"Die!"
To clarify, Hiroe really wasn't the one who said the word 'die'. Since when did you guys learn to jump the gun? More importantly, your answer is wrong!
Then again, maybe it wasn't jumping the gun, but rather a warning? After all, the speaker's knee was already practically touching his ear.
"I never said that, ma'am."
Hiroe turned sideways, evading the knee strike from his flank. With a blur of motion, he narrowly brushed past his opponent's sudden kick and effortlessly slipped behind her.
The woman who had suddenly attacked had dark skin and shoulder-length black hair. Her entire being exuded an indescribable sense of capability, bearing a slight resemblance to Yoruichi when she was serious.
She just wasn't as pretty as Yoruichi. At the very least, compared to those long, well-proportioned legs, hers were somewhat mediocre.
Hiroe silently evaluated her. The subject of his critique thought he was about to attack and immediately delivered a spinning side kick. Although the move was hasty, the faint sonic boom indicated she absolutely hadn't held back.
This time, Hiroe didn't dodge. He reached out with his right hand and perfectly caught her ankle. The seemingly powerful kick felt like nothing more than a bluff in his grasp.
"Your name is Jackie Tristan, right? Nice power."
*Bastard*, Jackie cursed inwardly, her intentions exposed. Even Ginjō probably wouldn't dare catch her kick barehanded. This guy caught her so easily and even complimented her power? Was he looking down on her?
She exerted force with her left leg, but Hiroe's hand was like a bizarre swamp, rendering her deeply trapped limb completely immobile.
Jackie made a prompt decision. Stomping her right foot hard, she leaped into the air. Spinning mid-air, she whipped her right leg viciously toward Hiroe's head.
Hiroe's attention, however, wasn't on her. More accurately, Jackie's strength wasn't enough to demand his undivided focus. At this moment, every movement of everyone in the room was under his control.
This included Yukio, who looked innocent but was constantly plotting against him. The brat had chosen to strike during the opening created by Jackie's attack, even picking his blind spot. Truly not simple.
With a flick of his wrist, Hiroe tossed Jackie away as casually as discarding a crumpled tissue. In the direction she flew, several small arrows made of pixel blocks were roaming about.
The result of their collision was somewhat unexpected. A living person like Jackie instantly vanished right in front of everyone, only to reappear behind Yukio.
"Good thing I made it in time."
"You weren't actually trying to save me, were you?" Jackie replied bluntly. Although she couldn't fathom the kid's thoughts, she knew he wasn't exactly the kind-hearted type.
Yukio didn't deny it. He just looked toward the living room with interest and smiled. "How could your straightforward attack method possibly work? The opponent is a boss, after all."
Hiroe indeed felt a bit like a boss right now. Being ganged up on was an experience every mature boss had to go through. And in the opposing party, taking Riruka—who was currently holding what looked like a toy gun—as an example, didn't she give off the vibe of a ranged DPS?
However, this 'DPS's' attacks were rather cute. The ammunition fired from that pastel pink handgun wasn't a Cero or anything terrifying, but rather stuffed toys like a big-headed cow and a stubby-limbed little dragon.
But despite Hiroe casually swatting them away left and right like an older brother dealing with a sibling throwing a tantrum, if an ordinary human were even grazed by these dolls, they would instantly lose consciousness.
Even among the Shinigami of the Gotei 13, absolutely no more than half could easily block them. Of course, for someone like Hiroe, he was just having a lot of fun playing along.
After casually swatting away a crocodile-shaped stuffed toy, he noticed Riruka had, at some point, put away her pink handgun. Crossing her index fingers and thumbs, she flashed Hiroe a finger-heart gesture—a pose quite popular in his past life.
A bright pink heart-shaped symbol actually materialized following Riruka's motion, shooting straight toward Hiroe alongside the previously swatted dolls.
Just as Hiroe was hesitating over whether he should accept the young girl's finger-heart, a string of distinct pale green numbers—'1, 2, 3...'—began floating up and down around him out of nowhere.
From a one-eyed pirate stuffed toy he had knocked down to his feet earlier, a figure slowly rose. It was a middle-aged man wearing an eye patch over his right eye and a crisp waiter's uniform.
"You'll be affected by the enhancement brought on by perfectly playing the role of a stuffed toy for ten minutes, won't you?" The man looked supremely confident. Grabbing Hiroe's arms directly with both hands, he continued, "You like confirming our names, right? I am Kutsuzawa Giriko."
Hiroe had indeed been confirming the names of those who attacked him earlier. Now, it seemed Giriko had mistaken it for some sort of quirk?
"Great job, Giriko!"
Riruka looked delighted. The heart-shaped symbol floating toward Hiroe seemed to feel this joy as well, expanding in the air by more than just a single size, becoming large enough to almost envelop Hiroe entirely.
"It feels a bit like Bakudō, but the same aura is also coursing through your body. So, did it enhance your overall strength?"
"Feigning composure?" Giriko said disdainfully.
Riruka's heart-shaped symbol was already close at hand, and the opponent was immobilized under his restraint. As long as the mark hit, regardless of whether this man was a Shinigami Captain or whatever else, he would have no ability to resist.
There were always rules in the world that brute force couldn't break through, such as time, or Riruka's ability...
That bright pink light was like the dawn of victory; Giriko even felt as if he had already touched it. However, in an instant, Giriko felt as though time was flowing backward.
The light that seemed to fill the entire world slowly retracted backward, eventually converging into a massive heart-shaped symbol, and then gradually shrinking?
No, no existence could reverse the march of time. It wasn't time that was moving, but them?
Familiar purplish-red hair fluttered in the air past the man in front of him, and Riruka's panicked little face slowly came into view. *We're behind Riruka?*
"Two mistakes. First, I am not feigning composure..."
Giriko hurriedly looked down. His hands were still gripping the opponent's arms, holding on solidly. Layers of fine sweat stealthily broke out on his forehead. This guy had teleported with him? Without him reacting at all!
"Second..."
Jackie had a fleeting illusion that Hiroe had just glanced at her. Before she could dwell on it, her face was instantly overtaken by terror, and she subconsciously screamed, "Stop, Ginjō!"
Ginjō? Before Giriko could think further, his entire body spun uncontrollably while hanging onto Hiroe. When his vision recovered, the most striking thing before him was Ginjō, wearing a ferocious expression and holding his greatsword high.
"Die!"
As the blade slashed down, the cold gleam on the greatsword seemed to be flung out all at once by the immense force, like a rearing python threatening to devour everything in its path.
"Second, I never said..."
Hiroe brushed his right hand against his waist. Like a scholar wielding a brush, he drew the black short sword at his side and slashed upward. "...that you guys would die."
He cleaved that intimidating white curtain in two, re-adorning it with color—the color of reality.
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