Chapter 39: A Ticket to Hell |
Phew...
Space and time surged back into motion.
The Demon Slayers charged toward the spot where Mitsuri and Wakuraba had been, their faces etched with guilt and desperation. However, after only a few heartbeats, they skidded to a halt, frozen in sheer bewilderment.
Just a moment ago, they had stood helplessly, watching a regenerating demon prepare to deliver a lethal blow to the young girl. But in the blink of an eye, before the unthinkable could happen, the two of them had simply vanished into thin air!
The surrounding environment left them with a strange, nagging sense of dissonance...
"Huh?"
"What the..."
The Demon Slayers looked around in stunned silence, but they found no trace of Wakuraba or Mitsuri. It was as if the ground had swallowed them whole. Even more bizarre—the doctor's corpse had disappeared without a trace as well!
What kind of sorcery was this?
The demon, the girl, and the deceased doctor had truly evaporated right before their eyes in some inexplicable way.
However, this did not change the fact that their critically wounded comrade's condition had noticeably improved. The skillfully administered first aid had been enough to stabilize him until dawn, when the organization's medical teams would arrive.
The news regarding the strange disappearance of Lower Rank Three was immediately dispatched to headquarters, though it failed to cause much of a stir there.
Over the past year, the Demon Slayers had encountered the Twelve Kizuki on more than one occasion, allowing them to gather information about their various abilities, including those of the mysterious and enigmatic Nakime.
While nothing was certain yet, there were theories that she possessed the power to transport objects into another dimension.
It was this very ability that had prevented them from ending the year's largest battle before sunrise and claiming a crushing victory over the demons; they had simply vanished, one by one, just moments before the first light of dawn.
Thus, it was likely that Nakime had played a part in this incident as well...
As for the renowned doctor and his wife, who had been tragically swept up in this ill-fated event, their memories were solemnly honored during the funeral services for the fallen Demon Slayers.
No ordinary human had any hope of survival after vanishing alongside one of the Lower Moons. Moreover, since the doctor had died while saving their comrade, the Demon Slayers held his memory in the highest regard.
*
Meanwhile, somewhere within the Hell of the Bleach world.
"Die, die! Gah-ha-ha!" Appearing out of nowhere, Wakuraba swung his blade with manic persistence in a crazed attempt to shred the hated Mitsuri into tiny pieces.
The demon had been genuinely terrified by the girl's sudden outburst of rage; he could have easily died if the Nichirin Sword had struck his neck. Needless to say, that fear had quickly mutated into an all-consuming fury.
However...
Just as he was about to pierce her chest and butcher her body, she simply vanished, and the world around him shifted violently.
Only a second ago, it had been night, and his blade-shaped hand was inches away from delivering a killing blow to a girl atop the ruins of a building.
But a mere moment later...
Everything before his eyes brightened intensely. A landscape emerged consisting of an infinite number of white blocks floating over a bottomless chasm, connected by glowing blue paths.
His blade-like hand was now thrusting toward a young man clad in a white haori, possessing silvery hair and narrow, squinted eyes. At first glance, even this stranger seemed surprised by Wakuraba's sudden appearance.
Clang!
The gleaming blade of Lower Rank Three collided with the young man's right arm, but it failed to even nick his haori. Instead, the demon's limb began to crack, shattering into tiny fragments!
"Wha—?!" Wakuraba's eyes nearly bulged out of his head in shock.
It wasn't the sudden change in scenery that shocked him the most—he had experienced such things before when Nakime summoned all the Moons to the fortress on Muzan's orders. He assumed this was Nakime's work again.
The source of his profound shock was that his strike hadn't even ruffled the young man's sleeve. Furthermore, he sensed an extraordinarily dangerous and cold aura emanating from the stranger, like that of a venomous viper.
Even Muzan's presence didn't feel this terrifying!
"You... who are you, and... where am I?" the demon spat out as he recoiled.
"Me? I'm Gin Ichimaru. Welcome to Hell," the young man said calmly, his eyes narrowed behind a fixed, mocking smile.
Gin Ichimaru!
Shortly after the turmoil in the world of Bleach had settled, the members of the Gotei 13 had conducted an investigation and confirmed that Gin had been acting as a double agent with the goal of assassinating Aizen.
However...
That didn't change the fact that he had helped Aizen open a Garganta right in the heart of the Seireitei, killed numerous Shinigami and innocent residents of Rukongai, and participated in the research of Hollowfication and the Hogyoku.
And that was hardly the full extent of his crimes.
A crime was a crime, regardless of the motive.
Consequently, he had been sentenced to the ultimate punishment and cast into Hell.
One couldn't say his stay in Hell was particularly arduous, as few here could stand against a former Captain of the Gotei 13, but the loneliness of being separated from Rangiku gnawed at him most of all.
"Gin Ichimaru?" Wakuraba frowned.
He had never heard the name, let alone anything about this so-called Hell.
The demon had long since lost count of how many people had wished for him to burn in hell before they died, but for them, such a place had never truly existed.
"Where is Lord Muzan?" Wakuraba asked warily.
'How curious... when I think about someone being dropped straight into Hell while bypassing the securely sealed gates, only one person comes to mind... that man...' Ignoring the questions entirely, Gin stroked his chin and murmured thoughtfully before casting an intrigued look at Wakuraba. "So, tell me... how exactly did you manage to incur... HIS wrath? I truly hope to hear an interesting story..."
With those words, Gin began to walk slowly toward Wakuraba.
A short while later.
Soul-piercing screams echoed through the hollow depths of Hell.