Author Notes: This is more of a chapter to get into the more basic of Yhwach's techniques from and an intro to Kazui's new Rei-ken before the true fight begins and delve into my own fanfic version of his true powers.
As of 04/18/2020, I'm expanding the chapter because it felt really lackluster the first time around.
Chapter 36: ß- the Final Letter- A2
Kazui pulled out a sword hilt from his chest, which illuminated the area with brilliant light.
It dimmed to reveal Kazui wielding a golden katana with a guard composing of a black raven with three red eyes, two on the sides of its head with one large one in the center, surrounded by a crown of magatama beads with a golden handle covered in red wrappings, with golden symbols of the times of the day emblazoned on the sword with a round, golden pommel with three black feathers sticking out.
"Sonohi no Hi Karasu-Ken: Yasakani no Magatama (Sun Raven Sword of the Day: Yasakani no Magatama).," Kazui spoke.
"I didn't know that some other than Yamamoto had a Zanpakuto the power of the sun...," Yhwach spoke.
Red feather like flames rose from the sword and propelled towards Yhwach.
"So you managed to summon her eh? She's more forceful than I am...," Tsuki remarked as he stood back.
"Blut Vene Anhaben (Wearing the Blood Vein).," he said as he generated a large forcefield with vein patterns spreading out to Kazui while blocking the feathers. It began to encroach onto the boy, attempting to suck out his Reiatsu.
"Sankt Bogen (Saint Arrow).," he declared as he summoned an enormous Reishi bow with equally massive Heilig Pfeil, firing directly at Kazui- obliterating the body of the boy.
Yhwach smirked before noticing the boy restored himself...or rather every action was being reversed to just when Kazui released the sword's feathers, much quicker than before.
Yhwach activated a much more practical Blut Vene to block the attack this time around.
Something's off..., he thought to himself.
"Natsujikan no Gyaku (Daylight Savings Time- Reverse). Time is reversed to negate my enemies actions...for now it's a very short time frame for now.," Kazui explained.
He could be trying to deceive me..., thought Yhwach.
"Auswählen (Select).," he said as he generated a beam of blue Reishi and directed it at Kazui, absorbing the boy's Reiatsu into himself.
He then felt a feeling of regression within the atmosphere just as he saw his actions getting reversed.
"This might be more interesting.," Yhwach said as he got out of his throne.
"Sankt Altar (Saint Altar).," Yhwach declared as he summoned five orbs of Reishi above his fingers, he transports them to the air around Kazui, These orbs each fired a beam of energy at the opponent, creating a large Quincy Zeichen with the target in the center, and stole power from the target to give to Yhwach himself.
Then Yhwach paid attention to the red space filter that occurred when Kazui activated the Natsujikan no Gyaku this time around.
"Then I won't give you time to reverse your actions.," Yhwach said.
"900 years for the heart to roar, 90 years for my mind to understand, and 9 years for the soul to awaken...The Almighty...," he said as he gained two additional irises with a single pupil in each eye.
With this can see everything that is to occur from the present moment into the far-flung future. I can "know" everything that lies within that gaze. Rather than seeing a linear future, I observes all possible futures at once like countless grains of sand in the wind, and can thus act accordingly using the knowledge I have gained to anticipate and counter my opponents. That's not all- its true power is the ability to alter the future into whatever outcome I desire. I can utilize this power by setting up traps where he knows my opponents will be, and preemptively attacking them before they realize. I can also outmaneuver any defense and countermeasure they use to protect themselves in order to facilitate my attacks., Yhwach thought as he used his eyes to infiltrate Kazui's subconscious and grabbed the aspect of Natsujikan no Gyaku and place it within himself.
Kazui activated the red filter space only for it to be reverse so it came from Yhwach's side instead.
"All powers are now my ally and those powers will not only be unable to defeat me, but also become unable to harm me in any way...," he said as he released a concussive blast that shook Kazui off balance, an opportunity that the Quincy King took to grab Kazui and began to drain his powers.
