In an abandoned outpost in the East District of Rukongai, Seijūrō finished reading through the past few days' patrol logs, shut the notebook, and leaned against the ruined wall with his eyes closed. The chill of the rubble seeped through his plain clothes and into his shoulder blades. He had been sitting here for several hours, the detector screen inside his sleeve steadily refreshing the reishi concentration data across each area. Most of the curves held steady and normal. Only one coordinate, in the farthest reaches of South Rukongai, decommissioned for decades, had shown a faint, minuscule activation spike in the early morning hours.

He pulled up the historical records and compared them again and again. The coordinate didn't appear on any current maintenance report. Its deregistration date traced back several decades. Yet every so often it would be activated once, and each time it was, soul disappearance reports would surface in the surrounding area. Over the past few months, those abnormal fluctuations had suddenly stopped, as if someone had put their tools away in a drawer ahead of schedule. But tonight it had flashed once more. Not like a continuation of the crimes. More like someone had deliberately left the drawer cracked open.

He knew this might be a trap. But he also knew that if he didn't walk in, the trap would never spring shut, and whoever had set it would simply choose another time, another place, and keep draining the reishi from Rukongai's souls bit by bit. Those souls included students who took notes as earnestly as Aoki, friends who laughed and drank along Nanamagari's bar like Heizō and Okishima, sickly wives like Hisana who searched for a lost sister until their dying breath. He had promised Byakuya to see the investigation through to the end. Promised Hisana he would help her find Rukia. Promised Yoruichi to protect more people, so long as he kept himself safe. Some promises didn't need to be spoken aloud to count.

He pulled his Denreishinki from his sleeve and sent a message to Byakuya Kuchiki.

Then he stood, and headed south along the stone-paved road.

He passed through the East District marketplace, through the North District farmlands. The stone road under his feet gave way to packed dirt, and the dirt gave way to a dust-swept path. In Inuzuri, District 78 of South Rukongai, the road was rutted and pitted, the wooden shacks on both sides falling apart, and the air thick with the dry smell of rot. The entrance to the abandoned node was tucked between collapsed boulders and parched, withered thickets. Weeds crowded its edges, but fresh scrape marks cut through the stone, someone had gone inside not long ago.

Dawn hadn't fully broken when Seijūrō reached the node. A thin layer of dew coated the bushes at the entrance. Scattered across the gravel were pieces of broken dry branches that had been stepped on. The air smelled of freshly disturbed dust. He put his hand on the hilt of the Asauchi at his waist, turned sideways, and squeezed through the half-collapsed stone entrance.

The interior was dark. The reishi lamps on the vaulted ceiling had long since gone out. The only light came from a few faint blue patterns still drifting across the surface of the seal core, casting a faint glow into one corner of the hall. Two figures lay on the gravel floor in Kidō Corps shihakushō, their Reiatsu already gone. Seijūrō crouched and turned one of them over by the shoulder. They were the two squad members assigned to patrol this area, slashed diagonally from collarbone to ribs, clean and decisive.

A figure crouched in the shadows beside the core, back to the entrance, holding a portable reishi jammer and connecting it to the seal core's port. The deletion percentage on the jammer's screen ticked upward, the dim blue progress bar creeping forward block by block. He wore Kidō Corps shihakushō, and his movements were practiced and urgent.

Seijūrō circled around from the side without a sound. The tips of his feet skimmed across the gravel without the slightest noise. Bakudō #4, Hainawa, shot from his fingertips and coiled around the wrist holding the jammer, followed immediately by a strike from the back of his blade to the man's nape. The body snapped rigid. The jammer dropped from his grip, bounced once on the gravel, and rolled to the edge of the core's pedestal. Seijūrō twisted his arm back, pressed him to the ground with a knee against his spine, and clamped his other hand around the man's left wrist.

Only then did he see the face clearly. His own personal guard, Kazuki. Ground stone dust clung to the young face, and a cold smile sat at the corner of his mouth. He didn't struggle. Didn't say a word. He just lay there on the gravel, breathing hard, as if he'd always known this moment would come.

Seijūrō didn't ask him why. With one hand keeping Kazuki pinned, he used the other to pick up the jammer. The deletion progress had stopped at 67 percent. The data source showed that this node had been activated repeatedly over the past several decades, each activation matching a soul disappearance report in the surrounding area. Activating the node required Grand Kidō Chief-level clearance. Kazuki didn't even have the credentials to access the core's operating interface. He was just an errand boy. A pawn pushed to the front to take the fall.

