In the shadow realm
A few people were sitting around a large table, all dressed in white uniforms. Some of them gathered in small groups based on how close they are to each other. Unlike those who were gathered outside the room, each of them were wearing a silver pendant with a star-shaped insignia. This kind of dress code gave them the distinction of who they are: a group of quincies who are handpicked by their leader and given unique epitaphs that fit their personalities. These people are known as Sternritters, or Star Knights in English tongue
Among them is a man with pinkish hair cut into a mohawk, wearing black, leather gloves on both hands. His name was Bazzard Black, or 'Bazz-B' for short. His epitaph, 'H' for The Heat, allows him to manipulate heat with his fingers. He was one of the 15 Sternritters who participated in the invasion of Soul Society. He had contributed in the invasion by taking out a whole squad with his ability, as well as saving himself and two of his allies, Sternritters Ås Nödt and Nanana Najahkoop, in a failed sneak attack against the head of the Soul Society, Head Captain Genryusai Yamamoto. The three of them were a singed mess but otherwise alive when he offsets the captain's attack.
Right now he's sitting in the chair with his feet crossed on the table, growing irritated at the sudden delay of his childhood friend, Jugram Haschwalth. He was supposed to be back here with them right after they had left the place in ruins.
"What's taking them so long?" he complained.
Noticing the irateness of Bazz, Nanana approaches him
"Bazz, there's no point in worrying about Jugram and His Majesty. I mean, we did what we're supposed to do. We already laid waste to Soul Society. If anything that made them delay, I'm pretty sure Your Majesty was busy playing with his enemy"
"I know, Nanana, but I'm getting a bad feeling about this. At this point, we can't get past the shadow realm anymore. Even Lord Yhwach knows this"
"Calm down, rooster head. Everything has proceeded as planned. We just have to wait a little further"
"The hell did you say about my hair, you little brat?" Bazz shot up his tone, quickly losing his cool once someone had made fun of his hair. He quickly got over it with the sense of dread he was feeling.
All of a sudden, a quincy in a normal uniform, a Soldat to be exact, barges into the room to deliver an announcement.
"Lord Yhwach and Sir Haschwalth will arrive in a minute. Everyone is to come to the hall"
"Just about damn time they showed up" Bazz groaned as he stood up from his seat.
At the halls of Schatten Bereich
A large crowd of quincies has gathered in unison; the soldats, regular Quincy footsoldiers, have tidied themselves up in a formal line, while the sternritters have lined themselves in front of the regulars.
Standing above them are three other sternritters; a dark-skinned person with a crosshair-like mark over his closed left eye, another muscular man who wears a winged helmet, and an unknown cloaked figure. Those three have unique abilities that somewhat makes them omnipotent above others. They were dubbed as the schutzstaffel, Imperial Guards that are handpicked as Yhwach's personal bodyguards. They emanated the air of arrogance around themselves as they looked down over them, even his fellow sternritters.
A shadow has suddenly appeared from the center of the schutzstaffel, prompting everyone into straightening themselves up. A familiar figure has emerged from the shadow; it was their leader, Yhwach. However, rather than rejoice at his return following their successful invasion of Soul Society, everyone was aghast; the soldats, sternritters, and schuttzstaffel alike.
They were not expecting Yhwach to return in a horrible state: his left arm was cut clean to the bone, his left eye socket was full of scratch marks and bleeding profusely, he lost so much blood that he immediately fell on one knee as he took the first step. The schutzstaffel's response was to aid the weakened leader before he could fall face first on the ground.
"Giselle, get to Your Majesty NOW!" The dark-skinned man ordered one of the sternritters to come to Yhwach's aid.
One of them hurriedly stepped up; it was a girl with blue hair, two strands stood up in a form that resembled her akin to a cockroach. She wears a trench coat, too large for a petite person like her, and black leggings. Her name was Giselle Gewelle, one of the sternritters who holds the epitaph 'Z' for 'The Zombie', allowing her to turn her opponents into a corpse and control them, as well as healing injuries.
"I still need some 'body' to treat him" Giselle panicked at the heat of the situation.
Grasping the meaning of her words, one of her friends, a green-haired woman wearing a tied double-breasted jacket, quickly shot a bolt of lightning from her finger on one of the soldats. The ensuing shot contained an absurd amount of energy that electrocuted him to the point that his heart burst from the inside.
"Here's your body, now get to it" she said to Giselle, pointing at the twitching corpse of the soldat.
