Suddenly, Hyōrinmaru’s gaze snapped toward a spot not far away, as if pulled by invisible strings.
There, lying quietly on the frozen ground, was the “Hyōrinmaru” belonging to Sōjirō Kusaka—the blade Yanagawa had tested earlier and casually set aside.
Hyōrinmaru raised his right hand, its icy dragon claw grasping toward the sword through empty air.
Buzz—!
The Zanpakutō trembled violently, as though answering an irresistible summons.
With a mournful hum, it tore itself free from the frozen earth and turned into a streak of dark-blue light, flying straight into Hyōrinmaru’s hand.
“What?!” Isshin’s pupils contracted.
Alarm bells rang in his mind.
He had a terrible guess.
Hyōrinmaru now held two blades, his own true body, and Kusaka Sōjirō’s “Hyōrinmaru.”
In the next instant, Kusaka’s blade erupted with dazzling blue light.
A vast ice-type spiritual pressure, like a tangible current of freezing air, poured madly out of the blade.
Like rivers returning to the sea, it was greedily absorbed by Hyōrinmaru’s true body.
Kusaka’s sword lost its luster at a visible speed.
And Hyōrinmaru, having absorbed that power of the same source, underwent an astonishing change.
“ROOOAR—!!!”
A deafening dragon roar shook the wasteland.
The spiritual pressure erupting from Hyōrinmaru surged as though its final shackle had been broken.
Its strength, density, and the depth of the icy law it contained rose to an entirely different level.
The frozen ground beneath his feet cracked and sank, forming a huge frost-covered crater.
The blizzard in the sky abruptly stopped—not because his power had weakened, but because all the cold and snow seemed to submit to this newly restored force.
It condensed and compressed, becoming an icy-blue aura of spiritual pressure around him.
The scar-like marks on his face seemed sharper and deeper.
The chaos in his violet eyes lessened slightly, but the cold majesty within them became even greater.
The single Hyōrinmaru in his hand became even clearer and more crystalline, radiating eternal cold.
“This is…” Isshin’s expression changed as he felt the terrifying spiritual pressure rushing toward him.
“He recovered his power?
So this is Hyōrinmaru’s real strength?!”
The intensity and quality of that spiritual pressure reminded him of the terror he had once sensed from Captain-Commander Yamamoto’s Ryūjin Jakka.
The overwhelming power that seemed capable of burning the world to ash.
Though their attributes were absolute opposites—one ultimate flame, the other ultimate ice, the oppressive sense of “the strongest” was strikingly similar.
“The strongest ice-type Zanpakutō… no exaggeration there.”
Isshin gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on Engetsu.
He could feel it clearly.
The Hyōrinmaru before him now was on a completely different level from before.
Earlier, he had been able to fight, even suppress it, through his own strength.
But now, facing this king of ice that seemed to have returned to its complete form…
Alone, he might really—
“Yanagawa!” Isshin abruptly turned and shouted at Yanagawa, who was still standing at the edge of the battlefield.
“How long are you planning to watch?!
Time to help, don’t you think?!
If I keep fighting this thing alone, I might seriously have to use Bankai!”
There was urgency in his voice, even helplessness.
Bankai was his final trump card, but as he had said, it carried a great cost.
Unless absolutely necessary, he would never use it lightly.
And against Hyōrinmaru in this bizarre, empowered state, even Bankai might not guarantee victory, the price would certainly be heavy.
Yanagawa stepped forward and stood beside him.
His pure-white haori whipped violently in the storm stirred up by Hyōrinmaru’s monstrous spiritual pressure.
Yet there was no tension or gravity on his face.
Instead, the corner of his mouth curved faintly in amusement as he glanced at the fully alert Isshin.
“Oh?
Weren’t you quite confident earlier, saying you’ll play the muscle?”
“…”
Isshin nearly choked.
He whipped his head around and glared at Yanagawa, his expression wonderfully complicated.
Taking a deep breath, he snapped:
“Yanagawa!
Stop making sarcastic shits!
You think ‘strongest ice-type’ is just decoration?”
His tone was heated, but the flames around Engetsu burned even brighter.
Yanagawa’s smile faded slightly, though his eyes remained calm.
He said no more.
“Then let’s go together, Captain Isshin.”
The moment he finished speaking, Yanagawa moved first.
But he did not charge straight at Hyōrinmaru.
Spiritual light flowed around his hand, and his chant was short, efficient, and precise.
“Bakudō #61: Rikujōkōrō.”
“Bakudō #62: Hyapporankan.”
“Bakudō #63: Sajō Sabaku.”
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Several Bakudō spells of different light and structure, clearly altered from their standard forms—shot from Yanagawa’s hand almost simultaneously.
Their target was the fully empowered Hyōrinmaru, whose aura had just reached its peak.
