HankMoody
Member
He unfortunately did not have any time to be angry, but he was. He had to remain focused, despite the difficulty in coordination of the personnel present. He almost ignored the Kuchiki’s arrival and swift move into action, using his shikai to support his waning bankai. He watched as the waters slowly, but surely shored themselves up, becoming the familiar raging ocean that it was known as prior to Valiosa’s emergence. Instead of responding via the spell, he directly appeared next to the dean, ready and willing to utilize his abilities as properly instructed. “It would appear that one shinigami does in fact follow orders,” he thought. He constructed this com-link to help the war effort remain just that: an effort. It was supposed to be used to address attendance, and share information, moreso, the information that he has gathered in the time that he has been entrenched in not just this particular fight, but the war itself. The arming of the Sōkyoku (双殛, Twinned Punishment) was genius. Truly the hail mary to the apocalyptic threat that they all collectively faced.
He watched Gyōja carefully take the time to ready two familiar spells that the dean immediately recognized. Instantly, he has been an excellent show of support, in an otherwise lacking pond of it. He held the hadō in place while he informed the veteran of his personal assessment, and willingness to fire at will only on his say so.
If what he thought would come to pass, it would only be a matter of moments from now. Quickly, he mentally assessed the battlefield and its combatants.
Hideo had potentially redeemed himself after his prior showing with his quick thinking. However, he was gravely injured. His reiatsu was vigorously unstable and his options were slipping by the second. The dean feared for his safety. Especially, without a functional bankai. Then there was his wife…after her harrowingly risky attempt at a play on Antonio’s life, she continued to remain within the fray trying to find a crevice to enter in this deadly battleground. Her help was needed, even required. However, her execution required proper structure, and timing based on the situation in front of them. “Captain Kurayami…are you trying to kill us all…?” his lack of understanding of her actions were beyond his comprehension. Taking to attack her very own men, almost placing the other shinigami at risk. It was evident that she operated in a battlefield of her own, as her actions did not align with the current engagements needs.
The multiple water javelins failed in impaling their target, as water crashed behind her, instantly reappearing near him, with a sudden blow sending him downward—just as anticipated. He foresaw this counter-attack. He knew the water was quick, and his reactions quicker, but he wasn’t naive. In fact, he counted on getting hit—he counted on her being quick. He braced for impact once he felt her inevitable spiritual pressure enter his field of reiatsu, he was able to quickly get his hands in front of his face and upper torso as he embraced the physical strike, sending him down to the waters below as they slowly receded similar to when he recalled them to reconstitute its strength. He didn’t fight his descent, he accepted it and adjusted his body accordingly to the speed, landing gracefully on his feet with an echoing thud as a crater would form beneath his weight. The idea was working. When he landed, the ground was dry of any aquatic presence as he lifted his head back toward her to see what she had planned next.
After taking all the water from the surrounding area, she collects it in an orb, caressing it in her hands like a newborn babe. She informs them that Esmerelda was the force that guided them, gave them power and how to properly destroy a shinigami. Evident in how Hideo was handled and treated, she was right. A shinigami’s zanpkauto was their lifeline to a fight and without it, depending on their skill, that fight would be lost.
She did however fail to realize that this wasn’t an ordinary zanpakuto, and its master is no regular shinigami. Just as she erects that disgusting grin across her face, Yūichirō gives her a matching one.
Turn of the Tides
Well before her lips even could disgrace his sword's name, a sunset colored burst of reiatsu exploded from her hands, more specifically, the orb of water that she had so carefully collected. By reclaiming every last drop and condensing it within her hands, she also collected every single kidō that was layered into his ocean from the moment he set eyes on her brother. She took great care of the bankai he possessed, but as he displayed earlier, they both had very little influence over how and when he discharged his kidō.
