Time rewinds to the day Shuuichi left Hell. Just before he stepped out, he looked at Kenpachi Kuruyashiki.
"Kenpachi, if I ever need to borrow your strength—will you lend it to me?"
Kuruyashiki laughed. "Hahaha, what are you saying? With your power now, unless you charge into Hueco Mundo alone like I did, how could you ever be in danger?"
"What if?"
"If that happens, call for me. If I have it, and you need it, what's a little borrowed strength?"
He had read the worry in Shuuichi's eyes.
He couldn't understand why the shinigami he admired—worthy to inherit his spirit—feared his future so much. But he wouldn't pry.
If you trust someone, you support them without reserve.
Just like when his dearest friend Asido chose to enter the Forest of Menos.
Kuruyashiki hadn't understood it either, but he supported him—and believed Asido would someday return safe.
Then, as Shuuichi offered the Zanpakutō Seyabasa, Kuruyashiki knew what to do.
He drove Seyabasa into his own abdomen. Different from the god-mark once carved onto Ikeda Kōsuke, a wholly new sigil pulsed into being on his body, then sank beneath the skin.
Shuuichi fell silent as he watched.
Kuruyashiki knew why Shuuichi had come to Hell—and what Seyabasa's god-marks could do.
Yet he still chose to believe in him.
If Seyabasa had etched the same mark Kōsuke bore, then even someone as strong as Kuruyashiki would have had his reishi bled away until he faded into nothing.
What kind of trust was that?
Shuuichi thought of the girl in the Kabuma clan's underground chamber. She trusted him the same way.
Taking Seyabasa back, Shuuichi bowed with solemn promise. "I won't fail the trust you've placed in me, taichō."
The moment returns to now—to the instant Seyabasa entered Shikai for the first time in its original manner.
His soul stepped into a liminal world, white in every direction. At its dead center stood the solitary back of a powerful man.
The white captain's haori brushed the ground. Shuuichi had never seen this cut before, but the "11" on the back said enough.
"Come to borrow my strength, Shuuichi?"
Before he could answer, the figure turned.
Kenpachi Kuruyashiki—or, rather, a copy of him frozen at the moment Seyabasa planted the god-mark.
"Yes, taichō. Lend me your arm!"
Shuuichi bowed low.
He knew this was only an echo—an honored shade. Whatever he did or said here, the real Kenpachi in Hell would never know.
But the respect came from his heart.
Since arriving in this world, he had never honored anyone like this. Not even Sōsuke deserved such unguarded respect.
Kenpachi Kuruyashiki was the first—and the only.
"Haha! Then use it well, Shuuichi! My strength isn't easy to handle!"
Laughing, Kuruyashiki stepped forward—until their figures overlapped, one atop the other.
In Soul Society—reality—the dreadful reiatsu that belonged to Kenpachi Kuruyashiki erupted outward. Shuuichi's body, nearly annihilated by Gin's attacks, rebuilt itself in a surge of limitless regeneration.
Seyabasa returned to the shape of a graver in his left hand, but around the blade's outline flickered the ghost of another Zanpakutō.
Nor was that the only double image. In Gin's eyes, Shuuichi's whole form stuttered with a second, blurry silhouette.
"I've never heard of a shinigami with two Shikai."
Gin had noticed: Shuuichi hadn't released his own Zanpakutō at all.
How was that possible?
A shinigami was supposed to have only one Zanpakutō.
"Learn carefully, Gin. You still know far too little about this world~"
Shuuichi hadn't wanted to hand Seyabasa's Shikai over to the field—its cost was lifespan. Shinigami lived long, but that didn't mean life could be spent like water.
Tokinada Tsunayashiro's future "method"—few besides madmen would dare to play it that way.
But with Gin's sudden Bankai and the fight's pace surging, Shuuichi had no choice if he wanted to avoid tipping into Hollowfication for too long. He had to push on.
"Mutō! (No-Step!)"
Gin repeated the old trick—his blade turned to ash, snapping out and back.
This time, the sure-kill rhythm broke.
Shuuichi's stroke swept once—
Bungetsugiri (Dividing Moon Cut)!
