Chapter 114: Is there anything wrong with preparing a coffin for a skeleton?
"You damnable ant!"
As if time itself had reversed, Baraggan was hurled backward. He flew less than a kilometer before he forcibly stabilized his body.
His fury was just about to boil over when, behind him, from the direction of Las Noches, a voice spoke with open amazement.
"Truly a miraculous creation. After walking a full kilometer, the scenery hasn't changed at all. How did they confuse distance to this extent?"
"…!"
Baraggan's face darkened, but he did not turn around.
Takeru did not look back either.
The two stood less than three meters apart.
Back to back.
One faced the Shinigami camp. The other faced Las Noches.
They were within striking range, yet it was as if they did not exist in each other's eyes.
That bizarre stillness was even more unsettling than Las Noches' twisted sense of distance.
Silence lingered. A few seconds, perhaps half a minute, perhaps longer.
Their invisible clash of spiritual pressure distorted the air itself and made time feel blurred.
Then, suddenly.
Baraggan raised his pitch black double bladed axe in a quiet, deliberate motion, as if to swing forward, despite there being no one in front of him.
The instant the axe fell, his body vanished, as though he had cleaved space apart.
He reappeared directly in front of Takeru.
The great axe dropped like a guillotine and split Takeru cleanly from head to toe without resistance.
But what it cleaved was only an afterimage.
"…"
Baraggan's face sank further. Without turning fully, he flicked a glance sideways.
No figure. No sound.
Yet the feedback from his Pesquisa was unmistakable.
The enemy was behind him.
And, just like earlier, the sense of distance connected to Las Noches remained completely unchanged.
Baraggan raised his axe again and slashed into the space behind him, aiming to cut that teasing Shinigami in half at the waist.
He felt no satisfaction.
It was still an afterimage.
The enemy's real body was in front of him.
A lethal slash arrived.
Baraggan thrust out his left hand and caught it barehanded.
Two exchanges. Two rounds.
A clash so fast it was nearly invisible.
Boom!
Their spiritual pressure collided violently and forced them apart.
Takeru stood with his blade in hand, expression steady and unruffled.
Baraggan's left palm, however, dripped blood. The wound was deep enough to expose bone.
"A mere ant dares harm the body of a god…!"
"A wound like that means nothing to you," Takeru replied, sounding almost bored. "Why are you this worked up?"
He tilted his head slightly.
"Look at me. I'm not even gloating, am I?"
"In fact, I should praise you. You used that special ability of yours to manipulate time, or rather, the movement of matter, to weaken my slash."
"Even though your spiritual pressure was torn apart along with it, the cut's power was still reduced. Otherwise, after breaking through your Hierro, it wouldn't have stopped at this."
Takeru's tone remained sincere.
"From that perspective, your ability is a real counter to someone like me, someone who specializes in battōjutsu and footwork."
The sincerity only sharpened Baraggan's rage.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't the injury that angered him.
It was the humiliation.
The fact that the Shinigami before him could wound him with nothing more than a simple slash and Shinigami footwork was unbearable.
"Hm?" Takeru's brow lifted.
The wound on Baraggan's palm was already closing.
"Super Regeneration? I didn't expect you to retain that after becoming an Arrancar."
"…That is thanks to the Shinigami."
Baraggan glanced at his restored hand, clenched it, and spoke with cold contempt.
"What do you mean?" Takeru asked, genuinely curious.
"Didn't Arturo Plateado die in Soul Society, buried by Shinigami hands?"
Baraggan snorted, disdain mixed with something complicated.
"He is dead, but his power had reference value. That is why Arrancar created afterward more or less retain Super Regeneration."
"The stronger the individual, the stronger the regenerative power."
"And if one already had the aptitude for it, the ability becomes even more specialized, perhaps enough to rival Arturo."
His tone sharpened.
"I look down on that reckless fool, but Super Regeneration is a Hollow's power. There is nothing to despise about it."
"And I, Baraggan Louisenbairn, am the greatest god. It is only natural for me to possess eternal, indestructible power."
Baraggan's voice grew heavier, darker.
