Renji skidded his bike sideways, tires screeching as he stopped just meters from the demon. The Gashadokuro loomed in the neon wash, nine feet of jagged bone and shadow, its hollow skull glaring down at him.
"I'm getting crazy readings off your bike, Renji," Tetsuya's voice crackled in his ear, tense and rapid. "I advise you never do that again."
Renji smirked beneath his helmet, eyes locked on the monster. "What happens if I push it ten times harder?"
There was a pause, then Tetsuya nearly shouted, "Are you insane?! You'd overload the engine—best case, it explodes, worst case, it takes you with it."
"Good to know." Renji revved the throttle. The demon's jaw clacked open with a sound like a guillotine snapping shut.
Then it charged.
Renji funneled shadow energy into the bike, the machine vibrating like a beast on the edge of breaking apart. Time stretched thin as he launched forward, the world blurring into streaks of light.
At the last possible second, he launched himself off the saddle, flipping through the air, his boots crunching down on broken stone as he landed in a crouch. Behind him, the overloaded bike screamed like a dying beast and hurtled straight at the demon.
"Boom," Renji muttered.
The Gashadokuro's reflexes were monstrous. Its bony hand shot out, claws snatching the bike before it detonated. Steel crumpled in its grip like paper, flames bursting around its skeletal frame. "...Well," Renji exhaled, rolling his shoulders. "That's new."
Tetsuya's panicked voice exploded in his ear. "Renji! Do you have any idea how close that—"
Renji wasn't listening, he twirled the twin blades once and leveled them at the monster. " Father help me this time too" he whispered to himself like a silent prayer.
His aura bleeding across the ground like a storm front. "You wanted me, bonehead? Then let's see if you can stomach me at full speed. Guess I'll have to break you the old-fashioned way."
The Gashadokuro let out a grinding laugh, bone shards rattling inside its chest. Then it lunged—fast, too fast for something that size—its clawed hand swiping through the air with enough force to split asphalt.
Renji rolled under it, shadows trailing his blades as he slashed upward. Sparks erupted as steel met cursed bone, the impact ringing like church bells.
They both clashed in a blur of motion that generated a major shockwave of shadow made steel against a bone-made spear. " Death… to you Renji" The demon sneered.
" Yeah sure but get yourself a mouthwash job done, your breath stinks like rotten meat" Renji smirked. Their attacks resonated the area with each strike rapid as they were brutal.
A low spear thrust had Renji launching himself into an evasive parry. " You're strong for a mere living skeleton" He said and continued the fight.
They both clashed in a flash with Renji having the upper hand, he slashed through the demon, sliced off it's dominant hand and opened up enough distance between himself and it for his signature move.
" Eclipse Fang: Shadowquake" it was his first time doing it without transforming into his demon form but it hardly mattered, it was a small scale devastation in itself that unleashed a brutal tsunami of shadows that shot at Gashadokuro and reduced it to a pile of bones.
" Get back to the land of the dead bony" Renji said. But then staggered when he saw the bones reassemble into the demon again.
" Hey Renji I think you successfully managed to piss it off" Tetsuya said over the line. " Yep I think congratulations are in order" Renji murmured dryly.
The demon gave a howl that echoed the street and broke every window nearby, the roar seemed to weaken Renji's aura. His powers flickered and went off like a gamma trainee's.
" Die!!" The demon yelled and fired fast projectiles of sharpened bones from it's body. Renji deflected most of the attacks with his katanas and backflipped behind a parked car to dodge the rest.
Another roar weakened Renji further with his powers failing out in him completely while the car he hid behind was tossed out of the way like it was no more than a child's toy.
" No more… cockiness now… huh? The demon intoned. " Nope, for that I've got more where it came from" Renji said pushing himself to his feet.
He managed to slice Gashadokuro in half in one leap but the demon's regenerative abilities were unrelenting " your bones… shall be added… to my collection… Renji"
" Somehow I still manage to doubt that?" Renji smirked but got silenced by a third roar that shattered him completely he fell to the ground too weak to keep his sword which dissolved into shadows even his demon eye lost its light.
