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This article, Surprising Intervention, is a stand-alone chapter with Averian as the POV character, which also features Kentaro, Akiye, Hawke, David and Kenji.
“Send word to Horiwari!” Kentaro exclaimed.
“We haven’t got time.” Akiye answered as she deflected an incoming attack.
“Watch your back Ken!” Hawke roared.
“This is insane!” David called.
Kentaro, dressed in a high-necked short-sleeved gray shirt and a pair of black hakama, twisted through the air like a lunging drill to simultaneously evade one foe whilst striking another. His purple sash billowed around him in the wind and when he came to a rest he was forced to employ Utsusemi -- shedding his shirt in the process -- just to avoid having three foes impale him all at once. He proceeded to cut them down with a single running slash.
"I'll hold them off!" Kentaro called. "Now go! NOW!"
"I'm not leaving you here alone!" Akiye exclaimed.
"None of us are."
Hawke followed up his response with a quick Reissen to cover David's flank, who subsequently unleashed a sustained burst of arrows from his Spirit Weapon that bought the four a brief reprieve. Though it was clear the battle was beginning to take its toll. The stranger who was watching from afar had been doing so for close to an hour already.
"I will admit it is impressive that the Soulless have yet to touch them." Thought the stranger.
It was laughable the stranger from afar thought. Kentaro and company should be doing better than this. They did against Oda’s Battle Dolls after all.
“I guess I’ll help them.” The stranger said.
Apparently Oda’s Soulless had gone quite mad after his death. Whatever hold he had on them shattered like a piece of glass striking the floor, and without his guidance they lacked a mission at all and now attacked anyone and anything in sight; Kentaro and his crew just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, with no way to contact their superiors. A number of humans and souls had already been killed or severely injured by them. And they where everywhere!
Intelligence had dropped the ball on this one Kentaro thought. "How couldn't they predict this!?"
“Shit.” David said. “Uh, we’ve got another problem!”
“Oh, please. How many times do I need to tell you people I do not want to fight you? It is quite annoying when I have to constantly repeat myself for your benefit.”
“… Averian…!” Kentaro said, disbelieving.
Averian was usually loathed to intervene in situations that had no direct impact on him personally. But then the party he was about to spoil did include him, though he seriously doubted whether or not Kentaro and his comrades would be fit to determine why. Not that it mattered. Averian was going to let loose for once. He drew his Zanpakuto and put himself firmly between Kentaro's group and the Soulless -- achieved by simply cutting whatever stood in his way aside with such force he disintegrated their bodies!
“Now, now,” he declared lazily as he appeared amongst the group of Soulless. “Words are already useless, I see. Permit me to strike the next blow.”
Kentaro was left completely speechless! Averian lifted his Zanpakutō and slashed once. The shockwave of power that came from that one slash was enough to entirely bisect whatever Soulless where in the area. How did one get so powerful? It seemed beyond all possibility!
“I believe fire is the tool?” Averian asked.
Blue flames engulfed only the Soulless and within a handful of seconds they had been reduced to ash! Averian had quite literally scattered the remains to the winds and he’d done so without effort or difficulty. No wonder Kenji and Kusaka had been defeated so easily. Kentaro couldn’t even sense his spiritual pressure.
“You look confused, Kentaro Hiroshi. Are my powers truly so awe-inspiring?”
“You tell me.” Kentaro replied, carefully. “I can’t even sense you. If it wasn’t that I was looking right at you my senses would tell me that there’s nothing there. Is that power? I don’t know. I’ve never wielded power like that.”
Averian laughed.
“What are you doing here?” Akiye asked.
Hawke and David showed a tad more caution. They both had their weapons drawn though Averian was happy to note they had the intelligence not to attack, for their posture shouted a defensive posture. Did it make them feel safe he wondered? If so he would let them be.
“What is with you people?” Averian exclaimed, sounding vexed. “I do a good deed by saving your lives and all I’m met with is questions regarding my intentions? I have none, you should be made aware. I simply saw the children and family of two powerful men with whom I’ve had the pleasure of facing in mortal combat in trouble. There is nothing more to it than that.”
“I’ll accept that.” Kentaro answered, for now at least. He kept that to himself though.
“And with that I bid you adieu.”
Averian was as good as his word. It took a small amount of effort to remove himself from their sight, and he was quite safe in the sense they could not discern his location except by eye contact. But to remove the possibility anyhow he shrouded his figure in a Kidō of his own invention to render himself invisible.
“Give it a rest for a day.”
It wasn’t often Averian was caught by surprise; especially once cloaked as he was. It was even more alarming when the person who had snuck up on him successfully was Kenji Hiroshi. He wore a tight-fitting black kosode with no shitagi underneath and a pair of black hakama, complete with a pair of waraji sandals and white tabi.
“Whatever do you mean, Kenji?”
“I mean stop spying on my family. I was about to intervene myself when you suddenly appeared! Imagine my curiosity: what is Averian doing here, of all places? But then I think we both know the answer to that question.”
“So you figured it out? That is hardly surprising.”
“You could say that.”
Averian had fought with Kenji only twice during the time one of his Battle Dolls masqueraded as Averian himself. The first was when Ino had been pregnant with Kentaro. The second was in Hueco Mundo when Kenji seemingly brought himself back from the dead, which led to the ultimate defeat of the Averian Battle Doll at the hands of an enraged Kusaka. The former time Averian had attempted to rid himself of Ino by funneling his power into her, though what had been intended as a fatal action was instead absorbed by the child – Kentaro. That child went on to have Averian’s own power coursing his veins, which, unsurprisingly, became a part of Kentaro’s own powers as he developed in the womb.
“You want to see how he’ll develop.” Kenji deduced.
“That was my purpose today, I will admit, but hardly an action indicative of some grand scheme.”
“True.”
Kenji wasted no more time. He disappeared and Averian too found today’s events to have outrun him. He moved in the opposite direction to Kentaro and company, content for now.