"However, immortality alone is not enough. Only those who master the power of life and death over all things can be called a god. Otherwise…"
"Otherwise, you are merely a prisoner. A stepping stone for a swarm of ants who dare call themselves 'gods.'"
He spat his contempt at both Shinigami and Arturo, then let his hatred focus like a blade.
"But I will never forget the humiliation you and your companions brought upon me."
"So, boy. I don't care which ant killed Arturo. I have no intention of avenging him."
Baraggan's skeletal face tilted, rage boiling over.
"From beginning to end, I have only one desire."
"To send you death defying ants to Hell."
"Starting with you!"
He lifted his axe with one hand.
A terrifying spiritual pressure surged forth as if a floodgate had burst open.
"Rot… Arrogante."
Takeru narrowed his eyes.
Baraggan's body was swallowed by a profound, bottomless black spiritual pressure.
Moonlight vanished.
A boundless black tide howled through the air, and that spiritual pressure, thick with the stench of death, stripped all things of breath.
Tranquility.
Absolute, crushing tranquility.
It smothered heaven and earth.
Within the domain of rot, whether tangible or intangible, everything lost its sense of presence.
It forced an unavoidable feeling upon the mind.
That this space was the true world after death.
Then the tide surged back, condensed, and became a purple black mantle draped over Baraggan's body.
Wearing a golden crown, bone white like polished jade, Arrogante Baraggan looked like the true Shinigami.
Even Takeru could not help but marvel.
"Compared to me, you look more like a Shinigami… Mr. Baraggan. Are you sure you don't want to come be a Shinigami with me?"
"I was always a god."
Baraggan raised a palm that had become white bone.
"The sky, the earth, birds and beasts, fish and shrimp, plants and trees, stones. The life and death of all things rests within a single thought of mine."
"And that includes you, boy."
"I said I would teach you a lesson, but you refused my kindness. You were unwilling to witness the deaths of your comrades."
His tone sharpened into something almost delighted.
"A truly unfortunate choice."
"Without their deaths to turn your heart into cold ashes early, without despair swallowing you until you view death as release…"
"You will taste an even more terrifying despair."
"Foolish."
"But mortals always choose like this. That is why they are destined, just like you, to taste despair beyond terror."
"The name of that despair is Aging."
"And its form… is I myself!"
"Take this. Respira!"
The black tide returned.
Rot poured out with a corrosive force that eroded all things.
Where it passed, space filled, matter collapsed into smoke, and even invisible dust could not escape death.
"Dankū."
Takeru spoke softly.
Even without an incantation, the barrier rose with formidable strength.
A transparent wall appeared from nothing, towering like a city rampart, hundreds of meters high.
Respira crashed into it, surging and writhing like waves smashing against a reef.
"Kido has a day when it disappears," Baraggan declared proudly. "Therefore, Kido too will die of old age."
As if responding to his arrogance, the Dankū, capable of blocking Hadō below number eighty nine, began to tremble under the rot.
Takeru's eyes remained calm.
Before the barrier shattered, silver blue radiance poured from his body, forming bones, weaving tendons, forging armor.
In an instant, a Karasu Tengu over a hundred meters tall stepped onto the desert with a thunderous boom, as lifelike as a god descending.
It assumed a battōjutsu stance.
Its hand rested on the hilt of a spiritual blade with the same design as Endonemī.
The moment the transparent wall shattered, the Tengu's finger moved.
Click.
With a soft sound, the blade returned to its sheath.
It seemed nothing happened.
And yet, it felt like everything had ended.
Time itself seemed severed by that cursed blade that could slash through anything.
Along with time, the black tide was cut apart.
To the naked eye, it was difficult to grasp.
But to spiritual pressure perception, it was brilliant, dazzling, like an explosion.
A blade light that existed on the level of consciousness alone.
"What…?!"
Respira was extinguished by a single slash.
Even if the blade was enormous and heavy, it should have been impossible to erase a phenomenon as vast as Respira.
Baraggan could neither understand nor accept it.
