Chapter 82: Shikai
The gurgling water sounds wrapped around his ears.
Just as before.
Suoh Tsukasa, sitting cross-legged in the hot spring cottage, opened his eyes.
After successfully achieving Shikai, his consciousness had begun withdrawing from the inner world, returning to reality.
Of course.
If not for the weight and sensation in his palm being completely different now.
That standard-issue Asauchi was currently gripped in his hand in an entirely new form. He'd almost believe his encounter with the giant dragon had been merely a vivid dream.
Suoh stood and raised the Zanpakuto in his hand that now completely belonged to him.
With a joyful smile yet also some unfulfilled regret, he murmured.
"Didn't even have time to say goodbye."
The blade cut through the air, bringing forth a faint, almost imperceptible clear ring—like a response across world boundaries.
After a moment, Suoh held his Zanpakuto upright before him. His clear voice echoed through the spacious cottage.
"Reflect, Kikou!"
Gentle light surged from the blade like dawn's first light suffusing heaven and earth, instantly filling the entire cottage.
The originally somewhat dim wooden cottage was illuminated until every detail became visible. Dust danced in the light, as if the entire space had gained breath and life.
"Illuminate Ten Thousand Blades" was the Zanpakuto's awakening. "Reflect" was the key to further invoking its core ability.
Subtle spiritual light interwove through space. The light, after reflection, began distorting reality's appearance.
Without any movement, Suoh's sword-holding figure shifted positions several times within the room.
Using light to cause enemies to misjudge.
This was precisely Kikou's basic ability—by manipulating light's trajectory, constructing perfect visual traps in enemies' eyes.
No complex calculations needed. Where his thoughts went, light wove perfect visual cages for him.
Both unexpected and reasonable.
After achieving Shikai, knowledge about preliminary use of his Zanpakuto's abilities had appeared in Suoh's consciousness.
Though not the direct enhancement type he'd imagined.
He felt equally delighted.
It wasn't that Kikou only had the ability to produce visual illusions.
After all, light-based abilities had extremely high potential ceilings. Only through long training could one excavate a Zanpakuto's upper limits, and what he lacked least was ingenious technique ideas.
Suddenly.
Suoh thought of something, lowering his head in contemplation.
Kikou in his hand returned to standard Asauchi appearance. The room's light dimmed.
Suoh sheathed the Asauchi, instead picking up Hazy Night beside him.
"Illuminate Ten Thousand Blades, Kikou!"
The next moment, an incredible scene occurred.
Light like water covered the entirely pitch-black wooden sword Hazy Night, actually reshaping it in his palm into Kikou's form.
Seeing this scene, Suoh fell silent.
No wonder so many strangely-shaped Shikai existed. Asauchi was merely the vessel for a Zanpakuto's materialization.
As long as no problems existed with the Shinigami and Zanpakuto's souls, just change the medium.
Simultaneously, Suoh lifted his garment hem.
When lowering his head earlier, he'd discovered the circular pattern on his chest had changed for the first time.
"The sun—"
The outline's size hadn't changed, but it was no longer a simple circle. Instead, it had transformed into a simple sun disk totem.
"Truly worth anticipating."
Suoh lightly brushed the pattern on his chest, radiance flowing in his eyes.
If his initial training at Terada-ya, the speculation about the circle, had been merely hazy intuition.
Then tonight, Kikou's awakening had truly confirmed the secret that had always lurked deep within his body.
His soul's essence might inherently share origins with sunlight.
The circular mark that suddenly appeared after transmigration had originated from his Zanpakuto's basic ability.
Were there others?
If so, what might they be like?
Up to now, what Suoh had clearly experienced was the sensation of stamina rapidly recovering under sunlight.
As for wound healing, he hadn't yet tried it. After all, since transmigrating, not a single wound had appeared on his body.
Right now, deep night lay outside the cave with no sunlight, only moonlight.
Suoh suppressed the impulse to cut a wound for verification, instead switching back to the Asauchi for Shikai.
The room's light changed once more.
Taking Kikou outside the cottage.
Suoh condensed spiritual pressure at the sword tip, swinging an orange-yellow crescent toward a protruding stone pillar in the distance.
The crescent broke through the air. It didn't cut through the pillar as anticipated, only leaving a deep mark.
"Mm—stronger somewhat, but very limited—"
His gaze fixed on the mark on the stone pillar. Suoh contemplated silently.
He hadn't used Getsuga Tensho. That thing only Shiba Isshin and Kurosaki Ichigo could use, belonging uniquely to their lineage's Zanpakuto ability.
That slash's principle was very similar to Getsuga Tensho, except the name was "sword pressure"—similar to sword energy in martial arts, swinging out spiritual pressure from the Zanpakuto to attack.
Many Shinigami in the Seireitei could do it, but only by expending massive spiritual pressure could they display certain power.
When Suoh had previously attempted this move with his Asauchi, the sword pressure could only leave shallow marks on stone pillars.
Now utilizing Kikou, though the power had somewhat increased, it still hadn't reached qualitative transformation.
Looking at Kikou in his hand, Suoh's eyes revealed contemplative color.
"Besides reflection, what else does light have?"
"Right, focusing!"
Using light's characteristics as an entry point, he quickly thought of a technique. What he didn't lack was ingenious ideas.
His thinking diverged, sketching the ability's rough outline in his mind.
Direction determined, Suoh began attempting.
He raised his sword again, aiming at the pillar, immersing his full attention in controlling spiritual pressure.
After a moment, spiritual pressure gathered at the sword tip into an energy-restrained blazing white focal point.
"Pierce through, Kikou!"
This time the spiritual pressure release was accompanied by clearly instructed incantation.
As his words fell, a yellow light beam burst from the sword tip. The condensed light column instantly penetrated the distant stone pillar.
Unlike the earlier sword pressure's slash marks, this time the pillar bore a round hole vitrified from instantaneous high temperature melting.
Moreover, the fired light beam's momentum didn't diminish, consecutively piercing through three rock pillars behind before completely dissipating.
"Haha, I did it!"
Suoh stared at the destruction caused by the light beam, laughing heartily with a beaming smile.
Kikou not only possessed light reflection's basic properties, but similarly contained the ability to convert spiritual pressure into light-heat energy.
Compared to simply and crudely swinging out sword pressure, this method of highly compressing and concentratedly releasing spiritual pressure was obviously more suitable for someone with excellent spiritual pressure control like himself.
This focused light beam's power far exceeded sword pressure slashes—more concentrated energy, extremely strong penetration, and the light cannon's firing speed made the previous flying sword pressure pale in comparison.
"Too bad my math and physics grades were somewhat poor. I chose humanities over sciences back then."
Recalling his inadequate physics grades back then, Suoh couldn't help feeling a trace of shame and regret.
What you don't know in math, you don't know. Wasn't physics the same?
Math was purely abstract difficult problems. Physics was like math difficult problems wearing a reality coat.
Regretting not studying more when one had the chance—roughly described his current mood.
If he could understand light's properties more deeply, perhaps his current development of Kikou could deepen several degrees.
Without systematic theoretical guidance, relying only on scattered common knowledge and intuition, Suoh understood his current ability development had touched a bottleneck.
He restrained thoughts of continuing to diverge his thinking. Since breadth was temporarily difficult to expand, he'd first dig deeper in depth.
He then placed training focus on this newly comprehended light cannon.
In actual combat, the speed of condensing energy determined this move's practicality.