The point of the spear failed to breach his guard.
Gin had expected that. The unnatural, towering reiatsu shrouding Shuuichi was far beyond what it had been. Yesterday's measures wouldn't fit today.
"Bakudō: Senban (Thousand Rebounds)!"
Bands of reishi like white wrappings spiraled around Gin's body.
Shuuichi knew the technique. Sōsuke had sketched something similar, but he'd never needed it—and Shuuichi hadn't the Kidō creativity to finish it.
Yet five years under Sōsuke, and Gin had brought it to life.
Senban's effect was—
Danger flared behind him. With Kenpachi's force riding him, Shuuichi stepped into air with his left foot, swept a right-foot arc, turned, and loosed—
Nadegiri (Clean Sweep).
Gin shunted hundreds of meters behind him in an instant. The space between them filled with gray.
White was Shuuichi's ink.
The bound cut of white "bandages" stripped the gray layer by layer, all the way to the end.
But the Gin wrapped inside those white constraints—was gone.
"A feint, then strike elsewhere—you taught me that, Shuuichi-dono."
Gin's voice returned from his original spot. His blade still carried that dust of poison-gray.
Mutō!
A hole bloomed in Shuuichi's right shoulder.
Not the worst of it. The real danger was the nearly invisible residue of Kamishini no Yari (God-Slaying Spear) left within—poison that could dissolve a shinigami's body in an instant.
"Stop struggling, Shuuichi-dono." Gin's voice went flat. "Ikorose—Kamishini no Yari! (Shoot to Kill—God-Slaying Spear!)"
Senban snapped again, flinging Gin above him in a blink.
On paper, only one thing should have been below him now: a lone head, the last thing Shuuichi could preserve.
Instead, Gin's eyes widened.
Below, Shuuichi's body stood almost whole—save for the gnawed space at the right shoulder.
"How is that possible!"
For the umpteenth time this fight, Gin staggered under a thing that violated his sense of how the world worked.
Shuuichi only lifted his gaze, as if he'd known Gin would stand there.
"Born from omens of slaughter, honoring shadow and bidding age farewell—Ueraku Kairō (Hunger-Bliss Corridor)!"
That was Kenpachi Kuruyashiki's Shikai power—the core of Seyabasa's ability.
Different from the Tsunayashiro clan's heirloom blade—mocked by Tokinada as Kyūten Kyōkoku (Nine Heavens Mirror Valley), but truly named Enra Kyōten (Enra Mirror Codex).
Enra Kyōten burned lifespan to directly mimic any Zanpakutō, stacking effects as needed—but the end result was capped by the user's reiatsu.
Seyabasa, by contrast, spent lifespan to summon an eidolon of someone who had made a pact with it—letting that hero ride the user. Reiatsu, Zanpakutō ability, even combat instinct—all came with it.
Only one spirit at a time. And the greater the gap between the user's and the spirit's reiatsu, the faster the life burned away.
At Shuuichi's current level, forcing an eidolon like Genryūsai would drink him dry in minutes.
Dozens of white, fanged orbs—Kuruyashiki's Shikai manifestations—hung scattered in the air. One settled by Shuuichi's right shoulder, chowing on the chunk just bitten from him.
The poison that melted shinigami in a blink? It did nothing to them.
Nadegiri!
He'd held the charge, already reading where Gin would appear. As Gin's attention snagged for a fraction, Shuuichi struck without mercy.
Red spattered Shuuichi's face. The split seam of cloud overhead spilled points of light.
Feeling the warmth of blood on his skin, Shuuichi looked away—toward a distant point.
There, Gin clutched his chest with one hand, blood seeping through his fingers.
"That was close… one step more…"
He replayed the stroke that had nearly shoved him through the Gate of Afterlife, a hitch in his breath.
How had Shuuichi become so terrifying all at once, when his Zanpakutō release was sealed?
What was that blade named Seyabasa?
And those white, fanged spheres that looked like trouble at a glance—the release cry he'd never heard before, Ueraku Kairō…
All of it felt alien to Gin.
In those five missing years—what had happened to Higashino Shuuichi?
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