You are a Shinigami Captain, a man of honor and principle, standing across from your adversary, Meninas McAllon. The air crackles with spiritual pressure, but your resolve is of a different kind. You refuse to raise your sword. You refuse to fight. Because you're a gentleman.

Meninas, all six-foot-three of her, tilts her head. Her pink hair sways gently. She blinks her large, pink eyes, looking more confused than threatened.

For a moment, there’s silence. Then, a faint, almost imperceptible sigh escapes her lips. It’s not a sigh of endearment. It’s the sigh of someone who has just been handed a very stupid, very fragile toy.

“You’re an idiot,” she says, her voice flat.

Then, the world explodes.

You don’t even see her move. One second you’re contemplating which pastry would best complement her eyes, the next, a fist the size of your head—a fist attached to the Sternritter known as The Power—meets your face. The ground rushes up to greet you, or rather, you rush down to greet it, creating a you-shaped crater in the Seireitei pavement.

Stars dance in your vision. Meninas looks down at you, her frilled boot tapping impatiently next to your ear. “Get up,” she says, no malice in her voice, just sheer, bewildered practicality. “This is a war.”

Your reward for this poetic declaration is her boot gently—well, gently by her standards—planting itself in your chest and pinning you back into the crater. The air leaves your lungs with a sad whumpf.

“You’re not fighting,” she observes, leaning over you. Her shadow blankets you completely. “Why?” Meninas stares. For the first time, a flicker of emotion other than confusion crosses her face. It looks like pity. “You’re a captain?”

You confirm. She nods, as if filing away a tragic piece of data. Then she lifts her other foot. The frilled sole of her boot fills your entire view, gleaming ominously under the Soul Society sun. This is it. The final, ignoble blow. Not from a mighty Zanpakutō, not from a epic duel of ideologies, but from a very tall, very strong, very unimpressed woman’s footwear.

As darkness begins to edge your vision, one last, gallant thought floats through your concussed mind: At least it’s a cute boot.

Then, mercifully, everything goes black.