Chapter 9

"A captain..."

Shinji Hirako muttered to himself.

When it came to promoting young talent, he and Lisa Yadōmaru were actually much alike—if the Fifth Division hadn't been so desperately short of talent that Lieutenant Ika barely had any reliable Seated Officers to call on, he wouldn't have bothered with an errand like this.

"What a pain."

"Modified Kidō?"

Munechika's voice abruptly dropped several pitches.

Take Hadō, for example. The "ninety-nine numbered" Hadō did not mean that Soul Society had only ninety-nine kinds of Hadō.

Looked at another way, it was currently impossible to say whether there were even ninety-nine: neither the textbooks at Shin'ō Academy nor the secret records collected by the noble families contained a complete record of all ninety-nine Hadō.

In fact,

Aside from Shigekuni Yamamoto, perhaps only the Grand Kidō Chief who commanded the Kidō Corps possessed information on all the known numbered Kidō.

Moreover, over the past century, many Kidō had been officially added to the series of ninety-nine numbered spells.

These Kidō all shared one very obvious characteristic:

Regardless of how difficult they were to learn, they could potentially be mastered by Shinigami of different ranks.

As for Kidō that only their inventors could use, or that had extremely stringent bloodline or talent requirements, those were placed in a separate category of original Kidō.

Modifying Kidō certainly couldn't compare to creating an original spell in difficulty, but every genius who created an original Kidō had started out by modifying Kidō.

That enormous gap nearly extinguished Munechika's desire to fight.

But...

Just as Munechika was about to give up, he noticed Haruto make a small movement, putting his right hand behind his back.

Then Munechika's gaze drifted downward, toward his own scorched, stinging palm.

"Tch!"

Munechika's lips twitched disdainfully.

"Bluffing."

From that simple movement, Munechika could tell that blocking the attack definitely hadn't been as easy for Haruto as it looked.

"Haruto!"

Munechika's voice was quite shrill.

"Do you know what I hate most about you?"

"...I'm listening."

Haruto was caught off guard by Munechika's sudden "confession."

"You bastard—"

If he trained as a tenor, he'd surely see results in no time.

"Would it kill you not to show off!?"

Showing off, hogging the spotlight, especially in front of the opposite sex.

Munechika had enjoyed being the center of attention since childhood, but after he entered Shin'ō Academy, Haruto had stolen all of it from him bit by bit—he had already deigned to come to Shin'ō Academy and study alongside these commoners from Rukongai, yet he hadn't been given the standing and respect he deserved.

That naturally left Munechika extremely displeased.

"..."

"You don't understand."

That was all Haruto said in reply to Munechika.

Whether Hollows, Shinigami, or Quincy, battles in the world of Bleach were really contests

of style:

Whoever broke character first had to leave the stage early.

Taking it a step further, whoever used their ultimate move first was the loser... unless you knew you had more forms—or cheats—than your opponent.

"#!"

Haruto's words instantly made the veins bulge on Munechika's forehead.

Still, Munechika suppressed the urge to fly into a rage—he was used to this kind of verbal provocation.

"Fine!"

He practically forced the word out through clenched teeth.

"Since you can use modified Kidō..."

Munechika's rather badly scorched palm reached for the hilt of the Asauchi at his waist.

"Click."

The guard touched the scabbard.

A crisp metallic sound rang out.

"You're worthy enough to be my opponent in this live-blade match against me, Mikazuki Munechika."

"Huh?"

Munechika's words were so pretentious that Haruto couldn't make sense of the situation at first: Haruto was clearly the one with the advantage, so how did Munechika, who had been shocked enough to nearly surrender moments ago, dare call him "worthy"?

Just then—

"When this is over,"

Munechika twisted his palm hard against the hilt several times. The dirty blood seeping out, mixed with charred flakes, didn't hinder his movement.

"You can take your time regretting... the arrogance of keeping the right hand that should be holding your sword behind your back!"

"Shing."

The ring of the blade mingled with the sound of air being torn apart.

Munechika took a seemingly simple step forward, but his body vanished from Haruto's sight in an instant.

"!?"

The Reiatsu that had crossed the training ground and was closing in at tremendous speed in less than half a second clearly revealed the technique Munechika had used—

"Shunpo?"

Shunpo, a Shinigami's high-speed movement technique, was a standard ability for captains and vice-captains of the Gotei 13, but only up to that point... below vice-captain, even high-ranking Seated Officers couldn't necessarily use Shunpo well.

At the very least, Mitarai, the Fifth Division's sixth seat who had set up the Enkōsen at the edge of the training ground, hadn't even grasped the basics of Shunpo.

