A military officer frowned as he stared at the hazy figure suspended in midair. Without hesitation, he raised his rifle and aimed upward.
Bang!
The shot cracked through the night. The shadow in the sky seemed to fall instantly, crashing down into the crowd gathered in the plaza.
"Tricks and theatrics!" the officer spat in disdain. Raising his hand, he barked a command:
"Everyone, open fire! Exterminate every last one of these Flevance devils!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
In an instant, the soldiers obeyed. Flames erupted from their rifles as bullets poured forth like a storm, mowing down the citizens of Flevance.
Blood blossomed again and again in the crowd. One after another, bodies dropped as though they were nothing more than wheat cut down at harvest. From every direction, the massacre pressed toward the plaza's heart.
At first, the soldiers' faces hidden beneath their protective masks showed flickers of unease. But as the slaughter dragged on, hesitation dulled into numbness. They kept pulling their triggers, again and again.
At last, when their ammunition finally ran dry, silence fell over the plaza.
Corpses littered the ground, a sea of blood and lifeless bodies.
"It's done… the demons are finally wiped out…"
The thought came unbidden to the minds of nearly every soldier and officer.
Under the officers' orders, none of the soldiers bothered to check for survivors. Instead, they doused the plaza with barrels of kerosene, leaving a few guards behind while the rest dispersed into the city to carry out secondary sweeps.
Yet what the soldiers, officers, and even the terrified Flevance citizens hiding in nearby houses did not realize was this—
Not a single person in the plaza had truly fallen.
Every "slain" citizen now sat upright, eyes wide and dazed, glancing about in confusion.
What they had seen was not the same as reality.
In their vision, the soldiers had lost all reason, firing endlessly into the sky. At the plaza's edges, they had poured water across the ground, and in the end, most of them had inexplicably scattered and marched away.
It was as though the entire sea of Flevance citizens had never existed at all—or had already been wiped out.
"This… what's going on?!"
"We… we're alive?"
"Hey, you butchers! What the hell are you trying to pull?!"
Voices rose in confusion. A few bold citizens even stepped forward to question the masked soldiers standing guard.
But those soldiers didn't respond. They stood stiffly, oblivious, as though the crowd before them were nothing but air.
"…So this is the power of Kyōka Suigetsu," Yahn murmured from the sky, exhaling slowly.
"Perfect hypnosis. Once someone is caught by its power, their five senses are entirely under its control. Whatever I wish them to see, hear, touch, or even smell—they will believe it as truth."
His gaze swept the plaza.
"A flawless Zanpakutō, one that blurs the line between illusion and reality. But even in Shikai, the drain is immense. To reach Bankai…"
He paused, probing the blade's depths with his spirit energy. His senses were swallowed instantly.
An endless abyss.
Though Yahn was unlike ordinary Shinigami, the principle remained the same: to unleash a Bankai, one must force the Zanpakutō to submit.
But unlike Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, Kokujō Tengen Myō'ō, or Jakuhō Raikōben—each requiring spirit energy equal to dozens of wagonloads—Kyōka Suigetsu was different.
To subdue this blade felt like trying to fill a bottomless pit.
"Perhaps… with over a hundred wagons of spirit energy, I might barely glimpse a chance," he muttered, lips twitching bitterly.
The feeling was like facing a peerless beauty lying before him, thin silk barely veiling her form—yet no matter how he tried, he could not so much as brush it aside.
Within his inner world, Yahn addressed the manifested spirit of Kyōka Suigetsu—who appeared not as one but as four identical girls.
"Kyōka Suigetsu… after Bankai, what power would you wield?"
The girl on the far right smiled slyly and countered:
"Now, now, Master—are you asking Mirror? Or Flower? Or perhaps Water? Or Moon?"
(This story was written long ago so the author just created his version of Kyōka Suigetsu's spirit. At the time the author wrote this, Kyōka Suigetsu's spirit is still being discussed in bleach fan community.)
Honestly, they looked exactly alike. He couldn't tell them apart at all.
His head spun from trying to follow them, so he sighed.
"You four are basically quadruplets. I can't tell you apart at all."
"How could you say that, Master? Our differences are obvious!"
The next instant, all four transformed into alluring, mature women, identical in appearance once again. One even hooked his clothes with her bare foot, eyes glimmering with teasing mischief.
"Master, can you tell us apart now? Guess—who am I?"
Yahn froze. He suddenly understood why Kyōka Suigetsu's original wielder, Aizen, had always carried such a strange, unreadable smile.
So this is the real joy of it…
His thoughts spun as the four women shimmered again—this time transforming into four adorable little girls, bright-eyed and innocent.
"You mustn't bully Master," one of them pouted. "But Master, you mustn't be naughty either! You haven't even subdued us yet, and already you want to know what our Bankai can do. That's far too shameless. Not allowed!"
She puffed out her cheeks, then added seriously:
"It's like wanting to know what your future child will look like… without planting the seed first. That's not allowed either!"
Yahn.
For a moment, he was completely dumbfounded.
Four at once… this is impossible to handle in one go.
No, he realized. He would have to take his time, slowly wearing them down with patience and persistence.
Shaking his head, he withdrew from the spiritual space, the sound of their tinkling laughter fading behind him.
The troubles of Flevance were far from over.
If he wanted to pull off the "perfect crime" right under the World Government's nose, there was still much, much more to be done.