As the two brothers settled into the large corner booth alongside five of the nation's most famous S-Rank hunters, the rest of the restaurant's patrons couldn't help but stare. These were the elite of the Draw Sword Guild, icons of power and yet they were sitting casually with two strangers who looked like they stepped out of a high-fashion fever dream.
Under the tables, several diners pulled out their phones, snapping quick photos. Within seconds, the Japanese social media sphere was lighting up.
( "Who are the guys with Akari and Tatsumi?)
(New S-Ranks??")
("Look at the white jackets... are they a new Guild?")
The hunters, however, were far more focused than the public. They were trained to observe, to categorize threats, and to find the center of gravity in any room. To them, these two were "anomalies from the Amazon," and they wanted to see what made them tick.
Akari leaned forward, propping her chin on her hand while playfully kicking a lollipop from one side of her mouth to the other. She beamed at the two, her eyes were bright with a mixture of mischief and genuine interest.
"So," Akari began, the sweetness of the candy lacing her words, "The Amazon, huh? I've seen some crazy gates in the rainforest during international joint ops, but nothing that spits out two hot guys in weird white outfits. You guys must have had a hell of a training regimen down there.
"What the hell are they all looking at?" Grimmjow muttered, his voice carrying just enough to make a nearby businessman quickly look back at his soup. "Is it so weird to see new faces sitting with you guys?"
Without waiting for an answer, Grimmjow kicked his heavy boots up onto the edge of the polished mahogany table. Ippei's eye twitched violently at the sight of the scuffed leather resting on the expensive wood, but he kept his mouth shut.
"Training? Hmph," Grimmjow snorted, responding to Akari's earlier question. "It wasn't exactly 'training.' It was more like a constant, one-sided survival battle our father threw us into when we were young. You either learned to breathe underwater or you drowned. Simple as that."
Tatsumi's fork paused halfway to his mouth. "What? You mean your father intentionally left you in the Amazon wild as children?"
Ulquiorra took a slow sip of his water, his expression was as unreadable as a stone tablet, "Our father is a survivalist, he believed that civilization softens the spirit. He was of the mind that living in the wild, completely untethered from society would prepare a person for any catastrophe. As it turns out, he was correct. When the Gates started appearing years ago and we gained our powers, we were already adapted to a world of predators and because it the usage of mana, we simply became the apex."
Akari's bright expression dimmed into one of genuine pity. "That sounds horrible... being kids with nothing but the jungle and the wild around you. Didn't you have anyone else?"
Kenzo leaned in, his tactical mind trying to find the gaps. "If you were isolated like that, how do you even know... well, anything? You speak the language perfectly. You know how to navigate a city."
"Our father taught us everything," Ulquiorra replied flatly. "He was a man of many disciplines. He ensured we were educated in history, language, and combat, even if the 'classroom' was a cave floor."
Tatsumi shook his head, looking down at his plate. "That's incredibly harsh. Isolation like that... it's a wonder you're even functional."
'Functional? We're more than functional, pal. We're perfected.' Grimmjow scoffed internally, enjoying how easily they were swallowing the "survivalist father" cover story they'd polished during their week at the estate. It explained their lack of records, their high-tier combat instincts, and their social awkwardness all in one go.
"Harsh or not," Grimmjow said, flashing a sharp grin at Tatsumi, "We're this strong because of what the old man did. In our world, strength is the only currency that doesn't lose value."
Kenzo reached into his jacket and pulled out a digital tablet, flicking to the scanned images from the Oni Gate report, "And the masks?" he asked, pointing to the bone-like fragments that were visible in the photographs but currently absent from their faces. "The report mentioned these. Is that a tribal thing from your time in the jungle? Or some kind of specialized hunter gear you found in a Rift?"
Grimmjow's teeth as his grin widened, revealing a row of sharp, predatory white. Behind that smirk, his mind was racing with the discoveries they had made over the last week. Back in the bleach universe, hollows are defined by the holes in their chests and the masks on their faces. But here, in this reality of Hunters and Gates, they possessed physical weight. Their hollow holes remained, though strangely invisible to the naked eye of these "Hunters," and they had discovered they could dismiss their bone-masks and Zanpakutō into a pocket dimension of their own making. Even their white Arrancar attire seemed to have adapted, acting more like a regenerating biological armor than simple fabric.
"Think of it as a souvenir," Grimmjow said, "A reminder of the world we left behind when we stepped out of that jungle."
Ulquiorra, who had been staring with haunting intensity at a decorative stone fountain in the corner, watching the water ripple with a blank gaze before he finally turned his head.
"We obtained those fragments during the first awakening," Ulquiorra stated, his voice a flat, melodic monotone. "When the first Gate opened near our sanctuary, we were forced to fight our way through a swarm. Our father... he was not 'Awakened.' So he died."
He paused as the lie slide out with the chilling precision of a blade. "Those masks are the remains of the beast that took him. We took them as trophies. Wearing them is an act of remembrance, honor to the man who ensured we were strong enough to survive when he couldn't."
