Chapter 17: The Power a Ruler Should Possess
"What is wrong? Not attacking?"
"Are you waiting for my companions to get far enough away that they cannot come back to help you before you make your move?"
Shimiya Takeru flicked the blood from his blade, his eyes shining with a sharp light.
"No."
Number Two's figure, a dog like head on a nearly human body, carried a strange, regal air. In the firelight he looked almost like some twisted Egyptian god of death.
But Takeru knew the appearance was secondary. The real threat was the mind that had been tempered by long years.
"I am thinking," Number Two said, his voice low, "whether you are a fool or a wise man."
"How so?"
"You correctly read my power. That is why you pulled your companions away and chose to stay here alone to block me. I understand that much."
His gaze sharpened.
"But what you said displeases me greatly."
"You mean when I said I would finish before they do," Takeru replied.
"Exactly."
"I do not think saying that makes me a fool."
Takeru spoke without any sign of concern.
Number Two let out a rough laugh, so angry he could only smile. His terrifying face twisted, and his spiritual pressure surged, wrapping tightly around his body until it was almost visible.
His skin slowly darkened from bone white to iron gray.
"That line alone proves you have thrown away thought and willingly become a fool."
The next moment, Number Two charged. His body punched a hole in the air itself, his claws pressed together like a blade, driving straight toward Takeru's skull.
He clearly intended to split his head and scoop out the brain for study. It was a cruelty that came as naturally to him as breathing.
Takeru stepped back, avoiding the blow, but the wind pressure that followed sent his slender frame skidding backward.
He had to stamp in midair for footholds, flipping again and again to stabilize himself.
Number Two's attacks did not stop.
"Do you see it? Do you feel it?" he roared, claws hacking and hammering. "From the moment you sighed over my improved defense, you made a huge mistake."
"You do not understand my limits. You do not understand my greatness."
His furious strikes came in a storm, his sharp words mixed between each blow.
And it was obvious he still had not reached his true limit.
Takeru met that storm with the refined basics of the Spirit Arts Academy, his blade and body moving in perfect time.
Clang.
The harsh sound of metal on metal rang out as he braced and met a crushing hammer like strike from Number Two's arm.
Looking at Shimiya Takeru, who had stopped his blow dead on, Number Two let out a sound that mixed mockery and admiration.
"To match me in strength, you are at least a little qualified to be proud."
Takeru's expression did not change.
Instead, he spoke in a flat voice.
"This body of yours. Is it the result of your ability to devour metal?"
"Oh?" Number Two's eyes narrowed. "So you heard my talk with that Shinigami earlier as well. That means I definitely cannot let you walk away."
"Before you worry about that, you should reflect on yourself a little."
"Hm?"
Number Two did not immediately catch his meaning.
"I am saying," Takeru continued,
He cut himself off, slid his Zanpakuto into its sheath in one smooth motion, then spun and whipped his leg out.
His heel slammed into Number Two's abdomen, driving him straight down.
Number Two crashed into the ground and rolled in a cloud of dust.
Looking down at him, Takeru went on as if nothing unusual had happened.
"By devouring metal, you gained a special form with greatly increased defense."
"On top of that, you devoured a Zanpakuto and gained vitality even greater than that defense, letting you substitute death and split into multiple bodies of equal strength."
"Taken together, it seems flawless."
"Precisely because of that, you relaxed when Omaeda rejected you. At that distance, there was clearly a risk of being killed, yet you refused to enter that form."
"That is why I was able to get behind you and pierce your heart with a single thrust."
"From where I am standing, that is not what I would call wise."
"How dare someone half baked like you mock me," Number Two snarled.
His anger rose straight to his chest, but before he could explode, Takeru calmly twisted the knife.
"Most importantly, I can feel it," he said. "You have lived a long time, but you are not even a Vasto Lorde, yet you actually boast about becoming the King of Hueco Mundo."
"Does Baraggan know you mouth off like this?"
"A brat like you actually knows Baraggan's name…"
Number Two's reaction was far more intense than Takeru expected.
"That guy is just a pretender," Number Two snapped. "The true King is someone else. I am his successor."
"The true King, huh?"
"Exactly." Number Two's voice took on a fervent edge. "He was a noble being who once left the Soul Society helpless. His brilliance left a deeper mark than that decaying fossil Baraggan ever could."
"I came to the Soul Society to seek his legacy and inherit his will. Vasto Lorde, Shinigami, none of that can stop me. Seireitei will not stop me either."
"…Does not sound like you are talking about my teacher," Takeru murmured. "So it does not matter."
"What did you say?"
Number Two stared at Takeru, who looked perfectly satisfied after extracting that crucial information, and only then realized he had once again been lured into talking.
Just as his anger surged to the breaking point, Takeru raised his Zanpakuto.
The blade's tip pointed straight at the moon above.
"One more correction," he said quietly.
"I have not thrown away thought, like you claim."
