"Only five-tenths of my strength..."
Shinji's gaze sharpened. He clenched his zanpakuto, let his reiatsu surge even higher, and shouted:
"Taorero, Sakanade (Fall down, Counter Stroke)!"
In an instant, his ancient-looking zanpakuto transformed.
The hilt squared into a rectangle with neat geometric patterns. Four long rectangular cutouts framed the blade, and five round perforations opened along the flat—like a giant, old-fashioned key. Just looking at it gave a scraping, tearing unease.
The moment the shikai (initial release) took hold, Cole's eyebrows jumped on their own—he caught a faint, distinctive fragrance.
Then the whole world reeled.
Up and down, left and right, front and back—everything his eyes saw flipped in his vision. Heaven and earth rotated: the standing Shinji "hung" upside down in the air, feet planted on nothing, while everyone else twisted into the same impossible posture. It was as if the world itself had inverted.
Shinji swung Sakanade lightly and smiled. "How is it, Cole? My zanpakuto's ability is terrifying, right?"
Cole tilted his head at the "dangling" Shinji before him. "What nonsense are you babbling!?"
Shinji smacked his own forehead like he'd just remembered something and smiled with narrowed eyes. "My bad—inside the inverted world, even the words you hear arrive reversed."
What he said sounded normal to him, but into Cole's ears it poured backward, syllables sliding from end to start. Cole couldn't even tell why sentences he hadn't finished speaking were already arriving "in reverse."
He didn't have time to care. A sour churn climbed his chest. "Shinji, you bastard—turn your zanpakuto's effect off! This is making me sick."
The scene before his eyes spun like a crazed gyroscope. Directions swapped and tumbled, as if he'd been stuffed inside a shaking box. Layer on the upside-down audio, and he had to fight not to hurl.
Shinji chuckled. "So now you know how scary I am, Cole-kun. I'm not the 'Seven Freaks of the South' you called me..."
"You turtle—! I'm gonna puke..."
Cole's face went slate gray. Veins crossed his forehead as he drove his golden staff into the ground and roared:
"Big! Big! Big! Big!"
The golden staff, Ruyi Jingu Bang, caught the wind and stretched. In seconds it was a heaven-piercing pillar spanning the ground like three football fields laid side by side, a lance threatening to poke through the sky itself.
Cole hugged the butt-end of the colossal pole, muscles cording as he bellowed, "Shinji, stand right there! If I don't mash you into a pancake today, I swear I won't sleep with Retsu again!"
Staring at the gold column that pierced heaven and earth, Shinji broke into a cold sweat. "H-hey—this is way too big!"
If that thing slammed down, it would punch right through Karakura Town. One sweep and half the city would flatten.
"Calm down, Cole! Calm down!"
Sucking a breath through his teeth, Shinji launched himself forward and wrapped Cole in a desperate hug. "It's not that serious! We're just sparring—one swing like that and even the Head Captain will kill us!"
"To hell with you..."
Cole kicked Shinji off him. His eyeballs were still spinning. He staggered, then vaulted into the sky and roared, "And you still haven't canceled your zanpakuto's effect!"
The staff fell like golden divine punishment from above. The Visoreds nearly peed themselves.
They bolted skyward as one, zanpakuto drawn to meet the descending titan.
Boom!
The sky detonated with a shockwave that rippled out like a stone thrown into a lake. A gale like a level-8 typhoon tore the dust from the ground, shrouding the world in gray. Windows shattered down the block. Gravel ripped up and whipped outward in sheets.
Far-off pedestrians stared, dumbfounded.
The weather report hadn't said anything about a typhoon.
With that single strike, all eight Visoreds dropped like dumplings into the dirt, popping craters across the lot. Kensei spat a mouthful of soil and cursed, "Shinji! Kill your zanpakuto's effect already—this kid's motion sickness is driving him insane!"
Shinji clawed his way out of a pit, face black with dust. "I canceled it, I canceled it! I really didn't think he'd get carsick. And—his zanpakuto is too ridiculous..."
Inside, ten thousand wild horses stampeded.
This thing is "physical type," too!?
Sakanade's shikai (initial release) exudes a scent; once the enemy inhales it, up/down/left/right/front/back swap, and even the direction of incoming strikes inverts in their vision. It's an extremely oppressive ability in battle, the natural counter to physical-types.
After all, when every direction you see and feel is the opposite of reality, almost no one can keep track—let alone convert all that on the fly in their head. Get caught once, you fight at a total deficit.
But Cole was different. He just made his zanpakuto giant by thousands—no, tens of thousands—of times. A sky-pillar map-wide smash doesn't care where "up" is. Even if your senses are inverted, you can't escape the area.
Cole shook his head again, but the world still spun. He shrank the staff by a few dozen times—and slammed it down again.
"Shinji, I'm beating you to death today."
He hated motion sickness most of all.
And Shinji's power was tens of times worse than any bus ride. His stomach was ready to revolt.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Dozens of strikes later, Shinji was practically planted in the soil like a tree.
Only after a long while, when Cole cooled off, did Shinji crawl out and wheeze, "Cole, I admit I was wrong—but this is the first time I've met a Shinigami who gets motion sick."
Cole's face stayed dark. "And it's my first time seeing someone planted into the ground like a crop."
They stepped back into the warehouse barrier. After Cole explained why he'd come, the Visoreds felt the sky tilt again.
