Help! I am bound to Aizen!-Chapter 257

Chapter 257

2-in-1 chapter

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“...?”

Watching Aizen raise his blade yet remain utterly still, Baraggan found himself puzzled.

What just happened?

Wasn’t he about to release his Zanpakutō? Where was the actual release?

An uneasy silence blanketed the surroundings.

Kaelith slowly opened his eyes.

Although Kyōka Suigetsu was powerful, it offered no flashy visual effects. Paired with Aizen’s youthful face, it almost seemed like a novice fumbling his first Shikai, failing to make it work. Kaelith briefly imagined Aizen botching his Shikai release, then slinking off in shame—and that made him grin.

Nearby, one of the Adjuchas suddenly burst out laughing.

“Lord Baraggan, I get it! This punk can’t handle his own power. It fizzled on him!”

Hearing that, the surrounding Hollows all seemed to arrive at the same conclusion.

No wonder Aizen’s Zanpakutō hadn’t changed at all, and they felt no attack. He must have publicly flopped, losing his ability mid-release!

Amid their mocking jeers, Aizen’s face remained impassive. Despite his age, he had already mastered a state of composure where taunts were little more than a breeze. The more these Hollows laughed now, the worse their fate would be in mere moments. He was about to withdraw from the spotlight when a short blade attached to a long chain streaked past him.

Splurt!!

The very first Hollow who mocked him was run clean through by Rishō Jimetsu. Stunned, it glanced down at the hole in its chest.

“Lord…Baraggan…save—”

Before it could finish, blue flames roared up from the blade, engulfing the Hollow. It struggled a moment before collapsing into ash, dissolving into Hueco Mundo’s sands.

Kaelith gave the chain a sharp tug, drawing Rishō Jimetsu back into his hand with a clatter.

“Where’s your sense of humor, heckling over the same old joke?”

He swept his gaze across the other Hollows, and at once the mocking ceased. The plaza of Las Noches fell eerily silent.

The soul-fire in Baraggan’s hollowed eyes flickered. Moments ago, he hadn’t caught how Kaelith launched that strike. Though Baraggan’s attention was largely on Aizen, the fact that Kaelith had grown even stronger since fighting Senzo Tsunayashiro was beyond doubt. Was this man…a monster?

At this rate, give him another few hundred years, and he might truly stand above me.

That thought only steeled Baraggan’s resolve to kill Kaelith right here and now.

He looked to his subordinates. They outnumbered the Shinigami by several times, but faced with Kaelith, these once-arrogant Hollows all seemed cowed. Baraggan snorted. Descending from the sky step by step, he spoke:

“This silly farce ends now. Kaelith, I will personally bury you!”

Gripping his massive ax, he unleashed a towering blast of reiatsu and lunged straight for Kaelith.

“Good timing!” Kaelith shouted back. “I’ll show you there’s an upside to being the smaller guy!”

Bellowing nonsense, he brandished Rishō Jimetsu and charged to meet Baraggan.

From below, Nelliel called out urgently, “Kaelith! Whatever you do, don’t let that ax blade cut you! Baraggan’s weapon carries a special power—if it injures you, your body rapidly ages from that wound until you crumble into dust!”

Kaelith’s expression flashed with mild surprise.

So that’s Baraggan’s so-called “death breath.” He’d known about it all along, but in his own memory, that power could be freely cast around as a lethal mist. Now it seemed it had to be channeled through the ax. A moment of confusion later, he realized:

So the old fox has been hiding his trump card, never showing its true form.

You cunning old scoundrel…

And people that sneaky should be hammered hard!

Above, Baraggan and Kaelith clashed in a whirling melee. Caught up in the battle, Baraggan didn’t notice that down on the field his subordinates were suddenly, inexplicably fighting among themselves.

To the Tsunayashiro Shinigami’s surprise, Baraggan’s own forces broke into small groups and started brawling with each other, yelling:

“Damn it—why are these Shinigami over here all of a sudden?”

“Curses, I won’t be beaten by mere Soul Reapers!”

While they were baffled, Aizen walked over.

“All of you—go drag any Adjuchas who can’t fight out of the fray. Inject them with this and lock them up.”

He handed them some sort of anesthetic. The Tsunayashiro Shinigami glanced at each other, realizing they weren’t even here for combat but rather clean-up duty?

Clang, clang!!

Sparks flew as Baraggan’s huge ax traded blow after blow with Kaelith’s twin blades, creating surges of reiatsu that buffeted Kaelith’s body. As a Hollow from the ancient past, Baraggan had likely lived longer than all current Shinigami combined. That extended life gave him two major advantages:

First, endless combat experience.

Second, a colossal ocean of spirit power.

Kaelith narrowed his eyes. Baraggan’s reiatsu battered him like a wild sea storm, stinging against his face with icy spray. Seeing Kaelith’s reaction, Baraggan grinned.

“So, Kaelith—do you feel my might?”

“Oh, indeed—tremendous and unstoppable!”

While whirling his blades, Kaelith actually gave Baraggan a thumbs-up. Baraggan, slightly annoyed at his casual tone, nonetheless took satisfaction in the seeming admission of defeat. He was about to respond magnanimously—allowing Kaelith to bow and serve him—when Kaelith added,

“Lucky for me, I planned ahead, knowing this wouldn’t be so simple. So…I brought in a little backup!”

Backup?

Baraggan’s heart lurched. Did Kaelith mean him?

This content is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

He pictured the younger Yamamoto Shigekuni: black mustache, piercing gaze, bulging muscles, tearing off his uniform at the drop of a hat, surrounded by raging flames…

But the next moment, two figures darted out of the shadows in the distance, rocketing into the sky. Baraggan’s gaze snapped over, baffled by how these intruders kept emerging from Las Noche’s “shadows.” It didn’t matter. He had to see what sort of reinforcements Kaelith had summoned.

