Hollow Moon: A Lost Shadow

Chapter 45: Tekken Tachikaze's Desperate Howl

There was a reason why he had chosen this moment to attack the Visoreds. Not only was Hachigen, their only healer, going to be singled out, but Shinji, was going to be in a group. If the latter was fighting alongside his members, Shinji wouldn't use his Bankai!

Who else would know how to dismantle the Visoreds save the one person in this world who knew full well how they fought?

The warehouse was painted crimson with their blood. Each rasping breath tasted of despair. They had only been fighting for a few minutes after the Cero was released.

Hiyori, her mask shattered, picked herself up with trembling legs. "You... You... Monster!" She charged again, heedless, her Zanpakutō raised for a final, desperate strike.

Time seemed too slow. Kensei and Shinji, too wounded to react quickly enough, could only watch in silent horror. An arrow pierced her throat. Blood gurgled from her lips, and she collapsed to the concrete floor.

"Now," Silas said, stepping over Hiyori's inert form, "Which of you won't die as easily?"

Kensei, backed into a corner, coughed blood. His body was riddled with arrows, a testament to Silas's deadly accuracy. But within him, something refused to die. Rage, a primal, defiant force, fueled a final, desperate gamble.

What followed next was thunder from Kensei. Since his mask shattered after the time limit was up, there was only one thing left: "Bankai!"

A blinding flash erupted from the center of the warehouse. When it faded, Kensei was transformed. The once-familiar figure was now a hulking brute. Segmented armour encased his arms, gleaming dully in the harsh light. His hands were no longer fists but massive knuckle blades, crackling with raw power.

This was his Bankai: Tekken Tachikaze.

He charged at Silas, a walking cyclone of fury. His first blow shattered the floor, sending tremors through the building. Silas dodged, barely, but Kensei was relentless. Each strike was a localized earthquake, a concussive force rippling out with terrifying potential. The barrier outside cracked, dust showering down as the warehouse was reshaped by Kensei's destructive might.

Silas's movements changed. No longer the agile archer, he met Kensei head-on, his bow blurring with each short fired. Crimson arrows clashed with the knuckle blades, each impacting like a thunderclap. Silas held his ground, but a flicker of surprise crossed his face. He'd underestimated this power; he hadn't anticipated Kensei's brute strength.

This was only Silas's second time using the sacred bow in battle. His acts were formidable, but going against a Visored's Bankai proved to be too hazardous.

Yet Silas was still too fast and too precise. He weaved between Kensei's crushing blows, his bow becoming a conduit for a flurry of glowing arrows, almost all of them being fired at point-blank range. The two zipped across the ground and the sky, leaving behind explosions.

Kensei felt the thrill of a successful hit, only for an arrow, fired at the last possible instant, to deflect his blow. One arrow clipped his shoulder, another embedded in his thigh. Pain spiked, threatening to overwhelm his surge of adrenaline.

When Silas fired another arrow and thought it landed, he was suddenly hammered on the side of the head, flying several yards away by Kensei's punch!

He spun and twirled violently before coming to an abrupt stop. He had faltered. Not because he couldn't outrun the attack, but because Shinji was still using his Sakanade!

Silas looked over to where he thought the Visored was, only to see a defiant expression on his face. There was no conical smile or desire to change things. Shinji was serious, and he was doing the best he could to put an end to Silas's tyranny.

'I lost my focus for only a second,' Silas thought to himself. If he didn't retain his senses during the battle, the next attack could very well kill him.

Closing his eyes at the incoming Kensei, he shot an arrow behind him that slammed into the Visored's gut, blasting him into the reinforced barrier!

The barrier flickered, then held firm. Silas stalked towards his downed foe, his bow already raised for the final, lethal shot. But rather than finish him, Silas's pitiless eyes narrowed back to the warehouse.

So long as Kensei remained stable, Shinji wouldn't dare release his Bankai.

"Leave Kensei alone!" said a voice from above. Mashiro came crashing down right on Silas, forming a dust cloud on impact. But when she looked, her face was filled with despair. Her very blade was being held by one hand. She herself was stuck in the air.

What made this scene unbearable was that she was fighting with only one leg!

"Shinji patched you up while Kensei took the beating, huh?" Silas wondered. "But you should know something: Keeping your hair green only makes you look uglier."

Knowing that his senses were inverted, he fired an attack in the opposite direction. An arrow streaked past her face, the wind of it slashing a wound so close it could have blinded her—but Shinji's grip closed around her in the same instant. The two staggered to the ground, sweat and dirt covering them.

Silas's voice, cold and mocking, drifted through the night. "How careless."

The fight that followed could hardly be called that. Arrows sang with a chilling symphony for several more rounds. Kensei, who had managed to get back on his feet, was broken. His Tekken Tachikaze, which had been honed over a century of bitter exile, could hardly be recognized. Shinji stumbled beside him, still trying to get his bearings, his disorientation blurring his vision.

Every attack they attempted was countered. Silas left no room for error after that one blow landed on him. He was like a serpent, weaving through stakes and daggers.

His bow flashed, each arrow finding its mark with chilling precision. Kensei and Mashiro stumbled again and again, the former's once-mighty body riddled with wounds. Shinji let out a strangled cry, Sakanade slipping from his weakened grasp, trying to invert the world for the last time.

But nothing happened.

"Darn you!" Shinji howled. His disorientation made him sloppy. Silas appeared right in front of him and kicked Sakanade aside to the right of his hand. Following that was a brutal strike to Shinji's chest that sent him crashing into the walls of the barrier. He slumped, choking on blood.

Kensei watched his friends fall, feeling a bone-deep weariness wash over him. How could this be happening? Their decades of waiting to take revenge, their ties together—it was all useless before Silas's raw, monstrous power.

As he tried to release more of his spiritual pressure, three arrows zipped past him and slammed into Mashiro's upper body. She crumpled, pain and fear twisting her features. All Kensei could do was watch as her eyes became void of any light.

Silence then fell like a shroud.