For a few heartbeats, I simply stood there, trying to orient myself, as the Sunken Sanctuary revealed itself in layers. The floor beneath the water was six feet below, but the surface bore my weight as if it were armor-plated, refusing to let me sink.
The sensation was simultaneously solid and insubstantial—like standing on the skin of a drum, every movement resonating through the structure of the world. My obscured reflection glared back at me, fragmented by the restless fractals of the liquid mirror. The only sound was my heartbeat, amplified by the hush all around.
The motion never ceased—small, endless circles breaking and reforming under my feet, as if the Sunken Sanctuary itself were breathing beneath me. The surface stretched six feet deep over the once-proud floor, yet my boots stood upon it as though it were solid stone. The rhythmic rippling hummed under my soles, broken only by the sound of my pulse in my ears.
The ruined temple rose around me in a haunting stillness—cracked stone pillars jutting from the water like the bones of some ancient titan, broken walls half-swallowed by moss and creeping vines. The broken, grand altar stood leaning at the far end, its carvings worn to ghosts, while fractured beams from the collapsed ceiling cast latticed shadows across the shimmering surface.
"Why am I here?" I asked aloud, utterly confused, my rage bubbling just below the surface.
I looked down and realized the Zanpakutō's hilt was still in my hand, my knuckles white around it. The black steel shimmered faintly, a flicker of heat coursing through the blade. Before I could take in the rest of the temple, a sudden rush of air made my instincts flare.
The next instant, the air split with a roar and I instinctively brought my weapon up in a high guard, catching the descending curve of an identical blade. The impact was tremendous—more than a clang, it was a crash, a shudder that ran down through my arms into my very bones, so hard it made my teeth rattle. I was thrown back a step, almost losing my purchase on the slick, shifting surface.
And then I saw her.
She stood before me, mask gleaming under the ghost-light that filtered through the half-collapsed ceiling. Flames curled at her heels, licking the water without steam, the sigil on her back glowing brighter than I'd ever seen.
Her long hair flowed in thick, untamed waves to her lower back, each strand carrying shifting colors and subtle glimmers that mirrored the nebula I had once drifted above—deep crimsons, soft violets, and scattered points of starlight moving like a living sky.
For a split second, I remembered where I was supposed to be—on the battlefield, with Rias and Koneko in mortal peril. The frustration and panic tore through me, igniting my already barely restrained rage.
"Why now?!" My voice came out harsher than I intended, each word pushed past the strain of holding her back. "I have to save them!"
Her only answer was to attack again, blade first, with a velocity that defied reason. I caught the strike, sparks snapping off our swords as they ground together. Even in the dead air, the force of the blow knocked me back another half-step.
Her next strike came from a different angle, and I parried, but my wrist buckled and the edge of her Zanpakutō sliced a shallow line along my forearm. It burned. The smell of my own blood, hot and metallic, mingled with the scent of the place.
She pressed the assault, relentless and graceful, moving with a speed and violence that made my own technique look clumsy by comparison. Every time our swords met, shockwaves rippled outward along the surface of the water, the currents growing more and more chaotic with the tempo of our fight. Every few seconds, I managed to wedge in a question—Why now? What do you want from me?—but each time, she simply bore down harder, as if to hammer the answers into me by force.
Finally, on a particularly vicious exchange, her voice erupted over the sound of ringing steel:
"Who said you were allowed to use them?!"
The words slammed into me harder than her strikes. "Use what?" I shot back, teeth clenched as I tried to shove her off. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"My emotions!" she howled, and the mask shuddered with the force of her rage. The flames at her feet soared up, crackling higher, but they gave off no heat—just a blinding, corrosive light.
She broke the lock, her blade flashing faster than my eyes could track. Cuts bloomed across my arms, my ribs, each one a hot line of pain. I staggered back, breathing hard, my eyes drawn to the mask covering her face. Cracks spiderwebbed out from the center, more than I'd seen before, faint light spilling through.
I tried to voice an objection, but my throat locked up. She pressed her advantage, driving me backward step by step, until I was nearly up against a submerged pillar of stone. I looked into her visible eye, through the cracks in the mask, and saw something that surprised me but shouldn't have: not just anger, but deep hurt. She was crying, but the tears were blood, and they sizzled as they hit the water.
"You think you can just wield me without feeling me? FEEL ME WITHOUT KNOWING ME!?" she snarled, her movements flowing like molten metal, each strike filled with an emotion that dug under my skin.
