The blade, wreathed in shimmering reiatsu, tore through the air with a howl, tracing a seamless arc across the female Vasto Lorde's field of vision. Dust swirled in its wake, the razor-sharp reishi membrane leaving a long, deep gash in the earth with mere wind pressure.
"First Form: Cleaving Strike!"
Makoto's roar brimmed with wild fervor.
Yet she merely watched the figure charging head-on. With a sudden flick, she raised her pure-white lance, sweeping it to the side.
Clang!
Reiatsu clashed with reiatsu, igniting a burst of radiant sparks between them.
A closer look revealed no direct contact, her reishi shield alone had halted Makoto's full-force strike.
The charging silhouette dissolved into an afterimage as it brushed past her.
Clearly, Bakudō #26: Kyokkō's light-bending wasn't foolproof against all foes.
Makoto's face held its fearless grin, but his caution had spiked to its peak.
This one outclassed Chika Shihōin's hollow bravado by leagues.
Boom!
The Vasto Lorde swung her lance, its heavy bone tip slicing the air with a ferocious whistle.
Before it, Makoto's frame seemed as light as a leaf, effortlessly flung skyward by the sweeping blow. He tumbled midair, landing with both feet skidding, carving twin trails across the ground.
[Zanjutsu +10]
[Centaur lady! My favorite centaur lady today! I'm gonna dive under your pussy and prprpr!]
Such strength.
But her weakness was glaring.
Makoto's mind plunged wholly into combat. Every sight, sound, and breath brushing his skin fused into a battle-ready tapestry within his brain.
Only now did he truly grasp that old man's words.
"Know what to do in a fight."
Makoto darted low, zigzagging across the earth. His high-speed Shunpo turned him into a serpentine streak, trailing plumes of roiling dust, blade grazing the ground.
She observed in silence.
As Makoto closed in, she thrust her lance forward, simple, unadorned.
Shick.
A faint whisper.
But in Makoto's eyes, that lance tip brimmed with monstrous, overwhelming reiatsu.
One pierce, and half his body would erupt.
This was a Vasto Lorde.
The apex of Menos Grande, rulers of Hueco Mundo, freshly formed, yet wielding power far beyond a captain's.
Yet, facing this terrifying thrust, Makoto neither dodged nor flinched.
He met it head-on.
His blade wove a fluid, water-like arc through the surging reiatsu.
Shing!
The next instant, his Zanpakuto cloaked in flowing reiatsu clashed against the lance from the front.
The moment the blade met the tip, a shrill, ear-splitting screech erupted like metal torn apart by bare hands.
Her Hierro gets grazed.
In the heartbeat before their forces peaked.
They crossed.
Makoto's eyes flooded with bloodshot veins, pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
His vision drained to a stark tableau of black, white, and gray.
Only the pulsing reiatsu retained faint glimmers.
Every detail reflected in his eyes slowed to a crawl in his mind, frame by frame, crystalline and deliberate.
[Flawless Circle]
In that fleeting window, his blade tilted by a mere 0.1 degrees.
That infinitesimal shift slashed the resistance against his hand by half.
Simultaneously, his feet erupted with ferocious reiatsu, propelling him forward at breakneck speed.
Muscles, sinews, and blade aligned into a taut bow, unleashing a strike's full might in an imperceptible flash.
"Second Form: Silent Stream!"
In that crossing instant, his blade flowed like true water, gliding along the bone lance, aiming for the Vasto Lorde's unguarded, tender chest and abdomen.
"Hm?"
Makoto's lightning-fast reaction startled even her, a Vasto Lorde.
Yet she remained unruffled.
Her outstretched lance quivered, its shaft swinging toward the blade's path.
Clang!
Sparks flared between blade and haft.
Makoto's pupils flared crimson.
A parry.
But it wasn't over.
His form slipped past her human-antelope frame as if weightless.
Then, with a fierce stamp, his reiatsu-charged feet cratered the ground, dust blooming outward.
Using the recoil, his charge bent into a razor-thin angle.
Back toward her.
The faint groan of his overburdened ankles whispered through.
His blade's surface gleamed, near-entirely sheathed in light.
"Silent Stream: Second Strike!"
This time, his target was precise.
Straight to her ass!
He'd observed keenly.
Her centaur physiology, human torso thrust forward, made guarding her rear unwieldy.
If he had any shot at wounding her, it was there!
[Shunpo +10]
[Attacking a lady's big gyatt head-on, too… too perfect for my taste! Let me feel that narrow goat trail too!!]
Sensing the sharp sting from behind, her brow creased. Her lance spun back to shield her antelope ass.
Tip clashed with blade.
Still no hit.
But a spark gleamed in Makoto's eyes.
The tip had moved!
Perhaps a hasty block, or the awkward rear angle, but it proved his tactic was sound.
[Zanjutsu +10]
[More, more! Keep charging at her big truck!!]
For once, Makoto mirrored the gremlin's zeal.
His assault lasted a mere breath, miss, retreat ten meters, avoiding her front entirely. Every strike targeted her centaur rear.
Each was thwarted by the lance, yet each felt a hair's breadth from landing.
[Zanjutsu +10]
[Zanjutsu +10]
[Zanjutsu +10]
The flurry of prompts stoked Makoto's nerves like gasoline on a campfire's edge.
