章 24: 24: Oh Great Master.
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(Davian's P.O.V)
The figure cocked their head to the side, as if finding my reaction to him a little funny. I could see his lips part underneath the hood and...nothing came out. He scowled his lips.
I sensed that he was annoyed. He reached to his back and pulled out a red cross blade. It was a long sharp thin scissor like sword, glinting in the air.
He twirled it, millions of spirit energy feelers in the shape of almost invisible strings rippling around the weapon. The energy was a dark purple. One that felt ominous.
Then he swung it my way. The air cried out at being mercilessly sliced apart. I could do nothing but buckle down as the edge of the sword slammed onto the shield. The impact was too much for the bubble shield. It immediately broke through only for the Cross blade's edge to collide with the sheath, strategically placed infront of my face just along my forearms.
The force of the clash shook me to my bones. His strength...it was overwhelming. Enough to bodily throw me away, smash past a crypt and a few gravestones. Loose soil stuck to my back as I simply laid on the groove I had scraped out with my body, staring up at the gray sky in surprise. It was hard to breath.
The attack... was so sudden and powerful. My hands could not stop shaking.
I was sure of it now. I couldn't beat this guy. He was different from any opponent I had ever faced. Speaking of which...it stung my ego that I had lost every single fight up until now, not counting the one with Croc.
It grated but at least I was spared from physical agony of getting slammed onto the ground. The pain was fleeting. One of the benefits of being in soul form was that physical pain did not seem linger, as I was finding out.
"You still cannot hear me when I talk."
A deep and mellow voice spoke up. It was almost melodic. I groaned, getting to my feet while gripping the sheath tightly. It was the only reason I wasn't dead.
"You are so pitifully weak. So...unworthy of me."
Gordon's lips moved but the voice was not his. With his eyes glowing the same familiar dark purple, it was safe to conclude that he was being controlled.
Reikaku (spirit sense) is very hard to use. And that's because it only works on people with average spirit energy. Meaning, those who can see hollows but can't necessarily control Reiryoku to give themselves combat abilities.
With those conditions and the fact that not many people could use spirit energy in this world, training it had been not exactly hard but more like stumbling in the dark and recognizing things by running your hands over them.
I would leave my sword a short distance away, cover it with a tarp, a bundle of clothes and anything else I could find and then try to sense it purely by Reikaku. Sometimes I could. It was like a pulsing node of Reiryoku. Trying to do so while on another room was the natural step up to that. I hadn't had a lot of success in that as much as the first training instance.
This was one of the rare instances that it actually worked. I couldn't seem to pull my Reiryoku out of my body but by using the sixth sense that Reikaku afforded, I could sense spirit energy signatures with little to no effort, if there was something to sense that is.
The sword in his hands had purple thin strings that converged on Gordon's chest and both of his wrists. His mouth was slack, head tilted to the side slightly.
"Let him go."
I addressed the figure, wielding the only weapon in my arsenal.
"Do it or I'll beat you to a pulp."
I growled, pointing the sheath at him. I was ready to make good on that promise too. It sickened me that this could be my Zanpakuto spirit.
Don't misunderstand, I wasn't a good guy, but there was little I valued more than freedom. Grow up like I did, get sent to prison and you'd understand why.
"Beat me to a pulp?"
Laughter escaped Gordon's mouth. The jaw was left open in an eerie manner as he turned his eyes towards me, light pouring out of facial features, his eyes bright underneath the cracked glasses.
"Let's see you try!"
Strings of purple cut through the air, whipping towards my body. I jumped back, avoiding the thousands of individual threads meant to stab through me. The ground exploded into dust, a few graves around the impact went up in a shower of dust, stone and bones. The whole section caved in.
The dust settled and I blinked.
"Oh come on."
Seven skeletons, each with purple light glowing inside it's eye sockets, claimed off the hole before shambling forward in a jerky motion. They had rusted weaponry in the hands. A sword here, a spear and a huge Axe that belonged to one of the Skeletons wearing a viking's war hat. That made no sense. I thought this was supposed to be my inner world, how was it possible that he could seemingly manifest skeletal puppets anytime he wanted?
I looked past them and enquired from the source.
"Who are they?"
The figure merely smiled.
"No problem, I guess I'll beat it out of you."
I responded to his silence.
Then stretched my body, getting ready for the altercation. The first of the skeletons, came in from the side, sword raised up to slash me from top to bottom. I raised the sheath to block, then immediately saw a flash of bright light. My mind caught up with me to offer answers when I felt my back collide with a crypt.
'He detonated the skeleton puppet.'
I realized, extricating myself from the human shaped hole I had made with my body over 10 meters away from my previous position.
