Inside the central cathedral of Osaka Prefecture.
A lightless hall. Dim candles guttered along the walls. No light filtered through the stained-glass windows.
Beneath the statue at center, a man in crimson vestments held a Bible in one hand and laid the other upon it, murmuring a prayer.
Behind him to the right sat a green-haired man, eyes closed from the start; to the left stood a silent boy gripping a Zanpakutō.
Hearing the din outside, the green-haired man spoke: "They're here."
The prayer ceased. The man in crimson looked up toward the statue.
"A pity. Not the Shinigami from Soul Society."
"The defectors aren't weak. Several were once captains," the green-haired man said, voice flat.
"So, Almighty Lord, will you tell me why those who defected from Soul Society would choose to help Soul Society's Shinigami?" the vestment-clad man asked the statue.
"The Lord won't tell you that. But they will," the green-haired man replied. "Seize them and we'll have our answer."
The noise outside swelled.
"Satō?" the man in crimson asked.
"Presumably," the green-haired man said, eyes still shut.
"Then that Shinigami and Yuki should be moving."
"Of course."
Silence returned to the vast nave.
At the same time outside the cathedral, Higashino Shuuichi stared at Satō Takeo, who had lunged in from the flank, puzzlement in his eyes.
Just now the man had hammered him with dozens of punches—so fast and brutal he'd had no chance to answer.
"If I've guessed right, one of you killed my favored concubine, Koinu—didn't you?"
Satō Takeo clamped a single hand around Shuuichi's throat and hauled him up, feet dangling, eyes burning with a fury beyond words.
"Hadō #4: Byakurai (White Lightning)!"
Reiatsu gathered at Shuuichi's fingertip. A bolt lanced straight for Satō's body.
At that range almost no Shinigami could evade Shuuichi's Kidō. Satō only snorted.
He slipped it easily—and even spat in Shuuichi's face with a sneer. "Trash. Shinigami, I can't fathom where scum like you found the nerve to strut around Osaka."
His fingers tightened on Shuuichi's neck. Bone creaked.
"I see… The verge of a thousand hands; the untouchable dark hand; the unreflected azure archer; the path on which radiance falls; the wind that kindles the spark; gather and do not doubt—heed my pointing hand. Light-shot, eight forms, nine paths, canons of heaven, swift treasure, great wheel—gray turrets—draw the bow afar; fade in purest light—
Hadō #91: Senju Kōten Taihō (Thousand-Hand Bright Heaven Culling Cannon)!"
In a corner Satō could not hear, a transparent film of reiryoku rippled; countless beams of light unfurled from it.
Thunder's plunge; ten thousand-weight might.
And as that terror of Kidō was about to converge on Satō, he slipped aside—effortless.
But through the eyes of Shuuichi—now wielding a crimson blade already in Bankai (Final Release)—the reason was clear: the Senju Kōten Taihō had stopped.
More precisely: time upon the Kidō had stopped.
Only when Satō walked to safety did time resume on the blasts.
"Koinu? No… you're Koinu's true prize… Higashino Shuuichi!"
Satō stared at the man who had launched the attack, excitement he could not suppress leaking into his voice.
Not just people—he could freeze attacks themselves?
Shuuichi ignored the man's fevered delight and analyzed the uncanny Fullbring.
"Hadō #90: Kurohitsugi (Black Coffin)!"
He snapped his fingers. An unchanted Kurohitsugi bloomed at Satō's feet.
It failed all the same.
"Useless, Higashino Shuuichi! Be a good trophy and surrender!"
Satō even planted a foot on the Coffin's rim for leverage and launched toward Shuuichi.
Coming in? Shuuichi smiled.
That motion told him everything.
A range.
There was no doubt: Satō's ability had an area of effect.
In that case, fine.
He didn't know the other weaknesses yet, but if distance solved it—could a mere human race a Shinigami?
Shuuichi hadn't even lifted his foot for shunpo before Satō was already there.
Not just time stop?