Wasting no time, she used her ability on Yhwach, dismantling the corpse's left arm into liquid bits that float at Giselle's control. The bits are then transferred into Yhwach as his lost arm gradually grows from the stump and forms back into its intended form. As she begins to focus on his eye, Yhwach grabs her hand firmly.
"No amount of healing can bring back the power of my left eye. Leave it be" he finally uttered a word since he arrived at the realm defeated
None of those present around him could ever grasp what he meant by those words that he wouldn't want his left eye to be restored. As everyone scanned what's in front of them, Bazz noticed something odd that he bothered to ask in front so casually
"Where's Jugram?"
Everyone looked at Yhwach in confusion. As his second-in-command, Jugram is always almost inseparable from him, unless when he sleeps. Now that Yhwach returned alone, they all figured out something had happened to him.
Upon being asked by Bazz-B, Yhwach could only look down in solemn silence as the others looked on. Their shocked faces even grew more at the sudden silence of their fellow sternritter's question. His silence could only mean one thing;
Jugram Haschwalth is dead
Bazz-B took a step back, fully shocked at the grim realization of his fate. He had been together with Jugram ever since they were young. Despite being at odds with each other throughout the millennia, he still considers him his only friend he had met, so hearing the news about his death shook him to the core.
"I…I need to get back to my quarters…" Bazz-B fumbled between his words as he sought His Majesty's permission to be alone
"Rooster head, you shouldn't—"
"You're free to do so" Yhwach granted him permission, still in a weak tone, after which Bazz-B left the halls.
"It's pretty much reasonable for him to be alone for a moment" one of the elder sternritters, Robert Acrutone, muttered to himself.
"After all, he was the closest to Jugram while they were still young"
Bazz-B kept his head down as he walked through the hallways. He begins to reminisce of a certain time in his memories…
A memory he once threw away…
"Jugo, you'll be my underling starting today"
I threw that piece of crap in the back of my head ever since you left me alone…
"Don't listen to what the adults have to say…"
…I tried so many times to challenge you and you keep dodging me…
"I'll teach you whatever you want to know"
…I felt nothing but contempt for you…
"So let's be the strongest quincy's out there…"
…so why?
"…Jugo"
…Why do I feel hurt when you have died?
He stopped walking and approached one of the pillars in the hallways, and in a fit of rage, he threw a punch that left a crumbling mark on the pillar for good.
"It sure is raining" Bazz-B muttered to himself as he solemnly looked up
From a distance, five female sternritters looked on at Bazz and saw a side of him that they had never seen before; tears were running down from the corner of his eyes, a sign that he was extremely affected by Jugram's death.
Despite looking tough on the surface, he can still be fragile on the inside, the blonde-haired sternritter, Liltotto Lamperd, thought as she looked at him.
"What the hell do you want?" Bazz angrily tries to dismiss the girls who tried to approach and comfort him.
"You're not the only one who's upset about his death, Bazz. I also expected him to follow His Majesty's footsteps, so whoever did this to him must pay with their life." another of the girls, Bambietta Basterbine, answered his question.
"As much of a strict jerk he is, he was still one of us, you know?" Giselle interjected, trying to add a layer of sentiment for Bazz-B
Seeing how the girls supported his intent, Bazz-B settled his flowing tears like a man and asked the quintet
"Are you willing to help me hunt that bastard who killed Jugram by ourselves? Even if it means disobeying His Majesty's orders?"
There was a shocked glance for a moment between the five. They knew that disobeying His Majesty is pretty much tantamount to treason for him. To add another layer of surprise, they never thought that Bazz was willing to break the rules. Are his rockers off? Or is he just that much determined? Then again, that pessimistically worrisome thought was quickly replaced by the fact that someone, perhaps someone within the Soul Society was responsible for Jugram's death, so as long as they find his killer and get back at him, His Majesty won't mind.
The silence was heavy between them, but their eyes were filled with fury, not directed towards Bazz-B, but towards the killer himself, something that he can consider as a 'yes' as he gave them a satisfying smile
"How do we find him anyways if we haven't known much about him?" a pinked haired sternritter, Meninas McAllon, broke the silence in a condescending tone
"This is just my hunch, but he will likely want us to come to him. Before that time could happen, I want all of you to prepare yourselves."
The six of them agreed to lay down in the shadow realm for the time being until the opportunity comes when they can find and kill the one responsible for Jugram's death, little do they know that his killer is not someone, not something to be underestimated