"Yama-jii, that old bastard really did come knocking. I'm leaving this one to you. I still haven't recovered my full strength, and I need to keep enough in reserve in case the other three founders decide to show themselves."
Kazuma pulled the flask from his waist and took a long drink as he spoke.
The cold liquor went down easily, taking at least some of the edge off the tension building in his chest.
Once he had finished, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and glanced toward Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni, who was sitting nearby with his eyes closed.
"Oh, and one more thing. Mitsuhiko isn't just some ancient noble with a big ego. He's at the peak of the transcendent tier, so try not to get careless and embarrass yourself."
Yamamoto's eyes opened immediately.
"What exactly is that supposed to mean, brat?"
His glare sharpened.
"You think I would lose to the Tsunayashiro founder? I hardly need you teaching me how to fight."
If the situation outside had been any less urgent, Yamamoto looked ready to give Kazuma another beating just for the insult.
Before he could say anything more, however, the reiatsu outside shifted.
Tsunayashiro Mitsuhiko had evidently grown tired of waiting for Kazuma to appear and was preparing to force the issue by killing a few captains.
Then flames erupted from the direction of the First Division.
A figure crossed the Seireitei at tremendous speed.
"Anyone who invades Soul Society…"
Yamamoto's voice rolled across the battlefield before he even arrived.
"…dies."
His reiatsu descended over the Seireitei like a furnace door slamming shut.
In the next instant, Yamamoto appeared before Mitsuhiko, his eyes blazing as he raised Ryūjin Jakka.
"Bankai: Zanka no Tachi—Starfall Corona."
Fire exploded skyward.
Ryūjin Jakka transformed in his hands, but this was no longer the same Bankai Soul Society had once known.
Liquid True Solar Flame flowed along the length of the blade, turning it into a long, red-gold weapon that seemed less forged than drawn directly from the heart of a star.
The metal shone with such intensity that looking at it for too long became painful, while shifting patterns resembling stellar orbits moved beneath its surface.
Yamamoto swung once.
A colossal slash formed from condensed solar power tore across the battlefield.
The void cracked along its path.
Even the surrounding space seemed unable to withstand the temperature and pressure packed into the strike, and the entire Soul Society trembled beneath the release of Yamamoto's Bankai.
The spiritual pressure flooding outward from him was no weaker than Mitsuhiko's.
At the same time, another sun appeared above the Seireitei.
It hung beside the moon created by Batsu'unsai's Bankai, radiating such brutal heat that the temperature across Soul Society began climbing almost instantly.
The air itself seemed to bake, and weaker Shinigami struggled just to breathe beneath the sudden wave of heat.
Fortunately, Batsu'unsai's Lunar Sea Domain had not yet dispersed.
The cool lunar power blanketing the battlefield absorbed part of the thermal surge and kept it from spreading unchecked.
Without it, the simple act of Yamamoto releasing Bankai might have been enough to roast half the lower-ranked Shinigami in the Seireitei before the real battle even began.
The transformed Ryūjin Jakka was even more terrifying at close range.
Each time Yamamoto moved the blade, burning sunspots remained suspended in the air behind it.
They lingered like miniature black stars, unstable concentrations of solar power that would erupt violently if anything touched them.
At the pommel sat a brilliant stellar crystal formed from the core of the Solar Star, while twenty-four rings of reiatsu shaped like solar prominences circled the guard.
They twisted and flared around the weapon like living dragons of fire.
Mitsuhiko stared at the newly transformed Bankai.
"Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni?"
His voice immediately hardened.
"Where is Kazuma?"
Instead of answering, Yamamoto brought Ryūjin Jakka down toward him.
Mitsuhiko raised the Bow of Conquest with both hands and used the reinforced body of the weapon to meet the strike head-on.
The collision detonated.
A storm of spiritual pressure erupted between them, sweeping outward with enough force to tear stone from the streets and launch debris through the air.
Dust and fire rolled across the battlefield in great waves.
Of everyone caught nearby, only Yhwach managed to keep his footing without being thrown backward.
The others were sent flying by the shockwave and forced to create distance from the two monsters at the center.
Yamamoto did not retreat an inch.
"Hmph. There's no need for that brat to deal with you."
His voice carried clearly through the storm.
"I'll see for myself whether the founder of the Tsunayashiro Clan deserves all this confidence."
Ryūjin Jakka shifted again.
"East Pole: Solar Flare."
The True Solar Flame running across the blade suddenly drew inward instead of expanding.
As the fire compressed, patches of absolute blackness began appearing along the red-gold edge.
They resembled solar spots on the surface of the sun, except each one contained such concentrated stellar power that the surrounding air distorted violently around it.
Yamamoto stepped forward and slashed.
The attack did not merely burn through the space in front of him. The blade seemed to drag an actual fragment of the sun's violence behind it, threatening to tear apart everything caught along the path.
Mitsuhiko's expression finally showed genuine interest.
"Solar power?"
He shifted backward, effortlessly putting more distance between them.
"Interesting."
The Bow of Conquest bent into a perfect crescent as he drew the string back.
A reishi arrow formed between his fingers, its light rapidly intensifying until it became difficult to look at directly.
Mitsuhiko released.
The arrow vanished from the bowstring like a bolt of lightning.
A heartbeat later, it collided with Yamamoto's slash.
The explosion that followed shook the Seireitei.
Fire and spiritual pressure surged upward into an enormous mushroom-shaped cloud, while the air around the impact point warped visibly under the heat.
The blast radius spread so quickly that nearly one twentieth of the Seireitei was wiped away in seconds.
Entire sections of buildings disappeared.
When the smoke began to thin, an enormous crater had replaced what had once been a densely built section of Soul Society.
Batsu'unsai stared at the destruction.
Then her expression changed for an entirely different reason.
"Absolutely not."
She immediately raised Lunar Sundial.
"Full-Moon Rewind."
Temporal power poured out from the Bankai and swept across the crater.
The ruined earth began restoring itself.
Broken stone returned to its original position, shattered foundations reformed, and entire buildings rose out of the devastation piece by piece as the affected area rewound to the state it had occupied only moments earlier.
Within seconds, the giant crater had vanished.
The streets were intact again.
The destroyed buildings stood exactly where they had before the clash.
Only then did Batsu'unsai relax.
She had reacted just in time.
Had she allowed the damage to persist for much longer, repairing that much of the Seireitei after the war would have cost an absurd amount of money.
And Kazuma was Captain-Commander now.
Under the rules, much of the responsibility for postwar repairs would eventually land on him.
Which, as far as Batsu'unsai was concerned, meant it would also come out ofhermoney.
That was unacceptable.
If she could save a few buildings with Full-Moon Rewind, she was going to save them.
There was no reason to let Yamamoto and Mitsuhiko burn through their household finances along with the Seireitei.