A lazy laugh drifted down from above.

Seijūrō looked up. Mahiru Tokito walked out from the shadows behind the seal core. Her long hair, streaked dark red and orange-yellow, caught the blue light with a cold luster. The hem of her loose outer robe dragged along the gravel. She glanced down at Kazuki, and the stalk of grass at the corner of her mouth shifted direction.

"Well, if it isn't our Vice Kidō Commander."

She looked down at Kazuki pinned beneath Seijūrō's knee, the grass stalk slowly rolling to the other side of her lips. She made no move to help him, and showed no trace of panic. She just leaned against the edge of the seal core's pedestal with her arms crossed, like someone who had just watched a sideshow that hadn't been particularly impressive.

"Do you think you're quite clever." Not a question. Her voice carried that condescending laziness, like a teacher reprimanding a student who'd scored well but insisted on talking back. "You followed the reishi trail all the way here, swept a few nodes with Mayuri Kurotsuchi's detector, caught one guard, and figured you'd cracked the whole case. You always handle things like this—making everything seem so simple. The Kidō Corps barrier system has stood for thousands of years. Every Grand Kidō Chief before me—do you think any of them were easy marks? You're a few decades old. You've been Vice Kidō Commander for barely a few decades. Having talent is fine, but showing too much edge gets you hurt. You think you're uncovering the truth. You're really just stepping into the circle I drew for you. I left you plenty of ways out—all that paperwork, all those reports I pushed onto your desk. Every single one was telling you the same thing: don't stick your nose in, just do your job as Vice Kidō Commander. But you wouldn't listen."

She laughed, not the lazy dismissal from before, but something genuine, touched with real surprise. "Then again, that stubborn streak of yours does suit my taste. To push through that much paperwork for decades and still keep this kind of punctilious temper—that's a talent in its own right. How about this: let's run the Kidō Corps together. I have the authority, you have the execution. Not a soul will be able to wedge themselves between us for the next thousand years. You can keep teaching your students. I won't touch that. What do you say?"

Seijūrō looked at her. The face was still beautiful. Her streaked hair caught the dim blue light, and the curve of her lips was perfectly calibrated. When she said all of this, her tone was no different from how she casually greeted young squad members outside the lounge, easy, offhand, as if she were proposing something that would be good for both of them. His stomach tightened. Not from disgust. From rage. The cold kind, the kind that seeps out from between bones. For decades she had indulged herself inside the Kidō Corps, pushed paperwork onto him, pushed responsibility onto him, used the Grand Kidō Chief's authority to punch hole after hole in the barriers and let Rukongai's souls dissolve into nothing as the reishi drained out of them batch by batch. Aoki had died in the underground reservoir beneath the World of the Living with his eyes still open. Heizō and Okishima had only half-drawn their blades at the Squad 9 camp. Hisana had coughed blood until her final moment, still looking for her sister. While those people were falling, she was enjoying herself with young squad members in some lounge somewhere. And now she was saying all of this as though she were doing him a favor.

"The monopoly you're describing," he said. His voice was flat. "It was built on a pile of uncountable dead souls across decades. The seated officers of the Gotei 13. The nameless souls of Rukongai. The students still sitting in classrooms at the Shin'ō Academy. In your eyes, are all those people just fuel?"

Mahiru Tokito tilted her head slightly, as if deciding whether his question deserved a real answer. Then she raised her right hand and pointed her index finger at Kazuki.

"You take things far too seriously."

A blast of dim blue Hadō fired from her fingertip and hit the guard squarely in the back. Kazuki arched violently forward, small blue flames still sputtering at the edges of the scorched hole punched through his chest. His whole body convulsed once, then he pitched face-first onto the ground. Seijūrō hadn't even had time to release his wrist before the shockwave left the crook of his thumb completely numb.

"Those little moves you made over at Mayuri Kurotsuchi's—I knew, of course. How else do you think Kisuke Urahara ran into trouble back then? Squad 12 has never been airtight. It wasn't then, and it won't be now. That Asauchi you brought today isn't even standard-issue for squad members. Who did you think you were hiding it from?" She turned and walked toward the shadows behind the seal core. A few steps in, she stopped, tilted her head back. "Oh—I'll head back to headquarters first. Package up that body double in your office as evidence. Vice Kidō Commander shot dead while fleeing after his crimes came to light, Grand Kidō Chief upholding justice by rooting out the traitor herself—what do you think of that ending?"