When Baraggan finally caught sight of the new arrivals, he froze for a second. A lanky, world-weary man in a Shihakushō was peering around curiously, while next to him stood a green-haired girl bearing a cocky grin with sharp little canines.

“Oh? You’re Baraggan?” she called. “Starrk—time to fight!”

“…Yeah. That was our deal, after all.”

Starrk nodded, turning to Lilynette. “Hunt them down, wolves!”

A swirling tempest of reiatsu erupted, that familiar fur-lined coat once again draping his form. Lilynette became twin pistols in Starrk’s hands. Without further ado, he aimed at Baraggan and fired a colossal Cero, thick as a water tank, that roared straight at him.

Tssshhh!!

Baraggan met it head-on with a diagonal slice of his ax, trailing a black, crescent arc. The Cero split upon impact, flying to either side and blasting Las Noche’s outer walls, kicking up clouds of crimson smoke.

The raw force in that one shot startled Baraggan. This Shinigami-garbed Hollow was incredibly strong—like Baraggan, he’d crossed the boundary between Hollow and Shinigami. No…given how fully he’d transformed, he might even be a step beyond Baraggan’s own incomplete stage.

Not even Ikomikidomoe (the ancient Hollow who once stormed the Soul Society) had reached this level. How could such a mighty Hollow have existed unknown to him?

While Baraggan stood stunned, Starrk finished his test shot. With both guns raised, he unleashed a hail of Cero like a pounding rain.

Baraggan—unlike Kaelith, who had both power and speed—couldn’t dodge them all. He took several direct hits. Typically he ignored such blasts, but these hammered his body with real pain. Enraged, he tried to swing his ax overhead and hurl it at Starrk—but Kaelith suddenly appeared from behind one of Starrk’s Cero beams, grinning broadly.

Under Baraggan’s startled gaze, Kaelith laughed, brandishing twin swords for a fierce overhead strike.

Crack!!

Baraggan’s purple robe was torn open, and the steel-hard rib bones beneath were mostly shattered. If a fleshy being would bleed, for Baraggan a broken bone was even worse: he invested all his reiatsu in his skeletal form—lose a bone, lose a chunk of strength.

Starrk’s keen senses caught the moment Baraggan faltered. Another torrent of Cero followed in rapid succession. Meanwhile, Kaelith withdrew briefly, readying a second strike. Baraggan felt a spike of alarm. Someone else—an extremely powerful presence—was also locking onto him, aiming to immobilize him with some binding move. He couldn’t tell who, but that individual’s strength might rival Kaelith’s.

Facing a triple threat, Baraggan sneered. He made no attempt to dodge or defend, simply gripped his ax tightly:

“Decay…Arrogante!”

Boom!!

The moment he spoke, a rolling wave of pitch-black miasma erupted from his body, surging outward. Starrk’s hundreds of Cero disintegrated on contact, dissolving into harmless spirit particles. The binding cords Aizen had cast from afar shattered into glittering fragments the instant they neared the cloud.

Kaelith, seeing the churning darkness, performed a sudden midair flip, retreating. The scene stunned onlookers. In one moment, Kaelith’s side had forced Baraggan to the brink, dominating the fight. In the next moment, fortune flipped. Now it was Baraggan in command.

Nelliel cried out, “That’s his Death Breath!”

Harribel’s eyes widened. “I thought it could only spread through the ax—how is he releasing it freely?!”

High above, Baraggan let out a maniacal laugh, black mist still gushing from him in all directions. Kaelith showed no sign of continuing the fight. He turned tail and fled at top speed.

Shwoom!

Starrk flickered over to join him in his retreat.

“Kaelith, do something!”

Starrk had survived eons by hiding and running when necessary; from the instant Baraggan deployed that skill, he knew it was unstoppable. His own attacks were useless, so he dashed to Kaelith’s side.

Kaelith simply laughed. “Foolish question. If I could handle that, I wouldn’t be running, now would I?”

“…Right.”

Starrk blinked. For all Kaelith’s dramatic flair, it didn’t change the embarrassing reality that they were fleeing at top speed.

Shwoosh!

Another figure joined them, Aizen.

“So this is that ‘Death Breath’ you mentioned…truly an eerie power. Accelerating time to instantly age and rot anything, even spirit particles.”

Starrk parted his lips, then shut them again—Aizen was also a Shinigami, so maybe it wasn’t wise to comment on “a mere Hollow’s power” being so bizarre in his presence.

Lilynette, still in gun form, spoke in exasperation. “Four-eyes, less analyzing, more solutions! Hurry!”

Expressionless, Aizen said, “A power this absolute? How could I possibly have a solution?”

“Wha—?!”

Lilynette was dumbfounded.

Kaelith chimed in, “No giving up so easily, Aizen. We still have time—think of something!”

Aizen turned to Baraggan, still spewing black mist, then glanced at Kaelith.

“…All right. I have an idea.”

Kaelith beamed. “Excellent, as expected of my personal strategist—let’s hear it!”

Aizen’s smile was cool. “Just turn around and charge straight back in. Cut him.”

For a moment, even Kaelith was stunned silent.

Lilynette shouted furiously, “Are you out of your mind?!”

Aizen offered no retort, merely gazing at Kaelith. The latter suddenly seemed to grasp Aizen’s meaning. He grinned widely and, without warning, skidded to a halt in midair, flipping himself around.

Boom!!

One foot stamped against the air, blasting out a white shockwave. He hurtled back toward Baraggan at an even greater speed than before.

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