Racing back up the corridor to where I left Natsumi was far more treacherous the second time. For one, last time I didn’t have thick slimy tentacles trying to tear me to pieces that were only being held back by a mythical sword.

Also last time I wasn’t trying to run while dodging chunks of falling ceiling with the floor shaking under me.

I misstepped and threw myself forward, turning the fall into a combat roll. Dyrnwyn flashed and several tentacles looking to take advantage of the opening were cut to pieces. I completed the roll, came up on my feet and continued my sprint away from Kanou’s final hiding spot.

Similar scenes happened several times as Kanou tested openings as I ran. Despite the severed sections burning to nothing and Kanou being forced to disconnect the attached part, it didn’t look like he was losing material or speed. I guess he had enough that losing bits and pieces didn’t matter.

With a final burst of speed I turned a corner and found myself back in the room with Kiba and Natsumi.

“Natsumi, you still haven’t taken care of him!?”

“He’s as strong as a Lieutenant and Kido doesn’t work on him!” Natsumi yelled back. “And what is causing all that shaking?!”

I slammed the doors shut behind me and projected oversized blades into the floor to brace them closed. My already depleted reserves fell a bit more but I couldn’t help that.

“Kanou turned into a giant slime thing- gheh! -and started tearing the place apart!” Kanou slammed into my barricade causing the doors to dent and the room to shake even harder. It wouldn’t take long before he forced his way through. Even if the door could handle it, the surrounding wall would give way soon. “Finish up already or we’re going to get flooded soon!”

“I can’t! He heals himself whenever I cut him!”

Great, Kanou managed to copy that ability. Why couldn’t that have been unique to him?

I watched as slime started to seep into the room through the edges of the door and start pulling at the projected swords. I burned them all away with Dyrnwyn to buy some more time.

“Of course he does. Fine! Switch with me.” I called over to her. “Burn anything that gets through!”

“Right!”

“I’d rather you paid me full attention.” Kiba followed after her and tried to cut her with his Zanpakuto. A black chain smoothly deflected the attack letting Natsumi run past me as I took a stab at Kiba myself.

The traitorous Soul Reaper abandoned his attack and narrowly deflected my own. I followed up with a swift kick to the torso to give Natsumi some room and chased after him.

He clicked his tongue and settled into a stance, the kick apparently not bothering him. “Tch, the two of you keep swapping. Is it too much to ask for you to wait until I finish a fight?”

Swapping? Nevermind. We need to kill him quickly and get out before Kanou breaks through.

“Ignoring me? That’s fine, I did want to fight you after all.” Kiba blocked a slash and strained against the resulting blade lock as I maneuvered to cut him just once. “Miss Third-Seat was probably the better matchup since she had a mid range weapon.”

“You just don’t shut up, do you?” I growled.

The two of us traded slashes with neither one gaining the upper hand. I was stronger than Kiba and really only needed a glancing hit to win, but Kiba was good, very good actually, and wasn’t giving me the chance. He was faster and less tired than I was.

Kiba took advantage of a slow block and I hissed as I felt a deep cut in my side start to burn.

“Alexandria, I can’t keep Kanou back too much longer! If you have a plan, hurry up!” Natsumi shouted. I risked a glance. She was doing fine keeping the slime tendrils back, even if she couldn’t burn all the material getting through she was doing a great job of making sure Kanou couldn’t keep up its structural integrity.

The problem was Kanou was slowly pushing the entire door off it’s frame. The metal on both the door and the frame was slowly cracking and buckling under Kanou’s assault and it was only a matter of time before there were too many entrances for Natsumi to keep him back.

I ended up locking blades with Kiba again.

“I guess that means our fight is just about over.” Kiba said. “Good enough for me, I guess. You were a bit of a let down really.”

He suddenly took a step back and speared at me with his sword. My low energy finally caught up with me and I was too tired to properly block. In a desperate move I shoved my left arm in front of the blade. It easily passed through the middle of my forearm before continuing into my shoulder.

