Early the next morning, thanks to the covert efforts of interested parties to spread the word, a piece of news caused a sensation throughout Seireitei: Vice-Captain Nangong Ling was going to duel Captain Tsunayashiro.
The two main participants had yet to appear, but many ordinary Soul Reapers had already arrived to watch the Captain-level duel firsthand and see if they could learn anything.
"How long has it been since he became a lieutenant? Is he challenging a Captain-level opponent already?"
"He's a terrifying monster!"
"Maki, aren't you and Vice-Captain Nangong Ling brothers? Tell us how strong he really is. Is he really strong enough to challenge a captain?"
Several of Maki's classmates who had graduated alongside him marveled at the news. Then someone remembered that Maki often mentioned his big brother, Nangong Ling, so they asked him.
"Hmph, do you even need to ask? Captain Kuruyashiki himself said my big brother could definitely grow into the next Captain-Commander."
Maki seemed to have great confidence in Rei, and he looked positively fanatical as he boasted. In truth, he was thinking, You have to win! You can't lose! He's a captain!
"How is that possible? The Captain-Commander is the strongest Soul Reaper in thousands of years!"
"That's right. They say no one in history has ever been able to beat the Captain-Commander."
"No, it's possible. Lieutenant Nangong defeated former Lieutenant Gosuke as soon as he joined a year ago and took the Eleventh Division's lieutenant position. Now he looks very confident he can beat Captain Tsunayashiro..."
The three disagreed over whether Rei could become Captain-Commander, then returned to the matter at hand: whether Rei could defeat Captain Tsunayashiro. If he could, then he really might become Captain-Commander someday.
What they didn't know was that Rei had very little chance of becoming Captain-Commander. The main reason was that brute strength alone wasn't enough for the position; it also required wisdom and resourcefulness.
In the original timeline, after Yama-jii died in battle, the captain the Zero Division chose was Kyōraku rather than Retsu Unohana, who lacked neither seniority nor strength, simply because Kyōraku was resourceful.
Kyōraku would stop at nothing to win. He spared no one who needed to be sacrificed, as long as he could kill the enemy and achieve victory. Perhaps he had no choice in some of those matters, but he had done them nonetheless, which was why Kyōraku was a qualified leader.
At nine in the morning, the sun wasn't too harsh yet. Rei strolled over to the Ninth Division's training ground, noticing along the way that quite a few Soul Reapers were already giving him strange looks.
"So many people are looking at me. Did I get more handsome again today?"
Rei took out a round mirror about five centimeters across and checked his face. Sure enough, he found he was more handsome, mainly because the pimples on his face were gradually disappearing.
He didn't know why, as a soul who looked twenty already, he was still getting pimples. It was utterly bizarre.
But clearly, no one thought he had become more handsome. They were only looking because he was one of the main participants today.
When Rei stood in the middle of the training ground, Hideaki Tsunayashiro sensed his Reiatsu and appeared in an instant with Shunpo, wearing the white haori reserved for captains.
"You actually came. It seems even I, the Captain of the Ninth Division of the Gotei 13, have been underestimated!"
Hideaki Tsunayashiro knew there was no turning back now, and he couldn't afford to fail. He couldn't imagine what situation the Tsunayashiro Clan would face if he lost.
"Underestimated? Hahahaha! You make it sound like you're really something. From the moment you killed my vassals, you should have expected things to come to this!"
Rei had spent very little time with his vassals, at most the period he had spent at home after his travels, which was only about a year.
But they were all people who had sworn loyalty to him, the kind who wouldn't disobey even if he ordered them to die. In a situation like this, if he showed a bit of backbone, who would still follow him?
Besides, he, Nangong Ling, was no coward!
"You're making an enemy of the Five Great Noble Clans over a few servants. You're doomed!"
Hideaki Tsunayashiro was still using his status to pressure Rei, hoping to make him fear the network of connections behind him.
"Don't treat yourself as a representative of the Five Great Noble Clans. The other clans won't be happy about it."
Unfortunately, Rei could also see at a glance that the Five Great Noble Clans weren't a united group; they had conflicts of interest with one another too.
Their needle-sharp exchange finally came to an end, and it was time for the main event. The Soul Reapers watching were hundreds of meters away, but when they felt the two steadily growing Reiatsu within the arena, their chests still tightened and they struggled to breathe.
Boom!
The two Reiatsu rose to their peaks, and when they collided, a sonic boom rang out. Gales of Reiatsu scattered in every direction, rushing toward the spectators.
At the crucial moment, a group of strangely dressed members of the Kidō Corps appeared. They joined forces to block the gales with Kidō and separate the two combatants' battlefield from the spectators.
The two inside began a contest of speed, which could also be called a contest of Shunpo. They fought at speeds ordinary Soul Reapers could barely follow with the naked eye, their figures appearing all over the area enclosed by the Kidō.
Rei had been relatively lacking in speed before, but after spending so long in Hueco Mundo, he had improved greatly in both Kidō and Shunpo.
