"Come on, Love-san, don't be so rigid. With the shopkeeper and Hirako-san here, are you really afraid of hitting anyone else by mistake?" Tsuna said, using Shunpo to appear beside Love Aikawa and patting him on the arm.
"…Well…" Love still hesitated and did not agree right away.
"Just do it, Love," Shinji Hirako said, stepping in to persuade him. "If we really want to train Bankai Hollowfication, this kid might be the best helper we've got."
"…Fine, then. But if you get hurt, don't blame me." Love handed the manga in his hand to Lisa with some reluctance.
Lisa immediately grabbed Hiyori beside her and, along with the other Visored, used Shunpo to pull back and clear the field.
"Let go of me, Lisa!" Hiyori protested.
"Stop messing around. Love's Bankai is no joke. If you fool around, he really can hurt you by accident," Lisa said, pushing up her glasses. She had been lucky—or unlucky—enough to see Love use Bankai once before.
"Now that I think about it, I've never seen Love Aikawa's Bankai myself," Kisuke Urahara said, tapping his palm.
"That happened before you became a captain," Shinji replied. "Love used Bankai when putting down a rebellion in the inner court. He won in the end, but half of Seireitei's buildings were wrecked, and quite a few members of the Seventh Division got caught in it and died."
"After that, Love more or less sealed away his Bankai. He didn't use it even during the experiment a hundred years ago."
"The time Seireitei got half smashed up?" Urahara vaguely remembered that incident. Seireitei had been in total chaos that day, and he himself had taken the chance to dig up quite a few of Soul Society's secrets.
As Urahara and Shinji talked, the field below was left to Tsuna and Love alone.
Love had already seen Tsuna's strength, so he didn't hold back. He released his Zanpakutō immediately.
"Smash it, Tengumaru!"
Tengumaru took the form of a massive cactus-like spiked club. One look at it was enough to tell how destructive it was, yet Love wielded the huge weapon as though it weighed nothing at all.
Looking at Tengumaru, Love once again saw the faces of the Soul Reapers he had accidentally killed back then. Then the image shifted, and the current Visored came into view. Once, he had sealed away his blade for the sake of his comrades. Now, for the sake of his comrades once again, he would use his strongest power.
"Bankai!"
Savage spiritual pressure coiled around Tengumaru, then spread across Love's entire body. A violent gale whipped up, and the air currents wrapped tightly around him. A few breaths later, the currents exploded outward, and Love completed his Bankai.
The ordinary cactus-club was now wrapped in eerie flames that vaguely formed the outline of some monstrous beast. A pair of black wings spread from Love's back, while a suit of rocky armor encased his body. The only exposed part—his face—was now marked with strange lines like some kind of totem.
"Hoshi-hashiri Sai-Gyō Tengu!"
(Running Star, Calamity-Bearing Tengu!)
As the name fell, three enormous spheres suddenly appeared behind him.
Each one was half the size of a football field, floating in the air behind Love and lending him an overwhelming sense of menace.
At first, Tsuna had been about to say Love's Bankai looked rather straightforward. But the moment those three giant spheres appeared, he immediately changed his mind. No matter how you looked at it, three things that resembled planets appearing at once was pretty imposing.
"So this is the Bankai that destroyed half of Seireitei back then?" Urahara said, his face hidden behind his folding fan, unreadable as ever. "The legends say that tengu can chase stars and devour the moon. Some even call falling meteors 'tengu.' The true body of this Bankai isn't the club, is it? It's those meteors behind him."
"As expected of you, Kisuke," Shinji said. "Love's Bankai is actually pretty simple. Every time he swings his Zanpakutō, he can call down a meteor."
"Every time?" This time even Urahara looked surprised. "You mean those three meteors aren't all there is?"
"Of course not. Three meteors alone wouldn't have been enough to wreck half of Seireitei."
Love lightly lifted the club and pointed it at Tsuna.
"Take this, Tsunayoshi Sawada!"
One enormous meteor plunged straight down at Tsuna.
Its momentum was terrifying. Tsuna seriously doubted whether a vice-captain-level fighter could survive even one hit from it. That being the case, he would need to bring out real power of his own as well.
"Bankai. Bear the damage, eliminate the threat, Kaminari…"
Green lightning crackled over his body as his Zanpakutō transformed into an off-road-style helmet. The helmet itself was black, with a bull-head emblem on the forehead, and at the center of the bull's head was the Vongola crest.
This was the Lightning-attribute Bankai:
Vongola Gear – Lightning Helmet Ver. X
As the meteor was about to crash onto his head, Tsuna calmly activated the helmet's power. Its form changed. A giant elongated spiral horn more than a meter long grew from the helmet, while heavy black armor formed over his upper body and limbs.