It seems like I had underestimated Reikaku. Even before the next attack made it through the dust blocking my view of the cemetery, I could already feel the threads of spiritual energy connecting to the second skeleton making it's way to me.
I grabbed for my sheath only to feel my hand grasp onto a cold handle. My fingers wrapped themselves around a sword, taken from the dead guy in the crypt. Already I was parrying the head of a spear from the second skeleton. Then I kicked out and bone folded around my foot. My right hand was already around the sheath as this skeleton exploded as well.
It was a good strategy. Something I could see myself adopting. Unfortunately for him, I wasn't going down that easy. The dust cleared to reveal a green bubble shield around me. Rocks and stones fell on either side of it from the destroyed crypt.
My left hand was pulled back, the sword from earlier exchanged for the last skeleton's spear. 'So they explode whenever they sustain a strong blow, I can work with that.' I thought, winding up for my first true attack.
The bubble shield around me faded away and not a second later, the spear flew high and true. My target was...bad. I could point a gun and shoot really well but this was the first time ever, doing something like this.
Somehow the spear managed to stab through the Viking skeleton's war hat/helmet. The resulting explosion was glorious. Spirit energy rippled out through the surroundings, drowning the rest of the puppets under it's power.
Now that I was ready, I decided to use the opening provided. Strafing to the left, I jumped over gravestones, aiming to catch him off guard as I made it closer to him.
I only needed a clear hit. Something to judge just how much he could take. My strongest punch. Like a ghost, I seemingly appeared to his left, a hand pulled back.
This close to him, I saw his lips move. Then a word escaped Gordon's mouth.
"Shikai"
Then I realized it was all a fluke. A plan to get me closer. He held his cross blade to the sky and it unravelled into a net of numerous purple Reiryoku strings around him in a grid like fashion. The grid entirely covered his front, back, center and sideways.
My heart grew cold as I brought the sheath to the front and immediately created a shield. There was a clash of energy between green and purple and I lost the bout, getting thrown through the air, the sky and ground seeming to meld together.
Until they didn't. Something wrapped itself around my limbs, restraining me and holding my body captive.
I looked down and saw the purple strings of energy around my wrist and ankles, the source being the ever present grid around his body.
"Nice try."
The puppeteered Gordon complimented. A flick of the figure's wrist and my Sheath was snatched away from me by some more materialized strings.
"That is not yours. It's mine."
He added, the sheath landing in his palm. I glared at him.
"So I guess I was right. You are my Zanpakuto spirit."
My words made him tilt his head inside the hood.
"My turn to ask questions."
He decided, and I found myself pulled towards him by the ropes. I fought, trying to move away, trying to access my spirit energy once more and failed. What I did get however was a sensation from the Sheath in his hands.
I allowed myself to be pulled closer to him. Then the Sheath in his palm let out a burst of green energy. More like a flash bang than the usual bubble shield. It wasn't enough to hurt him but it did provide me with the chance I wanted. This fight was far from over.
The strings around me, fizzled out and snapped, allowing me free reign of my body. Then I let gravity do the rest. My fist was pulled back and using what I had learned from boxing back in the day to efficiently output as much force behind my blow as I could, the fist landed smack on his left cheek with a meaty thwack!
The results could not have been more different from my expectations.
Instead of hurting him, I swallowed a cry of pain as my fingers shattered, my hand breaking badly, shards of bone peaking out of the shredded skin and flesh. Blood spilled like water from a broken faucet. I felt his hand grip my neck, however my knee was already coming up before he could find purchase.
The knee landed on his chin and agony gripped me once more. He didn't even budge. A sharp pain assaulted my leg, telling me that I had broken another limb. In one instant, the grid around us exploded with thousands of not millions of rippling strings. They combined into thick braids stabbing through me and suspending my body in the sky above him.
More blood bubbled out of my throat and sprayed out. I had dozens of braids through my my back and limbs.
This pain was not fleeting. This pain was here to stay.
I felt a hand land on my chest. Straining my vision, we made eye contact and I finally managed to see more than half of his face. He had a light white fur that covered the feline face and cruel eyes that seemed to suck you in and leave you unfocused.
"Suketsu."
He mouthed the words but the voice came out of Gordon. His hand on my chest, right above where the soul chain was supposed to be, felt unbearably warm.
"I could take them all away. Your powers."
He leaned in and added,
"Maybe then... Maybe then I could be free of you. Free to change this...ugly place into my own image. All it would take is a little...Shu or Byakurai and I would carve out my own future."
The threat sent a shiver down my spine.
"So tell me, 'Oh great master' what is stopping me from doing exactly that?"
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