"Leaving my companions here to help me would just mean I am as careless as you."
"And I am not…"
His gaze sharpened.
"…as weak as you."
"The ability you boast about. The power you keep bragging about. All that reliance and pride of yours."
"To me, it is nothing worth mentioning."
"So let me show you what kind of power a ruler should have."
In that instant, Takeru's spiritual pressure contracted sharply.
It flowed inward as if it were all being drawn into his Saketsu. His entire body felt hollowed out, leaving only a single point at the very center of his being, like a star, brimming with blinding radiance.
Then, as he softly chanted his release command, an incredible change took place.
"Eight Phases Manifestation… Endonemi."
Boom.
The compressed spiritual pressure detonated like a supernova.
In an instant it flooded his entire body. The massive torrent of spirit particles did not leak even a fraction. It was locked completely inside his seemingly slender frame.
High concentration, high density spiritual power burned and compressed within him, turning Shimiya Takeru into a luminous body. Even his flowing hair became translucent, like carved colored glass.
A man made sun rose in the night sky.
For a moment, sun and moon shone together.
Number Two felt his body trembling.
No.
It was not just a feeling.
His body really was shaking.
The air and the earth were shaking.
Everything here was made of spirit particles, and all of it was bowing under the weight of a new star that had suddenly appeared in their midst.
Within Shimiya Takeru, every spirit particle was undergoing fission.
Fission, fission, and more fission.
The reaction chained on and on, until the total scale reached something close to astronomical.
The result showed up directly in his spiritual pressure.
In the span of a few seconds, his spiritual pressure increased a hundredfold.
Just standing there, his spiritual pulse alone was enough to kill ordinary souls outright.
Even a Menos Grande would find it hard to endure that weight.
If approaching meant death, then what would attacking bring?
Number Two saw a single, overwhelming flash of light descend.
By the time his brain caught up, everything below his chest was gone.
It had not flown off somewhere. It had simply ceased to exist.
That defensive body he was so proud of might as well not have been there.
The ground beneath him was also split apart.
A canyon hundreds of meters long and impossibly deep tore through the forest. The edges were unnaturally smooth, as if a titan sword had sliced the world open.
The sight was terrifying and beautiful at the same time.
The aftershock radiated out in visible waves, shredding the forest in the opposite direction. Trees were ripped up and pulverized, not even leaving a branch thicker than a finger.
"What… is this…"
Even his vaunted regeneration could not keep up.
The spirit particles that made up his body were dissolving at different rates.
Number Two keenly realized that his soul itself was melting away.
"It is only ordinary sword pressure," Takeru said.
He drifted down and landed lightly, kicking up a small puff of dust.
His body still glowed, but his spiritual pressure had dropped to the bottom.
"Monster…"
Number Two could not help laughing as despair swallowed him.
"No wonder those two brats were jealous of you."
"But they were still too foolish, dreaming they could surpass you with that thing."
Those two academy students who had supposedly gone missing without a trace had not simply wandered into Runrinan and been unlucky enough to be caught by Ckes.
Takeru had planned to ask what "that thing" was.
But Number Two's soul had already scattered.
He could only press that question down in his heart and leave it for later.
"…It hurts more than a little," he muttered. "That guy was not wrong. You really do need a mindset beyond ordinary to master this power."
Takeru quietly clenched his fist.
Remembering the Mushroom Woman's words, he felt his agreement with her deepen.
Endonemi.
That was the true name of his Zanpakuto.
Its ability was to trigger a fission effect in all the spirit particles inside his body for the next eight seconds, producing dozens or even hundreds of times his normal spiritual pressure.
You could also call it Spirit Particle Fission.
It placed a tremendous burden on his body and carried a real risk of soul suicide, but the power he gained during those eight seconds was terrifying.
A hundred times Vice Captain level spiritual pressure, focused into a single strike, was enough to erase a powerful Adjuchas with ease.
Whether he swung his sword or not, the state would be forcibly released at the end of eight seconds, and he would fall into a weakened state.
It was not that he could not move at all, but the hollow feeling in his body was very real, and he did not have much fighting strength left.
His existing spiritual pressure was completely spent, like draining all the blood from a body.
He could only wait for new blood to be produced.
For now, it would take several hours to recover.
As his strength grew, the recovery time would only increase.
On top of that, the destructive power was absurd.
This kind of Shikai was not suitable for use when surrounded by many allies.
Even Takeru himself found it strange that such an extreme power had appeared at the level of Shikai.
Was his true nature really that extreme?
Questions aside, he had fulfilled his promise.
The task he had taken on was complete.
"The rest is up to you," he said softly.
Takeru sat down cross legged, his eyes turning toward the distant battlefield.
The spiritual pressure clashing over there was still raging, clearly nearing a critical point.
He wondered if Ckes Number Three, with only one life left, would come up with another plan.
For example… a strategic retreat.
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