"死の名誉! Shi no Meiyo!" The words come unbidden activating Shikai, my zanpakutō melting in my hands then combining with the sheath turning into something else.

It just happens, Shikai release, the mature form of my zanpakutō. I fall into the Rage as is natural when becoming a weapon, I am my zanpakutō but I am no nodachi anymore I am an axe and without preamble, I start cleaving into flesh.

Ploughing into those that rushed in first I leave a trail of broken bodies behind my steps. 1, 2, 3.... I lose count as each swing cleaves through; their hate bringing them rushing to their doom, to freedom into death’s embrace before they notice something has changed. I giggle as one slips on an arm and practically impales itself on the crescent edge of my axehead. I hack left through an arm missing the shoulder, spinning to cleave upwards with a hop continuing through landing with a heavy slash chopping a creature in half down the middle.

[Krrrr...]

I drag the blade out of the impaled floor, dodge and punch my hand in another’s shoulder. I know their weakest points I realise pulling my fist out of it’s flesh along with a clavicle whilst spinning my axe singlehandedly overhead at an opportunist. The opportunist loses its head and I hammer the hilt down on another soft spot I perceive, the hilt rips through like a sharp quilt through paper.

They start wising up, using their faster movement speed to get out of my way but many underestimate my reach. I rip through another two before the axeblade stops on a 3rds leg bone and floor, I pull my thrown arm back, a twisting back kick on one coming behind opens some space.

[BAM!]

I heel kick into a soft sport then hammer my hilt into its head the split second its flinches ending its suffering. My reaction speed is faster, way faster with the synergy I feel in everything within me. It’s as though my Rage was always meant to be manifested this way, as a man with a big axe who knows where to hit to one-shot every opponent and one-shot them I do. An axe is upraised to try and stop mine, I cut through it into my opponents shoulder all the way to its lung. I kick it off so I’m out and hacking into another that got too close.

It's bloody work but someone has to do it, someone has to show them what death is, it is my privilege and responsibility to send any such trapped in undeath on their way. Release them from their wordly burdens as all warriors should be release, through battle. Ah.. we will meet at the other side, brothers. These are honourable ends you receive, each a permanent end to this existence. Each death a holy thing, a burial on the battlefield presided over by soul-weapon being anointed by every end delivered.

As though compelled by some force they thrown themselves with frenzy unto their deaths. Fighting with viciousness but dying quickly, confirming my presiding over thwir deaths. Fueling the flow of synchronisation of zanjutsu with every death as though confirming the rightness of what I do here, the good in ending them.

I fade out of the trance of death slowly as they find their range and stay back occasionally throwing jabs and knives at me that stick into me shallowly before eventually fall out. I am a weapon, I want to fight, I want to cut, I want to end them. I am a weapon but I am a weapon that can think more clearly now that I'm not killing every second.

Something inside of me is tiring, I need to end this before they end this.

I chase them about the place getting a few that think themselves clever but most keep out of my range and outrun me when I get close, I can smell the hate tinged fear on them. Don’t they know it is a privilege I am giving them; don't they understand the honour they could garner by dying here today at my hand?

Either way I’m tired of chasing them around like this, I pulse out another puff of spirit energy that suffuses my surroundings showing me all the foes that haven’t complete run away or hidden back in their coffins with spirit sense permeated with the spreading spirit. I should educate them of the honours they could receive in death, Spirit Oppression!

Every single one I can sense falls or freezes where it stands unable to move as I hold the ability tight like a inheld breath. The pulse of spirit-energy I had diffused strangling all of them in field of my suppressive displeasure.

I move, rushing here and there cutting and cutting and cutting; one-shotting everything into at least two separate pieces lest they get away. Fear and despair holds them down for me, the will to live leaving them as they realise the meaninglessness of their existence. They are part of my story now and through death at my hands their memory is kept; cut, cut, cut.

I take a breath, loosening my hold on spirit oppression, chasing down the few groggy meat-bags that try to move as they recover first. The dynamic has completely changed now, I’m vibrating at a frequency that has my body more resilient than its ever been, I can tell where best to hit or cut anything within my awareness and I have a weapon that can’t be stopped. I am now the predator and they the prey with Shikai advantages added to my repertoire the dynamic of this conflict has completely changed.

They screech and fight and run, I cut and cleave and wrench my beautiful blade in and out of any stupid enough to get close. I want them to start crowding again, I want them to rush me en mass so I can kill more of them without all this running around but they’ve suddenly become shy. Maybe its the fact that I can keep track of their movements now through spirit sense that has them scrambling to get away, a dagger sticks into my left pectoral.