Both wounds hurt like hell, but considering I narrowly missed getting my heart impaled it seemed like a fair trade.

The smirk that appeared on my face evidently pissed Kiba off.

“And what’s so funny, huh? Or are you just that type.” he said irritably.

“Not a masochist.” I chuckled. I leaned in closer, wincing a bit as the sword cut deeper. “I just finally got you, you self righteous prick.”

His eyes flickered down to where Dyrnwyn was embedded in his leg and then back to me. “Yes, you nicked me a bit. And what was that supposed to accomplish?”

“This.”

I lept backwards, ripping both Dyrnwyn and Kiba’s sword free at the same time. And holy fuck, I need to stop getting stabbed. It really fucking hurts.

Kiba stumbles forward a bit, “Gah! Alright you’re craftier than I thought. But that won’t be enough.”

My smirk grew to a full smile. “I don’t need to. I’ve already won.”

His wound suddenly burst into flames, slowly spreading out and creeping over the rest of his leg. Oddly it was slower than what happened to Kanou.

Kiba understandably started to scream as the flames burned through his flesh, and retreated as far as he could with a Flash Step and started attempting to put out the flames.

I would have loved to finish him off there and then, but Kanou had shifted to a more dense form where his tendrils were more similar to muscle than slime. I turned to shout at the other Soul Reaper in the room, “Natsumi, time to go!”

“What about Kiba?!”

“Not an issue for now! That door is going down in a few seconds at best. We need to not be here!”

She appeared next to me and for the second time today I found myself fleeting down a hallway from a sentient tentacle monster.

A loud crash told me that Kanou had managed to break through the door and I did my best not to falter at the sight of the writhing mass chasing after us. Thankfully in the more condensed form, while stronger, it was much slower and we were able to keep ahead of it easily.

Pretty soon we started seeing bodies dotting the featureless corridor, the slash marks telling me that Kimura had caught up to some of Kanou’s creatures before moving on. The sound of those bodies pulping as the mass behind us crushed them under its weight was plenty encouraging to not slow down even in my exhausted state.

“I thought you were going to take care of Kanou, how did you let him turn into that?” Natsumi called over.

“I put a sword through his head and his heart!” I irritably shot back. “He brushed it off and turned into a monster.”

The look of shock on her face would have made me laugh if we weren’t running for our lives.

“Through his…” She shook her head. “What now?”

“I don’t know! How about you come up with something for once!” I snapped at her.

“What am I supposed to do when I struggled against his minion who had a lesser ability?” came the heated reply. “And Doctor Kanou is far too large for me to affect all at once with Kido. Unless you have something else our only choice will be to hope we can alert the Captain Commander to this threat!”

She had a point. Having the old guy show up and incinerate everything here would easily solve our issue of not being able to get at Kanou’s core. Unfortunately it also didn’t look like the doctor was going to let us just run off before he killed us all.

Up ahead of us we saw the first living experiments in a while gathering in another oversized room.

The two of us cut, dodged, and just generally went through the misshapen monsters to get to the other side, where we found Kimura using his shikai to keep them back from yet another door. I felt a pit in my stomach open up at the sight coming from the partially open door.

Daylight.

We didn’t have anywhere else to run.

If Kanou got past us now… he would vanish. Cause untold damage to the surroundings, yes. But he would escape and start his twisted experiments all over again.

I saw Natsumi come to a similar conclusion.

Kimura brightened up when the both of us made it through the horde.

“Cool, you guys made it! That mean we just need to clean up here?”

“Not exactly.”

Kanou burst into the room, quickly oozing off to the sides of the corridor. The mass of slime quickly filled a fourth of the room. Any of the creatures in the way were crushed to paste under the immense mass.

“What the fuck is that thing?!” Kimura shrieked.

“Doctor Kanou” came Natsumi’s blunt reply.

