"Instead of worrying about gathering scraps of intelligence, you'd better watch that battlefield. Your dear Sensei is about to go all out."
Kurosaki Masaki glanced at Kyoraku Shunsui's self-righteous look and let out a light scoff.
She might not care, but that did not mean she did not understand.
If she truly wanted to hide something or silence them, she would not have said so much from the start.
And even now, she still had not been stopped from speaking in front of Rosse.
Had he really not figured it out yet?
The reason she was allowed to say all this, and say it in front of Rosse, was simple.
From beginning to end, Kyoraku Shunsui was nothing more than seasoning in this entertainment.
"The old man is going all out."
Kyoraku's expression turned serious at once, the sharpness in his eyes vanishing.
He knew very well what role he was playing.
A clown, perhaps. A prop even.
If even a random Espada could crush him, then clearly he was not the one who would turn the tide.
But if there was even the slightest chance of a shift, even if he had to sacrifice his dignity or his life, he would accept it gladly.
He raised his head sharply and locked his gaze onto the center of the battlefield.
There, the terrifying spiritual pressure of the strongest Shinigami in a thousand years finally broke free, like an ancient dragon awakening and tearing through the heavens.
"Bankai! Zanka no Tachi!"
The aged yet commanding voice rang out like something rising from hell itself, every syllable carrying suffocating heat.
A hum… no. There was no sound.
It was as if the world had been muted.
The raging flames that had filled the battlefield vanished in an instant, all of them drawn into that charred, ruined-looking blade.
Then the heavens changed.
The heavy gray sky turned deathly white, as though every cloud had been evaporated in a heartbeat.
This time, without other equal Bankai spaces clashing and canceling it out, the full, world-ending might of Zanka no Tachi descended nakedly upon Soul Society once more after a thousand years.
Sizzle!
The moisture in the air was stripped away in an instant.
The ground of Sokyoku Hill began to crack and pale. The rocks did not melt under the heat.
They turned directly into ash.
The Sokyoku, said to embody a million Zanpakuto, was a joke before this power.
Even brushed by its aftershock, it nearly liquefied.
At that moment, all of Soul Society entered a silent hell of heat.
In Seireitei, Shinigami watching through transmissions felt their throats burn dry even from kilometers away. Lips split and bled as if they stood at the mouth of a furnace.
"The water… it's gone!"
Someone cried out in terror.
The artificial lake below Sokyoku Hill was dropping at a visible speed. Steam barely formed before vanishing.
Even rivers in Rukongai screamed dry. Riverbeds were exposed. Fish became husks.
There was no explosion.
No sea of flames.
Only rising, invisible heat pushing the world toward annihilation.
This was the Bankai of the strongest fire-type Zanpakuto.
Zanka no Tachi!
In Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni's hand, the blackened blade showed no flame.
But to any who could sense spiritual pressure, that was no sword.
It was a miniature sun compressed onto steel.
"Rebellious disciple! Die!"
The shout rang like an ancient bell, shattering the brittle air.
Yamamoto's figure shed the weight of gravity in that instant, wrapped in pressure hot enough to evaporate all things. He became a black streak, like a falling meteor.
His presence was heavy as a collapsing mountain, yet his speed exceeded sight itself.
Even captains could barely trace the distorted path burned into space.
A road of instant death.
"Hah!"
The black blade fell.
No flourish. Just pure, primal slash.
The edge swept through.
The fake Kyoraku did not dodge.
He even wore that lazy smile as the blade cut clean through his body.
Sizzle!
No blood.
The severed form warped like a burned painting, twisted, and vanished.
Yet the strike did not end there.
The invisible heat wave surged onward.
BOOM!
A thousand meters behind, the towering Senzaikyu had no time to tremble. The slash erased a chunk from its center as if wiped away by a giant hand.
The tower's top collapsed.
Dust rose and was instantly vaporized.
"My, my, old man. Still this fiery at your age? Where exactly are you aiming?"
The teasing voice came from the left.
The fake Kyoraku stepped from empty air like a ghost, blade already drawn, thrusting toward Yamamoto's side with no killing intent but deadly precision.
Hiss!
The blade stopped half an inch from the black robes.
A blazing white mantle of flame wrapped Yamamoto's body.
Zanka no Tachi, Nishi(West): Zanjitsu Gokui!
Fifteen million degrees of heat.