Shinji, dusting himself off, stared in disbelief. "You embedded the Hogyoku in your body—and awakened the Hollow portion within!?"
"Yeah."
Cole's head still swam; the nausea hadn't faded.
The eight Visoreds traded looks. No one wanted to take that hot potato of a reply.
After a long silence, Love finally spoke, lips dry: "Cole... about helping you control your Hollowfication—we need to consider this carefully."
They huddled up at once.
Lisa: "Feels like if we help Cole stabilize, the least we'll walk away with is missing arms or legs."
Hachigen: "Indeed. We'll have to fight him as the Hollow surfaces to gauge his condition. I can't take one swing from that stick."
Mashiro: "So scary. I heard that was just his shikai (initial release). I don't want to die yet."
Love: "No way, no way. That slam just now nearly cracked my arm. If we help him subdue the Hollow, at minimum we'll have to go bankai (final release)."
Shinji: "I'm the one in the most danger here, okay? If we really fight him, do I use Sakanade or not?"
Hiyori: "Chrome-dome, if you dare use your ability, I think Cole will pound you into mochi."
Rose: "Not mochi—mincemeat jelly."
Kensei: "We must be prudent. From what he showed, he might actually kill us."
"..."
After rigorous debate, Shinji walked back over with a smile. "Cole, about helping you control your Hollowfication—we've decided to test the waters on Kurosaki Ichigo first. You can watch from the side. How about it?"
Cole's eyes went dead-fish dull. "You jerks just don't want to fight me, do you?"
A chorus of coughs followed.
Hiyori blurted, "Of course not. If we spar you, we'll be lucky to only lose limbs."
The others bobbed their heads.
Cole scratched his cheek, embarrassed. "You can't blame me. In that state I don't even know what I'm doing."
The Visoreds fell collectively speechless.
Which is exactly why we don't want to fight you.
In that state, getting turned into pig feed by you is dying for nothing.
In the end, Cole's protests went nowhere. The Visoreds decided to help Ichigo first while letting Cole observe and glean experience.
Ichigo lit up, eager. "Shinji—what do I do? Need some kind of experiment?"
Shinji scratched his head. "Not that complicated."
Before the words finished, Hiyori flashed forward, reiatsu surging as she hewed downward with her zanpakuto.
Startled, Ichigo jerked up Zangetsu to block.
Steel screamed. Knocked back two steps, he glared. "Hey! What are you doing!?"
Hiyori rested her blade on her shoulder, scowling. "What do you think? We beat the Hollow out. Otherwise how do we know what's happening inside you?"
Shinji spread his hands. "Why do you think we're reluctant to help Cole?"
Ichigo blinked, then nodded slowly. He eyed Hiyori doubtfully. "But can a little kid-looking Shinigami really drag out the Hollow in me? Just saying—I'm pretty strong."
A tic pulsed on Hiyori's forehead. She pressed her left palm to the blade, reiatsu blasting. "You think you're that monster Cole?"
"Kirisaite, Kubikiri Orochi (Sever him, Beheading Great Serpent)!!!"
A serrated cleaver uncoiled into her hands, and she laid into Ichigo with a flurry. Sparks shed in sheets.
Kensei watched half a minute and snorted. "Getting completely crushed by Hiyori. As expected—Ichigo's much easier to deal with."
Cole curled his lip. "Give it a second—you won't be saying that."
Shinji sighed. "Cole, don't underestimate us. Back then I almost took down Aizen, you know?"
He had no idea what went through Cole's head. Their lineup—captain after captain, and vice-captains besides—was basically Soul Society without the Head Captain. Why did Cole always treat them like the "Seven Freaks"?
Cole looked at him strangely. "You? Almost took down Aizen? How much fake sake did you drink to dream that up?"
Back when he watched the anime, he'd been awed by the Visoreds' entrance—this had to be the crew to slice Aizen into chunks. Then a few episodes later they got steamrolled. Maximum swagger; maximum beatdown.
Veins bulged on Shinji's forehead. Before he could retort, Cole coughed twice, then mimicked Shinji's calm tone:
"Aizen... how long do you plan to keep peeping there?"
The Visoreds (minus Shinji) all jolted, eyes wide.
Aizen was nearby?
Shinji, though, gaped in disbelief.
Cole switched to Aizen's mild curiosity: "When... did you notice?"
Then back to Shinji's flat cool: "Since the day you were still in your mother's womb..."
"AAAAAHHH!!! COLE!!!"
Shinji tackled him, mortified. "How do you even know that!? There were only me and Aizen there back then—how!?"
Thinking back to that "cool" line, he wanted to find a river and jump in.
Seeing Shinji lose composure, the Visoreds' curiosity spiked. Even Hiyori paused mid-clash to glance over. "Shinji, what happened?"
Shinji flopped onto his back, staring at nothing. "It was over a hundred years ago. I realized Aizen was spying at night, so I 'warned' him a little."
As he spoke, his face flushed. He'd suspected Aizen even then, but his confidence had been boundless—and he'd paid for it with forced Hollowfication, nearly getting thrown into Muken.
Kensei gaped. "So you suspected Aizen early on—but ignored the snake out of pride?"
"Yeah..."
Shinji nodded like a man at his own funeral.
Cole drawled, "What did I say? Don't get cocky. Otherwise you'll get toyed to death by Aizen without even knowing it."
(End of Chapter)
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