Chapter 33: Sword and Sheath, Star Ash that Annihilates All
Azure beast eyes, snow white feathers, a golden crown, and an ornate mask covering its face.
Over twenty feet tall, its size was comparable to a Menos Grande.
The strange creature soared beneath the moon, its wings cutting through the night. It was almost painfully beautiful, wrapped in a unique, alien spiritual pressure and a presence that felt completely outside the rules of this world.
Naturally, it chose the tallest structure in Karakura Town, the television tower, as its perch.
Boom.
Two jet black claws punched into the reinforced concrete, talons biting deep. The gust from its wings blew Uryu Ishida, the so called Last Quincy, away like an insignificant speck of dust.
"Whoa ah ah ah…!"
From the perspective of someone falling from a building, the white dragon above him looked even more unreal, like something out of a myth. The feeling of weightlessness surged up from his empty stomach, and the weakness flooding his limbs made even activating Hirenkyaku an impossible task.
At that moment, a light arrow shot over from the roof of a distant building. It curved in midair and skewered the cape at Uryu's back.
The momentum yanked his entire body sideways like a hooked fish, dragging him toward the arrow's origin.
A dull crash rang out.
Uryu slammed into a rooftop water tank and stuck there.
Or rather, he had been nailed there by that light arrow, dangling in the air like a white teru teru bozu.
On the television tower, Takeru stepped onto the dragon's back. Standing between its feathered ridges, he cast a casual glance in Uryu's direction, then dismissed him from his thoughts.
That attitude alone made it clear it was not his doing.
Besides, that had been a Quincy light arrow.
There was no need to ask who had fired it.
Uryu really was familiar with this area. Even though it was his first time being hung from a water tank, he still recognized the rooftop immediately.
Karakura General Hospital.
And he was not the only person on the roof.
A man stood at the edge by the railing, his back to Uryu, eyes fixed on the white dragon crouched on the television tower.
It was only a back.
But to Uryu it was more familiar than the surrounding streets, etched into him far deeper than any map.
"Ryuken…?!"
"Are you wondering why someone like me, who has always looked down on Quincies, would use Quincy abilities to save you?"
Ryuken Ishida did not bother to turn around. His voice sliced into Uryu's ears with a cutting edge that left him stunned and speechless.
"…"
"What a boring question. Disliking something and possessing it are not mutually exclusive. If you cannot even understand that, it is no wonder you ended up in such a pathetic state, making Shinigami clean up your mess."
"…"
The words were so harsh Uryu could not even form a rebuttal.
Kaaa.
The white dragon spread its vast wings and threw back its head, letting out a high, ringing cry at the moon.
It sounded like a proclamation of its birth, an announcement of its existence, or perhaps a signal to every Hollow skulking in the Tsubakidai area.
Ordinary humans could not even see it, much less hear that voice.
Uryu, however, was struck by the wave pattern of spiritual pressure hidden in the sound. It jolted him fully awake, and he stared at the white dragon in shock and confusion.
"This spiritual pressure is completely abnormal… What is that thing? Is it the release of a Shinigami's Zanpakuto that Grandpa wrote about in his diary?"
"Idiot."
Ryuken's response was as blunt as ever.
"With your level, you cannot even read a book properly, yet you dare swagger around under the banner of the Last Quincy. If Quincies from overseas saw you like this, you would disgrace the entire Ishida family."
His tone was scathing, but his expression was solemn, even puzzled.
"That is a dragon," he said quietly. "An ancient lifeform similar to a Hollow, with legends spread across Europe, especially in the United Kingdom. After contact with humans, they degrade into Dark Dragons. The seven oldest Dark Dragon progenitors are named after fairy tales, so they are also called Fairy Tale Dragons."
"Snow White, Red Dress, Golden Axe, Foam, Gingerbread House, Animal Band… and cinderella."
"From the way it sheds and reforms under moonlight, that one is undoubtedly cinderella."
"But for a Shinigami to be entangled with a dragon, and not just any dragon but a legendary enemy of humankind whose existence is deliberately obscured and is a permanent target of extermination for demon slaying organizations in its homeland…"
"That is truly surprising."
"Heh."
Uryu hissed from the pain in his shoulder and still could not resist snapping back.
"And here I thought you really did know everything. Turns out you are just good at acting like you do not care."
Bang.
Ryuken turned and loosed another arrow.
To Uryu's horror, the shot did not come anywhere near him. Instead it flew over his head and shattered the light arrow pinning his cloak to the tank.
