The moment Grimmjow's claws were within striking distance, Amamiya Miyako met his feral charge with blazing focus. A swift hand gesture summoned a blade of condensed blue-white reishi into his grasp, and he surged forward to meet the Espada head-on.
CLANG! SCREECH!
The sound of their clash echoed like thunder within the colossal Seiiki barrier. Miyako, gripping the spirit sword with both hands, held firm against the curved bone blades on Grimmjow's forearms. The Arrancar's other clawed hand lashed out in a vicious swipe aimed at Miyako's throat.
"I haven't forgotten your arm was restored," Miyako said, a sharp grin touching his lips as he leaned back, the claws whistling past his chin. "And you shouldn't have forgotten how my Bankai fights."
As if on cue, the massive form of Shinya Zetsunen - Jōmetsu Kyū, floating autonomously nearby, rotated with a whisper of reishi. An arrow of brilliant, condensed energy materialized on its string, aimed unerringly at Grimmjow's flank, and released.
"Tch!" Grimmjow abandoned his grappling attempt, planting a foot on Miyako's spirit blade to kick himself backward, narrowly evading the streaking projectile. He used the momentum to leap high, the bony protrusions on his elbows glowing with emerald light. "Desgarrón!" Five sharp, crescent-shaped projectiles of green energy shot down toward Miyako.
Miyako didn't retreat. Instead, he stepped forward, his spirit sword becoming a blur of blue light as he fluidly cut through each projectile, shattering them into harmless sparks. "Predictable!"
Enraged, Grimmjow poured on his restored speed, becoming a blue afterimage. With both arms and legs at full power, he was a vortex of destruction, utterly convinced victory was his this time. He closed the distance again, one clawed hand seizing the blade of Miyako's spirit sword in a vice-like grip, the other palm opening wide and beginning to glow with a terrifying, deep blue light—the unmistakable precursor to a Gran Rey Cero.
"Got you!" Grimmjow snarled, the Cero swelling in his palm.
"Did you?" Miyako's response was calm. The solid-seeming spirit sword in Grimmjow's grip simply… dissolved into motes of reishi. The sudden lack of resistance threw off Grimmjow's balance for a split second, and Miyako twisted free of his grasp. "When did you get the illusion this was a permanent weapon?" A powerful kick landed squarely on Grimmjow's chest, launching him backward through the air.
The Gran Rey Cero, bereft of its target, fired wildly upward. The massive beam of annihilating energy struck the inner surface of the golden Dankū wall of the Seiiki. The barrier rippled violently, absorbing and dispersing the incredible force with a deep, resonant hum, but it held firm. The Cero dissipated without leaving a mark.
Miyako didn't let the opening pass. Jōmetsu Kyū tracked Grimmjow's flight path instantly. Twang! Another arrow, swift and silent, lanced toward the recovering Espada.
Grimmjow righted himself with a bestial snarl. Seeing the arrow, he didn't dodge. Instead, he slashed his clawed hand downward in a tearing motion. "Garra de la Pantera!" A wave of destructive blue energy erupted from his claws, meeting the arrow mid-air and obliterating it in a spectacular explosion of light.
Not deterred, Grimmjow gathered another Gran Rey Cero in his other hand, this time taking aim. "Eat this!"
The cerulean beam of destruction screamed across the void. Miyako, however, didn't move from his spot. Only as the Cero was about to impact did he speak, his voice cutting through the roar. "Hadō #81: Dankū."
A translucent, rectangular wall of golden energy snapped into existence a few meters before him. The Gran Rey Cero crashed against it with world-shaking force but could not penetrate, its energy washing harmlessly around the edges of the unyielding barrier.
'If a single Cero won't work… then a barrage will!' Grimmjow's strategy shifted. He pointed an index finger, glowing with ominous light. "Cero Metralleta!" A rapid-fire volley of smaller, crimson Cero blasts erupted from his fingertip, streaking toward Miyako in a chaotic, inescapable-seeming storm.
