The hornet's sting

"Stop right there!" A shinigami requested in an aggressive tone, shaking at the knees and arms before his comrades, barely able to hold his zanpakuto straight as he looked into the blank, expressionless eyes of Hideji Masayoshi who stood atop a pile of lifeless shinigami. As Hideji took a step forward to this brave shinigami that stood afront his peers to try and take on this massive threat, he took one back in response, indicating he truly had no desire to suffer the same fate as those before him. However, simply being in Hideji's way, his path had been sealed. It was as though this enemy didn't just want to cause chaos; he loathed the shinigami. As he leaped forward to take down the brave soul that dared to challenge him so courageously and the fear in the poor soul's eyes began to take form in tears, with him closing his eyes, just as Hideji's blade cut and touched the ground the shinigami once stood on, his lifted his head to notice he was absent; with no blood shed.

"Sorry, but you've taken enough lives already... You lot, get out of here now, ensure any other remaining shinigami excluding the vice captains and captains are evacuated with haste." A level-headed Soi Fon ordered, having just saved the bold shinigami in the nick of time, tears streaming down his face before running off while thanking his captain.

"So, what exactly is your deal? We couldn't gather much information on why you were imprisoned in Muken. It's odd that one would have a redacted file considering even the most heinous of crimes like that other Kenpachi and Aizen were on full display. Are you a noble?" Soi Fon enquired, met with a sharp look to the ground in front of him by her enemy, perhaps ashamed of the word noble. Soi Fon continued to try and interrogate him, asking him more questions about what he did to land up in Muken but she was met with nothing but silence. Unbeknownst to her, her enemy had taken a vow of silence following the events that resulted in his imprisonment. Unlike the other prisoners, he was not an inherently violent man, he didn't do anything necessarily heinous that would justify an imprisonment in Muken. He killed one man in order to protect the woman he loved; a woman who had been subject to abuse and terrible things by the family she was born into, blaming her father for most if not all of the pain. In desperation to protect his love, he reluctantly learnt the ways of the shinigami and killed that father of hers in cold blood, knowing he would never get away with it. The man he killed was no regular man but rather a noble that belonged to one of the great five noble families and his murder was a clear act of treason. Hideji was barely an adult at the time, still a foolish boy with an ignorant mind but that decision would cost him more than he realized as he was imprisoned for 1,000 years. The shame that killing that specific noble, who at the time wielded the family's prized zanpakuto and thus should've been impossible to kill for that young man meant the nobles covered up the entire situation, redacting any knowledge of what had happened. Hideji made a vow of silence from that moment, arguing the next time he spoke, it would be to the woman he loved, the woman he threw his life away for...

"Not much of a talker, are you? That's okay, this will be over swiftly." Soi Fon stated before releasing her zanpakuto Suzumebachi. While she noted that it was impressive how easily he took down so many shinigami, she also explained that they were all weaklings in comparison to her, and their deaths were inevitable whether it was against him or another enemy. Soi Fon then raised her right hand, pointing Suzumebachi to her enemy before seemingly flashing on the spot in front of Hideji.

His eyes widened, acknowledging he was against a way stronger opponent, and trying to figure out what just happened: Was it an illusion or did she really move so fast he only saw a momentary flash of her body not where it stood?

"The next hit will be your death." Soi Fon warns, stunning Hideji as he stares down at his chest to see the butterfly imprint of Soi Fon's Nigeki Kessatsu. In that moment he had several questions but knew his opponent was simply faster than he could imagine. He stared at Soi Fon, a focus in his eyes to read her next movements with full caution, not allowing her the opportunity to finish him off so quickly.