Her silhouette slid back into the shadows. The blue patterns on the seal core flashed violently one last time, and left behind a circular scorch mark on the gravel floor where a miniature Senkaimon had opened. She was gone.

Synchronized footsteps came from outside the entrance.

Squad 10. The patrol security unit. Squad 10 members drew their blades and fanned out around the perimeter, surrounding the scene completely. Isshin Shiba's gaze swept across the three bodies on the ground and finally settled on Seijūrō standing in the middle of them. He pulled an arrest warrant from Central 46 out of his sleeve.

"Vice Kidō Commander Seijūrō Kidōin. You have been reported for damaging the barrier in Inuzuri, murdering fellow officers, and attempting to tamper with the seal core. Please come with us."

Seijūrō turned back. The scorch mark of the Senkaimon had already cooled. Only a thin wisp of pale smoke was still rising slowly from the gravel floor.

When Mahiru Tokito stepped out from beside the fading reishi embers of the Senkaimon, the night wind hit her face and dried the last smear of dust her sleeve had picked up in the passage. Her streaked dark red and orange-yellow hair fanned out behind her, and she took a slow breath of the dry, desolate air outside Inuzuri, slipping a fresh stalk of grass between her lips. She had left Kazuki at the scene and handed Seijūrō to Squad 10. She had slipped free of the abandoned node herself using a short-range Space Transfer technique. The next moves were simple, rush back to headquarters, apprehend the double still sitting in the office processing paperwork, add a written report in her own hand as Grand Kidō Chief, and the treason charge against the Vice Kidō Commander would be nailed down cold. As for how Seijūrō might want to explain himself, Isshin Shiba probably wouldn't give him the time. She had already mapped out what came after: the new Vice Kidō Commander could be chosen from among her own people, and from that point on not a single person across the entire Kidō Corps would dare frown at her again.

Passing through a copse of dead, stunted trees, she stopped.

Ahead, beneath the broken wall of a ruin, stood a man. He wore plain clothes, no captain's haori. Only a kenseikan held his black hair neatly back. Moonlight fell across his face and settled into pale purple eyes that held no expression at all.

Byakuya Kuchiki.

The smile stayed on Mahiru Tokito's face, but the stalk of grass at the corner of her lips had gone still.

She recognized that look. It wasn't the look of a captain scrutinizing a subordinate, or a noble sizing up a peer, or even enemies gauging each other's strength. It was the look of someone standing in snow, watching a white petal fall to the ground at their feet, knowing it was already broken. "Captain Kuchiki, out so late." Her voice stayed languid, the end of the sentence rising slightly. "The night wind in Inuzuri isn't very pleasant. Shouldn't you be at the Kuchiki estate with your wife? If there's nothing here, "

"Mahiru Tokito." Byakuya spoke. Not "Grand Kidō Chief." Her full name. His voice wasn't loud, but every word landed with total clarity on the gravel, like a blade cutting into stone piece by piece. "Setting a trap in Inuzuri to frame another. Draining the reishi from Rukongai's souls for decades. Treating human lives as fuel to be taken at will."

The smile on Mahiru Tokito's face faded a shade. "There's a limit to jokes, Head of the Kuchiki Clan. That kind of talk isn't something to say lightly."

"There is no Kuchiki Clan Head here. No Captain of Squad 6." Byakuya held her gaze. The moonlight cast his shadow long behind him, reaching across the gravel to fall at her feet like a nail driven into the ground. "Only a husband who has come to collect a debt of blood for his wife."

Mahiru Tokito took half a step back by instinct. Behind her was only collapsed rubble and withered briars. Her fingertips curled slightly, Reiatsu gathering in her palm without a sound. How? Seijūrō Kidōin was the only one who knew she was the one behind all of it. Why would Byakuya Kuchiki know?

Meanwhile, on the third basement floor of Squad 12's Technological Development Bureau. Nemu Kurotsuchi stood at the far end of the corridor and gestured without expression toward the storage room. "The shelves in Storage Room 3 need reorganizing. Please come help move things." There was only one squad member in the corridor, middle-aged, unremarkable, the Squad 12 insignia on his arm. He said sure, set down his data pad, and followed Nemu into the storage room. The door shut silently behind him. A slender arm looped around his neck from behind and locked down the carotid artery in an instant. Nemu's movement was quiet and precise, no unnecessary force, no Reiatsu fluctuation, nothing but the most fundamental leverage between bodies. The squad member's frame went rigid, his hands still frozen mid-reach, and his knees gave out.