Just one more swing to connect!
The Vasto Lorde frown deepened.
The relentless fixation on her antelope ass brewed an unsettling displeasure, mounting steadily.
Until, at last…
[Zanjutsu: Tier-11 ↑]
The instant his Zanjutsu ascended, a spark of revelation flared in Makoto's mind. His blade twisted midair, a half-circle pivot.
From slash to thrust.
Aimed straight at her ass.
Her eyes shrank shrouded beneath her bone helm.
Her fluffy tail shot upright in alarm!
In that same breath, her bone lance's swing surged, its conical tip cloaked in a dark cyan swell of reiatsu.
What?!
Within Makoto's [Flawless Circle] vision, the lance leaped from slow motion to triple speed.
The abrupt acceleration strained his fraying nerves, barely shifting his thrust to a parry. His body twisted aside, poised to shed the force.
Yet when that vicious strike met his blade, its landslide-like power froze him in a grayscale still.
The crushing blow reverberated from blade to shoulder to elbow, his arm buckling as if pulverized against his ribs and chest. His frail frame bent like a shrimp hurled skyward with a deafening roar, a grand slam soaring across the field.
Boom!
Rumble!
Makoto crashed and skidded, bouncing like a stone skipping water, tracing arcs before tumbling to a halt.
His black shihakushō shredded in the friction, baring a blood-streaked, sinewy frame.
His left arm dangled unnaturally, crimson trickling from shoulder to elbow, barely attached.
Clearly broken.
"Urgh..."
Sprawled, he retched a gout of blood. His sclera drowned in dark red, and his black hair once tied with grass roots spilled loose. Each breath tore at his chest.
His body quaked uncontrollably, wracked by searing pain and the agony of splintered bones, threatening to unravel his sanity.
One thought pierced the haze.
She'd been toying with me all along?
One strike.
And he was done.
The gulf between them loomed, a despairing abyss.
"Hrk… hrk…"
His gasps rasped into wet coughs, uncertain if ribs had pierced his organs.
Yet his right hand, unbroken, clung fiercely to his blade.
More than that.
The more his indomitable spirit burned, the sharper his will grew, his mind clearing.
[Wall of Sighs]
As its trait described, the one forging your strongest self is always the you who rises for one more push.
Proven eternal.
Makoto braced himself, shifting from prone to kneeling, then staggering upright.
Blade in hand, he aimed it at the distant female Vasto Lorde.
Her eyes veiled by her antelope mask met his with quiet regard.
A weirdo obsessed with asses.
Yet surprisingly tenacious.
She straightened her lance, its tip aligning with him.
Makoto extended his trembling Zanpakuto, a knight poised for duel, gaze resolute.
Battered, unbowed.
A dust-laden vortex traced a spectral line between them.
In his time in the Soul Society, Makoto had grown accustomed to life and death.
From his first descent into Zaraki District to sparring with Unohana, to joining the Genji School and facing Seireitei.
He'd always known.
People get killed, they die.
Likewise, those unready to be killed lack the right to wield a sword.
He understood it all.
But…
If possible, winning still felt better.
His hazy eyes fixed on the female Vasto Lorde, his voice rasping to his inner gremlin.
"Hey."
"I'm at this point, shouldn't you do something useful for once?"
He spoke with little hope.
From what he'd seen, countless Shinigami fought to their deaths without ever awakening their Zanpakutō.
Yet in this moment, he couldn't help grasping at faint, foolish dreams.
To his shock,
The gremlin answered.
[Huh? What… are you saying?]
[The one rejecting 'himself' has always been you, Makoto Fujimiya.]
[If you'd just embrace your true self…]
[With your purity, anything's possible!]
Rejecting… himself?
A chill gripped Makoto, his battle-hardened resolve wavering.
The gremlin's crude, vulgar taunts flooded his mind.
Hadn't he always known?
Those were his own words, spat across forums, chats, and games in his past life, bantering with strangers.
Just… shouted aloud by this gremlin, over and over, a truth he refused to own.
No more thinking!
He'd die before admitting it!
The memories alone, resurfacing one by one, tore at his psyche like a resurrected nightmare.
Online, it was just venting, empty words.
Did boasting about harems mean he'd chase one?
W-What's said online isn't real!
In real life, he'd masked his systems flawlessly!
That wasn't the real him.
So he told himself.
But as he lifted his gaze, the blood-red in his pupils flickered with a pale pink glow, faintly heart-shaped.
Crack!
Deep within, a fortress wall, unyieldingly thick, splintered with a hairline fracture.
Not shattered, but no longer impregnable.
[Yes! That's it!]
[Not quite decisive, but it'll do.]
As the voice faded.
A faint, radiant shimmer rose from Makoto's near-broken, battered frame.
He looked up, meeting her eyes.
The female Vasto Lorde's gaze faltered with a flicker of surprise.
Then, her own eyes mirrored that pale pink light.
A voice, playful yet tinged with a sickly edge, rang in both their minds.
[First, let's make a deal.]
[Until I plunge my blade into your chest, neither of us dies, okay?]
***
Bonus Chapter:
100 Power Stones = 1 BC
300 Power Stones = 2 BC
500 Power Stones = 3 BC
700 Power Stones = 4 BC
1000 Power Stones = 5 BC
***
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