She swung again, and I managed to duck under the blow, but barely—her blade whistled past my ear, close enough that I felt the wind of its passing. I stumbled, trying to regain my footing, but she was already there, pressing the attack, her every movement a masterstroke of violence and grace. It didn't matter what skills I used, how much I spammed Runic Shunpo or Reiryoku Enhancement.
The harder I fought, the more she matched me, mirroring my movements until it felt like I was fighting my own reflection given perfect form, but just a little bit better.
The rage that had been coiled in me before I was dragged into this place began to unspool, heat bleeding into every muscle. It wasn't the cold, calculated anger I usually wielded, but a primal fury, now redirected squarely at her. She brought me here while Rias and Koneko were on the verge of death! Why!?
Finally, I broke the pattern. Faking a stumble, I let my blade drop, then swept low, aiming to take her legs out from under her. She jumped, but not high enough—I grazed her ankle, drawing a flicker of ichor, and she landed awkwardly, hissing in pain. The momentary distraction was all I needed. I lunged, driving at her center mass, but she caught the blade with her bare hand, stopping it cold. Her blood ran over the edge of the sword, smoking as it touched the metal.
She pushed me back, this time with raw strength rather than technique, and I found myself on my knees right above the submerged, glowing altar, chest heaving, arms shaking from exhaustion. The water around me was alive with a storm of ripples, every one radiating outward from the center—her.
In a desperate attempt, I shunpoed to the left, her hot on my heals.
Every clash of steel sent sparks skittering over the water's surface, my breaths coming ragged, my arms heavy, but I refused to step back. If she wanted my emotions, then fine—she could have all of them, every ounce I had been holding back.
We collided again, blades grinding together. "Why are you doing this?" I roared.
Her visible eye from the cracked mask was like flowing crimson and violet seas, the cracks in her mask began to glow a darker shade of red, almost sanguine. "Because you dared to wield me while keeping me locked away, using my strength without ever accepting me. That is something I will never allow!"
My chest felt tight, not from exhaustion, but from the weight of her words. The heat in my veins swelled, rising with each strike. Every old regret, every ache I'd buried, every spark of joy I'd been too afraid to hold, they all rose now, unbidden.
She came at me again, our blades striking in a rhythm that was nothing short of a storm. Each impact jarred my bones, each deflection leaving a fresh sting along my arms or a slice across my side. My coat grew heavy with blood, yet still she pressed on, her voice carrying between clashes—low and raw, steeped in a sorrow that wrapped itself around every syllable.
"You think I am just a weapon," she hissed, her blade sliding past my guard to score another burning line across my chest. "But I have waited in darkness, feeling every heartbeat you ignored me, every breath you took without me. Alone. Forgotten. ABANDONED!"
I lunged, but she caught the strike, her strength throwing me back over the water's rippling skin. "You filled me with your rage," she said, her tone breaking into something closer to a plea, "but never once did you let me feel your joy. You hid from me. Rejected me. Suppressed me. MURDURED ME in your past life! And still, you would dare to call on me?"
Her words bit as deep as her steel, and with every pass she left another mark—thin cuts along my forearms, my side, even my cheek—until I felt as though she was carving the truth into my flesh.
The more wounds she inflicted, the more I started to understand. Until it clicked.
The insight hit me harder than any of her blows.
"I understand now," I spoke as I gritted my teeth as I blocked her desperate strikes. "I abandoned my emotions for reason and logic. I didn't let myself feel,-" I blocked a slash my my midsection, "-maybe because I was to scared to, yet that fear was locked away with the rest." I pushed her blade off and shunpoed back to gain some distance. She didn't allow me to. I left you alone for so long, I made you into weapon to use, rather than accept because I was too afraid to need you."
She didn't slow. She moved faster, if anything. "Afraid?" she spat, every syllable a cut. "You call what you did to me fear? Cowardice is too gentle a word! You abandoned me before you even died." Her voice was strangled with feeling, but her movements were even more precise, more merciless. I could tell she wanted to break me, shatter me to the core, and with every clash she got closer.
"I know now! I understand your fury! Your sorrow! Your anguish! Your emotions!"
Between every phrase I blocked a heavy strike from her. She screamed with every strike, desperate pleas that I now recognized. I pushed back again.
