Hikone, not understanding the situation they were in, simply cut through Hisagi once again in order to be rid of the obstacle in their way, so they could fulfill Tokinada’s orders. They cut off both of Hisagi’s arms so that he could no longer hold his zanpaku-to. Hisagi attempted to put up some resistance, but unable to respond to Hikone’s speed, his arms were severed without his being able to do a thing.
Thinking this was it, Hikone looked to Hisagi in order to give the final blow, but…
When Hikone turned their eyes to him, both of his arms had already returned.
“In that case…!”
Hikone raised their hand and released a Cero at Hisagi. As he was unable to avoid the direct shot, it carved a gigantic hole in Hisagi’s chest. When Hikone saw the result of his hit, which should have meant Hisagi had no heart or saketsu anymore, they thought Hisagi must have died this time.
But Hisagi still did not go down.
Though he slumped forward as though crying out, he slowly raised himself back up, and the hole that should have been carved into him had closed up. Even his shihakusho exhibited not a single tear.
“What…is going on?”
“Try thinking of the answer for yourself. Your Lord Toki-nada’s not going to explain everything for you anymore.”
Tokinada’s spiritual pressure had already disappeared from the Kyogoku. They no longer heard his voice coming from the speakers either. Hisagi wasn’t sure whether he had died of blood loss, fled the Kyogoku, or if Urahara had done something to him. The only thing that was certain was that the person who defined Hikone’s world was no longer around.
In any case, there was no one to describe to Hikone a world that was convenient to Tokinada and pleasant for Hikone to hear about.
“Is this…some kind of trick?”
Hikone was unable to come up with an explanation for what was happening in front of their eyes and so, in order to confirm what kept occurring, decided to deliberately kill Hisagi. Hikone purposefully took a shallow step forward and stayed in a position where they could see their opponent, as they once again unleashed a slashing attack.
Though Hisagi attempted to defend against that using Kazeshini, the blade broke cleanly, and he was slashed from his neck down to the side of his torso, cut neatly in half. Hikone approached in an attempt to hastily pursue him and decapitate him.
That was when Hikone saw it.
The bisected halves of Hisagi's body were connected by a jet-black chain—one for each of his wounds.
In the next moment, Hikone thought they heard the chain jangling, and as though a winch were pulling them together, Hisagi’s severed sections were reeled together. Instantly, Hisagi was returned to his original state.
“What…”
Unable to understand what they had seen, Hikone reflexively stopped moving.
They didn’t even notice that at some point, the chains had once again wrapped around them.
“Hey, Gigi…when did that thing get turned into a zombie?”
In response to Candice’s question, Giselle shrugged and shook her head.
“Not a clue. Besides, that abomination’s not a zombie.”
“That ain’t any high-speed regeneration…what is it?”
Grimmjow scowled as he looked at Hisagi while Halibel remarked to Nelliel, “He’s not the only thing that’s changed.”
“What does that mean?”
Halibel directed her attention around her. “The spiritual pressure in this place has been remade into a new form.”
Hikone was so bewildered they no longer had the wits to speak. They gathered that this was Hisagi’s zanpaku-to’s ability, but they couldn’t understand how it functioned.
Hikone had learned about most of the zanpaku-to through Tokinada. All the information about the bankai that Tokinada knew had also been drilled into their head. The aristocrat had told Hikone to be most cautious of Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo, which was a bankai that could adapt based on the opponent, but they understood nothing about the nature of Hisagi’s power, which was entirely unheard of. Not knowing how to go about accomplishing their goal, their confusion steadily intensified.
When Hisagi saw Hikone in that state, he said quietly, “I’m going to show it to you—what kind of world you’re looking at.”
“My world…?”
“Yeah.”
What came to Hisagi’s mind were the words that Aura had whispered in his ear in the throne room earlier.
“Please don’t get the wrong idea. I simply have one request to make of you.”
“A request?”
“Please pray, as a Soul Reaper. So that child’s world is blessed.”
Because she likely knew that Tokinada was surveilling her, she’d had to phrase her request so that he wouldn’t recognize her betrayal. In fact, Hisagi had thought that she meant he should ally himself as a Soul Reaper with the world order in which Hikone was Soul King. If Tokinada had heard such words spoken directly, that was likely what he would have surmised as well.
