"Too brutal!"
"Captain Kyōraku… that man's insane!"
"I swear, he's even more twisted than Mayuri!"
Inside Squad 11's barracks, the heavy air trembled with noise and disbelief.
Ikkaku Madarame's voice cracked as he spoke, the trembling in his hands betraying his nerves. He wasn't the only one. Even veterans who had faced death a hundred times found themselves rattled.
It was too much to take in.
Too shocking, too gruesome, too overwhelming.
Unlike the earlier rankings, Katen Kyōkotsu's performance was not just about spectacle or technical mastery. It was something far darker—an exhibition of suffering itself.
Blood, infection, illness, pain, suffocation, despair—
every kind of human weakness had been twisted into a weapon.
That was Katen Kyōkotsu's true horror: not just power, but cruelty refined into art.
"Yeah…" Yumichika Ayasegawa wiped the cold sweat beading along his temple. His voice was steady, but his tone was filled with reluctant awe.
"Compared to us… compared to Squad 11's way of fighting—pure blade-on-blade, strength versus strength—this kind of rule-based ability is something else entirely. Simpler in execution… but infinitely more violent."
His Zanpakutō, Ruri'iro Kujaku, was itself a rare type—absorbing spiritual energy from its victims. Yet even he could admit, without hesitation, that ten Kujaku together couldn't measure up to Katen Kyōkotsu's lower limit.
And that was before considering its Bankai.
Now, with the battle concluded—
and the divine Quincy, Lille Barro, obliterated by Katen Kyōkotsu's final act—
the eighth-place ranking no longer seemed low.
If anything, it felt frighteningly high.
"So strong…" someone whispered.
"Just the eighth place… and it already ended like this…"
"Then what about my Suzumebachi? Do I even have a chance?"
In Squad 2, the murmurs were quieter but no less shaken.
Sui-Feng stood before the screen, her golden eyes reflecting the last traces of that drowning abyss—the dark sea born of Katen Kyōkotsu's Bankai.
Her lips tightened. Confidence that once radiated from her like lightning was gone.
She had always believed Suzumebachi would make the list someday. Its Bankai, Jakuhō Raikōben, was a living missile, a guided explosion powerful enough to erase mountains. It had seemed certain to her that it would stun the world when its time came.
But now, that belief felt naïve.
Lille Barro's casual light-cannon, a single motion of divine destruction, dwarfed her Bankai a hundred times over.
If that was the scale of power required to stand among the top ten… then what right did she have to expect her name there?
Her pride fought back—refusing to yield—but reason crushed it.
At last she sighed, defeated by simple fact.
From now on, she would stop dreaming of ranks.
She would just watch.
Quietly. Honestly.
On the screen, the battle replayed its final act.
Kyōraku Shunsui moved through the fading water like a shadow returning to daylight. His twin blades shimmered faintly, leaving thin threads of reiryoku drifting in their wake.
Lille Barro still twitched, his vast body trying to rise, his wings half-burned.
But Kyōraku was already there.
He lifted a hand.
The fingers pinched, then flicked outward.
A flash—
a whisper of steel.
"Ghh—!"
The sound of blood tearing through flesh echoed.
The Quincy's throat split open.
Kyōraku's blades cut cleanly through the divine aura that had once made Lille untouchable.
Then came the explosion.
The head burst apart in a storm of light and reishi, a cruelly beautiful bloom that devoured the entire screen.
BOOM!
When the glare faded, nothing remained of the "Closest to God."
The self-proclaimed perfect being had been erased.
The duel was over.
The curtain fell.
And the light of the viewing screen dimmed to black.
"Phew…"
Kyōraku exhaled, shoulders sagging.
"Good… I didn't let anyone down. Not the Gotei 13. Not the old man."
Inside Squad 8's quiet barracks, the tension finally broke.
For a long moment, he simply stood there, letting the silence wash over him.
Even after watching every second of the battle, he could hardly believe it himself.
That he—Shunsui Kyōraku, the lazy captain who'd rather nap than fight—had killed a being above the Shinigami's pinnacle.
Maybe it wasn't him, he thought.
Maybe it was the will of Katen Kyōkotsu itself—
a blade that, when cornered, became something no man could control.
"Yes…"
Ukitake Jūshirō, sitting nearby, nodded slowly.
"After this, no one will question the rankings. But… I am curious."
His expression softened, eyes glinting with a spark of old excitement.
"If Katen Kyōkotsu is only eighth, then who could possibly stand above it?"
Kyōraku looked up at the blank screen, the same question heavy in his chest.
"The Zero Division," Ukitake continued, half-musing to himself.
"Kirio Hikifune, Ōetsu Nimaiya, Tenjirō Kirinji, Senjumaru Shutara… and of course, their leader—Ichibē Hyōsube."
Five names that once guarded the Soul King's palace.
Five Zanpakutō said to rule over concepts themselves.
If those blades appeared next, it would make perfect sense.
Kyōraku's mouth curved into a thoughtful smile.
"If it's them, I wouldn't be surprised. Especially Ichibē… the monk whose Zanpakutō can name all things."
His tone carried respect, but also an edge of unease.
Even if the Zero Division were excluded, Kyōraku could name at least one other blade that deserved the summit—
Ryūjin Jakka, Yamamoto's eternal fire.
Still, that accounted for only one place.
Seven remained.
He couldn't imagine what kind of monsters those next seven blades belonged to.
Just then, the once-black screen flickered again.
Light surged back.
And across the glowing surface, golden words appeared—
their brilliance flooding the room, erasing every whisper of doubt.
[Seventh Place]
Zanpakutō: Nozarashi.
(End of Chapter)
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