“Ha ha ha! I see! I see! It seems your swipes at me have reached a new level of refinement! How entertaining!”
It was not just the speed that had changed. Faced with Kazeshini’s discernibly increasing accuracy with each successive throw, Tokinada was still delighted and smiling as he continued to dodge every attack. Tokinada accurately saw through the angle and force with which Kazeshini flew as well as the shifting contortions of the chain. Reacting to those, he responded to them by calling upon various forms and abilities of zanpaku-to swords.
However, Kazeshini’s speed continued to increase until Tokinada was trapped in a cramped space barely the size of a tatami mat. The intervals between swipes contracted until he could hardly step a foot out of that range. The way in which Hisagi manipulated the revolving sickles using the chain and the technique with which he trapped Tokinada without binding the man’s body were like a perfect demonstration of martial arts skills.
Though Tokinada attempted to immobilize the zanpaku-to, cutting it using Wabisuke to multiply its weight, the moment he attempted to manifest that blade, Kazeshini writhed like a living animal with its own will and evaded the attack by a paper-thin margin.
Can he see then?
Tokinada was dubious. In order to test his theory, he created a wall of flames between him and Hisagi using Ryujin Jakka and then tried to cut the blade with Wabisuke, but of course the result was the same.
I suppose that the flames aren’t strong enough to melt a zanpaku-to with my spiritual pressure. Even if I dedicated the entirety of my spiritual pressure toward doing that, I wouldn’t be able to raise the temperature to that point.
Tokinada looked at Kazeshini’s blade as it cut through the wall of flames. As he fully grasped that Hisagi really was perceiving his movements through spiritual pressure perception alone, it also sank in that his spiritual pressure would never reach anywhere near Genryusai Yamamoto’s. Had he been able to use Genryusai Yamamoto’s actual Ryujin Jakka, he could have burned everything away with a heat strong enough to evaporate even a zanpaku-to; the whole matter would have been resolved using that single ability, without any reliance on Complete Hypnosis.
Still, I need to deal with him before all the riffraff around here recover.
If he dedicated enough spiritual pressure to his attack to burn all of them in an instant, he would have to decrease the spiritual pressure he was putting into Complete Hypnosis by an equal amount, and it was possible that would end up creating an opening he couldn’t control.
The scales began to quiver in Tokinada’s mind.
He supposed he needed to consider whether to deliberately torture all of them to death, as he had been doing thus far, or first kill 80 percent of his enemies in order to cause Kyoraku despair. As for Kenpachi, if Hikone were to end up at a disadvantage he could simply have Aura, who was not susceptible to physical attacks, deal with him. If Tokinada were the type of man who would choose to kill them all instantly, he likely wouldn’t have even thought up this foolish plan to begin with. Because Tokinada’s wish wasn’t to abandon everything he had to fulfill some great moral cause, but simply to fill the twisted vessel of his own heart with amusement.
However, Tokinada also didn’t wish to lower his guard and allow them to launch a counterattack on him. As Hisagi’s attacks had become more intense, the offense from those around him had also steadily increased in momentum. The Quincies’ arrows and the Arrancars’ Ceros followed Kazeshini’s attacks. Bringing out the abilities of the zanpaku-to to counter them, Tokinada parried or canceled each one, or occasionally sent them flying back to his opponent.
I see. He’s just an assistant captain, so how can he be so…
When Tokinada realized that Kazeshini’s throwing maneuvers were faster in speed than they had previously been in the footage Tokinada had seen, he attempted to amend several of his strategies. However, before he could even produce another zanpaku-to ability, the next blow would come down on him.
Hm…? Is he becoming even faster?
As Tokinada determined that his opponent was someone he could not let his guard down around at all, he imagined the moment he would make his powerful opponent submit, letting his mouth soften as he let Senbon Zakura expand around him…
In the next moment, everyone around saw it.
Even as it was scraped by the blizzard of blades, Kazeshini flicked everything away with its abnormally powerful rotations. Then, from a gap that had been wrenched open through Senbon Zakura, the second sickle closed in on Tokinada…
That was the moment that Tokinada’s right arm, which held Enra Kyoten, was severed and flung high into the air.
“Guh…?!”
“Lord Tokinada…?”
As Tokinada cried out in pain, Aura’s eyes widened.
“Impossible… How could he break through Senbon Zakura’s wall?!”
At the same time that his agonized cries rang out, the wall Senbon Zakura had formed around Tokinada and Aura disappeared like smoke, revealing a scene of Tokinada holding the end of his elbow. Those surrounding all began to make their moves at once, as though this were their once-in-a-lifetime chance.
“Hah! You didn’t just drop your zanpaku-to—you dropped your entire arm! Pathetic!”
The impetus of Candice promptly driving a Galvano Javelin at Tokinada allowed the Quincies’ Heilig Pfeil to pierce through him as well, and Grimmjow enveloped his body in a Cero.
“Once they start to crumble, it’s over way too soon.”
As Madarame watched Tokinada’s broken body collapse on the ground, he shouldered the long shaft of Hozukimaru and looked disappointed.
“Well, even if he could use the same zanpaku-to, he still just wasn’t on Aizen’s level,” Yumichika murmured, though he didn’t let his guard down.
Though they had also endured severe wounds, they remained combat-ready through sheer willpower. Tokinada had collapsed, but the mysterious woman who seemed to be a Fullbringer was still going strong.