The fake Kyoraku's spirit blade began to scorch before touching cloth.
If not for his powerful pressure, a captain-level Zanpakuto would have turned to ash instantly.
"You refuse to use Bankai and think such childish probing can reach me?", Yamamoto snorted, white brows raised.
"Did I teach you to underestimate your opponent? Show me your true strength, rebellious disciple!"
The black blade swept again.
And again, it sliced through flesh that felt like air.
The figure shattered, reappearing dozens of meters away, adjusting his collar calmly.
"This is troublesome. Old man, your Zanpakuto is a bit too much. Even if I didn't fear death, my blade would melt before touching you."
He sighed dramatically, spreading his hands.
The real Kyoraku could not help but twitch at the sight.
"Hey, hey… that's cheating…"
He muttered, though envy flickered in his eyes.
"If I had that kind of composure to tease Old Man Yama, I wouldn't be stuck watching."
But the enraged elder heard none of it.
"Very well. Against you, old man, I suppose I must bring out something real," The fake Kyoraku's levity vanished.
He raised both blades and drove them into the scorched earth.
"Bankai."
The whisper sounded like the start of a ritual.
"Katen Kyokotsu: Karamatsu Shinju!"
Rumble!
The world split.
The white sky of searing light was drenched in ink.
Countless black pine-needle shadows grew like demonic tendrils, tearing into the blazing field.
Black and white.
The sky of Soul Society was cleaved in two.
Even more terrifying, the temperature in Seireitei, which had climbed to near ignition, dropped instantly as the black pine shadows spread.
Not ice.
Not water.
Pure rewriting of rules through pressure and concept.
It suppressed the heat of Zanka no Tachi.
Even a hundred Hitsugayas combined could not achieve this.
"How beautiful. Is this what you imagine my Bankai looks like? It's not an illusion, is it? You really overestimate me," Kyoraku stared up at the scene.
Blazing white day against dark pine night.
Two Bankai domains collided in silence, space groaning under the strain.
Even in his wildest dreams, he had never seen himself rival Yamamoto like this.
"You doubt your eyes, but surely you trust the spiritual pressure that belongs to you?", Masaki smiled faintly.
"How does it feel to stand inside your own unseen domain?"
"Fake is fake."
Kyoraku shook his head slowly.
"This Katen Kyokotsu is just to fool those who don't know better. It's Rosse using this fake body as a medium, pouring his absurd spiritual pressure into spirit particles to forcibly build a counterfeit domain."
He saw it clearly.
This was not rule against rule.
It was brute force.
Rosse was burning through spirit particles to offset Zanka no Tachi's heat.
If Kyoraku faced Hitsugaya's ice Bankai, he could raise the temperature through sheer pressure.
But that was because he far surpassed Hitsugaya.
Yamamoto stood at the pinnacle.
And yet Rosse, through projection, matched him.
'How vast is that pressure?'
'Can even the Soul King at full power do this?'
Kyoraku could not help wondering.
A monster beyond this era.
Unless the Soul King returned at full strength, who could stop him?
And if he was this strong, why toy with ants?
Kyoraku's reasoning approached the surface truth.
But he still could not grasp the core.
He thought within the limits of this world.
Rosse was indeed monstrously strong.
But he had not yet reached the level of shaping rules by pressure alone.
In the true vision seen only by Aizen, Masaki, and a few others, Rosse was no longer a captain in haori.
A silent tremor echoed through souls.
He had awakened his Devil Fruit.
Hito Hito no Mi, Mythical Zoan, Watatsumi form!
His hair had turned silver, flowing like moonlight, each strand glowing faintly.
His body shimmered like woven light and mist, white cloudlike ribbons drifting around him.
Even beneath black and white skies, he was the center.
If Zanka no Tachi was a blazing sun evaporating all waters, Rosse, as Watatsumi, was the endless sea ruling all waters.
By physics, oceans cannot rival stars.
But in the supernatural realm, concepts bow to rank.
Rosse surpassed Yamamoto in spiritual volume and life level.
It was not brute pressure.
It was the sea god's authority neutralizing the sun.
The balance was maintained only for the sake of the performance.
If needed, Yamamoto would not last three moves.
The gulf between SSS tiers dwarfed that between S tiers.
Rosse's divine eyes looked down at the old man below.
'This time—'
'Let's have some fun.'
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