"No."

Sensing the Reiatsu so close at hand yet unable to see it, Haruto's mind began racing.

"If it were Shunpo, I wouldn't even be able to sense his Reiatsu."

"Using Reiatsu to strengthen his legs and feet, then amplify his speed and impact... although he can't control it at will, it's still a pretty good technique for a student."

The opportunity would vanish in an instant.

Haruto could still calmly and quickly analyze what Munechika had done and how he needed to respond.

"At most—"

"Whoosh!"

Munechika's figure finally registered on Haruto's retinas.

A diagonal slash: the Zanpakuto was about to chop down from upper right to lower left, and if it landed, it would undoubtedly open a huge gash.

It wouldn't cut him in two, but there was no telling how long he'd be bedridden.

Unfortunately,

That was only Munechika's ideal scenario.

"—I'd call it one-third of a Shunpo."

"Click."

Haruto touched the hilt with his fingers.

He had put his right hand behind his back not out of conceit or arrogance, as Munechika had said, but simply to conceal his movements.

Haruto's talent for Zanjutsu was never particularly impressive, and he had no intention of relying on his Asauchi and swordsmanship to fight Munechika.

So,

Haruto had never even considered drawing his Asauchi, much less drawing it backhanded with his left hand—though he could have forced it out if he had to, fighting with real blades without using his dominant hand would have been true arrogance.

The light click was followed by a flick.

Haruto was in the habit of pressing his left palm against the hilt—the student uniforms at Shin'ō Academy were so old-fashioned that not only did they lack pockets to slip his hands into, but with only a belt to hold the Asauchi, his pants were also liable to sag... the Shinigami of the Seireitei all had typical Eastern builds, without a shapely rear like Captain America's, so relying on Newton's force to counter the weight of an Asauchi was definitely a laborious task.

Shin'ō Academy students didn't carry their Asauchi everywhere, mainly because the things were so heavy that carrying them around was completely impractical.

If Haruto hadn't known all along that releasing a Zanpakuto required carrying it around and regularly building a bond with it, he wouldn't have bothered with such a thankless task.

Of course,

There were students who knew the conditions for releasing a Zanpakuto, but one only had to look at the number of students in Shin'ō Academy's history who had managed it while still enrolled... wasn't it better to just practice Kidō?

Freed from the "restraint" of the Asauchi,

Haruto curled three fingers on his sharply boned hand into a half-fist as fast as he could—his thumb, ring finger, and little finger—while his index and middle fingers, straight and sharp as a real sword, stabbed directly toward Munechika's sword hand from less than thirty centimeters away, like a viper that had long since locked onto its prey.

"Hadō #1."

"!?"

Every word of the clear incantation reached Munechika's ears.

He didn't even have a chance to react with an expression, and his pupils hadn't so much as begun to quake before Haruto's fingers touched Munechika's still-intact wrist, ahead of the blade striking Haruto.

"Shō!"

Just as mentioned earlier, Munechika's so-called Shunpo was more like a charge, a move with no way back; once he swung his weapon, there was no room left to change his movement.

He couldn't dodge!

"Bang!"

The tremendous force numbed the muscles in his hand, and the impact of Reiatsu that followed instantly knocked the hilt from Munechika's tight grip.

The long blade flew from his hand like a windmill, traced a less-than-graceful rainbow arc through the air, and plunged straight into the solid ground of the training field.

Munechika's body, struck directly by Shō, followed his Asauchi into the air, completing a violent, rapid, uncontrolled 720-degree spin.

And just as he was about to hit the ground—

"Hadō #1."

Haruto's fingers, still behind his back, silently pointed at Munechika from a distance once more.

He had used two fingers to release Shō just now.

Unlike the Reiatsu-enhanced version he'd used at the beginning, the move Haruto had used to send Munechika flying had another Kidō added to Shō:

"Bakudō #8: Seki."

The Bakudō's original ability was to form a Reiatsu shield close against the skin of the hand to block an opponent's physical attacks.

Haruto had used Seki's repelling property to strengthen Shō's physical attack, producing that exaggerated effect.

Normally,

Using Hadō and Bakudō simultaneously like this required at least the Twofold Incantation technique. Even for a Twofold Incantation using single-digit Kidō, adding Eishōhaki to omit the incantations would increase the difficulty exponentially.

But,

Haruto was far too familiar with single-digit Hadō and Bakudō, especially Shō, the first one he had learned. There were so many tricks he could pull off with it that nearly every single-digit Kidō could be modified and incorporated into Shō; the only difference was how strong the effect was.