Homura Kudanoki saw this horrifying scene, and a chill ran down his spine.
"Shū Nukii! What's going on?!" Homura shouted. Shū had never told him the "divine sword" was this dangerous!
"Don't worry. Their Spiritual Pressure was not enough, so they suffered a backlash. Your Spiritual Pressure is sufficient to nurture it," Shū Nukii said reassuringly.
He went over and checked the three swords left on the ground, finding that they were all cracked.
"They failed to forge. What a waste of three sword blanks... the success rate is so low. At least one has to succeed!" Shū thought to himself. He had only obtained four blanks; if the last one also failed, all his effort would be for nothing.
He turned to Homura and said enticingly, "You see? The inferior spiritual energy flowing through them even damaged the 'divine sword' blanks. You are different. The bloodline of the Kudanoki family is noble. You will soon be able to fully nurture the blade."
"It had better be," Homura said, half-convinced. Though he was suspicious, he was now like a gambler who had already invested too much. After tasting the pleasure of constantly growing stronger, he couldn't bring himself to abandon it.
"Homura, keep infusing it with your Spiritual Pressure. I can feel it—the 'divine sword' is about to be born! Then you will obtain power comparable to a Shikai!" Shū said, gently stroking Homura's sword, a look of fascination in his eyes.
Homura also wanted to see the sword's true form and poured his Spiritual Pressure into it. After a while, its appearance gradually changed.
The tsuba transformed into a round disc with a mirrored surface. The hilt turned into red tentacles that wrapped around and consumed Homura's wrist.
"What is this? Shū, what's happening to the sword?!" Homura panicked. He tried to cut off the supply of Spiritual Pressure, but the sword on his hand continued to drain him, tightening its grip. He couldn't shake it off.
On the other side, Shū was ecstatic. "Success... it's a success..."
"Make it stop!" Homura lunged at Shū, easily tackling him to the ground. Both were stunned.
Homura's strength had originally been much weaker than Shū's, but now he had overpowered him. Shū also hadn't anticipated that Homura's strength would increase so much in such a short time, and he had no time to dodge.
Homura's face was狰狞 as he roared, "Shū Nukii! Make it stop, or I'll kill you!"
"You... calm down..." Shū panicked, finding he couldn't break free. "This is a normal phenomenon! The 'divine sword' is transforming! You're about to have the power of a seated officer... no, a captain!"
"Nonsense! I'm being drained dry!" Homura felt his spiritual body growing empty and a tearing pain throughout. He refused to believe it. The power he was displaying now all belonged to this evil sword; he himself couldn't sustain it!
"Shū, if you don't make it stop, I'll kill you right now!"
"I can't stop it either!" Shū truly couldn't. During the forging, the blank was bound to consume a spiritual body. The process was irreversible. Even cutting off his hand wouldn't stop it now.
"Then die!"
"No—no—wait!"
A longsword fell, and Shū's head rolled to the side. After his head fell, he didn't die immediately and could only stare in despair at the headless body before him.
He never would have thought that he would be killed by Homura Kudanoki at the last moment of reaping his rewards. In his mind, Homura was just a piece of trash who couldn't even become a Shinigami after graduation.
The divine sword is truly amazing, he thought, to be able to make a piece of trash so strong, even able to overpower an official Shinigami. A pity I couldn't experience the divine sword's power... no... perhaps I already have...
A moment later, Shū Nukii completely sank into eternal darkness.
When Sora and Aizen arrived, they saw Homura Kudanoki lying on the ground, more than half of his body enveloped by the red tentacles extending from the sword's hilt.
"He's at the end of his rope," Aizen saw his state at a glance.
A black shadow spread rapidly through the forest, dyeing every flower, blade of grass, tree, and grain of sand black. Sora used Shadow Bind on everything within a hundred-meter radius except for Aizen and Homura.
This was a method he had come up with to force out invisible units. Using Shadow Bind on enemies with strong Spiritual Pressure consumed a lot of energy, but using it on ordinary objects consumed very little. Therefore, he could judge whether someone was hiding nearby in a stealth cloak based on the amount of Spiritual Pressure consumed.
After confirming, there was no one hiding.
Sora walked to Homura's side, the shadow disguise fading away. "Homura Kudanoki," he said. He could see Homura was beyond saving but still used Kaidō on him.
Under its effect, the pain lessened considerably.
"Professor... Katori?" Homura's eyes widened, thinking he was hallucinating.
"It's me. Why are you here?" Sora asked.
"Professor... am I going to die... please, save me... I don't want to die!" Homura said, as if grasping at a final straw.
"I can only ease your pain," Sora shook his head.
Tears streamed from Homura's eyes. He hated himself for trusting Shū. "It was Shū Nukii!"
Although he had already killed Shū with his own hands, it wasn't enough to quell his resentment. He didn't want to let the Nukii family go; he wanted the entire Nukii family to be buried with him!
In his final moments, Homura told Sora everything, begging him to pass the information to his family.
Then, the red tentacles, which had spread all over his body, completely consumed him.
"Please... tell my family... it was Shū Nukii who did this to me!" His final plea reached Sora's ears.
"The bitter fruit of greed and ambition," Aizen judged coolly in his heart.
"A long time ago, I believed that humanity fears loneliness, while divinity craves it..." Sora said, his face expressionless. "Sōsuke, tell me, between us who are called Shinigami, and humans, how much of a difference is there really?"
Aizen pushed up his glasses and said slowly, "Professor, I am not yet a Shinigami."
The moonlight glinted off his lenses, making it impossible to read the expression underneath.
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