade in his hand were the incarnation of the sun itself.
Moisture was disappearing from the air, vanishing little by little until none remained.
And the enemy commander was trapped, buried beneath a mountain of skeletal remains. They were the ash made manifest, the remnants of subordinates Ryūjin Jakka had already sent to the grave. There was nowhere left to run.
"Wooooooooh…!"
It was unclear whether the roar came from fury at such a base tactic, or from the unbearable frustration of facing defeat again.
Perhaps it was both.
Yhwach's emotions snapped. He threw back his head and howled, hysterical.
"It seems you still retain a trace of a human heart."
Yamamoto's eyes lowered, his tone carrying something that could have been pity, or mockery.
"Stop making that face like you've seen through everything!"
Yhwach's rage only grew. He trampled the bones beneath his feet, grinding them as he forced himself forward.
"I told you! Don't think something like this can stop me!"
Watching him struggle as though he were wading through mire, Yamamoto spoke again, voice low.
"I can see your tears, Yhwach."
"It must be painful, to be unable to touch this old man without destroying the remains of your own subordinates."
"Do you hate me? Hate my ruthlessness, that I even summoned your fallen men back to this battlefield?"
"However…"
The old man's glare turned savage. His roar struck like thunder, his long beard whipping in the heat.
"This is far from the hatred and pain felt by the Shinigami you slaughtered!"
"Zanka no Tachi, Kita: Tenchi Kaijin!"
Clad in the sun itself, Yamamoto raised his hand and swung.
That blade formed a single line with his remaining arm. It also seemed to become the boundary that sustained all things, a line that defined existence itself. It surpassed the very idea of sharpness. Anything it touched turned to ash and was erased from the world.
Yhwach's chest and arms vanished instantly, leaving nothing behind.
There was no explosive flame. No terrifying shockwave.
It looked no different from a god casually granting death to a mortal.
Yhwach collapsed in a daze, lips moving as if trying to speak final words.
…
Yamamoto extinguished Zanji Gokui, the heat that rivaled the sun, and withdrew from Bankai. At once, light rain began to fall again. It gave the impression that the water had not evaporated, but had been sealed into the blade with the flames, mimicking the sun through some nuclear fusion like effect.
"Is my power… still not enough?"
Yhwach stared up at the sky, sorrow mixing with the pounding rain.
"I am… terribly sorry… Lord Yhwach…"
Yamamoto, about to turn away and finish cleaning up the remaining enemies, whipped his head back sharply.
The enemy leader was apologizing?
He had started this war himself, yet now he apologized to someone after being defeated.
"I failed to accomplish… the mission you entrusted to me."
The man who looked like Yhwach weakly raised his hand toward the sky.
No. He was reaching for someone.
"Who exactly are you!" Yamamoto barked.
The instant the words left his mouth, reishi trembled. Yamamoto looked back and saw a pillar of reishi fire erupting from the direction of the First Division barracks.
"Okikiba!"
The thought of his old subordinate, the one who had remained behind in the barracks, struck him with alarm.
But in the next moment, a spiritual pressure so immense it made his skin crawl appeared behind him. It was a presence he could never mistake.
"…Yhwach, you bastard…"
An unscathed Yhwach stepped into view.
He ignored Yamamoto entirely and stood before the Quincy who was reverting to his true form.
"You did well, Sternritter 'Y,' 'The Yourself'… Lloyd Royd."
"To hear you say… I did… well… is my… great honor…"
Lloyd answered haltingly, voice fading as the praise reached him.
Yhwach lifted his hand and fired a flash of light, blasting a bottomless pit into the ground. Lloyd's remains vanished into it, as if Yhwach were digging his grave as a reward.
"…You shameless scoundrel."
Yamamoto understood immediately. He had been toyed with.
"What are you trying to do?"
"What lies beneath the First Division?"
"?!"
"I came to find Sōsuke Aizen," Yhwach said calmly. "I went to invite him, one of the special war powers, to stand at my side. As expected, he refused."
Yhwach leaned closer, studying the deep pit with interest.
"But it doesn't matter. There will be plenty of time in the future."
"By the way…"
He changed the subject abruptly, then turned his head. A faint mockery flickered in his eyes.
"Fighting that impostor just now didn't drain all your strength, did it, Yamamoto Genryūsai?"
"Absurd!"
Yamamoto snarled, gathering reishi and drawing his blade again.
"Bankai!"
He knew better than anyone. Without Bankai, he could not defeat Yhwach. And he believed with absolute certainty that his Bankai could not be stolen.
In the next instant, that confidence shattered.
Yhwach raised a schrift badge and absorbed the Bankai's power straight out of Yamamoto's body.
