Chapter 126: The New Left Arm of the Soul King.
At the same moment the Wandenreich army pressed forward.
Far away in Hueco Mundo, the palace surrounded by desolate white sands welcomed two uninvited guests.
"Why are the people from the Onmitsukidō and the Spirit Particle Investigation Squad running back… ah!"
Although Las Noches had been conquered, ninety nine percent of the surrounding region remained unoccupied. Calling it an isolated bridgehead was no exaggeration.
Countless hungry, covetous eyes peered at Las Noches from the shadows, all of them eager to replace the former rulers and become the palace's new masters.
When Takeru left, he specifically summoned a portion of the Shinigami elite to garrison the area alongside the Kidō Corps. However, the defenders never imagined they would be stabbed in the back by their "comrades."
"Wh… why?!"
"Damn it!"
"Watch out! They're being controlled!"
"Call for reinforcements! Send the intel back! Fall back to the second barrier line!"
In a single careless moment, several Shinigami were cut down, collapsing into spreading pools of blood that dyed the corridor floor red.
The Kidō Corps reacted instantly, but there were too many from the Onmitsukidō and the Spirit Particle Investigation Squad, dozens of them, surging in without warning. The defenders had no way to stabilize the line.
As the formation retreated, leaving behind dead and wounded, a gap opened in the barrier surrounding Las Noches.
Two eccentrics in Wandenreich uniforms strolled through the breach.
One was dark skinned, short, and stout, wearing sunglasses and a long beard. He held a staff topped with a single eye and two wings, using it to "look" around as he sat on a floating tray.
The other was a short figure wrapped in a hood. Their age and gender were impossible to tell, and the two glowing orbs like eyeballs within the pitch black shadow beneath the hood made it hard to even call them human.
"Sōten Kisshun… I reject!"
Orihime arrived.
With a swing of her oversized blade, dawnlike light swept through the corridor. Those under control snapped awake at once.
Watching them drown in the horror of realizing what they had done to their comrades, Orihime's chest tightened. Once the non combatants were evacuated, she planted her feet, gripped the hilt with both hands, and frowned sharply.
"Who… are you?"
Hearing that, the stout man on the tray formed a heart with his hands and hummed like a rapper.
"Hey, hey, hey."
"One heart, and one body too. Just look into Me's eyes, and your heart becomes two."
"The heart and body that become two will merge into one, becoming my heart."
"The Sternritter with the designation [L], the Angel of Love soaring above the battlefield, PePe Waccabrada has arrived!"
The cloaked figure beside him made a string of small, strange noises.
It seemed to be introducing itself, but neither PePe nor Orihime understood a single word. In the end, the hooded figure could only turn to PePe.
PePe, as if magnanimous enough to translate, chirped, "This is Sternritter [C], Lord Pernida Parnkgjas."
"We've been sent by His Majesty to invite you to join the Wandenreich."
"I'm sorry," Orihime said at once, "but I'm already worrying about how to explain to my friends why I haven't been home for several nights. I don't want to go anywhere else, and I definitely don't want to accept an invitation from strangers, especially when they did something that made me really angry!"
Orihime refused without hesitation.
"Are you referring to ME controlling the Shinigami into killing each other?" PePe spread his hands in exaggerated innocence. "That was necessity. Since these beasts who don't know love built such a big palace, this was the only way to make the Princess come out on her own."
He smiled smugly, betraying his true feelings completely.
"Using this to lure the Princess out, then forcing the willful Princess to surrender, making her hopelessly offer her heart to ME, the Knight… I haven't thought about such a thing at all."
As he finished, he thrust the heart gesture forward from his chest.
Reishi flared, and a heart shaped mark shot out like an arrow.
Orihime had already judged that he could control people. She stayed vigilant and immediately deployed [Santen Kesshun] to block the surprise strike. She refused to let it touch her, not even through the blade in her hands.
"You really are troublesome," PePe sighed dramatically. "But His Majesty sent ME and Pernida to bring you back unharmed. If we fail, no amount of worry or excuses will earn His Majesty's forgiveness. Could you really bear to let ME suffer such a tragic fate?"
"Why do you have to take me back?" Orihime demanded, uneasy under the gaze of villains.
She tried to pry out the reason, but PePe only chuckled.
"Who knows? Maybe it's to make you a true Princess of the Wandenreich. It's wonderful, right? So just surrender quietly."
"I respectfully refuse!"
Orihime flicked her blade upward.
