“Heh, that’s the look!” Renji grinned, a wild smirk spreading across his face.
He knew that look all too well.
Back during their sparring classes at the Spiritual Arts Academy, whenever Yanagawa entered that state, it meant seemingly ordinary Kidō would detonate in the trickiest, most unpredictable combinations imaginable.
“Don’t let me down, Yanagawa!”
Before the words fully left his mouth, Renji vanished from where he stood!
It wasn’t Flash Step—it was an explosive burst of pure acceleration, gouging a shallow crater into the sand beneath his feet.
Almost simultaneously, Zabimaru left its scabbard at his hip, not yet in a full Shikai release.
The blade instantly lengthened and segmented into several jagged teeth, howling as they tore through the air to snap at Yanagawa from multiple vicious angles!
“Snake Fang Bite!”
The assault was ferocious, aimed at overwhelming his opponent through sheer violent momentum to force an opening.
Yet, faced with a strike that would have thrown ordinary seated officers into complete disarray, Yanagawa barely shifted his stance.
His footwork seemed subtle, but it cleanly skirted the first two incoming blade segments.
At the same time, he raised his open right hand.
“Hadō Number Thirty-One: Shakkahō.”
An incantation?
No, none at all!
He didn’t even shout the full spell name, merely uttering a few low, rapid syllables.
A searing, brilliant crimson fireball instantly condensed before his palm.
Small in size, it was extraordinarily concentrated, its radiance packed tightly inward.
It struck true, slamming dead-center into the side joint of Zabimaru’s midsection!
*Boom!*
The blast knocked the segment off course, throwing the rest of the trailing blades out of alignment and instantly shattering the tight enclosure.
Riding the recoil with exquisite footwork, Yanagawa slipped free of Zabimaru’s reach like a fish gliding through water.
“Oh?” At the edge of the grounds, Third Seat Madarame rubbed his bald head, his mocking smirk tightening.
“An incantation-abandoned Number Thirty-One?
And with such precise power control?”
“Hmph, cheap parlor tricks,” Yumichika said, crossing his arms.
His tone was dismissive, but his eyes narrowed with newfound focus.
To deflect Renji’s opening onslaught so nonchalantly with a low-numbered Hadō required a level of Kidō mastery and combat instinct that could not be taken lightly.
Unfazed by the miss, Renji grew even more exhilarated.
“Not bad!
Again!”
With a flick of his wrist, Zabimaru carved a bizarre arc through the air, whipping back around like a living beast.
As the blade lashed toward Yanagawa once more, Renji lunged forward in giant strides, cloaking his left fist in potent Spiritual Pressure before driving a vicious straight punch toward Yanagawa’s face!
Combining Zanpakuto technique with Hakuda hand-to-hand combat, it was entirely unadorned—pure crushing power and speed!
Yanagawa noted that Renji’s strength and speed had indeed improved considerably since their academy days.
Simultaneously, Yanagawa’s left hand traced a swift line at his side.
“Bakudō Number Thirty-Nine: Enkōsen.”
A flash of light bloomed—not aimed offensively at Renji, but manifesting directly across his pursuit vector as a circular barrier of defensive light.
Carrying far too much momentum to brake, Renji let out a low roar and drove his Spirit-empowered fist straight into the shield without flinching!
*Crash!* The barrier shuddered violently, fractures webbing across its face, but it held firm.
Right at that moment, Yanagawa raised his right hand again, splaying his fingers straight at Renji.
Reishi surged and compressed wildly before his palm, forming an intricate, brilliant array of miniature concentric rings.
“Hadō Number Fifty-Eight: Tenran.”
A spear of hyper-compressed gale shot forth, condensing into a razor-sharp spiraling tempest cone that tore forward at blistering speed!
*What?!* Renji’s pupils contracted.
He had never anticipated Yanagawa chaining Kidō spells this fast, nor that its force would dwarf the previous Shakkahō.
He frantically snapped Zabimaru back, weaving its segments into a defensive lattice of steel before him.
*Rumble!*
The spiraling wind cone crashed violently against the web of blades, unleashing a deafening shriek of gale-force pressure and tearing winds as clouds of dust billowed upward.
Pushed skidding back several paces, Renji felt his makeshift shield tremble.
He barely held off the strike, his sword hand throbbing with numbness.
As the dust settled, Yanagawa remained planted right where he had started, his breathing calm and steady—as if that rapid, lethal chain of Kidō had been nothing more than an afterthought.
“Hey, hey…
are you kidding me?” a Squad 11 soldier stammered, eyes wide.
“He pushed Renji back using nothing but Kidō?”
“Was that really Tenran at Number Fifty-Eight?
The speed and piercing power felt completely off…” muttered a seated officer with some Kidō knowledge.
Renji shook out his wrist.
