Bzzt! Click-whirr!
"What in the world is going on…?" Kisuke Urahara muttered, his fan lying forgotten as he frantically manipulated the console of his spiritual instrument. The screen flickered, but the result remained stubbornly, impossibly the same: HŌGYOKU STATUS: FULLY AWAKENED.
With a calm breath, Amamiya Miyako willed the orb's overwhelming aura to recede, sheathing his Zanpakutō and returning the room to a state of uneasy quiet.
"It's no use, Urahara-san. You can check a hundred more times. The result won't change," Miyako stated, his voice even.
The shopkeeper fell into an uncharacteristic silence, his usual playful demeanor shattered. According to his every calculation, this was an absolute impossibility. Even if Aizen himself had stolen the Hōgyoku, a dormant orb would take a minimum of three months to awaken. That had been his failsafe, his final card to play if retrieval proved difficult—he just needed to buy a little time.
But now? The Hōgyoku hadn't been stolen. It had willingly fused with Amamiya Miyako's soul and was now fully active. The logic of it all collapsed in his mind.
"What…" Urahara whispered, his head bowed low, the brim of his hat shadowing his eyes.
"Are you going to ask what I did?" Miyako questioned, his tone still calm.
"What did you do?!" Urahara's demand erupted at the exact same moment, and hearing Miyako's eerily prescient words, he felt a chill—a genuine fear of the unknown—crawl down his spine.
"Amamiya Miyako," Urahara's voice was low and serious, all pretense gone. "Who are you, really? And what have you done to the Hōgyoku?"
To fully awaken a completely dormant Hōgyoku should have taken Aizen months. Yet this Vice-Captain had accomplished it in an instant. It was the greatest anomaly Urahara had ever witnessed.
"Urahara-san," Miyako began, deftly shifting the subject, "did you know that Hōgyoku can resonate with one another?"
"Resonate…?" Urahara was genuinely taken aback. Since its creation, his focus had always been on destroying or sealing his creation away. He'd never studied its social habits.
"Aizen was able to locate your Hōgyoku a century ago precisely because of that connection," Miyako explained. "He wanted to complete his own orb faster than you could, but he failed. That's why he set his sights on yours."
"Inside my soul, I can still block Aizen's detection. But if the Hōgyoku were outside, it wouldn't be so easy to hide," Miyako continued, his pace unhurried.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Urahara retorted, his fan snapping open to hide his agitation. "How can I just let you walk off with it?"
"...That's still not a good plan," Urahara countered, his mind racing through the risks. "If something happens to you, the Hōgyoku will be discovered anyway." He knew Miyako's Zanpakutō ability was strange, but he didn't believe the young man had the power to protect something so coveted.
While retrieving and re-sealing the orb would be a monumental task, in Urahara's mind, the Hōgyoku was safest in his own hands, or at the very least, in a place only he knew.
"I see…" Miyako let out a soft sigh. He'd known it wouldn't be that easy. "Then let me prove it. Let me prove that I have the strength to protect it."
Shing!
With twin flashes of steel, Amamiya Miyako drew his unique dual Zanpakutō and stood ready, his stance firm.
"Amamiya-kun, why are you so insistent on keeping the Hōgyoku?" Urahara asked, genuine confusion in his voice. "Do you also wish to undergo Hollowfication?"
"You have your reasons, and I have mine. If an awakened Hōgyoku is discovered—or worse, obtained—by Aizen, and Soul Society is unprepared… the consequences would be catastrophic. Enough talk. I'll prove my strength to you."
Urahara fell silent for a long moment. Finally, with a soft click, he drew his own sword, the sleek Benihime, from its cane sheath.
"Then I'm sorry, Amamiya Miyako. I will defeat you, retrieve the Hōgyoku, and hide it where no one will ever find it. The orb is simply too dangerous!" Urahara declared, his voice firm with resolve.
"Awaken, Benihime!" Crimson energy erupted from his blade, painting the room in a bloody light.
