Bleach: Starting as a Vasto Lorde

Chapter 291: The Face of Despair

Soi Fon’s stance wavered, not from fear but from the sheer density of Ulquiorra’s Reiatsu. It was unlike anything she had ever encountered—an ocean of despair that threatened to drown every soul in its reach. Weak Hollows would die from approaching him in this state.

“What’s wrong, Shinigami?” Ulquiorra’s voice carried a hint of mockery. “Where's that confidence from earlier?”

He had not spent a day without training after his humiliating defeat at Cazador’s hands. His base Resurrección was overwhelmingly stronger compared to back then. As for his Segunda Etapa, not even Ulquiorra himself knew the extent of its power. Even this partial Resurrección was enough to instill despair in a captain like Soi Fon.

Clenching her jaw, Soi Fon glared at Ulquiorra. “This is what you Arrancars call Resurrección. Releasing the Hollow powers sealed within your Zanpakutō.”

“To us, this is Resurrección,” he whispered with a cold gaze. “But for you, this is despair.”

His words struck a nerve in Soi Fon. Rather than arguing with her rather talkative opponent, she took action. She flash-stepped, appearing behind Ulquiorra with her stinger ready to mark him another time.

Ulquiorra’s wing snapped up, casually blocking Soi Fon’s peak speed attack with ease. “Is that all you’re worth, Shinigami?”

“Shut the hell up!” Soi Fon vanished again, this time creating three afterimages that surrounded Ulquiorra. Each clone struck simultaneously from different angles.

“It’s futile.”

He conjured green javelins in his hands through the ‘Luz de la Luna’ ability of his Resurrección and hurled them at the clones. The lances were packed with tremendous energy, and they tore through all but the real Soi Fon, who had to evade the lance or risk getting blown away. 

She barely managed to step out of the lance’s trajectory.

Ulquiorra’s figure blurred, and suddenly he was behind her, holding a lance against her neck. His wings gave him a tremendous speed boost, and Sonído allowed him to slip past her Reiryoku sense. He caught Soi Fon by surprise.

Soi Fon’s eyes flickered with shock. A shock that lasted barely a second.

“Shinigami,” he whispered, the lance grazing her neck and drawing blood. “At least you’ll die after witnessing true speed. I’ll let you die in despair—”

She grabbed his wrist, using her smaller frame to land a flip kick at his face. The javelin cut through her hair. A few strands fell, cut clean. She quickly launched a series of rapid strikes with Suzumebachi.

“You fight well for trash,” Ulquiorra noted, deflecting another of her attacks effortlessly. “Perhaps I underestimated you... slightly.”

Ulquiorra finally went on offense. He relied not on his speed, nor the versatile range of his lances — no, he faced her head-on, intending to show her despair through the sheer difference in their power. Soi Fon used Suzumebachi’s stinger blade to block lethal attacks, but she only had one, whereas Ulquiorra had a smaller version of lance in each hand. Wherever his lance struck, her flesh would be singed and burnt. Though the wounds were skin-deep, the pain diminished her ability to focus.

Soi Fon gritted her teeth, knowing she had no way of maintaining this pace. She couldn’t compete with the Arrancar in endurance or speed or explosive power. Her only advantage was her experience and pure skills, but he overwhelmed her with his power and the vast difference in Reiatsu. What’s worse was that she had no retreat from Ulquiorra.

The moment she stepped away, he’d appear behind her and slice her head cleanly. He wouldn’t take the time to run his mouth like the last time.

Wounds began to cover every part of her body as she engaged Ulquiorra. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find a way to even defend his onslaught, much less find an opening to land that crucial second hit.

—She couldn’t ascertain a clear way to victory.

“Your speed is diminishing, Shinigami,” Ulquiorra observed coldly, all too aware of her strategy. “You’ll exhaust yourself soon.”

Soi Fon’s eyes narrowed. She had one trump card left — one she’d hoped to avoid using in Hueco Mundo and keep it a surprise for Yoruichi. A power she had yet to master fully. What’s more, she would be left too exhausted in the aftermath of using it, becoming a burden to Kazuya in this mission.