“Fucking how?!”

We never got the chance to answer as Kanou pulled the loose mass that had flooded into the room into a more humanoid form.

His lower body remained an unformed blob of slime-like muscle that continued back into the hallway and likely as far back as the last room we were in. His upper half looked mostly human with a few noticeable differences. He looked like someone had skinned the upper half of a person and he had no clear eyes or teeth in this form. But he seemed to see us somehow and it was clear he was still mad at me.

“AH, ALL THE VERMIN ARE GATHERED IN ONE PLACE. EXCELLENT. ONCE YOU ARE TAKEN CARE OF NOTHING WILL STAND IN THE WAY OF MY CREATIONS. I WILL BE FREE OF THIS PLACE AND BACK TO CREATING THE PERFECT BEING IN NO TIME.” the titanic figure boomed.

Then he seemed to glare at me specifically. “YOU, I AM GOING TO ENJOY PEELING APART INCH BY INCH. YOUR INSULT OF ACTUALLY THREATENING TO HARM ME WILL NOT BE REPAID LIGHTLY.”

Yeah, still mad at me.

I could feel Kimura shaking next to me.

“So, uh, what’s the plan here?”

“Kill as many of Kanou’s creations as you can and don’t die.” Natsumi ordered. “Alexandria and I will try and hold Doctor Kanou back as long as possible.”

“And how do we take him down?”

“Still working on that part.” I replied.

Kanou cuts off our conversation with a roar, his huge hand crashing down where all three of us were standing. We all scattered before he had the chance to actually hit us. He was bigger than when I fought him before, but he was also much slower.

Of course he also didn’t have an army backing him up last time and his creatures all surged towards us when his attack hit the ground.

I cut through five of them, the Noble Phantasm burning them to ash, before looking to see the state of the others. Natsumi was dancing between opponents using both ends of her kusarigama to cut down any creature that came close and was peppering Kanou’s massive form with Kido blasts. They weren’t doing much other than scorching a bit of his outer layers, but it was better than nothing.

Kimura was proving to be the biggest threat to the mob trying to either swarm us or escape through the final door. His shikai formed a web of sharp metal as it pierced in and out of the creatures closest to him. Dozens of the experiments laid dead or dying around him and I was convinced if he wasn't forced to recall his blade to its normal form every now and then to avoid ranged attacks or Kanou going after him, Kimura could have probably held the door by himself for another few hours alone.

Another ten creatures turned to ash and I suddenly felt the floor rumbling. Turning in the direction of the disturbance I saw Kanou’s arm sweeping over the floor and through anything in its way.

There was nothing I could do before the massive limb slammed into me. A second later pain erupted along my back as I was slammed into a wall and the weight of Kanou’s arm pinned me in place.

Both Kimura and Natsumi cried out at my predicament but couldn’t do anything about it.

“AND NOW, INSECT, PREPARE TO FACE MY WRATH.”

I can’t help but groan as Kanou tries to crush me against the unyielding wall. I managed to give myself the bare minimum of space by pushing up against him with Dyrnwyn, but he was far too strong for me to push back.

Blood drips down the hole in my forearm and my shoulder burns from the intense pressure. I know that I have seconds before my arm gives out.

My eyes drop down to the gleaming blade in my hands. I guess there is nothing else I can do.

I mentally reach into the blade, take hold of the structure, and twist it just a little. Dyrnwyn warps under the manipulation just so before-

A massive explosion erupts from the blade.

Heat and shrapnel open up several minor wounds and only Reinforcing myself to my limit stops me from being blown to pieces. The good news is I’m free from being crushed and since I no longer need to keep focused on keeping Dyrnwyn manifested I am free to use Haste to hurry back to the Soul Reapers’ sides.

The bad news is I’m bleeding from several places, my entire body hurts from being slammed into a wall and then blown up, I’m weaponless, and after that last stunt I’m now scraping the bottom of the barrel mana wise.

