When wood pierced flesh, it made a wet, squelching sound. Perhaps that was the sound of conscience fading away.
The wooden staff normally used to save lives had now become an instrument of slaughter.
The pointed wooden spike entered his heart, and the spiritual power erupting from within instantly erased all signs of life from the Bull Pattern Mask.
Yet even so, the man in the Bull Pattern Mask kept his eyes wide open, staring fixedly at the Deer Pattern Mask as he used his last bit of strength to say:
"Why..."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry your daughter will never see her father again..."
But none of those words could reach the corpse beneath the Bull Pattern Mask anymore. Now, he was merely a relatively intact pile of flesh and blood, no different from the pile over there...
Looking at the two piles of flesh, the Deer Pattern Mask could not help feeling conflicted. Perhaps before long, he too would become one of them.
With that thought in mind, the Deer Pattern Mask raised his head and let the rain wash the blood from his body and mask before walking toward another direction.
But no matter how he washed it, that wooden cane soaked through with blood would likely never return to what it had once been.
He looked into the distance. The Oni Captain's spiritual pressure was still as terrifying as ever.
As Asano Kiyoshi used Kido to blast apart a giant Hollow preparing to attack humans, he suddenly sensed an incredibly dense smell of blood rising behind him!
Instinctively, he used the Utsusemi Yoruichi had taught him, instantly moving roughly ten meters to his left from his original position.
Just as Asano Kiyoshi dodged away, the cheap coat bearing the Urahara Shop logo was shredded to pieces by