That was Shuuichi's first read.
Even so, ordinarily he'd have enough interval to counter.
This time he was pounded mercilessly.
In one heartbeat it felt like every bone in his body was cracked.
Fortunately he wasn't fighting alone. He had already staged a "corpse"—a gigai of Musashi Kojirō—preloaded with Reishi constructs.
"Hadō #73: Sōren Sōkatsui (Twin Lotus Blue Fire, Crash Down)!"
Blue fire lanced down like a storm toward Shuuichi's position.
"What, Shinigami—you don't even spare your own?" Satō jeered at the Musashi gigai and, with casual poise, dragged Shuuichi out of Sōren Sōkatsui's blast zone.
For Shuuichi, the sensation was bizarre.
Through the Reishi constructs' eyes he watched himself being carried like baggage—unable to resist.
Yet to his mind, he had simply "arrived" outside the blast zone in an instant.
When Musashi had been the point of view, the split hadn't been so sharp. Now, with his true body center-stage, the split nearly scrambled his nerves.
"See, Higashino Shuuichi? Your 'ally' doesn't care if you die. Soul Society calls you traitor. Why not come to me? Wouldn't that be better?"
Having dodged Sōren Sōkatsui, Satō stared at Shuuichi in his hand—eyes hungry, tongue flicking across his lips—as if the fight had already ended.
"An ally? Heh… if that's what you need to think, fine by me, Satō Takeo."
The voice came not from the man Satō held—but from the "Shinigami" who had attacked him.
Satō glanced at the limp, dull-eyed Shuuichi in his grip and snorted.
"So that's it? Koinu never had such tricks. Looks like you picked up all sorts of fun toys since you grew up…
Even better. Now you interest me more."
He didn't drop the man in his hand. Instead he charged the Musashi gigai—intent on ending both bodies at once if Shuuichi's mind could hop between them.
It wasn't hard work.
This time, though, he didn't make it to Musashi.
A triangular prism of reishi slammed up between them.
Even with Shuuichi's personal time frozen inside Satō's ability, Reishi constructs didn't need conscious control to act. They could execute simple pre-set orders.
For example: Bakudō #73: Tōzanshō (Inverted Mountain Crystal) to wall off Musashi entirely.
For another example—
Nadegiri (Cleaving Stroke).
Satō watched the killing arc skim past—face tightening.
The blade had been Shuuichi's. Again.
"Impossible! Damn you! Are you toying with me, Higashino Shuuichi?!"
He smashed the Shuuichi in his grasp into the ground and roared.
The world is perverse; you never know the next beat—like Shuuichi himself not expecting Satō to tilt so hard from that alone.
To Shuuichi—locked in a state of paused time—everything in the last instant had happened "at once."
Facing Satō, who raged at empty air above, Shuuichi clenched his jaw against the migraine—the flood of telemetry his two Reishi constructs had shot into his brain—and without hesitation opened his double release.
"Bankai: Akki Tenshin (Demon Entwines the Body)!
Sōjū Bankai (Dual Bankai)!"
At the same time, he flung the gates wide—
"Gojū Kaihō: Hyakki Yakō (Fivefold Release: Night Parade of a Hundred Demons)!"
In a breath, not just the Musashi gigai and Shuuichi's own gigai, but the gigai he had cached at the barrier's edge—Matsumoto Rangiku's, Kabuma Sayako's, Kisaragi Shūsuke's, and Muguruma Kensei's—were all seized by wailing oni-shadows.
"So this is your true face?
Good. Good—very good!
Higashino Shuuichi, your little trick fooled me—and enraged me.
Next, I'll break your hands and feet.
You will never leave my side."
Satō stared at Shuuichi below, ravaged by five shrieking demons—devouring him—and madness filled his eyes.
But his foe was Higashino Shuuichi—a man even Aizen Sōsuke respected for battlecraft.
