"Looks like it's still not enough, huh?"
Makoto rubbed his chin, watching the figure sent flying into the distance.
Though many of the original Gotei 13 captains approached the pinnacle of Shinigami strength, this monster was something else entirely.
Indeed.
In this moment, Makoto had begun to discern the issue with "Ciel."
If his instincts were correct, this creature was in the process of crossing the blurred line between Shinigami and Hollow, much like what was happening within Makoto himself.
But the process was excruciatingly slow.
So slow that, at first glance, he'd wondered if the creature was a Vasto Lorde.
It was only after enduring Katori's strike that it unleashed a startling burst of power.
Random evolution?
This, no doubt, was Szayelaporro's aim.
"Makoto-sama!"
Tier Harribel's voice suddenly rose beside him.
Makoto raised an eyebrow, turning toward "Ciel."
The creature stood rooted, its form swollen larger than when it first appeared. Bone spikes at its shoulders, elbows, and heels extended upward, menacing and grotesque.
Its crimson eyes, beneath the mask, locked onto Makoto, its maw tearing open a black rift. Corrosive saliva dripped onto the sand, sizzling as it emitted a chaotic, shrill cry: "Chōjirō! Chōjirō Sasakibe!!!"
"I'll devour you!"
The instant its voice fell, Ciel's figure vanished.
Boom!
A moment later, the sand where it stood exploded into a blooming cloud of dust.
Its pale form hugged the ground, moving faster than the eye could track. The single horn atop its mask trailed a misty sonic boom, each step quicker than the last.
Even Harribel struggled to pinpoint its direction, raising her bone sword, fused with her right arm, high, pressing her back against a great tree, fully alert.
"Makoto-sama, please be care-"
Before she could finish, Makoto appeared before her.
He threw a single punch forward.
Bang!
The thunderous blast roared, deafening.
Harribel's mind buzzed, unable to process the figure before her. Her vision was consumed by the dust rising from the sand and the misty cloud of ultra-dense spiritual particles colliding.
When her hearing returned, Makoto's voice calmly uttered one word, "Ikkotsu."
Crack!
Fragments of bone shattered like porcelain, peeling away. The creature's robust frame, struck head-on, crumbled like a collapsing brick wall, revealing vast hollows within.
Simultaneously, the proud, youthful voice of his Zanpakutō rang out, piercing the clouds.
[Trying to eat my love?]
[Hah! One punch from Makoto-sama sends that Hollow experiment to its knees, ready to be captured and savored slowly, enslaved for life!]
[The Soul King once says, women gotta be tough, men gotta be tough, and those in between gotta be tough too!]
[Awaken the feminine in everyone's heart, that's true strength!]
[Makoto-sama will single-handedly dominate the entire Soul Society!]
"I absolutely did not say that!"
Despite three centuries of discipline, Makoto's composure cracked slightly under his Zanpakutō's antics.
Worse, when he turned and saw Harribel's expression shift from admiration to faint doubt, then to a subtle, barely perceptible mix of fear and wild imagination…
He couldn't hold it together.
"This… this is Makoto-sama's strength?!"
"Truly remarkable."
Noticing his gaze, Harribel turned away, glancing at Ciel while deliberately offering a small compliment.
What a kind soul, this one.
Pretending not to hear, and even giving him an out.
Makoto felt a twinge of gratitude.
"ARRRRRH!"
Ciel, however, lacked such tact.
With a gut-wrenching bellow, the Ikkotsu wound, spreading like a spiderweb from its chest, was halted by an unimaginable high-speed regeneration.
It crouched, muscles tensing, its reiatsu and will pouring into the deepest layer of its steel skin.
The pale steel writhed, dissolved, and regenerated.
Like clay clumsily molded by a child, it reformed into a leaner, far sturdier frame.
Makoto could clearly sense its chaotic reiatsu, forced under immense survival pressure to condense further, roughly twice Harribel's level.
Nearly matching Jūshirō's, or even surpassing it!
Even an average captain might struggle against such a foe.
If they kept killing it, allowing those glowing tracks to inject fragmented reiatsu into its body, could it keep growing beyond all limits?
With his own formidable trump cards as a safety net, Makoto grew increasingly curious about how far this creature could go.
It might even offer insight into his own path to transcendence.
But as he pondered,
Bang!
Katori kicked aside a chunk of great tree pinning her, climbing from the massive crater.
Her youthful, pale face was smudged with faint ash.
Spit.
Expressionless, she spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground.
Noticing Makoto's eager stance, her sharp gaze swept over him, calm but firm: "We had a deal, didn't we?"
"This one's mine."
Her voice held no trace of emotion.
Makoto's eager expression faltered, sensing her intent. His brow furrowed. "Your Bankai isn't exactly side-effect-free, is it?"
"With me here, you don't need to push yourself so hard."
Katori's face remained unchanged, but her eyes curved slightly, as if smiling.
Pointing her naginata at Ciel, she ignored his words, saying calmly, "Makoto-kun."
"If Shikai is the soul's essence materialized through the Zanpakutō…"
"What do you think Bankai is?"
Makoto didn't quite grasp her question.
Before he could puzzle it out, she answered herself: "It's the root!"
"Be it sacrifice or offering, burning, freezing, shattering… these manifestations of the soul's essence are all releases of the 'root.'"
"That's why Bankai qualifies as a further liberation beyond Shikai."
