The first to move wasn't the Head Captain. Nor Shinomiya. Nor Ichigo.
It was the flagpole—blown down by the hot wind.
The soft thud was a trumpet. The three exploded forward, bodies vanishing into a higher-speed frame of reality. You couldn't see them—couldn't count the clashes. At first, sparks—then the shock spread outward, gouging a hundred-meter-wide crater. Not deep, but the surface was blackened and crazed. That was just the aftershock of dense reiatsu.
Shinomiya flew back. In midair, a bright blade swelled in his eyes. He forced his body aside to evade what should've been a killing stroke, and twisted into a whiplash kick. Dragon-blooded strength cracked the air.
For the old man, that "killing stroke" had been a casual swing. No wasted motion. No gap between force spent and force gathered. Even so, Yamamoto chose to meet the kick with his left forearm like a shield rather than with his sword. Shinomiya felt like he'd kicked a wall of iron.
Worse—if he blocked with his arm… then where was the blade—
A blood-red streak screamed in. It took Shinomiya's place against the falling sword. The blast rolled. Shinomiya rode the shockwave to open distance, eyes narrowed to slits as if seeing through the glare—and snapped off a "Seven Flash." Seven invisible strands of kidō braided in the air, spearing through the light like a single lance.
While Ichigo had been sharpening his Bankai, Shinomiya had been refining his arts—teasing out new uses. The rapid-fire "Seven Flash" he'd used to shred the Sōkyoku, and now the "One-Moment Sevenfold Kill" that focused all force into a single point for a surprise kill.
"Not bad. But sloppy. Twist them into one rope—and in a few decades, maybe a century—you might push me half a step."
Yamamoto's reiatsu surged. Fire rolled over the flash. Blade level before him, he stood unshaken. The seven threads struck the edge and shattered, skittering aside in showers of sparks.
"Is that so? I like it just fine," Shinomiya said, snapping the scabbard shut to cut the strands and murmuring, "Bakudō #63—Sajō Sabaku."
He'd said before: those threads were compressed kidō—ready-made spellwork. They could even offset the loss from forgoing incantation. He'd poured himself into kidō to master "Sole Flash" and boost its bite. Now the harvest came due.
The broken threads bulged and bloomed into seven solid golden chains that wrapped the Head Captain from head to toe until even his outline vanished.
Silence dropped—then, less than two seconds later, a volcano went off. He blew the bindings apart. His first glance was not at Shinomiya but up—at Ichigo cackling overhead.
"Getsuga… Tenshō~!"
Hollow-White had seized the reins and charged while the Head Captain was bound—and in the instant he broke free, launched a strike. So much reiatsu cloaked the blade it looked to have swelled dozens of times—a pliant column of light like a whip, arcing in a crescent as it lashed, cleaving hot wind and fire—aimed to smash Yamamoto down.
Anomalous reaction, alien reiatsu. It pricked the old man's attention. But this was no time for curiosity. He reversed his blade, and a greater tide of flame swept out, swallowing the light-whip and the Hollow both.
A thread of cold cut the heat. Shinomiya slid in under the fire with "Translucent Dragon Scales." His reiatsu had been honed to such an edge that even a sliver could shatter steel. At that speed, "Sole Flash" was truly blade-without-shadow—like a strike loosed in another world, severing a foe in the past so the wound would appear in the future.
Yamamoto still twisted his head just enough. A few beard-hairs fell.
"Brat!"
He was angry now. His body spun, hips torqued, and the burning blade hammered out like a bat. Wham—Shinomiya became a fireball that cratered the earth and kicked up dust hundreds of meters high.
"Shinomiya!?"
Ichigo—steam rising from him—had reasserted control. He paled.
"I'm fine!"
Shinomiya flashed to his side.
"H-how did you—"
"Shihōin-style secret step, 'Utsusemi'—a body-double trick. I teased it out of Yoruichi last night—not that she expected me to 'get it' on the spot."
The "hot-spring diplomacy" had seen Yoruichi glean much—much that Shinomiya let her glean. Sometimes, the more you know, the more you overthink—until you can only play it by ear. That makes you far less dangerous. They'd also traded some shunpō notes. Rare to meet someone who could keep up; Yoruichi had said a touch more than she meant to—just enough for him to grasp the principle. Once he had that, "secret steps" were just steps.
Even so, wriggling out of the bindings had left him singed and gasping; hair curled, throat scorched by air too hot to breathe.
"Negotiating terms of your surrender?" Yamamoto fell from the sky, blade a live coal, sandals crunching the earth with a sound that made fingers go numb.
"Too early for that," Shinomiya said, blade-sharp.
"Indeed." The old man halted. "Shunpō, hakuda, kidō, zanjutsu—and the tactics you've honed together. Worth my time. But as you are—without even Shikai—in front of me you're dust. One stroke will make you ash."
"Using basics to spar with me—you're a thousand years too early."
"Hurry up. Show me your Bankai—before Ryūjin Jakka burns you so badly you can no longer walk—or hold a sword. That's your only chance. One in ten thousand, perhaps. If I don't crush even that, you won't stop."
The calm statement, lacking mockery, cut worse than scorn—because it was true. The gap was obvious. Reiatsu that could stare down captains was nothing here.
Which left only one path.
"Then we use it," Shinomiya said. He and Ichigo split without hesitation, forming a killing angle. Bankai isn't frightening. What's frightening is how your opponent always gets more frightening after you unveil it. They'd accepted that.
"Haah…!"
Ichigo thrust both hands on the hilt and drove his sword forward, dragging every drop of reiatsu to the surface. His irises burned blue; his robes snapped and boomed. A tight spiral of spiritons whipped around him.
Shinomiya was quieter. He drew—blade and scabbard as one—and stood side-on, left hand steadying his right as if offering the sword to someone—perhaps the future self about to molt. Or as if grasping the blade was like taking hold of the world.
A deep blue sheen spread over him, dusted with a thousand points of matching light.
"Bankai."
"Bankai."
Words of power. Two pillars of blue-black leapt up and pinned sky to earth, coiling the clouds and changing the weather. All Seireitei stilled—heads turned as if to bow to a place in history being made.
....
My Patreon : patreon/RuneA
If you want to read the novel in advance, you can subscribe for early access. I also have many more novels in my collection that you might be interested in
I upload ten novels a day, with 3 to 4 chapters per title depending on the length. If you're following a particular series, please wait your turn a little
If there's a particular novel you're enjoying on Patron, please give it a 'like' so I know to focus on it