Tokinada slowly turned his zanpaku-to hilt toward Ginjo and the others. The surrounding Soul Reapers, Arrancars, and Quincies were being restrained once again by the remanifested Gagaku Kairo horde’s automatic predatory abilities.
“Just in case, I’m going to show them Kyoka Suigetsu’s shikai. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all, please go ahead.”
Aura bowed elegantly as she spoke, and Tokinada attempted to invoke his Kyoka Suigetsu’s shikai, but…
“Hm…?”
It would not invoke.
He scowled, and in the momentary opening when he looked at his own hand…
Ginjo had more than enough opportunity to make a move.
Without a word, he unleashed a blow, seeming to have unsheathed a sword with the most minimal of movements.
The Cross of Scaffold.
The necklace charm that he gripped in his hand instantly transformed into a longsword that he used to dispatch a slashing attack like that of Zangetsu’s.
Tokinada attempted to receive that blow using a Zangetsu himself…
…but the newly created Zangetsu blade broke to smithereens when faced with Ginjo’s attack, which simply slashed right across Tokinada’s torso.
“What is with you? You’re way sturdier than I thought you’d be.”
Though Ginjo had unleashed a blow with enough force that he thought it should have bisected the Soul Reaper, Tokinada’s spiritual pressure might have been greater than he had imagined, since the wound stopped right above the man’s ribs.
Tokinada, who had been unable to use Zangetsu, healed his wound using Hisagomaru as he muttered to himself, “Good grief, it seems that Enra Kyoten can only depict Zangetsu’s outer form, considering the sword has a special origin.”
“Even if you used the real deal, I would’ve won against a swordsman like you.”
With his usual daring smile on his face, Ginjo squeezed his longsword in his hand.
Though Tokinada attempted to invoke Kyoka Suigetsu’s shikai again, it was as though it were being blocked, and he could not make it shatter into the form.
“Do you remember the method in which Kyoka Suigetsu can be rendered powerless?” Aura’s monotone voice spilled from her smiling face.
Kyoka Suigetsu was a zanpaku-to of absolute superior power once it was invoked. However, it had a weakness as a result of that. If the target were to touch the blade before it was invoked, then Complete Hypnosis could not be implemented.
Had Tokinada been Aizen, he might have been able to fulfill the conditions of having those around him see the shikai the moment it was invoked. However, now that someone other than Aizen was using the blade, another weakness was involved. Tokinada’s spiritual pressure was nowhere near Aizen’s level, and because of that, it was possible for the shikai transformation itself to be sealed through incredibly strong spiritual pressure.
Then again, there were very few who had spiritual pressure that exceeded Tokinada’s and who could also skillfully perform such a feat. Because of that, he took his time creating an opening to show the powerhouses Kyoraku and Yoruichi his shikai.
There were a limited number of people in that place who had spiritual pressure comparable to or exceeding Tokinada’s who also were not under the effects of Complete Hypnosis. There was Hikone Ubuginu, Kenpachi Zaraki, Kugo Ginjo…
…and Aura Michibane.
The moment he turned his eyes to her, she had already finished her work. At the same time he felt himself being put under restraints, he also felt something else coming from Enra Kyoten, which he gripped. He realized that, at that moment, every single one of the many different blades that were manifested in that place were being touched by something.
“She’s attacking her own people? Why…?”
Nanao saw one of the patterned tentacles that had just blocked Kyoraku’s attack twist itself around Tokinada’s entire body.
“Don’t let your guard down. This might also be an illusion that Complete Hypnosis is creating.”
Tokinada and Aura stood between the still quivering flames from earlier, and after looking at Ginjo and the others, Kyoraku narrowed his eyes as he quietly said, “Even if it isn’t just an illusion, we probably should not allow ourselves to be seized by optimism.”
≡
Aura Michibane was missing something.
If asked what it was she was missing, she could not answer that question. If Hollows acted in order to fill the hole in their chest, Aura herself did not even have a desire to fill anything.
Love.
That was the emotion she was missing.
She had no interest in anything, and since her childhood she spent her days intently carrying out the orders given by those around her. She had no attachment to the world whatsoever; even when she recalled the days she had spent with her father, shut away in the room that was like a glass jar, she still had no deep emotions, even to this day.
Because she had no attachments, she had no hopes; conversely, she did not have the despair to wish to die of her own accord either. In the complex system of the world, she spent her days spinning like a cog. She had thought she was fine with that. She thought she was fine simply adjusting to fit the flow of others and continuing to turn until her body rotted away.
The event that had created a change in that “cog” occurred just half a year earlier.
When she had been ordered by Tokinada to put together all kinds of konpaku and body fragments in order to create a Soul Reaper, no emotion or disgust rose from within her. However, even for her, to take the elements of Soul Reapers and Quincies that normally clashed, as well as peculiar components called Fragments of the Reio, and to put them together to create a life was a nearly impossible endeavor.
The project had sustained her concentration in a way that had never happened before in her life, and finally, at the moment the thing created spiritual pressure, which could be said to be a Soul Reaper’s pulse of life…
She realized that she was smiling.