“What’s wrong?”
Ginjo was questioning her, but Aura had trouble even breathing, and she couldn’t make a sound.
“Ah…uh…”
“Does it feel strange? Do you wonder why you cannot turn to fog and escape? Or why your spiritual pressure is rapidly disappearing?”
Tokinada, who easily cut away the patterned tentacle, looked down upon Aura with a contemptuous smile.
“I see. With your power, you really should be able to touch all of the Enra Kyoten that I have in this place—even the blades that have turned to ash and the ones that have turned into living creatures.”
In order to protect himself, he caused more of the strange monsters of Gagaku Kairo to emerge. “I told you, didn’t I? The Seireitei is a den of thieves.” Tokinada then glanced at one specific Soul Reaper as he said, “Do not forget that a common soldier could be carrying a zanpaku-to that has the exact wrong affinity for them…didn’t I say that?”
When Yumichika heard those words, he narrowed his eyes and glared at Tokinada with murderous hostility.
There’s no way I’d mistake it for anything else.
The presence he felt from Tokinada’s side…
Though normally the spiritual pressures of zanpaku-to could not be distinguished, it was a different matter once one became paired with a blade to the point they could call them by their name. He truly did sense a Reiraku color that was exactly the same as the zanpaku-to in his own hand from Tokinada.
It’s likely empty on the inside, but the feeling coming from it is the same.
He had no idea what kind of powers Aura had or what she had been doing. But the one thing he was sure about was…
That Tokinada guy is attacking that woman using Ruriirokujaku’s power.
Ruriirokujaku.
The zanpaku-to could absorb all the opponent’s spiritual power and debilitate them.
That power had been invoked against Aura. Even if she turned her own body into mist, the spiritual power that controlled that mist was connected.
“When it comes to shunko users and the many kido practitioners, or those who carry zanpaku-to with special abilities, this kido-type of power works right away.”
It wasn’t the case that Tokinada, the carrier of Enra Kyoten, which could produce most zanpaku-to with a few special exceptions, knew of all the zanpaku-to in the Soul Society. However, he knew enough of the most prominent ones to be able to use them as befitted the situation. For example, the zanpaku-to called Urozakuro, which had been wielded by a prisoner of Muken, could fuse with other materials and had a power similar to Aura’s. Tokinada, who knew of that zanpaku-to’s power, had dedicated several kido-type zanpaku-to to memory as countermeasures against it.
However, he hadn’t done that to battle against that zanpaku-to’s master. He had developed that plan in order to serve as a countermeasure when Aura betrayed him, which he had expected from the start…
“Good grief, if you were going to betray me, you might as well have joined Kyoraku’s ranks from the start. I thought, after seeing Kyoraku and his riffraff easily taken by Kyoka Suigetsu, you would have waited to betray me until the end, when everything was over and Hikone’s power was closer to being perfected.”
Aura was on her knees and sweat poured from her forehead. Tokinada spoke to her, seeming both entertained and curious.
When Aura slowly brought up her head, she asked, still expressionless, “How…did you know I would betray you?”
“Hm. That’s obvious, isn’t it? Ever since you created Hikone with your own hands, it has been like you were the thing’s mother. Didn’t you experience emotions that you haven’t felt before now?”
“…”
“In that case, things are going just as planned. I cultivated those emotions in your insipid mind thinking that it would be entertaining to squash them underfoot, but…you don’t look too broken up about it.”
He had fostered those emotions so she would betray him. Tokinada’s endlessly irrational behavior made Ginjo, who had been listening from the side, scowl.
“Well, if you haven’t developed any emotions even after raising Hikone, I can't do much about it. But it is so exhilarating to groom someone and for them to turn out the way you intended. I can’t say I don’t understand Aizen’s and Yhwach’s feelings as they continued to watch Ichigo Kurosaki—”
Before he could finish, a clash of metal interrupted his words. Tokinada intercepted the flash of Ginjo’s blade just as the man stepped in.
“Ha ha! You didn’t even hesitate, despite your own companion having collapsed! Well, then again, you only met her today. It’s not as though you would develop feeling—”
As he spoke, Tokinada attempted to invoke Kyoka Suigetsu, but…
Of course, the shikai would not activate.
“Huh?”
“What’s wrong? You’re full of openings.”
When faced with the increasing weight and speed of Ginjo's attacks, Tokinada leapt far back.
“Impossible…you’re still holding it back then, Aura?”
Though he had absorbed more than half of her spiritual pressure, she was still using a part of herself that she had dispersed in all directions to continue touching all of Tokinada’s blades. One of those blades was Ruriirokujaku, but without minding that her spiritual pressure was continually being absorbed, Aura still did not let go.
“Why are you continuing to touch them? At this rate you’ll just die meaninglessly.”
Aura stood then, even though her breath was faint.
“There is…meaning to this.”
“What?”
“There’s probably…something wrong with me.”
Aura continued to pour her life into sealing Kyoka Suige-tsu’s invocation as her remaining spiritual pressure was absorbed by Tokinada, who continued to clash with Ginjo.
“Because I’m not doing this for you, the person who looked after me until this point, Lord Tokinada, or for the seven hundred thousand devotees who believed in me despite who I am.” While feeling the spiritual pressure of Hikone, who was still clashing with Kenpachi high in the sky, Aura smiled for the first time from the bottom of her heart as she declared, “I’m doing this for a child who doesn’t even care about me—I’m wagering everything for their sake.”