The city gleamed in the late afternoon sunset, windows reflecting the kulay-rosas and red hues of the sky to create a panoply of of color as it refracted off of a jungle of metal buildings that twisted across the breadth of the island. The sky was ablaze with that natural light, but the ground level was lit sa pamamagitan ng the electric, despite the early hour. Neon and holographic larawan glowed brightly on every street, virtually ignored sa pamamagitan ng the passersby in spite of their common purpose being advertisement. Crystal screens flickered on with larawan of all sorts, speaking in all manner of languages to convey a bevy of messages, most of which went unheard, though the sounds of vehicles rocketing down the roadways threatened to drown them out.

New York was an assault on the senses, holding within its confines a synthetic beauty that was broadly appreciated, but only from afar. Within its expansive recesses, it was easy to feel overwhelmed, especially sa pamamagitan ng the strangely inviting Times Square, where all those lights and sounds were most cacophonous, almost a siren's song of music, shouts and traffic.

Nemu strode into the midst of all that noise, the sound of her surroundings failing to reach her ears. She had appeared as though from nothing, her body materializing in puwang with a gigantic shard of wood leaning against her left shoulder as though it weighed little madami than a feather. She had little regard for those that stood in her way, and many were brusquely brushed aside. It was not out of any anger or malice – these were not emotions she had ever known, though she had known so few in her years of pseudo-life – but rather out of a dogged perseverance which drove her onward towards her destination without any semblance of desire. Her neutral demeanor stood in stark contrast to the threats and distress of those around her, and to the blaring of automatic horns that warned her with electronic menace to keep the road clear as she crossed the street.

Some cheered as she passed. Such a strange way to envisage her purpose; these humans appeared to see a sort of religious symbolism in her efforts, as though her charge was akin to two crossed pieces of wood, and her gait madami akin to a trudge of the weary and overburdened. But her even, steady pace, her neutral expression and her actual goals were far different from a purported savior of mortal beings.

There was a strange irony to it, she supposed. Then she pushed the thought out of her mind. Supposition was strictly disallowed. Her goal today was execution.

She stopped at a central point, coordinates 40.7577° N, 73.9857°W, and planted her feet. Horns blared as cars stopped around her, unable to proceed without a collision. Hefting the shard off her shoulder, Nemu slammed it hard into the road beneath her, cracking the asphalt beneath her feet and rattling all within her vicinity. Most of those around her treated it as an earthquake, but those who saw her do it began to scream and run.

Nemu didn't appreciate the attention, though apparently Mayuri had some interest in keeping her visible. He had ibingiay her a device that made her visible to mortals, perhaps to send some kind of message, of which she was unaware. But then, it wasn't her place to ask tanong of him. That sort of insolence was treated very poorly sa pamamagitan ng her captain.

Or, rather, it had once been treated poorly. madami recently, Mayuri's punishments had seemed lackluster. Perhaps age was finally catching up with him.

Police forces had begun to assemble around her, both in flying machines, road vehicles and on foot, pointing all manner of firearms at her. They now saw her for what she was – a demonstrable threat. Their efforts were, however, in vain against Soul Reapers such as herself, and even madami so now that she was so close to accomplishing her task. Shouts told her to stop where she was, raise her hands and not to ilipat her legs. She followed them to the letter, merely raising her hands and, in the process, placing one on the surface of the upright fragment. Shots were fired.

A roar of flame drowned them out.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You have your orders, Isao. We will not have you ignoring them.”

Isao grimaced, forcing himself to relax his grip on the woman's mesa before the wood could shatter.

“Yes, I have your orders. I have those of Central 46 as well, and they all agree. But my men are noticeably distraught. Several appear to have disappeared, and I only have so many guesses as to where they've gone.”

Shinju gave him a suffering look, lowering her head such that she could look at him over her glasses.

“And since when did the great Captain Commander concede to the wishes of those who abandoned his ranks? Did you have mga kaibigan among the AWOL, Isao?”

He glared. “Yes, my vice captain.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Then you should have chosen better. As I recall, we mentioned several stalwarts within-”

“-the Kyoraku household? Those fools you recommended hardly outpaced my fifth seat, and none of them would have received the requisite respect to hold such a position.”

Shinju shrugged. “It is not our fault that you have so thoroughly failed at instilling a sense of discipline in your ranks. They abandon you in waves, and yet you talk to me about 'respect?' How utterly foolish.”

Isao's face darkened perceptibly. “With the Human World in such obvious danger and no response on our behalf, how can we blame them for a deficit in esteem?”

“It's not them I blame. It's you, Isao.”

“I blame myself as well. That's why I'm leaving.”

He strode towards the door, but she stopped him after two paces.

“Hold it.”

He rooted himself in place, rounding on her with his face a mask of barely controlled rage to meet her lightly annoyed expression. She tapped a pen against the mesa before her.

“Do you really wish to risk your upuan over this? As I recall, we authorized your invasion of Hueco Mundo solely because you promised us your full and undivided allegiance.”

