In the Dangai Precipice World, Isane moved swiftly while carrying Kana in her arms.
"Ugh... cough—" Kana rubbed her head. "I actually got knocked out..."
"You're awake!" Isane said joyfully.
"Thank you, Isane." Kana understood how difficult it must've been for Isane to carry her out.
"It was sensei's shadow that saved us!" Isane briefly explained what had happened.
"We were saved by sensei...? I see..." Kana exhaled in relief. "It was my greed for the blade... I didn't expect Szayelaporro to have such an ability!"
Szayelaporro had used his puppet manipulation to transmit damage remotely, knocking her out before she could react.
Otherwise, with her and Isane working together, they could've held out much longer.
"I slashed Szayelaporro four times... that should be enough to trigger one rotation..."
Kana mentally calculated her gain from the battle.
After years of refining her Shikai ability, Shishoku, she had formed a more quantifiable understanding of how it worked.
Hits and injuries both stacked its power, but wounds contributed roughly ten times more than simple contact.
Her Bankai activation was still unrefined and slower to trigger, but she could amplify it using her Shikai's stacking effect.
"Put me down," Kana said, looking toward the depths of the Dangai. "Szayelaporro is coming."
"Can you still fight?" Isane hesitated. "Your leg still hasn't been treated..."
Szayelaporro had crushed a few of Kana's ribs and leg bones via his puppet skill. Thanks to Isane's Kaidō, her ribs had healed, but the leg injury remained.
"Then maybe carry me on your back. I can't fight well in this position."
Isane set Kana down and slung her over her back with ease. Being tall, carrying the smaller Kana was no trouble.
"Unforgivable... unforgivable..."
A hysterical roar echoed down the corridor.
"UNFORGIVABLE!!!"
Szayelaporro came charging from the opposite side of the passage.
He looked ragged. The Thunderfire Wild Blaze: Shun Strike that Nanatsuki's shadow had used earlier had inflicted serious damage.
Two of his exoskeletal tentacles had been severed; the other two were charred. His skin was torn and burned, and his pink hair had been completely incinerated.
"His Reiatsu is way weaker! Sensei's attack must've hurt him badly!"
Kana raised her Zanpakutō and let her Reiatsu surge within her.
"Bankai—Shishoku Rinten!"
Suddenly, a towering flying goddess over three meters tall manifested within the Dangai.
Her hair was tied up, she wore a crimson dress, and her shoulders were draped in a sheer green shawl.
Most striking of all, the celestial goddess had four arms, each wielding a sword.
Szayelaporro suddenly froze in place.
"What's happening?!"
He felt something inside his body begin to stir.
"My Reiatsu!!!"
It was rioting within him.
'If I could trigger more rotations in a shorter time... I wouldn't have needed to stack the Shikai so long!'
Kana swung her sword, and the flying goddess behind her mirrored the motion with one of her own blades.
"Shishoku Rinten—Dan Shoku!"
The sword in the flying goddess's hand lit up with arcane sigils.
A burst of Reiatsu was extracted directly from Szayelaporro's body.
Along with it, his sensory abilities were partially ripped away.
In an instant, his taste, smell, and spiritual perception were heavily dulled.
"The Shinigami's Reiatsu... it's so vague now?!"
Szayelaporro couldn't believe it. The spiritual signatures of the two Shinigami had merged into the Dangai's Reishi stream. They hadn't even masked their Reiatsu—at this close range, even a low-level Hollow could detect them.
But now, he couldn't perceive anything accurately.
"Pity... if I had stacked more, I could've taken your sight, hearing, and touch too."
Kana frowned in regret. If she had managed that, Szayelaporro would've been completely disconnected from the world.
Her Bankai not only enhanced her Shikai's sensory deprivation but also weakened her target's Reiatsu as it stripped away each sense.
However, the Bankai was hard to control. After the first rotation, it required over ten minutes of cooldown before another round could be used.
The flying goddess raised her blade and struck at Szayelaporro.
With his spiritual perception greatly reduced, he had to rely solely on vision.
But the flying goddess had absorbed part of his Reiatsu and was even faster than Kana herself.
Before Szayelaporro could react, he was struck by her sword.
Slash—!
He barely had time to flash away, but even then, his body was nearly cut in half.
"Ahahahaha..." Szayelaporro's expression turned crazed. "Interesting... I've never been in such danger..."
Not even when the Kōtotsu had sent him into the time stream had he felt this threatened. He had believed he could escape that. But this Shinigami, once a toy to him, now posed a lethal threat.
"Die!"
Kana gave him no breathing room. She directed the flying goddess to strike again.
This time, Szayelaporro didn't dodge.
Slash—!
The blade cleaved him in two at the waist.
At the same time, his throat began to swell.
It ballooned grotesquely, and in the next instant, he vomited out two large lumps of flesh.
They quickly morphed—one becoming Szayelaporro, the other a golden-haired Hollow.
"Gabriel's Conception..."
The reformed Szayelaporro stood tall.
By using Gabriel's Conception, he had rebirthed himself—recovering his senses and undoing all previous injuries, including those from Nanatsuki's shadow.
But this had a side effect—the consciousness of his older brother, once consumed, was reborn as well.
"This isn't good... my Reiatsu dropped more than expected..."
Even though he had restored his senses, Szayelaporro didn't feel any more confident.