"It's not that your Bankai cannot be stolen," Yhwach said evenly. "It's that no one but me can control its immense power."
"That's why I ordered Lloyd not to act until I returned."
"What will you do now? Using your Bankai could have awakened the corpses of your subordinates, Yamamoto Genryūsai."
"Bastard!"
Shock and rage burst out of Yamamoto at once.
Yhwach calmly raised his Quincy Cross blade and slashed the sky. A massive bow of light formed. He drew it, then fired an arrow downward.
It struck the ground in front of him.
He sheathed his blade, reached out, and pulled the arrow up.
Yamamoto stared.
It had become a double edged greatsword with an X shaped guard, forged entirely from high concentration reishi. A Reishi Weapon, the craft Quincies excelled at.
And because it was formed from pure, unimaginably dense reishi, its striking force rivaled Tenchi Kaijin itself.
Yamamoto's heart sank.
With his crippled body, one arm gone, Bankai stolen, and only Shikai left to him, he could not withstand a blow like that.
He had no fear.
But he also had no way to resist, and nowhere to run.
Just like the fake Yhwach he had killed moments ago.
"Farewell, Yamamoto Genryūsai."
Yhwach smiled cruelly, carrying himself like a god harvesting a mortal's life.
However…
"Who are you talking to, Yhwach?"
A voice appeared behind him, along with a spiritual pressure so familiar it made the air feel wrong.
"Your Majesty?!"
Not far away, Jugo Haschwalth's expression twisted.
It was shock, yes, but also horror, as if he had seen a demon that should not exist.
"?!"
…?!
Even Yamamoto's eyes widened as he looked behind Yhwach.
Yhwach spun around, but before he could even see the figure clearly, a blade was already in his face.
He blocked with his reishi sword.
The moment steel met reishi, endless hellfire erupted like an explosion. The ground collapsed inward as if struck by a meteor.
"Ugh!"
It was not only the voice and reishi that were familiar.
This strike was familiar too.
It tore his mind back a thousand years, forcing him to remember the cold blooded Yamamoto Genryūsai, the one who would sacrifice subordinates without hesitation if it meant killing the enemy and winning.
And yet, there were differences.
The slash was sharp and thick with bloodlust, but compared to the past, it was a little less cold. A little more alive.
It was hard to imagine this was the blade of an aging man. Even Yamamoto from a thousand years ago lacked that kind of vibrancy.
That said, the flames were even more terrifying than before.
Yhwach leapt out of the sea of fire. His cloak and hair smoked, eyebrows singed. Blue veins flickered across his skin. He had clearly relied on Seikessen to block the strike and flames.
"Yamamoto Genryūsai… you bastard!"
He looked between the old man standing within the fire and the armless Yamamoto nearby.
They were almost identical.
Almost.
The one in the flames wore a haori. His long beard was neatly groomed, bound with a red cord. Both arms were intact. He looked exactly like the Yamamoto described in reports from two years ago, as if he had never fought in Karakura Town at all.
But that was impossible.
"Did you also find a double to deceive me?" Yhwach hissed. "No. That power is not something an ordinary Shinigami can possess."
"And you could not have known about the Wandenreich. If you had, you would never have tolerated our slaughter."
"In other words…"
Yhwach's gaze sharpened.
"Did you sacrifice your subordinates again to scheme against me and lure me into a trap?!"
Armless Yamamoto frowned. When had he become the double?
"Scheme against you?" the haori clad Yamamoto answered coldly. "Don't make me laugh, Yhwach."
"If this old man had known where you were, I would have slaughtered you long ago. Why would I wait until today?"
His habitually narrowed eyes opened fully. They swept across the burning Seireitei, then passed over the bewildered armless Yamamoto.
"I do not know what is happening."
"But regardless, this old man will not turn a blind eye to it."
"Bankai…"
The torrential rain vanished instantly.
The sky became parched, dry as a desert under a scorching sun.
The vanished moisture was replaced by an unimaginably terrifying spiritual pressure, one that spread across all of Seireitei and beyond in the blink of an eye.
Shinigami in battle froze mid strike, bodies refusing to move under the weight of it.
"How… is this possible?"
"Old Man Yama's reishi… there are two of them?!"
"It's stronger than before. No, this is his true full power…!"
"What on earth is happening?!"
Yamamoto did not care.
He simply pointed the charred tip of his blade at Yhwach from afar, voice like a death sentence.
"Zanka no Tachi."
"?!"
Yhwach's face darkened.
Beside him, Haschwalth regained his composure and silently produced a schrift badge. But before he could activate the Bankai stealing function, armless Yamamoto rushed straight in front of him.
