Yoh Asakura rubbed his red, swollen nose, looking at everything before him in utter bewilderment.
He reached out his hand again, but his fingertips truly could not pass through.
Behind him, Amidamaru also appeared quite anxious.
Transforming into his samurai form, he slashed his sword at the barrier ahead, but it only stirred up a ring of pale blue ripples.
Those ripples were not a barrier formed by spiritual power; rather, they looked more like folds in space itself.
Yoruichi furrowed her brows.
She tried taking another step, and her body smoothly passed through like moving through water, arriving right beside Yoh Asakura.
Immediately after, she returned, completely unhindered.
"Why can Asuka and I come and go freely, but you two are trapped inside?"
Yoruichi grabbed Yoh's shoulder, attempting to forcefully drag him out.
When she smashed the hand holding Yoh against the barrier, a massive repulsive force erupted, actually knocking the Flash Master back several steps.
"This feeling..." Asuka, standing to the side, quietly observed the scene.
He looked down at his Shihakusho, then at Yoh Asakura's thoroughly confused expression.
Asuka seemed to understand.
Once, he had also lived in another time and space for a few years.
And to return from there, he had traversed the terrifying Dangai, nearly losing all his power in the process.
The repulsion generated by differing times and spaces could not be resolved with brute force.
"Master Yoruichi, stop trying," Asuka's voice rang out as he looked thoughtfully at Yoh Asakura. "This isn't a barrier aimed at us. Yoh Asakura and Amidamaru... they are completely different from us."
"What do you mean?" Yoruichi turned her head to look at him.
Earth-shattering explosions echoed from the battlefield on Funbari Hill.
"Kisuke Urahara! Is this all you've got!"
Mayuri Kurotsuchi's frantic voice pierced through the turbulent Reishi. A massive, grotesquely shaped golden baby rose from the ground, madly spewing poisonous smoke over the hilltop.
"Bankai—Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo!"
"Oh my, Director Kurotsuchi, there's really no need for this."
Kisuke Urahara's figure flickered in and out of the dense poisonous smoke.
His Zanpakuto, Benihime, carved out streak after streak of crimson light, forcefully cleaving through the soul-corroding mist.
Several scorched tears had already appeared on his kimono, but his demeanor still seemed entirely at ease.
"Shut up! You failure hiding in the garbage dump of the World of the Living!"
Mayuri Kurotsuchi looked utterly deranged, his golden earrings buzzing under the surging Spiritual Pressure.
The battle between the two top-tier scientists had reached a fever pitch, and the clash of their Spiritual Pressures made the entirety of Funbari Hill tremble.
And this trembling was accelerating the spatial instability.
"Look at the Reishi flow here! It's leaping, it's singing! This energy reaction completely defies normal laws; it's simply a perfect material gifted to me by the heavens!"
Mayuri Kurotsuchi looked utterly deranged, the golden halo on his head buzzing under the surging Spiritual Pressure. "What right do you have to keep it all to yourself! Give it back to me!"
Kisuke Urahara tipped his hat. "What a headache... Director Kurotsuchi. Scientific research is certainly important, but if the laboratory itself is going to collapse, do you plan on counting test tubes in the rubble?"
Just as the two were about to engage in their next clash, a strangely rhythmic cat's meow suddenly rang out from Kisuke Urahara's robes.
It was the custom ringtone Yoruichi had set for his phone.
In the midst of this fierce battle, the chirping of an electronic device seemed incredibly out of place.
Kisuke Urahara also knew that Yoruichi would not interrupt his fight for no reason at a time like this.
He rapidly retreated, using a layer of blood-red mist created by Benihime to block the poison arrows, and pulled out his phone with one hand.
The screen displayed only a short message from Yoruichi.
It was a message Asuka had asked Yoruichi to relay.
Kisuke Urahara's pupils suddenly shrank.
He abruptly looked down at the ground beneath his feet.
Sure enough, deep within those blasted craters, the Reishi was collapsing madly toward the depths of the earth, like the center of a whirlpool.
The surrounding scenery—the remaining dead trees, the distant mountain silhouettes—actually began to waver unnaturally, like reflections on the surface of water.
"You still have time to look at this mortal garbage in the middle of a battle? Kisuke Urahara, you truly have rotted to the core!!"
Mayuri Kurotsuchi commanded Ashisogi Jizo to attack once more, his tone full of mockery.
"Enough, Mayuri! If you don't want both the current and former directors of the Department of Research and Development to die here, you'd better stop."
Kisuke Urahara's voice was no longer frivolous.
He gripped Benihime's hilt and sank his wrist heavily. The red mist originally wrapping the blade instantly retracted, transforming into a terrifying radiance as deep as ink, yet faintly glowing with golden light.
"Bind, Benihime—!!"
Countless chains formed from crimson Reishi thrust out from the void, each one carved with complex kido formulas.