As the reiatsu took shape, it took the form of a cube lattice, surrounding Valiosa’s enormous body but left her lower half exposed, as her arms, torso and head were all confined within the kidō box prison he hid within the waves of his weapon. Inside of that box, her control would be severely destabilized over Umibōzu Hitama as her personal prison would take shape, thus allowing the bankai to ‘spill’ out of her hands and fill the space unaccounted for within the cube. Not only would she be subject to the containment and arming of the kidō spell, but she would also be left at the mercy of the sea, strengthened by Gyōja’s arrival, and be subject to the main component of his bankai. Umibōzu Hitama’s waters catch and imprison any and all things in a maelstrom-like trap and are pulled below the surface of the water, even holding its prey in place in a form of stasis in the constantly shifting buoyancy. Additionally…
Yūichirō clapped his hands together again, then separated them from each other—slowly but with great force, and the cube would expand, and with it, the water inside. Valiosa would either have difficulty breathing under the crushing weight of his bankai’s water pressure, simulating the feeling of what it would be like at the oceans floor, or succumb to what came next—as soon as the cube began its ever inevitable expansion, destructive spells ranging from the seventies all the way down to their fifties would discharge as every single cube that was left made up this one and every duplicate hadō spell contained was combined and reinforced into a single underwater detonation of reiatsu, while the cube itself was also heavily reinforced, properly containing the blast, the bankai and the beast. The raw force of the spells added an extra layer that the titanic moth would have to power through to ensure her survival.
A being such as Valiosa fell into the trap that most opponents of her strength and caliber fall into—a false sense of infallibility. Because she was able to visualize all the paths necessary to walk them to their individual fates. However, even though the shinigami themselves were scattered and operated separately, it was the uncertainty of that individuality—the lack of cohesion bred their greatest weapon against such a foe. Unpredictability. Even in this moment, Hyoroshi made a well-placed read and counter attack, it colored the dean impressed at what he was able to do, systematically utilizing his shikai to great effect upon her lower half, incinerating it in an everlasting flame that could very well char deep down to the bone, with heat searing through the cells of her hierro.
The dean, still expanding the cube and sea as Hyoroshi continued his onslaught, rivers of sweat running down his ebony skull, he waited to finally drop the curtain on the final act. Just as the white hound leapt off of his quarry, that was his queue, and there was only one thing left to do…
The Final Wave
And without haste, Yūichirō gave Valiosa a Standing Ovation, bringing his palms back together suddenly and then sliding them in opposite directions, then, he broke out in arrhythmic snapping as the sunset-colored cube quickly turned red, discharging a wind chime like sound. The dean brought his hands back together and just before his skin reunited…
By this time, Gyōja’s combined hadō spell would have been fired and headed directly for Valiosa, Suzume’s own spell would be well on its way in asynchronous tandem, he was able to time her straight forwardness and sync with with his own plans. Fuu’s own tactics breathing to life the massive rubble, as many fallen pieces of the central Seireitei also reared their heads as allies within the battle, fired from seemingly all angles—nearly every angle where Valiosa could see. Then finally, just before their combined might were to land on the demoness' birthed form, her body separated from its continuously searing lower half, cleanly detached as the cube-shaped lattice held her top half in place midair to be violently struck by yet another wave of reiatsu. At this time, if she hadn’t found a way to ‘swim’ to the bankai’s surface, and to break through the many-hundred layer kidō box prison he sealed her within, while actively drowning from the crushing depths of the expanding water. She would likely be obliterated and vaporized by the naginata given life.
And in case one forgot, a burning orange light beamed from the top of Sōkyoku Hill (双殛の丘, Sōkyoku no oka), the execution grounds came to life with roaring red flame in the form of a divine bird of matching description and boasting an enormous amount of spiritual pressure, the one only known as Kikōō (燬鷇王, Blaze Fledgling King). There were many powerful zanpakuto amongst the shinigami of the Soul Society, many names that have rung out through history accompanying the names of those who wielded them. None were as majestic nor as powerful as Kikōō. The bird, with its target primed within its sightlines gathering one healthy beat of its wings, and blitzed into the region of the central Seireitei without haste nor waste. The offensive and defensive capability of this weapon has been said to hold the equivalent power to that of one million zanpakuto. Today, it will need to earn its legend. Should the final crash of this tsunami of power find its way to the final invader of the Seireitei…then, and only then they could claim survival—not victory.
“Reiō, guide us. Whatever path that might be…"
