Inside the Dangai passage, Isane Kotetsu moved quickly, carrying Kana Azashiro.
"Cough, cough—" Kana rubbed her head. "I can't believe I was knocked out..."
"You're awake!" Isane said happily.
"Thank you for your hard work, Isane," Kana knew it must have been difficult for Isane to get her away.
"It was the Professor's shadow that saved us!" Isane briefly explained what had just happened.
"The Professor saved me..." Kana breathed a sigh of relief. "I was too greedy. I didn't expect Szayelaporro to have an ability like that!"
His ability to transfer damage remotely through the doll had knocked her out before she could react.
Otherwise, she and Isane could have held out for a while longer.
"I've hit him four times... that should be enough for him to learn something..."
Kana assessed her experience after the fight.
After years of development, she had a clear, quantifiable standard for her Shikai ability, "Shishoku."
Both hitting and wounding an opponent could stack the effect. The effect from wounding was far greater, about ten times stronger.
She was not yet skilled with her Bankai, and its activation was slow, but she could use her Shikai to increase its power.
"Put me down!" Kana looked into the depths of the Dangai. "Szayelaporro is coming."
"Can you still fight like this?" Isane hesitated. "The injury on your leg hasn't been treated yet..."
Kana's ribs and leg bones had been broken by Szayelaporro's doll. With Isane's treatment, her ribs had healed.
But the leg injury had not yet been repaired.
"How about you carry me on your back? I can't really fight well in this position," Kana said.
Isane put her down and then picked her up onto her back.
She was tall, so carrying the smaller Kana was effortless.
"Unforgivable... unforgivable..."
A hysterical shout echoed from the passage.
"UNFORGIVABLE!!!"
Szayelaporro rushed over from the other end.
He was in a sorry state.
The 'Raihi Ryōgen: Shungeki' unleashed by Sora's shadow had caused him considerable damage.
Two of the exoskeleton tentacles on his back were broken, and the remaining two were charred black.
His skin was torn and severely burned, and his pink hair was completely gone.
"His spiritual pressure has weakened a lot! It seems the Professor's attack seriously injured him!"
Kana held her Zanpakutō horizontally in front of her, and her spiritual pressure surged.
"Bankai, Shishoku Rinten!"
A maiden over three meters tall suddenly appeared in the passage.
She had her hair in a bun, wore a red dress, and was draped in a green silk sash.
Most eye-catching were her four arms, each holding a sword.
The rushing Szayelaporro suddenly stopped.
"What's happening?!"
He felt something stirring within his body.
"My spiritual pressure!!!"
He felt his spiritual pressure rioting.
"If only I could activate more than one round at a time... I wouldn't have had to spend so much time stacking my Shikai's ability!"
Kana swung her sword, and the maiden behind her also swung one of her own.
"Shishoku Rinten: Dan-jiki!"
Incomprehensible symbols lit up on the maiden's sword.
A portion of Szayelaporro's spiritual pressure was directly pulled out of his body.
Along with it, some of his sensory abilities also left him.
In that instant, his senses of taste, smell, and spiritual perception were all greatly weakened.
"The Shinigami's spiritual pressure... has become so vague?!"
Szayelaporro was in disbelief. To his senses, the two Shinigami's spiritual pressures were now mixed with the reishi of the Dangai.
They weren't hiding their spiritual pressure. At this close distance, even an ordinary Hollow should be able to sense it clearly!
But now he had lost the ability to accurately perceive spiritual pressure.
"A shame... if I could have stacked it a few more times, I could have deprived you of your sight, hearing, and touch."
Kana looked regretful. If she could have taken away those senses as well, he would have been almost completely cut off from the outside world.
Her Bankai not only amplified her Shikai's sense-depriving effect but also weakened the opponent's spiritual pressure at the same time.
But this Bankai was difficult to control. After the first activation, she needed to wait more than ten minutes to activate it again.
