The sudden upheaval hit the Quincy like a storm.
They'd never expected their hiding place to be exposed so abruptly, and the Wandenreich fell into confusion almost at once.
The Shinigami, however, had been waiting for exactly this. Across the Seireitei, the Gotei 13 was already prepared for battle.
...
Eleventh Division
"Captain! The Quincy army has appeared!"
Ikkaku rushed in with the report.
Kenpachi looked almost annoyed.
"About damn time."
Then he kicked Ikkaku straight out of the way.
With his Zanpakutō resting across one shoulder, Kenpachi broke into a savage grin. He could finally fight again.
"Yachiru! You smell that?"
Before he could finish, Yachiru was already hanging upside down from a ceiling beam.
"Ken-chan! I feel it!" She pointed excitedly. "About four hundred meters northwest. The shadows over there are crying!"
Kenpachi stared blankly. Northwest meant absolutely nothing to him.
"That way, Ken-chan!"
Yachiru pointed. Kenpachi immediately charged — straight through the wall.
"Baldy, bring everyone else!"
Yachiru grabbed onto Kenpachi's hair as he tore away, leaving Ikkaku to organize the division.
Buildings shook in Kenpachi's wake.
His uncontrolled reiatsu battered walls apart as he charged in a straight line, sending dust and debris everywhere.
After demolishing several perfectly innocent structures, he finally found the Quincy.
"Hahahahaha!"
Kenpachi grinned at the soldiers ahead.
"Finally found you bastards!"
He swung his sword. A massive slash tore through the ground, opening a deep trench across the street.
From within the exposed shadow emerged a Quincy wearing a bird-beaked mask, followed by an entire unit of armed Soldat.
The masked Quincy raised his Heilig Bogen without hesitation.
Kenpachi's smile widened. A thin line of blood had appeared at the corner of his mouth, but he merely licked it away.
"Before the real war starts…" He raised his blade. "You lot can warm me up."
Then he charged.
...
Western Rukongai
Suì-Fēng and Hitsugaya had finished evacuating the nearby residents and were racing back toward the Seireitei when they encountered another squad of Soldat.
The fight barely lasted long enough to deserve the name.
Suì-Fēng vanished in Shunpo and appeared directly in front of one Quincy, Jakuhō Raikōben already poised within striking distance.
Her black uniform blended into the darkness as she moved through the soldiers faster than most could follow.
A hundred meters away, frost spread across the ground around Hitsugaya. He tightened his grip on Hyōrinmaru.
"So these bastards have been hiding underneath the Seireitei all this time?" His breath misted in the freezing air.
"I already hate their reiatsu."
Between the two captains, the entire Soldat unit was wiped out in short order.
Not one survived.
As Suì-Fēng surveyed the battlefield, her Soul Pager suddenly lit up with an encoded message.
After decoding it, Mayuri's unmistakable rasp came through.
"Captain Suì-Fēng, do try to leave several specimens alive and send them to the Department of Research and Development."
Suì-Fēng looked at the corpses around her.
"You could have said that earlier." She clicked her tongue. "We already killed all of these."
Then she glanced toward the Seireitei, where fresh battles were breaking out by the minute.
"Whatever. There are Quincy everywhere now. Finding you a few living specimens shouldn't be difficult."
...
The Seireitei had become a battlefield. Steel clashed. Kidō detonated between buildings.
Quincy arrows streaked through the air while Shinigami poured into the streets to meet them.
Soldat bodies already littered the ground, blood staining stone and earth alike.
Yet something felt wrong.
The ordinary Quincy troops had appeared everywhere.
Their elite fighters had not. Not a single high-ranking enemy had shown themselves.
"Hmph."
Hisagi Shūhei flicked blood from his Zanpakutō.
"So much for the Quincy. These guys are nothing."
Komamura immediately frowned.
"Shūhei, don't get careless." His gaze remained fixed on the battlefield ahead. "These are only foot soldiers.
Their real fighters haven't appeared yet."
He tightened his grip on his Zanpakutō.
"A thousand years ago, the Quincy were powerful enough to wage war against the original Gotei 13. They've had a millennium since then. Do not underestimate them."
Soul Society had gained the initiative by forcing the Wandenreich out of hiding before it was ready.
That did not mean the battle was won.
Far from it.
...
Twelfth Division
The Department of Research and Development already reeked of blood.
Under Mayuri's supervision, researchers loaded Quincy corpses into large cultivation tanks one after another.
The moment each body entered the transparent fluid, blood seeped outward and clouded the solution.
Mayuri watched with obvious delight.
"Excellent." His grin widened. "More specimens. At this rate, I might finally have enough material to develop something truly interesting."
Every Quincy specimen delivered so far had been dead. A minor disappointment, but not enough to dampen Mayuri's enthusiasm.
Dead or alive, a body still contained information, and Mayuri intended to extract every useful secret the Quincy had left behind.
...
"My King, the Soldat are being slaughtered. Should we respond?"
Haschwalth stood before Yhwach with a grave expression.
Two and a half hours had passed since the Wandenreich was forced out of hiding, and the rank-and-file Quincy were being systematically wiped out by the Gotei 13.
Yhwach remained silent, his face as unreadable as stone. After a long pause, he finally spoke.
"Summon the Sternritter."
He showed little concern for the lives of the Soldat, but the situation had progressed far enough. It was time to strike back.
Haschwalth bowed.
"At once."
He turned and left to carry out the order.
Alone on his throne, Yhwach frowned.
How had Soul Society discovered them?
Had Yamamoto found them?
Or Kazuma?
The Wandenreich had remained hidden for nearly a thousand years without the Seireitei realizing what existed beneath its own feet.
Why had their secret been exposed now, at the worst possible time?
Yhwach tapped a finger against the armrest as he considered every possibility.
With The Almighty still not fully restored, however, even he couldn't see the answer.