Even if, for roughly half the fight, Satō had paused Shuuichi's time itself;
even if the data flood had nearly blown Shuuichi's head;
even if Satō had yet to expose his Fullbring's trinket or babble its secret aloud—
Shuuichi had still found the one solution.
If asked to name Satō's mistake, Shuuichi would offer this:
"Next time you grab someone, don't use your left hand."
Because the mechanical watch on his left wrist told all.
"Kidō—Jigoku: Shokeikyoku (Hell: Execution Aria)!"
An unseen corridor yawned open, tinting the world within the barrier ashen gray.
Hell's power poured in. Gray-white skeletal arms thrust up from the ground.
This time, they did not clutch at the enemy—but layered over one another, cocooning Shuuichi with no gap left.
"Heh. Can't touch me, so you'll kill yourself instead?"
Satō strolled through the demon attacks as if on a garden path, teeth bared at the sight of Shuuichi swaddled in grasping bone.
Kill himself?
Shuuichi glanced inward at the state he'd bought—perfection for a moment by mortgaging the future—and smiled coldly. Those words didn't exist in his lexicon.
Satō Takeo, I admit—your ability is strong. But do you know the phrase "saturation strike"?
He raised his head.
"Senki Saimyō (Thousand Demons Roar in Unison)!"
At his word, every oni shrieked.
With the howls came unending Kidō bombardment.
Shakkahō (Red Fire Cannon), Sōren Sōkatsui (Twin Lotus Blue Fire, Crash Down), Kurohitsugi (Black Coffin), Senju Kōten Taihō (Thousand-Hand Bright Heaven Culling Cannon), Ittō Kasō (Single Blade Cremation), Goryūtenmetsu (Five Dragons of Destruction)…
Low-level and high-level alike—if Shuuichi knew it, it fired—through the demons, like belt-fed guns chewing ammo.
Until the reiryoku-masking barrier nodes Shuuichi had set around the cathedral—unable to bear the ceaseless bombardment—shattered one by one.
"That reiatsu… that dreadful presence…" Within the half-saved cathedral—wall of holy water still shielding what it could—the green-haired man, eyes still closed, murmured in awe.
"Satō is finished," the man in crimson said, not needing to confirm.
The green-haired man agreed. "Among these defectors… one Shinigami is not to be taken lightly."
The priest's gaze slid to the other side—where their other Fullbringer traded blows inside blazing pillars with a skull-masked Shinigami.
He sighed. "The plan was to save you two as last cards to test the old captains of Soul Society… but it seems we'll have to play one now. Go."
The silent boy tugged his Zanpakutō free, stepped through the water curtain—and strode into the gray world beyond, where the Kidō storm raged.
In the ash-wash, Shuuichi watched Satō Takeo sink into the gray sea—soul and flesh devoured by Hell's power, torn apart. There was some regret in his eyes—but no remorse.
Satō's Fullbring was the most broken he'd seen.
Pause time—and perhaps accelerate himself, too. Even now, Shuuichi wasn't sure he could replicate this result again.
He couldn't leave a hazard like that alive.
From observation, deduction, and the verification just now, Shuuichi judged the ability's single weakness was a total-time limit.
Satō couldn't pause or accelerate indefinitely.
He'd had the thought the moment he noticed the watch on Satō's left wrist showing wrong time. Everything afterward had been to test the guess.
Whether Satō's "pool" was one hour, three, twelve—or twenty-four—Shuuichi couldn't know.
And now he had no bandwidth left for Satō.
He turned—to the boy stepping forward in midair, across the gray he himself had raised—and nodded as if to say, I knew it.
"Do you have your own name?
Or should I call you Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni?"
Shuuichi regarded the face—the young features of Yamamoto Genryūsai—with a grave look.
Like the armored warriors—and the younger Shuuichi—he had seen before, the youth mouthed familiar words:
"Shinigami. Die."
Then temperature spiked. Flame blotted the sky.
"Banpō issai kaijin to nase—Ryūjin Jakka! (Reduce all creation to ash—Ryūjin Jakka!)"
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