These chains did not attack Mayuri Kurotsuchi; instead, like a giant net, they forcefully locked the entire peak of Funbari Hill for a split second.
Boom—!
Under Mayuri Kurotsuchi's astonished gaze, the ground beneath Kisuke Urahara's feet violently exploded.
"Go!"
Kisuke Urahara spun around and delivered a heavy kick, landing precisely on Mayuri Kurotsuchi's abdomen.
This terrifying impact clearly showed he had learned a thing or two from Yoruichi, actually kicking Mayuri Kurotsuchi forcefully from the peak to the outside of Funbari Hill.
"Urahara! You bastard, how dare you!"
Mayuri Kurotsuchi roared furiously in mid-air, but before he even landed, he realized the surrounding scenery had changed.
The turbulent Reishi he had originally treated as observation data suddenly turned into an irresistible suction force.
His instincts as a scientist finally sounded the alarm: everything here was disappearing.
"Is that... spatial folding?"
Mayuri Kurotsuchi truly lived up to his title as the Director of the Department of Research and Development. After being forcefully ejected from the center, he calmed down and noticed the anomaly.
If Kisuke Urahara's power hadn't delayed the spatial tremor, they likely would have been sucked into it if they continued fighting.
He stared greedily at the distorting hill, but driven by reason, he gritted his teeth and retreated.
Meanwhile, at the foot of the mountain, on the edge of the boundary.
Yoh Asakura had almost become a translucent shadow.
The various souls that had fled Funbari Hill due to the battle and gathered around Yoh were now disappearing one by one.
Like morning mist dissipating.
"Wow... what an incredibly magical thing!"
"Looks like it's time to say goodbye, Mr. Asuka."
Yoh Asakura sat on the ground. Even though his body was fading away, his somewhat lazy face still wore that signature smile, looking as if he could sleep through the sky falling.
"I originally wanted to treat you to my favorite rice balls... but it seems like the you in this world doesn't really need to eat."
Asuka stood before him, his black cloak flapping wildly in the wind.
He looked at Yoh Asakura, then at Amidamaru beside him, who wore a solemn expression and bowed deeply to him.
"Yoh Asakura."
Asuka spoke slowly, his tone carrying a bit more gravity. "Become stronger. No matter which world it is, only the strong who survive have the right to enjoy a peaceful life."
"Ah... that sounds like a lot of hard work, but I'll try my best."
Yoh Asakura waved his nearly invisible hand, finally pointing at Asuka's chest.
"That 'Breathing Style' is really cool, by the way."
As soon as his voice fell.
The entirety of Funbari Hill let out a crisp sound, like a wind chime shattering.
A blindingly intense white light rose from the ground, swallowing all the scorched earth, poisonous smoke, bloodstains, and existences that did not belong to this world.
The dizziness receded like the tide.
Yoh Asakura abruptly opened his eyes, finding himself lying on a cold tombstone.
Sunlight spilled over the mottled gravestone, and the chirping of unknown birds echoed from not far away.
"...Was it all a dream?"
"Yoh! Are you alright!"
Amidamaru's figure emerged from behind him, the heroic samurai spirit looking equally bewildered.
"Eh? Did you have a dream too, Amidamaru? About Soul Reapers, Menos, and stuff..."
"That was no dream. We truly seemed to have traveled to the world of the beyond just now!"
The samurai's words were decisive, causing the initially confused Yoh Asakura's pupils to shift slightly.
"...I see. How amazing."
Yoh Asakura scratched his messy hair, a somewhat self-deprecating smile appearing on his lips. "I feel like I took a really long nap on some afternoon, and when I woke up, I couldn't even remember the taste of food..."
"The people in that world... every single one of them was unreasonably strong, like monsters."
He patted his butt and stood up, the setting sun stretching his shadow long.
"Anyway, Amidamaru, become my Guardian Ghost partner! I'll get stronger together with you!"
"I have the exact same intention, Lord Yoh!"
The boy hummed an off-key tune, taking his samurai with him as they slowly disappeared at the end of the cemetery.
To him, this experience was like an unreal mirage—dazzlingly brilliant, yet ultimately returning to tranquility.
On a towering ancient tree far away from Funbari Hill, dense branches and leaves blocked most of the sunlight.
A figure draped in a white cloak embroidered with a pentagram pattern stood quietly in the shadows.
His long hair swayed slightly in the wind. That face, almost identical to Yoh Asakura's, held none of the boy's laziness.
Deep in his eyes was a profound coldness that seemed to see through the cycle of reincarnation.
At this moment, his fingertips were gently rubbing the air.
There, a slender rift imperceptible to ordinary people was slowly closing.
"Was that... another world?"
"How truly interesting."
Just now, through his extremely profound Spiritual Sight, he had witnessed the entirety of this fierce battle in another dimension.
"Yoh, although you are still so weak... you have indeed made all of this quite interesting."
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