The Bird Builds Its Nest, the Spider Weaves Its Web, Man Forms His Friendships
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.--William Blake<The Marriage of Heaven and Hell>(1790-1793)
Rangiku chased after the crimson figure through the ruins of the Twelfth Division, broken Reishi tubes sweeping past her and the metal grilles beneath her feet making a series of sharp, cracking sounds.
The Haineko was incredibly fast; its ears trembled slightly in the night wind, and every turn was incredibly smooth, making it very difficult for Rangiku to catch up. It's true that felines are better at playing hide-and-seek.
"Haineko, you stop right there!" Rangiku gritted her teeth, pushed off a broken pipe with her toe, and shot out like a golden lightning bolt, Rangiku through the obstacle and blocking Haineko's path.
The Haineko leaped onto a half-collapsed wall, squatted on top, and its fluffy tail swayed slowly behind it.
She looked down at Rangiku, who was following her, her face showing boredom. "Can you please stop following me? You're so annoying, auntie!"
"You cat demon! If it weren't for the fact that you're my Zanpakuto, who would want to follow you!" Rangiku stood below the wall, her chest heaving violently, her long golden hair plastered to her cheeks with sweat.
The Haineko's veins throbbed slightly, and its ears twitched gently in the night breeze. "Hmm? What did you say?"
"You really are being willful and reckless." Rangiku raised her head, her eyes fixed on the Catgirl on the wall.
Hearing this, the Haineko laughed instead, a clear and flirtatious laugh. She raised a paw and gently licked the fur on the back of her hand with the tip of her tongue. "Mmm, thank goodness I'm free, it's so great. I don't need to stick with an old lady like you anymore, you make me look so old, how annoying."
"Enough!" Something twitched on Rangiku's forehead, and her fingers clenched the hilt of her sword until they turned white. "You've been calling me 'auntie' since the beginning, who are you talking about!" She drew her Zanpakuto, the blade gleaming coldly in the moonlight, and used Shunpo to rush towards the top of the wall.
At the same instant, the Haineko leaped down from the wall, a knife appearing in his hand without his knowledge. The two knives collided in mid-air, sparks exploding between them.
"Are there any other aunties here besides you?!" The Haineko pressed down on the knife, its cat face filled with undisguised provocation.
"Haineko!" Rangiku looked into the cat's eyes so close to hers. "Since you don't want to come back, you must have been prepared for the consequences."
The Haineko's pupils contracted slightly, then she laughed, "Oh? So you want to get serious with me? Well, I'll ask you then, are you prepared? You're just an old lady, can you possibly beat me?"
With a flick of her wrist, she thrust her katana at Rangiku's ribs from the side. Rangiku dodged to the side, the blade grazing her Shihakusho, leaving a very thin cut in the fabric.
"What a pity, I wanted to make you a little sexier!" The Haineko's offensive continued, her movements as light and swift as a real cat.
"Take this! Take this! Take this!" Haineko swung his blade repeatedly, the light of his blade weaving into a dense net in the night. Rangiku retreated repeatedly, but Haineko's blade was faster, the tip grazing her hair, a few strands of golden hair slowly drifting down in the air.
The Haineko landed on the ground, a wicked smile playing on its lips, "If you don't run away quickly, you'll go bald, you know."
Rangiku touched the ends of her shaved hair, then raised her head with an extremely confident smile, "My head shape is fine; I'll still be beautiful even bald."
"Stop being so stubborn and get out of here. Or is your butt too heavy to move?" Haineko slung his katana over his shoulder.
"I really didn't know you talked so much nonsense!" Rangiku charged forward again, her Zanpakuto drawing a silver arc in the night sky.
The Haineko shook her head as Rangiku charged towards her. "Sigh, what a nuisance. Since you're so eager to fight—" She held her sword horizontally in front of her, "Speak softly!"
As the Shikai, the Haineko's blade suddenly turned into a cloud of grayish-white smoke in her hand.
The cloud of dust rushed towards Rangiku as if it were alive, Rangiku dodged it with Shunpo.
But with a mere wave of Haineko hand, the cloud of dust veered off course and hurtled towards Rangiku once more.
The cloud of dust was so fast and so wide that it relentlessly pursued her like a persistent, invasive disease.
Rangiku dodged at high speed through the ruins, but the smoke and dust always managed to find her. Before she knew it, Rangiku was surrounded by the smoke and dust.
"See, you can't escape now, can you?" The Haineko stood behind the smoke and dust, arms crossed, its tail swaying slowly behind it, its tone full of composure.