The table went dead silent. The clinking of glasses in the background seemed to fade as the weight of the story settled over the S-Rankers.
Kenzo frowned, 'They entered a live Gate as unranked civilians, survived a boss-level entity without any outside support, and harvested its remains? Even for S-Rankers who just awakened, that level of raw survival instinct is unheard of.'
The heavy atmosphere lasted for a heartbeat before Akari broke it with a sudden, genuine laugh that cut through the tension like a sunbeam.
"Wow, you're a weird one, aren't you, Ulqi?" she chirped, leaning in and resting her chin on her palm. "A bit dramatic, but I totally dig the vibe. Every hero needs a tragic origin story, right?"
Ulquiorra blinked slowly, his brow twitching at the unfamiliar syllable. "Ulqi?"
"Yeah! It's cute, right?" Akari teased, then shifted her chopstick to point directly at the blue-haired man sitting across from her. "And you... you're definitely a 'Grimm.' It fits that 'I-want-to-fight-everyone' look you've got going on.
Ulquiorra blinked slowly, staring at Akari with a hollow intensity that masked his internal disorientation. 'She is… remarkably casual. Her energy is almost identical to Carly's.' He gave his head a microscopic shake, physically dismissing the memory. 'No, that is a past life. I cannot afford to let sentimentality cloud my perception of these "Hunters."
The arrival of the waiter, however, provided a much-needed distraction, though it quickly devolved into a comedic disaster. Grimmjow took one look at the menu, a refined list of delicate sashimi, Wagyu tataki, and fermented soybeans and his face twisted into a scowl of pure betrayal.
"You got a double bacon cheeseburger? Large fries? And maybe some of those buffalo wings?" Grimmjow asked.
The waiter looked like he was having a stroke in real-time, his pen hovering uselessly over his notepad. Ulquiorra turned his head with glacial slowness to look at his brother. His expression was a masterpiece of "are you serious?"
'You absolute moron. We are in the heart of Tokyo in a high-end establishment. Why are you asking for American grease? Have you no sense of atmosphere?' Ulquiorra thought.
"Grimmjow," Ulquiorra said, his voice as flat as a dial tone. "This is a traditional iron-grill restaurant. They do not serve... 'buffalo wings'."
"Whatever! Meat is meat, right?" Grimmjow snapped back, though internally he was cursing, 'Dammit, that's the fourth time I've tried to order a burger in this country. Why is everything raw or fermented?
Akari chuckled, leaning back and waving the stunned waiter off with a practiced air of authority. "Don't worry, I've got this. Give us the Premium Omakase set for seven, and double the Wagyu portions. I'll handle these two." She flashed a wink at the brothers. "Trust me, boys. You haven't lived until you've had real Japanese beef. It'll make those wings feel like cardboard."
As the chef stepped up to the large iron griddle (teppan) and began to sear the exquisitely marbled beef, the sizzling sound filled the silence. The aroma of rendering fat and garlic was intoxicating, but it wasn't enough to keep the hunters' tactical minds at bay.
Ippei leaned forward, his curiosity finally winning the war against his common sense. "So," he started, trying and failing to sound casual. "How exactly did you end up in that Oni dungeon? A rift in the Amazon is a long way from a basement gate in Tokyo. Was it a spatial distortion? Or did the Boss pull you in during a dimensional bleed?"
Kenzo nudged Ippei sharply with his elbow, the sound of the contact audible over the sizzle of the beef. "Oi, Ippei-san, let them eat first. Don't start with the shop talk while the man is waiting for his steak."
But it was too late. Grimmjow's eyes narrowed, the playful atmosphere changed and the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees as his spiritual pressure began to leak.
"Huh?" Grimmjow rumbled, "Didn't we already tell your Guild Leader the story? Or is this an interrogation now? I don't remember signing up to be a lab rat for the 'clean-up' crew just because you bought us a meal."
Kei and Kenzo immediately held up their hands in a universal gesture of peace,
"Whoa, easy there!" Kei laughed nervously, his palms facing outward as he sensed the spiritual pressure beginning to cause the sake in the nearby glasses to ripple. "We're just curious, man. It's not every day two guys who can solo a high-level dungeon appear out of nowhere. We're just impressed, that's all. We've seen a lot, but you guys are... an anomaly."
"Yeah," Kenzo added smoothly, sliding a small, frosted carafe of high-end sake toward Grimmjow to bridge the gap. "We're all hunters here after all.."
Grimmjow scoffed as the blue light in his eyes dimming just enough to let the table stop vibrating. He reached out and snatched the carafe, draining the entire cup in a single, practiced gulp.
'Oh, sure. Chug it all down. Now that you have a god-like constitution and a reinforced system, you think you can treat top-shelf alcohol like water. Typical.'
"Just don't push it," Grimmjow said, slamming the small cup back onto the table. "I don't like people digging in my trash. My past is my business. You want to know if I can fight? Watch the gate. You want to know where I sleep? Keep walking."