Without a single care for their injuries, the two enraged Spirit Masters rushed towards Ichi Guo, teeth and claws bared. The reincarnated reaper hardly had enough time to register just how much faster this possession technique had made them before they were on him, swinging out their clawed hands with all the grace and accuracy of a drunk baboon.
Even so, the blows were raining down on him and the struggle to maintain a guard had placed him on a permanent defensive rut. Each time he guarded one strike, the force from the blow would force him backwards and require him to reestablish his footing. The fact that Zangetsu was a massive slab of metal, twice the size of his own body was not making things any easier on him, as it limited how he could use the blade.
His arms were going numb from trying to take the edge off of the attacks, and with every passing second it was becoming more and more dangerous to try to fend off two enemies at once with a guard.
'What the fuck are you doing, King!? Stop dancing around these two nut jobs and take them out!' Hollow Zangetsu shouted in frustration. 'You'll never win if you can't break out of this defense!'
'Shut up! I already know that!' Ichi Guo shouted back at the spirit, but even so, it was hard to weigh his options when two massive guys were flailing at him as they bled to death on their feet. The two mindless beasts seemed to not give a damn about anything but attacking.
Ichi Guo was starting to see the primal pattern to their attacks, but as long as he had to shield himself, he couldn't break out of the cycle of blocking their attacks. If he was going to get out of this, he would need to take a risk.
Shi Nian watched the fight from a short distance away. It was taking longer than he had expected. Fast and powerful as his subordinates had become, they were not able to finish the job. The child was constantly moving himself. Changing position to try to make the two stumble over each other to get at him, minimizing their advantage from outnumbering him. His guards, rather than simply blocking the attacks, allowed him to roll a little with the punches. Where in the world did the little boy learn to fight like this?
Not that it really mattered to the Principal. It seemed like a forgone conclusion that the boy would eventually become too tired and beaten to continue and then he would simply throw him in the back of the wagon and cart him off like that. But Shi Nian was shocked out of his partial disinterest when the wolverine-man threw a wide right swing at the boy, trying to grab at the sword only for the blade to dissolve into a black mist. The boy had recalled his essence spirit, a move that most would relate to suicide.
Shi Nian swore as he prepared to pull back the reins on his subordinates. After all, killing the boy would be a grave loss to him. But before he could, he saw something starting to form around the top left half of the boy's face. It looked like a quarter of a bone skull mask. Shi Nian's eyes widened as he saw the boy's eye change from white to black and the soft gold to a sharp pale yellow.
The two beastmen continued their attack on him, but he dodged them with increasing ease as his own speed seemed to have increased since the transformation. Shi Nian's mind was spinning at what he was witnessing.
Twin spirits. The term's meaning was obvious. It was when someone was born with two spirits rather than a single spirit. Only one in every hundred or so had it. So it wasn't exactly extremely rare. In most cases, it wasn't useful. One spirit would be more powerful than the other, and thus that would be the spirit that would be used, since only one could be used at a time.
The thing that was getting to the Spirit Emperor was just which spirits they were; the Seven Kill Sword and the Seven Hells Bone Demon. They were the two spirits belonging to the sub-servant clans of the Seven Treasure Glass Tower Clan. It was their existence that allowed a support type clan like the Seven Treasure Glass Tower Clan to be the second most powerful clan in the world, standing above even the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, whose beast spirit was supposed to be the most powerful in the world.
To have not just the tool spirit, the Seven Kill Sword, but also the beast spirit, the Seven Hells Bone Demon. Just who was this little bastard?
It was an interesting combination. Beast based spirits were widely considered to surpass tool based spirits, as a tool spirit user could use their power to enhance their tool. But regardless of how strong you make the weapon, it doesn't do you much good if the one wielding it is weak, and tool spirit users were almost universally weaker than beast spirit users. They were slower, had less physical endurance, and they lacked the raw instinct for battle that a beast type master had.
