Steel Tempest was Yasuo's Q skill. There was nothing fancy about it: it was just a forward thrust.
When Steel Tempest hit an enemy, it gained one stack of Gathering Storm, which lasted six seconds.
After accumulating two stacks of Gathering Storm, Steel Tempest would create a whirlwind that could knock enemies airborne.
He activated Steel Tempest while remaining seated.
To Soi Fon, his posture was full of openings.
As commander-in-chief of the Stealth Force and commander of the Punishment Force, Soi Fon was quite confident in her Hakuda and Shunpo.
She had many ways to dodge. She shifted her foot to the left, and the sword tip veered left.
She moved right, and the sword tip veered right.
Impossible!!
Soi Fon's pupils widened. With him sitting in such an awkward position, he shouldn't have been able to exert any force, much less change direction so nimbly.
Unless it involved some principle she couldn't understand, or he was a genuine master swordsman who could turn the mundane into the miraculous, giving a simple thrust endless variations that made it impossible to evade.
Soi Fon didn't believe Shiraishi had reached that level of swordsmanship. She used Shunpo to circle behind him, but the sword tip pursued her without hesitation, following her movements like a shadow.
That awkward posture actually let him keep up with her Shunpo?
The fact before her made Soi Fon more wary. The Central 46 Chambers' decision to send her to deal with him wasn't a case of using an ox-cleaver to kill a chicken; it was an extremely wise decision.
Against such a powerful opponent, no one in the Stealth Force apart from her could prevail.
Reaching behind her, she drew the Zanpakuto at her waist and swept it forward like a bolt of lightning, carrying a surge of Reiatsu.
Bang!
The blade collided with the sword tip, and their Reiatsu clashed, erupting into a ring of violent wind.
Tables and chairs overturned, the tea shop's walls burst apart, leaves rustled, and the datura flowers all bent in one direction.
The stool beneath Shiraishi exploded, his feet sank deep into the ground, and Soi Fon retreated several steps.
"Not bad. I underestimated you."
Soi Fon spoke in a low voice, holding her blade upright before her chest as she recited its Shikai release command. "Sting All Enemies to Death! Suzumebachi!"
A flash of white light followed, and the Zanpakuto vanished, transforming into a small blade attached to her middle finger. It resembled a hornet's stinger, with a golden chain at its end connecting it to an armband on her forearm.
Death in Two Steps.
Shiraishi's gaze grew grave. If Suzumebachi struck him twice in the same spot, he would die without a doubt unless he had Reiatsu on Aizen's level to resist it.
Even knowing that, he had let Soi Fon release her Shikai without trying to interrupt her entirely because his Steel Tempest had a cooldown.
At level three, Steel Tempest had a five-second cooldown.
If he used Steel Tempest again before five seconds had passed, it would really be nothing more than an ordinary thrust, without the ability to stack Gathering Storm or lock onto a target.
The reason Soi Fon had been unable to dodge Steel Tempest no matter how she moved was that she had entered Shiraishi's attack range.
Within that range, any skill Shiraishi used against a person had a one-hundred-percent hit rate.
No matter how fast an enemy's Shunpo was, how exquisite their technique, or even if they used spatial jumps, they couldn't evade Steel Tempest. They could only block it or be stabbed.
Best of all, Steel Tempest had no fixed posture. He could thrust while lying down, sitting, or squatting, often catching people off guard. It was an excellent skill for taking someone by surprise.
Whew.
Having completed her Shikai, Soi Fon said nothing more. She rose onto her toes and closed in with Shunpo.
Steel Tempest.
Shiraishi decisively chose his E skill, the source of Yasuo's joy, and charged at Soi Fon as she entered his attack range.
She jabbed with her right index finger, aiming for Shiraishi's right arm, but missed. It wasn't that he had dodged; she had passed through him.
More accurately, Shiraishi had passed through her body.
That strange sensation of fullness filled her petite body, only to leave in the next instant, leaving her body with a faint sense of emptiness and loss.
In that split second, with no time to dwell on it, Shiraishi made his next move.
Steel Tempest!
Unlike the simple thrust from before, when Q followed E, Steel Tempest changed from a simple thrust into a circular slash.
A golden ring of slashing light appeared.
The hairs on Soi Fon's back stood on end, and a sense of danger she hadn't felt in a long time surged into her heart. She compressed her Reiatsu toward her internal organs, making her petite body even thinner and frailer.
Utsusemi, an advanced Hakuda technique for dissipating force.
It made the user as soft and yielding as a weeping willow, so that even a falling blade or fist would have difficulty severing the body.
A wound appeared clearly on her smooth back. It wasn't deep, and a little scarlet blood welled out. Most of Steel Tempest's force had been skillfully diverted.
She drifted lightly to the ground.
Before she could let out a breath,
the Reiatsu behind her abruptly surged.
Golden currents of air emerged around Shiraishi. Two hits with Steel Tempest had brought Gathering Storm to two stacks, producing a visible change.
He swung his sword forward.
A violent golden tornado immediately appeared, sweeping up the surrounding tables, the thatch on the tea shop's roof, fragments, the datura flowers and grass on the ground, and more as it roared straight toward Soi Fon.
She twisted her slender waist, turned, and kicked her left foot high above her shoulder. Her Reiatsu surged toward her toes and erupted like storm waves on a raging sea.
Never mind a tornado-even a mountain hundreds of meters high couldn't have withstood that kick.
Strangely, her Reiatsu vanished like a clay ox sinking into the sea, and the wind tugged her left foot upward.
"Whoa!" Soi Fon cried out in surprise, then immediately suppressed her panic. She realized that the incredible things that had just happened were probably the ability of her opponent's Zanpakuto.
Shinigami had all sorts of strange Zanpakuto abilities, with even more complicated classifications. When faced with an incredible attack, everything became reasonable once it was attributed to a Zanpakuto's ability.
Turning intangible to pass through a body, and a strange wind that nullified Reiatsu.
What kind of Zanpakuto ability was this?
Soi Fon pondered these questions in a short span of time, her head aching faintly as though it were splitting.
Damn it, she wasn't the type to fight with a high IQ at all!
As she raged helplessly, she heard the wind-not the tornado, but the deadly wind of a blade cutting through the air.
There were three slashes in all: an upward cut, a horizontal sweep, and a vertical chop. If they landed cleanly, she would be cut in half at the waist or split in two.
Every strike was deadly.
Soi Fon's long years of training came into play. Her body bypassed her brain's commands and moved ahead of them.
Blood flew through the wind.
Yasuo's ultimate, Last Breath, had delivered three whole slashes, yet not one had been a critical hit.
Shiraishi finished with a downward slash, landed, and used Steel Tempest to slip away.
Drip.
Blood fell onto the grass. Soi Fon braced one hand against the ground and looked up, blood running down from her forehead and dividing into two streams at the bridge of her nose. "Don't think you can run!"
Slashing someone and then running away-where in the world could things be that easy?
"Bakudō No. 58: Kakushitsuijaku."
Soi Fon traced a circle on the ground with her hand. Despite having neither ink nor brush, she drew a thick black circle, intending to use Shiraishi's Reiatsu to track the direction he had fled.
"What's going on? I can't track his Reiatsu. That guy..."
She bit her lip, her chest about to burst with anger.
A black-clad, masked member of the Punishment Force appeared. "Captain, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, just a small wound. Draw a portrait of Shiraishi and issue a wanted notice to the Stealth Force. Report to me immediately if you discover his whereabouts."
Soi Fon's face was icy. Even if Shiraishi fled to the ends of Rukongai, she would catch him!