Chapter 17: Thunder Called, Shadows Broken

 Vermilion Palace – Pre-Dawn, War Chamber

The moon hung low over the Vermilion Palace, casting the world in hues of silver and blood. A stillness clung to the halls—too poised, too intentional.

Li Tianming stood in the War Chamber, his gaze fixed on the mirror array Kisuke had installed—a living network of spiritual nerves pulsing across shadowy glass. Each flicker was a breath, a step, a lie unfolding.

Behind him, footsteps didn't echo. They whispered.

Kisuke Urahara emerged from the side corridor, hat slightly askew, a rare frown creasing his face.

"They're already inside," he said softly. "Twelve of them. All elite operatives. Shadow Lotus."

Tianming didn't flinch. "Disguised?"

"They used a high-level shadow-glide array. I traced at least three near Vault II. Four bypassed the northern sigil corridors. The rest are probing the inner palace."

"And their strength?"

Kisuke tapped the mirror with his cane. "Most hover around Nascent Soul, but one—maybe two—are pushing higher. Probably False Soul Sea cultivators, masking their cores."

Tianming's fingers curled behind his back. "Itachi?"

"On assignment. South border. Coordinating purge logistics."

"Shikamaru?"

"Still embedded with Heartline defense. Constructing predictive defense matrices."

That meant neither of his most surgical assets were here.

And still, they came.

"Go," Tianming said. "Buy me time. Be precise."

Kisuke grinned—not his usual lazy smile, but the kind that meant he'd been waiting for a real problem to solve.

"I've got a few old tricks the Soul Society frowned upon."

And in a swirl of golden reishi and mist, he was gone.

Tianming moved immediately.

He stepped through a concealed panel behind the war mirror and entered a silent altar room—rarely used, even by him.

There, on an obsidian dais, lay a narrow scroll etched with lightning-shaped sigils, pulsing faintly with static breath.

He unfurled it.

System – Gold Tier Summoning Accessed

Summon Target: Yoruichi ShihōinRole: Anti-Infiltration · Speed Kill · Shadow ErasureCultivation Sync: Peak Core Formation → Early Nascent Soul Realm

Offering Required:• Kill Points: 4,200 (Available)• Catalyst: Refined Lightning Jade (In Vault II)• 7 Drops Vermilion Royal Essence• Broken Shadow Lotus Dagger (Recovered – Incident File: 09)

Loyalty Threshold:Honors strength, free command, no dogma. Will not tolerate arrogance or indecision.

Confirm Summon?

Tianming pricked his palm and let seven crimson drops fall onto the altar.

"Confirm," he said calmly.

The altar shattered.

A thunderclap shook the chamber, rattling the silver lamps.

Lightning snaked through the room, dancing across sigil lines. Violet wind peeled through space itself—and from it stepped a woman, barefoot, cloaked in speed and silent pressure.

Her golden eyes shimmered.

"...Interesting summoning method," Yoruichi said, stretching like she'd just woken from a nap. "You're not exactly a shinigami. But this place smells... familiar."

Tianming nodded once.

"Twelve infiltrators. Shadow Lotus. Nascent Soul elites. Kisuke's already engaged."

She rotated her shoulders. "And I'm your lightning bolt."

"You're what the enemy doesn't expect."

She grinned. "Good. I hate being expected."

 Palace Vault Network — Sublevel III, Defensive Grid Array

The crystalline veins of the palace's mirror network pulsed erratically—overloaded by the chaos flooding its corridors.

Kisuke Urahara moved like wind, invisible between light and shadow.

The first intruder lunged from a mirror-blind corner, blade humming with blood-bound seals. Kisuke caught her arm with a flick of his cane, twisted, and shoved her into a pre-laid field of inverted gravity.

She vanished upward, screaming, into a ceiling trap of collapsing sigils.

"One," Kisuke whispered.

But he didn't smile.

Another Shadow Lotus agent descended like a blur, tossing a fan of poison-laced talismans. They ignited midair—exploding into a silencing fog field.

Kisuke clapped once, then spread his fingers in a fan.

"Bakudō 62: Hyapporankan."

A hundred glowing rods of blue light fired from his hand, pinning her against the corridor wall like a butterfly skewered to glass. He didn't stop to watch her drop unconscious.

The others weren't amateurs.

They adapted quickly—six more closed in from above and below.

Their leader wasn't among them yet. That alone made him wary.

"Hadō 88: Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō!"

A roaring beam of lightning carved through the stone and bodies alike.

Then came the trap. Mirror talismans exploded beneath his feet.

He fell—straight into a cursed cube, a six-fold formation of mirrored shadow. The kind designed to fracture soul pressure and redirect spiritual energy inward. A soul trap.

Three assassins stood outside the cube, eyes glowing violet with Ruin Lotus Sutras. Their spellwork was synchronized—fierce, efficient, merciless.

Kisuke floated at the cube's center, blood trickling from his mouth.

"I invented this formation. The Soul Society said it was... excessive."

His cane tapped twice.

"Release: Forbidden Protocol – Mirror Breaker 99."

The cube shattered with a detonation of reversed time.

Reality warped around him. One agent's torso folded in half sideways. Another blinked—only to find her own reflection strangling her in midair.

A final illusion weaver tried to escape into shadow.

Kisuke was already there.

"You came to dissect the kingdom," he said, tone hollow. "Let me return the favor."