So for a tool spirit to surpass a beast spirit, it had to be truly powerful and the master extremely determined to overcome the gap between them. After which, the practice with controlling ones power to a greater degree could allow them to become even stronger. After all, humans surpassed beasts not through instinct, but intelligence. The ability to control ones self was the true strength of a tool type spirit master.
But what if someone had both a beast spirit and a tool spirit? One allowing them a greater control of the spiritual power inside of their body, the other giving them a focus outside. The best of both worlds, in theory, since they could not both be used at the same time.
As one would expect when someone activated a top tier beast spirit, Ichi Guo's speed drastically increased. Where before he had been struggling to fend off his attackers with half guards and some fancy foot work, now he was able to keep himself well out of arms reach of the two attackers as they tried again and again to rush him down. Every time their flails met nothing but air as he dodged in a fashion that Shi Nian wouldn't call graceful but certainly effective, as his movements were sharp and hard to predict.
Then came the even less expected, the irrational even. The boy started to go on the offensive. At first it was merely sneaking in a cheeky punch or kick wherever he found an opening, each aimed for an existing wound and each having only a marginal effect on the attacking beastmen, but then it started to get bigger.
Ichi Guo was testing the waters. He had long since gotten the attack patterns of the two fighters down, and now he was asking himself the big question; how do I win. Most people would call someone in his position insane for even thinking about winning while in his shoes. They would say that survival is far-fetched as it was. However his experience from his previous life was telling him that only winning truly mattered. Just surviving would not bring an end to this, and failure was not an option.
Five seconds. That was his limit on overlapping his spirits.
The hypnotism had drastically increased the spiritual pressure surrounding the two beast spirit users. As it was, he would have to use his full strength to break through it. Not to mention the Spirit Emperor. He would need to take all three of them down in just five seconds.
Actually, he would only have four seconds. He would need to save some power in reserve for the group of lesser spirit masters. If he spent four seconds with both spirits up, then he should have just enough energy left over to make a stand with Zangetsu for about two more minutes.
'Can I do it?' Ichi Guo asked himself as he continued to hold his own against his attackers. He was slightly surprised when he got an answer.
'The fuck kind of question is that!?' His inner hollow shouted. 'I know it's been a while but have you honestly forgotten everything! What the hell is with all this doubt!? Cast aside your fears! Turn back, and you will age! Hesitate, and you will die!' Ichi Guo was surprised to find his hollow quoting the old man Zangetsu. 'Call me out and we will rip apart anyone who dares try to stop us!'
Ichi Guo's lips turned up in a grin. 'Fine then, just remember we're running on a timer. Don't screw this up.'
As the two teachers attacked Ichi Guo again, he shifted his weight to the left, making it look as though he would dodge that way before doing a quick Shunpo to the right, catching the beast men off guard.
He had maneuvered himself to place the bear-man between him and his partner. Then he threw a hard punch straight into the man's face.
The punch hit the spiritual barrier and was stopped dead in its tracks. The bear-man grinned as he found Ichi Guo floating helplessly in the air next to him after the ineffective punch.
With an animalistic grunt, the bear-man swung a clawed hand at Ichi Guo.
Everyone who had been watching let out a gasp of horror as they saw blood fly through the air and bits of clothing being scattered as the claw ripped through the boy's chest. But then, he was gone, and all that was there was a torn shirt.
Utsusemi, Cast-Off Cicada Shell, a more advanced form of the Soul Reapers' Shunpo technique which leaves an after image behind in order to confuse the attackers. Most take a good second to understand the fact that they never hit anything but a stray article of clothing, giving a good window for attack.
The two beast-men stared in shock, their hypnotized brains unable to process what they were seeing. Shi Nian himself couldn't understand it. But he saw what happened next, as the boy had reappeared behind the two holding his arm out. Black specks condensed together as Ichi Guo recalled Zangetsu, and his spiritual power sky-rocketed fifteen ranks once again.