"The power to age matter and accelerate time is undeniably overwhelming," Takeru said. He stood within the rhombus crystal space on the Karasu Tengu's brow, hands slipping back into the pockets of his captain's haori. His voice was calm, almost clinical.
"However, with an ability that seems unsolvable, why are you still being driven around by others? Why…"
"You can't even be called the strongest Espada."
"You… what did you say…!"
Baraggan's skull had no eyes and no expression, yet the rage rolling off him was unmistakable.
"Lies are pointless," Takeru replied. "Even after Resurrección, your spiritual pressure is still inferior to Arturo's. That alone tells me you are not the First Espada."
"With this level of strength, you could never hold the position of First."
"You dare compare me to that loser!"
"A loser," Takeru repeated, voice echoing through the night sky like thunder. "Are you sure that's true?"
"With immense spiritual pressure gained by killing opponents and taking their power, plus regeneration that borders on an immortal body…"
"I can't imagine him dying to your power."
"The time rot that erodes all things is incredible, but in the end, it cannot escape the category of Kidō. It can be crushed by spiritual pressure and Kidō of the same level."
He paused, then his tone sharpened slightly.
"Unfortunately for you, my techniques are also Kidō type. The ultimate kind that targets all things in the world, and can slash through anything."
As his words fell, the Karasu Tengu drew again.
It was still Yuisen.
Baraggan unleashed Respira at full power and met it head on.
Hueco Mundo's reishi density was higher than Soul Society's, allowing spiritual bodies to exert even greater strength.
That was true for Baraggan.
It was also true for Takeru.
So even though Respira's scale and quality were astonishing, it still could not avoid the same fate.
It was erased by a single slash.
A different kind of anti demon killing.
But a simple back and forth like that would not decide the battle.
After using Yuisen, Takeru did not sheath the Susanoo blade. He rode the momentum, flipped his wrist, and swung violently.
If Ichigo saw that posture, he would find it familiar.
It resembled Getsuga Tenshō.
And the shockwave it released was also a high density mass of spiritual pressure.
Its name was Yasaka Magatama.
One result of Takeru's cultivation in the reishi space.
An exclusive skill of the Shunko Susanoo.
It looked like a drop of blood flung from the blade, magnified countless times.
A silver blue shockwave.
As it tore through the sky, it resembled a comet with a burning tail.
…?!
After being checked repeatedly, Baraggan had grown cautious.
He used Sonído to avoid the strike, but the moment it passed him, it detonated violently, its power no less than Suì Fēng's Bankai.
He was caught off guard, swallowed by the storm, his body briefly slipping out of control.
Cracks spread across his skeletal frame. His royal haori shredded.
But to the current Espada, who treated Super Regeneration like a standard feature, it was inconsequential.
Only his pride would have suffered.
Yet pride was not Baraggan's concern now.
A thick, inescapable sense of crisis washed over him.
Arriving alongside it was an incantation, heavy with power.
"Seeping out with a murky crest, a talent of headstrong arrogance. Surge, deny, numb for an instant, an obstacle to long sleep…"
"Is this… Kidō?"
Baraggan knew Shinigami Kidō.
But this was nothing like what he understood.
The Karasu Tengu raised a single finger toward the heavens.
Its wings spread wide, burning as if set ablaze. Even every strand of hair on its head seemed to burn.
Its eyes blazed with terrifying brightness.
Its mouth moved without pause, chanting.
At the same time, Takeru himself chanted as well.
"…the crawling iron princess, the clay doll that constantly self mutilates. Combine and repel, extending to the ground, know your own powerlessness."
The two voices did not merely overlap.
They resonated.
Because Takeru did so, the Karasu Tengu followed suit, shaped and influenced by him.
A special effect was born.
Just as Takeru's words could be amplified and carried outward before, the incantation was also magnified, and the power within it doubled.
It caused a subtle change in the Karasu Tengu.
It became more like a living Shinigami.
"Hadō 90: Kurohitsugi!"
If Yuisen and Shichisen could be used through Susanoo's hands, then why not Kidō?
Takeru answered.
An unimaginably heavy spiritual pressure shook heaven and earth.
A pure black cubic barrier rose from the ground and swallowed Baraggan whole.