However, Hisagi understood it now, after learning of Aura’s true intentions.
She had entrusted him with Hikone’s future.
“Seriously. Why me? You could’ve left this with Mr. Urahara.”
He looked at Aura, who continued to extend her power to the sky as she burned away her life. Hisagi let out a troubled sigh. However, he did not disregard her words, and as someone with dominion over death—a Soul Reaper—he confronted Hikone’s world directly.
“What I can do…is just show you that.”
Then he threw both the right and left sides of Kazeshini.
“All I can do…is forge an understanding between two mutual cowards.”
The two sickles he had released spiraled as they rose over Hisagi’s head.
As that vortex shrunk, with Hisagi at its center, Kazeshini’s two ends continued to fly, and eventually, they came into contact with each other and disappeared into the black maelstrom.
Then Hisagi quietly announced it.
He spoke the powerful words that were a Soul Reaper’s culmination.
“Bankai.”
The chains condensed in one place in the air, and in the next moment they turned into a jet-black mass that burst open, becoming a wind of spiritual pressure that raged through the expanse.
“Kazeshini Kojyo!”
The wind died down.
Hisagi, whose two blades had returned to his hand at some point, stood in front of Hikone as though nothing had happened. Two jet-black chains extended from his feet and twisted around each of his arms, firmly connecting him to the ground.
Faced with that curious scene, Hikone was even more dubious.
Probing into the nature of that bankai, they extended their spiritual pressure perception all around. However, that only informed Hikone of a strange reality.
They didn’t feel any spiritual pressure.
After the raging black wind had died down, the movement of the air itself completely stilled. Simultaneously, even the slightest tremble of spiritual pressure disappeared. The reishi in the Kyogoku, which was more pronounced than either the Soul Society’s or Hueco Mundo’s, had become entirely stationary as though time itself had stopped.
However, that was only the case on the ground and in the atmosphere.
Aura was still extending her spiritual pressure to the sky, and Kenpachi’s ominous vortex could be felt just the same.
Hikone, who had no idea what was happening, decided to attack Hisagi directly instead of waiting to see what their opponent would do. They increased the quickness of their zanpaku-to’s attack from earlier. Hikone, who confirmed that there was nothing strange about their own spiritual pressure, was once again confident they had cut Hisagi in half, but…
Hisagi remained unharmed.
To be more accurate, Hikone certainly had cut Hisagi, but from the moment they cut him, the wounds closed up as though they had never happened. No matter how many times Hikone attempted to rend into Hisagi with their blade, the moment the back of the blade passed through the Soul Reaper, the wound was already healed. Or rather, it was as though Hikone had never cut Hisagi in the first place.
It seemed that the regeneration power earlier was like a preliminary step toward the bankai. Though Hikone had no idea what had happened within the Soul Reaper Shuhei Hisagi, he had awakened his bankai here, and as part of that process, had invoked regenerative powers through his chains.
Hikone was bewildered as the chains once again wrapped around them.
“Oh…”
Hikone attempted to tear them away as before, but they weren’t able to. When they pulled, the chains would extend and continue to wind around them. Where in the world were those chains coming from? In order to find out, Hikone turned their eyes to where the chains led.
Then their entire body froze.
It was high over Hisagi’s head.
At about the same height as where the castle in the air had been, Hikone saw it.
It was something of an entirely different nature from anything Hikone had ever known before.
Was it a jet-black moon? Or a sun?
The gigantic black sphere was fixed in place as though to cast a shadow on the ground. Rather than rays of light, it stretched countless black lines down to the ground from the sky.
Hikone’s eyes registered the contents of that sun:
Chains.
Chains—the same ones that connected Kazeshini’s right and left halves in its shikai form were quickly writhing and gathering to form a gigantic sphere. At about the same time Hikone realized that, Hisagi silently hoisted the blade he’d been gripping.
In the next moment, countless fireworks seemed to launch from the ground as the chains stretched from the sky like rain in a downpour. The sky and earth were anchored in place by thousands of chains. In addition, a bundle of chains thicker than the others dangled down behind Hisagi like a gigantic black tree stretching to the heavens, connecting the ground to the black orb.