The strength had surged.
The instant their blades clashed, Makoto sized up Satō's newfound power.
No... more precisely, his spiritual energy had ballooned several times over.
Clang!
Makoto twisted his blade, forcing Satō's weapon upward, prying open a gap.
But in a blink, shadow-forged blades trailed his every move like hounds, lunging forth like spears encircling him.
Shink! Shink! Shink!
A chorus of air-piercing shrieks assaulted his ears.
Yet Makoto's eyes remained calm.
His form wove through the razor-edged shadows with restrained, precise shifts until a flaw emerged. His Asauchi flashed.
Thwack!
Nobukazu recoiled, a bloody gash blooming on his left arm.
Makoto stood firm, flicking the blood from his blade.
He wasn't sure if this was the fruit of his grueling Sekkiseki training.
But he was starting to grasp what it meant to know what to do on the battlefield.
"Damn it!"
Nobukazu clutched his wound, glaring at Makoto with eyes ready to split from rage.
Yet beneath the fury, a flicker of fear glinted in his bloodshot gaze.
This isn't how it's supposed to be…
Even a mere Shikai should widen the reiatsu gap by three to five times, enough for a high-ranking officer to crush subordinates effortlessly.
As an Onmitsukido member, Nobukazu knew this cold.
But...
He stared at Makoto.
This guy hadn't even gasped hard since the fight began.
And no Shikai.
That realization gripped his heart like an icy claw.
If that was true, the chasm between them…
"You're dead, Makoto!"
Panic eclipsed his plans to conserve strength for escape. Reiatsu erupted, flooding his blade.
Its already dark surface deepened to an inky sheen as if it could drip.
Then the edge plunged into the earth.
"Swarm him! Fukukage!"
The moment Nobukazu's voice rang out, vast swathes of silken shadow blades surged from the night-drenched ground, encasing Makoto from all sides.
After a fleeting pause, they crashed inward.
Nobukazu's face tightened, veins bulging on his forehead.
Yet Makoto stood serene.
As if blind to the shrouding gloom, he merely frowned, murmuring, "As expected."
"At this level, no points."
A sudden, inexplicable dread seized Nobukazu.
Then Makoto sheathed his blade at his waist.
He leaned forward sharply, mimicking Saitō's sparring stance, body low, nearly grazing the ground.
His eyes locked on Nobukazu in the distance.
Thrum! Thrum! Thrum!
In a snap, the shadow blades peaked, taut to their limit.
Then plummeted.
Their piercing shrieks shredded the air, booming like massive crossbow bolts, raining down like black torrents.
In a blink, Makoto's form vanished beneath them.
Nobukazu's heart leapt with glee.
Until he noticed.
His eyes widened.
Makoto's silhouette flickered through the falling shadow pillars like an afterimage, tracing countless Z-shaped streaks, dodging through the barrage as if it were a tedious game.
How?!
Nobukazu's mind reeled at the absurdity unfolding before his own eyes.
His jaw slackened unwittingly.
Until the final moment.
Makoto surged forth, impossibly close, the beastly tang of blood radiating from him.
Nobukazu froze.
Shink!
A gleaming arc sliced the air, blood beads scattering from its edge.
A severed arm, still gripping its blade, soared.
Thud.
It landed far off.
Only then did searing pain jolt Nobukazu's brain awake. He clutched his stump, staggering back, gasping, sweat beading his brow.
His gaze blanked.
The fiery thirst for revenge crumbled effortlessly, leaving only terror to flood his core.
Nobukazu wanted to live.
"Wait!"
He shouted, voice quaking with pain and menace, "Y-You think killing me changes anything?!"
"This op got pushed up, but it's been planned and filed with the Central 46 ages ago! There's a ton of us!"
"Right now, they're probably tearing through the Genji School, wrecking, infiltrating!"
"At least five as strong as me!"
"Each leading a squad!"
Nobukazu strained for a fierce glare, but blood loss paled his face unnaturally.
Makoto's brow furrowed.
If that was true, snagging all the heads, and points, might get tricky.
He'd been banking on racking up more points.
In less… perilous ways.
But as he traded words with Nobukazu, a voice, frigid to the marrow, cut through the distant sky.
"For what cause do you swallow the sword?"
"Stand firm in flame, forsake all evil."
"Kurikara!"
The voice echoed across the Genji School.
A titanic reiatsu, raw and relentless as a tidal surge, unfurled in all directions. Its crushing weight snuffed the flames, stilled the wind, and speckled the black night with shimmering reishi auroras. The earth itself trembled.
If Nobukazu's Shikai reiatsu was a pond.
This, before their eyes, was an abyss overturning the sky.
Both turned as one.
Far off, the girl who'd sat in the study now stood aloft in the sky.
Her tassled naginata gleamed, five heads skewered along its blade, faces blank, necks torn asunder.
Dead before they knew how.
Katori hovered in the heavens, expressionless.
Her gaze fell on the last.
Makoto glimpsed the heads, a chill tightening his spine.
In a flash, Katori appeared before them.
No trace of her movement.
The naginata swung.
Makoto reacted instantly, parrying, "Hold on!"
"My headcount!"
Clang!
His Asauchi swept from the side, deflecting her casual strike amid a shower of fierce sparks, just barely.
Rumble!
Even diverted, the blow's residual shockwave roared like a dragon, leveling most of the hillside's trees and gouging a deep trench.
Caught in its path, Nobukazu vanished without a sound, reduced to gore in the rift.
My headcount is gone...
Before Makoto could mourn, Katori's silent eyes shifted to him beneath her glasses.
She flicked the heads from her blade, its tip leveling at him.
Makoto blinked.
In that moment, Katori, grieving the loss of her little study, found her heart deadened beyond despair.
Her voice, eerily calm, inquired, "Are you with him?"
***
Bonus Chapter:
100 Power Stones = 1 BC
300 Power Stones = 2 BC
500 Power Stones = 3 BC
700 Power Stones = 4 BC
1000 Power Stones = 5 BC
***
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