"Revolve—Getsugetsuen!"
Inside the Dangai, Yoshima Ōshu unleashed his Zanpakutō.
He'd never truly fought a Captain-class Soul Reaper before. That was about to change.
"Akasame Retreat!"
He plunged his blade into the reishi waterfalls hemming him in. Instantly, the Zanpakutō's ability activated—transforming those torrential streams into raw spiritual pressure and feeding it directly into him.
Gyakukotsu, the grizzled relic of the First Generation, narrowed his eyes.
A power that absorbs enemy reiryoku and converts it into one's own?
He'd seen worse—and weirder.
"Absorbing my reiatsu, huh? Not bad," he sneered.
But to a man forged in war's furnace, tricks were just noise.
"Jigokunaki—Raku Bone!"
A faint pink reishi bloomed around his body—then vanished as it was pulled into him.
"I say… this strike will sever your left arm."
The words hadn't even reached Ōshu's ears before the old man was already upon him, blade raised to cleave.
But Ōshu vanished—no, more precisely, slipped into another dimension of his own making.
Rai Kū...
Within his private spatial fold, Ōshu steadied himself, heart still pounding.
Too fast.
If his mastery of spatial construction hadn't been honed over hundreds of years in the Dangai, he'd have lost his arm.
All thanks to Lord Shuuichi.
All credit to Lord Shuuichi.
It was his training plan that had obsessed Ōshu with refining the base ability of his Zanpakutō to its current level.
Without that?
He might already be in Hell.
He recalled what Lord Shuuichi once whispered to him about that place... shivered.
Within his constructed space, he drew a slow arc through the air with his blade.
"Rai Kū—Stride!"
The world unfolded.
Within his vision, the Living World, the Dangai, parts of Soul Society—all mapped into coordinates.
Regions he'd overlaid with his spatial signature during the last seven years (or centuries in his experience) turned into portals.
With a thought, he could leap to any of them.
He chose—behind Gyakukotsu.
"Ohhh, so spatial traversal is also part of your Zanpakutō, huh?" the old man chuckled, eyes glinting.
"I figured it was some Soul Society technique.
Heh. I gotta admit—this one even makes an old geezer like me jealous."
But even as he spoke, his expression never faltered, as if this had all been expected.
"You forced my hand," Ōshu said, face grim.
"In this realm, no Soul Reaper can operate at full strength. The greater your reiatsu, the harder time twists to crush you.
To survive here for so long already proves how elite I am.
But that's the limit.
You, Gyakukotsu, a so-called First Generation Captain—
You're no match for me inside my own space where time and reiatsu pressure can't touch me!"
He was talking to himself more than to his enemy, but he didn't care.
Ōshu never inherited Shuuichi's silent fighter trait—he liked to proclaim.
"Thousands of hands, untouched by the shadowed hand of silence—Heaven's Archer, who mirrors not the sky.
Flames of the torchbearer stirred by wind, converge, unfaltering.
Obey my command—Light Bullet, Eighth Body, Ninth Line, Heavenly Doctrine, Swift Treasure, Great Wheel!
Ashen turret, draw bow to the farthest horizon—
Hadō #91: Senju Kōten Taihō!"
No fancy tricks.
Lord Shuuichi never taught him that crap.
His method was simple: absorb, amplify, release.
If you had enough reiatsu, even Hadō #1—Shō—could kill a Captain outright.
Ōshu agreed wholeheartedly.
Now, within his sanctum, powered by absorbed rage and Gyakukotsu's own spiritual pressure, the luminous barrage surged.
It tore through his space—
—And emerged behind Gyakukotsu.
Ōshu grinned.
Not even Lord Shuuichi would tank this lightly.
But the old man—
He danced.
Ugly. Crude. Ungraceful.
Yet the beams of light were carved away, one by one.
The elegant explanation: he used spiritual finesse to parry.
The honest one?
He just unleashed absurdly dense reiryoku, swung his blade, and brute-forced the barrage into nonexistence.
It was pay-to-win, not technique.
An endless well of spiritual pressure.
And that was the problem.
Shuuichi himself couldn't linger long in the Dangai—his spiritual pressure wore down under time's tidal force.
Even he needed to retreat quickly, lest he be shredded.
But Gyakukotsu?
He stood there like he was home.