Smoke and dust surged in from all directions, engulfing Rangiku completely. The grayish-white smoke and dust rose into the sky, turning the surrounding air into a murky mess.
High in the sky, Rain was holding Sylvan's wrist, flapping his wings as he flew towards the battlefield of the Twelfth Division. His Blue-Violet wings glowed faintly in the night sky, but at this moment, they were flapping so frequently that they were almost as fast as flies.
"Have they all forgotten that there are still two of them who can't use Shunpo?" Rain complained breathlessly, each flap of his wings accompanied by an extremely slight tremor, the continuous high-speed flight had greatly exhausted his stamina.
Sylvan hovered below it, his black sleeveless vest fluttering in the night wind. He looked down at the Twelfth Division's engulfed grounds, ablaze with the flames of war, the constant explosions, and the blinding light that erupted when Reiatsu collided.
"There's no other way. It's an emergency. The Twelfth Division has been under siege for an hour. If we don't hurry, there probably won't be anything left."
As another explosion echoed in the distance, Sylvan remarked, "Those Zanpakuto are really causing trouble."
To be honest, Sylvan really wanted to help; otherwise, he wouldn't have involuntarily followed along when the Fourth Division heard Tōshirō order a full-scale reinforcement.
But when everyone was using Shunpo to speed up their journey, he realized that he couldn't keep up at all.
He could only rely on Rain to fly from the rear, and by the time he arrived, the battlefield ahead had already turned into a complete mess.
"What can I do for everyone now?" Sylvan and asked himself in a low voice, wondering how he, in his current state, could possibly help them.
Subduing Zanpakuto requires the wielder to do it themselves; he can't interfere. Besides, his current Reiatsu is too weak to charge into the enemy ranks and wreak havoc like Ichigo.
Just then, a grayish-white plume of smoke shot into the sky from afar. The smoke was extremely strange—it did not spread outward like ordinary smoke, but instead tumbled and expanded in mid-air, with several extremely fine dark red blood streaks mixed in.
Rain's pupils contracted sharply: "That's—"
"Rangiku's Haineko!" Sylvan's voice suddenly rose, "Quick, Rain, let's go!"
"Hmm!" Rain responded, then flapped his wings and swooped down like an arrow towards the cloud of smoke.
Meanwhile, Rangiku's side
She was leaning against a section of broken wall, her right hand pressed against her left shoulder, blood seeping from between her fingers and running down her wrist. She had just barely managed to break free from the encirclement of smoke and dust, despite her injuries.
She was breathing heavily, a pale green light shimmering slightly at her fingertips—she was trying to stop the bleeding with Kaidō, but there were too many wounds, and the healing process was extremely slow.
The Haineko stood in the center of the smoke and dust, the grayish-white, misty blades slowly rotating around her.
"Auntie." She didn't rush to give chase, but simply stood there, looking at the broken section of wall where Rangiku was hiding. "After examining your own body, you should know—I'm not just your Zanpakuto."
Rangiku's fingers, which were pressing on the wound, stopped; the Reiatsu she was circulating paused for a moment at her fingertips.
The Haineko said to itself, "Zanpakuto is a reflection of the Soul Reaper's soul, so it is born with the Soul Reaper and dies with the Soul Reaper."
However, if a person's soul is missing, Zanpakuto cannot be created, as the Twelfth Division's Artificial Soul Reaper Project has already proven.
She raised her hand, and a wisp of smoke slowly swirled in her palm, transforming into a gray mirror.
She looked at Rangiku through the mirror, her cat-like eyes revealing an almost mournful light.
"Then, how did I come to be born from the body of someone like you, whose soul was partially taken by Aizen since childhood?!"
Rangiku leaned against the wall, her face somewhat heavy. These were things she had thought about, but had been openly and secretly avoiding.
"There's only one answer." The Haineko didn't give her another chance to escape, uttering the possibility that Rangiku had always thought about but dared not admit, "It was Gin's own soul that filled the void in you."
To save your life, he forcibly tore his own soul apart to mend your wounds—that's how I was born.
Rangiku jumped up from behind the wall, ignoring the blood still seeping from her wound. "This is just a possibility! There's no evidence!"
Rangiku didn't want to admit it, or rather, Rangiku didn't want Gin to do something so harmful to himself for her sake.
Just as Gin didn't want her to get hurt, Rangiku didn't want Gin to be hurt either, and she especially didn't want Gin to hurt himself for her sake.
The Haineko looked at her and sneered, "Ha! Still being stubborn at this point? Well, I'll tell you something good then."
