"You still expect me to believe it wasn't you? Do you truly take this old man for a fool?"
Yamamoto finally lost his temper and swung his cane straight at Kazuma's head.
"How could it possibly have been me? This Zanpakutō spirit is falsely accusing an innocent man! Did she actually see me do anything?"
Kazuma smoothly stepped back and dodged the blow.
Then he rounded on Sode no Shirayuki.
"Stop talking nonsense! What do you mean those nine stars suddenly appeared? They were clearly part of your power from the beginning. You're trying to frame me!"
In a flash, he grabbed Sode no Shirayuki by the collar and lifted her off the ground, making no attempt to hide that he was intimidating the witness.
"I-I don't know! I truly don't know!"
Sode no Shirayuki trembled in terror.
Somehow she broke free from Muramasa's influence and fled straight back into Rukia's inner world.
"It seems you're overdue for some loving discipline."
Yamamoto flexed his fingers.
"Chōjirō, Kōga — drag him back to the First Division."
It had been a long time since the Captain-Commander had properly exercised his fists, and he had no objection to using Kazuma as a punching bag.
"This is slander! I'm going to sue you for defamation!"
Some men soften with age. Kazuma had softened everywhere except his mouth, which stayed as stubborn as ever.
He was a perfect example.
Chōjirō and Kōga each seized one of his arms and began hauling him away.
"Teacher, grudges should be settled with the right person, so please remember who ordered this."
Kōga hurriedly defended himself before Kazuma could take revenge later.
"It isn't that your disciple is being unfilial. The Captain-Commander gave the command, and I'm merely carrying it out."
He was still being overly optimistic.
Given Kazuma's personality, no amount of advance warning would save Kōga from suffering afterward.
Yamamoto's group gradually disappeared into the distance, leaving Byakuya and the others behind in an awkward silence.
"Well, the matter is settled. We should leave."
After a long moment, Byakuya finally broke the silence.
"Renji, we're returning."
He turned toward his lieutenant, only to find Renji still rooted firmly in place.
Renji's hand was wrapped so tightly around his Zanpakutō that the hilt creaked beneath his grip.
"Rukia, fight me!"
He clearly had no intention of leaving.
His gaze stayed fixed on her, burning with a fierce desire to test himself.
'What's gotten into him? Why does he suddenly want to fight me?'
Rukia blinked at the unexpected challenge.
She turned toward Renji, whose expression was far more complicated than usual, and couldn't understand what had prompted it.
"Very well."
Byakuya stopped walking as well.
"I also wish to see what you've learned under Kazuma."
He'd never personally watched Rukia fight.
Her reiatsu might have grown tremendously, but combat wasn't decided by spiritual power alone.
Naturally, there were exceptions.
Kazuma, Aizen, and Yamamoto were among those who could simply crush most opponents through overwhelming power.
"All right. I want to know how strong I've become too."
Rukia had only just mastered Shikai, and her hands were already itching for a fight.
Since Renji had volunteered to be her sparring partner, she had no reason to refuse.
...
Under Tetsuzaemon's guidance, the group entered Kazuma's private training ground.
The entire arena had been built from Sekkiseki, letting it contain the spread of reiatsu and withstand battles beyond captain level.
Rukia and Renji could fight at full strength without damaging the surrounding division.
"Roar, Zabimaru!"
Renji released his Zanpakutō the moment the match began.
He wasn't overreacting. Rukia had already reached roughly his level, and without releasing Zabimaru, he honestly doubted he could handle her.
"Oh…"
Zabimaru spun through the air like a massive windmill as Renji brought it down toward her.
Rukia had formidable reiatsu and excellent Zanjutsu, but she lacked Renji's practical combat experience.
From the opening exchange she found herself pressured onto the defensive, forced to weave constantly through Zabimaru's attacks.
She slipped sideways past one strike, drew her blade in the same motion, and caught the following horizontal sweep with a flash of steel.
Renji twisted his body with practiced agility, changing the angle of attack and bringing Zabimaru down from above.
Rukia leaped backward to make distance, but Renji followed at once, refusing to let her escape.
Forced to retreat while defending, Rukia gradually began reading his rhythm.
