Rukongai.
Inside the woods, Enrakyōten sprinted at full speed.
Someone had suddenly bailed it out—an opportunity this good meant it had to escape the Tsunayashiro estate immediately.
As a Zanpakutō passed down for a million years, it carried a side effect: it shaved away the user's soul. Because of that, the Tsunayashiro heads throughout history had often kept it sealed away.
The current head, Tsunayashiro Takehiko, did use it from time to time—but he'd also relied on some unknown, specialized technique to avoid the soul-draining backlash.
For Enrakyōten, a Shinigami's soul was mandatory fuel.
Takehiko wanted to use its power without "paying" in souls—someone trying to freeload like that would eventually squeeze it dry. If it stayed, it would be used up and discarded.
Now that it was finally free, all it needed was a secluded place to lie low until the storm passed—then it could hunt Shinigami souls in the shadows.
But—
Feeling that unfamiliar Reiatsu chasing it relentlessly through the air, Enrakyōten's expression twisted into something ugly.
It looked like Takehiko had no intention of letting it go.
And the pressure coming from behind told it the pursuer was fast.
If it kept running, it would just bleed power.
Better to find a good ambush spot—kill the pursuer before other Shinigami arrived—and swallow their soul to strengthen itself.
Decision made, Enrakyōten abruptly changed course, veering toward the remote outskirts of Rukongai.
Naraku paused for a beat—then the familiar grin curled back onto his face as he stoked his Reiatsu and burst after it.
Before long, Enrakyōten stopped in a valley.
"Shinigami. This ends here."
The two mouths in its eye-sockets opened and closed; a short sentence split between two mouths was grotesque in a way that crawled under the skin.
"It talks?" Naraku blinked. "I thought you were mute."
Enrakyōten's face darkened. The mouths in its eye-sockets moved in sync—and a strange ripple of power spread outward.
Having taken half of Takehiko's Reiatsu when it broke free, it could clearly read Naraku's level.
Heh. Fourth Grade.
A bug it could crush with one hand.
Threads of electricity surfaced across Enrakyōten's body. In an instant, wild golden lightning wrapped around it—shuddering, then erupting.
Amid a storm of sharp, birdlike shrieks, thunder carrying pure destruction surged up its blade and speared toward the sky.
No talking. No testing.
Enrakyōten opened with a brutally decisive attack.
Lightning became a pillar, vomiting scorching heat as it clawed toward Naraku's position.
Kōkō Gonryō Rikyū!
In that instant the ground bucked. A colossal impact slammed down. Heat drowned everything—pure annihilation swallowing Naraku whole.
Enrakyōten assumed that would erase a vice-captain-level Shinigami on the spot.
But then a bright white line tore through the lightning.
Naraku drew—
Secret Art: Dragon Flash.
A blade flashing cold light cleaved the lightning pillar clean in half like a hot knife through butter.
Enrakyōten's expression twitched. It immediately shifted aside.
The violent slash-pressure erupted from the silver arc and skimmed past it—then crashed into the far cliff face.
A blast thundered. A huge crater opened in the rock, and boulders tumbled down in a cloud of dust.
Enrakyōten tensed, the mouths in its eye-sockets "staring" at the Shinigami standing calmly with his sword.
Naraku's Reiatsu wasn't overwhelming—yet the pressure felt pure, oppressive.
Heat rose. His violent Reiatsu-flame charred the ground as if a sun had risen inside the valley.
When Naraku tightened his grip, a cracking boom burst outward.
A suffocating, razor-pure heat spilled everywhere—wild and unrestrained.
With a shockwave, his silhouette vanished. A straight streak of fire lashed across the valley floor, leaving a black scorch mark.
Shunpō.
In a blink, Naraku crossed a hundred meters, streaking like a meteor straight at Enrakyōten.
A blade wrapped in burning Reiatsu arced high and smashed down—
Like a sledgehammer.
"Hadō #33: Sōkatsui!"
Blue explosion-flames ripped the air apart. The oncoming heat vaporized Enrakyōten's dancing, twisted lightning into a washed-out red haze.
Enrakyōten's face changed. Its back went rigid. It snapped sideways—the blade barely grazing its cheek before detonating into a massive crater where it had stood.
"Shinigami—" it began, the two mouths working together.
As a Zanpakutō that could imitate other Zanpakutō, Enrakyōten could tell instantly: Naraku had completed shikai the moment the fight began.
That burning Reiatsu on his skin was one of the reasons he hit so hard.
But Enrakyōten couldn't force-copy it.
If it copied Naraku's Zanpakutō now, it would drag itself down to Naraku's level—and then lose in humiliation to Naraku's superior familiarity and control.
So it chose something else.
"Black."
The voice was wrong—too flat, too cold.
The ground beneath it cracked. It burst forward with ghostlike speed, appearing in Naraku's right-front blind spot.
The silver blade lifted—then dropped.
Naraku raised his sword to block—
But the strike never came. No impact. No sound.
Enrakyōten vanished in place, as if swallowed by shadow.
Rip—
A cloth-tearing sound behind him.
A flash-fast slash landed.
Naraku didn't even have time to turn before a crushing force detonated—launching him like a cannonball through several trees before he finally stopped.
"Haa—"
He rolled his shoulders and stepped out of splintered wood, only to feel his body seize—numbness spreading—followed by ripping, penetrating pain exploding from his back through his entire frame.
Enrakyōten knew its own kit too well to give him a breath.
It charged again at a speed the eye couldn't track. In a blink it was right in front of him, its blade shining in the morning light.