His name might mean "Rebel Bone," but that didn't give him a pass to break the rules.
Ōshu couldn't compute it.
And in his distraction, he missed it:
Two faint white rings—one on each of his arms.
The battle wasn't over.
Normal spells failed. Time to consult the Gospel of Shuuichi™.
Plan A: overwhelm with spiritual pressure + high-level kidō. Already tried. Failed.
Plan B: Rai Kū—Dangai Exile.
Trap the enemy inside the Dangai and let the currents consume him.
But this guy treated the Dangai like a damned vacation house.
So that left… Plan C.
"Rai Kū—Insignia."
Ōshu spun his Zanpakutō thrice.
Ghostly images flared around it—snapshots of everything since Gyakukotsu appeared.
Originally, this ability only recorded events within Ōshu's created spaces.
But after centuries, he'd synchronized his dimension with the Dangai itself.
Now, all of the Dangai was his.
He didn't just record it—he could replay it.
"Jigokunaki—Hi Bone!"
In a mirrored replay, the exact death-infused reishi torrents that once trapped Ōshu now reappeared—this time, around Gyakukotsu.
"Not bad... you've got some bite, huh?"
The old man still looked smug.
"Jigokunaki—Raku Bone!"
Ōshu struck, cutting toward Gyakukotsu inside the mirrored space.
But… something was off.
That speed, that overwhelming advance from earlier—it hadn't been empowered by his Zanpakutō.
It was just raw base power.
Worse yet—
A white ring had appeared around Gyakukotsu's left arm.
And around Ōshu's own arms... and legs...
All four limbs now bore those white bands.
"Heh... you noticed?"
The voice came from outside, but the message was clear.
From the stall in attacks.
From the ring around his own arm.
Gyakukotsu had deduced Ōshu's mimicry.
A copycat, huh?
That's all you are.
A trash-tier ability.
Gyakukotsu grinned wide.
Finally, he bared his fangs.
"Jigokunaki—Ai Bone!"
The third and final movement.
Hi Bone to trap, Raku Bone to echo—Ai Bone to sever.
Blade tip enters the void.
Blade tip closes the story.
Three acts.
One funeral.
Ōshu's pupils widened.
He watched—helpless—as the white lines pulled tight.
And his limbs detached from his torso in four clean breaks.
In a flash, he lost all control over his own body.
"Pity.
I was going to mark your neck too, but since you noticed the trick early, I had to settle.
Still—result's the same, eh, boy?"
Ōshu's eye—only his eye—remained visible, peeking from the collapsed spatial bubble.
He hovered before Gyakukotsu, nearly reduced to a torso with a head.
With sheer will, he held the space intact.
If it broke now, the Dangai would devour him instantly.
"You… can't be a real First Gen… Who the hell are you?! What do you want?!"
He demanded answers—not out of hope, but because he refused to die ignorant.
But the reply?
Made his heart freeze.
"Well, to be fair, I'm not a true Shinigami anymore.
I'm dead.
Just a spirit… dragged back from the underworld by someone with a lot of effort."
His tone was dry.
"And? Who cares?
To the Living, Soul Reapers are already dead men.
So what's a soul-of-a-soul to them?"
Ōshu couldn't respond.
"You wanna know why I came back?
Simple.
I lost.
To him.
And I couldn't stomach it.
Now that someone's dragged me out of Hell, I figure...
Why not settle an old score?"
He turned.
Exposed his back.
Ōshu stared—gasped.
On Gyakukotsu's spine was an etched sigil.
Familiar. Horrifying.
It matched the Kamon—a forbidden crest Shuuichi had once asked him to research.
A Hell-summoning brand used by one of the Five Great Noble Clans: the Kama Clan.
Subtle differences in shape… but it was the same.
"You recognize it?"
Gyakukotsu chuckled. "Thought so."
He sealed his robes again, then spoke:
"But that's not important.
You wanna know what is?
I came alone.
But I'm not the only one."
Ōshu's breath caught.
"There are more like me—
Ones who never accepted that old bastard Yamamoto's rule.
They're waiting.
They'll come too."
He smirked darkly.
"But they'll be disappointed.
Because by the time they arrive—
Soul Society will already be in ruins, thanks to me."
His laughter echoed like a funeral bell through the Dangai.