Under a thousand stunned gazes, the golden staff crashed down.
Sun-bright gold smashed into blood-red flame. Two colossal forces grappled, shockwaves warping the air. Cole's stance sank; stone thundered and caved beneath his feet, a crater spider-webbing with black fissures that raced for kilometers. The world itself seemed to jolt.
Shinigami braced against the pressure, peering into the detonation's heart with dilated pupils.
"You've got to be kidding…"
At ground zero, gold and red split the sky in halves. The red blaze owned the high ground, yet the golden radiance refused to fold. Even with heat like solar wavefronts chewing at it, the gold held.
Shunsui swallowed, staring at the black-haired boy skidding backward and cracking the ground with every step. "He… blocked the old man's cut."
That single blade felt like it could split the world.
Even if he stepped in, Shunsui would've been hewn in two. But Cole held—retreating, yes, but holding.
Unohana's eyes narrowed. "His reiatsu… how did he climb again so fast?"
No one knew the Head-Captain better than those who had crossed blades with him. The man was a sun in human skin. In bankai, a casual swing erased landscapes. And that slash had been one of the four facets of his bankai.
After being driven back several hundred meters, Cole exhaled, loosened his grip on the golden staff—and let the red blade's force hurl him, a falling star, across the field. He pinwheeled for several kilometers before bleeding the strike away. Everything along that line—buildings, rock, even the cracks in the ground—vanished, scoured to nothing.
"Whew." He wiped the heat-sweat from his brow and grinned. "The old man's basically invincible, huh?"
He'd torn Seireitei apart twice now, siphoning and swelling his power to absurd levels. Even so, taking one of the old man's cuts still wrung him out.
Hearing him complain, more than a few captains nearly coughed blood. Sixteen years old. Human. He'd braced the angriest cut of the millennium's strongest shinigami and was still nitpicking.
Ryūjin Jakka itself sounded almost surprised. "You… might be too strong. Are you truly human?"
"Duh." Cole snorted, not bothering to dignify a zanpakuto intent on storming the Royal Palace.
If not for Soi fong's danger, he wouldn't have eaten that slash at all.
He flashed back into the crowd, slinging an arm around Rukia and Sode no Shirayuki's shoulders. "Ice. I need ice. I'm parched."
A million-degree blade left you bone-dry, even without a scratch.
Rukia and Sode no Shirayuki traded a look. With water stripped from the air, they couldn't condense ice even if they wanted to.
"Should I have my master share a mouthful…" murmured Minazuki, far too cheerfully.
"Minazuki!!" Unohana flushed and clapped a hand over her zanpakuto's "mouth."
Soi fong bit her lip, stepped to Cole's side, cheeks pink. "Why did you save me?"
With his speed, he could have abandoned her and cleanly dodged. He'd chosen to meet that impossible slash head-on. He could have died.
Cole ruffled her hair. "Because we're friends. I came to save you. I'm not letting you get hurt."
"Friends…" Her blush deepened. Memories fluttered—him lodging at her place, teasing her. This human brat was absolutely up to no good.
She turned her face away. "Thank you. If you've nowhere to sleep, my room is… fine. I won't kick you out again."
Cole's eyes lit up. He squeezed her hand. "Perfect. The hammock's been killing my back. I need a soft bed."
Soi fong froze, then kicked at his shin, red to the ears. "Your back pain isn't from a hammock."
She'd been spying. Every night. This infuriating human brat bullied Sode no Shirayuki daily. Not having back pain would be stranger.
Across the burning plain, Ryūjin Jakka's eyes burned hotter as it watched Cole. Its grip tightened. "Strong. Very strong. Fighting you might actually hurt. That would be… delightful."
The oldest flame-type zanpakuto was as explosive as the fire it wielded, war-lust roaring. Yet after a heartbeat's hesitation, it looked past Cole—to Senjumaru.
"Business first. If you won't use your bankai, woman, then die and return to the Royal Palace."
The blade rose. Its true aim remained Senjumaru. After that—force a path to the Palace and discipline two particular "bastards."
Cold sweat beaded down Senjumaru's temples. At last, under her relentless goading, the Royal Palace yielded.
"Senjumaru," Tenjiro's voice ground out, "you'd better beat that brat senseless. Hang him over Seireitei for three days."
"Got it. Now hurry up and die."
In the Zero Division's main hall, Tenjiro, Oetsu, and Kirio pressed steel to their own throats.
Tenjiro: "Honestly, I should've just gone down there."
Oetsu: "A zanpakuto rebellion? Kinda fun."
Kirio: "Suicide doesn't feel great."
Steel whispered. Blood flashed. Three bodies thumped to the floor.
