"What are you talking about?"
Ichigo would probably have said that.
Shinomiya, though, thought for a moment and answered, "You mean the training where you let your Zanpakutō put pressure on you, Sensei?"
"Exactly."
Aizen's mouth curved, satisfied. "Before I explain why, let me ask you something, Shinomiya-kun. How much do you actually understand about bankai?"
"I read something in the Shin'ō Academy stacks—a note Urahara Kisuke left," Shinomiya said, thinking aloud. "Shikai requires 'dialogue' with the Zanpakutō, and by 'resonance' you draw out its power. Bankai is 'manifestation'—summoning the Zanpakutō from your inner world into reality—and then making it 'submit.'"
"Urahara Kisuke, hm…" Aizen listened in silence, then pushed his glasses up. The sunset flashed on the lenses, hiding his eyes and making his mood unreadable. "His name still carries far in Soul Society. Even the Eleventh Division speaks of him with respect. So yes—there are useful edges in what he left behind.
"But only that."
"He told you what to do and not why. No personal theory. No specifics. It's the combo meal of dogma and a gifted man's caprice—chicken soup that fills the bowl but not the belly." Aizen's tone stayed gentle, yet the words had a quiet bite. "Not everyone can both keep the rules and also arrive perfectly at the result the way he did. For most Shinigami, his 'advice' is half-baked."
"Which, frankly, is fine." Aizen smiled. "As a foil, he'll make it easier for you to grasp what I'm about to say."
Shinomiya straightened, all attention.
"In my view, shikai is 'the state where the Shinigami projects their power onto the blade.' Bankai is 'on that foundation, you foster the blade's selfhood and manifest it.'
"The 'pressure' training copies the former—but in reverse. You let the blade project onto you. It looks like the Zanpakutō is pressing you down; what it's really doing is drawing near and mirroring you, taking all of you into itself like a mirror would.
"Keep that reflection long enough and it brands you. That foreign spiritual power you feel inside you—slowly, it takes your shape.
"So you go further, faster at the shikai stage—right up to the edge of what that stage can hold."
Aizen didn't need to say it; Shinomiya had lived it.
"My shikai is too strong. The strain on the soul is brutal. The first time I used it, my whole body hurt." He nodded. "Normally, that means a long period of getting used to the power before true control. But because of the daily pressure—because my body and soul were constantly mingling with the blade's spiritual power—I ended up passively learning its essence. My body toughened in kind. My double-edged sword became a cutter that severs anything, and the guy holding it stopped being a rookie and turned into someone whose sword work feels… complete."
Aizen dipped his chin. "That's the outcome, yes. Now that 'someone' has hit the limit of this tier. Time to step up—to bankai.
"That doesn't mean the pressure regimen is useless for bankai," he added. "There's a little common knowledge you may not know: once you have bankai, you can activate shikai without the release phrase. Because the Zanpakutō has already submitted. 'Submission' is coercive—it sits above 'dialogue' and replaces 'resonance' with 'dominion.'
"What you've been doing—bearing that pressure—is prep for the submission phase after manifestation. You're pulling that future work forward so you can shorten the path later, like you've done now."
"Got it," Shinomiya said, a light going on. "So what do I actually do?"
"You already know," Aizen said, amusement in his eyes.
"I do." Shinomiya folded his legs and sat, settling into sword-zen.
"One more thing, Shinomiya-kun."
"Mm?"
"Your motive for training bankai—surely it isn't only to keep pace with Kurosaki in a friendly rivalry."
"Sharp as ever, Sensei." Shinomiya didn't bother to hide it. "Fights between Shinigami are spiritual pressure versus spiritual pressure. With what I have now, the fastest way to push up toward captain-class is to train bankai. It's an efficient, targeted way to crack the bottleneck."
"So you don't crave the Zanpakutō's mystique, and you aren't aiming for a captain's chair by flying the bankai flag," Aizen murmured. "You're using bankai training purely as a program to grow reiatsu faster."
"Exactly. It's more efficient than generic grind."
"…Very well. No more questions," Aizen said. "Go on."
Warm light and quiet shade. In the calm of the lawn, Shinomiya sank down, the sun on his face, and dove toward that absurd, lifeless inner world.
