Anime/Manga: Bankai Starting with Demon Slayer

Ultimately, you are just...

The world fell silent.

An extremely eerie stillness, enough to suffocate all things, suddenly descended upon this wilderness.

In the deepest part of Kyohara, in the shadows where the white sun could never reach, a figure sleeping in a transparent coffin slowly rose to its feet.

He was a young man wearing a black shirt and with neat black hair.

His appearance was exactly like that of a bird, but his temperament was completely different.

His eyes remained closed, and he exuded no murderous intent, malice, or human emotion.

It was a pure silence, a silence born of weariness with existence itself after countless cycles of birth and death.

A young man with black hair strolled over.

With each step he took, the mirror beneath his feet blossomed into flowers and transformed into solid earth.

All the broken swords emitted a humble hum, as if welcoming their true, one and only king.

The world of Kyohara collapsed and reassembled rapidly, and in a few breaths it returned to the gloomy sky of Rukongai, and the dilapidated yet vibrant streets.

The once arrogant and domineering white figure began to tremble violently the moment the young man opened his eyes.

It seemed to have witnessed the most incomprehensible horror in the world, and the black knife in its hand shattered on its own with a 'crack'.

"You...how did you...wake up...?"

The white figure's voice was filled with fear as he retreated continuously, even attempting to disappear into the shadows.

The black-haired youth remained silent.

He simply passed calmly past the birds and the white wolf that had collapsed to the ground.

He walked up to Bai Ying, extended a fair and jade-like hand, and gently placed it on Bai Ying's forehead.

"They've gone too far."

The black-haired youth's voice was extremely cold, carrying an irresistible air of authority.

"Just taking a lunch break."

"Don't think of yourself as the real master."

The moment that hand touched her, the white figure let out a piercing scream.

Its body was instantly broken down into countless white threads, which were scattered across the world by the black-haired youth.

In an instant, his entire mental world regained its clarity.

The black-haired youth turned his head and looked at Asuka, who was sitting on the ground with a bewildered expression.

"Sorry, there was a slight problem with the gate; I almost overslept."

"But this is also your problem. If you hadn't caused me trouble, this wouldn't have happened at all."

Although Asuka was shocked, he still instinctively trusted the black-haired youth:

"What do we do now?"

"Let's deal with the situation outside first..."

The black-haired youth looked at the hilt of the only remaining sword in Asuka's hand, and with a slight flick of his pale hand—

"Please stop breaking our knives."

The words fell.

The entire space of consciousness collapsed with a roar, turning into endless white light.

In the real world, Karakura Town.

Time seemed to stop flowing at that moment.

The tug-of-war in Asuka's spiritual world seemed to have lasted only a few seconds in reality.

The pale white bone blade was only a few centimeters away from the bird's forehead.

Shiba Isshin roared and stretched out his hand, trying to protect the bird. The Quincy girl's longbow was already drawn to its limit, and the spirit arrows made a sharp sound at her fingertips.

Boom!

A heavy spiritual pressure erupted instantly, centered on the bird.

“This is…” Although Tousen Kaname in the distance is blind, his sensitivity to spiritual pressure is more acute than that of most Shinigami.

"A third-tier Spirit Might?... And he's still improving? How is that possible? He's still a squad member!"

The bird opened its eyes and stretched out a hand.

His hands looked pale from blood loss, and his movements were very slow.

But this slow hand, with an incomprehensible speed, grasped the pale bone blade.

Crunch-!

The bone blade, powerful enough to cleave steel, groaned in pain in Asuka's hand.

Then, to everyone's horror, he broke it in his hand.

Feeling an unprecedented threat, Xu Bai retreated abruptly, and a dark purple void flash rapidly condensed in front of his forehead.

However, the bird moves even faster.

Before the light was about to burst forth, the bird had already swung its 'Broken Blade'.

The severed blade was entangled with an unidentified black and red substance, which seemed to have coalesced into the shape of the blade, but it was very strange.

It was just a simple horizontal slash.

The white shell, which was strong enough to withstand the divine arrow of destruction, was as fragile as withered wood in front of the black blade.

Pfft—!

Dark, void blood splattered in mid-air.

With a bird's utterly indifferent gaze, half of her pale body was severed by this single strike.

"What kind of power is this?" Shiba Isshin, who had arrived, stopped beside Asuka, not making a move rashly.

Because he's now even unsure if Asuka is still a grim reaper.

The aura emanating from the other party at this moment caused Shiba Isshin to feel a kind of physiological resistance, and even the Zanpakuto in his hand felt somewhat uneasy.

The Quincy girl in the distance stood frozen in place, her spirit longbow trembling slightly from the shock.

In her perception, the bird now seemed like a giant black hole walking through the world, greedily devouring all the light and spiritual particles around it.