"Let me show you."
"This raw power, touching the deepest root of the soul."
"It might even inspire you."
Makoto's movements stilled, his gaze fixed on Katori, complex emotions flickering in his eyes.
She must have heard from Senjumaru about my failed Bankai training.
The thought barely surfaced when Katori drove her naginata's pole deep into the sand.
A torrent of reiatsu converged toward her.
Her long hair whipped wildly behind her.
Ciel, sensing the anomaly, paused the flow of corrosive saliva from his mouth, turning toward her.
"Bankai..."
The one word from Katori's lips carried weight, resounding with force.
In an instant, the immense reiatsu condensed around her erupted like a breached dam, flooding recklessly toward the gap.
The colossal energy, like an unstoppable behemoth guided by resolute will, descended like a mountain from the sky, crushing toward all who gazed in awe, rendering any resistance as frail as a child's toy.
Sight, hearing, even touch, every tangible sense scrambled like a radar under interference.
Until the naginata's outer shell peeled away in waves of light, revealing a delicate, jet-black wakizashi at its core. The tsuba bore three dragon kings, the hilt wreathed in faint flames.
"Samadhi no Kurikara!"
The moment the name was uttered, all anomalies in the world stilled and vanished.
The chaotic winds ceased.
All eyes turned to her.
"That's Bankai?"
Tier Harribel, witnessing the Shinigami's ultimate technique for the first time, murmured instinctively, "So… delicate?"
Only Makoto saw through the blade's essence, glimpsing the terrifying reiatsu compressed at its core, bound by a force akin to natural law.
His brow arched slightly.
Ciel, like a glutton eyeing a lavish feast but hesitating over an empty purse, was instantly drawn to an even rarer delicacy.
Clang.
He extended both claws.
Their blades gleamed with light formed from densely packed spiritual particles.
Clearly, this was an evolved ability, triggered by Makoto's earlier strike.
Whoosh.
His movements became silent.
This time, the dust rising from the sand offered no clue to his direction.
Trouble.
Harribel's mind flashed with alarm.
Yet Katori stood firm, her once-stoic face now radiant with natural vigor. She spoke calmly, "My Bankai can't last long."
"So watch closely, Makoto."
The instant her words fell, Ciel's figure appeared before her.
Maintaining a crouched charge, his claws aligned like a blade, thrusting upward toward her delicate neck.
The motion was so swift it outpaced the sonic boom trailing behind.
No warning.
Before her Bankai, a fatal strike wouldn't have been surprising.
But then, a single word escaped her lips.
"Dhyana."
As the sound landed, Makoto's pupils constricted, sensing something profound.
A lightning-like stream of consciousness surged through her, as if her soul's perception overrode her body's reflexes, granting omniscience through a single insight, omnipresence through a single sensation.
Her gentle, radiant eyes turned pure white.
Snap!
Katori seized Ciel's thrusting arm.
The glowing claw tip halted an inch from her pale, slender neck, trembling.
Inch by inch, it couldn't advance.
Boom!
The wind from their momentum and the sound of their clash lagged behind their movements.
Only after their exchange paused did the force ripple outward behind Katori.
The already-shattered roots of the great tree disintegrated further, ancient trunks scattering like crumbled biscuits into a diffuse cloud of dust.
Katori's hair whipped fiercely, yet her form remained unmoved.
She could feel an emotion called "affliction" burning rapidly in her soul, like paper set aflame, unsustainable for long.
So…
"This needs to end quickly."
With that, she swung her blade forward.
Slash!
The moment the blade struck, Ciel barely registered the sensation of being "cut."
Then, searing pain exploded, spreading uncontrollably along the torn steel skin, like the world's most blistering poison, or a fiery mix of chili and mustard stuffed into a wound, urging instant reincarnation.
In an instant, black flames engulfed Ciel like kindling, unyielding.
Despite shrugging off shattered bodies or Kidō annihilation, Ciel now wailed hoarsely, as frail as the weakest creature.
"No choice."
"These are flames that burn the soul."
Katori stepped toward him, her voice even.
Samadhi - Threefold meditation.
Dhyana - One of its facets.
Focused on its object, it incinerates all opposition.
This Bankai from the start was was the "fruit" of burning emotions to destroy souls.
The fire burned quietly.
---
Hi guys, Elenea here! I just want to announce that starting now I'll be trying to focus on my own original fanfic, which I've been thinking about for the past few days (lol I really mulled this over briefly for a few days and decided I'm going to make it a full novel).
[Worse Than the Devil (DxD)]
Synopsis:
Devil.
An evil and chaotic creature, born from hell, which are often a scapegoat for humans. Blamed for the atrocities they themselves commit.
"The devil made me do it."
A phrase always uttered by humans after committing crimes, casting blame and responsibility for their wrongdoings onto the devil.
But not all humans are like that, for there is one man who would gleefully commit atrocities that would be condemned by all of human history and accept the blame and responsibility for those wrongs with open arms.
His name is Michael, but in stark contrast to the meaning of his name 'Who is like God' he is not a devout man who draws near to God's embrace. Instead… he is the one who sends lost sheep to meet God's embrace much faster.
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Btw, a quick note before you decide to read, if you have a heart as pure as glass, I suggest you don't read this because it REALLY gets dark to early. The first chapter will give you a little idea of what I might explore later on in this fanservice harem-themed world like DxD.
Adios!