The moment Shin unsheathed his Zanpakutō, Unohana Retsu immediately sensed something strange.
She couldn't feel any shift in his reiatsu.
She could see the reiryoku waves flowing from his body, bright and pulsing, but what she felt—was nothing. The same calm, steady spiritual pressure as always. Undisturbed. Unchanged.
That couldn't be right.
If she hadn't been watching him with her own eyes, she would've assumed Shin was doing absolutely nothing.
And yet, he had begun to activate his Zanpakutō's power.
The vivid crimson blade emerged slowly from its black lacquered sheath, its spine the same rich red, gleaming with a chilling light. Shin raised the blade and gently touched it to Ukitake's shoulder. Instantly, ripples of reiryoku expanded outward and formed a nearly invisible barrier of spiritual particles that enclosed both Shin and Ukitake.
Unohana's gaze sharpened.
She could see them—yet she could not sense them. The barrier wasn't just a wall—it was a separation of worlds. She could only witness the illusion projected outward, not the reality within.
So this too… was the power of his Zanpakutō?
She had no way of discerning what its true nature was. Only that it defied even her senses.
The barrier now fully sealed, Shin began to channel his reiryoku into Ukitake.
And what he felt was like plunging into a deep, bottomless sea of power.
Even in his sickly state, Ukitake Jūshirō was a veteran Captain of the Gotei 13. His spiritual pressure was overwhelming. Had Shin not already reached the level of Third-Class Reiatsu Authority, he wouldn't have dared offer treatment.
"Shin-kun… have you started already?" Ukitake asked, a touch of nervousness in his voice.
"Just relax, Captain," Shin replied, calm and clear.
None of this—no words, no presence—could reach Unohana beyond the barrier. Everything she was seeing was a mirage of reiryoku mimicry. In truth, Shin's Zanpakutō had never been visible to others. What was at his waist was merely an asauchi. The real blade was hidden by nature.
Inside the barrier, time stood still.
This was the power of one of Shin's two Zanpakutō:
"Stagnation" — Teitai (停滞).
Shin could suspend any object, event, or even abstract concept. He had once used this ability in the human world when battling a Menos Grande and later a cloaked intruder. He'd stopped the state of his own body—frozen it in a healthy, uninjured state, immune to all change. As long as he wasn't already wounded, nothing could harm him.
The same logic could be applied to objects or phenomena beyond himself.
He had once used this to freeze the formation of a reiryoku heart in the Reiryoku Reconstruction Ritual, halting it in a perfect, stable condition.
Now, Ukitake kept silent, calming his breath as Shin's reiryoku flowed deeper, finally reaching his lungs.
Suddenly—
A violent reaction erupted from within.
Ukitake's reiryoku went berserk, convulsing like a storm. His face paled, and with a choked gasp he vomited a mouthful of blood.
Shin staggered back, stunned.
A terrible, alien force had rejected his reiryoku.
His Zanpakutō quivered in his hand.
Ukitake began coughing violently, blood seeping from his lips.
Shin quickly withdrew his spiritual energy and ended his Zanpakutō's effect.
Outside the barrier, Unohana saw the change.
To her, one moment Shin's blade merely hovered over Ukitake's shoulder—then in the blink of an eye, the captain was bent double, bleeding heavily on the floor. The blood hadn't splattered—it had simply appeared, as if a mirror shattered, revealing the truth it had concealed.
"What happened?" Unohana asked, brows creased.
"Trouble," Shin muttered grimly. He gathered his thoughts and said,
"I'll need both of your help next. Captain, I need you to set a barrier around this room—something that blocks reiatsu from leaking out."
She didn't ask why. She simply obeyed.
Shin turned to Ukitake.
"Captain, I'll need you to forcibly release your reiatsu. Let it pour out until there's almost nothing left."
"If I release that much, my body may—"
"You'll be fine."
Ukitake wiped his mouth, nodding.
"Understood."
Unohana's skill with kidō and barrier arts was unmatched. She swiftly wove a reiryoku-sealing ward around the room, a fortress against the storm about to unfold.
Then—
Ukitake released his spiritual pressure.
A torrential surge of reiryoku burst from his body, the air around him shimmering and warping. Medical instruments shook violently, tumbling to the floor.
Without the barrier, the entire building might've been destroyed.
Shin, having anticipated this, remained steady. So did Unohana.
The outpouring lasted over a minute, a tide of sheer force. Ukitake began coughing blood again, his face drawn and haggard.
"That's enough," Shin said.
The room now shimmered with a density of reiryoku so thick it choked the air.
Shin raised his Zanpakutō once more. His energy surged into Ukitake, racing through his weary body until it wrapped around his lungs.
Ukitake was beyond exhaustion. His breath came in shallow rasps, his body aching with pain.
But the terror—the true origin of the illness—was weaker now, suppressed by the drained reserves of reiryoku.
Shin smiled faintly.
"Got you…"
Suddenly Ukitake's eyes widened. His bare torso began to glow, pulsing black light in the shape of lungs across his chest and back.
Unohana's pupils narrowed.
What was that?
She had always suspected Ukitake's condition wasn't just medical—but this…
The black glow writhed, and Ukitake gasped, mouth stretching wide.
From within his throat, a black mass began to rise—pouring from his mouth in writhing shadows.
It formed in the air—
A massive, spectral hand.
Upon its back was a single, staring eye.
The sight was grotesque and nightmarish. This thing had been inside Ukitake all along.
Unohana realized: This was the root of his sickness.
As the last of the black energy left Ukitake's body, Shin stood and raised his blade. He could feel it—the thing wasn't humanoid, but it hated him. It wanted him erased.
"Captain, take care of Ukitake!"
Unohana rushed forward and placed her hand on Ukitake's chest.
He was on the verge of death.
But Shin didn't look away from the floating hand.
He expanded his reiryoku barrier again, trapping it inside with him.
The black hand knew—and it responded, unleashing a wave of black matter like a virus. It latched onto the barrier, trying to consume it.
Shin understood at once.
This was the Right Hand of the Soul King—Mimihagi.
Its domain was "stillness"—not unlike his own Zanpakutō's power.
It had been drawn out by Shin's energy. Attracted to something alike.
The barrier turned black. The hand surged, trying to consume Shin whole.
Then—
Shing!
A second blade appeared in Shin's other hand.
Shorter than the first, like a kodachi. Its hilt black, adorned with a yellow tassel, its blade pure white.
At the same time, Shin's spiritual pressure surged.
The black sphere began to shrink, rapidly reversing its growth.
The floating hand shivered, sensing danger.
And then—it lunged.
Right before it could touch Shin—
It reset. Popped back to where it had been.
It tried again.
Same result.
It lunged over and over, each time resetting to its original place, like a glitched video game character stuck in a lag loop.
No matter how many times it tried—
It couldn't reach him.
This was Shin's second blade.
"Regression" — Tōtai (倒退).
The power to rewind anything—object, concept, phenomenon—back to a previous state it once possessed.