Nemu released her arm and dragged the unconscious man toward the lab. Before she could open the door, Mayuri Kurotsuchi pushed it open from inside. His gaze passed over her shoulder and dropped briefly to the body still faintly twitching on the floor. The blue nail polish on his fingertips glinted under the lights.

"The reishi circuits in the prefrontal cortex and limbic system are completely intact, memory extraction can produce a full playback within the scope of one week. The brainstem is undamaged, the neural synapses are unbroken, and the duration of consciousness suppression is more than sufficient for us to complete all stress-response tests. We need to extract his brain whole and take a proper look at exactly which memory made him turn on the Technological Development Bureau." There was no anger in his voice. Only a focus that bordered on hunger.

"As expected of Lord Mayuri," Nemu said from behind him, her voice as flat and devoid of inflection as always. "To pinpoint the traitor hidden inside Squad 12 for decades with such precision."

"Spare me the useless flattery." Mayuri didn't look back.

The lacquer box Seijūrō had brought three evenings ago still sat in the corner of the lab counter. The lid was open. The wagashi inside were long gone, leaving only the sheet of edible rice paper that had lined the bottom. Mayuri had picked up a piece back then, taken a bite, and his chewing had stopped for just a moment when he looked down, along the edge of the rice paper, in a line of lean, spare handwriting that had nothing to do with the Kuchiki clan's confectionery note, was a message brief enough to count on one hand: There is a traitor in Squad 12. He had kept quiet about it. Over the next 3 days he retrieved the reishi remnants from all the Technological Development Bureau's surveillance data around the time Kisuke Urahara was exiled, and dug through abnormal data deletion traces buried under dozens of overwritten layers. Whoever had deleted it was exceptionally skilled, virtually every outward-pointing thread had been cleanly severed. But Mayuri had spent 3 days pulling them back one by one, and finally locked onto a name that had been planted here for decades. Consider it repayment for those few sweets. As for who stood behind the man, he didn't care yet. That could wait until he was done with his research.

➤ Next: Isshin Shiba — Steel and Blood

Chapter 37 - Isshin Shiba — Steel and Blood

Squad 10 Captain Isshin Shiba was not in his office today. Three patrol reports sat unsigned on his desk alongside an urgent mission brief that Rangiku Matsumoto had shoved in at some point. He read a few lines, flipped the brief face-down, grabbed his haori, and walked out.

The woodshed behind the barracks held a half-man-tall stack of logs, all old pine hauled in from the Rukongai forest district, dense wood, still heavy with resin. Back at Shin'ō Academy he'd gotten into the habit of chopping wood between duties: prop a log on the stump, split it clean to the bottom in one swing, the crack of it and the burst of pine smell together, quick and done. He'd kept the habit after making captain. Just moved the location.

He'd worked through more than a dozen logs. His Shihakushō sleeves were rolled past his forearms, collar open, a fine sheen of sweat at his temples. The split wood was stacked neat, every piece roughly the same length and thickness, a feel built up over decades. He was bending down to grab the next log when a Squad 10 messenger came briskly into the courtyard, holding a bulletin stamped with the official seal of Central 46, his expression tight.

"Captain. Urgent bulletin, jointly issued by Central 46 and the Grand Kidō Chief."

Isshin took it with one hand, the other still on the axe handle. Woodchips clung to the blade; he scraped them off with his knuckles as he read. The wording was severe, the target explicit: Vice Kidō Chief Seijūrō Kidōin, destroying a barrier at the abandoned Inuzuri node, killing Kidō Corps members, orchestrating soul disappearance incidents over an extended period. Time, location, suspect, casualty count, all of it laid out clean. At the bottom, the Grand Kidō Chief's official signature and Central 46's joint seal.

Isshin leaned the axe against the woodpile and shook the last chips from his sleeve. "Get Rangiku and Tōshirō. Pull a few elites. We move now."

Rangiku Matsumoto appeared in the corridor doorway with half a dried persimmon still in her mouth. Tōshirō Hitsugaya had just finished swordsmanship practice, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead, his blade not yet sheathed. They heard two words, Inuzuri, soul disappearances, and both went still at the same moment. Squad 10 was the patrol and security squad. When something like this happened inside their jurisdiction, that was the end of the conversation.

