Chapter 72: Severing Bonds… But Why Are You Pointing a Gun at Me?
The violent collision of spiritual pressure between Byakuya and Ichigo shook the entire area.
Inside the Palace of Penitence, only a few kilometers away, two slender figures were already engaged in their own high speed struggle.
They streaked past like bullets, sometimes clinging to the sides of buildings as they moved, running along walls and defying gravity, twisting and turning around the thin spire of a tower as if it were their private stage.
When that gigantic Getsuga erupted in the distance, its dazzling light could even be seen from here.
Both combatants paused for an instant.
"An opening."
Yoruichi's eyes narrowed. Her waist twisted, her body snapped like a whip, and she lashed out with a flying kick as three blades shot from her pant leg.
All three were plucked cleanly out of the air.
"Returning these to you."
One dagger in each hand, the opponent flicked them back.
They flew like arrows, their speed and force clearly greater than before.
Yoruichi's body twisted with a flexibility that would put an artistic gymnast to shame. She slipped past one of the blades, kicked another aside, and used the momentum to flip backward and land on another spire.
Pfft.
Blood blossomed in the air.
"?!"
Yoruichi's expression shifted as she looked down at the blade buried in her thigh.
The third one.
"What a pity."
A cold, clear voice drifted over on the wind.
"A pity it did not hit my heart?"
Yoruichi looked up at the elegant figure on the opposite tower.
Soi Fon stood balanced on one foot atop the slender spire, her body utterly still, as if fused with the tower's tip.
Her head was turned toward the direction of the suspension bridge. She was calm and collected, as if the small advantage she had just seized meant nothing to her.
She only turned back when Yoruichi spoke.
"It is a pity I was still not fast enough to coat your hidden weapons with poison," she sneered.
"A hundred years without seeing you and you have become very full of yourself, Soi Fon."
Yoruichi casually pulled the blade from her leg, tossed it aside and, with some unknown technique, stopped the bleeding at the wound.
"You are the arrogant one, Shihoin Yoruichi."
Soi Fon did nothing to mask the disgust in her eyes.
"While you were in seclusion, I was honing myself, refining my skills day after day."
"Now I wear the same haori you once wore, and I hold the same position you once held."
"At my peak, how could I possibly be inferior to an old relic like you, who has retreated from the front lines, grown rusty, and moves like a shadow of her former self?"
"I can see it. You really have grown. Your tongue is a lot sharper than before. You never dared talk to me like this in the past."
Yoruichi sounded amused, not angry at all.
"The past is the past. Now is now. There is no going back."
Anger flashed across Soi Fon's face for a moment, then she drew a slow breath and forced it down, her gaze turning frigid.
"No matter how much you dwell on the past, the mistakes you made, the hurt you caused me, and everything that has happened because of it cannot be erased so easily."
"…You are right."
Yoruichi's expression gradually settled as well.
"When I heard you had returned, I felt uneasy. You left once already, so why come back? That is what I thought."
"But what angered me most was that my first reaction was joy."
Soi Fon suddenly laid her heart bare.
"Yoruichi, I do not hate you as much as I thought I did anymore. I hate myself more, for being so humble in front of you."
"Even after a hundred years apart, after pouring my heart into training and enduring all kinds of hardships to reach this point, the moment I see you I immediately become that timid, useless girl from back then."
Yoruichi stayed silent.
Soi Fon kept talking.
Neither of them took advantage of the lull to attack. Perhaps they both sensed that this might be their last conversation in this lifetime.
"Yoruichi, the time I spent at your side is my most cherished memory. I treated the bond between us as the most important connection in my life."
"But now that bond has become a shackle."
"So for myself, for Seireitei, and so that we can both break free of the influence we have on each other, I will, right here, sever this bond with my own hands."
Her voice was quiet, but the resolve inside it was absolute.
Killing intent burned around her like a growing fire.
"Sting all enemies to death. Suzumebachi."
The Zanpakuto she drew from her waist transformed into a gold and black striped gauntlet with a narrow stinger like blade extending along her finger.
"Get ready, Yoruichi. If it is you, you should know whether I am joking."
