"I knew it had to be you, Shuuichi!"
Dropping from the sky with the Eleventh Division haori billowing behind him, Zaraki Kenpachi brought his blade down like a falling star.
Higashino Shuuichi raised his sword to meet it.
Steel collided. The shock alone burst the white sands around them into a flower of flying grains.
Stronger again.
Feeling the crushing pressure through his blade, Shuuichi slid back dozens of paces.
Thanks to the mess when he'd last fled Soul Society—an "accidental masterpiece" by Kuchiki Ginrei and Ukitake Jūshirō, among others—Shuuichi had, in effect, helped Kenpachi break several of the shackles he'd put on himself. Without even meaning to, Shuuichi had become a perfect foil for him. Now Kenpachi no longer bothered suppressing himself. To fight Higashino Shuuichi to the death had become his single pursuit.
"Hadō #67: Raimei San (Thunderclap Scatter)!"
Shuuichi made the call. A thousand sparks laced the air and condensed into a human-invisible haze.
Numbers were lower than the day he'd fled with Urahara Kisuke, but the quality was far higher. One Unohana Retsu or Kyōraku Shunsui in full form was enough that, as he was now, Shuuichi had no room to gamble.
He had no intention of lingering.
But before he could Shunpo away, the Black Coffin at his flank tore open and a monstrous Reiatsu roared out.
"Maware, Bōfū Danshaku! Arashi Kaiten! (Spin, Baron of Storms! Storm Vortex!)"
Savage winds erupted from Dordoni Alessandro Del Socaccio, scything outward in rings of cutting air and harvesting everything's Reiatsu inside the gale.
Shouldn't have held back.
Shuuichi watched his Raimei San get blown aside at the perfect angle and wished—briefly—that he'd finished the job. Not that he'd had the window to kill Dordoni. With Dordoni's pressure, unless Shuuichi had Unohana's class of Reiatsu, a no-chant Kurohitsugi plus a snap follow-up wasn't likely to end him before Kenpachi's next swing landed.
"Higashino Shuuichi!"
Dordoni burst from the coffin, furious—then his lip twitched as he finally took in the scene.
Great. Locked in a coffin for a few seconds and the place fills up with captain haori.
"You see the situation. Team up, Shinigami. Otherwise neither of us is walking out today."
Much as Shuuichi wanted to cut down the liability, he had to admit: with Kyōraku and Ichimaru blocking his exit, Dordoni could soak some heat.
"Then the silver-haired Shinigami's mine!"
Not stupid, Dordoni flipped his grudge into a plan, picked the right dance partner, and launched at the just-landing Ichimaru Gin—Cero, wind, the works.
On the surface the exchanges looked vicious; in truth, not one blow aimed to kill. Ichimaru never even opened Bankai; Shikai—Shinsō—poked left and right and somehow never touched Dordoni once. They traded heat like old rivals, perfectly "even."
"Right. Peekaboo Boxing, is it?"
Shuuichi itched to plant a blade in Dordoni's back.
Kenpachi and Kyōraku gave him no such window. Kenpachi's continuous, ravening cuts looked formless, but each landed where Shuuichi's guard was thinnest—inhuman muscle control and merciless strength conversion breaking every rule of proper swordplay, pure instinct and monstrous talent turning chaos into inevitability. He'd adapted to Shuuichi's way of the blade since their deathmatch and now read gaps on reflex.
That alone Shuuichi could manage—but Kyōraku, spectating at range, kept lacing in snide little Kidō at exactly the wrong moments. That, he could not.
"Unohana-san, your mood looks good. Why stop?"
Kyōraku slid down beside Unohana, who was re-weaving her loosened braids after a casual Gochūtekkan (Bakudō #75: Five-Pillar Iron Bind) to pin Shuuichi a moment.
"I don't share your hobby of meddling in others' fights."
She sheathed her Zanpakutō; the killing aura around her thinned to a shadow.
"Even if the man is an enemy?"
