A jet-black wind rotated the gears.
A jet-black wind scattered the new leaves.
As though claiming their equivalency, the wind simply circulated life and death.
“Offer.”
He felt as though he had heard a voice.
At some point, Hisagi realized that he was standing on top of a gigantic tree.
When he looked around, he felt almost as though he were in a forest, as a vast swath of green leaves surrounded him and thick branches gathered at his feet, through which he could see glimpses of the ground. The view of the ground was far enough down that it looked hazy. The place could fittingly be called the world tree—the existence of a wooden giant like this would be unfathomable in the real world.
“Oh… I ended up here.”
Hisagi immediately understood that it wasn’t the real world.
“Tsk…I guess this hasn’t happened since I got done in at the Reiokyu.”
Recognizing the sound of rusted iron and a thunderous machine behind him, Hisagi quietly turned around, at which point he saw a gigantic windmill standing on top of a vast plain made up of the gigantic boughs.
Though he thought of it as a windmill, this was a far cry from the pastoral word—an existence clad in rust and the smell of oil contrasted with the embodiment of nature that was the world tree. The rust-covered windmill creaked as its exposed gears, pulley mechanisms, and the chains that connected those parts and synchronized their revolutions moved. Based on the mixture of emotion and corruption in that space, Hisagi knew that it was the spiritual world that interwove his soul with Kazeshini.
Then a black wind raged around him.
The leaves changed color before his eyes as they were buffeted by the wind, drying and falling while the windmill precipitously revolved and started to come alive as it moved.
“Offer.”
Once again, the voice resounded.
In reaction to the familiar voice, Hisagi answered as usual, “It’s always the same thing. I’m not going to become what you want me to become. I’m not fighting in order to feed you my enemies’ blood.”
As though ignoring Hisagi’s words, the black wind continued to thunderously blow.
The space, which had turned gloomy, was illuminated by a lamp that had been set up in the windmill.
The foliage had made him feel as though life had withered away and turned into death, and the rust-colored windmill that had also reminded him of death now seemed to have a different aspect, as though it were a symbol of life.
“Seriously, I thought we’d reached an understanding.”
Then the wind writhed and transformed into a dark humanoid shape behind Hisagi that spoke to him.
“What you thought you reached an understanding with was this form of me, wasn’t it?”
“Huh?”
When he turned around, sure enough, there was the form of Kazeshini that had materialized in the real world in the past.
“Well, it’s fine. I am your shadow and I am the shadow of the world you view. Form and words change depending on how the light hits. But, well, if I’m going to talk with you, I’m fine with taking this form.”
Hisagi clucked his tongue as though he were irritated by the words of the shadow, which he had the longest memory of conversing with.
“Is that how it is? If you’re going to change your nature and your form, then doesn’t that mean our previous conversations were all meaningless?”
“That’s not true. You really did understand an aspect of me, and you learned my name. That’s exactly why you can use your shikai and why I…can call you out to this entire Kazeshini world.”
In the next moment, the shadow once again turned into a black wind and went through Hisagi’s body.
As it did so, it stirred words of intense craving in Hisagi’s soul itself.
“Quickly, offer me blood and life that fill my soul.”
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