Hyapporankan became several rods of light, sealing off Hyōrinmaru’s surroundings.
Rikujōkōrō was no longer merely six simple sheets of light; it split into dozens of thinner, more complex beams.
The huge serpentine chain formed by Sajō Sabaku was coated in a strange pale-gold layer of reishi, whistling through the air as it wrapped toward Hyōrinmaru’s neck and waist.
It all happened in an instant.
Yanagawa’s casting speed, precision, and bold use of modified Kidō combinations made Isshin’s pupils contract in amazement.
This kid’s understanding and control of Kidō are absurd.
I’ve never heard of modifications like these.
Hyōrinmaru had grown far stronger, but after absorbing the extra power, his movements seemed slightly sluggish.
Coupled with Yanagawa’s tricky angles and unusual spell structures, several reishi chains and beams actually managed to restrain him temporarily.
“Roar!”
Hyōrinmaru let out an enraged howl.
He struggled fiercely, his ice-covered dragon claws forcing outward.
Crack—crack, crack!
Under Hyōrinmaru’s terrifying strength, cracks began spreading across the specially modified Bakudō chains and beams.
Frost rapidly climbed over them.
Clearly, these modified restraints could not hold him for long.
But Yanagawa’s goal had never been permanent restraint.
It was interference, and creating an opening.
“Now, Captain Isshin!” Yanagawa shouted.
“Got it!”
Isshin had already been waiting.
Engetsu dragged a long tail of flame as he rushed toward the opening exposed by Hyōrinmaru’s struggle.
“Getsuga Tenshō!”
A powerful fire-attribute slash, carrying overwhelming piercing force, tore toward Hyōrinmaru’s chest.
Hyōrinmaru’s anger intensified.
The golden light on his forehead flickered.
Then his icy dragon-clawed hands slammed into the ground, and a low chant escaped his mouth.
“Millennium Ice Prison.”
RUMBLE—!!!
Centered on Hyōrinmaru, the earth shook violently.
Countless massive ice pillars, each over ten meters thick and a hundred meters tall—burst from the frozen ground and shot skyward.
They were not random.
They formed a perfect spherical cage, constantly shrinking inward, enveloping Isshin and the space before him completely.
The ice pillars radiated a cold capable of freezing all things for eternity.
Once trapped inside, one would be sealed in eternal ice, spiritual particles stopped, all life cut off.
“Not good!” Isshin’s expression changed drastically.
He could feel the absolute freezing power within that prison, far beyond any of Hyōrinmaru’s previous attacks.
The ice prison contracted with terrifying speed.
It was too late to retreat.
At that critical moment—
Yanagawa appeared not far behind Isshin.
And the Zanpakutō he had held but not yet truly used…
Tenshin—
Was finally raised before him.
With his other hand, he gently brushed the plain silver-white blade.
“Vibrate—”
A strange wave quietly spread outward from Tenshin.
“—Tenshin.”
The instant the release command fell…
Tenshin’s silver-white blade erupted with a powerful silver light.
The light was not blinding, but it gave the sensation of a tremor reaching deep into the soul.
Yanagawa’s hand remained steady as stone.
He simply swung Tenshin, now wrapped in silver radiance, diagonally forward toward the closing Millennium Ice Prison.
A light, almost casual slash.
Crack.
At the same time that tiny sound rang out, the space ahead of the slash visibly distorted, folded—and then split open.
The space itself had been forcibly “shaken” apart by some invisible power, forming spreading, spiderweb-like white cracks.
Those cracks extended silently.
Wherever they passed, light warped, sound vanished, and even Hyōrinmaru’s eternal freezing aura seemed to be disrupted and repelled by the very act of rupture.
In the next moment, the spatial cracks touched the Millennium Ice Prison.
Riiiip—!!!
The enormous ice pillars were like delicate glass sculptures struck by an invisible hammer.
Nearly half of the Millennium Ice Prison collapsed under Yanagawa’s seemingly effortless swing.
Like a sandcastle meeting the rising tide, it shattered, crumbled, and turned into a sky full of glittering ice dust.
Isshin seized the chance and rolled away in a rather undignified manner.
After landing, he stared at the drifting ice crystals with lingering fear.
Then he whipped his head toward Yanagawa, who still held the finishing posture of his slash as the silver light on Tenshin slowly faded.
Isshin’s mouth hung wide open, his eyes filled with unprecedented shock.
“He… shook space apart?”
He muttered, barely able to believe what he had seen.
That was Hyōrinmaru’s Millennium Ice Prison.
And Yanagawa had shattered it with a single swing?
Even the fully empowered Hyōrinmaru, whose aura had weakened slightly after releasing the prison, showed clear astonishment for the first time in his violet eyes.
The golden light on his forehead flickered in disorder.