Staring at the Hōzukimaru that had suddenly taken physical form, Ikkaku Madarame's face filled with shock.
"Hōzukimaru?!"
"Oh?"
Hōzukimaru lifted an eyebrow, looking down on Ikkaku with open disdain.
"What a pathetic excuse for a master."
"To be bound hand and foot by a mere Bakudō, unable to fight…"
"In that case, I don't need to bother with you anymore!"
Tetsuzaemon Iba drew his Zanpakutō with a sharp shing, taking a guarded stance, ready to strike at any moment.
"Ikkaku—what's going on here?!"
Ikkaku looked utterly lost.
"I… don't know."
His expression gradually darkened.
"Hōzukimaru… it's slipped out of my control."
Iba tightened his grip, his posture shifting as if he was about to move.
"If that's the case, then we can't let it get away."
Hearing that, Hōzukimaru burst into wild laughter.
Its crimson hair writhed atop its head like flames.
"Hahahaha—you?"
"You're not stopping me!"
The instant the words fell, Hōzukimaru sprang upward and crashed straight through the window, escaping.
It was so fast that before anyone could properly react, the figure had already vanished into Seireitei.
---
First Division Barracks
Yamamoto's face was grim as he listened to the seated officers' reports.
After a long silence, his half-closed eyes opened slightly, a cold glint flashing within.
"So… aside from the captains and lieutenants of the Third Division and Sixth Division…"
"All other captains' Zanpakutō… have rebelled."
Shunsui sighed, speaking in agreement.
"The one thing we didn't want to see… still happened."
"Shimo and Captain Kuchiki have been gone for less than a day."
Yet already, a huge number of Zanpakutō had gone out of control—manifesting into physical form, abandoning their owners, and disappearing.
Those who understood the situation knew exactly what this meant:
This was the work of Muramasa, the Zanpakutō of Kuchiki Kōga.
"At a time like this, shouldn't our top priority be sending squads to track down the missing Zanpakutō?"
Soi Fon's face showed urgency.
If they kept hesitating, they could bring unimaginable trouble down on Soul Society.
So many captains' Zanpakutō had manifested.
If they started releasing in Seireitei, the result would be an absolute disaster.
Seireitei—still scarred by Aizen's betrayal—couldn't endure another calamity.
Thud!
A heavy impact slammed down, crushing the anxious debate.
Yamamoto's cane struck the ground hard.
"Chōjirō. Issue the order—recall Captain Shimo and Captain Kuchiki to Soul Society."
"And—two captains per unit. Ambush the Zanpakutō."
"This is war as well. Do not take it lightly!"
The meeting ended.
Under the flow of orders, all of Seireitei surged into motion.
Before long, war rose again within Seireitei—
Captains who encountered their own Zanpakutō began a new round of battle.
Raging flames tore through the streets.
Komamura's face was dark as he repeatedly dodged the attacks.
Tenken wielded a black whip wreathed in fire—each strike pulverizing houses into rubble as flames raged along its length.
"Komamura—attack!"
Tenken howled with laughter.
"Hahaha! Where's that pride of yours now?!"
Komamura ground his teeth so hard they squeaked.
Right now, he couldn't even achieve Shikai.
All he could do was fight with his Zanpakutō in its sealed, asauchi-like state—
And attacks at that level couldn't even cut Tenken's outer hide.
But every time Tenken struck, it scorched Komamura's fur black.
He was locked in a deadlock.
At the same time—
Similar scenes played out all across Seireitei.
Zanpakutō versus Shinigami.
Most of the time, the Zanpakutō held the upper hand.
With Shikai and Bankai sealed off, only those Shinigami highly proficient in Kidō could barely suppress their own Zanpakutō.
---
When Shimo returned to Soul Society, the sight before him was… almost grand in its devastation.
Battles erupted everywhere—ruins, scorched stone, sheets of ice, smoke—blanketing Seireitei.