They moved at a forced march through Rukongai's eastern district. The stone-paved road became rammed earth, then became dust-churned track. Inuzuri was one of the most remote areas of Rukongai; the Gotei 13's patrol presence this far out was stretched paper-thin. The wooden shacks on either side grew more dilapidated the further they went, and something rotten came up from deep in the soil. The entrance to the abandoned node was wedged between several collapsed boulders and a tangle of dead brush, the stone doorway half-caved, fresh gouge marks splitting the cracks between the stones. Isshin made a gesture. The elite members spread out without a sound, sealing off the entrance from every angle. He drew his blade and went in first.

Inside was dark. The Reishi lamps set into the vaulted ceiling had been dead for years; the only light came from a handful of faint blue tracings that still drifted across the surface of the sealing core. Several bodies lay on the gravel floor in Kidō Corps Shihakushō, the blood not yet dry. They had fallen in no particular order, each with a different killing wound, some from Kidō, some from a blade. Isshin's gaze moved across every corpse. The tip of his sword didn't lower once.

Then he saw the figure standing in the middle of them.

Plain gray clothes, black hair, no glasses. Lean build, standing straight, an Asauchi at his hip. His face was calm, not the kind of calm that comes from having just survived a fight. His right hand hung at his side, fingertips lightly dusted with gravel. He raised his head, and his eyes met Isshin's.

Isshin knew this face. Seijūrō Kidōin, Vice Kidō Chief, Kidō instructor at Shin'ō Academy. Decades ago, when Isshin had just made lieutenant of Squad 10, this man had come in to run a Kidō session and taken apart the release angles of Hadō and Byakurai so precisely that every Squad 10 member walked away feeling like they'd wasted years. At captain meetings after that, he always sat in the corner and said nothing, not the sullen kind of silence, just a man with nothing superfluous to contribute. Now that same face stood in the middle of a room full of bodies. The composure in his eyes was sharper than it had ever been. It looked like a sword no one had drawn yet.

"Vice Kidō Chief Seijūrō Kidōin." Isshin's voice wasn't loud, but it carried through the entire hall. "You've been reported for destroying the barrier at Inuzuri, killing your own people, and running soul disappearance incidents over an extended period. This bulletin is jointly issued by Central 46 and the Grand Kidō Chief. The evidence is clear. Come with us."

While he spoke, Rangiku and Tōshirō had already moved to seal the two branching passages inside the node, one each. The elite squad held every exit around the hall's perimeter. Isshin's grip on his Zanpakutō stayed steady. No drop in alertness. No hesitation because this was someone he recognized. That wasn't how this worked. Squad 10 went by the rules: bring the man in, let Central 46 sort out right and wrong. But he was waiting. Waiting for Seijūrō to explain what he was doing standing here, who had killed these people, and why a node that had been abandoned for decades had been activated tonight.

"Captain Shiba." Seijūrō's voice wasn't loud, but it carried the same way. "I'm not a criminal, but the situation is not ordinary. The accusations on that bulletin are false. The real culprit just left this place. I need half an hour. After half an hour, everything will be clear."

"No." Isshin's answer was immediate, no hesitation, no hostility, just a statement of fact. "The arrest warrant from Central 46 is in my hands. The bulletin has the Grand Kidō Chief's official signature. You're a suspect. Protocol says you come with us now. Whatever you need to say, you can say it to Central 46."

"Then I'll have to resist." Seijūrō's hand moved to the hilt of the Asauchi at his hip. His voice stayed level. "I'll try not to kill anyone. But if someone in Squad 10 tries to kill me — I'll take that as evidence they're working with the real culprit. And I won't hold back."

Isshin was quiet for a moment.

Then he brought his Zanpakutō down from his shoulder, held it at his side, and a faint smile crossed the corner of his mouth. "Rangiku, Tōshirō — take the squad, seal off the scene. Check this node thoroughly for traps, mechanisms, anyone still hiding. This spot is mine." Both of them answered at once. Isshin turned back to Seijūrō and brought his blade up in front of him.

He didn't know why he'd agreed to this. The bulletin was ironclad. By procedure he should have taken the man in custody on the spot, no conditions offered, no terms negotiated. But when Seijūrō had said those words just now, he hadn't looked to see how anyone else was reacting. Hadn't raised his voice. It came out the same way a man states a fact: if any of you strike to kill, I won't hold back. Not a threat. A line. When a man is wanted by Central 46, surrounded by a squad, standing over a room full of corpses, that's when survival instinct does its worst work. It warps you. Bends you out of shape. But this man looked exactly like he had decades ago, standing in front of a Squad 10 training session: methodical, contained, every step placed squarely on the line he'd drawn for himself. Someone who could still hold that line at a moment like this, Isshin wanted to know what that resolve was actually made of.

