Bleach: Awakened — Chapter 106 - Muramasa Dons the Mask

"True power...?" Uryu paused, then asked in surprise, "There's another ability besides wind?"

"Yes." Orihime smiled. "It's a really powerful one!"

On the battlefield, Senna stood ready. The gentle breeze coiled around her body, keeping her frame as light as possible while she evaded one illusory blade after another.

"Which one is the real one?!"

Her figure flickered. Senna danced through the air like a spirit of the wind, searching for a chance to counterattack, but no matter what, the true form of Muramasa refused to show itself. A reckless attack with too wide a motion would leave an opening.

"Wind is indeed a fine ability." Muramasa said flatly. "But it cannot possibly be a match for me."

"Tch!"

Clicking her tongue, Senna moved to higher ground and swung the staff. The breeze coiled around her body transformed into a violent gale, spinning into a massive tornado that bore down on the Muramasas!

"The idea is right."

"?!"

Pupils snapping shut, the tornado swept through the Muramasas, yet Muramasa's murmur rose right beside Senna's ear.

"But there are too many openings." Muramasa whispered, raising the blade high. "You don't actually think any of what you were seeing had me in it, do you."

"Too naive. Little one, come back after a few hundred more years of training."

SWISH,

This time it was Muramasa's turn to stare in disbelief. With horror, Muramasa realized that the Senna standing there was also just an afterimage.

"An afterimage? That's not what it is at all."

Slice,

The spike raked across Muramasa's back once more, crossing the previous wound to carve a large X.

"Heh... heh... heh..."

Gasping in great heaving breaths, Muramasa struggled to regulate breathing. The wound was deep this time, nearly to the bone.

"What ability is this?" Muramasa's face twitched, enduring the pain. "This is definitely not the power of wind..."

"It's a higher-order power!"

"That's right." Senna smiled sweetly. "I said it before, didn't I—Mirokumaru's power, the power of wind, is the power of the previous master."

"I can use it too, but I never said that was my ability."

"What kind of monsters are all of you?" Muramasa's body trembled. Even the slightest movement sent bone-deep pain shooting from the back. "Even if you aren't a Soul Reaper."

"Where is there a Zanpakuto with two different abilities?"

"Without something a little special, how could anyone make it in Karakura Town?" Senna grinned. "Want to know what my ability is?"

"..."

"I'll take your silence as a yes." Like a child showing off a beloved toy, Senna gave the staff a little wave. "My ability is space—I can open a door in space and step into an independent pocket dimension."

"Enter whenever, exit whenever, and I can control exactly where I come out. Pretty amazing, right?"

"...I see, so it's a spatial ability." Muramasa's expression shifted with understanding. "The first time you ambushed me, you used this spatial ability of yours."

"Quite different from how you look. It's a rather underhanded ability."

"What do you mean underhanded!" Senna wagged a finger. "Only the weak say things like that."

"Heh..."

As the memory body of the Valley of Screams, a special dimension, Senna's true ability was spatial power, through and through.

In the past, she would vanish suddenly in front of Ichigo, disappear without a trace while they were out shopping. Those were moments of using the spatial ability without thinking.

Of course, there was one thing Senna did not mention: every entry into the pocket dimension required shaking the four golden rings on the staff, and while the exit point was freely controllable, it could not be more than 10 meters from where the entry had been made.

"Laughing won't do you any good." Senna leveled the spike. "Is there really any point in forcing yourself to keep going when things are already like this?"

"Just put an end to this rebellion now. We can still spare your life."

Head slightly lowered, long bangs fell over Muramasa's face, hiding any expression beneath.

"Reasoning with you isn't going to work, is it."

Senna shook her head. Spiritual pressure rose steadily within her. In just over a dozen days apart, it had already reached Captain-class level.

"Heh heh."

"...What are you laughing at?"

"Heh heh... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Left hand pressed to the forehead, Muramasa laughed wildly. The body convulsed over and over, blood flowing freely, and not a trace of caring about it.

The manic laughter and that inexplicable posture sent a chill crawling through Senna. Orihime and the others quickly moved forward, and the four stood shoulder to shoulder.

"Has this one lost it?"

Brow furrowed, a light arrow on the bow ready to loose at any moment, Uryu's gaze turned grave. A faint, formless dread stirred somewhere in the back of the mind.

WHOOSH,

A light arrow screamed forward and pierced clean through Muramasa's body, revealing it as nothing but an illusion.

"There!" Orihime pointed right. "Over here!"

Everyone turned. What they saw were dozens of Muramasas, every one of them frozen in the same hunched-over posture, the manic laughter rolling on without pause.

"What a troublesome one!"

Drawing the bowstring again, this time holding without releasing, Uryu readied a Rain of Light to blanket the entire area. It was fortunate the battlefield was in the air, on the ground, this would not have been an option.

"Do you know?"

"...Know what?"

The sudden words cut right through Uryu's concentration. An inexplicable chill swept up from nowhere and seized the chest.

"Rain of Light!"

Without waiting for Muramasa to say another word, Uryu made the call on the spot. The long-charged Rain of Light screamed out, countless light arrows hurtling toward every last one of those Muramasas.

BOOM!

The arrows rained down and kicked up billowing white smoke that swallowed the Muramasas whole.

"A hit."

As the one who fired, Uryu clearly felt several light arrows connect with something solid. But the chill in the chest only grew heavier.

Drawing the bowstring once more, spirit particles in the air converged around the arrow. With this shot, Uryu was confident it could pierce through the majority of Gotei 13 Captains.

"Why did I launch the attack today of all days?"

The white smoke gradually dispersed. Muramasa stood with a gaping hole through the abdomen, the right arm severed cleanly at the shoulder, everything below the left knee simply gone, and the left ear along with part of the cheek reduced to a bloody ruin, jagged teeth laid bare beneath.

"The cooperation with Sosuke Aizen, his demand that I launch this attack today is one reason."

"...Sosuke Aizen?"

That name. The name that had hung over the Three Realms like a stormcloud for the past month. At the sound of it, Uryu's movement faltered. The light arrow that had been a heartbeat from flying paused for just an instant.

And in that one instant, the best chance to kill Muramasa slipped away.

"It is also because only as of today have I finally mastered this power."

Left hand rising to rest on the right temple, a black radiance flickered. Muramasa straightened upright. The already-strange spiritual pressure became something stranger still.

"That gesture... could it be a Hollow mask?!"

Eyes wide, Yasutora Sado saw the familiar motion and could not suppress a cry of surprise. These past weeks had all been spent training with the Visored.

"I have now mastered this power—the power of the Hollow."

The left hand wrenched down hard. Black spiritual pressure flashed. A helmet-shaped white mask with two long horns jutting from the top snapped into place across Muramasa's face.

Without a doubt, this was a Hollow mask.

➤ Next: The Rebellious Ice Dragon