Chapter 76: Bankai: True Self Mirror!
Yukinoshita gripped Makoto's hand in return and pulled his hand toward her chest.
Unfortunately, it was blocked by the Sky Manipulation. At that moment, Makoto deeply understood just how troublesome his own Spatial Manipulation could be.
'Should I just deactivate it?'
He certainly could, and part of him was tempted. But fooling around right now was a terrible idea. If he interfered with Yukinoshita's Bankai awakening, their newly deepened relationship might freeze over instantly.
Makoto therefore pretended not to understand.
"What's wrong?"
"I... We're going to play Truth or Dare next!"
"Huh?"
Makoto stared at her in disbelief.
'At a time like this?'
Yukinoshita hurriedly explained, "It's not really a game. It's part of the Jinzen between me and my Zanpakuto."
"Every mirror fragment you see contains part of Yukinoshita Yukino's true self. They're mental projections I created through Jinzen."
She continued, "At first, I couldn't perform Jinzen at all. Later, on a whim, I started playing Truth or Dare with my Zanpakuto."
"That was how I finally began seeing myself clearly and allowed my Zanpakuto to develop its own soul."
"So if we repeat that process, it should accelerate my Bankai!"
Since Yukinoshita had explained it that way, Makoto had no reason to refuse.
Time passed far more slowly in this inner world than in reality anyway. Spending a little longer here wouldn't matter much.
"Then how do we play?"
Yukinoshita answered immediately.
"I'll go first. Truth or dare?"
"Can I really choose dare?"
Makoto couldn't help questioning it. There wasn't exactly much room for adventurous challenges inside this inner world.
Yukinoshita froze.
Apparently, she'd just realized the same thing.
"Then I'll pick truth. It's still the same game either way."
Makoto rescued her from the awkward silence.
Yukinoshita's eyes brightened.
"Then... Kitano-kun, what kind of world do you live in?"
"That's an unexpectedly basic opening. I thought you'd ask something more difficult."
"Truth questions should start with the basics!"
"All right."
Makoto paused briefly.
"I live in Academy City."
As Makoto began describing his world, the way Yukinoshita looked at him gradually changed. Her simple curiosity gained traces of understanding and recognition.
Just as she'd predicted, the more they learned about each other, the faster the ice covering the faceless girl began to melt.
Before long, however, they encountered a problem.
Their information was wildly unbalanced.
Yukinoshita knew almost nothing about Makoto, while the shattered mirrors had already shown Makoto nearly everything about Yukinoshita.
Even when it became his turn to ask questions, he struggled to think of anything useful.
Seeing his hesitation, Yukinoshita suggested, "If you really don't have anything left to ask, perhaps you could try choosing dare?"
"A dare... inside your inner world?"
Makoto's gaze shifted toward Yukinoshita.
She immediately became tense again.
She had finally adjusted to the unusual circumstances of the inner world, but that reaction made her briefly consider stopping the game.
Then she looked toward her Zanpakuto.
Half the ice had already melted.
Yukinoshita lightly bit her lip.
"Let's continue. I agree."
"All right. Then I choose dare."
Makoto placed his hand on top of Yukinoshita's head. Her silky hair carried a faint coolness. His fingertips accidentally brushed past her ear, and he could see her smooth shoulders trembling slightly, as well as hear small, rapid sounds escaping from her mouth and nose. Like teasing a kitten—interesting.
Then Makoto embarked on his dare journey. Rubbing her ears, pinching her nose, flicking her forehead, carefully examining the lines of her palms, checking whether her toenails were neat... Makoto tried hard to restrain his transgressive soul, but by the end, Yukinoshita had been teased until her face was flushed red.
Even though Makoto hadn't actually done anything excessive, the girl's blushing said it all.
Fortunately, the ice around the Zanpakuto had now melted almost all the way down.
One more question from Yukinoshita should be enough to finish their little game.
Unexpectedly, she didn't choose truth.
Instead, she spoke through gritted teeth.
"I choose dare."
Then, before Makoto could react, she stood on her tiptoes, cupped Makoto's cheeks with both hands, and pulled his face to within ten centimeters of her own before stopping there.