In Seireitei, Senjumaru felt an unseen shackle snap—the blood-oath seal undone. Her reiatsu surged without ceiling. Golden skeletal arms spread behind her; a slender needle gleamed between her fingers.
"Bankai."
The word fell—and the world changed.
Night shouldered the day aside. Behind her, a towering golden gate unfolded and refolded, becoming a vast loom. Scarlet cloth rolled down like a sealing veil, shrouding heaven and earth. From the sky, bolts of cloth cascaded—blue, purple, yellow—brilliant as a dyer's festival.
Senjumaru stepped from behind a colossal sheet of blue. Her voice was soft.
"Shatatsu Karagara Shigarami no Tsuji (Entangling Weave of the Funeral Brocade)."
Her unleashed reiatsu now stood eye to eye with Ryūjin Jakka's. Two different suns pressed against each other in the bankai's bounded world.
Jaws dropped. Only now did many truly grasp the Zero Division's weight: not a whit beneath the Head-Captain.
Cole whistled. "What a monster—Bankai: Obscure Kanji Greatest Hits. Being a three-thousand-year-old granny sure pays off."
She must've lived before half these characters were standardized.
Senjumaru shot him a daggered glare. "Don't call me a granny."
Three thousand-odd years was prime. Compared to the million-year freaks out there, she was basically a young maiden.
She stepped forward, threading between bleeding scarlet weaves and hummed:
"Don, don, kala, kala, don, kalala…"
"Isshō Kaijo (First Scroll Release)—Manifolds Bloom as Eyes. Look upon them and your sight is forfeit!"
Mirrors of cloth blossomed from nowhere. Eyes opened upon their faces, all fixing Ryūjin Jakka.
"What is this?"
Pain stabbed its vision. It cleaved without hesitation.
"Kō!"
Explosive flame erased the mirrors.
Senjumaru barely cared. Her hum flowed on.
"Nishō Kaijo (Second Scroll Release)—Ten-Thousandfold Gilt Becomes Armor. Wear it and none may stand!"
Gold-patterned cloth surged. From it rose barbed lances and an iron maiden of brocade, closing to imprison and pierce.
"Boom!"
Another sword-stroke blew it apart. Senjumaru kept walking, threads hissing, voice low:
"Sanshō Kaijo (Third Scroll Release)—Black Sand Becomes Sea. Touch, and life ends!"
Black cloth ran like an endless desert sea, dragging him down.
"Yonshō Kaijo (Fourth Scroll Release)—Under-Quilt of Stasis. Step within, never wake again!"
Blue cloth flowed, radiating abyssal cold, latching to the flame and spreading frost.
"Goshō Kaijo (Fifth Scroll Release)—Wild-Fire Wastes. No roads remain. All becomes ash!"
Red cloth billowed into a world-eating conflagration, turning flame against flame until nothing should remain.
From afar the captains could only stare. Fabric—and yet every sheet held a law: all-seeing eyes, iron and spike, abyssal sand, absolute cold, devouring flame. Even as Ryūjin Jakka hacked, the bankai's world would not split.
Cole watched a while, then glanced at Shunsui. "Uncle Shunsui… is it me, or is her obscure-kanji bankai kinda like your Katen Kyōkotsu?"
Others looked too. The resemblance was there. Katen Kyōkotsu's bankai played out dread dramas; Senjumaru's unrolled rule-woven bolts. Both were "rule-type" zanpakuto whose layers imposed different ways to kill.
Shunsui's mouth was dry. "We're both rule-type. Each act—or in her case, each scroll—lays down a law. That's why it feels… similar."
Different rules. Different deaths. Pure offense. If your reiatsu lagged behind Senjumaru's, you'd die on the first mirror-cloth.
"Gotcha." Cole turned back, eyes bright. "With a name like that, she should call it the Super Ultra Golden Loom. Or—hear me out—Paris Fashion Week."
Senjumaru's silver teeth ground. "Infuriating brat…"
Then her face changed. Deep within the red bolts, a fiercer blaze erupted—rolling heat that set the red weaving ablaze…and then the rest. Fire climbed and raced, eager to burn the entire bankai world to cinders.
On black-red scorched earth beneath a burning sky, Ryūjin Jakka's voice rang out, wild with martial joy:
"Zanka no Tachi, Minami—Kaka Jūmanokushi Daisōjin (South—Blaze-Burial of Ten Trillion Dead)!"
From the hellish ground, skeletons clawed themselves upright by the countless thousands upon thousands, staggering forward. The domain didn't stop at Senjumaru's bankai; it spilled outward, sweeping Cole and the others into its funeral procession.
Cole flicked his staff. One skull exploded. He looked up at the mountain-range of burning bones, eyes sharpening.
"Well. That's… troublesome."
(End of Chapter)
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