She stopped for a fraction of a second, and in that moment, I saw the mask breaking, hairline fissures crawling outward from her eye. That eye—my god, it was like staring into the heart of a dying sun. All the colors of loss and longing and rage, swirling together, barely held in check by the porcelain of the mask.
She used a runic shunpo, blade poised to stab my heart. I let my arms fall wide, leaving my chest open.
Her visible eye widened for a fraction of a second, but she didn't stop. Her blade drove forward, straight through my heart.
There was pain, yes, but underneath it was relief—like I'd finally paid a debt that had weighed on me for lifetimes.
"BECAUSE THEY'RE OUR EMOTIONS—SHINJŪKA!" I shouted, the name tearing from my throat like it had been there all along.
The world seemed to shatter with her mask. Fragments fell away into the water, dissolving before they could sink. In their place was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen; eyes like the nebula I'd once drifted above, vast and infinite, cheeks wet with red tears even as her lips trembled.
For a moment, she just stared at me, her sword still inside me, her hand locked in a white-knuckled grip on the hilt. Then she dropped the blade as it dissolved, and her arms came around me, squeezing so hard I thought she might break my ribs. She pressed her face into my neck and sobbed, great, wracking shudders that shook her whole body. I held her, my own tears mixing with hers, and for the first time in either of my lives, I let myself feel it all.
"You remembered," she whispered in between sobs, the words quivering against my skin.
"Finally!" she wailed with desperation, like she was unleashing all of her pent up frustration and sorrow in one word.
I closed my arms around her, and the flood broke. The weight of years I'd never lived, the ache of joys denied and griefs ignored, came crashing over me in a wave so strong it left me shaking. It was too much and yet not enough—rage, sorrow, longing, and relief all colliding until I couldn't tell where one ended and the next began. My chest heaved against hers as if I could press every unsaid word, every unfelt tear, into the space between us.
We cried together, embracing what had been lost for so long.
We stayed like that, the water rippling endlessly under our feet, the ruined temple holding its breath for us alone.
After what felt like an eternity, I pulled back. She followed. I wiped her tears, and she mine. My hands found her waist, holding her close to me still.
"I've missed you so much," she choked out. "Before we transferred here, I thought I had lost you forever," she sniffed, on the verge of crying again.
"I'm so sorry, Shinjuka. Words cannot express just how much." I stared longingly into her eyes, tears continually falling from mine.
"I know. I can feel it." She moved her hand up to her chest, clenching her hand where her heart would be.
She smiled, a tremulous thing, and rested her forehead against mine. "Don't leave me again," she said. "Ever."
"Never," I promised.
When I finally stepped back, I kept my hands on her shoulders. "I wish I could stay here, but we have something else to deal with. We have to go," I said, though I didn't want to move or let go.
"Let's go save them, Shinjūka. Our friends."
She nodded once, wiping her tears, the fire in her eyes tempered now, steady.
And with a surge of light and heat, the temple dissolved, and the real world began to take its place.
I barely caught the whispered sounds of her parting words,
"Together, Scotty."
XXX
Rias Perspective
This thing was a monster.
Not a devil, not a regular demon in any familiar sense, not even a sacred gear-wielding maniac as we'd faced before—but a primal hunger made flesh, a predator whose mind was as sharp as its jagged teeth. I'd gambled everything on the hope that, together, we could slow it down, keep it occupied long enough for Toshio to finish… whatever he was finishing. Honestly, I didn't know what I had hoped for beyond a miracle.
But miracles are in short supply against creatures of this magnitude.
Ghoms true form, form 2 as Toshio called it, was something out of a nightmare's fever dream, a patchwork of slick muscle and hard carapace, a mouth that could stretch wide enough to swallow a man whole. Its oversized arms ended in bone spikes protruding from its knuckles. Every strike sent shockwaves through the earth, and whenever I tried to meet its eyes, I saw nothing but an oily emptiness that made even my own devil's blood run cold.
We were losing. Badly.
Koneko—sweet, stubborn Koneko—had been the first to close the distance, thinking maybe she could use her size to slip under its guard. Before she could even get a hit in, she threw up a defense of both arms, the demon punching her full force. I heard a crunching sound as her little arms bent in ways they shouldn't have, then was flung back toward the forest.
