Realizing now and absolutely that escape was certainly impossible, Koh twisted his body and turned his rumble into a controlled charge. The speed he gained from his countless legs rushing across the ground towards me was not to be underestimated. I didn’t bother nocking another arrow and, instead, separated my Zanpakuto again into two swords.

[[SWORD – GRAND – SWORD]]
[[OPERATE THE ENGINE OF DESTINY; CONDUCT A SYMPHONY OF DEFEAT]]
[[DUAL WIELD MODE: GO]]​

The swords themselves were different now. They had become rods, pipes akin to extended flutes with guards made of spinning valves. The tassels had become chains that wrapped tightly around my wrists as steam hissed from the many openings. It reminded me, on some level, of my giant spirit’s perpetual flute. It reminded me of a train whistle.

Koh cut through the steam with his arms to try and grasp me, only to suddenly halt as the steam coalesced. In its liquid form, it was like napalm. In a steam form, it was like some kind of toxic gas. I could watch as it sharpened blades along the flute rods that my swords had become.

I swung and impacted the insectoid flesh of Koh, eliciting pain from him, but also a response for the ground beneath us to open. A massive mouth that swallowed our bodies and brought us ever deeper into his lair – if he thought I’d let go of him now, he was sorely mistaken. The hissing steam of my Zanpakuto, I knew, was not limited to poisoning my enemy.

It could deafen him, rob him of his senses. For my Zanpakuto was one that had been made from the Zanpakuto of other Shinigami and one of them, well, one of them had a Zanpakuto that at least partly specialized in sound. I drew back my blades as we neared a new ground and swung them together. A terrible ringing noise resonated throughout the area.

What did he see when I did that? What did he lose? In its separated form, this Zanpakuto had two abilities. The first was that it could manipulate a superheated steam capable of burning others, or combining its tiny droplets of generated black matter into super-sharp lines to cut away at things caught in its range.

The second ability in this form was a little more abstract. “I… I can’t see!” Koh cried out at me, “You think blinding me will be enough?” he started to laugh, “I can still smell you!” His head blinked and created a face belonging to a kind of dog. It took a deep breath through its nose, and thus I struck with the mist again. Koh snarled and backed away, but not fast enough.

The second ability of my Zanpakuto in this form was that it robbed senses. If you saw it, I could take your sight. If you smelled it, I could take that as well. Taste and touch, similarly, could be removed. Only your sense of hearing would remain. There was a reason for that. This was a power that relied on others hearing me clang the swords together. Without that chime, they would be unaffected.