The pyramidlike, sturdy [Santen Kesshun] shifted in an instant into [Shiten Kōshun]. A slash rippled outward like a wave, fast, light, and thin. If it had been a real blade, the sharpness would have been terrifying.
Orihime had never slacked off.
Even if she envied Takeru and Ichigo for reaching Bankai so early, she never chased it blindly. Instead, she trained her body and honed the techniques she already possessed.
As a result, her speed in switching and releasing techniques had grown frighteningly smooth.
PePe broke into a cold sweat. He only survived by instinctively scrambling off his tray. The tray itself was sliced neatly in two.
In the face of that slash, everything had only two outcomes. Either it was indestructible, or it was cut in half.
"To dare reject ME's love is unforgivable! [The Love]!"
PePe gathered reishi and drew a huge heart, entering Vollständig. Reishi wings unfurled behind him, and a reishi pentagram appeared behind his head.
"Pernida, we go together!"
The hooded figure gave a tiny nod.
Then, in the next moment—
"Wall of iron sand, tower of a monk's form, glowing iron, through its resolve, finally silent."
"Bakudō 75: Gochūtekkan!"
A voice like thunder, heavy and resolute, slammed down the chant.
Boom!
Five iron pillars crashed out of thin air like the Five Finger Mountain, crushing Pernida into the ground and burying it so completely that not a trace remained. The corridor shook as if struck by an earthquake. Dust poured down. Cracks spiderwebbed across the walls.
"Pernida?!"
PePe hovered midair, unaffected by the impact, but the sight still drained the color from his face.
That was Shinigami Kidō. A binding spell, yet its raw destructive force surpassed many offensive incantations.
It looked like it could have crushed its target to death.
"Who did that?!"
PePe twisted around, shock and fury flaring.
What he saw was a middle aged man, nearly two meters tall, holding a monk's staff and wearing clerical robes.
The Wandenreich had gathered extensive intelligence on dangerous individuals. PePe recognized him instantly.
"You're… the Grand Kidō Master who defected from Soul Society a hundred years ago… Tsukabishi Tessai?!"
"You have the wrong person," Tessai said, pushing up his glasses. His voice was solemn. "That is my name, yes, but I am merely the acting manager of the Urahara Shop."
"Tessai san!"
Orihime's shoulders loosened as she waved in relief.
"Inoue dono," Tessai said, voice deep, "leave the one in front of you to me. Focus on the enemy you can see."
"Mm!"
Orihime nodded sharply, eyes locking onto PePe.
If a cute girl stared at him like that under normal circumstances, PePe would have squealed and said something strange. Right now, he was sweating cold.
"Um… can we make peace?"
"Are you surrendering?"
"Of course… I'm lying! Go, Rope of Love!"
The instant Orihime lowered her guard, even slightly, PePe seized it. Two reishi ropes composed of chained heart marks shot out like arrows.
But Orihime's body moved on reflex.
Her blade flashed, and the light filled the space in front of her.
This was [Shiten Kōshun].
It could reject any attack, even special abilities, and return them to the attacker.
"Aaagh!"
"Huh?"
PePe screamed as his own ropes pierced him. Orihime blinked, realizing what had happened. Gratitude surged through her for the countless hours that had carved this response into muscle memory.
She pressed forward, slashing relentlessly.
With [Shiten Kōshun] active, PePe didn't dare use his schrift to control her. If he did, he would only shoot himself in the foot again. For a moment, he was beaten into utter helplessness.
Yhwach had sent PePe and Pernida because the two were meant to work together, find a crack in Orihime's defense, and capture her. It was supposed to be foolproof.
They never expected someone of Tessai's caliber to be hiding in Las Noches. Their plan collapsed instantly.
"Damn it… I shouldn't have let those Shinigami go. If they were still here, I could use them as leverage. Bringing Pernida made me overconfident!"
PePe yanked a bow of light from his mouth and fired a dense barrage of Heiligenschein at Orihime.
"Shiten Kōshun… I reject!"
Orihime swung. The rain of arrows reversed with the morninglike glare.
PePe dodged some with Hirenkyaku and tanked the rest with Seikessen. It didn't kill him, but he looked ridiculous, bristling with arrows like a hedgehog.
"Let me go! I'm begging you!"
"I reject!"
"There are over twenty more Schutzstaffel members like me! With His Majesty leading personally, Soul Society might already be wiped out by now!"
Orihime's feet stopped.
A crafty glint flashed in PePe's eyes.
