"Open your eyes, Kōfūin."
Aiyan whispered, and upon hearing his call, the Zanpakutō in his hand disappeared, leaving only a curl of golden light falling onto his right arm.
From a distance, it looked like a photon fist-blade made entirely of golden Reiatsu, just enough to cover the palm of his hand.
"Is this your Bankai?"
"Completely different from what I expected."
"This is the first time I've seen such a small Bankai."
Furuoki Otagawa closed his eyes and looked at the golden light covering Aiyan's right hand through Reiatsu perception.
"Do not misunderstand."
"This is nothing but my Shikai."
"Still half Shikai."
Aiyan noticed that Furuoki Otagawa had clearly misunderstood something, so he clarified.
"In a fight with me, are you going to use this little Shikai instead of Bankai?"
Furuoki Otagawa's face instantly darkened when he heard this.
He had come prepared for a heart-pounding battle to the death after a nearly thousand years of stillness.
After all,
Seireitei had long been suppressed by Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni. As early as a thousand years ago, he had noticed that something had changed in the man, and once the Gotei 13 changed as well, he no longer wished to remain a captain.
There were too many rules and restrictions—it simply wasn't worth it.
This was precisely why he hadn't fought with his full strength for a nearly thousand years.
"I only said you were qualified to die under my Zanpakutō. I never said I would use Bankai to fight you."
Aiyan couldn't help but laugh when he heard this.
"You mean I'm not worthy enough for you to use Bankai!"
Though Furuoki Otagawa was still smiling with that eerie grin, his expression twisted with rage.
"You probably want to die under my Bankai. You're a thousand years too early."
"Even if you're the captain of the First Generation Tenth Division."
Aiyan corrected calmly.
"Really? I understand."
"In response to your arrogance—"
"I will use this Scorching Hell, second only to Ryūjin Jakka in the fire-type category, to burn every inch of your body to ashes."
Furuoki was completely enraged.
He dashed and flashed forward, cloaked in overwhelming heat, charging directly in front of Aiyan. His blade swept outward, unleashing a lava slash wave hundreds of meters long straight at him.
Driven by fury, he held back nothing.
Every movement revealed the savagery of a First Generation captain who once slaughtered countless Quincy in the war in a nearly thousand years ago.
Facing the enormous wave of lava, bearing down like a mountain, Aiyan's eyes flickered with amusement. Then, without hurrying, he stretched out his hand and thrust forward ten times, his two fingers pressed together.
Poof—
The golden light surging in his palm erupted instantly, expanding across hundreds of meters like a divine slash that cleaved the lava wave in half from heaven to hell.
Clang!
After slicing the molten wave cleanly, a golden slash surged forth like a holy sword, landing directly in front of Furuoki, whose face remained as calm as water.
In that fleeting moment, a thousand years of battle-honed instinct exploded into motion.
Though stunned by Aiyan's ability to sever the lava slash with just a flick, his body moved ahead of his mind. He instinctively raised his blade, gathering searing Reiatsu to block the incoming golden slash.
Boom—!
Swords clashed.
It felt like a dream—returning to a time a thousand years ago, standing before Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni at his peak, facing the full might of Ryūjin Jakka.
That boundless sharpness. That lightning-fast sword speed.
Everything about it chilled the bones of the First Generation Tenth Division captain.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sparks burst like blooming flowers. Reiatsu, fierce as a mountain torrent, surged from both sides. Holy sword slashes and hellish lava collided, turning the barrier into a storm of scarlet and gold—until nothing else existed.
Snort—!
A low grunt echoed.
Furuoki Otagawa held his blade with one hand. His lava-formed arm braced behind it, struggling to hold back the golden slash at point-blank range. Even as steam rose from under his feet in midair, he couldn't stop his body from being pushed back.
Boom—!
He was flung back a hundred meters.
Crashing into the sea of fire and magma born of his own Bankai, a towering wave of lava erupted from the impact before he finally managed to steady himself.
"Is this really Shikai…?"
"How long has he been training?"
"I heard that kid Nakahara mention this new captain named Aiyan Sōsuke… has only trained for less than a year!"
Furuoki's hand gripping the blade trembled uncontrollably. He sucked in a sharp breath.
This was far more terrifying than the Taimatsu used by Yamamoto Genryūsai holding his Zanpakutō.
And the most outrageous part—Aiyan's time in training.
Not even one year.
Compared to himself, it wasn't even a fraction.
"Shikai… is enough to defeat you."
While Furuoki reeled in fear, Aiyan, still hovering calmly in the sky, raised a foot and took a step forward. His figure vanished in a flash of golden light that split the heavens—reappearing above Furuoki in an instant. With fingers pressed together into a palm strike, he descended.
Clang!
Golden light exploded. The holy sword raged downward.
The air was split clean through—so was the lava.
At the deepest part of the scorched sea of magma and fire, a lone figure clutched a blade, pinned against a ground turned blood-red by lava, barely managing to withstand the crushing golden strike.
Click—
Poof—
Two sounds like tearing silk followed.
With the first, the ground beneath Furuoki's back cracked apart.
With the second, the golden slash forced its way past his Zanpakutō, cleaving through his Scorching Hell Bankai, and carved a wound deep into his chest—down to his organs.
Blood burst from his body, staining the parting sea of lava in crimson as white smoke hissed into the air.
"Hiss—!"
Sensing it through Reiatsu perception alone, Tōsen Kaname couldn't help but draw a cold breath.
Just two casual swings.
The first sent Furuoki Otagawa crashing down from the sky.
The second sliced the skies, the sea of fire, and even the earth beneath, leaving a proud, sharp rift across the battlefield.
Furuoki—bloodied. Pinned to the molten floor.
"Speed of light…"
"…Sharp as a holy sword…"
"Is this… really Shikai? Wait—didn't he say… this is only half Shikai?"
Gasping from the pain, Furuoki nearly froze.
A second slower—no, even a thousandth of a second—and his body would've been split clean in half like the very lava and heavens around him.
Then it hit him.
Aiyan had said earlier: this was only half of Shikai.
He'd been too furious to pay attention at the time. Now, that sentence came crashing back—and he broke out in a cold sweat.
As if answering his panic…
The one thing he feared most finally came.
After slashing Furuoki Otagawa into the ground, Aiyan did not flash forward again. Instead, he opened his left hand.
"Close your eyes, Kōfūin."
The instant he spoke, the scabbard at his waist vanished—just like the Zanpakutō had before.
It seemed…
The blazing holy sword of golden light was the blade.
And the dark shadow of Kōfūin in its black flame form was the scabbard.
Only a holy blade capable of holding all darkness… could sheath the sword that severs everything.
Now, with his complete Shikai awakened.
Aiyan raised his left hand, palm up, and a single wisp of dark flame coiled forth.
It was no larger than a palm. Yet the moment it ignited, the surrounding air turned suffocatingly dense. Terrifying gravity surged outward, spreading like molten mercury flooding the battlefield, warping even the sky—until the atmosphere rippled in terrifying waves.
...
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