A blinding golden flare erupted—so bright it hurt to look at.
Ashisogi Jizō, Kyōdo Yon!
Naraku tried to lift his sword—
And realized the numbness had spread into every muscle and bone. His body wouldn't obey. Even with the command in his mind, he couldn't move.
Konjiki Ashisogi Jizō!
That earlier flash-slash had copied Mayuri's Zanpakutō—Ashisogi Jizō.
Its effect: sever the brain's "move the limbs" signals at the target's neck.
Enrakyōten stepped onto floating fragments of Reishi and looked down at him.
"Black."
The blade came down onto Naraku's chest—right through his custom shihakushō.
In the next instant his Reiatsu-flame wavered. The special shihakushō shattered. A shockwave far more violent than before slammed down in a roar.
The earth shook. The impact rippled hundreds of meters, soil heaving in layered waves toward the horizon. Wind screamed up, punching the sky.
The weight of it crushed Naraku's body, grinding even his absurd defenses—trying to kill him for good.
Enrakyōten stood at the edge of the crater, calmly feeling the buried Reiatsu.
It was faint—ready to vanish.
"Your soul is mine."
A pure-white hand rose, aimed into the crater. Reiatsu gathered—
Then, in an instant, a black Reiatsu pillar exploded upward, spearing the sky. Savage pressure burst out and rolled across the valley in waves.
With a deafening boom, everything in sight was erased.
In Enrakyōten's shocked "gaze," a battered body wrapped in black Reiatsu stepped out of that pillar, bone fragments like an ornament on his forehead.
A grotesque smile spread.
Holes torn through his body healed at an impossible speed—flesh knitting, cracking—Mayuri's toxin purged as if it never mattered.
Enrakyōten sucked in a breath. Only now did it understand how terrifying this Shinigami was.
It regretted everything.
It should've run.
This bastard was worse than Takehiko.
He'd been cut to pieces and still stood back up—his regeneration even faster than the Hisagomaru-style ability Enrakyōten had copied.
Naraku inhaled. Reishi in the air surged toward him in visible streams, filling the hollowness inside his body.
From the exchange, Enrakyōten had used at least three Zanpakutō abilities:
The opening lightning disaster—Gonryōmaru.
A flash-and-blind effect from some unknown blade.
Shadow travel, and the "children's game made real"—Katen Kyōkotsu.
The nerve-paralyzing strike—Ashisogi Jizō.
Absurd.
Against a Shinigami with relatively straightforward offense, Enrakyōten's stored arsenal was too varied to cleanly counter.
You adapt to one trick, it pulls out another with the opposite rules.
So the best option was brute force—crush it so hard it couldn't cycle abilities.
In the next instant, Naraku's grin slammed into Enrakyōten's field of view—
A gleaming blade fell from above.
BOOM!
Like a meteor strike. The ground jolted. Soft soil compacted into stone-hard earth under the force.
Enrakyōten burst out of the crater and Shunpō'd, trying to get out of range—
But Naraku was faster and meaner.
The moment it looked up, that crushing presence was already in its face.
If I let you run now, what was the point of going partial Hollow?
A silver blade swept sideways like a swinging hammer. The impact punched straight through Enrakyōten's body.
Krrrk—
Flesh tore. Bone cracked.
Enrakyōten flew like a snapped kite, smashing through trees, carving a trench, and slamming into the far wall of the valley.
RUMBLE—
The entire cliff face collapsed, tons of rock pouring down and burying it.
Naraku flash-stepped to the rubble pile, Reiatsu burning and staining his blade red—
But then an eerie Reiatsu wave blanketed the area.
It felt like an invisible slash hit him.
His chest ripped open. Bones shattered.
Crash.
A Reiatsu-coated hand punched out from the rock. Enrakyōten rose again, blood leaking from its mouth, face twisted, chest cracked and caved in—mirroring Naraku's injuries almost exactly.
"…!!"
A head-on brawl was going nowhere.
So it bet everything on its last trump card.
Enrakyōten drove its blade into the earth.
In a low voice it spoke:
"Hunger Corridor—"
Shadows overlapped and crawled across the mangled valley floor. A deep, snarling "mouth" of abyss formed—then multiplied—until the entire valley was covered.
No escape.
The instant those abyss-mouths formed, a crushing pressure locked onto Naraku, pinning him.
Dark, heavy crimson bled into his black Reiatsu. The two twisted together into restless, violent arcs along his arm.
Even inside the abyss' reach, Enrakyōten felt the premonition of doom.
Naraku threw his strongest punch straight into the ground.
Hollowfied.
Black Flash: Ikotsu!
For a heartbeat, the sound became unbearable.
In Enrakyōten's horrified expression, the abyss-mouths collapsed like bubbles.
Then a sunburst of force detonated upward from the earth.
Space warped.
Raw power swallowed everything.
A Bankai-level technique—forbidden by Central 46—was blown apart by a single, unreasonable punch.
The earth screamed. The valley buckled under the shock, mountains fracturing, dust and stone exploding outward—
And a huge hand appeared, slamming onto Enrakyōten's face.
Then—
Slammed it down.
The soil compacted into a crater. A roar shook the world.
Enrakyōten finally snapped awake from its shock, staring at Naraku's feral grin as it tried to struggle—
Too late.
One unstoppable strike punched through its chest. Reishi scattered like shattered glass.
When the dust cleared, Naraku picked up a mirror-beautiful silver-white blade.
Under the morning sun, it shone brilliantly—radiating an eerie, alien power.
~~~
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