Beneath Karakura General Hospital.
The vast underground space was divided into a maze of corridors and platforms. Uryū Ishida moved through them, dodging and weaving as he gasped for breath.
Whoosh!
Tiny Reishi arrows tore through the air and slammed into the walls, leaving deep craters behind.
Uryū Ishida dodged aside, his eyes darting around until they found Ryūken Ishida, who stood there with one hand in his pocket.
"Too slow." Ryūken Ishida raised the silver gray shortbow in his left hand. "Your footwork is pathetic."
Several Reishi arrows flew out, making Uryū Ishida's heart jolt.
Amateurs watched the spectacle. Experts saw the skill behind it.
They were both Quincy. Even though Uryū Ishida had already lost his Quincy powers, his eye for technique remained.
Behind Ryūken Ishida's calm, effortless movements was a level of mastery over Quincy powers that far surpassed Uryū Ishida's.
With nothing but a shortbow, he could gather massive amounts of Reishi. He could fire spirit arrows without even using a bowstring, and release several of them in an instant.
If Uryū Ishida's old style had been drawing and firing with both hands, then what Ryūken Ishida was doing was more like casually flicking out a handful of silver needles with one hand.
And yet the force behind those casual shots far exceeded Uryū Ishida's full power.
No matter how unwilling he was to admit it, Uryū Ishida had to acknowledge that Ryūken Ishida had been right.
["I have no interest. You, on the other hand, have no talent."]
Thinking of that, Uryū Ishida felt unwilling, but at the same time he became a little more confident that Ryūken Ishida really could restore his Quincy powers.
["As long as you keep dodging my arrows, your power will return."] The method Ryūken Ishida proposed was so simple it was hard to believe.
Uryū Ishida grabbed the edge of a platform and flipped himself up. He rolled as soon as he landed to avoid several Reishi arrows, sprang back to his feet, and dashed toward a wall. After kicking off it several times, he turned a backward flip to evade the remaining arrows, then landed and looked up at the wall, where a series of deep craters like bullet holes had been blasted into the surface.
If he failed to dodge them... he would really die.
But Uryū Ishida had already begun adapting to Ryūken Ishida's rhythm. From here on out, it would only get...
"Easier and easier... right?" Ryūken Ishida's eyes were cold behind his glasses. "Getting arrogant over a little progress. That's the main reason you've always failed."
The instant Uryū Ishida turned his head, his glasses reflected several blue flashes erupting from the shortbow.
Unlike before, those blue streaks first shot outward in all directions, then curved gracefully through the air before converging on Uryū Ishida from every side.
He can actually control the trajectories of that many Reishi arrows?!
Uryū Ishida was shaken, but his feet did not hesitate for even a moment as he changed position with all his strength.
He could dodge them!
Tracking arrows had trickier paths, but because they had to be controlled, they were naturally slower than arrows that flew straight.
As long as he figured out the pattern, he could still evade them.
Uryū Ishida darted through the corridors, changing direction as sharply as possible so the tracking arrows would slam into the walls and wear down their numbers.
Ryūken Ishida seemed to notice something and turned to look in a certain direction. "So they found this place."
With a casual glance, Ryūken Ishida realized that while this place was well hidden, his repeated gathering of Reishi had inevitably caused some spiritual energy to leak out and be detected from outside.
He casually fired a few homing arrows, then his figure flashed and vanished from where he stood.
A bloated Arrancar stood above the hospital, the right half of its face covered by a Hollow mask, its long black hair...
It vanished into the air.
Ryūken Ishida returned underground and casually fired several more tracking arrows.
One stayed close behind Uryū Ishida. One predicted where he was heading and took a shortcut to intercept him. The rest formed a formation that forced Uryū Ishida to dodge in a specific direction.
"So there's actually another Fullbringer..." Ryūken Ishida casually fired a few more arrows.
"The Shinigami still haven't wiped them all out."
...
"Nakeem is dead too?" The red haired man had not sensed Yasutora Sado's movements, but he had noticed Nakeem's Reiatsu disappear first, and that left him genuinely startled.
It was not that Nakeem had been defeated.
It was that he had been defeated too... cleanly.
There had been no sign of a Reiatsu Burst, no lingering traces of Reishi. It was almost as if he had been erased.
"What the hell..." The red haired man raised an arm to guard his side.
In the next instant, a roaring torrent of Reishi came crashing down and lashed wildly across his body.
"This is just... boring!" The red haired man tore the torrent apart with a wave of his hand. "An attack at this level can't break through my skin at all. An Arrancar's skin is Hierro. It's armor by itself. Completely different from that boring decoration on your arm!"
"A boring decoration...?" Yasutora Sado appeared again. The red patterns on the black armor covering his arm were slowly beginning to change. "Before I saw a similar kind of power, I thought the same thing."
"Your arm..." The red haired man sharply noticed the change. Before, the red pattern on Yasutora Sado's arm had looked like a broad cloth band stretching from his shoulder to his fist.
Now that broad stripe was changing, branching out like limbs of a tree. Thin red lines traced shapes like arrowheads across the black armor.
Spiritual energy gathered around Yasutora Sado's arm, wrapping around it as he threw a punch toward the red haired man.
Unlike the torrent of Reishi from before, this spiritual energy was as sharp as a blade point. It resembled the spirit arrows used by Uryū Ishida, tearing through the air with a piercing shriek.
The red haired man reached out to catch it, and a sharp pain immediately stabbed into his palm.
But it was still within what he could endure.
No problem. I can block this...
The red haired man's widened eyes reflected Yasutora Sado rushing in.
Before the arrow like spiritual energy had fully run out, Yasutora Sado gathered more spiritual energy and closed in again. The red patterns on his arm changed once more, twisting into the shape of a vortex.
That is...
The red haired man's heart jolted.
This is bad!
Yasutora Sado drove his fist into the spiritual energy arrow and injected the newly gathered Reishi into it.
The sharp arrow instantly began to spin, turning into a high speed spiraling drill of spiritual energy. After a brief moment of resistance, it violently broke through the hardened Hierro, tore off the red haired man's hand, crushed his forearm, and drove toward his completely unguarded heart.
Amid the spray of flesh and blood, the red haired man's figure suddenly vanished.
Yasutora Sado let the spiritual energy disperse and turned to look in another direction. "Shunpo?"
"This is Sonído, faster than a Shinigami's Shunpo." Blood dripped from the red haired man's severed arm, but the grin on his face only grew more excited. "Looks like I underestimated you. Remember my name. Arrancar Trece (No. 13), Edrad Liones."