Kyōraku watched Shuuichi at center field.
Unafraid, Unohana followed his gaze, hands never stopping. "I've never pursued 'enemies.' You should know that better than most, Shunsui."
"Fair point." He laughed. "In that case, Unohana-san—you won't mind if I kill your toy today, will you?"
A faint smile. "If that's truly your intent, by all means… try."
Shuuichi didn't know what the two had said. He was mapping his line of flight: trigger Nijū Bankai (dual Bankai) to open distance, cancel immediately, slip into Hollowfication while his body still held, then Sonído straight for Las Noches. If he made it there, he could shake pursuit. Hollows were simpler trouble than Kyōraku.
Plan ready, he moved—and Kyōraku's voice fell from above.
"Shuuichi-kun, the game begins~"
Shuuichi looked up. At some point Kyōraku's Zanpakutō had released.
"Didn't feel a thing…"
He grimaced. The pressure of the brawl had him too wound to notice the small, outside tells. He also noticed Kenpachi neatly cut off to one side behind a Dankū wall, just outside Kyōraku's Reiatsu bubble. The man's distance sense was disgusting.
Kyōraku's Zanpakutō rules—Shikai or Bankai—imposed area games. Once you entered the game, including Kyōraku himself, there would be one winner. Losers died.
Was Shunsui here to kill him?
Shuuichi didn't think so. Kyōraku wasn't Yamamoto—less rigid, more… sideways. And with Shuuichi publicly aligned with Urahara Kisuke and Shihōin Yoruichi, Shunsui wouldn't push that far.
So he wanted to see my real floor? Or—
Shuuichi hit on the possibility.
"Shuuichi-kun, allow me to explain the rules. This game is Takaoni (High Demon). Simple: the higher you stand, the closer you are to victory."
Kyōraku hovered above and sent a light-looking slash down. In pure Reiatsu it was weaker than Kenpachi's lazy swing—but Shuuichi knew better. The core of Takaoni wasn't position alone; the higher position multiplies the attack's true weight, while those below see their strikes heavily damped.
He couldn't take it.
He stepped back to evade—Kyōraku had read him.
"Bushōgoma (Lazy Spinning Top)!"
A spinning wind leapt from Kyōraku's blade and latched to Shuuichi, freezing his motion.
Blood sprayed.
The slash ripped him open; his body re-knit at once.
"Stronger to begin with, and you pull this shameless rule set on top… what a pain."
Shuuichi watched cut after cut fall, resigned.
"Come now, Shuuichi-kun. I recall you having a few more trumps. None played yet—and you're already sighing? That won't fool me~"
He kept laughing, the gamesman above.
"'Endless hands at the brink, hands that cannot touch the black; archers of a heaven that cannot be reflected, the way of radiance strewn; the wind that kindles kindling…'"
As the words rose between being cut apart and re-growing, Kyōraku's pupil narrowed. He flicked an idle finger, bursting the weakened slashes Shuuichi's Bankai had reflected back at him.
"Won't work, Shuuichi-kun. You've noticed, haven't you? While my game is in force, if you're beneath me, any attack you launch is crushed."
"…'Gather without doubt, obey my pointing hand; light bullets, bodies eight and nine; scripture wheels and swift treasures; gray turrets, draw the bow afar, and fade in stainless light…'"
The chant ended. Shuuichi looked up. "One question: does your dampening reduce my Reiatsu before I form the technique, or does it act on the technique after formation?"
Kyōraku popped another returning slash—and Shuuichi smiled. "I think it's the latter."
"Heihō Sogen (Tracing the Origins of Warfare), Bankai—Shakushi Kankon (Borrowed Flesh, Returned Soul)! Hadō #91: Senju Kōten Taihō (Thousand-Hand Bright Heaven Culling Cannon)!"
Reiryoku poured out of him—yet Kyōraku didn't see a familiar cannon blossom from Shuuichi's hands.
Failed?
Impossible. Not for someone of Shuuichi's tier.