"…Growing up is good."
Yoruichi smiled helplessly. A complicated light flickered in her eyes.
"But when a child grows up into someone this extreme, it gives the parent a headache."
"Still trying to control my life under the excuse of being my guardian?"
Soi Fon's tone turned icy.
"That is not what I meant at all. Really… Forget it." Yoruichi sighed. "I do not have Kisuke's silver tongue. I prefer fighting to talking."
"Severing bonds, huh? That is a nice way to put it. So what exactly is your plan? Kill me?"
"I will personally break your legs so that you, the Flash Goddess, can never run again."
"Then I will lock you in prison and let you face judgment."
"If your resistance is too fierce and I judge that the arrest cannot be completed, then in the name of the Commander in Chief of the Onmitsukido executing a traitor, I will kill you."
With that, Soi Fon moved first.
The battle between the two women whose fates were so deeply tangled exploded to life again.
This time, the scene was very different from the tense, balanced skirmishes and chases from before.
Anyone could see at a glance that Yoruichi was on the back foot.
Part of it was because Soi Fon was going all out and her already blazing momentum made Yoruichi unwilling to clash with her head on. But a greater reason lay in the subtle yet widening gap in their current strength and performance.
In such a situation, mindlessly attacking would only hand opportunities to the opponent.
A calm counterattack should have been the smart choice.
Yet the opportunity Yoruichi waited for never came.
Instead, Soi Fon kept carving shallow wounds into her.
As the injuries piled up, no matter how rich Yoruichi's experience was, and no matter how carefully she tried to minimize the damage, the chance of exposing a fatal opening grew higher by the moment.
Soi Fon did not let a single chance slip past her fingers.
Even when she could not injure Yoruichi, she would squeeze out some advantage with positioning and the environment.
She blocked off avenues of retreat, drove her into dead end corridors and cramped interiors, and turned every aspect of the terrain into a weapon in her hand, step by step stacking up the conditions for the next wound.
She repeated that process over and over until the scales of victory quietly leaned toward her side.
This decisive, ruthless, yet patient fighting style finally made Yoruichi smell the scent of death again after a very long time.
Boom.
A wall shattered.
Yoruichi flipped through the dust and burst out of a window, her movements smooth and beautiful, like a cat slipping through a crack.
But even the most agile cat does not have wings, and cannot compare to a slender, deadly bee.
Soi Fon gave chase straight on, and her speed actually surpassed Yoruichi's.
When she closed the distance, she aimed Suzumebachi directly at Yoruichi's eyes.
It was not pure malice.
She was trying to blind her, to strip away as much of her fighting capacity as possible.
"?!"
Yoruichi barely managed to twist away, but the stinger still grazed her cheek, leaving behind the black crest of a Bee Mark Flower.
"Hmph."
Soi Fon let out a short, cold laugh.
The sound made Yoruichi feel a twinge of unease.
Before she could sort out why, her body suddenly lost all strength.
For an instant, she was paralyzed.
Soi Fon had clearly anticipated this. She drove a brutal punch straight into Yoruichi's abdomen, sending a heavy shock through her internal organs.
A blow like that would knock out most people outright.
Yoruichi did not faint.
She flew backward from Soi Fon's fist and smashed into an outer wall, cracks spiderwebbing out from the impact.
"Ugh."
Yoruichi groaned and clutched her stomach. Before she could even catch her breath, she flashed aside and made Soi Fon's follow up kick whiff through empty air.
"Trying to run?"
Soi Fon's eyes flashed. She turned the missed kick into a push off, and her body shot forward like a ricocheting bullet. A storm of strikes crashed down on Yoruichi in a vicious, close range assault.
Yoruichi's evasions and counters were still incredibly sharp, but her mounting injuries had started to erode the fine precision of her technique.
To Soi Fon, that alone was a glaring weak point.
A probing attack nudged Yoruichi into parrying, and Soi Fon suddenly pushed down on her shoulder, borrowed the force to twist behind her, and drove Suzumebachi mercilessly toward her spine, aiming to sever vital nerves and cripple her completely.
…
She missed.