"If you let me go and come with me, there might be a chance to trade for Takeru's life!"
Orihime fell silent.
Then her spiritual pressure exploded, and a slash that could sever everything snapped past.
PePe barely ducked.
But the reishi pentagram behind his head shattered anyway, forcing him out of Vollständig. He tumbled across the floor like a kicked ball, staring up at Orihime in terror as he scrambled backward.
"Wait, wait! Do you really not care about Takeru at all?!"
"Takeru won't lose."
Orihime's eyes were steady as she pointed her blade at him.
"You're always talking about 'love.' Then you should understand, or at least acknowledge, this feeling. Unconditional trust in someone."
"Ugh…"
PePe was left speechless, despair sinking in.
Then his body stiffened.
He twitched violently. His eyes rolled back, and thin foreign objects like branches bulged under his skin, as if plant roots were invading him.
Orihime's expression tightened in confusion.
In the next second, PePe lunged at her like a beast.
"Shiten Kōshun!"
Orihime triggered it again on instinct.
The impact threw PePe backward. His skin split, blood spraying. As his life guttered out, countless horsehair worm like strands burst from his body, writhing frantically as if reacting to pain.
The other ends, hidden in the ground, were yanked up as well.
"What… is that?!"
Orihime's scalp prickled. She retreated fast.
The "worms" pulsed along the floor, stretching toward where Pernida had been buried beneath the five iron pillars.
Rumble!
Something massive forced the iron pillars upward, then manipulated them, hurling them one by one toward Tessai.
"It can seize control of my technique?" Tessai dodged the pillars, eyes narrowing. "Those threads… what are they?"
As the cloak was torn away, a five fingered monstrous form was revealed. Tessai seemed to recall something, and his face changed sharply.
"Could this be… the legendary 'Hand of the Soul King' that fell to the human world, governing 'Progress'?!"
As the former Grand Kidō Master, Tessai had mastered countless techniques, including ancient rites buried in history. He was especially sensitive to secrets of the Soul King, the kind often dismissed as mere myth.
He knew too well that many "myths" were truths that could never be spoken aloud.
If he was right, the monster before him was proof.
"Soul… King… Hand. The name… Majesty… gave me… is… Pernida Parnkgjas!"
Compared to the Gochūtekkan, Pernida now looked like a true Five Finger Mountain. Five fingers. An eye socket in the center of its palm with inorganic pupils. A wrist for a neck, a forearm for a body, and its base fused with the pit in the floor.
The rootlike living things slowly withdrew and vanished.
But Orihime and Tessai both knew they were still there, simply hidden.
Judging by the traits, those things were likely blood vessels or nerves. They could extend through the ground or other substances, invade, and dominate another body. Hard to detect, and sinister beyond words.
"Fly up, Inoue dono!"
"Santen Kesshun!"
Tessai shouted.
Orihime didn't hesitate, riding the triangular shield away from the ground.
Fortunately, the corridor was enormous, with a ceiling higher than ten meters. Even if Jidanbō were here, it wouldn't feel cramped, making aerial movement viable.
Tessai chose to stay and clash head on.
"Bakudō 81: Dankū!"
Then he continued, staff held across his chest.
"Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! On the wall of blue flame, inscribe a twin lotus. In the abyss of remote burning fire, wait at the far heavens!"
A transparent wall filled the corridor, blocking the creeping nerve attacks.
Then Tessai altered the spell's form with his chant.
The edges of Dankū anchored deep into ceiling, floor, and walls, continuously extending to seal more space. He was preventing it from going around, or coming from below.
He was also testing the limits of its ability.
In truth, the thin threads Pernida released were nerves.
Its schrift was [L], meaning [The Compulsory].
It could release nerves outside its body to control all solids. Biological or non biological, once invaded, autonomy was stripped away.
Nerves could not affect air, so flying was the correct response.
As for Dankū, when the nerves climbed onto the barrier like ivy, after a few seconds, the barrier vanished.
Tessai's pupils tightened.
He was convinced now that this thing truly was tied to the Soul King.
Because Dankū hadn't been shattered by force.
It had been touched, analyzed, and then dispelled through a method like Anti Demon Killing, breaking the reishi structure itself.
"Besides controlling external objects… it can absorb reishi information and grow?"
"If that's the case, then my Gochūtekkan wasn't dominated. It was…"
His ominous suspicion was confirmed in the next moment.
Pernida used Dankū.