"Don't even think about it… Jōkaku Enjō!"
Even with Bankai stolen and strength far from his peak, the sea of fire that burst from his blade was still overwhelming. A towering wall formed, enclosing him and Haschwalth, splitting the battlefield apart.
"Haschwalth…!"
Yhwach saw the intention instantly and seethed. A defeated man, robbed of Bankai and about to die, still dared to struggle in his final breaths.
"Do you really think that with your current strength you can kill my right hand man?"
Even so, he could not spare attention.
The intact Yamamoto was already closing on him.
"Zanka no Tachi, Higashi: Kyokujitsujin!"
He had not lost an arm. He had not lost the vital release points of spiritual pressure.
His strength was far beyond that of the armless Yamamoto.
One seemingly ordinary strike cleanly severed the reishi greatsword and punched through Yhwach's Seikessen, carving a charred wound into his chest. Flesh blackened, edges mangled.
Boom!
Yhwach fired a Heilig Pfeil in retaliation, but to his shock, Yamamoto did not dodge. Even if it meant injury, he clung close, refusing to give Yhwach room to retreat.
"Get away from me!"
Seikessen expanded outward like a shell, trying to isolate Yamamoto.
It was breached by a single slash.
Yhwach avoided with extreme speed, then seized Yamamoto's wrist and injected spiritual pressure, trying to corrode his body.
"Zanka no Tachi, Nishi: Zanji Gokui!"
Yamamoto's own spiritual pressure became fifteen million degree flames, wrapping his body and incinerating anything that touched him.
"The Antithesis!"
Yhwach leapt backward and unleashed multiple reishi bullets. They formed a massive Quincy five pointed star array around Yamamoto.
"Even if I don't have a second schrift badge to store your Bankai, don't think I lack ways to seize your power."
"Turn to ash by your own flames, Yamamoto Genryūsai!"
"Zanka no Tachi, Minami: Kaka Jūmanokushi Daisōjin!"
Yamamoto summoned skeletal corpse soldiers at once, but instead of sending them at Yhwach, he drew them around himself as a shield.
"Wasting time with petty tricks!"
Cold light flashed in Yhwach's eyes.
"Fine. Then I'll reclaim the reishi from my subordinates and let them devour you whole!"
Using The Antithesis, he absorbed the reishi from the skeletal soldiers into his palm. With a wave of his hand, those remains twisted, defected, and swarmed toward Yamamoto.
"Pitiful spirits," Yamamoto said, voice heavy. "Even in death, you are driven, only to die again at the hands of the same man."
"But as I said, your pain is insignificant compared to the Shinigami you slaughtered!"
Yamamoto had been present on the edge of the battlefield for some time, suppressing his spiritual pressure as he observed, analyzed, and gathered information. With armless Yamamoto present, he had not acted recklessly.
But the moment Yhwach reappeared, he could not hold back.
Whether this was illusion or future history, he would not stand by and watch "himself" die while Seireitei was destroyed.
"Even if history collapses, I will hunt you down and kill you," he declared. "This time, I won't let you escape!"
"Zanka no Tachi, Kita: Tenchi Kaijin!"
The exterminating strike was even more powerful than armless Yamamoto's. It split everything in its path, like the creation of heaven and earth, wiping out the skeletal soldiers and carving away half of Yhwach's body.
"Damn you, Yamamoto Genryūsai!"
Boom!
The wall of flames collapsed. Armless Yamamoto was hurled away, rolling across the ground.
Haschwalth stood with sword in one hand and shield in the other, completely unhurt.
His expression, however, was grim.
Because armless Yamamoto, despite being defeated, held a schrift badge clenched between his teeth.
Without it, Haschwalth could forget about stealing Yamamoto's Bankai again.
They clearly did not know each other, yet they chose the tactics most beneficial to one another. Their unspoken coordination left even Yhwach feeling helpless.
"Your Majesty, we should retreat," Haschwalth urged.
"…It seems we have no choice," Yhwach answered.
"Don't even think about running!"
Once Yamamoto struck, there was no reason to let them escape.
As Yamamoto prepared to chase, armless Yamamoto, vomiting blood, still forced out a warning.
"That blond Quincy's shield can reflect damage…!"
"?!"
Yamamoto's pupils tightened. He changed tactics instantly.
Haschwalth stepped in front of Yhwach, lifting shield and sword to cover his monarch's retreat.
When Yamamoto charged, Haschwalth raised the shield to block the Rising Sun Edge that could cleave through all things.
But Yamamoto's strike was a feint.
He grabbed the shield's edge and hurled both the shield and Haschwalth aside.
Then he faced Yhwach, who was missing half his body and sinking into the shadows.
