Yeah.

After that whole debacle I felt that asking things before doing them was the better course of action. “What will it do then?” I asked and stepped towards the dummy. “I suppose you know how achieve bankai?” Kisuke asked in return “First materialize your Zanpakuto in this world then beat it, easily said hardly done as you materializing is pretty hard.”

“Exactly. Now this little dummy of mine lets you skip that first step and go right to the second one.” Well, that was really convenient. Also there had to be some negatives here. “What is the drawback?” I asked with suspicion. “If you don’t manage to do it within three times every time after that may or may not rip your soul apart.” Kisuke said nonchalantly and yawned. “Are you going to start now? I have a shop to attend to.”

How very reassuring. “I have already come that far.” I said and raised Merc, “So why not?” the blade penetrated the doll. Blinding light shone suddenly erupted and blinded I took a few steps back. When I next opened my eyes both Kisuke and his assistant had vanished. “Good Luck!” I heard a last shout behind me.

I wasn’t planning on turning around. In front of me stood Merc. “Jo, partner.” He said in his usual metallic voice. “Yo.” I greeted in kind. “How will we do this?” I asked and looked around. There were no weapons, just the weird plane under the shop. “First I will redecorate a little.” The spirit said. Suddenly walls descended out of nowhere. I found myself surrounded by the orange-brown bricks in a square arena. No exits.

We both starred at each other for a couple of moments. He was waiting for a question and I wasn’t willing to ask. Feels like we had been there before. In the end I gave in. “So what is the second point?” I sighed. Merc laughed, “Second is fighting until one of us loses!”

He charged at me. To my surprise he was faster than last time we fought, but seeing that this was supposed to be the unsealing of Bankai I believe that makes sense. ‘If I have no weapons I will just have to use other tricks.’ I assumed a quick stance and prepared to throw him just like I had thrown the girl earlier.

Of course that was a pretty damn naïve idea. He hit me with his right fist and already wanted to grab it when he suddenly pulled downwards, ‘A faint?’ I thought but before I could retreat he had already grabbed my leg. Now it was my turn to be thrown around, the world around me took a few spins before I crashed into a wall. Surrounded by debris I fell to the ground. “Not bad.” I acknowledged. I should have absolutely expected a counter, he had been in my head after all.

No further words were exchanged as we went at each other again. Blow by blow we exchanged punches, throws, faints and other manoeuvres. While I wasn’t able to gain the upper hand I also didn’t get humiliated like in the first move. All in all we fought for what felt like minutes until Merc suddenly disappeared and left the dummy behind.

“That’s it?” I asked. “What do you mean that’s it?!” I jumped, I didn’t even notice the bratty redhead kid. “You have been down here for hours, now get up, the old geezer says you can try again tomorrow.” I nodded, sometimes you can lose track of time in the heat of battle. First I retrieved my sword from the doll and then I followed the kid upstairs.

I was promptly greeted by Kisuke. “How did it go?” he asked like he didn’t exactly knew that already. To be honest I was tempted to just walk away, but one should always answer questions. “Didn’t do it. Maybe tomorrow.” I said and waited for any instructions. “Okay, I suggest you take a goodnights rest then.”