His cloak tore free, and Uryu dropped from midair.
"Damn it…! Put me down! What are you doing, Ryuken?!"
"Calling your father by his given name is not commendable either. I will educate you properly on that later. For now… it is better if you stay far away."
One hand in his pocket, Ryuken casually caught his falling son by the collar with the other. Ignoring Uryu's struggles, he dragged him toward the stairwell entrance.
"Wait, hold on! I still have not finished taking care of the Hollows!"
"You are not needed."
"What?"
Uryu froze for a moment and actually forgot to fight back.
"The name cinderella does not just come from its habit of forming at night," Ryuken continued as he walked. "There is another reason. When it is excited, it emits fine dust called Stardust. Anyone who touches that dust will be enveloped in light."
"Dust…?"
"Whatever the principle is, as a Japanese person, if you do not want to suffer from hay fever, you should stay away from dust. Pollen or not, it is the same idea."
Just before stepping through the door, Ryuken stopped and looked back at the white dragon.
He happened to witness a sight that was strange even by his standards.
The dragon let out another sharp cry, spread its wings wide, and shook them. A shower of tiny, glittering particles scattered from its feathers, drifting down like snowflakes. Compared to its massive body, they were laughably small, nothing more than dust.
Uryu saw it too.
He could not look away from the dreamlike scene hanging beneath the starry sky.
In the next instant, chain explosions erupted between the tall buildings and across the night sky.
Hundreds, no, thousands of bursts of light flared at once, like an enormous cluster of fireworks going off together. The brilliance washed over Karakura Town, bathing the city in a scorching glow, the sheer visual impact almost painful to look at.
Within that sea of light and flame, every Hollow within view was engulfed and erased.
"?!"
Uryu's mind went completely blank.
Ryuken, on the other hand, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose like a researcher who had just confirmed a theory.
"So that is what they meant by being enveloped in light," he murmured. "Stardust… meteors the size of dust. My colleagues in the United Kingdom are more poetic than I expected. If you choose to study abroad there, you can try talking to them. It might even help loosen up your stiff and untalented brain."
"…"
With that parting jab, he dragged the dazed Uryu into the stairwell and shut the door behind them, sealing out the heat wave rolling across the rooftop.
…
On the television tower, Takeru stood on the white dragon's back, completely unaware of the argument between father and son.
What he focused on was his own state.
Ichigo was growing at an incredible pace.
He had not stayed in place either.
Even if his spiritual pressure lagged behind for the moment, he had carved out a different path, digging deeper into the power of the Fairy Tale Dragon: cinderella's Blood that his machine soul had granted him.
If being a mixed blood was such a powerful answer, then he naturally had to find correct fighting styles that could bring that power out.
Just as Ichigo's Shinigami power was mixed with the power of Hollows, Shimiya Takeru's Shinigami power was entwined with the power of dragons.
So beyond the surface level dragon magic of Invisible Scale, he could pursue a further awakening with the help of his Zanpakuto.
If the release command "Eight Phases Manifestation, Endonemii" corresponded to the sword, then "God Must Hold Me, Endonemii" corresponded to the sheath.
Sword and sheath.
Each was a Shikai.
In theory, it resembled Ichigo's dual blade concept in the original timeline.
Strictly speaking, however, Takeru's setup was not a true dual Shikai. It was closer to a two stage Shikai.
He had to draw the sword first before he could release the sheath.
When the power of the sword, the power within, was completely spent and burned out like a life reaching its end, the power of the sheath, the power without, could be reborn.
In that sense, it mirrored cinderella's own nature of transformation and rebirth.
The result was not that he himself turned into a dragon, even though he carried the blood of a Fairy Tale Dragon.
Instead, by releasing his Shikai and using part of his Zanpakuto's sheath as a medium, cinderella could manifest in the world.
"Let us clean up this whole area in one sweep."
Takeru lifted his hand in a grand gesture, every inch the Dragon Knight.
The white dragon turned its head to look at him, humanlike joy and ferocity mingling in its eyes, as if to say, "Leave it to me."
That was only natural.
Sword and sheath.
They were both parts of a single Zanpakuto.
Since it was his Zanpakuto, the true name of this cinderella was also Endonemii, and it was the physical form of the foul tempered Mushroom Woman who lived in his inner world.
Chirp.
More Stardust scattered through the sky.
The tiny meteors streaked outward, each one homing in on a different source of Hollow spiritual pressure.
Just as she had declared to Takeru before, she would erase every unpleasant thing outside.
Completely.
Leaving nothing behind.
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