In the spacious, ancient tearoom, two figures sat perfectly still on opposite sides of a small wooden table. Set against the massive ink painting of a Tiger and a Demon locked in mortal combat, the curling, fragrant steam from the iron kettle painted a picture of absolute, transcendent tranquility.
Yet, hidden entirely beneath this serene facade was a raging, apocalyptic tempest of battle lust and murderous intent. Both minds were already engaged in a furious, invisible deathmatch.
If this were a scene in an old silent film, the audience would already be holding their breath, anticipating the sudden, violent eruption of blood. But the stillness was as deep and impenetrable as a bottomless abyss.
Ultimately, what shattered the profound silence was the equivalent of a single, falling leaf breaking the surface of a tranquil pond.
The water in the kettle reached a rolling boil. A sharp, high-pitched whistle shrieked from the iron spout.
The ripple began. The absolute stillness instantly violently inverted into absolute motion. The silent painting roared to life.
The steam was violently sliced in half. The delicate fragrance of tea was instantly overpowered by the heavy, suffocating metallic stench of blood. Surging killing intent collided with explosive battle lust, igniting blinding sparks.
Amidst the deafening clash of steel and the shrieking whistle of the kettle, Lu Li and Unohana shot backward, leaving long, deep gouges across the tatami mats.
Unohana glanced at Lu Li, then down at her Zanpakuto. The steel was unblemished. There was no blood. The corners of her lips curled upward into a deeply unsettling, bewitching smile.
With a slow, deliberate motion, her pale hand reached up and unfastened the long braid resting over her chest. A waterfall of pitch-black hair cascaded down. Because the hair remained draped entirely over the front of her shoulders, casting deep shadows across her face, it gave her a profoundly unnatural, terrifying aura.
The blood-red light of the setting sun filtered through the paper screens, casting a morbid, crimson glow across her pale, flawless skin.
With her hair hanging wildly and her lips curved into a manic, bloody smile, she no longer looked like the gentle, maternal Captain. She looked exactly like a demonic ghost clawing its way out of the lowest circle of hell.
On the opposite side of the room, the man held his Asauchi horizontally by his waist, the tip angled slightly toward the floor. His body was coiled tight, radiating the raw, explosive tension of a predator preparing to strike.
"Captain Hikifune's new little toy really is quite remarkable," Unohana said, her voice dropping into a sultry, dangerous purr. "It allows me to evaluate you... without having to hold myself back."
Lu Li's mind was running at absolute maximum capacity. This was the exact scenario he and Aizen had predicted: the final trial was a matched-Reiatsu duel against a Captain. Except, drawing Unohana significantly elevated the difficulty ceiling.
To Lu Li, this was a nightmare beyond nightmares. And simultaneously... the ultimate ecstasy.
He couldn't control the feral grin splitting across his face, baring his teeth. "So, if I beat you, Instructor, I graduate. Is that it?"
"Beat me?"
Unohana raised a hand to her face, partially obscuring a manic, trembling expression. When she spoke, her voice shook with deeply suppressed, unholy excitement. "Student Lu... why are you in such a rush to graduate?"
She seemed to be talking more to herself than to him. "If you try to leave now... I won't be able to stop myself from taking this job... I won't be able to stop myself... from harvesting you before you're fully ripe."
Slowly, she lowered her hand, fully exposing a face utterly consumed by battle-crazed euphoria. No one who only knew the gentle, smiling Captain Unohana could ever fathom this side of her existed.
Her dark, abyssal eyes locked onto Lu Li as she spread her arms wide.
"Come! Entertain me!"
In the next microsecond, a violent shockwave blasted Unohana's long hair back. Crimson blood bloomed across her pale pink-lined haori as droplets flew past her manic eyes.
Lu Li and Unohana had crossed paths instantly. Behind Lu Li, a trail of deeply cratered footprints marred the tatami. Slowly, he turned around. His hair was slightly ruffled from the sheer kinetic force of his Shunpo, and his eyes burned with an inferno of fighting spirit.
"After letting you hack me to pieces for two months, how did you like that strike, Instructor?" Lu Li asked, genuinely somewhat surprised he had managed to draw blood.