Their gazes met.
Makoto finally realized—she seemed to be using this method to punish him.
But was this really a punishment?
Makoto wasn't entirely sure, so he simply said, "I choose truth. Yukinoshita, what exactly did that mean?"
Before she could answer, Yukinoshita's spiritual pressure suddenly began surging.
The Jinzen was finally complete.
Yukinoshita took a step backward and slowly merged with the now-standing faceless girl.
At last, Yukinoshita Yukino appeared before Makoto in a pure white shiromuku, holding a silver blade nearly two meters long yet only about a centimeter wide.
She didn't look imposing at all.
Yet the spiritual pressure exploding from her nearly suffocated Makoto.
If he absolutely had to quantify it, Makoto felt that even Uzumaki Naruto with all nine tails fully unleashed would probably be around this level.
Yukinoshita's Bankai had clearly succeeded.
More importantly, its amplification belonged to the most extreme category.
Makoto even suspected her Zanpakuto still hadn't reached its true limit.
Its strength was tied to Yukinoshita's pursuit of something genuine and to how deeply she and Makoto understood one another.
As their convictions and partnership developed, this blade might still possess room to evolve further.
Just then, Makoto suddenly felt a force pushing him away.
Clearly, his role as witness had been completed.
As he prepared to leave the inner world, Yukinoshita's voice suddenly reached him.
"As for the answer to your truth question earlier..."
"I only wanted to know whether you saw anything appealing in me."
"I already know the answer now."
Her voice softened.
"From now on, please call me Yukino, Makoto-kun."
The moment Yukinoshita finished speaking, everything around Makoto rapidly faded.
When his awareness returned, he was back inside his physical body.
At the same time, Yukinoshita's Zanpakuto shattered.
Countless ice mirrors scattered in every direction, expanding into an enormous barrier with a radius of more than a hundred meters.
The ice that had sealed the two of them rapidly reshaped itself into Yukinoshita's white shiromuku.
Finally, a slender blade condensed in her hand.
Yukinoshita slowly spoke the name of her Bankai.
"Bankai: True Self Mirror."
After solemnly announcing its name, her tone immediately became lighter.
There was even a hint of pride in her voice.
"I'm going, Makoto-kun."
Makoto pressed his lips together.
He really wanted to ask her not to call him Makoto-kun.
For some reason, being addressed that way felt like asking for trouble.
But something that minor could wait.
In truth, Makoto barely even had time to speak.
Yukinoshita lightly pushed off the ground with the tip of one foot.
Her body instantly appeared nearly a hundred meters away.
The speed surpassed every technique and ability Makoto had witnessed so far.
More importantly, Yukinoshita hadn't used any spatial ability.
It was pure Shunpo, driven entirely by spiritual power.
Any distracting thoughts Makoto had immediately disappeared.
The difference in their current strength was obvious.
If Yukinoshita were his enemy right now, Makoto suspected that even his 0.1-second Domain Expansion would probably activate slower than she could attack.
This wasn't a difference in Talent or ability.
It was simply overwhelming superiority in level.
The malformed giant clearly noticed Yukinoshita as well.
With nowhere left to retreat, it swung an enormous fist coated in Armament Haki straight at her.
Yukinoshita's response was simple.
She merely raised the thin blade before herself.
Everyone watching, Makoto included, couldn't help worrying that the fragile-looking weapon might shatter on contact.
They soon realized how pointless that concern was.
The enormous iron fist, nearly the size of a house and moving fast enough to create a sonic boom, split cleanly in half the instant it touched Yukinoshita's blade.
There was no collision.
There wasn't even any sound.
It was as if the blade had passed through something softer than tofu.
No, even that comparison failed to describe its sharpness.
The most accurate explanation was that anything Yukinoshita judged to be false, impure, or lacking conviction would simply be severed before her blade.
This was no longer ordinary sharpness.
It was a direct clash of will.
As long as an enemy's conviction couldn't surpass Yukinoshita's, their fists, weapons, and even abilities would be split apart by her blade.
The proof appeared immediately.
Yukinoshita's sword cut directly through the giant's smoke-formed arm.