I face the offender, it scampers away fast moving with speed and agility I would have found impressive not even 30 minutes ago, now its just annoying. The dagger shimmers out of me as I move about finishing off those that didn’t recover from spirit oppression fast enough, the dagger falls at me feet pushed out by the new frequency of my body. None of my wounds bleed more than a few drops in a rare combination of barbarian resilience, sorcery and water affinity.

In Shikai I can force spirit-energy out easier even through fatigue so I do.

Spirit Oppression! Knocks the breath out of several that were keeping away from me , in a rush I’m between a pair, swing break-into-their-paltry-defences cut-into-them loop-axe once its through them swing over the two corpses, swing use the momentum of the swing to step sliding between another pair at the downswing. Catch myself turning to avoid a thrown weapon swing loop off an arm giggle noticing the cut butt cheek, swing to throw myself through the chest of another dead thing. Swing move repeat. It’s glorious!

I have fun in this way for a while, using spirit oppression to get them slow and groggy so I can get between them and take them apart. I can feel the burn of using so much spirit energy both on the metaphysical muscle it takes to manipulate spirit and on my body directly. It’s spirit oppression that gives me my greatest advantage otherwise I probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with my prey. But to even know where they are I have to flood my spirit energy all around and use that permeated energy as the anchor for spirit oppression, I don't know why I've never thought of this combo before.

None that experience Oppression are agile or fast afterwards but the toll it takes on my body to do it thus is getting more and more painful. The burn driving me on like a whip on my back, cleaving into another’s spine my axe goes all the way through and out between its legs. They are all so soft, so easy to cut through I can’t rely on their bodies to stop the momentum of my swings. I have to keep moving my entire body in acrobatic twists and jumps to bleed off the momentum of my swings when not using it to enhance my movement speed.

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It goes like this for a while with me holding and releasing spirit oppression over and over again as I hack and chase and hack. My body really heating up and tiring to the extent that even in the Rage I’m finding the discomfort difficult to bear. I release all spiritual energy with a sigh.

I’ve stopped chasing them around now as I’ve realised the futility of the exercise even with things as interesting as they’ve become with Shikai. I now sit on the rock floor cradling Shi no Meiyo, Honour in Death, between my knees studying her form and the deadly curve of her crescent-bladed edge. The blade at least 35cm wide and as sharp as any zanpakutō’s I've ever seen.

Her entire length of the axe is almost as long as her nodachi form at about 150cm, which honestly doesn’t seem like much now that she’s a heavy war-axe instead of a sword. The weight is light such that I can spin the thing single-handedly but I know the keen edge will cut into anything without much effort from the prodigious strength I feel locked into my muscles.

That’s the other new thing, I can feel the tight coils of my muscles with every movement; pectorals, trapeziums, and biceps popping and pulling quickly into every movement. The fact that I’m in the Rage and can sit still and admire this deadly beauty speaks for itself regarding the advancement of my state of mind, I sense prey creeping towards me on silent steps. My fingers twitch in impatience, my penis reforming from the androgynous flat of my pelvic as I relax into the wait. The blade is broad and long making up at least 1/4 of the length of the weapon, twisting into a swing I throw my zanpakutō at my skulking foe.

[Vu, vu, vu ....]!

Shi no Meiyo flips through the air and is dodged by the agile assailant that rushes me as soon as I’m unarmed. As it reaches me I pull on the spirit thread I know to be my zanpakutō and with a blast of spirit-energy, the battle axe is summoned into my hands and driven through my now dead assailant. [Hehehe...], I giggle at the stunned look on its ugly face even as I burn inside from using so much spirit-energy. It managed to wound me, the move uses an insane amount of spirit but I'll have to keep working on it.

My entire body is uncomfortably warm and itchy from the use of so much spirit energy to summon Meiyo like that through the risidual of my summoning ritual. A sort of steam wafes off of me, the burn is exquisitly chilling.

Sitting back down I rest myself from use of spirit whilst again feeling and studying my zanpakutō’s shikai form, she is an utterly perfect chopping implement. The only sharp points the top and bottom edges of the blades, the top for stabbing and the bottom for hooking. The rest of her is soft rounded sleek curves that cut through the air easily.

The obsidian handle and most of the steelhead vibrate at a different frequency than the tempered cutting edge, which has particles moving at a faster rate than the rest of the weapon, the rest of my body. I’m riddled with wounds but all the recent ones are superficial, those I received before shikai release are deep but even they don’t bleed or slow me down any. I’m tougher, like some sort of elastic bark skinned creature but clearly still not tough enough to tank knives without issue. I can’t wait to be that resilient-

[WOOOSH!]

