Amamiya's sudden descent wasn't recklessness—it was a gambit. As his hand slapped the cracked floor, his senses, intertwined with the ambient Reishi, finally locked onto Szayelaporro's precise location through the chaotic energy of his attacks.
"Whip down the silver whip, strike the five-handed stone bed! Gritz!" (Five-Pillar Bind)
A glowing white, pentagonal prism of energy erupted from the ground, encasing Amamiya completely. The wave of black Gabriel fluid splashed against the barrier, sizzling harmlessly before dripping to the floor, unable to penetrate.
"Hoh? Quincies have such defensive tricks?" Szayelaporro observed with clinical interest. His fluid's primary function was cloning upon contact; its raw corrosive power was secondary. He assumed Amamiya's defense was a lucky break, not a calculated read.
"But trapped in that shell, you can't move, can you?!" Redirecting the fluid chasing Uryū, Szayelaporro extended a hand toward the glowing prism, index finger pointed. A red glow began condensing at its tip—a Cero.
Inside the Gritz, Amamiya was already moving. He hadn't gathered Reishi from the air. Instead, he quietly uncorked one of the Silber tubes at his feet. Drawing its pure, contained energy, he formed a Heilig Pfeil directly within the confined space. Using the location he'd just confirmed, he aimed not at Szayelaporro's front, but at an angle, accounting for the barrier.
The Cero was still charging when the white prism shattered outward. An arrow, silent and deadly, shot through the opening. Szayelaporro hadn't sensed any external Reishi gathering—how?!
THWIP!
The arrow punched through his shoulder, the impact spinning him and shattering his concentration. The half-formed Cero fizzled out. Blood bloomed on his white uniform.
"Guh…!" Szayelaporro glared, clutching the wound. His eyes darted to the open Silber tube at Amamiya's feet. 'He used stored Reishi… inside his own barrier… to mask the buildup!'
From above, Uryū watched, comprehension dawning. 'First, use the barrier for defense and to sell the 'trapped' act. Then, use a Silber reserve to attack without external tells. He baited him perfectly.'
Amamiya didn't let up. Using Hirenkyaku, he shot skyward, already drawing another arrow from the dense atmosphere. "Uryū! Don't spectate! Finish this—the others need you!"
Uryū had no prideful insistence on a solo fight. Nodding, he joined the assault, his own arrows streaking down alongside Amamiya's.
Szayelaporro was cornered. His trump card, Gran Rey Cero, was forbidden within Las Noches's structure. His Resurrección's abilities were insidious but lacked overwhelming force if the enemy avoided contact. He was a strategist, not a brawler, and they were refusing to play his game.
Amamiya could have ended this instantly with his Zanpakutō. But unleashing that Shinigami power would broadcast his presence to every Espada, especially the vengeful Grimmjow. The black cloak and pure Quincy techniques were his camouflage.
"Uryū," Amamiya called out mid-air, "do you have a one-shot technique? Something decisive?"
"I do. Why?"
"I'll pin him down. You prepare the finisher." Amamiya's plan seemed straightforward.
Uryū assumed Amamiya would finally draw his sword for close-quarters pressure. Nodding, he landed, focusing. He produced the unique Seele Schneider he'd 'borrowed' from his father—a blade-shaped tool of condensed Reishi designed for a single, annihilating strike.
But Amamiya didn't draw a Zanpakutō. He just… charged. Straight at Szayelaporro, empty-handed.
"What is he doing…?!" Uryū muttered, bewildered but trusting enough to begin his own preparations.
"Hoh? A Quincy, closing in for melee? Am I being mocked?" Szayelaporro sneered, gathering more fluid.
'If I don't get close, how can I cut you down?' Amamiya thought.
Then, it happened. The Quincy Cross on Amamiya's hand glowed. Reishi, drawn not from the air but from another opened Silber tube at his belt, surged into his grasp. But it didn't form a bow.
It coalesced into a long, sleek, blazing sword of pure blue-white light.
"How…? Reishi manipulation… into a blade?!" Uryū's jaw went slack. He stared at the Seele Schneider in his own hand, its simple metallic form suddenly seeming crude.
"A Quincy technique?!" Szayelaporro's clinical curiosity was overwritten by shock. This defied all known Quincy combat forms.
This was the fruit of Vollständig Bankai—the profound, instinctual mastery over Reishi's form. Just as Yhwach could forge blades of light, Amamiya, on a far lesser scale, could now shape it. The power wasn't comparable to the Quincy King's, but against an Arrancar like Szayelaporro, whose Hierro was middling at best, it was more than enough.
As he ran, Amamiya tossed another Silber tube ahead. It didn't spill energy. Instead, it activated mid-air, transforming into another glowing Gritz prism that slammed down between him and Szayelaporro, blocking the renewed spray of black fluid.
Amamiya leaped, clearing the barrier, the light-sword raised high. He descended upon Szayelaporro like a falling star.The blade of condensed, blue-white reishi in his hand hummed as he brought it down in a decisive slash.
"Too slow," Miyako stated, his voice flat.