"Let's see it, then," Miyako said, a focused glint in his eyes. "The strength of the former Captain of the 12th Division and founder of the Research and Development Institute." Internally, he knew this battle couldn't last long. Urahara was acting out of fear, terrified by Aizen's creation of the Arrancar.
In a flash of blue light, Miyako's twin blades merged and transformed, a bow of spiritual energy forming in his hand. He nocked an arrow of reishi and let it fly directly at Urahara.
Swish!
Urahara didn't block. He simply sidestepped, the arrow embedding itself harmlessly in the wall behind him.
"It's useless, Amamiya-kun! I know your Zanpakutō's ability!" Urahara stated, a hint of grim fortune in his voice. "I won't give you a chance to seal Benihime away!" He was thankful now that Miyako had once voluntarily explained his Shikai's power; a first encounter would have surely ended with him falling for that trick.
"Is that so…" Miyako didn't bother to correct him. He fired several more arrows in rapid succession, but this time, they weren't meant to hit. As they flew, he crossed his arms, spiritual pressure spiking.
"Bakudō #9, Geki! Hadō #11, Tsuzuri Raiden!" he chanted, combining the spells. T
The arrows shimmered, morphing in mid-flight. In an instant, the first volley twisted into glowing orange tendrils, snapping around Urahara's arm. The next volley turned into crackling threads of electricity, surging along the ropes toward him with explosive speed.
"Tch…!" Urahara sliced through the bindings with a clean strike, sparks scattering as the tendrils dissipated. His cane split open as he drew his Zanpakutō fully. "Collapse… Benihime!"
The crimson blade sang as Urahara swung. A shield of red energy flared to life before him—Chikasumi no Tate—and from its surface burst countless scarlet blasts of energy, the Benihime no Hōkō, firing in rapid succession toward Miyako.
But in the moment the blasts erupted, Miyako was already gone. His form blurred, vanishing with a speed beyond expectation.
"Too slow…"
The voice came from Urahara's side. Miyako's bow melted back into dual blades mid-step, and with a flash of steel, he slashed directly at Urahara's guard.
'Impossible…! This speed—this isn't normal Shunpo!' Urahara's eyes widened, a rare flicker of shock crossing his face. He barely managed to brace, raising Benihime's shield once again.
"Sing, Benihime!"
The Blood Mist Shield expanded, intercepting the strike. Sparks and fragments of reiryoku scattered as the blades met the crimson barrier.
But Miyako's voice cut through the clash like ice.
"Manifest… Shinya Zetsunen."
The full release of his Shikai surged. The twin blades shimmered with violent energy, and with one motion, Miyako's strike shattered Urahara's crimson shield like fragile glass.
Urahara's pupils shrank. "How is that… possible?!"
The twin blades swept toward him again, forcing Urahara to retreat at the very last moment. His figure flickered, vanishing in a blur. Only the faint sound of fabric tearing was left behind—along with his fallen striped hat.
"…Utsusemi, huh?" Miyako's tone was level, eyes fixed where Urahara had stood. "Hidden Step Technique, Number Three. Clever."
Urahara reappeared several feet away, his expression unusually tense. A flicker of regret crossed his face. I should have pressed Ryūken harder about this boy. If I had known what Amamiya Miyako truly was, I wouldn't be so cornered now…
Every movement Miyako made, every clash of steel, was far beyond a normal Shinigami's level. And that unfamiliar twin-blade Shikai… no records existed of its true nature. The only time it had been seen was in that fated battle against Aizen—and the only witness had been Kuchiki Rukia.
"The ability to seal a Zanpakutō… the power to shatter Benihime's shield… arrows that transform into Kidō…" Urahara's voice grew low, serious. "A Zanpakutō's Shikai should have one ability, maybe two at most. Why do you have so many? Just what are you, Amamiya-kun?!"
Miyako paused, his eyes narrowing faintly. "…You don't actually expect me to answer that, do you?"
He raised his blades, reuniting them once again into a bow.
"Separate… Shinya Zetsunen!"
A new surge of power gathered at the bowstring as Miyako loosed another arrow, its energy screaming through the air toward Urahara.