Uryū Ishida glanced at Muten Natsu beside him, his gaze pausing for a brief moment.
Sōken Ishida had always believed that Shinigami had things only Shinigami could do, and Quincy had things only Quincy could do. The two were capable of fighting side by side.
Yet just moments ago, he had told Muten Natsu, a Shinigami, to stay out of the fight, intending to face everything on his own.
"I need some time," Muten Natsu said calmly as he slowly drew the Myōki sword into his palm. "During that time, I can't take a single hit. Can you manage that?"
Uryū Ishida's expression wavered.
Was he really… going to fight alongside a Shinigami?
"Hadō #4: Byakurai!" Rukia Kuchiki raised her hand, releasing a bolt of lightning that pierced straight through an approaching Hollow. "I'll take care of it."
"Tsubaki! Koten Zanshun, I reject!" A golden barrier flared and split another Hollow cleanly in two. Orihime Inoue stepped in front of Muten Natsu. "I can help too!"
Muten Natsu shot Uryū Ishida a sideways glance. "If you've got nothing better to do, it's cooler over there. Go squat somewhere else."
"Don't tell me what to do!" Uryū Ishida fired, striking a Hollow dead on. "I'm not protecting any Shinigami! I just hate Hollows getting too close, and you just happen to be sticking around me! If you think I'm protecting you, you're seriously mistaken!"
Rukia Kuchiki tilted her head toward Orihime Inoue. "That's tsundere."
Orihime nodded gently. "Very tsundere."
"Hey, tsundere glasses," Muten Natsu called out. "Left!"
Uryū Ishida loosed an arrow, blasting apart the Hollow closing in. "You're the tsundere!"
Muten Natsu no longer had the energy to argue. He shifted his body, lowering himself into an awkward crouch, as if an immense mountain were bearing down on his shoulders.
The power he had accumulated from cutting down countless Hollows was released all at once. His overwhelming Reiatsu surged outward, whipping up a violent gale.
Ichigo Kurosaki pulled his sisters and the other children behind him. Even someone as dull as him could sense that the air had changed, that something unfamiliar had been added to it.
Hollows poured onto the platform in droves, their pale masks and grotesque limbs filling his entire field of view.
Uryū Ishida clenched his teeth and ignored the pain in his fingers, drawing and firing again and again. At first, his arrows could kill them outright. Soon after, he could only force them back.
The air grew heavier, thicker. As Muten Natsu's Reiatsu compressed inward, massive amounts of Reishi were drawn together.
Uryū Ishida suddenly realized that the spirit particle bow in his hands had grown noticeably larger.
This was…
He immediately understood where the change was coming from.
Though both fought using Reiryoku, the combat styles of Shinigami and Quincy were fundamentally different.
Shinigami drew upon the Reiryoku released from their own souls, manifesting it as Zanpakutō to battle Hollows.
They fought using [internal power].
Quincy, on the other hand, gathered the spiritual energy existing in the atmosphere, wrapped it with their own Reiryoku, and manifested it as Reishi weaponry to fight.
They fought using [external power].
Uryū Ishida had no idea what Muten Natsu was doing, but the Reishi captured by his Reiatsu had drastically increased the density of spiritual particles in the area.
It was as if the process of gathering Reishi had been done for him, causing his own power to surge dramatically.
Uryū Ishida hooked his fingers on the bowstring.
Master… you were right after all.
The arrow flew.
Uryū Ishida's eye twitched.
With the Reishi bow enlarged, the tension in the bowstring had increased as well.
Caught completely off guard, his already battered hand spasmed from the sudden pain, far more intense than anything he had felt before.
As a result, the Reishi arrow that should have struck true… veered off course.
A Hollow instantly rushed in, jaws snapping as it lunged straight for Muten Natsu.
"Hinagiku! Baigon! Lily! Santen Kesshun—" Orihime Inoue raised both hands. "I reject!"
A golden triangular barrier spread open in front of Muten Natsu, stopping the Hollow's attack head-on.
"Hadō #31: Shakkahō!" Rukia Kuchiki lifted her hand, hurling a fireball straight into the Hollow's face and blasting its head apart.
Gritting his teeth through the pain, Uryū Ishida fired again, piercing two Hollows that were closing in on them.
"Thanks, um…" Orihime Inoue hesitated, thinking for a moment. "Tsundere Ishida?"
Rukia Kuchiki corrected her at once. "It's Tsundere Uryū. How did you still get it wrong after thinking about it?"
Uryū Ishida: "..." You got it wrong too.
There was no time to argue with them. Uryū Ishida forced himself to adapt to the strengthened Reishi bow, taking down Hollows one after another.
As if sensing something, the Hollow horde grew even more violent and frenzied, some of them trampling over their own kind as they roared and surged forward.
What is this…?
Uryū Ishida heard a faint sound. He looked down and saw spiderweb-like cracks spreading across the ground beneath his feet.
Small stones broke free from gravity, drifting upward before hanging helplessly in midair.
Realizing something, Uryū Ishida turned toward Muten Natsu.
His eyes were tightly shut. The Hell's Eye on his forehead was spinning almost out of control, each brief pause locking onto a Hollow's position.
Just being brushed by that crimson gaze sent a cold shiver racing through Uryū Ishida's body, creeping into his limbs and bones.
An abyss-deep, terrifying Reiatsu condensed around Muten Natsu. The sheer force of it gave the air weight, pressing a clear circular depression into the ground at his feet and sending cracks branching outward like a web.
Uryū Ishida instinctively stepped back half a pace, only to hear Rukia Kuchiki call out sharply, "Don't move!"
Before he could understand what she meant, he saw the perfectly still Muten Natsu take a step forward.
Uryū Ishida narrowed his eyes. For a moment, he couldn't even tell whether he was seeing things. Muten Natsu's figure suddenly dissolved into a blurred shimmer of light.
The next instant—
The first Hollow's cry was cut off mid-sound. Its grotesque body split cleanly apart. A flash of cold light burst through it, piercing the second Hollow, glancing off the third, plunging into the fourth, tearing free and passing through the fifth, then carrying the sixth Hollow's blood as it severed the fifth's head. Crimson light streaked outward, accelerating again within spreading, ink-like shadows, shooting skyward before crashing back down, flowing elegantly before twisting at impossible angles…
Behind his glasses, Uryū Ishida's deep blue eyes darted frantically, chasing Muten Natsu's blurred silhouette. Blinding blade light flashed up and down. He couldn't keep up with Muten Natsu's speed, and the moment he tried to search again, that dazzling slash burst violently back into his vision.
In that split second, it was as if countless Muten Natsu had appeared at once, each one indistinct and impossible to focus on. He wove effortlessly through the snarling, misshapen Hollows, unleashing the unstoppable destructive power of Myōki at unparalleled speed, cutting them down again and again without restraint.
As the shrill screams of blades tearing through the air overlapped, piercing the ears like anguished wails, Muten Natsu's blurred form finally snapped back into clarity.
The Hollow horde's deafening roars vanished completely, replaced by deathly silence.
As Muten Natsu finished sheathing his blade, a thick, unsettling sound spread through the air. The Hollows erupted in sprays of crimson blood, blooming around them like vivid, grotesque flowers.
...