Aizen let his gaze drift back to Seireitei's skyline. Young power is always in motion. The city before him—unchanged for a million years. People and things. Things should change with people. If the things don't, it means the 'people' didn't either. Thought, like Urahara's, keeps its playpen inside the rules. For a million years.
…
The inner world was still an extravagant wasteland—fungi run riot, yet utterly dead, growth frozen as if time had been nailed down at birth.
Shinomiya scanned the stillness for the one living figure. Nothing. Not even a twitch.
No—something.
He glanced up just as a speck fell from the sky at full speed and smacked the ground, kicking up a bloom of dust. At least something moved now.
"What was that supposed to be?"
He was starting to sound like Ichigo whenever he came here and found the woman stirring up new nonsense.
"A greeting~."
The mushroom-crowned woman drifted out of the crater without a scratch. This world bent around her like soft dough.
"A greeting," Shinomiya repeated.
"Yup. A dramatic entrance—because a world that looks stuck for a million years needs a shake-up. I like it. So you'll like it, too. We're one and the same." She smiled sweetly.
"Then we can skip the pleasantries." Shinomiya slid his blade free and leveled it up at her. The reiatsu along the edge sang. "You know why I'm here."
"Bankai practice, right?"
She floated, unbothered by the killing edge. "Even if the submission half will be faster thanks to all that pressure, your progress on manifestation is still zero. Usually it takes over ten years to bring me down into the world."
"I don't have ten years."
"How greedy," she laughed. "Most Shinigami would trade ten years gladly for a quick jump to captain-class. Feeding your Zanpakutō and coaxing it to manifest boosts your spiritual power along the way. That's what you want most, isn't it?
"But you won't pay with time, so—"
Her smile sharpened, gorgeous and vicious.
"—my dear master points the blade at his own Zanpakutō."
"Battle me, cram your reiatsu into me, and force-feed me the nutrients to grow. It was me pressing you. Now you'll press me. Clever."
"I'm not mad. I'm thrilled. What you love to do, I love too. What I love, you will. I'm your mirror."
"So when you raise your sword at me, I can't wait to do the exact—same—thing."
Dust like storm-sand exploded out from under the brim of her cap and the hem of her skirt, pouring toward Shinomiya.
His pupils pinched.
—And the world detonated.
Blossoms of fire wiped the plains clean. The 'dust' was clear enough now.
"How is it? Stardust goes down smooth, doesn't it?" she sang. "Shame there's no moon here. With moonlight I could turn into a dragon. Have you thought about how to release the scabbard when there isn't any moonlight, Master?"
"Don't tell me you'll just—"
Her eyes flared blue. The dense spiritual pressure condensed into a pane of spirit-particles.
Ping!
"—hide behind Invisible Scale and look for backstabs."
Shinomiya flickered in from nowhere and split the barrier in a single cut. The woman tilted her head and let the edge pass, then drifted back.
He didn't chase. He slid the blade into the sheath and set his stance—iaijutsu, pressure surging around him.
Her smile faded. "I like liking what you like. But there are things I can't do."
"Hasshō Jigen—Jitta Yami."
"Calling my name to my face is against the rules," she pouted.
"And you talk too much. You didn't pick that up from me."
Blue radiance poured off him, too bright to look at—Buddha dropping through the clouds—voice turning into shockwaves that trembled the air.
Her reiatsu rose to meet it without so much as a release phrase. Not a Buddha but a glass-lit goddess: hair streaming like strands of crystal, her whole form bathing in brilliance as if she were standing waist-deep in a lake of reiatsu.
"Maybe I did," she said. "As I grow, I should end up different from you in some places."
"Can't wait," Shinomiya murmured, and moved.
His step stretched the world. The afterimage smeared into a black line. He crossed the gap and snapped his wrist.
—Yui-shan.
The flash was too clean, too beautiful. Her torso parted top and bottom—and bore no wound. Only a bright 'trace' glowed where the cut should have been.
"This is—"
"Another way our power can be used," she said softly. "Not useful to you. And I hope you never need it."
He sucked a breath. He'd understood it in a blink.
"If you want to pour reiatsu into me, why not merge with me?" She laughed again, bright as a girl. "That's more efficient than fighting."
Spirit Fission was a phenomenon that shouldn't exist—spirit particles don't 'fission'. But Jitta Yami made the impossible real. With its subjectivity, its willfulness, it could do many more things.