Once Kazui's powers were drained, Yhwach pulled out his Medallion to summon a katana, with a dark purple handle and a circular hand guard.
"Bankai: Zanka no Tachi (Blade of Ember). This was a power I took in honor for my enemy's skills...," he said as he grabbed the sword.
"Higashi: Kyokujitsujin (East: Rising Sun Blade).," he declared as he concentrated the intense flames of the sword along the edge of the blade to create a smoldering smoke emerging from the tip of the blade. It neither burnt nor erupt, but when it touched the ground that Kazui barely managed to dodge to nothingness.
"Nishi-Zanjitsu Gokui (West- Sunset Hell Robe).," Yhwach declared as he was engulfed in a cloak of intense blue flames.
"Minami: Kaka Jūmanokushi Daisōjin (Blade of Ember, South: Ten Trillion Flame Great Corpse Formation).," Yhwach said as he impaled the tip of his sword into the ground, calling upon the corpses and ashes of the dead who were killed by the flames of the Zanpakuto to come forth and fight on his behalf. The charred skeletons emerged from ruptures in the ground, charging at Kazui. Knowing that Kazui didn't have any personal connection with, he went for the ultimate technique.
"Kita: Tenchi Kaijin (North: The World Reduced To Ashes).," Yhwach said as he went in to slash at Kazui, intending to completely incinerating whatever his slash touched and end the fight.
However, for whatever reason the motion was halted not through paralysis or hesitation, but rather the action itself was halted.
"Yoake (Dawn).," Kazui said as the area went completely black before it flashed with a brilliant light, slicing Yhwach's medallion in half and causing an "Asauchi" Imiter to burst out of it and erode away- another light left the area and returned to its true master in whatever he was in.
The red filter appeared once again, as all of the previous actions reversed to prior to the point Yhwach was about to use the Almighty, but the Medallion was gone.
"Yoake is able to pause negatives actions so that when my counterstrike occurs, it can create an alternative path that suits my interests better. I can't do that move a lot for right now. Let's stop with the parlor tricks and get to the real fight.," Kazui explained.
"That Zanpakuto is beyond the physical realm...no, it's actually-," Yhwach realized.
"It's a Rei-Ken- it can do a lot of things I don't know about, one thing though is that you'd have to destroy to the subatomic level to get rid of this thing...I wanna see what you got..," Kazui answered.
"No Soul Reaper has used one in millennia...Enough parlor tricks...," Yhwach said as he took a more serious stance.
With a simple, horizontal cutting motion directed at the sky from his sword, he manifested an enormous Reishi bow in the air above himself, which in turn fired an arrow back towards the ground in front of him. As he grasped up the arrow comparable to his own height near the base of the
The length of this blue Rieshi arrow was comparable to Yhwach's own height and, by gripping it near the base of the shaft, it changed into a more a large broadsword. Two protrusions jutted out diagonally on both sides form the sword's cross-guard which, alongside the handle, formed a shape resembling of the Vandenreich insignia.
"Linker Flügel Gottes: Acadia (Left Wing of God: Arcadia).," he said noting to the winged sword.
"Rechter Flügel Gottes: Zion (Right Wing of God: Zion).," he added, showing the blue energy sword.
The two then entered into a clash of swords, blinding the area with lights of red and blue intertwining.
Kazui struck the swords, but then for some reason his Rei-Ken wasn't able to unleash another time related power.
And whenever he tried to strike Yhwach, the attack phased through him.
And when Kazui attempt to tap into his inner Hollow to boost his powers...nothing came out...
And the origin of this first sensation came from the winged sword. And the second sensation came from the Reishi sword.
Arcadia creates an immaculate zone within its range. It allows me to negate any outside control, decay, corruption, power increase and malignancy that would try to sully its purity. It can also make me temporally unreachable to any type of attack., thought Kazui.
Zion is able to banish any impure entities from manifesting within its range. Should such beings have already manifested, they will be exorcised and purified out of existence., he added.
