Blood...?!
Though Soifon had drawn upon the power of Blut Vene countless times before, this was the first time she had used it so brazenly, without a shred of concealment.
The Captain-Commander had once fought the King of the Quincy a thousand years ago. One look was all he needed to recognize the cobalt-blue patterns spreading across Soifon's body.
"Blut Vene... you're a Quincy too?!"
Unlike Unohana Retsu's cool composure, the Captain-Commander's face was written over with pure shock. Scorching sparks burst intermittently from his body and rained down from the heights, the whole man like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
"I assumed the Captain-Commander had already figured it out long ago," Soifon said.
"Have you forgotten? That day, the technique that blocked Your Excellency's slash—it was a Quincy arrow."
She shrugged.
"..."
There was a certain exhilarating satisfaction in having the pieces click into place—but the Captain-Commander was anything but pleased.
Fighting a Quincy of this caliber meant he had to end it quickly. The longer the battle dragged on, the more the tide would turn against the Shinigami. And it was abundantly clear: Soifon was not an opponent he could put down quickly.
At least not while she remained in Shikai.
Just as the Captain-Commander and Soifon held each other in that delicate standoff, and the Spiritual Pressures across the battlefield below clashed in violent collision—
"HA HA HA!"
"SOIFON—! Let's have a proper fight to the death!"
A roar wild beyond all measure came crashing in, dragging an enormous wave of Spiritual Pressure with it, slamming into the standoff between Soifon and the Captain-Commander without a moment's warning.
"Zaraki!"
"What do you think you're doing?! Stand down!"
Captain-Commander Yamamoto's expression shifted in an instant as he thundered the order—but it was already too late.
Zaraki Kenpachi materialized between the Captain-Commander and Soifon, a savage grin splitting his face from ear to ear, the tiny bells at the tips of his hair chiming with his every movement.
He wasn't wearing those eye patches that suppressed his Spiritual Pressure. Every ounce of his battle-hunger was locked squarely onto Soifon, who stood watching with her arms folded.
It seemed that being knocked down by Soifon in that mocking, toying fashion on multiple prior occasions had left a mark on Zaraki Kenpachi that he simply couldn't let go.
He raised his chipped and notched blade. Then, at terrifying speed, he hurled himself at Soifon wrapped in a torrent of Spiritual Pressure—and brought the sword crashing down at her head in one savage overhead cleave.
Soifon did not draw her blade.
She simply raised her right hand. A flash of cobalt-blue Blut Vene blazed across her forearm.
Clang—!!
The shockwave rippled out. Zaraki Kenpachi's strike—delivered with every intention of splitting her in two—was stopped cold. Blocked by nothing more than a single arm wrapped in Blut Vene.
Zaraki Kenpachi's pupils contracted slightly. The grin on his face only grew wilder.
"This tough?! Now THAT'S more like it!!"
He let out a furious bellow. His wrist spun, and his Zanpakutō dissolved into a blur of steel—a relentless storm of slashes that ground forward at Soifon like a crushing millstone.
"Too slow, Zaraki Kenpachi."
Even before the words had fully left her mouth, she curled the five fingers of her right hand and caught the blade of his next downswing in a precise, iron grip.
What—?!
Zaraki Kenpachi's right arm bulged, every muscle straining to its limit—but no matter how hard he pulled, he could not wrench the sword free from Soifon's hand.
"Did you really think," Soifon said, "that just because you took off those eye patches..."
"...you'd be worthy of fighting me as you are right now?!"
As she spoke, a spinning vortex of wind erupted from both her arms. She clenched her left fist, and at a speed Zaraki Kenpachi could not begin to comprehend, it slammed into his chest.
Infinite Shunkō.
BOOM—
A sound of such deep, compressed impact detonated against Zaraki Kenpachi's body. The violent wind pressure blasted the flesh of his face in every direction. He was sent flying backward—faster than he had come—a streak of light that smashed violently into a cluster of buildings in the replica Karakura Town far below.
The Captain-Commander watched Soifon without blinking. The force in that last punch had been controlled with exquisite precision, and it had clearly avoided any vital point on purpose. That was why he hadn't moved to act rashly.
"With respect, Captain-Commander..." Soifon shook out her left hand and turned to face him. "You've been far too lenient with Zaraki Kenpachi."