“There was a time when the Captain Commander didn't require the permission of a Noble House to commit the Court Guard Squads to action.”

She smiled sweetly. “Oh? Are we now yearning to greatly for the past? You mean those good old, bygone days when the Quincy invaded the Seireitei from the shadows? Did you so greatly appreciate the efforts of Aizen to confront and destroy the Soul King after climbing over the bodies of his fellows?Or are you perhaps infatuated with the days when our Reapers had to be stationed at cities the world over to confront the continuous threat of their ballooning ranks?”

Isao's mask shattered, rage boiling over. He marched over, slamming his palms into the mesa before him and leaving deep gouges in the wood. Shinju's mouth twisted with distaste, though not a note of fear appeared in her eyes.

“There was a araw when we cared about madami than just what resided within these walls! There was a time when humanity represented madami than just a pool of souls to draw from when they died! Aizen, the Hollows, they were a threat to madami than just ourselves!”

Her mouth thinned to a line, and she stripped herself quickly of her glasses to glare directly in his eyes. She kept her voice even.

“And here, I had thought the days of such ridiculous idealism were behind us. The fantastic belief that we can somehow manage to defend multiple planes of existence was nothing madami than a ridiculous notion that led to multiple wars, the near destruction of the Seireitei and the fall of the Soul King himself. I will not-”

Isao gripped the wood hard between his fingers, the cracks now running through much of the thick wood of the desk. That stopped her short.

“I will not allow our captain to steal our greatest weapon and bring it to madala upon humanity! I don't care how you wish to justify it! You can lock me up when I return, seek to destroy me for what I will do, but I will not sit idly sa pamamagitan ng while that maniac destroys every city in the Human World. You may only care about the segundo lives of those who contain sufficient reishi, but whether that world is our burden to madala or not, I will not allow that blood to stain my hands without a fight!”

He roared that last line, whirling and leaving her gasping beneath his oppressive reiatsu. He was decided. He would gather all those captains he could trust, and leave for the Human World post-haste. Mayuri would face judgment for his crimes, and he would carry out the sentencing himself if he had to.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blue flame bathed Paris in its effervescent glow. The City of Light exuded such copious amounts that the night peeled back before it, the stars themselves yielding before the powerful flames and vanishing completely in the smokey haze from the resultant destruction. That light silhouetted Mayuri's oddly garbed frame, which made him appear an amorphous shape atop his nearby bluff. Some had escaped the city's confines, scurrying out through the streets like ants abandoning the deathtrap that their once beautiful city had become.

Such small, feeble minds. The phoenixes that were birthed within their midst would bring death, to be sure, but true life would rise out of the ashes, life that they had never known. The Sōkyoku, which had so long been wasted in its capacities, was now exceeding its potential due to his genius. Getting it out of the Seireitei had proven difficult, but separating it so many pieces without destroying it had been a nearly impossible task. The individual feathers, as he'd taken to calling them, had proved to be formidably powerful despite their fractured state. Being able to separate the overlarge Zanpakuto into various pieces and implant those pieces into similarly oversized templates for Zanpakuto creation had required extensive research into Ōetsu Nimaiya's methods, had been no simple task, but was apparently quite effective.

And yet here he stood, on a bluff outside the city watching it burn, without an ounce of his usual sadistic glee. It wasn't nearly so fascinating to wreak such wonton havoc as it was to toy with his subjects personally, something for which these humans were woefully inadequate. Still, just being dissatisfied with this portion of the result shouldn't have smothered his enthusiasm so completely.

He didn't like the fact that his mind so often wandered to the fate of his Vice Captain and his various puppets, each of whom had sacrificed themselves to activate their charges. She had certainly been an intriguing assistant, one who he could trust to follow his orders to the letter with only the barest modicum of free will to keep her responses flexible. He had had to punish her on multiple occasions for her insolence, and yet she had been something of a gem in his collection – not just another revived corpse or a machine. each of which had become so basic and simple with time. Independently autonomous beings presented as something madami intriguing, though most of those were all too emotional, lacking in reason and all too easy to break. Nemu had been something discrete and special, with her stoic demeanor and tolerance for pain...

...She had been the perfect test subject. He'd miss finding ways to make her scream.

Ah, memories. But there was no time to pour over the tapes now.

A tremendous reiatsu appeared a short distance behind him.

“Isao. I'm surprised. The Kyoraku household let you off the leash, I take it? Or are you now a mad dog you broke free?”

Mayuri turned around slowly. His body was encased in some gelatinous, green mass that obscured all of physical features aside from his face, coming up to the edges of a bright blue mask that shined on his face. Only eyeholes gave any glimpse of flesh, though they were so recessed that Isao couldn't make them out from that distance. He ignored the questions.

“This is the end of it, Mayuri.”

He stuck what was probably a hand encased in all those green folds up to his chin in a motion that appeared to emulate mock pondering.

“Well, I suppose it is. That was the purpose behind all of this, after all. To end, in order to begin again!”

[To Be Continued]