Kazui's Rei-Ken slowly began to switch from becoming transparent and incorporeal to being solid, but gradually moving back towards the former.
Kazui's Rei-Ken then vanished to the boy's surprise. Something that Yhwach took full advantage of.
"You've just achieved this power in full consciousness for the first time. Theres was no way for you to maintain it without training.," the mustached King explained to the shocked Kazui.
"Gottes Entstehung (God's Genesis).," he said as Kazui began to sprout seedlings that began to grow into plants on his skin. The plants' flowers sucked out Kazui's Reiatsu.
"Gottes Exodus (God's Exodus).," he said as he exiled Kazui to a completely white pocket dimension.
"This is outside of existence in which no Reiatsu or powers other than my own can be used...," said Yhwach's voice from all directions.
"Gottes Zeremonie (God's Ceremony).," said his voice as Kazui was bombarded by lights coming from stain glass like objects made of Reishi.
"Gottes Zahlen (God's Numbers).," the voice added as countless numbers made of Reishi hit Kazui in addition the first barrage.
"Gottes Worte (God's Words).," the voice continued as countless words made of Reishi collided with Kazui, adding to the previous two barrages.
"Gottes Könige (God's Kings).," the voice spoke as countless armored king figures made of Reishi struck at Kazui with their sheathed swords made of the similar material. These were used alongside the previous four barrages.
"Gottes Evangelium (God's Gospel).," the voice added as several angels made of blue Reishi struck countless arrows at Kazui from all directions, in addition to the preceding attacks.
"Gottes Offenbarung (God's Revelation).," the voice concluded as Kazui looked up to see a large castle fire a beam of blue Reishi down on Kazui.
Kazui returned to the original space, bleeding in a pool of his own blood, Tsuki guarding the boy, but the Quincy King kicked him to the side.
"I wanted to create a world where people wouldn't have to fear dying and losing their identities..., but he said even with that knowledge as long as he had family and friends... he'd have the courage and hope to pull through..., but he said that not knowing the truth...," Yhwach explained to the boy on the ground.
"A selection of Pluses capable of becoming Soul Reapers or their aides are allowed their own independence...while the rest are absorbed into Abeseimei to maintain his existence in order to control the 4 Soul Kings to control all life...and those who become Hollows are absorbed into the Dio Hueco...he didn't understand it and thought I was lying...,"
"No, it is a necessary evil to maintain the world...and the Quincy are a cancer polluting it...we should vanish...I see that now...The Quincy will end with you as the Soul Reapers will reign...," he said as he lowered his blades towards Kazui.
That must be Dad who he was talking about...my Dad from my time..., Kazui thought
"What's the history of the Quincy?," Kazui asked.
"The Quincy were scattered all over the world at one time..we believe ourselves to be nephillim descended from the intermingling of humans and angels or gods...the Soul Reapers believed us to be a mutation of the Full-Bringers.. They were a clan dedicated to fighting Hollows. It is unknown when the Quincy first came into being, some say the Quincy evolved from Full-Bringers or Soul Reapers...others say they came from another realm entirely. Some believe I began the Quincy and my blood flows in every Quincy, from a certain point of view, the modern variation of the Quincy cane from my teachings that my brother entrusted with. However, there were Quincy before me, including ones that could accept/reject events or being unable to absorb Reishi naturally because they share their power. And my father said that he himself is a Quincy, as were his ancestors and his body parts were Quincy who willingly accepted being apart of him.," he replied.
"I think my mother...'s one of those Qui-," Kazui answered, but Yhwach continued his conversation.
"Since the origin of the Quincy, many years passed within Soul Society trying to appeal to the Quincy that the handling of Hollows should be left to the Soul Reapers, not even allowing an opportunity to aid them as some of the more benign Quincy suggested and they should be one of the countless commoners to be protected and eventually join the Soul Reapers to learn their techniques in order to better handle the situation or else die. The Quincy refused to accept the situation out of pride. As time went on, the number of Quincy increased and the cycle of souls became more unstable, forcing the Soul Reapers to reluctantly wipe out the Quincy in order to maintain the balance of the world.,"
"I doubt that's the truth.," Kazui said, much to Yhwach's surprise.
