"Captain Zaraki, you're the captain of the Eleventh Division, aren't you? But Minami Yojuro is just a student who has only recently graduated from the Shin'ō Spiritual Arts Academy. Given the difference in your positions, it shouldn't be proper for you two to fight, right?
If it were training within a division, with a captain guiding their own subordinates, then it would count as normal instruction. But as far as I know, Minami Yojuro isn't a member of your division, is he?"
Smiling like the very picture of a Yamato Nadeshiko, Unohana Retsu stood before him. Zaraki Kenpachi's face twisted with genuine disgust.
It wasn't that Zaraki hated Unohana as a person—what he hated was the current Unohana.
Many in the Seireitei didn't know, but Zaraki Kenpachi and Unohana Retsu were old acquaintances.
Zaraki had been born in the worst, most lawless place in North Rukongai, District 80 of Zaraki. He was just a nameless commoner, and only later took "Zaraki" as his surname.
When Unohana Retsu, then the first captain of the Eleventh Division, led her subordinates to the outskirts of Rukongai in search of a warrior who could satisfy her, what greeted her eyes was a mountain of corpses—civilians from Rukongai who had all been cut down by Zaraki's blade.
When she stepped forward to investigate, Zaraki suddenly lunged out and stabbed her just below the collarbone. The two of them immediately clashed in a violent battle. In that fight, Zaraki was slashed across the left side of his face, while Unohana received the scar near her collarbone.
It was in that battle that Zaraki first experienced both the fear and the thrill of combat—terrified that if he killed such an "enemy," he would lose the joy of fighting altogether.
So, without realizing it, he instinctively suppressed his own strength to match hers, just so the battle could continue.
No one knows how that fight truly ended, but by the outcome, Unohana could be considered the loser. After all, Zaraki had been suppressing his power the entire time.
Of course, back then Unohana never released her zanpakutō and fought only with a sealed blade. Even so, she was feared as the strongest "First Kenpachi," a woman whose swordsmanship was said to encompass "eight thousand styles." And yet, even she had to rely on Zaraki restraining himself just to fight on equal footing.
Afterward, upon returning from Rukongai, Unohana willingly resigned from her position as captain of the Eleventh Division, feeling unworthy of the title "Kenpachi"—the strongest swordsman. Her personality shifted dramatically, and she later became the captain of the Fourth Division, a position she has held ever since.
Zaraki didn't truly hate Unohana—in fact, he admired her greatly. A large part of why he became a shinigami and came to the Seireitei at all was because of her.
But he despised the Unohana standing before him now, because he knew she was pretending. She was the same as him—harboring a wild beast within. Yet she had locked that beast away and now faced the world with a false, gentle mask.
"Tch, what a pain. That Minami Yojuro kid—you haven't officially joined the Fourth Division yet, have you? Why not come straight to our Eleventh Division instead?
I heard from Ikkaku that you're also from North Rukongai, and your strength isn't half bad either."
"You've got two choices now. The first is to join the Eleventh Division, fight me openly, and save us both a lot of trouble—I wouldn't have to keep listening to the old man's nagging either.
The other option is that even if you do join the Fourth Division, I'll still come find you to fight. As long as I don't kill you, the worst that happens is I get punished by the old man. And frankly, I don't care."
Hearing Zaraki Kenpachi's words—words that were already less persuasion and more like a threat—Minami Yojuro's face stiffened. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at a certain bald-headed man across from him.
That bald-headed member of Zaraki's crew clearly felt guilty; he didn't dare meet Yojuro's eyes, only bowed his shiny head in silence as if answering with its gleam.
"Captain Zaraki," Unohana's voice cut in, calm yet edged, "this shinigami, Minami Yojuro, has already decided to join our Fourth Division. Your behavior right now is clearly crossing the line.
Should I interpret your actions as the Eleventh Division provoking the Fourth?"
Though outwardly gentle and refined, Sister Retsu had never truly been one with a good temper. With a beast living inside her, lapses into darkness were almost second nature.
She had tried to persuade Zaraki with reason, but he ignored her. Now, threatening a future member of her squad right before her eyes? If Unohana Retsu could remain indifferent to this, then she was no longer the strongest Kenpachi of old.
"How interesting," Zaraki laughed. "If you're willing to be my opponent, then this just gets more exciting!
This pressure… it's been a long time since I felt something like this. Honestly, I never came to the Seireitei to be some shinigami in the first place. Looks like my wish is about to come true after all!"
Ding-ling—ding-ling—ding-ling—ding-ling!
As Unohana's spiritual pressure flared, the bells tied to Zaraki's spiked hair began ringing wildly.
Because of his unusual physique, Zaraki possessed an immense spiritual pressure, yet lacked the ability to sense reiatsu himself. That was why he styled his hair into spikes and tied bells to the tips—so by listening to their ringing, he could gauge the strength of his opponent's reiatsu and decide how much of his own power to unleash for the fight.
Now, watching his bells swing madly as if caught in a storm, Zaraki's face lit up with unrestrained excitement, his fighting spirit blazing.
Unohana's unleashed reiatsu pleased him immensely—it had been so long since he'd felt his blood boil like this!
Without hesitation, Zaraki reached up and ripped off the eyepatch that sealed away his power.
The moment the patch came off, his reiatsu surged like a tidal wave, exploding into the sky as a golden pillar of energy rising from the Fourth Division's recruitment grounds.
Unohana had not intended to clash with Zaraki today. But confronted with the overwhelming force of his released reiatsu, the battle-lust she had buried for years was suddenly ignited again. By the time she realized it, her own reiatsu was roaring out to meet his, forming another towering pillar.
The two captain-level pressures slammed into each other, their collision sending out waves of force like a raging ocean. And caught in the middle, Minami Yojuro and the others were like tiny boats, on the verge of being capsized.
Among them, Yojuro and Yachiru managed better; though buffeted, their spiritual pressures were strong enough to withstand the impact, since it wasn't directly aimed at them.
Ikkaku and Yumichika, though far from weak, had just graduated from the Shin'ō Academy and had never experienced combat on this level. Both were bent nearly double under the pressure, faces red as they struggled to straighten.
As for Kotetsu Isane… the poor girl had already given up entirely, lying flat on the ground in defeat.
°°°
A/N: Rain down some stones, guys