Like this: during fission, her body and particles overlapped almost completely—eight seconds of near-invincible spiritualization—and then—
A white tide drowned the world.
-------
Enjoying the story? Support the author and get access to early chapters by joining my Patreon!
Find me at My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
I, Herta's Fiancé, the Universe's Number One Male Fist (114 Chapter (Simulpub-Full) )
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Succubus in Sixth Street (390 Chapter)
Reborn in Type-Moon, My Sister is Aoko Aozaki (254 Chapter)
MyGO!! A Story Voiced by Me (140 Chapter)
BLEACH: Blade of Purification (158 Chapter)
Konoha: Starting the Game as Yoriichi (400 Chapter)
My Real Job is Spying on Konoha, but I'm Also its Hokage (140 Chapter)
The Pinnacle of the Navy! Starting from Being Captured by Garp (166 Chapter)
Watching Yu-Gi-Oh! short videos is making the veteran players lose...(80 Chapter)
Uma Musume : The Trainer Who Just Wants to Live (200 Chapter)
Zenless Zone Zero The Random Kamen Rider (190 Chapter)
Genshin Impact: It All Began With Me Being Stepped On by Arlecchino (120 Chapter)
Naruto: I Can Synthesize Summoning Beasts (96 Chapter)
Demon Slayer: The Great Swordsman's System, Disciple of Yoriichi (140 Chapter)
My Wife is a General, but I'm an Emanator of Abundance! (160 Chapter)
Type-Moon: My Nine-Fold Path (140 Chapter)
Uma Musume: They're Peeking at My Diary, and All of Tracen is Panickin (Ending)
The Wild History of Type-Moon world (70 Chapter)
Reborn in Conan, But I Refuse to Be the Bad Guy (80 Chapter)
Ruan Mei is begging me to go back? But there's no going back anymore (140 Chapter)
Just a Slacker at Tracen Academy (165 Chapter)
Survival in Blue Archive (70 Chapter)
Kimetsu no Yaiba: Doma Wasn't Hated Today, Either (100 Chapter)
The Vibe of This Chat Group is a Little Off (100 Chapter)
Heartbreak Simulator: I Broke Them and Made Them Cry (80 Chapter)
The Talentless Trainer Doesn't Want to Restart (80 Chapter)
A Journey Starting as a Quincy (80 Chapter)
Uma Musume: The Master of Romance Obstruction (80 Chapter)
Uma Musume: You Can't Be a Hero Without a Little Chemical Enhancement (40 Chapter)
Honkai Impact 3rd Your Boyfriend is Really Amazing (40 Chapter)
Warhammer 40K: My Fiancée, Fulgrim (168 Chapter)
Classroom of the Elite: Trying to Capture Me! (120 Chapter)
Genshin Impact My Named Senji Muramas (150 Chapter)
A Chef, the Vice-Captain of the Rocks Pirates? (160 Chapter)
Naruto : My Uchiha Girlfriend is Too Tsundere (130 Chapter)
Type-Moon: Reincarnated in a Lostbelt, I Became the Alien God (90 Chapter)
The Way These Horse Girls Look at Me Is Terrifying! (160 Chapter)
Naruto: Tsunade's Deskmate (130 Chapter)
I Just Want to Live a Normal (50 Chapter).
Genshin Impact: A Hundred Confessions? It's Just a System Task (70 Chapter)
OnePiece : Starting as a Veteran of the Roger Pirates (60 Chapter)
Uma Musume : I Have Special Horse Taming Techniques (180 Chapter)
Uma Musume : My other self is a Horse Girl (110 Chapter)
Jujutsu Kaisen : All Affection Stats Maxed Out (170 Chapter)
Satou Kazuma's Decision to Live by Swindling, Starting from Re:Zero (60 Chapter)
Bleach : Ichigo! Take Over the Soul Society (68 Chapter)
Crossover Anime: The Master of Plagiarism with a 'Love Obstacle (110 Chapter)
Arknights Succubus Nurturing System, But I'm a Quiet Office Worker (60 Chapter)
Genshin Impact: Using My Personas to Break the Hearts of Players (50 Chapter)
One Punch Man : i am King? (90 Chapter)
If there's a particular novel you're enjoying on Patron, please give it a 'like' so I know to focus on it