The maiden swung her sword at Szayelaporro.
With his spiritual sense greatly diminished, he could only rely on his vision to track her movements.
But the maiden had absorbed a portion of his spiritual pressure, and its speed was even greater than Kana's own!
Szayelaporro had just noticed the maiden disappear when his body was struck by the sword.
Squish—
Thump—
He used Sonído to get away. When he reappeared, his body had been almost cut in half.
"Ahahahaha..." Szayelaporro's expression gradually became crazed. "Interesting... I've never been in such a dangerous situation..."
Even when he was hit by The Cleaner, he hadn't felt much danger, as he was confident he could escape the time turbulence.
But this Shinigami, who he had once toyed with, was now posing a fatal threat to him.
"Die!"
Kana didn't intend to give him a chance to breathe and continued to command the maiden to attack.
This time, Szayelaporro didn't dodge and took the attack head-on.
Squish—
The sword swung through his waist, and his body was instantly cut in two.
At the same time, his throat began to swell.
It rapidly expanded to an abnormally exaggerated size.
The next moment, he spat out two lumps of flesh.
The lumps quickly transformed, one into Szayelaporro, and the other into a blond Menos.
"Gabriel..."
A complete Szayelaporro stood up.
He had used 'Gabriel' on himself to be reborn, getting rid of the sensory deprivation and restoring his taste, smell, and spiritual sense.
Even the damage caused by Sora's shadow had completely disappeared.
However, there was a side effect—
The other consciousness in his body, the brother he had devoured in the past, was also reborn.
"This is not good... the spiritual pressure is weaker than I expected..."
Even after removing the sensory deprivation, Szayelaporro still didn't feel his chances of winning had improved.
The departure of his brother, Ilfort Grantz, had cost him more than half of his power.
"You're leaving me to face such a terrible situation? You're as awful as ever, my dear brother!" the blond Menos, Ilfort, also stood up.
"How did he turn into two? So many tricks!"
Kana could sense that after he split, his spiritual pressure had also dropped significantly. She immediately pressed her advantage.
The maiden danced in the air, and with a turn, she was instantly beside the two Menos.
"Show some brotherly love, my dear brother!"
Szayelaporro kicked his brother's butt, sending him to meet the maiden's attack.
At the same time, he swiped his hand behind him, and a Garganta tore open in the Dangai.
The maiden spun around, and her swords directly cut Ilfort into several pieces.
Although Szayelaporro had used 'Gabriel' to escape the sensory deprivation, the spiritual pressure the maiden had taken from him had not been returned!
She still had the boost from the original Szayelaporro's spiritual pressure.
And after he and Ilfort had separated, their strength had dropped greatly. With this disparity, Ilfort was completely unable to resist the maiden's attack.
"What a waste!"
Szayelaporro was furious. He had just opened the Garganta, but the maiden had already dealt with Ilfort and was now coming for him.
He turned to jump into the Garganta but was caught by the maiden. Four swords descended, cutting him into several pieces.
With no one to maintain it, the Garganta slowly closed on its own.
"Whew— using Bankai is so tiring..."
Kana was covered in sweat.
The maiden had become very powerful after getting the spiritual pressure boost, but it also dramatically increased the consumption for Kana to maintain her Bankai. After using it for less than a minute, her spiritual pressure was completely depleted.
"Finish him! Isane, finish him off quickly!"
At the critical moment, Kana remembered her professor's teaching.
Szayelaporro's abilities were too strange. If they didn't finish him off properly, he was very likely to get back up.
"Right!"
Isane put Kana down and raised her hand to chant, "...Hadō #88: Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō!"
She used the strongest Kidō she had mastered.
After the long incantation, a terrifying beam of light blasted towards Szayelaporro's remains.
"BOOM—!!!"
"Aaargh!!!"
A chilling scream came from the remains, but under the powerful Kidō blast, they were quickly turned to dust.