The battle lust in his eyes burned hotter, tempered now by a sharp edge of gravity.
He had to admit he had underestimated his old classmate.
Ten years in the Kidō Corps hadn’t dulled Yanagawa’s edge in the slightest.
If anything, it had refined his spellcraft and control to a frightening degree.
And…
hadn’t that Kidō’s potency felt noticeably stronger than the standard formula?
“Damn, you’re good, Yanagawa!” Renji barked with laughter as his Spiritual Pressure surged once more.
Zabimaru hummed fiercely, the glow running along each of its serrated segments blazing brighter.
“But playtime’s over!
Let’s see if you can take this—Howl, Zabimaru!”
At last, Shikai!
The massive, segmented bone-whip blade materialized, radiating savage ferocity.
Renji’s presence swelled to new heights, appearing as though he had merged into a singular monstrous serpent.
Facing Renji’s full Shikai release, Yanagawa’s expression remained virtually unchanged.
He simply drew a quiet breath, the flow of Reishi around him undergoing a microscopic shift.
Vast amounts of Reishi converged in a frenzy, forming a wildly spinning vortex before him that radiated heart-stopping waves of energy.
“That Reishi gathering method and frequency…” Off on the sidelines, even Third Seat Madarame dropped his casual air, his expression turning stern.
Sensing the acute peril pulsing within that Reishi maelstrom, Renji dared not hold back.
Roaring at the top of his lungs, he stoked his Spiritual Pressure to its zenith and brought Zabimaru crashing down with enough force to cleave a mountain!
“—Hadō Number Sixty-Three: Raikōhō!”
*KRA-BOOOM—!*
Unlike an ordinary Raikōhō, this was a hyper-dense torrent of lightning, interwoven with brilliant white bolts and deep violet electrical arcs.
Surging forward in a bizarre corkscrew spiral, it collided head-on with Zabimaru!
A deafening explosion rocked the entire training grounds.
Blinding lightning and savage blade-force tore violently into each other, unleashing a tempestuous shockwave.
Sand and gravel were ripped clean off the earth, forcing the spectating Squad 11 members to raise their Spiritual Pressure just to withstand the gale, their faces draining of color.
Gradually, the blinding light and dust subsided.
At the center of the ring, Renji knelt on one knee, leaning heavily on Zabimaru for support while he gasped for air.
The sleeves of his Shihakushō were scorched black.
The webbing of his sword hand had split, weeping thin trails of blood, and his face was etched with raw shock and disbelief.
Not far ahead of him, Yanagawa stood in quiet composure.
Save for a faint dusting of ash on the hem of his robe, he was entirely unharmed, minute sparks of lightning Reishi still crackling faintly in the air before him.
The training ground was struck dead silent.
Every member of Squad 11—Madarame and Yumichika included—stared at the figure in the arena as if beholding a monster.
Using Kidō alone…
he had taken on the full Shikai of Eighth Seat Renji in a frontal clash, and walked away dominating the exchange?!
Renji Abarai might have only held the rank of Eighth Seat, but that was strictly because he had transferred to Squad 11 recently; none of the men present felt confident they could reliably defeat him.
For Yanagawa to effortlessly overpower Renji…
didn’t that mean he possessed strength on par with a lieutenant, if not greater?
“Was that…
was that really Hadō Sixty-Three, Raikōhō?” a squad member gulped.
“A modification?
Did he *rewrite* a Hadō spell?!” another cried out in disbelief.
Yanagawa steadied his breathing and looked toward Renji, who was struggling back to his feet.
“Do you want to continue, Renji?” he asked calmly.
Renji stared hard at Yanagawa, then glanced down at his blackened sleeves and torn knuckles.
After a long beat, he erupted into a hearty, uninhibited laugh:
“Bwahaha!
Brilliant!
Damn it, Yanagawa, I never dreamed you were hiding something like this!
An altered Hadō…
to think it could pack that much punch!
I yield!”
He conceded cleanly.
Squad 11 respected strength above all else: a win was a win, and a loss was a loss.
Still, the curiosity in his eyes was almost spilling over.
“All these years in the Kidō Corps, what the hell have you been cooking up?
What was that just now?”
Yanagawa didn’t answer right away.
He walked over and handed Renji a small roll of bandages radiating a cool, soothing spiritual aura—standard-issue Kidō Corps medical gear used for treating spiritual burns.
“Just a minor personal tweak,” he said lightly.
“Optimized the Reishi convergence structure and energy output pattern.”
He spoke in a nonchalant tone, as though a strike capable of upending everyone’s understanding of Kidō truly was nothing more than an inconsequential “minor tweak.”
Yet, from that moment on, not a single person dared look upon this Shinigami from the Kidō Corps as a mere “clerk” or a “weakling.”