He had assumed that even with her Reiatsu strictly suppressed by the room's machinery, her inherent physical density would have acted like armor. But it seemed Captain Hikifune's device was far more insidious than a simple power-limiter. It actually stripped away the passive defensive aura of high-tier Reiatsu, genuinely reducing Unohana to a Class 16 vulnerability.
This wasn't designed for Academy spars, Lu Li realized instantly. This was designed to trap and execute Captain-level threats.
Unohana, with her back still turned to him, wore an expression of pure, unadulterated madness. As she slowly turned around, she lightly brushed her hand over her bleeding shoulder. The wound vanished instantaneously.
"Exactly like that," she purred, her voice trembling with dark euphoria.
The sensation of pain—something she hadn't genuinely felt in decades—acted like raw meat thrown to a starving beast. It fully awakened her dormant, apocalyptic savagery.
At this exact moment, she threw the Captain-Commander's instructions entirely out the window. When two apex predators clashed in the wasteland, only one walked away alive.
As their mutual killing intent reached an absolute boiling point, both figures vanished from the room simultaneously.
CLANG—!
The Asauchi and Minazuki violently collided, sparking a blinding flash in the dim tearoom. In the brief illumination, their eyes met—both overflowing with pure, unfiltered slaughter.
Like a hurricane tearing through the room, they exchanged dozens of brutal, blindingly fast strikes in the span of a single breath.
The tatami mats shredded and cratered under their feet, exposing the raw pine floorboards underneath. Blood droplets and shredded fabric danced chaotically through the air.
Following a particularly violent clash, the sheer kinetic recoil blasted both fighters apart. As they skidded to a halt and stabilized, the damage became clear. Unohana's haori was slightly torn, but Lu Li's dojo uniform was completely shredded to ribbons.
Grabbing the ruined fabric of his shirt, Lu Li violently tore it off and tossed it aside, exposing his heavily muscled torso.
His upper body was currently littered with dozens of shallow, bleeding lacerations. None of them were from direct hits; they were entirely the result of the invisible, razor-sharp pressure waves radiating from Unohana's blade.
Her Zanjutsu was unbelievably heavy and absolute. Even when her physical steel didn't touch his flesh, the displaced kinetic air pressure acted as an extension of the blade, slicing through his clothes and skin.
"Oh? Have you really refined your Kaido to this extent already?" Unohana asked, genuine surprise breaking through her manic smile as she noticed the shallow cuts on Lu Li's torso slowly beginning to knit themselves shut.
Lu Li hadn't raised his hands, nor was his body visibly glowing with the signature pale green light of Kaido. Yet, he was actively healing.
While the cuts were strictly superficial, continuous blood loss in a high-speed deathmatch would eventually be fatal. He needed to passively stem the bleeding while actively fighting.
"You never explicitly stated that Kaido had to be cast using the hands, Instructor. Once the core mechanics are understood, isn't bypassing the physical casting motion to passively weave Reishi internally far more practical for live combat?" Lu Li explained, detailing his newly developed combat-healing technique.
The fundamental principle of Kaido was simply manipulating Reishi to repair tissue. The only reason Soul Reapers used their hands was because the hands offered the greatest degree of microscopic dexterity. But if a practitioner's mental control was absolute, and they possessed the ability to split their focus mid-combat, they could directly command the "threads" of Reishi internally.
Of course, he had only just devised the technique. It was highly unrefined and currently only capable of sealing minor, superficial cuts. For deep, critical trauma, he would still need to utilize his hands.
"Hahaha..." Unohana let out a beautiful, deeply eerie laugh. "You truly are a peerless genius, Student Lu. But this level of Kaido will not save you."
Lu Li didn't retort. He knew perfectly well that Unohana was currently riding the high of battle. In this state, she wouldn't hold back a single ounce of killing intent. If his technique faltered for even a microsecond, she would butcher him.
He had no idea what the specific "passing grade" for this trial was, but he knew one absolute truth: he could not lose. Losing meant death.
The suffocating, tangible aura of death pressing down on him caused his body to tremble involuntarily. But it wasn't fear. It was pure, unadulterated ecstasy.