Yamamoto raised his blade in a two handed kendo stance.
"Tenchi…!"
"In your dreams!"
While still airborne, Haschwalth struck before the blade fell. His sword cut into Yamamoto's body wrapped in Zanji Gokui, biting deep into the collarbone, nearly taking the neck.
Yamamoto did not care.
His eyes locked onto Yhwach, who was visibly shaken.
In that instant, Yamamoto's heart became peaceful, as if he saw the hopeful morning sun from the days he trained with two young men in the First Division.
"…Kaijin!"
Yhwach raised his remaining right arm, trying to invoke a powerful Quincy technique.
Under Yamamoto's blade, it was as fragile as paper.
The blade fell.
That slash, distant and swift as the horizon, divided dawn from dusk. It ended night and summoned the rising sun. It embodied the essence of kendo to its absolute limit.
It was no longer merely a cut.
It became a reishi phenomenon with special rules, a terrifying power not unlike Yūsen.
"…?!"
Yhwach's expression froze.
His body split in two from head to toe. Even if the halves were pressed together, they could not be restored. The center was gone, incinerated into nothing.
"Your… Majesty?!"
Haschwalth could not believe it. The omnipotent monarch had been slain, just like that.
There was no time to think further.
Murderous intent surged toward him like a tidal wave.
Haschwalth landed and activated the Shadow Realm, fleeing the battlefield with Yhwach's remains.
…
Yamamoto deactivated his Bankai.
Soon after, rain began to fall again.
"Did he get away…" armless Yamamoto muttered, dragging his injured body closer, sword in hand as he stared at the place Haschwalth vanished. "That brat is capable. His strength is not inferior to Yhwach's youth."
"Yhwach in his youth?" Yamamoto narrowed his eyes. "Then he's the successor Yhwach chose."
"In that case, we absolutely cannot let that brat go."
"Agreed," armless Yamamoto said. "They hid in the shadows. I suspect their ability to enter Seireitei despite the Shakonmaku is connected to shadows."
"Regardless, we eliminate the remaining enemies first, then drag them out."
Armless Yamamoto nodded.
"Let's do that. I will provide full assistance."
Yamamoto nodded as well.
Neither of them mentioned the problem of their origins. Perhaps they had already guessed. Perhaps it simply did not matter yet.
Until the enemy was annihilated, nothing else was important.
Even so, once the remaining enemies were wiped out and the chaos settled, the Captains of the Gotei 13, including Ichigo Kurosaki who finally arrived, could not be as indifferent as armless Yamamoto.
In a meeting room that had been forced to relocate due to the damage, Yamamoto and armless Yamamoto sat side by side, each leaning on a cane, like two great Buddhas placed for people to worship.
"Old Man Yama…" the other Shunsui Kyōraku, wearing an eyepatch, spoke first. He was quick witted, but he was also the first to be scolded. "There really are two of you. Could it be… reigai?"
"Fool!" armless Yamamoto barked. "Kagerōza could never create a reigai of me!"
That shut the room up instantly.
Yamamoto did not ask what "reigai" or "Kagerōza" meant. Instead, he asked in confusion, "What is the matter with Ichigo Kurosaki?"
"What do you mean?" armless Yamamoto said, startled.
"Shouldn't he be dead, serving as Lieutenant of the Thirteenth Division?" Yamamoto's eyes narrowed. "Why did he look like he wasn't even a true soul when I saw him arrive earlier?"
"And why is Aizen imprisoned?"
"Why do I not see Shimiya, nor feel his spiritual pressure?"
"With something this major happening, don't tell me he has already fallen in battle."
The chain of questions left everyone present stunned.
"This… well, let's call you Head Captain Yamamoto for now…"
The other Jūshirō Ukitake stepped forward, brow furrowed.
"I'm happy to answer, but forgive my rudeness. I don't understand what you mean."
"Ichigo Kurosaki is a Substitute Shinigami, and a human. He has never joined the Gotei 13, and he has certainly never become my Lieutenant."
"Second, Aizen. The reason he is imprisoned is because he orchestrated a series of murders and defected to Hueco Mundo with the Hōgyoku."
"He was defeated by Ichigo more than a year ago."
"Because he became immortal by merging with the Hōgyoku, we had no choice but to imprison him in Muken to minimize the threat to Soul Society."
"Finally…"
Ukitake hesitated, then continued.
"Ichigo and Aizen are people all of us know well."
"But this Shimiya you mentioned… I'm sorry. I don't know who you mean."
…
Yamamoto fell into deep thought.
So this world was not as simple as he assumed.
Just what kind of place had the blazing water mirror sent him to?
.....
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