Two barriers sealed Tessai's path forward and back. Nerves swarmed from both sides. The walls twisted into giant hands to strike. Five iron pillars dropped from above. Nerves writhed beneath the floor, waiting to erode him.
There was nowhere to run.
Tessai remained calm anyway. He gripped his staff with both hands and slammed it into the ground.
"Hado 99: Goryūtenmetsu!"
The floor exploded beneath him.
Five colossal dragons of reishi coiled around his body, bursting through the corridor. Pernida's Dankū, Gochūtekkan, and nerves were shredded in an instant.
Boom!
The ceiling ruptured, and several floors above collapsed in sequence. Parts of the palace crumbled like rotten stone.
Smoke billowed. Dust and hurricane winds tore through the ruins like dragon breath unleashed.
Pernida took the brunt.
It was slammed into the ground. The highest level Kidō filled the air with pure destruction. Even a brush of it made its external nerves scream with pain, and it reflexively retracted them, curling inward.
At that moment—
"Bakudō 99: Kin!"
Leather straps and nails manifested out of nowhere, binding Pernida and pinning it down.
"With no nerves outside, I don't have to worry about clones or transfer tricks!"
Tessai stood in the dust.
After forcing such a breakthrough, he was in rough shape. Robes in tatters. One lens shattered. One sleeve gone. Arms scorched black. Face scratched and bleeding.
Yet the more battered he looked, the more oppressive he felt. His spiritual pressure rose instead of falling, surging into a visible torrent around his body.
"Bakudō 99, Part 2: Bankin!"
"First Song: Shiryū!"
Tessai formed hand seals.
White bandages erupted, wrapping Pernida into a massive mummy like arm.
"Second Song: Hyakurenzan!"
Hundreds of iron bolts pierced down.
Pernida thrashed in agony, but it could not break free.
"Final Song: Bankin Taihō!"
A gigantic stone monument crashed down.
Silence followed, as if the earth itself had mourned and then gone still.
Tessai finally exhaled.
"Even the left arm of the Soul King won't break out for a while. Use this chance to seal it quickly."
He never considered "killing it" to end it cleanly.
The uncertainty was too great. And when dealing with something tied to gods, sealing was the safer answer.
That wasn't the way of ordinary Shinigami.
It was the way of the Kidō Corps.
However, just as Tessai moved to act, the stone monument exploded.
No, everything there exploded.
Blood and flesh sprayed across the ruins, along with shredded bandages and straps. A spike grazed Tessai's cheek at extreme speed, carving a cut.
He didn't seem to feel it.
He stared, stunned, at the chunks of flesh scattered across the floor. They bulged and swelled, forming multiple grotesque shapes.
"It used Quincy arrows of light to blow up its own body," Tessai murmured, disbelief turning cold. "Breaking the seal the same way I broke through earlier?"
"So… dark. So… black. I don't like it… Those who harm Pernida, eliminate!"
Multiple Pernidas nocked Heiligenschein along their five fingers and fired in unison, concentrating fire to annihilate the former Grand Kidō Master at the center.
Tessai tried to move, but his body refused.
His feet split and twisted. His balance buckled.
"This… nerve invasion?!"
With Pernida splitting itself through self destruction, its numbers increased. The reach of its nerve erosion expanded. Even the speed became faster.
It was as if it had evolved.
"Shiten Kōshun… I reject!"
Orihime flashed in front of Tessai with Shunpo. She drove her oversized blade into the ground, the same way she had done against Tōsen Kaname's Bankai in the past.
She shouted the full incantation, pouring everything she had into [Shiten Kōshun] at maximum strength.
Though it rejected all phenomena without mercy, the light it released was so pure it looked like sunlight leaking straight out of space, coating ground, air, and ceiling in brilliant color.
The Heiligenschein fired by Pernida's clones recoiled and pierced into their own bodies. The nerves eroding Tessai began to burn. They writhed, screaming so sharply it pierced the ears.
"Ugh!"
Orihime's face tightened with pain.
Because the nerves went berserk and lunged at her instead, wrapping around the blade itself.
Pernida's power was contact based control, absorbing information and evolving.
When it met [Shiten Kōshun], the result became something else.
Orihime, in turn, seized control of the nerves illuminated by the light, and by absorbing Pernida's information, she was forced toward evolution.
That was why she hadn't rushed in earlier. After she struck PePe, she had felt the "touch" of those nerves. It was like hundreds of hands had suddenly grown out of her. Her skin had crawled instantly.