She focused on the path of each movement, and just as Zabimaru was about to reach her, she darted sharply to the left and slashed into the extended blade.
The impact knocked Zabimaru aside.
At first glance the strike seemed unremarkable, but it had landed precisely on one of the joints connecting Zabimaru's segmented sections.
The power behind it was equally shocking.
The impact numbed Renji's palm and nearly tore the weapon from his grip.
Rukia seized the opening and vanished with Shunpo.
She reappeared directly in front of him, her blade cutting toward his face.
Renji's eyes widened. He threw himself backward just in time, but the strike still sliced open the front of his shihakushō.
"Damn. That's some terrifying swordsmanship."
A tremendous force kept vibrating through Zabimaru, making it feel as though the weapon were trying to tear itself free.
Renji gritted his teeth and abandoned his one-handed grip, clutching the hilt with both hands.
If Rukia landed another solid blow, he feared he'd no longer be able to hold onto his own sword.
Rukia only grew more confident as the fight went on.
She still hadn't released her Zanpakutō, yet her relentless attacks left Renji struggling to defend. He was driven steadily backward under a storm of flashing steel.
For all the ferocity of her strikes, however, every one of them was carefully controlled.
Rukia judged the force and distance of each attack with extraordinary precision.
She drove Renji into an increasingly miserable position without inflicting any real injury.
Renji was too absorbed in the battle to notice.
Byakuya and Tetsuzaemon, watching from the edge of the arena, had already exchanged a grave look.
At first, when Renji took a direct hit without being injured, they assumed it had been a coincidence.
As the match went on, though, the truth became impossible to ignore.
Rukia was doing it deliberately.
Controlling the strength, angle, and stopping point of every slash with such precision showed an astonishing level of Zanjutsu.
"Judging by swordsmanship alone, I may not be her equal."
Tetsuzaemon glanced at Byakuya in surprise.
Byakuya was hardly known for freely admitting anyone surpassed him.
For those words to come from his mouth meant Rukia's Zanjutsu had truly reached a frightening level.
...
"This is the first time I've truly understood how terrifying the captain is."
Tetsuzaemon was an all-rounder skilled in all four basic Shinigami arts — Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hohō, and Kidō.
With his experience, he could easily tell that his swordsmanship and Rukia's no longer belonged on the same level.
Kazuma rarely fought seriously, which had given many people the mistaken impression that his strength came mainly from his immense reiatsu and Zanpakutō.
Yet Rukia's Zanjutsu alone was already this frightening.
Just how powerful must the teacher who trained her be?
"Renji, you're not doing very well!"
Renji's face visibly reddened.
To Rukia it was merely a casual observation. To him it sounded like blatant mockery.
A man could tolerate being criticized for many things, but being told he couldn't perform was absolutely unacceptable.
That struck directly at his pride.
"Bankai! Hihiō Zabimaru!"
Embarrassment turned to anger, and Renji stopped holding back.
He refused to believe even his Bankai would fail to defeat Rukia.
An enormous skeletal serpent appeared before her, but Rukia showed no fear whatsoever.
It was only Bankai.
She'd simply fight it head-on!
"Dance, Sode no Shirayuki!"
Using Shikai against Bankai — Rukia truly was Kazuma's disciple through and through.
Neither teacher nor student could be judged by ordinary standards.
"At this rate, Soul Society will gain another monster before long," Tetsuzaemon muttered.
Both Rukia and Renji's reiatsu had risen into the third tier, but one was using Shikai while the other required Bankai.
The difference was obvious.
"Hikotsu Taihō!"
Renji's eyes widened as he roared the name of his technique.
Reiatsu rapidly gathered inside the serpent's skull, crimson light flashing around its jaws as though it might tear the surrounding air apart.
This was one of his deadliest attacks. Once fully charged, its destructive power was tremendous.
He intended to make Rukia suffer a little and show her what true cruelty looked like.
Unfortunately, he'd overlooked the technique's greatest weakness.
Hikotsu Taihō took far too long to charge.
"Some no mai, Tsukishiro!"
Rukia softly called out the technique's name.
