"How dare you face me without even drawing your Zanpakutō!"
Furuoki's fury boiled over.
His blade had unleashed a seething magma lion the size of a hill, yet Aiyan—this fledgling Shinigami—stood there, hands in pockets, completely unarmed, utterly unbothered.
For a man who had fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Yamamoto Genryūsai himself, who had faced the Yhwach in Quincy war—
—to be treated this lightly?
Unthinkable.
Unforgivable.
BOOM!
Suddenly—a flash of black light.
From Aiyan's eyes surged the flames of Amaterasu—at first no more than a flickering wisp.
But in less than a thousandth of a second, that thread of fire exploded—spreading with cataclysmic force, multiplying its intensity a thousandfold. The tide of black flame rushed outward like a collapsed dam, a sea of annihilation pouring forward to consume the approaching molten lion whole.
HSSSSSSHH—
White mist hissed violently into the air.
Amaterasu and magma collided.
Hadō and Zanpakutō clashed.
The temperature of the surrounding space instantly rose beyond measurable limits.
The ruins of the Tsunayashiro estate, already devastated by battle, were now utterly engulfed in black and crimson hellfire. No structure remained untouched. Stone, floorboards, pillars—everything—melted into molten sludge, vaporizing in the heat.
Tsk.
A brief moment of deadlock—and then the lava lion, once towering like a small mountain, began to melt. Not dissolve—melt, like butter on a skillet.
The magma meant to incinerate everything... was being burned away.
Amaterasu reigned over it.
The flames enveloped the molten beast like a giant divine palm and—fwoosh—reduced it to cinders.
Then, like a tidal wave crashing ashore, the black fire swept past the lion's remains and surged toward its master—Furuoki Otagawa.
WHOOSH—!
A hundred meters away, atop a blazing, fractured pillar, a charred figure leapt free from the inferno.
Furuoki.
His robes scorched black, his skin blistered and cracked, steam rising from every pore.
He had escaped with Shunpo—barely.
Decades of battlefield instinct, thousands of life-or-death fights, unbreakable reflexes—that alone saved him.
He didn't even bother checking his wounds.
His first act was to turn, senses flaring, to face the black inferno that had swallowed his creation whole.
Even with his eyes shut — he felt it.
Shikkoku no Ryōken had been obliterated.
"No... impossible!"
"That tiny Hadō — released without even chanting...!"
"It burned through the magma of my Zanpakutō — Shikkoku no Ryōken — like paper?!"
"This is... this is absurd!"
His voice trembled—cracked—with something he hadn't felt in centuries.
Fear.
He had seen this before.
Thousands of years ago.
The only flame that ever challenged his lava...
Ryūjin Jakka.
"Is it possible...?"
"That brat—just casually throws out Hadō, and the heat rivals... Genryūsai's Zanpakutō?!"
His mind reeled. Sweat poured from his chin despite the cold rage in his voice.
He had dismissed Aiyan as a boy. A talented one, yes. Maybe even stronger than most captains.
But a child, nonetheless.
Yet now—
This child's Hadō burned magma.
It was the same sense of powerlessness he had once felt... when facing Yamamoto himself for the first time.
"Why are you backing off?"
Aiyan's voice cut through the smoke, calm, amused.
"Didn't you say I had no right to leave here alive?"
"If you want to swing that sword, shouldn't you get closer first?"
FWOOSH—
The black flames of Amaterasu suddenly split in two, opening like gates of hellfire.
A corridor formed, lined on either side by walls of flickering black.
Aiyan walked down the center, step by step, as if welcomed by the inferno.
His golden light still blazed around him like armor.
A king walking through flames.
A god among ashes.
"Aiyan...!"
Furuoki's expression twisted.
He had retreated.
Just now—he ran.
If he hadn't, he would've been burned into nothingness.
No matter how powerful, the strongest of the First Generation was still made of flesh.
Still mortal.
"Still calling me a kid?" Aiyan asked with a soft laugh.
Furuoki's face darkened.
"I advise you... show some respect for your elders!"
"When I was a captain of the Gotei 13, you weren't even a spirit fetus!"
"Aiyan Sōsuke!!"
With a roar, Furuoki surged forward.
Both hands on the hilt of his Zanpakutō, magma gushed from its blade—but this time it didn't unleash like before.
This time, it condensed, wrapping tightly around the steel, expanding outward—
A blade forged from pure lava.
"True, even I must admit... your flame burns hotter than my magma."
"But—!"
"Did you think Shikkoku no Ryōken only had high temperatures?"
Before the words had finished—
He leapt high into the air.
And then, with both hands, brought down a massive cleaving strike.
The molten energy expanded, forming a sword of searing lava dozens of meters long, slicing downward like a fiery guillotine.
"Sakuren no Homura-giri!"
BOOOOOOM—!
Before the lava blade even made contact, the heat alone scorched the earth in a hundred-meter radius. The stone cracked. Smoke burst from the ground.
This was annihilation.
"Lava?"
Aiyan tilted his head slightly.
"You still don't understand."
"Amaterasu... is your Zanpakutō's superior."
He looked up—not a flicker of panic in his eyes.
Not a twitch of hesitation.
As the lava blade descended like divine punishment from the heavens, he slowly lifted his right arm.
The golden light surged.
It leapt from his limbs like sunlight poured into crystal, merging with the flames still burning along both sides of the corridor.
Then—
WHOOSH—
From the fires of Amaterasu rose a massive blade—black as void, seething with flame—identical in form to Aiyan's own sword, but a hundred times its size.
Hadō Forbidden Technique · Flame Control.
His right arm extended, golden light fusing with the spectral sword of flame.
Photons and fire became one.
Then—he struck.
FWOOOOSH—!
Two blades.
One of magma, erupting with volcanic fury.
The other of Amaterasu, black fire that consumed even magma.
They collided—
No thunderous crash.
No earth-shaking shockwave.
No long struggle for dominance.
Just a clean, swift—
SNAP.
Like silk being torn.
CRACK—
Furuoki's molten blade was cleaved clean in two.
It melted midair, the pieces dissolving before they even hit the ground.
...
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