Even with her Reiatsu heavily suppressed, the woman standing before him was the absolute strongest opponent he had ever faced in his life.
Unlike the instructional, measured spars with the Captain-Commander, this was a genuine, unrestricted deathmatch. This was the exact kind of violent, life-or-death struggle he craved.
The opponent standing before him was the legendary adversary he had spent his entire previous life praying to the heavens for, yet had never found.
How could he not be ecstatic?
Exams? Missions?
None of that mattered right now. The only thing he wanted to do was drown himself in the absolute thrill of this slaughter.
BOOM—!
In the next microsecond, a catastrophic burst of kinetic energy ripped the tatami mat beneath his feet clean off the floor. Lu Li launched a hyper-speed, violent Shunpo charge.
Faster. Heavier. More lethal.
He brought his blade down in a devastating overhead cleave. Unohana caught the strike, flawlessly angling her blade to deflect the catastrophic kinetic force to the side.
Without breaking her momentum, she instantly closed the gap, stepping directly into Lu Li's inner guard. She thrust her empty palm straight toward his heart.
Just as she believed the fatal blow was secured, her eyes widened in shock.
Lu Li violently retracted his left arm tight against his chest, simultaneously slamming his right elbow down like a hydraulic press, viciously clamping her wrist between his limbs and completely neutralizing the palm strike.
Both hands?! Unohana was genuinely stunned. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his Asauchi falling toward the floorboards.
He completely abandoned his sword in the middle of an exchange?!
But she instantly realized his judgment had been flawless. If that palm strike had landed, it would have shattered his ribcage and pulverized his heart. She would have immediately followed up with a lethal slash, and the fight would be over. By sacrificing his weapon, he had saved his life.
Using the residual kinetic force from her neutralized strike, Lu Li vaulted backward. Mid-air, he stomped violently on the edge of a shredded tatami mat. The mat flipped upward, perfectly striking the hilt of his falling Asauchi and launching it back into the air. He snatched the blade right out of the sky as he landed.
Unohana didn't immediately pursue. Instead, she stood perfectly still, her dark eyes shimmering with absolute brilliance, as if she were gazing upon an unpolished diamond.
Watching the young man assume his stance and prepare to charge her again, she felt a profound sense of awe.
Ah... his combat is completely untethered by form.
His chaotic, wildly unorthodox tactics were like a master calligrapher aggressively splashing ink across a canvas—every single wild stroke landing exactly where it needed to be to create a masterpiece.
BOOM—!
After another violent exchange, Unohana gracefully backflipped to create distance, while Lu Li was once again blasted into the wall by the recoil.
Unohana looked at Lu Li with deep appreciation, but also a rising sense of profound regret. It was a tragedy that she was going to have to consume such a magnificent fruit before it had truly ripened.
Even a device created by Kirio Hikifune couldn't perfectly simulate a Class 16 physique. Earlier, Lu Li's desperate counter had struck her wrist with enough kinetic force to shatter bone. But because her innate, biological density was forged from centuries of Captain-class Reiatsu, her physical durability remained exponentially higher than his. Therefore, his counter-attack had failed to inflict any real damage.
Under these artificial restrictions, Lu Li could only barely manage to slice through her skin; inflicting deep muscle or bone trauma was practically impossible for him.
But her blood was boiling now. She was completely submerged in the intoxicating ecstasy of slaughter. She couldn't turn back. The only thing that could possibly snap her out of this bloodlust was if Lu Li actually managed to defeat her.
But that was impossible. She could perfectly track and read every single chaotic movement he made. She possessed a millennium of deathmatch experience. Furthermore, technically speaking, she still held a slight Reiatsu advantage.
Hikifune's limiter wasn't flawlessly precise. It suppressed Unohana to the absolute peak of Class 16, whereas Lu Li's natural capacity was currently only sitting comfortably in the middle tier of Class 16.
She held every single conceivable advantage in this deathmatch. Lu Li had absolutely zero path to victory.
Watching the young, rugged man pull himself out of the crater in the wall, his body covered in bleeding lacerations, she silently lamented his inevitable end.
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