However, as Aizen's prized experiment, Hollow White did not completely lose his ability to act.

Even with half its body severed, some kind of command within the void still drove it to complete its final action.

Instead of continuing to attack the bird, it used the momentum of that strike to instantly rush in front of the girl!

"Oh no!" Shiba Isshin's expression changed drastically.

In that moment of distraction, Xu Bai bit the girl's shoulder hard!

Then its broken body began to swell wildly, as if it wanted to drag the girl away as the final sacrifice!

Dark red veins throbbed violently beneath its skin, and a destructive aura instantly locked onto the two of them!

The bird's figure flashed again.

The black broken blade drew a resolute arc in the air, and the originally violent spiritual pressure miraculously subsided to a single point on the blade's edge.

"Get out of my way."

The tip of the knife glided precisely across the physical connection between the pale white figure and the girl.

Under that strike, the white creature was forcibly ripped from the girl's shoulder, flying into the distant sky like a lump of rotten flesh.

Immediately afterwards, an explosion large enough to illuminate half the city burst forth in the air.

The void, the source of tonight's chaos, finally vanished completely in that black and red explosion.

As the white light vanished, the oppressive spiritual pressure emanating from the bird receded rapidly like a tide.

The black and red longsword in his hand returned to its broken hilt, and the darkness in his eyes gradually faded, revealing his previously unfocused pupils.

The aura has returned? What's going on?

"Asuka!" Shiba Isshin rushed forward and caught Asuka a second before he collapsed from exhaustion.

Asuka opened her mouth: "...I want to find a soul, her...."

Before he could finish speaking, the extreme exhaustion made him unable to hold on any longer, and he fell into a deep coma.

Chapter 127 The Disturbance in the Shadows

On the top of a skyscraper not far away.

Tosen gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, his spiritual pressure already in disarray due to his emotions:

"Lord Aizen... the experimental subject 'White' has been completely destroyed. Moreover, the power displayed by that Shinigami soldier is completely beyond the normal range!"

"Should we take action now to capture him? That person's soul is extraordinary; it must contain a secret that transcends realms!"

Aizen Sousuke stood at the edge of the rain, his deep brown eyes fixed on Shiba Isshin, who was helping Asuka up, and the Quincy girl tending to her wounds.

He is thinking.

Number 78 was a little devil he accidentally acquired while secretly collecting wandering spirits in Rukongai.

The reason it was an accident was because his former subordinates were really capable; they managed to trick the kid into coming to the laboratory right in front of the 46th Bureau of Investigation and Statistics.

It's hard to imagine... if I'm not careful, my plan might be exposed prematurely.

In gratitude for this guy's recklessness, Aizen has already fused his soul into his own experimental subject.

Why would the 46 Chambers go to such lengths to search for this kid in the Inugami Ward, and not just once or twice...? Aizen made many guesses.

Illegitimate children, theft, family scandals... anything is possible for these rotten guys.

Whatever the reason, Aizen felt that perhaps this No. 78, who was unwilling to tell him his name, was the person that the 46th Chamber was looking for.

Therefore, when I was conducting my own Hogyoku experiment, I would always pay special attention to this kid and replicate my latest experimental results on him.

But the more he experimented, the more confused Aizen became.

This kid's body is like an abyss; no matter what material you use on him, you won't make a ripple.

This fueled his interest, and he resorted to increasingly extreme methods.

He could certainly sense Number Seventy-Eight's hatred; after all, he was a very perceptive person. But so what?

This kid is destined to be just another piece of the puzzle in finding the ultimate answer on his own.

Until one day, Number Seventy-Eight disappeared.

There was absolutely no warning.

Aizen's laboratory was extremely well hidden and was sealed with a high-level Kido seal. He believed it was impossible for anyone to sneak in silently and rescue this mysterious brat.

But it happened, and no trace of Number 78 could be found.

To prevent such an outrageous thing from happening, Aizen even left a fragment of spiritual pressure deep within his soul as a backup plan to sense his location.

But now, even this fragment can't be found.

Even in the Soul Society, such a strange occurrence makes one wonder if it's haunted.

But as time went by, decades passed in the blink of an eye, and Aizen gradually let go of the matter.

Perhaps he had used too much material in one of his experiments... He comforted himself by thinking of it as a failed experiment.

But today, when he saw the bird again, his body involuntarily twitched.

Those were fragments of his spiritual pressure, detached from the bird's soul, rushing towards him.

A flood of memories rushed into his mind, and even though Aizen was a man of great experience and ambition, he couldn't help but freeze in place.

"Another world? Another world with a complete life form, yet completely detached from the spirit particle cycle?"

"How did Number Seventy-Eight do it? Why did he open the gate to another world? Can he go to that world again? What are the conditions?"

Countless questions kept bombarding Aizen's mind, but he couldn't find the answers.