But pride meant nothing if she ended up as a headless corpse.

Her stance shifted as she used the experimental technique that combined her mastery of Hakuda, Shunpo and Kidō into one force. Violent wind currents erupted around her, casting her hair into wild disarray. Her uniform’s backless design proved its worth as concentrated Kidō spells took the form of swirling wind, creating a tempest around her body.

The wind current focused on her right arm.

Soi Fon smirked, wiping blood from a small cut on her cheek. “You talk too much for someone who acts so cold.”

Ulquiorra let go of his lances and conjured a bigger version in his right hand. The original version of Luz de la Luna. He flew at her with deliberately slow speed and swiped the lance in a perfect crescent arc.

“I’m not losing!” Soi Fon roared and met Ulquiorra’s lance with her Shunkō-enhanced fist.

The collision created an explosive shockwave. Soi Fon’s smaller form was launched backward, crashing through a cave wall into darkness. Her Shunkō couldn’t compete with Ulquiorra’s raw power, not when she was wounded and exhausted. This time she had underestimated her opponent and overestimated herself.

Ulquiorra flew down to her and grasped her throat before dragging her out into the moonlight. Blood painted her sleeveless uniform, flesh scorched where his lances had struck. She looked nothing like the fierce captain who had challenged him.

“You thought you could match me in power. What a joke.”

With the last of her strength, Soi Fon gripped his wrist and dug her Suzumebachi’s stinger in it. A butterfly mark bloomed on his hand. Ulquiorra didn’t bat an eye as she struck the same spot again.

“You’re dead,” she declared.

But the death she’d dealt countless times before didn’t come. Ulquiorra neither vanished nor was he replaced by a giant butterfly mark.

Both butterfly marks simply faded away.

Horror dawned in Soi Fon’s eyes. “I-Impossible…”

Her Shikai’s secreted poison failed to work on someone with Ulquiorra’s level of regeneration — she obviously couldn’t realize as she had never seen her Shikai fail to kill someone.

“I told you from the start. This is futile.”

He tossed her on the sand, stomped her belly, and raised his lance towards the moon. She was powerless to resist him.

He showed her true despair as he had previously claimed.

She could only watch as the lance descended—

Kazuya grabbed the lance with his bare hand, even as it cut through his skin. “Let’s end it here. You’ve won.”

Seeing Kazuya save her filled with mixed emotions. She grasped Ulquiorra’s leg and tried to move him but to no avail. The adrenaline that had kept her fighting had drained away. All the wounds she had suffered and all the exhaustion made her weak, powerless.

“Don’t interfere—”

Ulquiorra’s attention snapped to the front, so did everyone else’s.

A bolt of green lightning cut through the night — a spinning lance wrapped in a brilliant green Reiatsu. The screaming spiral of destruction moved with impossible speed, giving even Ulquiorra barely time to register its approach.

—The lance pierced through Ulquiorra.

Kazuya grabbed Soi Fon and flash-stepped to Yoruichi’s position.

The black cat let out a growl. “Lay her there. I’ll treat her.”

She transformed into her human form and began treating Soi Fon with Kaido, the healing technique used by the 4th Squad. Soi Fon looked away from Yoruichi, gritting her teeth.

Kazuya took off his kimono and put it around Yoruichi. “Take her to a safe place. I’ll keep them busy.”

“No, you!” Soi Fon roared. “You can’t—”

Yoruichi grasped Soi Fon’s mouth. “We’re leaving.”

She put Soi Fon on her shoulder before using Shunpo to leave. Yammy tried to intercept but a Reiatsu bullet from Kazuya distracted him long enough for the Flash Goddess to escape.

Kazuya turned his gaze. The owner of the lance approached. Someone he obviously missed but never wanted to meet in his Shinigami identity.

Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck.

…

A/N: Current Soi Fon is weaker than when she’d fight Yoruichi in the future since her Shunkō is far from completion. Ulquiorra is at the same level of the version that fought Ichigo. His Resurrección hard diffs Soi Fon.