With the final squelching sound fading away, the Gillian's figure completely vanished into the rift.
The black portal rapidly contracted, and the sky returned to its tranquil state.
Only the massive, scorched trench on the ground, stretching almost to the foot of the mountain, stood as a testament to the tragic battle that had just taken place.
*Thud.*
When everything settled into peace, Yoh Asakura's body fell straight into the dirt like a puppet with its strings cut.
A ray of spiritual light flew out from his body and landed gently in front of him.
Asuka, wearing the black Shihakusho, flickered with an aura as sharp as a blade.
He had finally recovered.
'My strength has improved again... It seems the suffering during this time wasn't in vain...'
He felt the flow of Spiritual Power within his body, finding it even smoother than before.
"Mr. Asuka... you really look much cooler like this than before," Yoh Asakura said, lying spread-eagle on the scorched earth.
He looked at the awe-inspiring Asuka, whose aura had drastically changed. "Did we win?"
Asuka bent down, looking at Yoh, who was covered in injuries.
"Yeah, we won for now."
He turned his head, his gaze sweeping coldly toward a dead tree in the distance.
"Have you seen enough of the show?"
The air remained quiet for a few seconds.
Then, a figure wearing a sly smile slowly walked out from the shadows.
"Oh my, I'm so sorry. I was just a little too engrossed in watching."
Kisuke Urahara waved his folding fan, his tone as frivolous as ever, but a gleam of something unprecedented flickered in his eyes.
Behind him, Yoruichi Shihoin also revealed herself. The Flash Master's expression was incredibly complex.
She looked at Asuka as if she were looking at an alien.
"Asuka..." Yoruichi stepped forward, hesitating to speak.
"I'm fine," Asuka interrupted her.
"More importantly, Mr. Urahara, perhaps you should explain why you sent me to this place?"
He pointed at Yoh Asakura, whose eyes were spinning in dizzy spirals. "Did you arrange for this guy too?"
Kisuke Urahara stepped closer, looking down at the boy possessing a special power, and dropped his cynical smile. "My... that really gave me a fright."
"Yoh, right? What was that Spirit Integration combat method just now?"
"What is Furyoku? Why do the Pluses at Funbari Hill lack a Chain of Fate? What exactly is going on here?"
He spat out a string of vocabulary like a machine gun, the brim of his hat almost touching Yoh's nose. "Is that the materialization of will? Or some kind of energy amplification based on a soul link? How did you manage to completely synchronize the attack frequency of another soul with your physical body?"
"Uh... well, mister, please calm down..." Yoh was dumbfounded by the questions, his body subconsciously scooting backward. "I just felt like 'it should work,' and then... I just did it."
"It should work?" Urahara's voice rose an octave. "How is your Spiritual Power... your Furyoku flow distributed? At the moment the souls overlapped, was your consciousness in a dominant or cooperative state?"
"Well..." Yoh scratched his messy hair, his eyes darting around.
"I can't really explain it... It just felt pretty similar to Amidamaru and Mr. Asuka, so I stuffed him into my body and it moved on its own. As for flow, frequency... the words you're using are too advanced, mister. I don't understand them."
Urahara wanted to ask more, but he stopped himself.
Asuka and Yoruichi also snapped their heads around, looking up at the sky above Funbari Hill.
Up there, the air was twisting unnaturally.
"Kisuke, stop playing around."
Yoruichi's expression was extremely grave, and she had already grabbed the cloak that concealed Spiritual Pressure in her hand.
Before she even finished speaking, a massive Japanese-style sliding door opened in the void without warning.
Amidst the golden light, Hell Butterflies fluttered out in swarms.
And at the core of that light, a bizarrely dressed figure slowly stepped out onto the air.
The Captain of the Twelfth Division and Bureau Chief, Mayuri Kurotsuchi.
"My, my... this rotten, nauseating, stale stench..."
Mayuri didn't immediately look at the battlefield below. Instead, with his hands tucked into his sleeves, he scanned Funbari Hill.
"I thought some laboratory waste had spilled over. I didn't expect to encounter such an unpleasant face in the World of the Living."
His gaze slowly shifted downward, finally locking onto Kisuke Urahara.
"Kisuke... Urahara."
"If it isn't Captain Kurotsuchi. What a rare guest. Is the Seireitei that idle lately? To think the Captain himself needs to visit the World of the Living to deal with a lost little Hollow."