"That's the official story...while pride was still a major external factor, secretly we did believe the Hollows...weren't supposed to exist..that they were modified from something that was supposed to exist instead, but whatever forces the Soul Society allied with to maintain their own rule while covertly aiding those secret invaders who caused the birth of the Hollows...that they were one of the reasons why the realms felt off..," Yhwach corrected, sounding less harsh and more introspective.
"Believing the problem lay with the Hollows, we tried to erase them in order to draw out whatever was forging the Hollows..the Soul Reapers said to ignore it and believed it was a power grab to overthrow the Soul Emperor who likely planned it on the orders of...his predecessor, the Soul King, my own father who I believed forced the creators of the Hollows to be brought to this cosmos against their will for some mysterious plan.," he continued.
"However, when our numbers increased beyond the number of Soul Reapers in the Soul Society as we joined the World's Sword and our powers began to eclipse that of the Soul Reapers- they began to kill the Quincy population out of paranoia in spite of our aid to them. This wasn't one-sided. Some Quincy wanted to take over the system to suit their own selfish desires while others wanted to change it from within for the betterment of mankind, which would undermine the Branches' control. Needless to say, it served as some justification for why they commence it. Fearing their power, the Soul Emperor had me have the Quincy forget the original techniques that apparently did serve the purposes of reincarnating the Hollows and teach them what he'd rather have our king learn in order to keep their powers more manageable and controllable..., but this actually led to our persecution being more justified due to the technique leading to the destruction of their souls- with many committing more killings with the arts with pride while severely punishing those who clung to the old ways... and thus, the Soul Society reacted as if expecting this was an inevitable result, finally having an excuse to kill us entirely...I thought it would save-," he added, but Kazui gave him a disapproving look.
"...I was born unable to see, hear, speak, or even move, I didn't cry because I believed I would survive..., but I was scared of being in darkness and wanted a way out of it...Seimei gave me an opportunity to see the light, even if it meant changing the ways of our people on his instructions from father to do spite of his rough treatment of myself and our siblings...I think he didn't intend to have this happen that it would lead to their demise.," Yhwach corrected.
I doubt it..., Kazui thought to himself.
"As a consequence, the Soul Emperor's forces would slowly inject the World of the Living as well as the Soul Society with a Hollow Reiatsu layer in order to slowly kill off the Quincy rather than face our kind themselves and tarnish their reputation as preservers who reacted in self-defense.," Yhwach said as he went back on track.
"The Quincy line were closely monitored over the centuries as a precaution,, as their numbers continued to dwindle with some with stronger resistances managing to survive long enough to give birth to offspring and those who didn't actively use their powers allowed to leave as they weren't perceived as a threat. While the Quincy aligned with me wanted vengeance for the slaughter of our race and wanted to correct the system, a few Quincy proposed the idea that since they were already among the living and still more numerous at the time than the Soul Reapers and the other Branches, they could act as "first responders" to Hollow attacks with the Soul Reapers coming to finish them off as per their original agreement: protecting Humans until the less-numerous Soul Reapers could send a representative to finish the Hollow off. And an odd fraction, wanted to rejuvenate interest in the old techniques and serve as members of the various branches of the Soul Society. One of leaders of this faction-," he continued.
"Grin Jaeger...," Kazui said as he recognized the name.
"...So something did happen to you while you activated your Rei-Ken...how did you learn of that...," Yhwach asked before Kazui's chest illuminated and shot out four lights.
Four figures manifested to protect him, much to Yhwach's surprise.
Joana Jeanne, Morana Beira, Anomias Anathema and Mechayemit, the last of which, caused Yhwach to feel tense.
Next Chapter: ß- the Final Letter- A3