'You monster.'
With Cyrus's hand clamped tightly over her face, Imu glared at him with naked resentment.
Clang!
Refusing to simply wait for death, she raised the sword in her right hand and slashed at him again and again.
The sharpened blade struck Cyrus's body with crisp metallic sounds, yet failed to leave even the slightest wound.
"Ignoring me won't help."
Cyrus barely acknowledged the attacks as he studied her.
"Activate the power inside that sword."
Imu had clearly learned something from the Menos Grande and directly transformed herself into a Hollow.
Hollows belonged to this world's power system and could eventually grow extraordinarily strong, but Imu had rushed into the transformation without truly understanding what she had become.
And just as Cyrus had expected, once her ability to transfer her consciousness was taken away, she was no longer much of a threat to him.
"Focus on your sword. Feel what's inside it, then draw that power out."
Cyrus's gaze remained fixed on her.
"That's your only chance."
Imu was visibly struggling to accept the situation.
She had accomplished everything she wanted.
She had crossed into another world, regained a body that truly belonged to her, and even increased her strength—yet somehow she was now in a worse position than before.
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
She suddenly roared.
Power erupted from her body, becoming almost visible as an oppressive presence rose around her.
Spiritual pressure.
In some ways, it produced an effect similar to Conqueror's Haki.
Cyrus wasn't surprised that Imu possessed Reiatsu after fully becoming a Hollow. What stood out was how poorly she understood it.
He had already reminded her twice, yet she still hadn't sensed the power within her sword.
Perhaps she really did need something closer to an actual Zanpakutō.
As Imu's spiritual pressure surged higher, Cyrus finally released her and stepped back.
The pressure was immense, and unlike Conqueror's Haki, its suppressive effect was far more direct.
Imu possessed an astonishing amount of Conqueror's Haki as well, but her control lagged behind the sheer volume she carried.
At the very least, she had never been particularly skilled at turning it into a direct physical attack.
Reiatsu, on the other hand, naturally exerted that kind of force.
Boom!
Cyrus released his own Conqueror's Haki without restraint.
The spiritual pressure raging around Imu was immediately forced down.
Her head had been thrown back as she roared, but under Cyrus's overwhelming Haki, her mind cleared somewhat.
And with that clarity, she finally understood how she might survive.
There was no need to think any further.
Imu moved.
The sand beneath her feet exploded, and her newly formed body crossed the distance to the edge of the island so quickly that it looked like teleportation.
Flames appeared behind her, but she had already anticipated Cyrus's pursuit.
If she could escape the island, she would regain access to consciousness transfer.
At the very least, she would no longer be trapped in such a passive position.
Even if Cyrus truly intended to hunt down and kill every person she had ever transformed, that would still take time.
And Imu wasn't convinced he could actually bring himself to do it.
Bang!
She forced her way through the flames burning across her body and slammed into the edge of the island.
Then she rebounded violently, as though she had struck an invisible wall.
"This is the very ability you delivered into my hands."
Cyrus watched her fly backward without the slightest surprise.
"Did you really think you could escape a sealed space?"
Imu did not try again.
She knew better than anyone how solid this kind of confinement was. After all, she had once used the same type of ability against Cyrus.
What none of them had known then was that the Cyrus they trapped had only been a flame clone.
"Cyrus."
Imu rose again and faced him.
"There is no longer any conflict between us. I will not return to your world. Continuing this fight accomplishes nothing."
She deliberately tried to keep her voice calm.
Cyrus answered by disappearing.
Boom!
Imu's newly formed head vanished.
Cyrus had shattered it completely with a single blow.
"I don't trust your promises." He spoke as her headless body staggered.
"What if you decide to cause trouble again later?"
He drew his right hand back, and flames instantly engulfed the corpse.
The moment the fire touched her, however, the headless body sprang back to its feet and charged toward the Rose Hunter.
Imu was clearly trying to seize someone aboard the ship and use them as leverage.
It was the only opening she could think of.
Bang!
Her body came flying back even faster than it had gone forward.
The headless figure bounced away from the ship's direction and skidded across the sand for a considerable distance.
By then, the head Cyrus had destroyed had already regrown.
'High-Speed Regeneration, or one of her original abilities?'
Cyrus wasn't particularly surprised, only curious.
He wanted to know whether this regeneration came from the Hollow physiology she had just acquired or whether it was simply another form of the restoration ability she had always possessed.
Whoosh!
The eyes on Imu's newly regenerated face twitched violently, darting around inside their sockets before finally locking onto Cyrus.
She raised the slender sword wreathed in black mist.
Cyrus's eyes brightened slightly.
'Did she finally figure something out?'
Whoosh!
A black slash flashed across the desert.
Cyrus didn't dodge.
He took it head-on.
Then the trace of interest on his face disappeared.
Nothing had changed.
Boom!
Cyrus appeared behind Imu immediately after her attack and drove a fist into her lower back.
Her body slammed into the ground.
The shock wave blasted an enormous amount of sand outward, hollowing out a gigantic crater in an instant.
Even aboard the Rose Hunter on the other side of the island, the impact could be clearly felt.
"He still hasn't finished?"
Hancock looked increasingly eager to join in.
"Don't interfere."
Robin stopped her.
"Cyrus will handle it."
There was no reason to risk disrupting his plan by acting on their own. He hadn't asked them to help, so the safest thing they could do was wait for him to return.
Robin still took action when the shock wave reached the ship.
Countless arms bloomed across the hull and formed a barrier, blocking the sand being hurled toward them.
Back in the crater, Imu landed not far from Cyrus with nearly half her body missing.
Only a narrow strip of bone still connected her upper and lower halves.
Most of her abdomen and pelvis had been completely destroyed, and one leg had been torn away and thrown aside.
Yet her recovery was astonishing.
In the span of a blink, most of the damage had already healed.
Cyrus stared at her.
'How did you kill these things again?'
He began searching through his memories.
Boom! Boom!
Imu had barely finished regenerating before Cyrus shattered her body again.
Then he flicked one hand and sent fire over the remains.
The flames clung to her and began burning violently.
Yet Imu regenerated almost as quickly as the fire could consume her.
Cyrus narrowed his eyes at the humanoid torch before him.
Her vitality really was ridiculous.
Still, in front of him, this hardly qualified as immortality.
Countless crimson blade lights flashed.
Alongside them came heat.
Not merely a little hotter than before, but ten times—perhaps a hundred times—more intense.
The flames surged violently.
At last, a bitter, hate-filled scream rang across the desert.