Soi Fon stared at the fluttering scrap of cloth impaled on Suzumebachi, and her cold gaze slid to Yoruichi, who was crouched on the ground, panting.
Her sleeve was missing a noticeable chunk.
"Utsusemi. I did not expect you to make the only correct choice so calmly in this situation. Looks like your combat sense is finally waking up again."
From the very beginning, Yoruichi had been at a disadvantage.
The wound in her leg had not affected her Shunpo that much.
The real problem was that she had not fought seriously in too long.
Living in comfort meant her technique could still improve, but she could not gouge out new limits. Her stamina had slowly declined, and her sensitivity to danger had dulled.
Now she was locked in a life and death fight against an opponent of similar style and equal or even greater strength, and she was doing it with bare hands against Suzumebachi.
Being suppressed was only natural.
"Yes. Honestly, I already expected this, which is why I kept playing around with you at the start. I just wanted to use you to get used to this rhythm again."
Yoruichi's lips twitched into a lopsided smile that tried to look defiant.
"But I did not expect you to become this strong. Your attacks were far more vicious than I imagined. I even got myself poisoned by accident."
"Poison?"
Soi Fon's lips curved slightly, as if she had heard a joke.
"You thought that moment of sudden weakness just now was poison?"
"Did I guess wrong?"
"…No, you did not. It is poison, but not the kind you are thinking of. It is the Bee Mark Flower left behind by Suzumebachi finally activating. If I had to categorize it, I would call it a type of Reishi bee venom."
"?"
"No wonder you are confused. When you left, my Shikai's ability was still immature and the Bee Mark Flower for Death in Two Steps could only last for thirty minutes at most."
Under Yoruichi's surprised stare, Soi Fon raised her right arm, encased in the gold and black striped gauntlet. Her tone was not proud but carried a strange, suppressed anger.
"Now the Bee Mark Flower will exist as long as my will does. There is no time limit anymore."
"And I developed another application for it, inspired by a certain person I will not name."
"When the enemy is deliberately watching out for Death in Two Steps, I can make all existing Bee Mark Flowers vanish at once and use them to inflict temporary paralysis, as if their body was corroded by venom."
"The more marks there are, the stronger the effect."
"I have to praise you, the person I once admired. Five Bee Mark Flowers only locked you up for an instant. I thought I could finish you in one blow."
"But it does not matter. It is only a matter of time."
Faced with Soi Fon's cold, merciless words, Yoruichi let out a soft sigh and pushed herself to her feet.
"Yes. At this rate I will definitely lose. No doubt about it."
"I do not know who taught you such dirty tricks, but you clearly cannot stand them. You are taking your frustration out on me."
"But that does not matter now. I did not plan to use this on you. I have not fully mastered it yet and it is too dangerous."
"However, you have already pushed me this far. I cannot keep acting like I am just here for a stroll."
Boom.
It was like a blazing bolt of white lightning crashed down on Yoruichi.
The fabric of her sleeves and back disintegrated in an instant, revealing bronze skin and smooth, powerful muscle lines.
Her entire body was wrapped in dense Kido Reishi. A bright white glow, somewhere between flame and roaring electricity, danced across her skin. The destructive, transcendent pressure it radiated was unmistakable.
"This is…?"
Soi Fon's eyes went wide.
"No wonder you are surprised. I designed the uniform for the Executive Militia myself. Did you never wonder why it was shaped that way?"
"This is an ultimate Hakuda technique combined with Kido. Its name is…"
Yoruichi deliberately echoed Soi Fon's earlier phrasing, buying time to adjust her state to its peak as she introduced the technique.
As she had admitted, she had not fully mastered it yet.
What she did not expect was that the name she was about to announce would be spoken by Soi Fon first.
"Shunko."
"?!"
Yoruichi's eyes flew open.
The shock only deepened with what came next.
Boom.
The same explosive sound, another overwhelming surge of power.
If Yoruichi's Shunko was a lightning strike from above, then Soi Fon turned into a raging storm. Excess fabric, including her sleeves and haori, was torn and burned away.
The dense Kido Reishi around her was quickly compressed and drawn tight to her body, winding around her arms and legs.
