Unfettered

"Hadō #31, !"

A spherical blast of fiery crimson energy burst forth with high speed. Nevertheless, it missed its mark as its unusually agile target jumped to the side to avoid it. The red aura of the ensuing explosion briefly illuminated a benighted, fortunately empty park.

"Too slow, too slow", mocked the nimble.

The somewhat large, humanoid spiritual entity with a wide, shield-like mask, four arms and a thick tail which ended in a bony club had been fighting a pair of local. Alarmed by an atypically high number of mysterious disappearances among the inhabitants of the city, they had managed to track down the culprit. Now was the time to punish it for its murderous streak. Not an easy task to accomplish.

"You're never gonna catch me like that", continued the Hollow, its glowing yellow eyes narrowed in contempt.

The two young Shinigami looked at each other and nodded in affirmation. The one who was holding his unsheathed Zanpakutō suddenly charged at the enemy alone.

"Entwine, Tsutaurushi!", he called forth his Shikai on the move.

The blade of his katana promtply extended into a long, three-pronged spiky whip which seemed to be fashioned from a plant. With a deft twist of his wrist the Shinigami swung the weapon at the Hollow, its tendrils arcing through the air with unpredictable trajectories. The opponent, whilst swift, proved unable to evade the attack completely, and one of them left a gash on one of his forearms as it struck him.

"Hmph!", it snarled in response. "I'll show you how it's done, boy!"

With a swooshing sound the Hollow swiped with its tail, intent on crushing the Shinigami with the heavy club. However, a single Flash Step allowed the latter to escape that fate. A crater formed in the ground where he used to be just a moment ago. Unabated, the Hollow quickly renewed the attack, now swinging the tail horizontally right after it had spotted the opponent. Still, the Shinigami evaded with another display of Shunpo only to retaliate with a lash of his own, inflicting a wound on the monster's shoulder.

"Scratch me and jump around all you want, one direct hit and you're paste, Shini-", the Hollow growled, then swayed uncontrollably.

At that moment it realised that the thorns which adorned the Shinigami's plant-type Shikai were in fact the delivery system of a potent, paralysing poison. Its club sped toward him more through sheer inertion than a deliberate exertion and once it predictably missed, the Hollow dragged its legs in attempt to change location. Then, it realised another thing; the second Shinigami, a long-haired woman, had been preparing another Kidō blast.

"...the wrath of your claws. Hadō #33, !"

"Shit!"

Enfeebled, that time around the Hollow could not dodge the attack. It fell to the knees and weakly supported itself with its four arms following the impact of a direct hit, its severely burnt torso sizzling and emanating billows of smoke. Slowly, it raised its head to stare at the two cunning enemies, only for the plant whip to strike its bemasked face. The bony surface cracked.

"Curse you..."

But fatal damage had already been done. Soon, spiritual energy leaking from the fracture coalesced above the fallen Hollow. Sinful in both its life and afterlife, it had to suffer the consequences. With the celebration of their victory cut short, the Shinigami observed in awe as torrential wind and eerie light heralded the appearance of the Gates of. From another dimension they emerged, each giant door decorated with a partially bandaged skeleton. Paralysed and on the brink of death, the Hollow could only bawl at the inevitable.

The Gates were opened, and from within a crimson abyss the blade of a extended toward the sinner. Effortlessly, it impaled its quivering body and lifted it from the ground. Then, it began receding unhurriedly, wielded by the muscular left arm of the giant guardian. The pair of speechless Shinigami frowned at the Hollow's wailing, aware what was happening but having witnessed the disturbing process for the first time.

And then, without a warning, all the noise was drowned out by an earth-shaking, vibrating hum. The emerald aura superseded by vivid pink light as what seemed to be a thick beam of black energy erupted from within the Gates. The arm, the blade and the Hollow impaled upon it all vanished within that black, reality-distorting pillar of energy. The Shinigami widened their eyes in bewilderment. All that was left were the broken, smouldering remains of the Gates, the fiery abyss within, and a single cloaked figure which had appeared inside in the blast's wake.