“Alexandria, are you okay?” Great, Natsumi sounded worried about me. I guess I look even worse than I feel.

“I’ve been better. Also unless one of you has a convenient mana potion or a way to restore it another way I’m pretty much tapped out at this point.”

Natsumi shook her head, both of us ignoring Kimura’s ‘what’s a mana potion?’ question, and speared another creature through the chest with her weapon.

“I barely know what to do with Reiatsu depletion, let alone whatever weird energy you use.”

I chuckled at that. We were so screwed.

Although that did give me an idea.

“You think you can keep them off me for a minute? I have one last thing I can try.”

“You think it will work?”

“No idea.” I replied honestly. “But we are all dead if it doesn’t, so what the harm?”

Natsumi is silent for a moment before decisively nodding her head.

“You’re right. Especially if you can pull off more of that last attack. Kimura and I will hold off the Doctor as long as we can.” With that both of them ran ahead, trying their best to keep the rest of the creatures away from me.

I was slightly confused, turning a Noble Phantasm into a Broken Phantasm was impressive but shouldn’t have...been...that -holy shit!

I saw why Natsumi had been impressed by the explosion. The crater left by Dyrnwyn exploding was impressive, yes, but what really grabbed your attention was the scorch marks that covered nearly a third of the room. Apparently Drynwyn’s purifying effect went beyond the bounds of the initial explosion and had destroyed everything ‘tainted’ in its radius.

Definitely need to remember that if I ever go up against a swarm of ‘evil’ creatures again.

I belatedly realised that the same explosion had incinerated Kanou’s golem body as well. It explained why he wasn’t attacking us at the moment, but I could already see it reforming at the back of the room.

Ignoring that for now, I opened up my spiritual senses as best I could.

Ironically, Doctor Kanou had made that easier than ever when he hooked me into that Reiatsu draining machine. I still wasn’t any good at it but it was like feeling the wind on your skin after getting out of the water. Everything was just sharper.

That combined with whatever that poison did, I was finally able to reach out just the tiniest bit and touch the reiatsu in the environment.

It probably sounds more impressive than it truly is. While ‘using the energy in the environment’ is a huge milestone in many stories, here it was just something most spiritual beings were naturally capable of. Soul Reapers did it to perform some Kido techniques, Quincies did so for nearly all of their abilities, and even Hollows did the same to open portals between worlds.

I could only touch a small amount, but that was fine. I just needed this to work.

I gathered all the Reishi I could and forced it… inwards for lack of a better description. I felt that same uncomfortable ‘inhale with your mouth closed’ reaction going on and smiled in relief.

Whatever my body/soul was doing to the Reishi was no doubt harmful in some way since I could practically see steam coming off of myself as the blood covering me vaporised. It was worth it though because I could feel my mana levels were climbing rapidly back up to full.

Just in time too. Kanou had fully reformed his body.

“I TIRE OF YOU FUTILE RESISTANCE.”

“Yeah? Well fuck you too, buddy!” Kimura yelled in response. His ribbon like shikai wove in and out of Kanou’s restored body, but any cuts were almost instantly regenerated. Natsumi was doing marginally better by removing chunks with her sickle blade and attacking with Kido.

A twinge of pain shot down my arm as I continued gathering Reishi. Pulling it in was getting harder as well. I guess I was only going to get one chance at ending this before my body gave out.

I needed an instant win weapon for this. Something that would guarantee it would kill Kanou even when he didn’t seem to have any important organs other than whatever core he was protecting. Something that would end this whole fight in one strike.

Once again hundreds of weapons were presented by the Unlimited Blade Works, considered, and discarded for one reason or another. A small part of my inner nerd died when I had to reject Excalibur. That level of weapon was still out of my reach, but I did find another favorite that seemed to fit my requirements, even if it was a bit different than what I thought it was.

Crashes and explosions echoed through the room as the blood red spear manifested from glowing blue motes of light. Far too slowly for my taste but as long as it did so I couldn’t exactly complain.

