Before the blade reached her, the cold intent of death stabbed between her brows. Unohana instinctively raised a sleeve to shield her face. The instant the sword wave brushed the fabric, it split silently; her pale skin prickled, a fine spray of blood beading along her arm.
As her pupils trembled, the muscles in her left leg snapped taut. She twisted her body in an almost inhuman motion and rolled away. The sword pressure grazed her ear—she could hear strands of her hair snapping, a sound like a death god's scythe passing over the throat. Her breath caught.
BOOM—!
To her side, the rocky ground split open, a bottomless crevice carved by the slash. Pebbles tumbled inward—each soft impact seemed to echo the erratic rhythm of her own heartbeat.
Her breathing was ragged.
She'd been afraid.
Not startled. Not caught off-guard.
Frightened.
From his distant perch, Shin spoke languidly: "So even you, Captain… fear death."
Unohana said nothing.
She glanced at the yawning gash beside her—the one nearly carved into her. Her pupils shrank into glacial pinpricks. Her fingers brushed the burn on her neck where the blade passed—this pain wasn't of the flesh. It was her soul, scorched by a blade that looked down upon her from a higher plane.
His sword… had surpassed hers?
She raised her Zanpakutō and looked into its mirrored steel. Blood-soaked memories surged forth—countless slain souls howled from the abyss. Their distorted faces merged with her own reflection.
The shadow of death takes root in the enemy's eyes. Grows there. Until he must recognize his reflection in it.
Her sword shivered with a low hum. Her chest burned with a heat she hadn't felt in centuries.
"…I was wrong."
Her voice was quiet. Shin arched a brow.
"I admit it now. Everything you said before… was true."
Tachikawa Shin could kill her.
And then—without warning—Unohana gripped her blade with her bleeding left hand. Blood soaked the steel.
"Bankai—"
The scent of iron swelled, thick and wet. Her blade melted into crimson liquid, a roiling blood mist devouring the air itself.
Blood.
From her fingers, blood vibrated in resonance with the sword. The earth cracked. Hell opened beneath her feet. A sphere of blood-red amber enveloped the space. The rocky ground became a seething mire, crimson marshes swelling with liquid malice.
"Minazuki."
Her voice slid into the blood mist. Her blade howled as if a living thing tearing space apart.
Shin's boots sank into the boiling blood. He watched her body rise on a wave of gore, the blood itself stitching her old wound closed—writhing threads weaving new killing intent.
For a breathless moment, he thought he saw skeletons—bloody wraiths, the souls devoured by her Zanpakutō—emerging from the swamp. They clawed toward the surface, jaws gnashing like rusted iron.
A tide of corpses surged. Unohana smiled softly within it.
It was her, again—the monstrous creature from a thousand years ago, climbing a mountain of corpses.
It was illusion. It had to be.
Shin's body flared with flickering reishi—his Zanpakutō's passive ability, Stasis, shielding him from her spiritual pressure. Without it, Unohana's raw reiatsu alone would've crushed him.
He talked like he could match her. But reiatsu? That was a lie.
He was Third-Class. She—probably Second-Class. Or worse.
Shin had never endured pressure like this before. If not for his Zanpakutō suppressing the environment, he'd be on the ground.
Blood surged toward the chasm he had carved earlier, as if eager to drown the wound in crimson.
Shin calmly let go of his asauchi. It sank into the mire.
And then—sheathed at his waist where there had been nothing before—two blades shimmered into view. One red. One white.
"Dual swords…"
Unohana's eyes flickered with recognition.
She remembered wondering once: "This Shore" and "That Shore"… those sounded like two names.
Only Kyōraku Shunsui and Ukitake Jūshirō bore twin Zanpakutō in Soul Society. Even they did not carry dual swords in their sealed forms.
So had Shin… already released his Zanpakutō?
He drew them.
The longer blade, Higan—crimson and glistening, its guard etched with blooming spider lilies.
The shorter, Shigan—pure bone-white, the patterns along its edge writhing like flower stems.
The blood mist boiled.
Crimson and ivory glints shimmered beneath the blood-red sky.
Shing—!
Shin moved first. Toes skimming the surface, he raced forward, slicing apart the wall of blood like paper.
Dual-blade style.
Unohana's eyes caught the intertwined arcs of red and white. Her sword snapped like a whip as she spun—at her command, the mire solidified, birthing a storm of crimson needles.
A storm of blood.
Thousands of projectiles screeched toward Shin—but the instant they touched his blades, they were torn to mist. CLANG! The twin swords slammed into hers, the shockwave carving a momentary vacuum in the blood swamp beneath their feet.
Silver flashed—white steel lunged straight for her.
Unohana bent backward at an impossible angle, nearly folding in half. The red blade shattered her guard—but—
CLANG!
She caught it.
With her other blade.
A hidden dagger, buried in her sleeve, locked against Higan's guard.
Her reiatsu burst outward. Shin's body flared with radiant reishi, barely holding ground before blood drowned them both.
In the red sky, blades slashed across and through each other, voices of steel screaming as Shin and Unohana blurred into a frenzy.