Gashadokuro grabbed Renji by the neck and raised him to his nine feet level, phalanges clamping around his neck like a vise.
" I will deliver your body to my Lord but your head is mine!!!" The demon growled.
Meanwhile at Hikari's side of the carnage, Tetsuya's voice chirped over the line, alarmed and urgent. " Renji needs help now"
Hikari cleanly decapitated a Yurekiba with a single shadow katana before replying. " What?"
" He was going on steadily with the demon until it unleashed a series of roar that messed with the Sheshi connection to him." Tetsuya rushed.
Hikari raced towards the location followed closely by Ayaka and Kalfka who also heard the conversation…
" Any… last… words… abyss spawn?" The demon snarled. Renji's coughed and gasped while he worked his mouth for a breath he could not draw.
" I didn't… think so" the demon said and aimed a single phalange to Renji's heart with the intention of driving it in. While Renji's vision was already reducing to a tunnel of darkness before.
A voice, his father's voice yet unfamiliar resonated within him with fury. " No!!" Renji's hand went to the phalanges holding his neck and broke it open in one motion.
He sank to his knees gasping for air while the demon growled as it fingers snapped back into place. When Renji looked up again his demon eye flared crimson.
The eye immediately pointed out the Gashadokuro vulnerability to flame. " Scared of fire huh? Then how did you survive hell?" Renji's taunted in a voice that wasn't his own.
Hikari and Ayaka got to the scene and hesitated upon seeing Renji enraged state. His aura's changed again, is this Renji or his father? Ayaka thought.
The Gashadokuro's skull cracked open in a scream, that same cursed aura roar erupting like a storm.
" That won't work anymore" Renji snarled.
The demon erupted again with a roar that convulsed the street, shattered glass in every window, made the air tremble with death.
But Renji stood tall. His hair whipped in the blast, his ninja suit flared, yet his body didn't even shift. His demon eye burned like a crimson furnace, fire seething around him in defiance.
"Didn't you hear me the first time?" he growled, flames licking up his arms. "That roar doesn't work on me anymore."
The demon faltered. Its sockets flickered with doubt. Renji's grin widened, sharp and merciless. "Now it's my turn."
His aura detonated, fire roaring skyward. The asphalt beneath his boots blistered, splitting with glowing cracks as hellfire flooded out. In his hand, the katana reformed, no longer shadow-forged but a blade of pure inferno, molten edges dripping sparks like liquid sun.
He lunged, faster than the eye could track. One fiery arc split the Gashadokuro's sternum wide open, igniting its ribcage from the inside. The stench of burning bone filled the street as the demon howled, flailing desperately.
Renji didn't relent. He became a whirlwind of flame, every strike branding the cursed skeleton with searing scars. Left, right, overhead — sparks rained, flames coiled, and the monster stumbled back under the relentless blaze.
Finally, Renji leapt high, silhouetted against the burning neon skyline. Both hands clamped around the hilt, his eye blazing like a star going supernova.
"Infernal Eclipse: Final Judgement!"
A colossal fire dragon erupted from his blade, spiraling downward with his strike. Its jaws closed around the Gashadokuro, swallowing it whole as Renji slammed the katana straight through its skull.
The city shook with the impact. The demon shrieked one last, awful cry before its entire body combusted — bone by bone collapsing into molten ash.
When the flames finally ebbed, nothing remained but a smoldering crater where the beast once stood.
Renji landed in the center, katana dissolving into smoke, his boots crushing glowing embers. He exhaled slowly, fire fading from his veins.
"Get back to hell," he muttered, eyes narrowing. "And stay there."
Tetsuya's stunned voice crackled in his ear. "Renji… you didn't just kill it. You erased it."
Renji gave a tired half-smirk. "Guess that makes me the exterminator." Then the sword disintegrated back to fire and he sank to the ground unconscious.