Then where did the Kidō go—
A heartbeat later, Ichimaru and Dordoni—mid "duel"—felt a terror break the air and split apart. Lances of light howled between them and arrowed for Kyōraku.
"What—?!"
Kyōraku stared at the incoming long-range Taihō and laughed.
"So that Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) that day—you routed it the same way, hm?"
"Dankū (Severing Void)!"
A clear wall sprang up at his flank—no incantation, weaker than the full form—and shattered in an instant under the first impacts. The survivors howled in, detonating and burying him in dust.
"Elegant thinking."
Admiration drifted from the smoke. Shuuichi's peculiar kit mattered, yes—but to see and pivot to a breaker this fast… Shunsui had to admit Unohana's eye for men was as sharp as ever.
"And now," Shuuichi's voice came from above, "I'm higher than you."
"Nadegiri (Caress Cut)!"
No quips. He piled everything into a single falling line.
The world split.
"Ara re re—close one. That was a monster of a cut. Seems you've truly digested the old man's essence~"
Kyōraku's voice came from behind Shuuichi.
Dodged?
No.
He remembered: Kyōraku's trick—Kageokuri (Shadow Sending). Warriors fixate on their senses, leaning on spiritual perception; he projects an afterimage of his shadow and makes you misread his position. Shuuichi had eaten it clean.
"Since you cracked that game, let's play another~ The second is Kageoni (Shadow Demon). The one whose shadow is stepped on—"
"Enough."
Shuuichi cut him off.
"That's plenty, Captain Kyōraku. I can guess what you want to see, so let's not waste time.
Hollow power—I've got it. I won't demo it; you can imagine it.
The other one—you want your own read on how dangerous it is, don't you?"
Kyōraku's eyes narrowed.
Clever boy. He'd read Shunsui's hand already. The old man kept saying the power nested in Shuuichi was dangerous, unstable. Shunsui didn't think Higashino was the ungovernable type—but what if the power itself warped the man?
So he had to press him—to see if a Hollowfied Shinigami like Shuuichi truly controlled his mask, and whether the Hell power's malice still tugged at him.
Ahead, Shuuichi drew his other Zanpakutō—the Seyabasa taken from Kabuma Sayako.
His own blade had a backdoor into Hell, but it demanded Nijū Bankai. With Seyabasa in hand, he wouldn't go the long way 'round.
"Kidō—Jigoku: Shokeikyoku (Hell: Execution Canticle)!"
Gray spread like ink across the air.
With his Reiatsu now a grade above before, the black-ash crawl over his skin came slower.
Everyone—Unohana, Kenpachi, Ichimaru, Dordoni—fell back under the chill spilling from Hell. Those skeletal hands in the gray grasped for souls, not Reiatsu. Rule-sets built of Reiryoku crumbled like paper before the flow of Hell.
This time, Shuuichi cut it off in under a second.
He had meant to give Shunsui a proper hellshock—but since completing Nijū Bankai, his tie to Ikeda Kōsuke inside Hell had deepened. The cry he hadn't felt before reached him now. He realized the thing he'd ignored: the Kabuma clan's plan was to lighten Hell's load. However he vented Hell's strength, he spent the branded sinner's Reishi.
Every time he touched Hell's power, the branded sinner's Reiatsu was shaved away—until, freed, it returned to Soul Society and the cycle.
Not a bad thing in itself—except Shuuichi's peak tool, Nijū Bankai, was bound to that same sinner. Until he was ready to enter Hell again, he wouldn't waste the power on show.
"Well?"
"Very well."
Kyōraku watched Shuuichi's clean release and clean restraint and felt the knot in his chest loosen. He'd doubted the story before; now, seeing this control, he found a little more faith for Urahara.
He didn't buy the claim that Aizen alone was the puppeteer. A different face rose in his mind.
So it's you, Tokinada Tsunayashiro?
You drove so many captains and lieutenants out of Soul Society. What is it you want?
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