"Kuchiki Kōga has lost his mind… or Muramasa has,"
Shimo muttered instinctively.
"He's not even thinking about consequences anymore."
Byakuya's expression was icy.
"A man like that… I will personally strike his name from the Kuchiki clan."
Kuchiki Kōga may have once been misunderstood.
But the moment he spread war across Soul Society, everything changed.
Right or wrong no longer mattered.
Once war begins… the victor is the one who writes the truth.
"Shimo," Byakuya said bluntly, not the least bit polite. "I need your help."
"…Yare yare."
At that moment, a familiar voice drifted from down the street.
"So you two are finally back."
Shunsui approached from the distance.
Shimo's gaze flicked to the pair of blades in Shunsui's hands—one long, one short—and surprise surfaced on his face.
"Hey now, don't look at me like that, Shimo."
Shunsui crossed his twin blades and launched a powerful slash at Shimo!
BOOOOM—!
The blade-pressure skimmed past Shimo's cheek and struck behind him—
A pillar of lightning shot skyward, swallowing the slash and detonating a dust plume dozens of meters high.
"Gonryōmaru," Shunsui's tone turned cold, "you attacked him."
"Isn't this what you wanted—being snapped in two?"
Shimo turned his head. His calm expression didn't change at all.
The moment Gonryōmaru appeared behind him, he had already sensed it.
If Shunsui hadn't intervened in time, Shimo wouldn't have cared whose Zanpakutō it was—
Anyone who dared lay a hand on him would have been met with an attack far beyond what they could imagine.
Gonryōmaru, shaped like an armored warrior, carried a backpack the size of a small room on his back—an oddly absurd sight.
"I hate being ignored."
His reason for attacking Shimo was simple.
As a Zanpakutō, his owner—Sasakibe Chōjirō—was constantly overlooked.
He hated that feeling.
And after being manifested by Muramasa, that buried desire and resentment had been magnified without limit.
"So this is what a manifested Zanpakutō looks like?"
Shimo appraised Gonryōmaru with interest, briefly probing with spiritual pressure.
"It's not much different from a Zanpakutō manifested through the Tenshintai method."
Under Shimo's gaze, Gonryōmaru instinctively raised his blade defensively.
In an instant, cold sweat drenched his clothes.
A manifested Zanpakutō… wasn't all that different from an ordinary Shinigami.
"How… how is this possible…?"
Gonryōmaru cried out helplessly inside.
"It's just Shimo looking at me… why can't I even move my body?!"
A freezing sensation seeped out from the marrow, swallowing him whole.
His trembling hands couldn't even hold his sword properly.
Seeing this, Shunsui looked at Shimo with mild surprise.
But he didn't comment—only said:
"Stay here and behave."
"Chōjirō will be here any moment."
The moment he finished speaking, a figure shot down the street at high speed.
"Gonryōmaru!"
A stern voice rang out.
Hearing it, relief actually flashed in Gonryōmaru eyes—
And in the very next instant, he turned back into a Zanpakutō and returned to Chōjirō's hand.
Chōjirō looked bewildered.
What just happened?
Why did Gonryōmaru come back on his own?
The intelligence reports said only by personally defeating your Zanpakutō could you subdue it again—
Yet here it was, returning by itself.
Watching this, Shimo understood.
"So that's the difference."
A Zanpakutō manifested via the Tenshintai method doesn't undergo much emotional change.
It appears only to push its owner toward mastering release.
But the Zanpakutō summoned by Muramasa have their desires amplified—breeding emotions they were never meant to carry.
When faced with fear… they can react like this.
More importantly, Zanpakutō perceive spiritual pressure far more directly than Shinigami do.
They can sense even tiny shifts with frightening clarity.
"Since your Zanpakutō has returned, Chōjirō," Shunsui said, "go—help the other battlefields."
Chōjirō nodded, his composure returning.
"And you two?"
Shunsui looked toward the northern wildlands beyond Seireitei.
"Shimo and I are going to capture Kuchiki Kōga."