It clung to her like armor.
Even by sight alone, the intensity and depth of that light surpassed Yoruichi's.
"This is…?"
Cold sweat trickled down Yoruichi's back.
"What a coincidence. I just mastered this move myself, thanks entirely to the person you mentioned earlier that I cannot stand."
Soi Fon ground her teeth on those words. The anger in her eyes burned even hotter than the Kido spiritual pressure that surrounded her.
"You said I was taking my anger out on you. You are right. I am furious. Furious enough that I want to finish you as quickly as possible and then go settle accounts with that bastard."
Without waiting for a reply, she charged in like a hurricane, unleashing a ferocious barrage.
Their power had risen on both sides, but for Yoruichi, the situation had not improved.
She had never imagined that Soi Fon would also achieve Shunko on her own, and with a higher degree of completion than her.
If this was purely Soi Fon's talent, then in Yoruichi's eyes that talent might already surpass her own.
But if that was true, why had she never noticed it before?
"Yoruichi, you are distracted again."
Soi Fon drove Suzumebachi toward the inside of Yoruichi's arm.
A clean hit there would leave a Bee Mark Flower and might even sever a tendon critical for hand to hand combat.
Yoruichi refused to let that happen. At the last moment she shifted her motion, turning defense into attack and forcing Soi Fon back.
Soi Fon did withdraw.
But from the way she moved, it looked more like she had expected exactly that.
So the deterrent effect of the venom worked.
A tactic she had heard from someone replayed itself in Soi Fon's thoughts.
Sometimes, revealing your own information can put mental pressure on your opponent, make them hesitate, and throw off their rhythm.
Before they adapt, that hesitation is the best opening to crush them.
Soi Fon still felt resistance in her heart, but her body moved on its own.
Just like how seeing Yoruichi still made her revert to that humble stance against her will.
"What?"
Yoruichi's counterattack was intercepted and smothered by Soi Fon, and what she used was a textbook Anti Kido technique.
Yoruichi immediately realized she had walked into a trap.
It was already too late.
Soi Fon seized her fist, yanked hard, swept her leg to trip her, and drove Suzumebachi straight at her heart.
Boom.
The full force of Yoruichi's spiritual pressure exploded, blasting Soi Fon away and gouging a massive crater into the ground.
"You still will not give up."
Soi Fon, who had been sent flying dozens of meters, snorted coldly.
"Surrender, Yoruichi. I have already left a Bee Mark Flower on your heart. Once I activate it, you will still be in the palm of my hand."
"Even so, I will not surrender." Yoruichi clutched her chest and panted, blood at the corner of her mouth, but the smile on her face was still wild and bright. Her golden, catlike eyes blazed with an unyielding spirit. "I am Shihoin Yoruichi. The person who can make me surrender and admit defeat does not exist. In your words, if it were you, you should know I am serious."
"Even faced with this, you still refuse to change your attitude. Bankai. Jakuhō Raikōben."
Soi Fon released Shunko.
The Zanpakuto on her arm suddenly expanded, transforming into a golden missile launcher taller than she was.
She pointed the warhead straight at Yoruichi.
"I will say it again. Surrender. Otherwise I will execute you with the greatest achievement of my last hundred years."
"…"
For once, Yoruichi could not maintain her previous composure. Her face went blank with shock.
"What is this? Why is your Bankai like that?"
"?!"
A flicker of embarrassment flashed across Soi Fon's eyes.
Before she could say anything, a voice cut in and answered for her.
"Perhaps because Captain Soi Fon herself is a very contradictory person."
"?!"
"?"
Both women turned at once toward the source of the voice.
From a nearby alley, someone walked out at an unhurried pace.
He looked eighteen or so, black haired and black eyed, with a tall, straight figure. His Soul Reaper uniform was ragged and scorched from battle, but the bright, focused light in his eyes overshadowed that completely. It left no room to bother about his tattered clothes.
He was a young man with an oddly compelling presence.
"Takeru…"
Yoruichi's face lit with relief and joy, but Soi Fon's reaction was even sharper.
She immediately swung the massive weapon around and leveled the missile squarely at Shimiya Takeru.
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