A Moment of Fury

"Bastard! What the hell do you take us for?!"

The roar erupted like thunder.

Unlike Captain-General Yamamoto's restraint, the young and hot-blooded Shinigami had long since been unable to tolerate such humiliating words.

Treating the Thirteen Court Guard Squads as puppets to be manipulated at will?

Even regarding everyone's fate as mere footnotes in a script?

Their fury instantly burst through the dam of reason.

Renji Abarai, who had come prepared to kill, was the first to explode into action.

Veins bulged across his forehead, betrayed rage burning in his eyes. His Zanpakuto was released amid his roar:

"Bankai—King of the Beasts, Zabimaru!!!"

A crimson storm of Spiritual Pressure swept outward. A massive skeletal serpent emerged within that power, every segment of its bones radiating a terrifying pressure.

With a shrill howl, the colossal bone serpent, dozens of meters long, opened its jaws and lunged at Fake Shunsui Kyoraku with overwhelming force.

"Oh? My young friend, you really do have quite the temper."

Faced with an attack capable of shattering boulders, Fake Kyoraku did not even shift his feet.

He even had the leisure to offer a critique, that infuriatingly contemptuous smile still hanging from his lips.

"Unfortunately, your strength doesn't match your temper, Renji Abarai."

Before his words had even faded, he casually raised a finger. There was barely any visible Spiritual Pressure gathered at its tip, as though he were simply brushing dust from his clothes.

"Kidō #1: Shot."

This was the first lesson in the Soul Reaper Academy's Kido classes—the most basic and inconspicuous low-level Kido, something even first-year students could master.

Its effect was merely to release a weak shockwave from one's fingertip.

Yet at Fake Kyoraku's fingertips, even a drop of water could become a torrent capable of piercing mountains.

"BOOM!!!"

A deafening explosion rang