CHAPTER 54

"Impossible!"

"You expect me to believe this nonsense, Akira ? Maybe that'll fool a kid who hasn't entered Shin'ō Academy yet, but not me!"

"Collapse, Sakanade!"

Hirako Shinji's voice rang out in the stagnant air, his fingers clenched around the hilt of his Zanpakutō as he invoked the Shikai command.

Nothing happened.

The blade did not reverse, the air didn't distort, and the telltale scent that always accompanied Sakanade's inversion field was completely absent.

As if the spirit of his Zanpakutō had fallen silent.

"Sakanade! I said, collapse!"

He shouted again, panic rising behind his sharp tone, but still—nothing.

The Zanpakutō in his hand, which had for over a century served as both his weapon and comrade, remained inert, as if sealed before he'd even learned its name.

Just as Akira had warned.

"You done screaming?" Akira 's voice cut in like cold steel. His eyes didn't flicker with contempt or cruelty—just calm certainty. A battlefield surgeon inspecting a failed operation.

Without waiting for a reply, he shifted his grip and shoved the blade forward. The full length of his Zanpakutō drove into Shinji's abdomen again, reopening the wound.

"Ah—!"

Shinji's breath hitched as pain wracked his body. He felt the blade grind against bone before emerging from his back again. His blood stained the air in thick red clouds.

"Sorry. I forgot. Since Sakanade has been sealed, the world is no longer inverted," Akira said with a hollow chuckle. "Forward is forward again. Left is left. Pain is… well, exactly where it hurts."

He didn't even bother faking sincerity.

Blood poured freely from Shinji's mouth, but before the spray could reach Akira , it was consumed by the swirling black mist still rising from Akira 's right palm. That same gravitational distortion that had twisted even the barrier that Shiba Isshin erected earlier with his advanced Kidō.

"Try not to make a mess. You were, after all, the Captain of the Fifth Division once," Akira said, yanking his blade out again.

Shinji staggered back, knees buckling. He dropped to the ground, using Sakanade—still in its sealed form—as a makeshift cane. His fingers trembled.

"I'll only say this once," Akira said as he wiped his blade clean and sheathed it with a soft metallic click. "Put your sword down. It's over. Just like your captaincy, Hirako Shinji… it's finished."

"You son of a—!" Shinji's face twisted with rage. "I'm the Captain of the Fifth Division! Don't get cocky—you're a hundred years too early to take my place!"

The fury temporarily masked his pain. Summoning every ounce of spiritual energy he had left, Shinji rose shakily to his feet. Blood poured freely from his wounds, but his grip on the hilt tightened.

"I'll show you—just what a captain can do!"

"Bankai!"

The word was hurled like a war cry, his spiritual pressure spiking—

But the moment he began to channel it, Akira 's hand rose. His fingers curled.

Shinji's body froze.

The next second, the gravitational force exploded outward again—dense, oppressive, inescapable. Shinji's Zanpakutō wrenched from his hand mid-chant and flew into Akira 's grasp as if magnetized by the black mist.

"No—!" Shinji's eyes widened. "Sakanade—come back!"

He reached forward, but his own limbs betrayed him under the gravitational crush. The sword spiraled once, then landed squarely in Akira 's palm.

In that instant, he felt the spiritual connection snap. The blade went cold. No voice. No resistance. No presence.

"Sakanade…" Shinji whispered, horrified.

"That's the second time you've tried that, Captain," Akira said, raising the sealed Zanpakutō for Shinji to see. "And the second time she hasn't answered."

He tilted his head.

"You thought Bankai would make a difference?"

Shinji gritted his teeth. "Kakusareta Hacchō…"

"You can keep shouting the name. It won't come," Akira interrupted, tossing the sword away like scrap. "Sakanade is sealed. You are sealed."

The blade clattered against the ground.

"Be quiet," Akira added softly. "Stop screaming her name. You know she won't respond."

Then, without warning, Akira vanished with a blur of shunpō and reappeared in front of Shinji. The hilt of his own blade already in hand, he rammed it into Shinji's chest.

Schlkt.

The steel pierced through muscle and bone, the tip emerging cleanly from Shinji's back.

"Agh—!"

This time, Shinji's legs gave way entirely. He collapsed backward like a broken puppet, eyes wide with shock.

His once-flaring spiritual pressure deflated like a pricked balloon. His reiatsu, once capable of staggering lieutenant-class officers with sheer presence alone, dissipated almost instantly.

The terrifying reality set in.

Not just defeated—but dismantled.

Stripped of his Zanpakutō's voice.

Stripped of his ability to invoke Bankai.

Stripped, even, of hope.

Sakanade, his partner through countless battles—from the hollowfication experiments to the betrayal of Aizen—had gone silent. The psychological weight of that loss was heavier than any blade wound.

He no longer tried to fight back.

Didn't even lift his eyes.

His Shihakushō was drenched in his own blood, and the haori—once a symbol of his authority as a captain—lay crumpled beneath him like discarded cloth.

The difference wasn't just physical.

It was existential.

He couldn't even raise his spiritual pressure enough to bluff a second wind.

Outside the barrier, the crowd of Shinigami—more than 600 strong—watched in frozen silence.

"That's it?"

"Captain Hirako… He's done?"

Voices murmured in disbelief. The Gotei 13 had many strong captains, but Hirako Shinji was no upstart. He'd been part of the original thirteen under Yamamoto himself. A master of both Kidō and Hakuda. A veteran of the War against Aizen. A man who had fought with and against Visored techniques.

And yet—

He'd been crushed. Systematically and humiliatingly.

"With just one hand…" someone whispered.

"Even his Bankai didn't activate. How…?"

"It's like a captain beating a seated officer," one 6th Division member said, stunned.

"Wrong," corrected a 1st Division seated officer, sweat dripping from his temple. "It's like a royal guard beating a recruit."

Even Shiba Isshin, outside the barrier, exhaled sharply. His grip on the Kidō seal trembled slightly.

He had long known Akira 's potential. Had witnessed the elegant precision of his Kidō in the past, and the terrifying Reiatsu Akira kept hidden beneath his calm exterior.

But this?

This was different.

This was domination.

"This isn't a captain-level battle," Isshin muttered. "It's a massacre."

Even Unohana Yachiru, standing silently at his side, inclined her head.

Her ever-smiling expression deepened into something rare: respect.

Not for Hirako Shinji.

But for Akira .

At the center of the blood-soaked platform, Shinji sat broken and silent.

Akira stood tall above him, untouched, his Zanpakutō back in its sheath.

"You understand now?" Akira asked.

There was no answer. Only the quiet rustle of torn cloth and distant murmurs from the horrified crowd.

Akira didn't need one.

He turned away.

"Your time is over, Hirako Shinji. Rest now."

And with that, he stepped off the platform.

The silence he left behind was louder than any roar.

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