Silver-white blades passed through each other's bodies, leaving wound after wound where bone and flesh intertwined.
Beneath the blazing daylight, the two boys hacked at each other with their swords. The people atop the platform were like vultures craving carrion, circling, watching, and sneering.
This was a carnival of death!
Sword Mountain and Blade Hell encircled them. Asano Kiyoshi had already lost count of how many strikes this was. Looking at Kojiro, whose internal organs were exposed, he coughed up several mouthfuls of blood. Expressionless, he drew another ink-black longsword from Sword Mountain and Blade Hell and chopped it down onto Kojiro's shoulder!
Kojiro was already on the verge of passing out. He did not have Asano Kiyoshi's BUFF of dulled pain and heightened mental threshold. From beginning to end, he had been enduring it all head-on. His consciousness was gradually sinking, and the repeated agony had ravaged his body to its limit.
Yet even so, he still did not fall. His half-open eyes were unfocused, and his body mechanically repeated its previous motions—swinging, chopping.
With every chop, blood and flesh flowed into Sword Mountain and Blade Hell, and the flowers covering the entire platform grew a shade more vivid.
Retsu Unohana watched this most primal slaughter. She watched blood burst forth beneath the flashing blades, listened to the melody of bone and flesh being cut apart, and smelled that familiar stench of blood and meat. Her entire body trembled faintly. She clasped her arms tightly, her nails digging into her flesh and piercing her skin. Bright red blood ran down from her fingertips. That pain delighted her, and an unnatural flush colored her face.
She bit down hard on her lips, her mouth filled with that familiar rusty taste, while bursts of sounds with no discernible meaning were suppressed