I explode into a swing, there is a wet winching spatter as I jump and flip slicing the air missing my target by a breath. CRACK! There stone splits with my axe-head 2 fingers deep in the solid rock floor, I pulse my spirit energy out perceiving them all around the place but many already fleeing again realising I am still active. My energy doesn’t permeate far but regardless, Spirit Oppression! The closest lockup in their movements some even falling on the floor, I am amongst them mowing through them a moment later.

Left swing, right swing, kick, swing left, run, underarm swing; I plough through as many as I can whilst they’re still struggling against the oppressive spiritual hold I have on them. I had suspected they had a way of knowing when my spirit energy was questing out able to tell if I ‘see’ them. So I let my spirit energy fade to see if they’d try to get close enough for a successful ambush and they did. Try that is, but it is me that set the ambush.

Try as I might I can’t remember why I’m not always in the Rage delivering death until the day I have to face my own, this is so much fun I have been missing out on. Let's try something new.

Phthartic! The thing’s shin bone explodes from the power of the chakra enpowered kick, it gawks before dying from a severe case of axe-separates-spine. I giggle at the stupid expression and pleasant surprise discovered when mixing spirit with chakra whilst in the Rage in Shikai release. Finding another slow prey struggling under my spirit oppressive effects.

Phthartic! I punch into it’s chest pulling from my chakra pool to deliver the chakra amplified destructive force. Permeated with spirit energy the phthartic goes right into my prey’s body bypassing all the body’s natural defences to wreak havoc inside the body with its chakra payload. The creature heaves out a lung from its mouth, Phthartic, its head explodes from the effects of the kick.

I grin soaking in the spray of blood-sand misted about me from the destruction; the fun seems to be just starting.

It seems I have finally found my cheat. The one ability that I can do to give myself a powerful and immediate advantage in a fight such that I can challenge opponents way above my current class or level of power. For years now I thought being able to touch upon so many different forces my cheat, that my greatest assert is my versatility but now I know how truly dangerous spirit and chakra are in combination together and acknowledge them as my cheat.

I run on silent feet chasing down one of the long lanky creatures that wanted to kill me so I can kill it first. Though they are faster than me off the mark I’ve realised they have no stamina to speak of and if I chase long enough it will eventually try to stop and face me. It stops and curses at me in an unknown language, I feel the hate and fear in its words try to make their way past my sphere of spiritual influence and into my psyche, poor thing trying tricks it knows won’t work in its desperation.

My step are heavy as I come upon it with an upheld axe I swing as it attacks bashing aside its arms with the side of the axe then delivering a front kick to the chest along with my chakra payload. Phthartic! The creature projectile pukes blood-sand as it flies through the air like a stringless mannequin, it spatters onto the cold stone floor stopping after its 3rd roll.

I walk up to it and squat studying its dead form and the damage I’ve done to it. Its hands are broken from colliding with my axehead, understandable. There isn’t even a mark on its chest where I kicked it but its back is heavily bruised in a wide pattern where one would expect an exit wound if there was one. The vibrational sense of my awareness tells me its dead, dead things have a different frequency to living things and more and more I’m discovering my knack for all things vibration since I let myself relax here.

I tap the carcass with Meiyo, the vibration I send runs into the thing and eventually wears itself out not having gone far. Living things have vibrations of their own that counter any other frequency forcefully introduced into them, dead things resist a little but mainly just let vibrations ride through until momentum runs out or the vibration exits the other side of the object. This thing is dead so a strong enough vibration should run right through it, so I swing Meiyo (Honour) head first into its pelvis.

[TRHHAAF].

There is that beautiful wet sound as I cut through bone into the guts and blood-sand filling up the abdomen then starts disulving into sludge. The vibration I send runs all the way through the corpse and through said vibrations I ‘see’ the damage I’ve done to the creature with that chakra empowered kick. It’s as though I kicked it on the inside of its body directly on its unprotected organs turning them into mush; I smile excitedly.

This is great! Of course I don’t yet know if its a result of me being in shikai with Meiyo or because these particular opponents are susceptible to invasion by spirit energy or its chakra itself that they can’t tolerate but I definitely look forward to experimenting more with this. Looking around I see and hear nothing, pulsing my spirit-energy out I let it permeate the environ far and wide looking for any signs of life but I get nothing.

‘’You can run but you can’t hide,’’ I break the sanctity of the deathly silence after finding nothing as far as my senses can reach. Now which way to head first, might as well... I head back towards the coffins I found these things in, I think I remember a few hiding back in their coffins after that first spirit oppression. I could probably find something there to kill in interesting ways that test out all these new toys I have.

[Sigh], soul-weapons are the best.

I pat myself lovingly.