With a clang, sparks flew, and the two appeared somewhere else. Fighting at such high speeds required a great deal of Reiatsu to sustain it.
Before long, Hideaki Tsunayashiro could no longer keep it up. Once he slowed down, Rei slashed him, and blood dripped onto the ground.
"Ha! You're a captain, and you're already running out of steam?"
Rei didn't hesitate to attack him mentally as well, mocking Hideaki Tsunayashiro.
"Your Reiatsu is stronger than mine, so you can keep fighting longer, but... how is your Kidō? Hadō #4, Byakurai!"
Hideaki Tsunayashiro wasn't angry. Losing his head at a time like this would be courting death. Instead, he sought to challenge Rei with Kidō, firing more than ten bolts of Byakurai from his fingertips in quick succession.
He remembered that Rei had only joined the Gotei 13 recently and had only begun learning Kidō in the past little while. No matter what, he couldn't be very strong at it.
"Heh heh! A Kidō battle? Bakudō #39, Enkōsen!"
Rei sneered, then cast Kidō without an incantation. A bright yellow circular shield appeared in front of him, blocking every bolt of Byakurai.
In Hueco Mundo, Rei went out every day to devour all kinds of Hollows. The first thing he did was use Bakudō to immobilize and capture them.
He used it every day, so how could he not be proficient? If there was anything he wasn't very familiar with, it was the more powerful Hadō. Even so, with a full incantation and his own powerful Reiatsu, he could unleash Hadō of considerable power.
"Hadō #31, Shakkahō!"
"Hadō #32, Yellow Fire Flash!"
Hideaki's red fireball collided with Rei's high-speed yellow flames, blasting a large crater in the ground. But neither of them stopped; they continued trading blasts of Kidō.
Mid-level Kidō such as Sōkatsui, Haien, and Ice Fang Storm never ceased, while Bakudō appeared one after another. Both intended to bind the other and then land a full hit with Kidō.
The two continually altered the surrounding terrain, and the Ninth Division's training ground gradually became unrecognizable...
"Amazing! They've already reached Kidō in the sixties, and they can still skip the incantations!"
"At this rate, could they even use Kidō in the eighties..."
"No, Vice-Captain Nangong Ling is almost at his limit. He still isn't skilled enough!"
The ordinary Soul Reapers were stunned, endlessly praising the Kidō battle in the arena, but the sharper-eyed Seated Officers could see that Rei was about to reach his limit.
Sure enough, when Hideaki unleashed Sōren Sōkatsui, Rei chose to dodge, then drew his sword and used Shunpo to reach Hideaki's side. Caught off guard, Hideaki was sent flying by a slash.
"Vice-Captain Nangong Ling is so despicable!"
"That's right. He couldn't keep up in the Kidō contest, so he launched a sneak attack."
"He doesn't deserve to be a lieutenant..."
A few young nobles and a group of righteous idiots kept denouncing Rei, but few of the more level-headed Soul Reapers joined them. If empty words were useful, what was the point of a Zanpakuto?
Quite a few people looked at them as if they were fools. On the battlefield, what did it matter whether something was despicable? Survival was all that mattered.
Hideaki Tsunayashiro, the man involved, clearly understood this too. Without another word, he used the Bakudō Sekienton to obscure Rei's vision, then charged in for the kill.
Rei was faster and stronger, and Hideaki Tsunayashiro fell completely on the defensive. Two more wounds appeared on him in an instant, and anyone could see that he was being utterly suppressed.
"Entangle and kill him! Kyūryūmaru!"
Hideaki Tsunayashiro finally saw his chance. The instant Rei swung his Zanpakuto at him, he activated his Shikai.
His Zanpakuto split into nine, extending like nine willow branches, while their leaves became incomparably sharp blades that stabbed toward Rei's neck.
Not only that, the other branches, bearing young leaves, also moved to surround and kill Rei in one stroke. Unfortunately, Rei was fast enough to evade the attacks on his vital spots by a narrow margin.
"Shikai? Why didn't you do that sooner?"
Blood welled from four places on Rei's body: his neck, left shoulder, left abdomen, and right thigh. All of them had been caused by Hideaki's attack just now.
The instant Hideaki Tsunayashiro activated his Shikai, his Reiatsu came very close to matching Rei's.
"I really didn't expect your Reiatsu to be this strong, but now that I've activated my Shikai, you don't stand a chance!"
Although Hideaki Tsunayashiro regretted that the attack had failed to kill Rei, he wasn't angry. If Rei had died just like that, he would have been a little too cute!
"Don't stand a chance? Did you forget I can use Shikai too? Blood Drink!"
Blood Drink was summoned without even a release command. Holding the greatsword, Rei said calmly, "You'd better use your Bankai! Otherwise, you really won't get a chance to use it."
"Hmph, you conceited brat!"
Hideaki roared, and the two clashed once more, fighting inextricably.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Steel rang out without cease. Two more small wounds appeared on Rei, both inflicted by those nine troublesome willow branches.