Miyako's senses, honed to a razor's edge, perceived the trajectory of each blast. With movements that were almost casual, he tilted his head, shifted his shoulders, and leaned his torso—a masterful display of minimal motion. The barrage of Ceros shot past him, missing by centimeters, and detonated harmlessly against the distant barrier walls.
"Tch! Annoying!" Grimmjow spat, finally accepting that ranged warfare was a losing game against this opponent. His true advantage lay in the enhanced physicality of his Resurrección.
Seeing Miyako re-condense his spirit sword, Grimmjow's feral grin returned. "Now this is more like it!" He vanished, utilizing his maximum speed to its fullest, attacking not from one direction, but from all sides—a blur of blue and white, claws and blades seeking an opening.
Miyako's expression remained focused. Here lay the inherent trade-off of his Bankai's autonomous attack mode: a significant portion of his reishi and concentration was invested in controlling Jōmetsu Kyū. While it granted him devastating remote offensive power, it temporarily limited the density of the adaptive defensive barrier he could maintain over his own body—the "turtle shell" Grimmjow had mocked.
Therefore, against this whirlwind of close-quarters assault, Miyako did not rely on an impenetrable defense. He met the storm with fluid parries of his spirit sword, precise Shunpo steps, and subtle twists of his body, a dance of evasion and deflection. Claws grazed his arms; a kick glanced off his side, reopening the stitched wound on his shoulder and drawing fresh blood.
"What's wrong?! What's wrong!" Grimmjow taunted, his voice a triumphant snarl as he saw the crimson stains bloom. "Where's that hard shell now?! Too busy controlling your toy?!"
Miyako ignored the taunts, his mind calculating. The scratches were superficial, the pain irrelevant. Grimmjow's tactic was sound: stay glued to his opponent, making the autonomous Bankai a liability for its own user.
So Miyako decided to turn the liability into a feint. With a mental command, Jōmetsu Kyū swiveled, not away from the fray, but directly toward it. A massive, glowing arrow condensed, its tip aimed squarely at the two combatants locked in their deadly dance.
Grimmjow saw it and his eyes lit up with savage glee. 'Idiot! He'll hit himself!' He disengaged instantly, flashing away to a safer distance, eager to watch Miyako be impaled by his own power.
The arrow shot forward with terrifying speed, a beam of light aimed at Miyako's back. But instead of trying to dodge, Miyako turned toward it. At the last possible instant, as the arrow was about to strike, his hands shot out. They didn't block it; they caught it.
Blue-white reishi flared around his palms as the Rejection property of his Zanpakutō nullified the arrow's penetrative force. In one continuous, fluid motion, he used the arrow's own momentum, spinning his body like a discus thrower and hurling it back across the void—but now, amplified by his own spiraling reishi, it was faster, denser, and far more powerful.
"WHAT?!" Grimmjow's triumph turned to shock. The returned arrow was upon him in a flash, leaving no time to unleash a Garra de la Pantera. Instinct took over; he crossed his arms before him, the dense bone armor of his Resurrección gleaming, and braced for impact.
BOOOOOOM!
The redirected arrow slammed into Grimmjow's guard with the force of a meteor. The explosion that followed was deafening within the confined Seiiki, a storm of blue-white light and concussive force. When it cleared, Grimmjow was skidding backward through the air, thick plumes of smoke rising from his forearms. The dense bone plating was scorched and cracked, blood welling from the fissures.
"Why would you ever think my own Bankai could harm me?" Amamiya Miyako asked, his voice calm yet edged with disdain as he landed lightly, the spirit sword re-forming in his grip.
"RAAAAAGH!" Grimmjow's roar was one of pure, unadulterated fury. Ignoring the pain, he crossed his arms and slashed them outward with all his might. "Garra de la Pantera!" Not one, but ten rippling screens of destructive blue energy materialized before him. With a furious gesture, he merged them into five colossal, criss-crossing waves of annihilation that tore across the space between them, leaving rents in the very reishi of the air.
Miyako didn't try to match the scale. With a thought, he recalled the massive Jōmetsu Kyū to his side. In a flash, he nocked and fired a single, precise arrow. It lanced forward, striking the central point of one of the five towering energy screens. The screen shattered like glass under a hammer blow, creating a glaring gap in the otherwise inescapable net of destruction.
