The moment the wave of sub-zero energy expanded, absolute winter claimed the gravesite.
The two remaining Generals, the Sword and the Bow, were flash-frozen in mid-motion, turned into frozen statues along with the massive bone wall of weeping souls. Even the ethereal green hellfire dancing along the Sword General's nodachi sputtered, flickered, and froze solid, the flames sculpted into jagged, crystalline spears of emerald ice.
Only the Shinigami's main body remained unfrozen, standing terrified in the centre of the white tundra.
"Huff..."
Watanabe dragged a slow, agonising breath into his lungs. The air burned like liquid nitrogen in his throat. Even though this frost was a manifestation of his own soul, the sheer magnitude of its power was something his mortal flesh had never adapted to bear.
Cracks continued to spider-web across his face and neck, but fighting through the blinding pain, he stepped forward. He casually swung his pure white katana and the shockwave shattered every frozen construct in his path into glittering dust.
CRASH-SHATTER!
"No... s-stay away...!" the four-armed creature shrieked, cowering back as her dark shroud fluttered in panic.
'He's monstrously dangerous...' the spirit's mind raced, frantically searching for an escape. '...But he's kind. Yes! He's soft-hearted! If I drop to my knees, beg for my life, and swear that I'll leave the village children alone, his gentle heart will make him spare me!'
She fell to her knees in the mud, wrapping her rotting hands together as Watanabe closed the final few paces, his white blade ringing like a funeral bell.
Watanabe said nothing. He simply walked toward the cowering creature with slow, deliberate steps, the frost under his boots crunching in the quiet night.
"I... I have my own consciousness now! You don't need to destroy me!" the spirit shrieked, scrambling backwards through the freezing mud as he closed the distance. "You want the main Shinigami body, don't you?! I can unbind myself from its core anchor! I can help you—"
It froze as Watanabe continued his steady approach.
Right then, the vast expanse of ice covering the gravesite began to retract. The entire sub-zero Kekkai pulled back, rushing inward toward Watanabe's body like a reverse tide, sealing his cracking skin under a shimmering layer of winter frost.
'Kukukukuku... he's actually listening!' the spirit's thoughts hissed in triumph. 'Look at that absolute fool. I've got him now!'
A pair of rot-encrusted, spectral hands erupted silently from the mud directly behind Watanabe's blind spot, reaching out to snap his neck.
Without breaking his stride, without even turning his head to look, Watanabe flicked his translucent white blade backwards in a casual, blinding arc.
CRASH-SHATTER!
A shockwave of sub-zero energy crushed the ambush instantly, turning the spectral hands into fine white powder that blew away in the wind.
"Even if you did everything you just promised... I would still have to kill you," Watanabe said, his voice flat, icy, and echoing with absolute finality. "All the souls you've stolen and tortured up until now... they need to be set free."
He didn't pause for a single heartbeat. Within seconds, he stood directly over the cowering, four-armed horror.
And from this distance, looking down into its hollow, decaying frame, the deep, dark secret the Shinigami fragment had been hiding was finally exposed to his glowing white eyes.
Hundreds... perhaps even thousands of weeping souls were clinging directly to its horrific frame. Even the secondary pair of rotting arms that had helped it wield the bone flute were not its own; they were fashioned entirely from the bound spirits of the deceased.
"Ever since our fight began, I could hear them," Watanabe murmured softly, his glowing white eyes looking straight through her frame. "All of them... crying out in agony. Even in death, they've been denied their rest. And I cannot put my sword away until every last one of them is set free."
"Tch... DAMN YOU!" the creature shrieked, her raspy voice rising into a deafening howl. "Why shouldn't I get my revenge, huh?!"
With a violent, tearing sound, the creature shed its decaying physical corpse entirely.
What emerged from the skin was a terrifying spectral horror formed from roaring green hellfire. It floated wildly in the icy air, its jaw splitting to reveal rows of razor-sharp fangs. Suspended directly in the centre of its chest hung its true core: a pulsating, blue-flaming heart wrapped in glowing, spiritual chains.
"It was you humans who dragged us here against our will!" the spectre screamed, its ethereal voice rattling the frozen earth. "You butchered thousands of us! And when we retaliate for what you did to us, we're the monsters?! DAMN YOU ALL!"
The hellfire entity expanded, manifesting a barrage of dozens of spectral, flaming hands that shot through the storm toward his chest like living missiles.
"And for that... I truly apologise," Watanabe whispered.
Moving with absolute, serene grace, Watanabe parried the flurry using only the flat back of his pure white blade. With precise, sweeping motions, he deflected every single flaming strike, sending the ethereal hands flying harmlessly into the dark sky.
Without breaking his rhythm, he planted his cracked heel into the frozen dirt and exploded forward, charging straight for the chained, blue heart beating at the spectre's core.
"The Blade of Summer..." Watanabe whispered, swinging his pure white katana in a sweeping, horizontal arc straight for the creature's head.
"Why even apologise...?" the spectre's ethereal voice echoed, its tone turning strangely serene as white steel met green hellfire. "It's been like this since the beginning... You humans, steal from us; we steal from you... and so turns the wheel of Karma that we all share..."
The blade sliced cleanly through its spectral head, gliding down through its torso and severing the chained blue heart at its core.
"Rest now," Watanabe murmured softly.
A flurry of pink and white plum blossom petals materialised out of the freezing air, cascading around him like snowfall. Everywhere the petals touched the frozen dirt, vibrant winter blossoms bloomed through the ice. Watanabe completed his step, skidding to a graceful halt on the opposite side of the clearing.
SHINNNG!
He snapped his blade clean and sheathed it in a single, fluid motion.
"Huffff... Huffff... It's... over..." he rasped, his knees trembling violently under the weight of his fractured body.
Watanabe turned to look behind him. In that fleeting final second, he caught the faint, glowing glimpse of hundreds of liberated human souls men, women, and the small children from the village fire smiling back at him with peaceful, quiet gratitude before dissolving harmlessly into the night air.
Where the spectre's chained heart had just been severed, no ash or blood remained. In its place stood a tiny, fragile wooden sapling, bearing just three vibrant green leaves that rustled softly in the dying wind.
"Ahhh...?"
Before his mind could even make sense of the sapling, the strength completely drained from his limbs. The sub-zero frost sealing his body cracked open, and Watanabe collapsed, falling face-first into the cold earth as darkness claimed his vision.