The Captain-Commander had no answer for that.
"His strength should never have stayed at this level."
She turned her gaze downward toward the billowing smoke below and shook her head with a helpless sigh.
In the brief lull while Zaraki Kenpachi was sent flying and the dust had not yet settled, a voice rang out—gentle in tone, yet carrying an unmistakable edge of battle-intent.
"If you would permit me... allow me to join Captain Zaraki in receiving your instruction, Captain Soifon."
Without anyone noticing when, Unohana Retsu had flash-stepped to a position not far from Soifon's side. Her Zanpakutō was already drawn.
Soifon glanced sideways at her, and showed no mercy with her words.
"Didn't Captain Unohana concede the last time we fought?"
"Yes. Which is precisely why I said..."
"...I will receive your instruction together with Captain Zaraki."
Unohana smiled quietly. The instant the words fell, her silhouette vanished.
A heartbeat later, her blade edge appeared, silent and soundless, at the side of Soifon's neck.
Ding!
Suzumebachi's short blade intercepted Minazuki with precise perfection. For the first time on a true battlefield, the two Zanpakutō crossed blades.
Unlike Zaraki Kenpachi's pure, savage power, Unohana Retsu's swordsmanship was refined and exact—yet held a degree of restraint at every critical moment.
While the two were locked in combat, the rubble of a skyscraper far below exploded outward with a thunderous crash. Covered in dust and blood, Zaraki Kenpachi let out a howl and came charging back up into the sky.
The wounds on his body were still seeping blood. But his Spiritual Pressure seemed even more violent than before, and the battle-hunger burning in both his eyes looked ready to overflow.
"HEY—!! We're not DONE yet!! Don't you dare leave me out of this!!"
The strength Soifon had put on display had won Zaraki Kenpachi over completely. He didn't spare a single thought on whether a two-on-one was fair—if anything, the fact that it meant a more unrestricted, all-out battle only excited him further.
In an instant, the three of them were a tangled storm of blades. The collision of Spiritual Pressures grew far more intense, and the flash of steel and shadows of the sword completely engulfed that stretch of sky.
Soifon could feel it with clarity: Zaraki Kenpachi's strength and speed were rising as the battle wore on—slowly, but unmistakably and continuously climbing.
Yet the pace of that growth, scraped out on the razor's edge between life and death, was nowhere near enough to keep pace with the cumulative damage Soifon was dealing him.
And throughout the fighting, Soifon had also been deliberately paying Zaraki Kenpachi a little extra... attention.
Gradually, Zaraki Kenpachi's movements began to slow. His breathing turned ragged and labored. The arcs of his blade gradually lost the precision and ferocity they had carried at the start.
He took yet another of Soifon's side kicks square on the shoulder, staggering backward more than ten meters before he could barely stabilize himself by driving his Zanpakutō deep into the Spirit Particle-formed ground beneath his feet. Blood dripped in a constant stream from his arm, his chest, his chin.
The battle-hunger in his eyes still burned as fiercely as ever. But his body was drawing close to its absolute limit, battered and broken.
"Captain Unohana—if you don't use your real power soon..." Soifon's gaze shifted back to Unohana Retsu's face. "He may actually die here."
Unohana Retsu raised her eyes past Soifon to the Captain-Commander, who had remained still on the sidelines. He gave the smallest nod.
With that silent permission granted, Unohana Retsu brought her gaze back to Soifon.
A thick, viscous Spiritual Pressure—laden with the smell of blood—seeped out from Unohana's body, like a crimson sea of gore roiling and churning at her side.
She laid her Zanpakutō horizontal across her chest, and her left hand slowly passed over the cold, smooth length of the blade.
In the next instant, her left hand's five fingers snapped shut—gripping the razor edge in a fierce, deliberate clench.
Spurt—
Blood welled up between her fingers, flowing down the length of the blade.
But it did not drip and fall. As though possessed of a life of its own, it transformed in an instant into a thick, dense crimson mist. With Unohana Retsu at its center, it exploded outward in every direction with frenzied abandon.
"Bankai—Minazuki."
In that single moment, the color of the sky changed.
A blood mist born from an endless, boundless sea of gore rose and swirled, swallowing Soifon, Zaraki Kenpachi, and Unohana Retsu herself in its entirety.