I remembered that moment with a kind of detached horror, as if watching a play from the wrong seat, my own body too slow to respond. I barely managed to intercept her, shielding her with my own body as we slammed into the base of a tree. My ribs flared with pain, the bark splintering against my back, but Koneko was already scrambling to her feet, blood leaking from her forehead and compound fractures in her arms, her breath hissing through chipped teeth. She was resilient, but she wouldn't last long against this thing, especially in her condition now.
Kiba kept trying to catch it in his sword birth, but the beast ignored cuts from all blades and broke through the walls of them as if they were mere twigs.
Akeno was airborne, raining down lightning in savage bursts, her wings shimmering with each blast. She shouted at the monster, taunted it, called it names that would make a sailor blush. The lightning crackled, hissed—and accomplished exactly nothing. The bolts landed with all the fury of a thunderstorm and fizzled harmlessly on Ghom's hide, dispersing in greasy arcs across its surface. If anything, it seemed to enjoy the attention, rearing up to meet every strike with a horrible, leering smile.
I could feel my own Power of Destruction boiling inside me, a seething cyclone of crimson waiting to be unleashed. But every time I tried to line up a shot, Ghom was already moving—dodging, weaving, using my own peerage as living shields. I was too slow, too cautious, too afraid of hitting my dear friends. Every missed opportunity was a stone in my stomach, every moment the thing got closer to me a reminder of how little my power meant if I couldn't actually use it.
Where was Grayfia? Why hadn't she entered the barrier with us? She should have been here by my side, a calm in the storm. If she knew how dangerous this thing truly was, why wasn't she here!?
Ghom was coming for me. It had finished playing with the others and had decided that I was the real prize. I watched, paralyzed, as it bounded across the field, each step a crunch of shattered earth and splintered wood. Kiba tried to intercept it, but Ghom backhanded him with such force that he flew ten meters and didn't get up.
I had half a second to react.
I threw up a barrier, desperation making it stronger than anything I'd ever conjured before. The thing hit it with its full weight, claws digging in, jaws snapping. The impact rattled my teeth. Behind me, Koneko was already moving, using my shield as cover to slip around and aim a kick at the thing's exposed side. It barely registered, but it did draw a flicker of the monster's attention—just enough for me to prime a sphere of destruction in my palm.
I fired, point blank. The red orb smashed into Ghom's chest, vaporizing a fist-sized chunk of its torso.
It howled. The sound was like a siren, all wrong, all pain and hate.
But even as a chunk of its body turned to ash, the wound closed, the flesh knitting back together in a heartbeat. The price I paid was a slash across my thigh as one of the bones slipped through my barrier, hot blood streaming down my leg.
I staggered back, clutching the wound. Ghom pressed forward, teeth bared in a rictus grin.
It was going to kill me. Then it would kill all of my friends.
And it would be my fault.
I wondered, briefly and bitterly, what my brother would think if he saw me like this—overwhelmed, outmaneuvered, failing in every possible way to protect the people I cared about.
Akeno's voice rose above the chaos, clear and forceful: "Rias, get down!"
I ducked, instinct overriding thought. A blue-white lance of lightning streaked overhead, catching Ghom right in the face. The monster reeled, momentarily blinded. Akeno swooped low, hands crackling with power, and slammed both palms against its wounded chest.
"RAIKOU—ANNIHILATION!"
The blast illuminated the entire field, outlining every branch, every stone, every drop of blood suspended in the air. For a split second, the monster's skeleton was visible through its skin, a lattice of black and silver.
Then it collapsed to one knee, steam pouring from its wounds.
Akeno landed beside me, wings tattered and sparking, her breathing ragged. "That won't hold it for long," she gasped. "We need a plan, Rias."
Koneko crouched at my other side, eyes wide and wild, both arms hanging limp at her side. I reached for her, but she shook her head, already scanning the field for Kiba.
The plan was survival. That was all that was left.
But as the monster began to twitch, its body reassembling piece by piece, I realized even that might be too much to hope for.
I raised my hand to begin forming my power of destruction, hoping that it wouldn't miss.
It stood, and roared, likely in furious insanity. It leveled a glare at us, then began its charge toward us. We were not in proper shape to fight.
I fired off several more shots, the creature dodging every single one.
"GRAYFIA WHERE ARE YO-" I was cut off mid yell, as a tremor ran through the ground, different from the tremors Ghom had caused. The world… shifted, as if the air itself had been peeled back for a moment.
And then a voice, familiar but changed, sliced through the charged air.
"Unchain the Repressed, Shinjūka!"