"Shine through the endless night—Lunar Sundial!"
Batsu'unsai tightened both hands around her Zanpakutō and pulled.
Silver light burst from the blade.
Its plain form vanished, replaced by a long silver-white naginata with a narrow crescent blade.
Twenty-seven glowing moon-phase sigils ran along its edge, while a small lunar ring hung from the end of the shaft, quietly drawing in the power of the Lunar Star.
The sky changed with it.
Despite the daylight hanging over Soul Society, a pale crescent moon appeared overhead.
Silver moonlight washed across the battlefield, softening the harsh glare of the Shadowless Lamp and bathing the ruined streets in an almost dreamlike glow.
Royd's storm of Heilig Pfeil was already bearing down on them.
Batsu'unsai swept the naginata in a wide arc.
A vast Lunar Phase Barrier unfolded in front of her.
The golden arrows crossed its boundary—and nearly stopped.
Their speed dropped so drastically that the once-blinding barrage now crawled through the air.
Batsu'unsai raised her free hand.
"Byakurai: Hundred Chains!"
White lightning exploded from her fingertips in branching streams, tearing through the trapped Heilig Pfeil.
The entire barrage shattered in a chain of violent detonations, dissolving into glittering fragments of reishi.
Ukitake watched from a distance, visibly impressed.
"What a beautiful Zanpakutō…"
Sode no Shirayuki had long been praised as the most beautiful Zanpakutō in Soul Society, but after seeing Lunar Sundial released beneath that silver moon, Ukitake had to admit it had serious competition.
Lunar Sundial had originally been a Zanpakutō built entirely around the manipulation of time.
That changed after Batsu'unsai received the power of the Lunar Star.
Its original temporal abilities fused with lunar power, evolving into something far more versatile.
The first ability was Eclipse Acceleration.
Whenever Batsu'unsai swung Lunar Sundial, the space crossed by its blade became tied to the current lunar phase.
Any enemy reishi caught within that area was forced to move according to the phase she selected.
Under a New Moon, the target's reishi circulation slowed to half its normal speed.
Under a Full Moon, Batsu'unsai's own reishi circulation accelerated to twice its normal rate.
She could switch between those phases at will, allowing her to slow an opponent while accelerating herself whenever the situation demanded it.
The second ability was Moonmark.
Anything touched by Lunar Sundial's blade could be branded with one of two marks: New Moon or Full Moon.
A New Moon mark imposed a 0.3-second delay on the target's movements. Once three marks accumulated, the delay compounded into a full second of temporal paralysis.
A Full Moon mark worked differently. Rather than slowing the target, it forced their movements into Batsu'unsai's rhythm, making their timing increasingly dependent on hers.
The third ability was Full-Moon Rewind.
Lunar Sundial absorbed moonlight during battle and converted it into stored time ripples.
Each ripple could rewind a localized area by three seconds, restoring damage done to nonliving objects as though it had never happened.
Only nonliving objects.
If it worked on people too, the ability would have been completely ridiculous.
Batsu'unsai planted the butt of her naginata against the ground.
Then she vanished.
A moment later, she was directly in front of Royd.
Her blade flashed nine times.
Royd immediately activated Blut Vene.
Nine heavy impacts struck in rapid succession. He managed to withstand all of them, but the combined force still launched him backward through the air.
Batsu'unsai flexed her numbed wrist.
"Tough shell."
She wasn't surprised.
Batsu'unsai understood both forms of Blut herself, so she had never expected a handful of ordinary strikes to break through a properly reinforced Blut Vene.
Royd had barely begun recovering his balance when she disappeared again.
Shunshin 2.0!
She reappeared in front of him before he could react.
This time, she didn't stop after nine swings.
Lunar Sundial became a blur.
Strike after strike hammered the same defensive layer, each one landing with brutal precision.
The sound of metal-like impacts merged into a continuous roar as Batsu'unsai drove her naginata repeatedly into Royd's Blut Vene.
Ten.
Twenty.
Forty.
Sixty.
Seventy-one.
The deep-blue branching patterns covering Royd's body began to flicker.
Then the seventy-second strike landed.
Crack.
The sound was sharp and unmistakable.
The Blut patterns shattered from Royd's skin.
Batsu'unsai's blade tore through the defense and opened a long, deep gash across his arm.
Blood immediately soaked his sleeve and splashed across the ground.
Royd stared at the wound.
Then his expression twisted with rage.
"You insignificant insect…"
He forced himself deeper into the role he had been given, copying Yhwach's contemptuous tone and imperious posture as closely as possible.
"You dare to wound me?"
His face contorted with fury, but Batsu'unsai only rested Lunar Sundial against her shoulder and looked at him with mild amusement.