With Yylfordt Granz's revival, he had lost half his power.
"You expect me to clean up this mess? Still the same as ever, dear brother!" said the golden-haired Hollow, standing up.
"Now there's two of them? So many tricks!"
Kana could sense that their combined Reiatsu had weakened significantly. She pressed the advantage.
The flying goddess twisted in the air and appeared between the two Hollows.
"Show some love for your brother, dear elder!"
Szayelaporro kicked Yylfordt square in the butt, sending him toward the flying goddess's attack.
At the same time, Szayelaporro tore a Garganta open in the Dangai.
The flying goddess spun and cleaved Yylfordt into pieces.
Even though Szayelaporro had undone his sensory loss, the Reiatsu that the goddess had stolen was never returned.
She still carried his full power boost.
Now that Szayelaporro and Yylfordt had separated, their individual strength had dropped sharply. As a result, Yylfordt was no match.
"Useless trash!"
Szayelaporro fumed. Just as he opened the Garganta, the flying goddess finished Yylfordt and turned her blades toward him.
He tried to jump through the Garganta but was caught.
All four swords descended and carved him into pieces.
With no one maintaining it, the Garganta slowly closed.
"Hah... Bankai is exhausting..."
Kana was drenched in sweat.
The flying goddess had become incredibly powerful from Szayelaporro's Reiatsu, but maintaining her drained Kana rapidly. In under a minute, her spiritual power was nearly gone.
"Finish him! Isane, finish him off!"
Kana suddenly remembered her sensei's advice.
Szayelaporro's powers were far too bizarre. If they didn't obliterate him, he might get back up.
"Okay!"
Isane set Kana down and began chanting.
"Hadō #88: Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō!"
She unleashed her strongest Kidō.
As the long incantation ended, a terrifying beam blasted Szayelaporro's remains.
BOOM—!!!
"AHHHH!!!"
Szayelaporro's remains let out a blood-curdling scream but were quickly reduced to ash under the assault.
"He really wasn't dead..." Kana sighed in relief as Isane finished the job.
"Your Zanpakutō is so beautiful, Kana," Isane said, gazing at the fading goddess above.
Kana's Bankai was a summoned-spirit type, an embodiment of her Zanpakutō's true form—an extremely rare kind in all of Soul Society.
"Help me up!" Kana extended a hand. "I'm wiped. She ate well, though!"
"That was amazing... I'm still so far from unlocking my own Bankai," Isane said as she helped her up.
Perhaps it was their shared love of food that allowed Kana to bond with her Zanpakutō so easily. She hadn't struggled much to learn its true name.
"All thanks to sensei leaving that shadow behind... otherwise I wouldn't have had a chance to use it at all." Kana reflected on her earlier greed for the blade.
She still couldn't control the timing of Shishoku Rinten freely.
Without first stacking her Shikai, the first round of her Bankai might be wasted—and she couldn't guarantee she'd last long enough for a second.
"Sensei..." Isane activated the Denreishinki and reported their status.
In the World of the Living—Naruki District.
"As long as you're safe. Bring Kana back to Soul Society. I just got word: the 3rd and 4th Divisions have arrived in the World of the Living."
Nanatsuki put the Denreishinki away.
Kana was currently unable to fight—no reason to leave her on the frontlines.
"Captain, could you at least do something?" Urahara Kisuke complained.
He and Mayuri Kurotsuchi were currently holding back the Quincy forces.
"I just took one out, didn't I?"
Nanatsuki pulled his Zanpakutō from a Quincy corpse.
"You've been standing there for ages."
Urahara rolled his eyes.
"Captain Nanatsuki is the commander-in-chief. Of course he needs to manage the broader battlefield."
Mayuri couldn't resist snapping back.
"Exactly. I was coordinating other fronts just now." Nanatsuki nodded, eyeing the fresh Quincy forces. "One-man army types... such a pain."
"What kind of monster is this kid..." Urahara said, face dark as he looked up at the blond boy standing atop a tree branch.
The Quincy boy, Gremmy, made no effort to hide his power and even patiently explained it.
He could use imagination to materialize anything from his mind into the real world.
"I want to open up his head and study what's inside!" Mayuri yanked his Zanpakutō out of a pink-haired elder's throat.
Several corpses of buzzcut men and pink-haired elders already lay at their feet.
And there had been more—Gremmy had created these clones using his imagination.
"Running out of ideas?" Mayuri tossed out a silver cylinder-like device. "If your brain functions normally, you should realize these creations are useless against me."
The tool scattered pink mist as it activated.
Within the fog, more pink-haired elders emerged where none had been before.
"Already bored?" Gremmy leaned against the tree, hands in his pockets. "I was hoping to see how many tools you'd prepared... We never leaked information—how did you have so much ready?"
He was genuinely curious how Mayuri had so many counters ready despite knowing nothing of the ability.
"Heheheh..." Mayuri let out a grotesque laugh. "I just like being prepared for all eventualities. You simply triggered one of them."
"Is that so?" Gremmy smiled faintly. "Then let's try something different."
"I imagine..." Gremmy snapped his fingers. "This place is now a high-Reishi zone."
The riverside forest vanished, replaced by rows of white buildings.
The Reishi platform under Mayuri's feet collapsed.
Without footing, Mayuri plummeted from the sky.