A pillar of blinding blue light tore through the false sky of Hueco Mundo, a beacon of raw power that shook the very foundations of Las Noches. The spiritual particles in the air, the reishi that formed the very ground and atmosphere, began to stir violently. Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, visible streams of energy—shimmering, ethereal strands—coalesced and surged toward the battlefield where Amamiya Miyako faced the behemoth Yammy.
Inside the main hall of Las Noches, the phenomenon was impossible to ignore.
"Tch. To summon us to this desolate place for such mediocre specimens. Not even worthy of being dissection subjects…" Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi complained, effortlessly dispatching a lesser Arrancar with a flick of his wrist.
Nearby, Uryū Ishida fought with grim determination, his disdain for the Twelfth Division Captain warring with the necessity of their temporary alliance. He nocked another Heilig Pfeil, drawing back the string of his Seele Schneider—but then, his spiritual bow flickered and vanished into nothingness.
"What's going on?!" Uryū exclaimed, staring at his empty hands.
"Hey, Quincy boy! Look outside!" Mayuri's voice was uncharacteristically serious, all traces of his earlier boredom gone. He was remembering a similar, terrifying power from his past—a power that had nearly killed him. But this time, it wasn't emanating from the boy beside him.
Uryū rushed to a broken section of the wall and stared out. The sight was breathtaking and terrifying. Countless particles of reishi, glowing like a river of stars, were being violently ripped from the environment and pulled toward a single point outside the fortress. He tried again to form his bow, but the reishi refused to obey his call.
"Impossible! As a Quincy, I can't even gather reishi?!"
"Fool," Mayuri snapped, his eyes narrowed as he watched distant structures begin to subtly decay, their material breaking down into spiritual energy. "This is beyond simple manipulation. This is domination. The very reishi is being subjugated."
A cold dread washed over Uryū. "You mean… the Letzt Stil?!" He remembered the terrifying power he himself had once wielded, the ultimate technique that cost a Quincy their powers.
"That's the one. Now, Quincy boy, who is out there fighting that oversized Arrancar?" Mayuri asked, his voice tight. The sheer density of gathered reishi was making it difficult to sense individual reiatsu.
"It should be… Amamiya!" Uryū's eyes widened in realization. He recalled Miyako's intense questioning about the Quincy, about the Sanrei Glove and its ultimate technique. "Could he have actually achieved it? Without the Sanrei Glove?!" The thought was both awe-inspiring and horrifying.
Elsewhere, Rukia, who had been recovering under the care of Captain Retsu Unohana, looked up as the artificial sky outside the windows seemed to dim. Then, the colossal pillar of light erupted, shattering the dome above and reaching into the true void of Hueco Mundo.
"That direction… it's Miyako! What is that? Is that his Bankai?!" Rukia gasped.
Captain Unohana, however, remained silent, a deep frown on her normally placid face. As a veteran of the ancient Quincy-Shinigami wars, she recognized this phenomenon all too well. This was Quincy power, but refined and controlled in a way that felt… different. More advanced.
Even the unconscious Sexta Espada, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, was momentarily roused by the cataclysmic shift in spiritual pressure. His bleary eyes cracked open, catching a glimpse of a distant, cross-shaped halo of light amidst the chaos.
"What the hell is that…?" he slurred, before his injuries overpowered him and he slumped back into unconsciousness, the image of the shattering cross burned into his mind.
On the battlefield, the blinding light forced the gargantuan Yammy to shield his eyes with his hand. A profound, solemn bell toll echoed in the air, a sound that seemed to resonate with the soul itself. Then, a voice cut through the luminescent chaos, calm and clear.
"My apologies. This is my first time activating this form in such a reishi-dense environment. The gathering process took a bit longer than anticipated."
CRACK!
A pair of magnificent, gigantic wings of solid blue light burst from the pillar, their span so immense they dwarfed even Yammy's colossal frame. The pillar of light then shattered like glass, fracturing into a million glittering shards that rained down upon the sands. As the light faded, it revealed Amamiya Miyako, transformed.
Yammy stared, a primal sense of dread coiling in his gut. "You! What's with those wings?!"
Miyako glanced at the enormous, cumbersome wings on his back, a look of understanding dawning on his face. "I see. The initial absorption was excessive due to the environment. Such a flashy, impractical form is meaningless." He closed his eyes, concentrating. The massive wings began to shrink and condense, their energy compressing into a more refined, potent state.
Yammy's fear turned to frantic aggression. He wouldn't let this transformation complete! He opened his massive maw, a swirling vortex of crimson energy gathering. "CERO!" he roared, firing a blast of pure destruction directly at the hovering Shinigami.
Miyako didn't flinch. He simply raised a single hand. Reishi converged before him with impossible speed, forming a massive, intricate shield of blue light. Yammy's Cero struck the shield with the force of a meteor—and splashed against it like water against a mountainside. The shield didn't just hold; it didn't even acquire a scratch.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" Yammy bellowed, his mind reeling. "My full-power Cero… it didn't even leave a mark?!"
"You are impatient," Miyako's voice was cool from behind the dissipating shield. "But your instinct was correct. That moment was your last chance to stop me."
The shield vanished, and Yammy finally saw the completed form. His multiple eyes twitched uncontrollably.
Amamiya Miyako was now clad in an armor of flowing, living light. Sleek, azure plates covered his chest, arms, and legs, within which a substance resembling a starry cosmos shimmered and swirled. The wings on his back were now a manageable size, and a graceful, cross-shaped halo of light hovered serenely above his head. His boots were fashioned from the same material, with small, elegant wings at the heels. Even his Bankai bow, the God-Slaying Cleansing Bow, had been enhanced, with two long, ethereal blue ribbons now flowing from its limbs.
Miyako looked at his own hands, a genuine, exhilarated smile gracing his features. "This power… it's beautiful. This reishi armor… it's as if I'm wearing the very cosmos itself!"
Enraged and terrified, Yammy swung his other fist, a blow that could level a district of Seireitei. Miyako merely exhaled. The small wings on his boots flared, and he vanished, using Hirenkyaku to flash past the incoming fist and appear on Yammy's shoulder.
"This arm," Miyako stated, his tone matter-of-fact. "Let's remove it first."
He swung his hand back, and the ambient reishi screamed in response, rushing to his call. It condensed not into a simple blade of light, but into a colossal greatsword of pure energy, its length exceeding the width of Yammy's own shoulder. It took only a few seconds to form this monstrous, forty-meter-long weapon.
By the time Yammy realized what was happening and tried to swat him away, it was too late. Miyako, gripping the hilt of the massive reishi blade with both hands, brought it down in a clean, devastating arc.
A perfectly smooth line appeared on Yammy's shoulder. For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then, a geyser of dark blood erupted, and the Espada's enormous arm plummeted to the ground, impacting the sand with a earth-shaking THOOM that sent a cloud of dust billowing into the air.
"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!"
Yammy's scream of pure, unadulterated agony was deafening, a roar of pain and disbelief that echoed across the entire white desert, forcing everyone who heard it to instinctively cover their ears.