Nieder

Rather than a single entity, Nieder takes shape as two linked weapons: a Chinese jian whose dark hilt meets an upward-curving crossguard trimmed in gold, tied by a chain of shifting length to a war fan of dark pink lined with grey blades. Each half carries a small mouth complete with a tongue and a lone eyeball near its tip, the sword speaking in a male voice from its crossguard and the fan answering in a female voice from its central fold. While sealed, the pair rest as a folded gold paper fan bearing the Bount emblem, which Yoshi splits apart to call them forth.

The blade and the fan each possess their own mind and voice, and unlike their savage mistress they care less for slaughter than for the elegance and showmanship of their techniques. They freely scold Yoshi for poor aim, for reaching too soon for moves she has not perfected, or for rousing them while they rest, and now and then they turn outright fickle, refusing to wound a target even after a clean strike. Even so, they take real pleasure in a kill when offered one, love to make a spectacle of it, and echo Yoshi's own scorn and amusement in the thick of a fight, all while boasting of the greater power their fused forms provide.

In its resting state Nieder serves as a flail, the chain between sword and fan stretching to strike from range or to bind an enemy, with the jian favored for attack and the fan for guarding, deflecting, and knocking weapons aside; the fan can also loose volleys of blade-like needles. Yoshi can merge with one half to specialize it, trading balance for a single strength. Fusing with the sword yields the offensive Happonjin, or Eight Blades, which armors her shoulder and spawns trailing energy copies of the jian for whip-like or thrown strikes, while fusing with the fan produces a defensive mode whose enlarged shield can turn aside even a fully chanted Sōkatsui or a Heilig Pfeil. During the Bount's campaign Yoshi wielded Nieder against Rukia Kuchiki, Orihime Inoue, and others before carrying the fight into the Seireitei, where Uryū Ishida faced her. Uryū spotted the fatal flaw the two forms shared: in the instant Yoshi shifts between offense and defense she is left unarmored, and a Heilig Pfeil fired through that gap struck her down, ending both the Bount and her Doll together.