Back then, [Shiten Kōshun] wasn't strong enough, so the reflection was far weaker, and she didn't experience what it meant to reverse absorb information and be forced to evolve.
Now she did.
Pernida's power and memories flooded the blade all at once, and Orihime couldn't even let go.
As a Shinigami, she was unqualified. She didn't possess a true asauchi. Instead, she relied on her Fullbring medium, her hairpins, triggered by the Soul King factor within her as a vessel, given shape after Rukia's Shinigami power was injected into her.
It could also be said that after she obtained Shinigami power, the hairpins were influenced and took the form of a Zanpakutō.
When two not so strong powers mixed, they shattered limits, granting Orihime spiritual pressure strong enough to defeat a Captain level Shinigami.
Now, the power of Pernida, the left arm of the Soul King, poured into her.
There was almost no rejection.
It couldn't even be called absorption.
It felt like return.
Pernida's screams faded. The look in its eyes toward Orihime became strangely attached.
After a while, when the light finally dissipated, the multiple Pernidas dissolved into reishi and vanished.
Orihime stood there, dazed, for a long time.
"Inoue dono," Tessai asked carefully, "are you alright?"
"Ah… I'm okay." Orihime rubbed her head, still lightheaded. "It's just… a lot of messy images appeared in my mind, like watching hundreds or thousands of movies all at once. I feel kind of dizzy."
Tessai's pupils tightened. After a long silence, he said, "If I'm not mistaken, that monster's true form was the left arm of the Soul King."
"I don't know why it joined the Quincies, but its power is beyond doubt. Inoue dono, your technique reflected its ability to the point that everything of it was absorbed by you. That's why you obtained its memories."
"Memories gained this way probably won't be complete, so the headache makes sense. But this isn't necessarily bad."
"Because once you fully adapt to this information, your power will undergo a total evolution. I suspect you will soon master the power of Bankai."
"Really?!"
Orihime brightened instantly, not even caring about the dizziness anymore.
"It's true," Tessai said, then warned, "but don't reveal this casually. The one whose power you took was the left arm of the Soul King. Whether to the Quincies or Soul Society, the Soul King's significance is immense. You understand what I mean?"
"Mm hmm, mm hmm!"
Orihime nodded so fast she looked like a chick pecking grain. Of course she wouldn't go around bragging that she'd destroyed a god's hand. At most, she'd tell Takeru.
Speaking of which…
"I wonder how Takeru is doing back in Soul Society."
Trust was one thing. Worry was inevitable.
Tessai, already healed by Orihime's Sōten Kisshun, stood and brushed sand from his body.
"Takeru dono must have his reasons for keeping us in Hueco Mundo."
"True. But I really didn't expect Tessai san to come!"
"Since Inoue dono is a distinguished guest of our shop, it is only right to help," Tessai said, stern as ever.
His expression twitched faintly.
He was too embarrassed to admit the real reason.
When Takeru came to the door, he used the pretext of "investigating Hueco Mundo's chief technician Urahara's accomplice."
If they didn't want the shop shut down and everyone detained, they had to prove through action that they were incompatible with evil.
There was no choice. Even knowing it was deliberate provocation, Tessai could only comply.
Takeru at least showed restraint. He didn't drag Tessai to Soul Society for a brutal frontline battle. He left him in Hueco Mundo, where he could fully use his specialties.
Resisting enemies was only part of it.
The real mission was to work with the Technical Development Bureau to rescue the missing Yamamoto Genryūsai and the others.
If the enemy chose to attack because the Gotei 13 main force was absent, then once those Captains returned, the crisis would resolve itself.
Simple logic.
"Tessai san," Orihime asked, "how much longer do you think Kurosaki kun and the others will take to return?"
"It's hard to say," Tessai answered, his face turning serious.
"The Technical Development Bureau has their reishi. I packaged that reishi, along with some information, and sent it through the entrance they were originally taken from."
"Normally, the reishi information will follow the 'footprints' they left and reach the individuals with matching spiritual pressure."
"But once they receive it and learn what's happening here, they can only rely on themselves. The help we can provide from this side is extremely limited."
"That's not surprising," Orihime murmured, still rubbing her head. "After all, I believe that what I can do, Takeru can do too."
"But he didn't. He went back to prepare for battle and left this to you. That says a lot."
Orihime wanted to rush to Soul Society and help. But since Takeru told her to stay, she could only remain here and focus on protecting Las Noches from invasion.
"I hope Kurosaki kun and the others can find a way back quickly after they learn what's happening here."
.....
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