"A lost little Hollow?" Mayuri scoffed coldly, his body descending to the ground like a falling leaf.
With every step he took, the surrounding vegetation was suppressed by his leaking Spiritual Pressure, bending over as if wailing in agony.
"The Reishi here is so abnormal that I couldn't ignore it even in the Seireitei. Is this trouble your doing? Tell me, what are you tinkering with now, you 'traitor'?"
"Captain Kurotsuchi, your words are hurtful... I'm just a humble merchant trying to make a living in the human world." Urahara tightened his grip on Benihime at his waist.
Regarding Kisuke Urahara's defection, Mayuri Kurotsuchi actually felt no ripples in his heart.
As a former prisoner locked in the Maggot's Nest, he had been personally fished out by Kisuke Urahara and was deeply involved in the soul enhancement experiments Urahara led back then.
He knew very well that Kisuke Urahara had little to do with that so-called "Hollowfication conspiracy."
But he loathed Urahara.
This loathing stemmed from an emotion called jealousy.
Paranoia.
Kisuke Urahara had once said: Mayuri Kurotsuchi is a genius whose intelligence is second only to mine.
This sentence was truly unbearable for Mayuri.
In Mayuri's eyes, as long as this man, Kisuke Urahara, still appeared in his line of sight, he could never truly step out of this shadow.
Mayuri walked up to Urahara, a twisted light flashing in his golden pupils. "A merchant? Then let's discuss the ownership rights of this transaction."
He scanned the devastated Funbari Hill, his brows furrowed tightly. "Where did the strange fluctuation from earlier go? The thing emitting that bizarre Reishi wavelength? Are you squatting here trying to cover up observational data that rightfully belongs to me? What price must I pay for you to hand over the materials?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Urahara said, narrowing his eyes.
A breeze blew past the two of them, but it couldn't disperse the rapidly escalating scent of gunpowder.
"Hah! You are still as unpleasant as ever, Kisuke Urahara."
Mayuri let out a shrill laugh, slowly drawing his Zanpakuto, which exuded waves of vicious yellow smoke. "Perfect. I've been wanting to test just how long those outdated theories you left behind can hold up against my new modifications!"
"Rip them to shreds—Ashisogi Jizo!"
*Boom—!!*
Two massive Spiritual Pressures clashed fiercely in the sky above Funbari Hill.
At the same time, concealed beneath the Spiritual Pressure-hiding cloak.
Yoruichi grabbed the still-weakened Yoh Asakura with one hand and pulled Asuka's arm with the other, her figure turning into a black bolt of lightning as she swept down the mountain.
The moment the aura of the Senkaimon surged, she had already thrown the cloak over the two of them.
It was just a pity that to cover Yoh Asakura, the shopkeeper had to be left behind to deal with Mayuri Kurotsuchi.
"Hurry! Don't look back at those two madmen!"
Yoruichi's voice rang in their ears. "That guy Mayuri is the vanguard. He'll definitely bring the logistics unit of the Department of Research and Development. If they deploy their Spiritual Pressure detection network, even this cloak might not be enough to hide us."
Asuka couldn't see Mayuri, but he could feel the twisted and maddening pressure behind him.
He wasn't worried about Urahara; he knew that man had far more trump cards than he let on.
However, just as the three of them sprinted less than five hundred meters and were about to step off the scorched earth of Funbari Hill...
*Thud—!*
A muffled sound of impact echoed.
Yoh Asakura, who was being carried by Yoruichi, seemed to crash into an invisible, solid wall.
Due to the momentum, he was yanked right off, his entire body plastered against the void barrier like a frog pressed against glass.
"Ouch! Ow, ow, ow..." Yoh clutched his nose, tears welling up in his eyes. "What... what is this now? A barrier set up by that mister?"
"No, this isn't a barrier."
Asuka landed on the ground and reached his hand forward.
He felt nothing.
Yet, right in front of Yoh Asakura, there truly seemed to be a cold, transparent, and somehow power-draining barrier.
It had no Spiritual Pressure, no flowing runes, and didn't even carry any elemental attributes.
It was as if... space itself had been severed here.
The scent of pine trees and grass lingered at the tip of their noses, and the streetlights of the outside world flickered faintly in the distance.
But no matter how hard Yoh pushed, the air in front of him remained as steady as a mountain, blocking him completely.
He couldn't get out!
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