Instead of retreating, Miyako charged. He poured reishi into his legs, achieving a velocity that blurred the line between Shunpo and Hirenkyaku. He became a streak of black and blue, shooting straight through the opening he had created, the remaining waves of Garra de la Pantera passing harmlessly to either side. In the blink of an eye, he was inside Grimmjow's guard.
"Too slow!" Miyako's spirit sword flashed upward in a vicious diagonal slash aimed at the Espada's damaged arm.
Shink!
At the same moment, the Jōmetsu Kyū, floating beside Miyako, fired another arrow point-blank.
Grimmjow howled as the combined assault landed—the sword cut deep, and the arrow exploded against his side, spraying blood and spiritual particles. He gasped, staggering back, his confident snarl replaced by a mask of pained rage. 'No! Not again! NOT LIKE THIS!'
Driven by desperation and pride, Grimmjow ignored his wounds. As Miyako pressed the advantage, the Espada gathered the remnants of his power into his claws. "GARRA DE LA PANTERA!" he screamed, unleashing the technique at point-blank range, a concentrated tsunami of blue destruction meant to vaporize everything in front of him.
Miyako raised his spirit sword to block, but the overwhelming force at this range was immense. Cracks spiderwebbed across the blade of light before it shattered entirely, and the concussive blast smashed into him, hurling his body down toward the barrier floor.
"HAHAHA! SEE THAT?! WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?!" Grimmjow roared, chest heaving.
But his triumph was short-lived. From the dissipating energy below, a massive, pristine white capsule—a Heilig Kästchen—materialized and then dissolved, revealing Miyako within, completely unharmed. He had formed the Quincy defensive cube in the instant before impact.
"You damn… trickster…!" Grimmjow snarled, but his words caught in his throat. He suddenly found his movements frozen. Six brilliant bars of light—Bakudō #61: Rikujōkōrō—had shot forth from a second arrow Jōmetsu Kyū had fired during the chaos, pinning him firmly in place.
"It's over," Miyako stated, appearing before the bound Espada as if by teleportation. His spirit sword, now thicker and humming with concentrated Rejection energy, blazed in his hand. He didn't aim for a lethal strike, but for a decisive one. The blade came down in a mighty arc, shattering the light bars of the Kidō and carving a massive, final wound across Grimmjow's chest in the same motion.
"GUH—!" The air left Grimmjow's lungs in a choked gasp. The Rikujōkōrō was gone, but so was his strength. He was thrown backward, defenseless.
Miyako gave him no quarter. The Jōmetsu Kyū, now hovering at his shoulder, fired one last time. The final arrow, infused with the last of Miyako's focused intent, slammed into the reeling Espada point-blank.
BOOM.
Grimmjow was blasted away like a broken doll, his body impacting the golden Dankū wall of the Seiiki with a sickening thud before sliding down to lie motionless on the transparent floor.
Miyako descended slowly, the Seiiki barrier dissolving around him as he dismissed his Bankai, the great bow fragmenting back into his twin Zanpakutō. He stood over Grimmjow's fallen form. The Espada's Resurrección had faded, his body reverted to its sealed state, Zanpakutō lying beside him. A deep, grievous wound crossed his torso, and countless other injuries marred his body. His breathing was shallow, barely perceptible.
"Grimmjow," Miyako said, his voice echoing in the sudden silence of the open Hueco Mundo sky. "If you survive… you may challenge me again." It was an acknowledgment of the warrior's spirit, a reward for the honor he had shown earlier. Whether the fiercely proud Arrancar would live or bleed out here was now in the hands of fate.
"I don't need… a Shinigami's… pity…" Grimmjow managed to grind out, his consciousness fading. The words died on his lips as his eyes closed, his body going still.
Above the massive dome of Las Noches, under the cold, eternal light of Hueco Mundo's moon, only one silhouette remained standing. Amamiya Miyako sheathed his blades, the echoes of battle fading into the endless desert night. The hunt was over, and the hunter had prevailed.