Within the crimson domain, the air grew thick and viscous, saturated with the heavy scent of iron rust and a strange, sweet-iron reek.
Unohana Retsu stood there like an Ashura risen from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, substantial killing intent coiled around her entire being.
She did not immediately attack Soifon. Instead, her figure flickered, reappearing at Zaraki Kenpachi's side as he teetered on the verge of collapse. The blood-soaked edge of her blade passed lightly over his body.
"Ha..."
Zaraki Kenpachi drew in a sharp breath, and in an instant, his injuries vanished completely—fully restored.
"As you wished, Captain Soifon."
The healing complete, Unohana raised her hand in a single stroke. Grotesque blade edges crystallized from blood came shrieking in at Soifon from all eight directions at once, pouring down like a torrential downpour.
Zaraki Kenpachi howled and charged at Soifon again—faster and harder than before.
The longer Soifon remained within the domain of Minazuki, the more she felt her own blood beginning to stir and strain, eager and restless, as if being pulled by an unseen force.
With no choice in the matter, she was forced to suppress the boiling of her blood with a constant expenditure of Spiritual Pressure.
The blood blades surging toward her crashed against Blut Vene with a dense, rapid sound like rain hammering upon banana leaves—then shattered into droplets and fell back down into the sea of blood below.
As time wore on, the battle between Soifon and the two Kenpachi began to take on a strange and uncanny quality.
The fighting continued within the sea of blood.
Zaraki Kenpachi was beaten back again and again—and again and again he charged back in, howling, driven by the healing of the bloodflow and his own ever-more-savage battle-hunger.
The cycle repeated, over and over, and no one could say how long it had gone on.
Each time he was dragged back from the brink of death, the Spiritual Pressure Zaraki Kenpachi unleashed was a fraction stronger than before—climbing, always climbing, toward the uttermost limit of his soul...
BOOM—
This time, Zaraki Kenpachi did not simply charge headlong at Soifon again like a brute the moment he was healed.
He stood perfectly still where he was. The Spiritual Pressure around his body began to climb at a speed that defied all reason.
The true Zaraki Kenpachi... was back.
Without even thinking about it, her fingertips drifted up to touch the old scar on her chest. Unohana Retsu knew this man before her all too well...
Golden Spiritual Pressure tore through the air like a gale, and with Zaraki Kenpachi at its center, it blasted the sea of Minazuki's blood apart with an earth-shaking roar.
"Little Ken..."
Somewhere below, Yachiru Kusajishi stood atop the ruins, her small face tilted upward.
Inside the domain, as Minazuki was dispelled, Unohana Retsu let out a muffled grunt. The raging sea of blood around her receded like a tide, and her complexion turned faintly pale.
The Zaraki Kenpachi who stood before them now was wreathed in a surging tide of golden Spiritual Pressure—and above his head, the ghostly outline of a ferocious skull loomed into shape.
He gripped his notch-covered Zanpakutō in both hands and raised it high above his head...
His gaze locked onto Soifon.
"Come on then! You went through all that trouble... isn't THIS what you were waiting for?"
Before his words had even finished, the Spirit Particle-formed ground beneath his feet cracked and exploded. His entire body became a bolt of golden lightning.
Two-handed grip—full-force strike!
CLANG—!!!
A shockwave greater than anything from any of their previous exchanges erupted from the meeting of their blades—powerful enough to send the Captain-Commander's flame barrier swaying and buckling. Every building within a hundred meters of where they stood was leveled flat by the downward gale of Zaraki Kenpachi's slash.
At the center of the storm, Soifon's small figure did not move a single inch.
"Now that's more like it, Zaraki Kenpachi."
Soifon shifted her weight subtly, and with one sharp push of Suzumebachi, she deflected Zaraki Kenpachi's blade aside.
Spurt—
From his right shoulder down to his left hip, a long crimson line tore open across Zaraki Kenpachi's body.
Damn it... just a mortal wound...
Zaraki Kenpachi pressed a hand to the gash—deep enough to see bone—then his vision went black. His entire body toppled and fell toward the ground below...
Even for Zaraki Kenpachi, after so many sit-ups between life and death, his body had finally reached its absolute limit.
____
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