The Lightning Flame surged directly into the horn, and with a crackling burst, the green electricity extended it even further. Lowering his center of gravity, Tsuna launched himself straight upward into the falling meteor.
Electric Horn!
With a thunderous crash, Tsuna vanished into the meteor head-on. When it slammed into the ground, the shockwave was so immense that Hachigen Ushōda, watching from the side, had to reinforce the barrier to protect everyone else.
Hiyori and Mashiro were shouting at the top of their lungs. They had never seen Love use power like this before. So that manga-obsessed old man really had this kind of terrifying strength?
The scene did not stay settled for long. From within the meteor came a series of crackling sounds, and then the entire sphere shattered apart. At the center of the debris stood Tsunayoshi, horned and completely unharmed.
Of the seven Sky Flames, the Lightning Flame had hardening as its defining property. In this state, Tsuna's defensive power was at its peak. A single meteor—even one this large—was nowhere near enough to kill him.
"Good. Then I can attack without worry."
Love beat his black wings and swung his club as he rushed Tsuna, with another meteor following close behind.
Tsuna showed no fear at all. He bent slightly and rammed himself straight into the incoming club.
Boom!
The collision of the two unleashed an explosion of spiritual pressure so intense that the shockwave tore through the entire warehouse. At the same time, another meteor slammed down directly on top of them.
At that moment, Tsuna finally understood the purpose of Love's heavy stone armor.
It was equipment specifically meant to protect him from his own meteors while he was still engaged in close combat.
As the second meteor crashed down, Tsuna hurriedly spread lightning over his entire body, copying Love's idea and further reinforcing his defense:
Lightning Armor.
"Hachi, stop wasting effort reinforcing just us," Urahara said, pressing down the brim of his hat. "If those two keep fighting like this, the whole space will be destroyed. You, Tessai, and I—stabilize the barrier itself!"
"Understood!"
Urahara, Tessai, and Hachigen immediately began placing Kidō markers around the edges of the warehouse.
"I'll handle the defense here with Rose," Shinji said, stepping up together with Rose to shield the others from the flying rubble and stones blasted out by the fight.
Tsuna and Love continued to exchange blows, while one meteor after another kept falling. The shocks never stopped. Both men simply fought at the center of the devastation, relying on their overwhelming defensive power to withstand the impacts.
At this rate, this won't get anywhere…
Tsuna was starting to find it odd. Did Love really have that much spiritual pressure? Why did the meteors never stop? He needed to find out what was going on.
"Devil Lens of Demon Spade."
Tsuna murmured the name, and a floating monocle appeared over his eye. The moment he looked at Love through it, he understood.
Behind Love's wings was a strange spiritual-pressure space. Inside it were countless meteor spheres, packed so densely they filled the entire dimension. They weren't being created on the spot at all.
No wonder Love's spiritual pressure showed no signs of running dry.
The club in Love's hand was the key that opened that spiritual-pressure space. That was why each swing caused a meteor to fall.
In other words, Hoshi-hashiri Sai-Gyō Tengu was not some Kidō-type Zanpakutō that generated meteors—
it was a spatial-type Zanpakutō.
That was not good news.
Tsuna dismissed Demon Spade's lens. Which meant Love had barely spent any real spiritual pressure fighting him so far.
And there was still another question.
He had now seen the "Running Star" part of the Bankai.
But what exactly was the "Calamity-Bearing" part?
Love was thinking the same thing. He didn't want to stay locked in this stalemate any longer either.
Flames ignited along his club as he flew upward. A tengu-shaped mass of fire streaked across the sky, then one of the meteors crashed into that fire, and a tengu carrying a fireball in its beak dove at Tsuna.
Calamity-Bearing: Meteor!
Tsuna activated the power of the Vongola Gear. The horn on his helmet broadened outward. Then electricity surged through the spiral horn. Because its curved, twisted shape functioned like a coil, passing lightning through it generated an immense magnetic force.
Using that magnetic force, Tsuna could manipulate the iron sand around him.
At the center of the hollow spiral horn, a black pillar formed—an iron horn condensed through magnetism.
Electromagnetic Coil Horn!
Tsuna's offensive power and defense both rose another level. Terrifying bolts of lightning erupted from the horn, wild thunder raging in every direction as Tsuna used Shunpo to charge straight into Love's attack.
The collision detonated instantly. The burning meteor burst apart into countless flaming fragments that rained across the battlefield. The flames continued to burn fiercely, turning the whole place into something like the end of the world.
Love's face grew serious as he flew higher into the air. He could still feel Tsuna's spiritual pressure surging powerfully below. That meant his previous attack had done basically nothing.
It was time to prepare the next move.
The handle of Love's club suddenly extended, tracing a long line of fire across the sky. Then a bizarre spatial opening split open like a Garganta.
Love Aikawa had finally thrown open the full gate to his meteor space.
====================
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