For someone pretending to be Yhwach, he was already having a very bad day!
...
Royd swept out one hand, and a burst of blue light condensed into a Quincy cross-blade.
He immediately used Hirenkyaku to close the distance.
Batsu'unsai smiled.
If this came down to swordsmanship, Royd had already lost.
Even the real Yhwach would have struggled to match her technique.
A copy had no chance.
Lunar Sundial moved like an extension of her body.
Despite its long shaft, she handled the naginata with the speed and precision of a spear, alternating sweeping cuts with sudden thrusts that gave Royd no room to settle into a rhythm.
Silver flashed.
The tip of the blade punched forward like a lance.
Royd met it with his cross-blade.
Steel rang against reishi.
Sparks scattered between them as the two exchanged blows at close range, but the balance quickly tilted in Batsu'unsai's favor.
Royd blocked, parried, and retreated, yet every exchange forced him farther back.
Within only a few rounds, his Blut Vene failed again.
Two deep cuts opened across his body, and blood soaked through his clothes.
Royd barely reacted.
"You think this is enough to kill me?"
Batsu'unsai snorted.
"You're the naïve one."
The small lunar ornament hanging from Lunar Sundial began to change.
The moon above changed with it.
Its pale curve thinned until only a dark New Moon remained.
Royd's expression shifted.
During their earlier exchanges, Batsu'unsai had already managed to place three Moonmarks on him.
And three New Moon marks triggered the real trap.
The sigils flared at once.
Royd froze.
His body simply stopped responding.
The effect lasted only one second.
Against ordinary opponents, that might not have sounded like much.
Against someone at Batsu'unsai's level, one second was an eternity.
The ornament on Lunar Sundial immediately shifted again.
The New Moon filled.
Half.
Gibbous.
Then Full Moon.
The moon hanging over Soul Society followed the same cycle, and the instant it became full, Batsu'unsai's reishi circulation doubled.
She had been waiting for exactly this opening.
Lunar Sundial shot toward Royd's head.
The thrust was so fast that most of the watching captains barely saw it move.
Royd could.
That was the problem.
He watched the point race toward his face while his body remained completely locked in place.
Closer.
Closer.
The tip struck his forehead.
It drove in nearly an inch before the temporal lock finally released.
The instant Royd regained control of his body, he reinforced himself with Blut Vene Anhaben, hardening his external defense just before the naginata could punch completely through his skull.
Batsu'unsai clicked her tongue and withdrew the blade.
"So close."
She sounded genuinely disappointed.
"I really thought that would finish you."
Her eyes drifted toward the fresh hole in Royd's forehead.
"Guess I still need to work on my speed."
She had failed to kill Fake Yhwach.
She had, however, given him something remarkably close to a third eye.
The captains watching from the edge of the battlefield stared in shock.
For a moment, it had looked as though Yhwach had simply stopped defending himself and allowed Batsu'unsai to stab him in the head.
Hitsugaya frowned.
"What just happened?"
The others were asking the same thing.
Why had Yhwach suddenly frozen?
And why had he only activated his outer Blut defense at the very last instant?
Unohana, who had been watching silently, finally answered.
"Time stopped."
Several heads turned toward her.
"I felt the flow of time distort the moment Batsu'unsai attacked. It was subtle, and it lasted for only about a second, but it was there."
She looked back toward the battlefield.
"That second nearly killed him."
Hitsugaya blinked.
"Time?"
He glanced at the crescent-shaped weapon and the moon overhead.
"I thought her Zanpakutō controlled the moon."
Unohana gave him a flat look.
"Her Zanpakutō has always been time-based."
She had known Batsu'unsai for nearly a thousand years.
Of course she knew what the woman's Zanpakutō did.
Hitsugaya immediately looked embarrassed.
"Right. Sorry, Captain Unohana. I forgot how long you two have known each other."
His face reddened.
But the contradiction still bothered him.
"Then why does it have lunar abilities now?"
That was the part he couldn't reconcile.
A time-type Zanpakutō and moon phases didn't seem naturally connected.
Unohana shook her head.
"That, you'll have to ask the Captain-Commander."
A thousand years ago, Batsu'unsai's released Zanpakutō had simply been a long naginata.
Everything involving moonlight, lunar phases, and the strange new form of Lunar Sundial had appeared only after Kazuma granted her the power of the Lunar Star.
It was the same reason Unohana's own Zanpakutō now carried the power of six stars.
Unohana looked up at the moon hanging over Soul Society and smiled faintly.
"Now I'm curious what Genryūsai's Zanpakutō looks like after all this."
Her smile widened.
"Maybe the moment he releases it, we'll get a second sun."