"He really wasn't dead..." Kana was relieved to see Isane's follow-up attack succeed.
"Kana, your Zanpakutō is so beautiful," Isane couldn't help but say, looking at the fading maiden.
Kana's Bankai was a summoning type.
The form it revealed was the materialization of her Zanpakutō spirit.
Summoning-type Bankai were relatively rare in the entire Soul Society.
"Quick, help me up!" Kana held out her hand. "I'm exhausted, but she's had her fill!"
"You're amazing. It'll probably be a long time before I learn Bankai," Isane quickly helped her up.
Perhaps due to the communication between foodies, Kana and her Zanpakutō got along very well, and she had obtained her Bankai's true name without much effort.
"It was thanks to the Professor leaving a shadow... otherwise, I wouldn't have even had the chance to use my Bankai," Kana reflected on her earlier greed for a quick kill.
However, she still couldn't actively control the timing of her Bankai's ability.
If she didn't stack her Shikai's effect first, the first round of her Bankai's ability would be wasted, and it wasn't certain if she could last until the next round.
"Professor..." Isane used her Denreishinki to contact Sora and report the situation.
...
The human world, Naruki region.
"As long as you two are alright. Take Kana back to the Soul Society. I just received news that reinforcements from the 3rd and 4th Divisions have arrived."
After saying that, Sora put away his Denreishinki.
Kana was temporarily out of combat, so there was no need for them to continue to the front lines.
"Captain, you should pitch in too!"
Urahara complained.
He and Mayuri were holding back the Quincy troops' attack.
"Didn't I just cut one down..."
Sora pulled his Zanpakutō from a Quincy's corpse.
"You've just been standing there for a while."
Urahara rolled his eyes.
"The Captain is the commander-in-chief of this war. He naturally has to divide his attention to command other fronts."
Mayuri couldn't resist retorting.
"That's right. I was just commanding the other fronts,"
Sora nodded and looked at the new wave of Quincy. "An army of one. What a troublesome ability."
"What kind of monster is this... to be able to materialize such a real existence through imagination."
Urahara looked at the blond boy, Gremmy, who was standing on a tree branch, his face grim.
This Quincy boy made no effort to hide his ability and had even patiently explained it to them.
He could use his imagination to bring the things in his mind into the real world.
"I'm going to open up his brain and study its secrets!"
Mayuri pulled his Zanpakutō from the throat of a pink-haired old man.
In front of the three of them already lay the corpses of several buzz-cut men and pink-haired old men.
They had killed more than just these; many more corpses had already disappeared.
These were all Quincy subordinates that Gremmy had replicated with his imagination.
"Can't you come up with something new?" Mayuri took out a 'Gintō'-like spiritual tool from his sleeve and threw it forward. "If your IQ is normal, you should have realized by now that these things you create are useless against me."
A pink mist emanated from the bullet-casing-sized tool.
Within the mist, several pink-haired old men appeared where there had been nothing before.
"Are you tired of playing?" Gremmy leaned against a large tree, his hands in his pockets, and said unhurriedly, "I wanted to see how many more spiritual tools you could pull out... We clearly didn't leak any intel, yet you came so prepared!"
Gremmy was curious as to how Mayuri had prepared so many spiritual tools that made the pink-haired old man visible.
His intel had not been leaked in advance. Mayuri didn't know about the old man's ability, yet he had come prepared.
"Hehehehe..." Mayuri let out a strange laugh. "I just like to be prepared for all sorts of unexpected events. You just happened to run into one of them."
"Is that so?" Gremmy smiled slightly. "Then let's play a different game."
"I imagine..." Gremmy pulled his hand from his pocket and snapped his fingers. "That this is a high-reishi land with an extremely high concentration of spiritual particles."
The riverside forest disappeared, and many white buildings appeared in its place.
The foothold that Mayuri had created from condensed reishi under his feet instantly disintegrated.
Losing his footing, he fell directly from the air.
---------------------
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