She raised her hand, and all the smoke and dust around her gathered up and reformed into a katana. Haineko gripped the hilt and pointed the tip of the blade at Rangiku.
"Although our Zanpakuto damages the Soul Reaper's Soul Pulse when it leaves the Soul Reaper, the damaged Soul Pulse recovers over time. Once the Soul Pulse has recovered to a certain extent, the Zanpakuto can Shikai even without us."
Rangiku's eyes widened suddenly, and she involuntarily looked at the Zanpakuto in her hand.
But the Haineko immediately poured cold water on her enthusiasm. "But you're different. Unless the two Soul Pulse within you return to their original, normal balance, you still can't achieve Shikai —that's the biggest evidence."
"So, it's highly likely that someone has already regained their Shikai? We need to inform everyone of this as soon as possible."
Rangiku's fingers tightened slightly on the hilt of her Zanpakuto; the weight of this information itself outweighed everything else—as for what Haineko had said, she planned to talk about it later, or rather, she wanted to run away again.
The Haineko clearly saw through her thoughts. She held her katana horizontally in front of her, and grayish-white smoke once again billowed from the blade, slowly spreading through the night air. "Want to pass on information? The fact that I'm telling you this means I have no intention of letting you go!"
Just as the dust was about to surge towards Rangiku again, a steady voice came from mid-air.
"Hadō Chapter 58: Tenran!"
A gust of wind, carrying Reiatsu, descended from the sky, precisely cutting into the center of the smoke and dust. The whirlwind spun rapidly, engulfing all the grayish-white smoke and dust within it.
The whirlwind expanded and tumbled in mid-air, finally carrying all the smoke and dust into the sky, where it exploded and turned into countless extremely fine grayish-white fragments that slowly drifted down.
Rangiku looked up and saw a Blue-Violet Raven swooping down from the sky, its wings fully spread, the patterns on its wings shimmering with a faint blue glow in the moonlight.
Below the Raven, a gaunt young man, almost skin and bones, gripped its claws, the jet-black cane in his hand gleaming faintly in the night wind.
The Raven released its grip, and Sylvan landed calmly on the ground, the tip of his sword on his cane making a crisp sound as it struck the earth.
"Rangiku- nee, are you alright?" Sylvan turned around and looked at Rangiku.
"Koko?" Rangiku paused slightly, then a very faint smile appeared on her lips. "It's nothing, thank you, Koko."
Sylvan neither confirmed nor denied the nickname "Little Amber," saying that now was not the time to discuss such matters.
He turned around, facing the slowly dissipating smoke and dust, holding his cane horizontally in front of him.
The Haineko stood on the ruins not far away, gathering the dust that filled the air, and looked at Sylvan and Rain: "Just one more bird that knows the Kidō, and one malnourished fellow, do you think the battle situation will change?"
Rain landed on the nearby ruins, his silver pupils locking onto the Haineko: "Roar? You knew I could use Kidō, yet you focused most of your attention on those two?"
"What do you mean?" The Haineko cat's ears twitched slightly.
"Still don't understand?" Rain spread his wings, and on those wings, among the dark blue patterns, several distinct black ink marks had appeared—the marks of the Bakudō Spell.
"Bakudo #77: Tenteikūra"
Above Rain's head, a square Reishi light screen slowly unfolded, connected by dense Spirit Veins that extended outwards from all directions, weaving a vast network covering the entire battlefield.
The Haineko's pupils contracted sharply as she recognized the spell— Tenteikūra!
It is a high-level Bakudō used for wide-range communication.
At this moment, Rain was transmitting the most crucial information from their conversation—that the Soul Pulse could be restored and the Initial Release could Shikai —to every Soul Reaper on the battlefield through this network. She even thoughtfully connected Haineko to the network so that she could hear her own words.
"That's exactly what happened." Rain's beak opened slightly, as if he were smiling, his eyes fixed on the Haineko. "Thank you for the information. Now, the situation is about to turn around completely."
Oh, by the way, I cut off the part about Rangiku because it involved other people's privacy, so you can rest assured.
Anger flashed in the Haineko cat's eyes, and it charged towards Rain like a gray lightning bolt, its katana billowing in grayish-white dust, aiming straight for the Raven's throat. "How dare you scheme against me, you stinking bird!"
Shunsui Kyōraku stood outside the protective shield, his pink haori jacket fluttering in the night wind. Listening to the intelligence from Tenteikūra, a deeply gratified smile appeared on his lips, "Really, this has been a huge help."