"He's behind you!" Shi Nian shouted, but it was too late. The first strike was an overhead swing, perfectly aimed to slice straight through the wolverine man's neck, sending his head spinning through the air. The second strike followed immediately after, an upwards cut that went through the bear-man's back, cutting his heart as the boy moved past him.
Shi Nian could hardly believe it, in just one second, the boy had killed two Spirit Ancestors, both of which had been placed under his berserker spell. And now, the child was after him again.
The Shunpo was immediate, and Ichi Guo covered the distance between himself and Shi Nian before the other two's bodies could even hit the ground. The boy let out a small battle cry, which echoed from his hollow spirit distorting his voice. He lifted his sword up into a two handed swing, putting as much force and spirit pressure as he could into the offensive strike.
Even though the attack was enough to call up a steady wind, it landed against the Spirit Emperor's barrier with a heavy smacking sound. The bubble of protection again slowing the progression of Zangetsu's wicked sharp blade.
Shi Nian again prepared to use his spiritual pressure to push the boy back, just as he had done before. He had no way of knowing that was exactly what Ichi Guo had wanted. As the wave of spiritual pressure shot out of Shi Nian's out stretched hand, his spiritual barrier rippled, weakening from the need to let the blast through.
Not wasting the opening, Ichi Guo Shunpoed again, moving out of the way of the blast and cutting his way into Shi Nian's bubble. "Die!" Ichi Guo shouted, bringing down his sword towards the Spirit Emperor's head.
Shi Nian reacted with a surprising amount of speed for someone taken by surprise, shifting himself backwards and half stumbling out of the way of the strike. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't move out of the way completely.
Zangetsu slid straight through Shi Nian's extended right arm, moving through the muscle and bone as if it was simple wood on a chopping block. Blood strayed out of the stump as the arm was sent spinning through the air.
Ichi Guo himself slammed into the ground, rolling away as his momentum carried him farther forward. His mask cracked and shattered as he dropped the essence spirit to conserve energy. The four seconds were up. Now he had to find out if the damage he dealt was enough.
It took a second for Shi Nian to actually register what had happened. He was just staring at the blood dripping from where his right harm had been, everything below the shoulder was missing. Finally, he collapsed to his knees and began to scream bloody murder.
"You... you damned bastard!" He screamed, holding onto the stump, trying in vain to stop the bleeding. "Kill you..." He hissed between clenched teeth, pushing himself up onto his feet again. His spiritual energy was continuing to rise at a rate that was beyond surprising to Ichi Guo. "I'll kill all of you!"
A shimmering in the air occurred next to the man's head as a crystal half-tiara-like-item appeared on the side of his head. The item was pulling in more and more energy from the surrounding students who seemed to be falling to their knees, unable to deal with the spiritual pressure coming from their headmaster. The normal civilians were passing out as his power grew and grew. Ichi Guo himself was having a hard time fending off the rising power as the man began to laugh like someone who had lost his mind. The spiritual pressure was somewhere around lieutenant's level, as far as he could tell.
Five rings formed around his waist; two pale yellow, two purple and a black one. Then the five rings started to gravitate together, merging into one solid black ring.
Slowly, the mad laughter started to die down and the man turned towards Ichi Guo, a familiar smile on his face. A smile that sent a chill down his spine. "It seems that no matter how much time passes, you always find a way to upset my plans. Even here in another life and in another world." His voice had changed, dropping in pitch. It was so cold and arrogant. It was a voice that Ichi Guo would recognize anywhere.
The man's skin and hair seemed to flake away, revealing swept back wavy brown hair, his neck beard disappeared to reveal a strong chin and his eyes changed from blue to a heavy brown that looked towards Ichi Guo as if looking down at an insect.
"Isn't that right... Kurosaki?"
Don't complain about Aizen right here. Do it after you read the next chapter if you really must, but give me a chance before you leave me an angry review and just quit.