Sode no Shirayuki became a streak of white light as its tip swept rapidly across the ground.
In the blink of an eye, a vast circular freezing zone spread outward with Rukia at its center.
Bone-chilling cold flooded the entire area, as though it could freeze every living creature inside into a sculpture of ice.
A piercing chill struck Renji head-on.
It felt like countless needles stabbing straight into his bones, making him shudder uncontrollably.
His heart tightened as he immediately realized the danger.
If he stubbornly kept charging Hikotsu Taihō, the cold would reach him before his attack was ready.
Renji made his decision instantly.
He abandoned the technique and shot backward at full speed.
The moment he escaped the edge of the frozen circle, a white ring of light rose from the ground and an enormous pillar of ice surged toward the sky.
Cold sweat ran down Renji's back.
Had he been even a fraction slower, he'd have become a human popsicle.
'I can't fight Rukia up close. I need to keep my distance.'
Renji's mind still worked well under pressure, and he immediately revised his strategy.
Gripping Zabimaru tightly, he began using the weapon's tremendous reach to its fullest.
He moved around the arena like a phantom, launching fierce attacks from unpredictable angles whenever he spotted an opening.
Yet for all his effort, he couldn't touch so much as the edge of Rukia's clothing.
"What kind of footwork is that?"
Byakuya's eyes widened as he watched from the sidelines.
Rukia moved with a mysterious, exquisitely precise rhythm, her body light and graceful as a dancer gliding through falling snow.
Faced with Renji's relentless barrage of slashes, she always shifted aside at exactly the right moment.
Sometimes she merely turned her body; at others she glided or leaped away, effortlessly letting every attack pass through empty air.
That mysterious technique was one of the abilities granted by the Nine Stars of the Northern Dipper: Hokuto Shichiseihō, the Seven-Star Steps.
Ever since receiving the power of the Nine Stars, Rukia's mind had become noticeably quicker and sharper.
Without consciously realizing it, she'd begun working the Seven-Star Steps into actual combat, producing results far beyond anything an ordinary fighter could imagine.
More remarkably, these complex movements were entirely instinctive.
Rukia didn't even realize she was performing such an extraordinary technique.
Byakuya himself had exceptional talent in Shunpo.
As a child he'd learned the secret technique Utsusemi from Yoruichi. Later he developed Senka and eventually learned Shunshin 1.0 from Kazuma.
His eyes stayed fixed on Rukia's every movement, trying to memorize the strange pattern of her steps.
Her movements were fluid, yet the path of her feet was bizarre and nearly impossible to predict. It was a technique he'd never seen or heard of before.
'Did Kazuma teach her this as well?'
Byakuya was deeply shaken.
Kazuma might behave like an unreliable fool most of the time, but his ability to train students was undeniable.
Rukia had clearly learned far more from him than any of them had expected.
Of the four basic Shinigami arts — Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hohō, and Kidō — her ferocious swordsmanship and elusive movement had both reached an extraordinary level.
They might even have surpassed his own.
Before the Aizen incident, Rukia's strength had been comparable to an average seated officer, perhaps around third seat.
Yet after only a short time, she'd improved to this astonishing degree.
It hardly seemed possible.
'Could that mysterious star power really have transformed her so completely?'
The thought briefly crossed Byakuya's mind, but he quickly dismissed it.
Even with an enormous external boost in power, no one could reach this level of skill without grueling training and instruction from a true master.
'Perhaps… I should ask Kazuma to teach me as well.'
The daring idea appeared without warning, startling even Byakuya himself.
For Kuchiki Byakuya, head of the Kuchiki Clan and captain of the Sixth Division, to lower his pride and formally seek instruction from someone else was almost unthinkable.
"Hmph. I would never do such a thing."
He immediately shook his head and drove the absurd notion from his mind.
He might envy Rukia for receiving Kazuma's personal teaching, but his pride would never allow him to follow her example.
On the battlefield, Renji was growing increasingly frantic.
His composure was close to collapsing.
When had Rukia become this absurdly powerful?
Was this really the same girl he'd grown up with?
By this point, he was beginning to wonder whether someone else had disguised themselves as her.
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