Seijūrō did not draw his blade. His hand came back to his side. Reiatsu gathered at the soles of his feet. His gaze settled on Isshin's shoulder.

Isshin moved fast. The gravel under his feet blew out in a ring of gray-white dust as he drove forward with a captain's full burst, blade slicing down from the upper right, clean, no wasted motion. Seijūrō pivoted, grinding the tip of his foot half a step to the left. Bakudō #8, Seki, erupted between them in a circular barrier and knocked the blade aside by less than a fist's width. The edge caught his sleeve and left a shallow cut across the fabric. He didn't retreat. The instant the Seki barrier broke apart, his right hand came up and Hadō #4, Byakurai, fired from his fingertips straight at the wrist holding Isshin's blade. Isshin flicked his wrist and smashed the bolt apart with his pommel, using the recoil to step back half a pace. The moment his feet touched gravel he detonated his Reiatsu and came around Seijūrō's left side with a horizontal slash. Seijūrō didn't turn. Bakudō #62, Hyapporankan, shot straight up from the ground behind him, pale blue pillars of light rising like a wall and catching the blade. He used the cover to leap forward several paces, opening distance as the second half of an incantation left his mouth, Hadō #58, Tenran. A tornado tore out of his palm, pulling gravel and dust into the gale, and the air in the entire hall shook.

Isshin split the wind-wall with a single slash and came out the other side. But before his blade could descend, the tornado's wake had already ripped up the ground between them, destroying his footing. He had to adjust his Shunpo landing point, and in that one small gap, Seijūrō was already chaining the next Bakudō. Bakudō #61, Rikujōkōrō. Six beams of light shot from the void and locked in on Isshin's torso from six directions at once. Two slashes shattered four of them. He pushed through the gap.

He landed on a patch of gravel and knew immediately something was wrong. This wasn't rubble from the Tenran. It was the stones turned up earlier by Daichi Ten'yō. He glanced down. The ground beneath his feet surged upward, as if gravity in the entire hall had lost its direction. Hadō #57, Daichi Ten'yō, peeled this section of flooring away from the ground, tiles and gravel and dust lifting into the air together, suspended. Isshin lost the earth beneath him. He stepped off the air on Reishi and jumped for the space above, and Sōkatsui's burst of flame detonated right in front of his face. He flipped and cut through the blast, but Seijūrō was already below him waiting, lightning at his fingertips, and Byakurai lanced straight up at the wrist of his sword hand from the unguarded side.

The sequence had no gaps in it. Tenran disrupted the ground. Bakudō sealed off his movement options. Daichi Ten'yō and Sōkatsui dismantled his aerial footing. Byakurai came in for the finish from the one angle he couldn't cover. Every step landed exactly where Isshin Shiba was least comfortable receiving it.

He took the Byakurai in midair. The bolt detonated against the spine of his blade. As his body dropped, he let go of the hilt, hit the ground palm-first, rolled to shed the impact, and came back up with a few threads of dark smoke curling off his shoulder. He looked down at his singed sleeve. Raised his head.

And laughed. "Haha—!" Not mockery. Not the kind of noise that spills out of someone who's lost control. The deep, clean, involuntary laugh of a man who's just found out his opponent has been sitting on something very good. "Kidōin! You son of a — when did you put all this together? Isn't Kidō supposed to be cast from a fixed stance? Why does every single move of yours either blast or blow up right under my feet?!"

Seijūrō said nothing. His breathing was even, several tears in his clothes stirring in the remnant wind. His Reiatsu hadn't shifted once.

Isshin turned the blade in his hand. Gripped it again. Nodded. "Pushing me this far and you still haven't drawn on me — any more of that and I'd be insulting you. Burn to ashes, Engetsu."

Reiatsu exploded outward from his entire body. Crimson patterns along the blade burst into actual flame, heat pouring off the steel in every direction, and the temperature of the hall climbed several degrees in an instant. He rested the released Engetsu across his shoulder. Firelight played across the hard line of his jaw. He grinned.

"Let's see how long you last."

➤ Next: Bankai: Senbonzakura Kageyoshi