Watching Gin bleeding in the distance, Shuuichi realized he might have overdone it.
No matter. If needed, he could fake exhaustion and cancel Seyabasa's Shikai (Initial Release).
"Give it up, Gin. Whatever you're planning, come back with me and face judgment. You might still have a sliver of hope."
Now he knew why folks in the anime loved trading barbs mid-fight.
It really did burn time.
"Heh, Shuuichi-dono, you can't hold that state much longer, can you?"
Seeing Shuuichi not press the advantage—as if trying to take him alive—Gin sighed inwardly. Shuuichi-dono was as kind as ever. He pressed a palm to the ground.
"Hadō #57: Daichi Ten'yō (Earth's Revolving Dance)!"
Chunks of earth rose like butterflies, gathering into a whirling gale that caged Shuuichi.
"Pointless, Gin. You've got nowhere left to run!"
He didn't even have to move. The white, fanged orbs spawned by Kenpachi Kuruyashiki's Zanpakutō power surged like diners to a feast and snapped up the flying stones.
Crunch, crunch—gone.
"Mutō: Renjin (No-Step: Linked Blades)!"
Gin didn't quit. With a trapped beast's resolve, he charged for a final clash.
Shuuichi only lifted his sealed Zanpakutō, Heisha (Soldier), and—leaning on Kenpachi Kuruyashiki's peerless perception—paired with the white orbs to smother every thrust.
He knew what Gin wanted, because he, too, felt it—his Tenteikūra (Heavenly Rickshaws in Silken Air) had already fanned out, and it caught the approach of that other presence.
"Nake! Suzumushi! (Cry! Suzumushi!)"
At once, a droning hum swelled around Shuuichi—piercing and oppressive.
White "bandages" bloomed over his head. This technique—which would later be honed into Senban Byakuda (Thousand Rebounds: White Serpent), a long-range teleportation, space-type Kidō—was already polished to perfection by Sōsuke's two subordinates.
"Suzumushi Nishiki: Benihikō (Crimson Flying Locusts)!"
From the white ring erupted a rain of double-tipped blades.
Aah—munch.
The ambush only fed the white orbs—Kenpachi's Shikai constructs.
Not bad. Crunchy.
Shuuichi could almost feel their pleased feedback ripple through him.
"I know you—you're the 9th's Fifth Seat. Kaname, right?"
Shuuichi looked up.
A breath eased in his chest. If Kaname had made it here, the other captains were surely already falling to Hollowfication. Grand Kidō Chief Tsukabishi Tessai and Kisuke wouldn't be far behind.
"Gin—you're late."
Kaname ignored Shuuichi and spoke blandly, a faint hint of reproof in his tone.
Gin didn't bother defending himself. "Bankai straight away, Kaname. He's not someone we can take easily!"
He hated admitting it. With five years under the Hōgyoku and Sōsuke's guidance, Gin had believed he'd outstrip a "merely average" captain-tier like Shuuichi. Reality had slapped him hard.
If Kaname hadn't arrived when he did, Gin might not only have failed to Hollowfy Shuuichi—he might have been captured instead.
"Another Bankai?"
Shuuichi lifted a brow, as if none of this was familiar.
"Is that so?"
Feeling the duet below, Kaname would have been fooled if he didn't already know Shuuichi served Sōsuke—and longest of them all.
No wonder Sōsuke handed him something this important.
His thought passed in a flash. He leveled his blade before his chest. "Bankai—Suzumushi Tsuishiki: Enma Kōrogi (Enma Cricket)!"
A vast, egg-shaped barrier of reiatsu flowered with Kaname at the center, swallowing Shuuichi and the white orbs whole.
In a heartbeat, Shuuichi lost his hearing, sight, smell—and his sense of reiatsu.
Like falling into a hell of emptiness.
He didn't worry. Not because Kaname knew the truth and would go easy on him.
But because—
"Devour all—Ueraku Kairō (Hunger-Bliss Corridor)!"
He murmured.
Even stripped of senses, the white orbs—the Shikai of Kenpachi's blade—had none to begin with.
They obeyed without thought.
Their only task: eat any reishi Shuuichi told them to erase.
Less than a minute after the barrier formed, light fell on Shuuichi again.
As his senses returned, the first sound to greet him was—
"Mutō: Renjin!"
Of course Gin hadn't trusted Kaname's Bankai to hold Shuuichi for long. Those orbs could swallow even his poison dust without harm—what was a broad-area barrier to them?
Ending Shuuichi still fell to Gin himself.
This time, the orbs didn't clean out the gray dust inside Shuuichi's body.
Or rather, after eating the full sequence of Mutō: Renjin, the dust embedded in him had grown so thick that for the orbs to remove it all, they'd have to devour most of his body with it.
Which was no different from Gin detonating the poison at once.
"Ikorose—Shinsō! (Shoot to Kill—Divine Spear!)"
Gin shredded Shuuichi's body; Kaname came in to finish.
A smooth combo—textbook certain-kill.
But the man they meant to fell was Shuuichi—the one whose battlecraft even Sōsuke respected.
"Yakuryū (Flow Constriction)!"
Every grain of reishi in Shuuichi's body froze in that instant—including the gray residue of Kamishini no Yari (God-Slaying Spear) hidden within.
Yes, if it detonated, he'd die. But what if it couldn't detonate right away?
In his perception, Kisuke and Tessai hadn't appeared. He couldn't fall yet.
If the creator of Yakuryū—Kenpachi Kuruyashiki—had stood here, he'd have blinked and said, "So you can use it like that?"
With his body's reishi locked, Shuuichi couldn't move. But that didn't mean he couldn't cast Kidō.
His spiritual pressure didn't come from him—it flowed from the Kuruyashiki eidolon riding him, bought with burned lifespan through Seyabasa.
"Rampant dragon of defiance, filth-stained land; unstoppable fury, primal source that wakes the dreamer—storm, flame, frost, thunder, earth—cleave karma, return unbarred—destroy all—return all things to the origin!
Hadō #99: Goryūtenmetsu (Five Dragons of Destruction)!"
The ground roared. Dragons bellowed.
Battlefield, sky—everything in sight shattered under the ravage of dragons.
The instant he loosed Goryūtenmetsu, Yakuryū's grip broke—the poison dust in him surged to detonate.
It didn't matter now. Kaname and Gin had no breath to spare for Shuuichi inside that storm.
When the earth's thundering died, Shuuichi still stood in midair. Kaname and Gin were in tatters.
Kuruyashiki's reiatsu sat far above theirs. Kidō woven on that foundation was not something either could shoulder at this stage.
Give Gin a few more years, and maybe he wouldn't look so strained.
But there were no ifs.
If Shuuichi's own Zanpakutō hadn't been sealed, he wouldn't have needed Kuruyashiki's strength to toy with Gin as he was now.
Geniuses still need time to grow—except a certain cheat.
He was drawing breath to trade a few more lines with Kaname and Gin when a familiar breeze-voice brushed his ear.
"Don't overdo it, Shuuichi~"
A blade slid through his heart, and a mysterious force flooded his body.
Didn't sense it at all…
Shuuichi grimaced.
At the same time, his body lurched into a rampage.
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