"Don't even think about it!"
Baraggan refused to wait for death, but Kidō threads suddenly bound his feet, stopping him for a heartbeat. He froze, then erupted in rage.
Another one of these damned, despicable tricks!
"How many traps have you hidden?!"
His axe flashed and severed the Kidō threads.
But that moment was enough.
It was too late.
Kurohitsugi's area was simply too vast.
A black coffin over a thousand meters tall towered above the desert, visible from far away.
Takeru layered another incantation, the same one, strengthening Kurohitsugi further.
This time, there was no amplification.
The Karasu Tengu reached out its left hand as if gripping the air, then slowly clenched its fingers.
The massive black rectangular coffin compressed with it, tighter and tighter.
In the end, the Tengu clenched into a fist.
Kurohitsugi shrank abruptly to less than five meters tall.
Its size diminished, but the oppression only intensified.
Like the difference between a balloon and a lead ball, it now carried a weight that seemed to crush space itself.
Takeru dismissed Susanoo and walked toward the coffin.
Before he reached it, Kurohitsugi dissolved.
Baraggan lay on the ground, already reverted from Resurrección.
Blood soaked him. His body looked as if it had been carved by a thousand blades.
He hovered on the brink of death.
Takeru's expression remained calm as he scanned the air, sensing the reishi composition.
"…You used a Cero. Not an ordinary one either. A powerful Cero capable of distorting space, and you combined it with your aging power to offset Kurohitsugi's pressure enough to survive."
"Bastard…!"
Baraggan strained to lift his head. He could only glare at Takeru's feet.
"Why the anger?" Takeru asked evenly. "I prepared a fine casket for a skeleton like you. If Aging is the destination of all life, then a coffin is your destination."
"I think you should consider yourself lucky that, at least, you didn't die by your own ability."
Takeru turned away.
…?!
Baraggan's mind shook.
"One who can be killed will inevitably die someday. That means time and aging will surely take effect. Using your own power to finish you off isn't a bad strategy."
"But against an opponent with such a half baked ability, if I won with petty tricks, or with Shikai or Bankai, Arturo would laugh at me in Hell for making no progress."
Takeru's voice stayed level, but every word dug deeper.
"Oh right. I almost forgot to mention."
"That 'loser' you spoke of was also defeated by my hand."
"I wonder if I'll earn the nickname 'Regicide' someday."
Wha… what?!
The truth slammed into Baraggan. His breath hitched.
"From your perspective, there's no need to feel bad. I didn't use my Zanpakutō's power, but there are few in this world who can compete with my Shunko."
"And there are not many who can face Aging without retreating before you."
"Only such an existence is qualified to be called a god, right?"
"If so, then I have been one for a long time."
"Not just me. Every person wearing a Shinigami uniform, risking their life for the world's survival, is the same."
"No matter how weak they might seem, it isn't your place to deny them. You, who can only posture in Hueco Mundo."
"You should remember, even the Hollows braver than you, the ones who dared invade Soul Society, met no good end."
Takeru's tone cooled further, sharp but controlled.
"You kept saying you wanted to teach me a lesson. You didn't hesitate to use yourself as a negative example to give me insight."
"I'm sure my teacher would be pleased."
"Truly, thank you… King of Hueco Mundo."
"Baraggan Louisenbairn."
With that, Takeru walked away.
That calm back, that victory declared without shouting, ripped into Baraggan's shredded body like salt.
His organs were crushed, yet he forced pitch black anger to serve as organs, squeezing out the last of his strength to hurl his giant axe.
"…Go to hell, you unpardonable blasphemers!"
Takeru did nothing.
His pace did not falter for even a second.
He did not look back.
With spiritual pressure alone, he dispersed Baraggan's final fury.
Just like when they first met.
The double bladed axe crumbled into fragments.
The light within Baraggan slowly faded.
"You… you all… just wait… it won't end like this…!"
As if hearing those words, or perhaps sensing something else, Takeru stopped at the exact moment Baraggan's spiritual pressure vanished.
A strange look flickered in his eyes.
"Was this guy really… here to seek death?"
.....
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