A genuine wound opened across it, spraying blood through the air.
Before a single drop could reach Yukinoshita, the blood froze into crystals and fell harmlessly to the ground.
The malformed giant finally seemed to understand the danger.
Every Biscuit Soldier charged Yukinoshita at once.
Different powers converged around her and exploded together.
To Makoto's surprise, Yukinoshita made no effort to defend herself.
Then he understood.
Her Bankai's strength wasn't limited to offense.
Its defense followed the same rule.
An enemy that her blade could sever couldn't harm her either.
Before something genuine, something false was destined to fail.
That was the law Yukinoshita's conviction had forged into her Zanpakuto.
Only now did Makoto fully understand how powerful Yukinoshita's blade had become.
It was absurdly strong.
Even in the later era of Yhwach, when bizarre ability-hax became increasingly common, a Zanpakuto like this would still possess considerable combat value.
Of course, it had weaknesses.
Its rules overwhelmingly strengthened Yukinoshita's own attacks and defenses, but didn't directly impose a high-level conceptual effect on her enemy.
Against something with absurd regenerative abilities, she would probably...
Makoto's thought stopped halfway.
The countless mirror fragments filling the sky suddenly moved.
They surrounded the malformed giant from every direction.
Then bone-chilling cold erupted.
Ice began spreading across the giant's body, gradually freezing it solid even though it had already activated elemental transformation.
Makoto's eyes lit up.
'All right. This Zanpakuto really is ridiculous.'
Of course, a Shinigami's strength wasn't determined by their Zanpakuto alone.
Their own spiritual power mattered just as much.
Fortunately, that was something the Main God Space's attribute system could compensate for.
Yukinoshita's future potential looked extremely promising.
Her sudden leap in strength even made Makoto start reconsidering his own path.
'How should I develop Spatial Manipulation if I want to keep up with a teammate whose abilities are reaching this kind of rule-based level?'
'Or should I start focusing more heavily on the chakra system I just obtained?'
Before Makoto could continue thinking, something changed.
The frozen malformed giant suddenly activated intangibility.
It was clearly trying to escape.
Yukinoshita immediately swung her blade ten times in a single instant.
Ten wounds opened across the giant.
Even so, it didn't die.
The fused creature had no conventional organs or vital points to destroy.
At the same time, Yukinoshita's explosive rise in spiritual power caused Uchiha Obito and Hatake Kakashi, who had briefly stopped moving, to act again.
This time, Obito silently appeared behind Makoto.
His hand reached straight toward the back of Makoto's neck.
His target had clearly changed.
"Watch out!"
Kakashi had reopened his Mangekyo Sharingan.
He still didn't know how to properly use its ability, but its enhanced visual perception was enough to track Obito and warn Makoto.
Unfortunately for Obito, he'd repeated his earlier mistake.
He was treating Makoto like an ordinary opponent.
Makoto's sensitivity to spatial changes had already surpassed even what the Fourth Hokage had displayed back then.
The instant Obito's hand touched his neck, Makoto activated his own intangibility.
His real neck shifted into his Storage Space.
Obito's fingers passed directly through the empty projection.
His visible eye widened in disbelief.
Realizing something was terribly wrong, Obito immediately tried to retreat.
It was already too late.
Makoto didn't use Domain Expansion again.
There was no point trying to trap someone whose Kamui could escape it.
Instead, he spun around and reached directly for Uchiha Obito's head.
Obito didn't bother dodging.
He had already made his head intangible again.
There was no possibility of Makoto touching him.
Then came a heavy impact.
Makoto's hand clamped firmly around Uchiha Obito's face.
Obito's expression changed to pure shock.
Makoto had activated intangibility on his own hand.
That meant his hand had shifted out of the real world and entered the same spatial layer where Obito's intangible body was hiding.
Because their abilities shared the same underlying Kamui-derived spatial principle, both becoming intangible caused Makoto's hand to appear directly against Obito's face.
For perhaps the first time, Uchiha Obito experienced the absurdity of someone using his own type of ability against him.
The instant Makoto felt solid resistance beneath his fingers, one thought flashed through his mind.
'Should I just kill Uchiha Obito right here?'
…