He swept his hand—and with a wave of reishi threads, unraveled the woman's cultivation core like yarn undone by moonlight.

Six down.

But that's when she arrived.

The Shadow Lotus squad leader.

Lady Orchid.

She wore no armor. Her body shimmered with soul tattoos, and around her floated four mirrored spirit orbs—each humming with an elder's soul fragment.

"Urahara Kisuke," she said. "The soul saboteur of legend. You are not welcome here."

Kisuke's left eye twitched.

"Legend's a stretch. I'm semi-retired."

"You are a relic of madness."

She moved so fast that the mirror network stuttered.

Kisuke barely raised a barrier in time—her twin blades slid through like shadows through moonlight. One cut along his ribs, the other took a piece of his cloak and skin alike.

He backstepped, formed five defensive sigils, cast Hadō 73: Sōren Sōkatsui, and still—

She walked through it.

False Soul Sea Realm. Her power was just below the abyss—and she was holding back.

Kisuke growled, blood seeping from his shoulder.

"Yoruichi would love you. But I hate your type."

"Then die."

The walls sealed. The ceiling closed. Her soul orbs began to spin, forming a Mirror Prison—an ancient forbidden technique to reflect and distort all incoming power.

His spells began to rebound. His reishi threads started cutting him.

Lady Orchid closed her fingers.

"Submit."

And for a breath...Kisuke did nothing.

Then his hand slid to his hat. He pulled it off and let it drop.

His eyes glinted red.

Then his reiatsu surged like a buried storm.

He stabbed his cane into the floor, sealing circle unfurling beneath his feet in threads of crimson light. The palace shook—sigils from older realms responded, some cracking, others reverberating in harmony.

Kisuke spoke softly.

Bankai – Kannonbiraki Benihime Aratame

The world trembled. Not violently, but like a surgical theater preparing for dissection.

From behind him rose a towering figure—a giant woman clad in flowing red robes, braided black hair cascading down her back like an executioner's veil. Her hands, open and gentle, exhaled red light.

Benihime.The Kannon who Opens the Doors of Crimson—To Alter. To Heal. To Destroy.

Kisuke's eyes gleamed with deadly clarity. "I don't just break things. I rearrange them."

The very stone beneath him liquefied, reformed into perfect plates of anti-spirit metal. The mirror prison cracked, then folded into harmless origami cranes—scattered across the floor.

Lady Orchid's expression twisted. Her orbs flared, launching beams of soul-force toward him but they never touched him.

Benihime caught them midair. Her hands twisted slightly, and the beams reversed—redirected at their origin, slamming into the orbs and shattering two of them instantly.

"Impossible," Orchid whispered.

Kisuke didn't answer.

Instead, he advanced—slowly. Casually.

Every step restructured reality: seals fizzled, her illusions blinked out, even her cloak unraveled thread by thread.

She lunged, blade-first. A scream behind her technique. Kisuke didn't dodge.

Benihime's hand touched the sword mid-swing. It became brittle glass—shattering on contact with his barrier.

Kisuke whispered like a surgeon:

"Arteries first. Then channels. Then will."

He gestured.

A thin red filament danced from his fingertips, wrapping around her arm. She slashed it, only to realize—her arm was no longer obeying her.

She dropped to one knee, coughing blood.

"You... altered my spirit meridians..."

"Just a few," Kisuke murmured, brushing soot off his collar. "If I touched your core directly, you wouldn't be alive."

Her last remaining orb exploded in desperation, trying to overload the environment.

Kisuke grimaced. "Tch. Always so messy."

Benihime reached out.

The explosion reversed.

Unfolded itself in space like a flower in rewind. What was chaos became calm. Heat became stillness.

Lady Orchid stared, one eye blind now, arm limp.

Kisuke stood before her. No victory pose. Just quiet breath and the heavy hum of restructured silence.

"Your mistake," he said gently, "was thinking you were the predator."

She collapsed—unconscious. Her soul pressure shattered.

Just as the vault trembled with final resonance—lightning cracked from above.

Yoruichi Shihōin appeared, barefoot, golden eyes gleaming in the low glow.

She surveyed the aftermath—the reverse-folded corridors, the twisted spiritual residue, the delicate surgical precision.

She whistled.

"You still make battles feel like anatomy class."

Kisuke exhaled, holding his ribs.

"Better than watching them teach with brute force."

She caught him before he stumbled.

"You pushed too far."

"I always push too far."

Then Yoruichi turned—surviving infiltrators tried to retreat desperately, bloodied, through emergency talismans, leaving behind broken illusions and half-spent shadow arrays.

Return to the War ChamberMinutes later, Kisuke and Yoruichi reappeared in the War Chamber.

Li Tianming stood alone, eyes fixed on the flickering mirror system, still pulsing with spiritual aftershocks.

Yoruichi broke the silence."Eight escaped. They'll be nursing shattered pride—and broken ribs."

Kisuke's voice was faint but steady."One's spirit lattice won't realign for months. Another lost core stability. The leader… she's dead. No more playing in my operating room."

Tianming's gaze drifted to Kisuke's singed robes, blood pooling near his sleeve."Your Bankai burned through palace sigils," he said dryly.

Kisuke winced."I did warn you. It's not gentle."

Yoruichi crossed her arms."They weren't just probing the palace. They were probing you."

Tianming met Kisuke's eyes."And what did they find?"

Kisuke smiled grimly."Surgical dominance."