His twin blades spun like scissors.
Her sword lashed like lightning.
The web of blades became chaos incarnate.
She was on defense.
Fully.
There was no time to counter. No time to strike. Shin's assault was too sharp—every slash was razor-precise, unpredictable, relentless.
They disengaged.
Unohana tossed aside her dagger. Against two blades, her second—meant for surprise attacks—had become a liability.
She let her hair fall. One braid unravelled. She didn't care.
Though the dagger was gone, her left hand remained poised, hidden in her sleeve. She raised her blade. The blood shifted.
It rained.
BOOM—!
Blood droplets as heavy as cannonballs. Each one hit like a hammer. It was a deluge.
Shin slowed.
And Unohana struck.
She surged forward like a ghost. Her blood blade slammed into Shin's dual guard—CRACK! His knees bent from the force.
Then—
The swamp twisted.
A second weapon coalesced in her hand—a short spear, formed entirely from crystallized blood.
Before she could strike—
SWISH!
A white blade hissed across her throat.
She stumbled back. Shin flipped away through the blood fog. Reishi stirred violently around him.
Unohana heard it again—that grinding, awful metal sound.
"Yasha Shinkū!"
The shout split the mist. Sword pressure screamed down from above.
She flash-stepped away just as the energy cleaved a crater into the swamp—blood splashed thirty feet into the air.
She landed.
Another blade wave carved across the red.
But—something had changed.
Slower.
She felt it.
This one she could see.
Still heavy. Still oppressive.
But no longer untouchable.
She narrowed her eyes. Looked at him.
His body glowed with spiritual light.
But… there was something off.
A Shinigami's reiatsu can be traced through reiryoku threads—he had none.
It was like he wasn't even human anymore.
Just a mass of pressure standing upright.
Unohana glanced up. High above, the same invisible barrier still held.
He was still suppressing her reiatsu, keeping the dimension from collapsing.
Fighting her.
And shielding both of them from exposure.
But the reishi surrounding him—she couldn't read it.
She couldn't tell how much strength he had left.
Then—
"You hesitating?"
Shin's voice cut through.
Unohana's eyes narrowed. Her left hand brushed the blood spear.
Shing!
He rushed her again. Twin blades cutting the air, footsteps tearing open the blood.
Her pupils ignited.
She counter-charged.
Her blade poured downward like a collapsing mountain, crimson waterfalls with every strike. The swamp surged. Their shadows blurred. Thunder cracked from every pass.
She gave everything.
Even wounded, she held nothing back.
But as she slashed, something felt wrong.
He was pushed back—yes.
But none of her attacks landed true.
Every time a cut should connect—his sword was there.
As if he knew.
Every time.
The impact from his parries—her bones ached. Her grip wavered.
CLANG—!
A brutal overhead strike shook Shin's entire body. He hesitated.
She saw it.
Like a wolf scenting blood, her blood spear shot forward.
Shhk!
It pierced flesh.
Unohana's eyes widened.
Shin's white blade sliced her open in return.
Neither backed away.
Blood exploded.
She shoved the spear deeper. His blood flowed. Her hand pushed forward.
Shin bled.
It was the first time.
She'd seen him fight Gin—seen him shrug off wounds as if immune.
And yet—he bled.
A smile flickered on her lips.
"Your body resists damage," she whispered. "Why let me stab you?"
Shin looked at her chest. Her haori was torn. Her shihakushō underneath slashed wide open—exposing pale skin and a deep, bleeding wound.
He grinned. "In a real fight, it's boring if only one of us bleeds."
Unohana didn't answer.
But through the blood-slick shaft of the spear, Shin felt her body tremble.
She pushed harder.
Drove the spear until it burst through his back.
Her mouth curled with restrained madness.
"If you start whining about running out of reiatsu now… it won't save you," she hissed. "I'm not going to show mercy just because you're maintaining this barrier."
Shin reached for her shihakushō, brushing away the fabric at her chest. "Your voice is beautiful, Captain. But not a single scream, even after this? Doesn't it hurt? It hurts me, you know."
She stared at his wound. The blood spear, thick as a child's arm, rammed clean through him. Her eyes lit with delight.
It was almost like she had been pierced. Like she had been filled.
She yanked the spear free. Blood sprayed. It melted back into the mire—along with Shin's blood.
Unohana staggered back a step. She raised one blood-slick hand to her lips, dragging a line of crimson across her mouth.
Her wounds sealed.
The massive gash on her chest, the torn flesh—healed in seconds. Kaidō and Minazuki's bankai worked in tandem. Steam rose from her skin.
"Ahhh…"
A soft moan slipped from her lips.
Her black hair spilled freely now.
Her face—painted with blood—looked feverish. Ecstatic.
"…It's been so long…"
Her voice was almost tender.
"Before I met you, I felt… empty. But now… Shin… you've filled me. You really have."
Shin's pierced chest sealed shut—rewound by his Zanpakutō's ability.
Unohana raised her blade. Eyes burning.
"Come," she whispered.
"Let's keep killing each other."