Szayelaporro, in his released form of Fornicarás, was no close-quarters fighter. He scrambled backward, his elegant form awkward in retreat. A spike of fury and regret shot through him. Why didn't I summon my Fracción sooner? This tedious, brutish skirmishing is beneath me!
For several minutes, a frustrating stalemate held. Miyako pressed forward with calm, measured strikes, and Szayelaporro could only evade. Finally, the Octavo Espada's patience shattered. A cruel smirk twisted his lips as he willed the wing-like appendages on his back to burrow into the ground. They tunneled swiftly, emerging behind Miyako to encircle him. The grotesque, mouth-like openings lining the wings yawned wide, ready to devour their target.
"Do you think I didn't see that coming?" Miyako murmured, not even turning.
Just as the gaping maws were about to snap shut, the floor beneath one wing erupted. A brilliant, azure cube of energy—a Heilig Kästchen—materialized and consumed the appendage whole. The severed wing dissolved into reishi particles, and four now-inert Silver Tubes clattered to the stone floor.
"GYAAAAAH!" Szayelaporro reeled, an agonizing, spiritual pain lancing through him as he violently retracted his maimed wing. "You inferior insect! How dare you mar my perfect form!" Enraged beyond reason, his body convulsed, releasing a billowing cloud of violet poisonous mist from his pores, creating a toxic barrier between them.
To his surprise, Miyako immediately disengaged, leaping back out of the mist's range. A triumphant, manic laugh began to bubble in Szayelaporro's throat. He fears it! He's finally yielded ground!
But the laugh died unborn as a cool, analytical voice spoke from directly behind him, where no one should have been able to stand within the poison cloud.
"The positioning is perfect. As expected, your close-combat awareness is severely lacking."
Ishida Uryū?! Szayelaporro's eyes widened. The Quincy stood there unharmed, a gas mask securely over his face. A miscalculation! But a fatal one for him! If he hasn't shot me yet, then he's already—
"Is that so? Are those your last words?" Uryū cut off his thoughts. Without ceremony, he plunged his final Seele Schneider—the Soul-Cutting Arrow—deep into the floor at his feet.
It was only then Szayelaporro looked down and saw it: he stood at the very center of a glowing, intricate pentagram of Quincy reishi.
"Sprenger," Uryū announced.
The world dissolved into light and deafening sound. The pentagram detonated with catastrophic force, the blast wave shaking the very foundations of Las Noches. Szayelaporro's scream was swallowed by the roar of the explosion.
From the periphery, Amamiya Miyako watched, his spirit bow, Gintō no Yumi, already materialized in his hand. He knew a single Sprenger, however powerful, wouldn't finish an Espada of Szayelaporro's caliber in his released state. More pressingly, he sensed two familiar, weaker reiatsu signatures approaching rapidly from below. His Fracción. He's calling for them.
With fluid motions, Miyako nocked not arrows, but two Silver Tubes. He drew the bowstring, aiming not at the wounded Espada in the crater, but at the floor beside him. Twang! Twang!
The Gintō shot forward like bolts of silver. They struck true, but their targets were not Szayelaporro. They pierced through the emerging forms of Lumina and Verona just as they arrived to answer their master's desperate summons.
The smoke cleared to reveal a grim scene. Szayelaporro, his body scorched and oozing, lay in a self-made pit, one hand outstretched toward where his subordinates now lay impaled. His plan to consume them and regenerate had been horrifyingly clear.
But Miyako was not done. Thin threads of reishi, pre-attached to the Gintō, trailed back to his fingers. "The feast is over," he declared coldly. With a forceful downward sweep of his hand, he activated the technique. "Heilig Pfeil: Verschlucken!"
Two massive, crystalline blue cubes engulfed the bodies of Lumina and Verona. In an instant, they were compressed, analyzed, and utterly devoured by the energy. Only faint spiritual residue remained.
Szayelaporro's face, already contorted in pain, underwent a terrifying transformation. It froze, then twisted into a mask of pure, undiluted rage and despair. The loss of his data, his specimens, his toys—this was a wound deeper than any physical blow.
"YOU INFERIOR WRETCH!" he shrieked, his voice cracking. Being wounded by Ishida was a tactical setback. This was a personal, unforgivable violation.
Miyako responded with two more silent arrows, pinning the Espada's feet to the rubble with ruthless precision. Then he moved. In a blur that combined the swiftest Shunpo with Hirenkyaku, he vanished and reappeared directly before the immobilized Arrancar.
His hands went to his hips, grasping the hilts of his true weapons. As he drew the twin blades of his Zanpakutō, their distinct spiritual pressure washed over the area. Szayelaporro's rage dissolved into sudden, chilling comprehension.
"Zanpakutō…? Twin blades…! It's… you?!" he gasped, the horrifying puzzle pieces snapping into place.
'The problem of Hell will need to be addressed… but not today,' Miyako thought, his expression unreadable.
"Go. Meet your brother there," he said, his voice low and final.
The blades crossed in a flash of silver light. Szayelaporro Granz, the former Octavo Espada, had just enough time to see his own body fall away before his consciousness unraveled into eternal darkness. In his final moment, he knew two things with absolute certainty: the identity of his brother's killer, and the crushing, ultimate price of inferior strength.