---
The northern wildlands, facing the Twin Hills, were a vast forested expanse in Seireitei's outskirts.
Scorched earth. Deep craters. A forest reduced to ruin.
Yamamoto's Shikai had clearly ravaged the land beyond recognition.
"When I fought Katen Kyōkotsu," Shunsui said, "I pried Muramasa's hiding place out of her."
"Pass through that forest ahead. There's a cave on the mountain inside."
Shimo frowned.
"At the Human World seal where Kuchiki Kōga was imprisoned, I detected Hollow spiritual pressure."
"If nothing unexpected happened, the one who broke the seal… was Aizen."
Shunsui fell silent for a moment, then kept walking.
"He's not even bothering to hide it anymore."
"Tōsen Kaname's death likely caused some trouble for Aizen's plans."
"This is only one of his counterattacks."
Shunsui had suspected as much the moment Kōga's seal was broken.
Now, with Shimo's confirmation, the idea became certainty.
"By the way," Shimo suddenly asked, thinking of something crucial, "has Ryūjin Jakka rebelled?"
If Ryūjin Jakka manifested and turned traitor…
Then their entire plan would need to change.
If that thing released, Soul Society itself might be pushed to the brink.
The heat of a sun's core—Shimo didn't believe anyone could withstand it head-on.
Not even himself.
That kind of power was simply unreasonable.
Before Zanka no Tachi… all living things were equal.
Shunsui sighed, soothing him.
"Relax."
"The old man's Zanpakutō is steady. It hasn't manifested, and it hasn't rebelled."
RUMBLE—!
From the mountains ahead, a massive spiritual pressure began to surge rapidly.
Shimo's brows knitted. There was something subtly different about it.
Just then, Nel—who had been following close behind—sniffed, her expression turning strange.
"Shimo…"
"I smell Hollows."
That enormous spiritual pressure continued to spread from deep within the forest.
Shimo activated high-speed shunpo, racing toward its source.
The others followed, speeding up as well.
...
At the foot of the mountain, a figure stood openly releasing spiritual pressure, making no attempt to conceal it.
The Zanpakutō in his hand gleamed with dazzling brilliance.
"Oh?"
"Oh… someone finally noticed this place?"
A kenseikan hung at the left side of his hair. A sealed restraint clasped across his nose.
Kuchiki Kōga—Muramasa's master—the architect of the disaster now consuming Seireitei.
"What a shame."
"Too late."
"I've already mastered this intoxicating power!"
Kōga threw back his head in a crazed, arrogant laugh.
"Release!"
"Senbonzakura Kageyoshi!"
Among them, Byakuya's disgust for this man was absolute.
A Kuchiki by name—yet dragging the clan's honor through the mud while throwing Soul Society into chaos.
"You dare draw a Zanpakutō before me?"
Kōga looked at Byakuya—and the instant he saw the kenseikan by his ear and the silver-white ginpū sash at his neck, rage devoured every trace of expression on his face.
"A Kuchiki…!"
"All Kuchiki should die!"
"Release—Muramasa!"
A surge of green spiritual pressure invaded Byakuya's inner world in an instant.
"Another reckless idiot…" Shimo shook his head.
"Sometimes Byakuya is even more eager to rush in than Zaraki."
Shunsui spoke without taking his eyes off the battlefield.
"Old man, Senbonzakura is on you and Byakuya for now."
"As for Kuchiki Kōga… leave him to me."
Shunsui nodded, sending two blades of pressure into the storm of cherry blossoms.
Under his deliberate guidance, the battlefield split—pulling their fights farther apart.
Kōga noticed and frowned.
"So that's your strategy?"
"It seems you don't even consider me worth your attention."
Shing—!
Shimo drew his Zanpakutō, a faint smile curving at his lips as he leveled the tip at Kuchiki Kōga.
"Go ahead."
"I'm very curious…"
"What you look like after you manifest."
-----------------------------///
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