"It must be daunting, correct? To know I could hit you without any resistance, without you even being able to recognize you'd been hit till it's too late. It took a great deal of training to get this position of agility. If it wasn't for Shunsui gaining favours from the zero division, Tenjiro would have never taught me his ways. Of course, I still have yet to match his speed but thanks to him, and the intense training, I was able to drastically increase my speed." Soi Fon explained, hiding just how gruelling her training was. In order to come close to reaching Tenjiro's levels of speed, she was forced to successfully dodge one fast attack of Tenjiro's before she would be allowed to leave the palace, and she was to do this within just hours. At first, every attack that came hit like a truck due to its speed, with Soi Fon only being able to accept the hit, struggling to anticipate or even comprehend how Tenjiro's attacks were so fast. She was heavily injured multiple times during their session, to the point of almost death, with the squad zero member having to restore her reiatsu and heal her wounds continuously as they practiced that day. After 6 hours straight, she was finally beginning to see his attacks before they landed, even just slightly; although she still stood no chance of dodging them. It was only after 10 straight hours, having been healed over 20 times already from near-death, that she finally successfully read and dodged one of his attacks. Her training was complete, and unbeknownst to her at the time, she had attained an entire new plain of speed...

"I'll go slower this time" Soi Fon gloated, pacing at a speed resembling of her old self, all of these speeds being reached without the use of Shunkō. While Hiedji could finally see her incoming, there was no time for him to react, no time to stop the attack incoming.

"It's over." Soi Fon exclaimed as she stood still, assured of her victory with her head faced down to the ground. She lifted it to see the reaction of her enemy, only to be flabbergasted by the fact the second hit didn't land at all, rather her entire zanpakuto was now covered up, wrapped in silver bandages. She freaked out, demanding to know what was going on as no matter what she did, she couldn't remove the bandages. Her zanpakuto was now useless. She instantly leapt away, creating great distance between the two of them, enraged at how easily she had been handled with. Regaining her composure, she simply stated: "Bankai".

A cloud of dust formed around her as she released her bankai and as the smoke began to dissipate, she exclaimed its name: "Ryōba Suzumebachi (double-edged hornet)."

As she stared into the distant figure of her enemy Hideji, she went on to explain that this was the first time she's been forced to use her real bankai. Her true bankai had taken on a completely different form, with one arm resembling closer to her shikai and the other a giant stinger attached to it, roughly the same shape and size of her old bankai. Soi Fon had failed to ever use her real bankai because she had never respected her zanpakuto enough. She saw her shikai's special ability as the pinnacle of the zanpakuto, underestimating its true strength and so it played a trick on her for all the years she was a captain and sealed its true power behind Jakuhō Raikōben. Having used her real bankai, the bandages that once covered Suzumebachi faded and she was now free to attack again. Without a moment's hesitation she used Shunkō to amplify her speed and agility, but most important due to her Mukyū Shunkō being wind based in nature, she could use her reiatsu to generate wind beneath the larger stinger and allow herself to be agile with it in use, facing no speed debuff now. She took a new stance, ready to project herself in an aerodynamic way towards her enemy before announcing her new technique: "Kyūsho-zeme (Vital attack)."

Within an instant Hideji was blown away on the spot, left completely unable to react as Soi Fon suddenly seems to be right behind him in what seemed like less than a millisecond, almost knocking him clean off his feet. Instantaneously, the whole of Hideji's body was covered in the butterfly imprint, symbolizing the end of stage 1 of her bankai. As she prepared to initiate phase 2, a disgruntled Hideji began to shake, unnerved and enraged.

These arrogant Shinigami. She thinks she can just toy with my life... If she's so capable and agile, why does she hesitate to kill me, she is just like the rest of them. I won't allow myself to die here, not to such prideful, shameful creatures. Bankai!

As Soi Fon propelled herself, ready to deal the second blow that would end the fight, Hideji's zanpakuto sprang forth a series of spontaneous bandages from his blade that seemed to automatically attach and wrap around both of Soi Fon's new weapons. In an instant he had turned the tide of the fight and completely overwhelmed the overconfident captain. As shock began to fill her face as she stopped in her tracks, the irritated prisoner leapt in to deal a lethal blow and kill the captain before she could process how to react...