I just hoped it worked like I imagined it would.

Gae Bulg was another one of those weapons that had its history warped over the years so it actually gained new abilities. Like the worthiness trait with Mjolnir, causality reversal was fairly new to it’s legend and while it was a fantastic ability I was more interested in its original ability.

“Alexandria watch out!”

The warning came too late. Distracted by manifesting another Noble Phantasm the first hint I got about Kanou’s attack was when his giant fist slammed into my face. I’m pretty sure it knocked me out for a second because there was a flash of white and then I was pressed up against a wall by a giant hand and everything hurt just a bit more.

“NO MORE SURPRISES OUT OF YOU.” The pressure on my chest increased a bit more. I was about to panic when my foot brushed against something.

“W-what, no grand speeches about how you will rule Soul Society?” I wheezed. “I’m disappointed.”

“I HAVE NO DESIRE TO RULE OVER THOSE SHORT SIGHTED FOOLS. WHEN I ACHIEVE PERFECTION THEY WILL EITHER BOW BEFORE ME OR BE DESTROYED. IT IS AN INEVITABILITY.”

We’ll see about that.

“Kimura, Natsumi! I need a hand!” I shouted.

The local Soul Reaper launched himself at the extended arm holding me in place. Even if Kanou could regenerate the damage done, there would still be the moment when it was disconnected from the main body. Natsumi followed closely behind with a massive Hado #33 that ripped the arm free from both Kanou’s body and from me.

Free from Kanou’s grasp I rolled a foot over the pipe-like object at my feet before kicking it up. The spear glinted in the little light surrounding us before I focused every drop of mana I had into the spear and kicked it forward.

”Gáe Bulg!”

The demonic spear accepted all of the mana it was fed and ignited in a swirling hurricane of red light.

It launched forward at near supersonic speeds and buried itself in the stomach of Kanou’s titan form. The moment it hit I let out a breath of relief, this aspect of the spear’s power was determined by physical skill rather than magic to guarantee it hit. I had a sneaking suspicion if Kanou had been the size of even his previous form I would’ve missed.

Lucky me he thought bigger was better huh?

No one had a chance to react as the Gáe Bulg’s ability activated under the correct conditions. The head of the spear split into innumerable barbs that coursed throughout his body. He might have made himself into a slime creature, but there were still pathways to send materials through otherwise his body would have remained an undifferentiated pink mass and not the muscle it appeared to be.

Those channels turned into pathways for Gáe Bulg to travel down. Each intersection spawned more barbs until the only thing left of Kanou’s body was a mass of flesh stretched over a thornbush.

Eventually one of those barbs reached whatever core the deranged doctor had and with no fanfare it was mercilessly shredded.

What little emotion I could read on Kanou’s face, distorted as it was, slackened the moment his core was destroyed and I realised we did it. Kanou was dead!

My joy was cut short by two things. The first was I got a sudden look at exactly what Gáe Bulg was, and the second was a screeching monster jumping at me with claws extended.

Once again I had used up all my mana. I could barely stand let alone make another weapon.

Natsumi was on the ball though and a black chain suddenly wrapped around the creature’s throat and her sickle jammed into its eye socket when it crashed to the ground.

She gave me a quick glance. “No time to stand around. Even without Kanou we need to take care of his remaining creatures.” She bit out, sounding every bit as exhausted as I was. I also realised at some point she had taken a hit that had broken her left arm, possibly her leg too considering she was favoring one side.

“Um, about that.” Kimura commented with a stunned tone. “I think that was the last of them.”

The two of us looked around.

He was right!

Somehow we had taken out all of the gathered experiments, killed Kanou, and stopped anything from getting by us.

I let out a somewhat broken chuckle.

We won! It was over.

Then my legs gave out and I collapsed to the ground. A second later two more thumps sounded next to me as the Soul Reapers followed suit.