An unnatural stillness had settled over the Seireitei.
The moonlight that should have bathed the city in pale silver was being distorted by the contaminated reishi left behind after the battle, turning the sky a deep, unsettling violet.
The color spread across the ruins like a bruise, giving the entire Seireitei the feeling of something sacred that had been stained and was no longer entirely clean.
Inside the Fourth Division's emergency ward, the atmosphere was even heavier.
Unohana stood beside Kazuma's bed, both hands glowing with Kaidō as she poured healing energy into his body without pause.
The light from her fingers flowed into him in steady streams, but the black-and-red filaments crawling upward from his neck reacted as though they were alive.
They twisted toward the incoming healing light, wrapping around it and trying to consume it before the Kaidō could reach the damaged spiritual pathways beneath.
Even Minazuki was beginning to show the strain.
The enormous manta ray-shaped Zanpakutō let out a low, pained sound as Unohana continued draining her own reiatsu to keep Kazuma stable.
Seven deep wounds had opened along Minazuki's underside, blood running from them in steady streams and spreading across the floor.
"Captain!"
Isane's voice cut through the silence.
"The reishi dialysis readings just passed the critical threshold!"
She stared at the monitor, sweat gathering across her forehead.
The lines representing Kazuma's condition no longer resembled ordinary medical data.
As the machine struggled to interpret what was happening inside him, the display had begun rendering the readings as a symbolic image: several pulsing stars bound together by a chain covered in thorns, each spike driven deep into the stellar surfaces as though the chain were trying to crush them from within.
Everyone in the room went tense.
Then Unohana stopped.
She withdrew her hands from Kazuma's body and stared down at him with a grave expression.
A strange stellar brand was beginning to form over his chest.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she turned, picked up the medical log, and rapidly wrote a sequence of encrypted sigils across the page.
"Activate Protocol Seventy-Two immediately."
Her voice left no room for argument.
"And send someone for Captain-Commander Yamamoto."
...
The steady sound of wooden sandals echoed through the Fourth Division corridors.
By the time Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni arrived, the entire division was already operating under emergency conditions.
Alarms buzzed through the halls, sharp and relentless, while projected displays flickered across the walls.
One of those projections belonged to Kurotsuchi Mayuri.
Or at least it had.
The holographic image of his body suddenly broke apart into dozens of thin strips, sliced to pieces by some invisible interference before the connection collapsed entirely.
The final image transmitted before the signal died showed a storage chamber thirty floors beneath the Department of Research and Development.
The room where the captured Sternritter medallions were being kept had erupted in blinding light.
Yamamoto struck the end of his Zanpakutō against the floor.
Sparks scattered across the corridor.
"Send orders to every division."
His voice thundered through the Fourth Division.
"Effective immediately, the Seireitei is entering Level One combat readiness. Suspend all ongoing reconstruction work until further notice."
Suì-Fēng flashed into view almost at once, leaving a chain of blurred afterimages along the corridor wall.
"But Captain-Commander Kazuma specifically ordered before he lost consciousness—"
Yamamoto cut her off.
"At this moment, Iam the Captain-Commander."
His reiatsu erupted around him.
Heat rolled through the corridor in a wave, instantly vaporizing the frost that had formed along the nearby walls and filling the air with white steam.
No one argued again.
Yamamoto approached the emergency ward and placed one hand against the barrier sealing the room.
Through its slightly distorted surface, he could see Kazuma lying motionless on the bed.
More concerning was the thing forming over his chest.
The symbolic chain displayed on the medical equipment was no longer merely symbolic.
A faint physical outline had begun to appear over Kazuma's heart.
It was becoming real.
Yamamoto's brow furrowed.
"This is worse than I expected."
...
Elsewhere in the ruined Seireitei, Iba Tetsuzaemon was overseeing the cleanup of the battlefield left behind by the four founders.
His division moved carefully through the wreckage, clearing collapsed walls, shattered crystal, and the debris produced by attacks powerful enough to reshape entire districts.
Iba brought his Zanpakutō down on the last large block of frozen material.
The ice split.
Then the ground beneath it moved.
He froze.
The rubble surrounding the area began to crawl toward itself.
Broken stone, tiles, timber, and crystal fragments slid across the ground without anyone touching them.
They gathered into piles, then stacked themselves with unnatural precision.
Before anyone could stop it, seven enormous towers had begun rising from the ruins.
Each one climbed higher and higher until their tips disappeared against the violet sky.
All seven pointed in the same direction.
Senzaikyū.
Hisagi Shūhei stared at them.
"No. That's definitely not normal."
He drew Kazeshini and attacked.
The twin blades tore across the closest tower, throwing sparks into the air.
But the sparks did not fade.
They stopped.
Then began moving toward one another.
Hisagi's expression changed as they assembled into a brilliant five-pointed Quincy star suspended between the towers.
"Notify the Department of Research and Development!"
He raised his voice.
"Now!"
...
Nemu noticed the disturbance at almost the same moment.
The receiver attached near her ear suddenly erupted in sparks, crackling violently enough that she instinctively reached toward it.
Before she could investigate, someone appeared in the laboratory.
Zaraki Kenpachi.
He looked irritated.
Which, for Kenpachi, usually meant something nearby was about to have a very unpleasant day.
He held a broken fragment of a Sternritter medallion in one hand.
Faint starlight pulsed from the metal, and he had pressed it directly into his already bleeding palm.
"Hey, freak."
Mayuri turned.
Kenpachi held up the fragment.
"This damn thing is drinking my blood."
Mayuri's attention snapped immediately to the instruments beside him.
Numbers were climbing rapidly across the display.
His golden eyes narrowed with excitement.
"Oh?"
He leaned closer.
"How fascinating."
The readings continued shifting.
"Your reiatsu fluctuations are synchronizing with the residual energy inside the medallion."
His grin widened.
Then he reached for a surgical knife.
"In that case, perhaps we should remove your arm and examine the interaction more thoroughly."
Kenpachi stared at him.
Mayuri lifted the blade.
"Hold still."
Kenpachi shoved him away.
"Fuck off."
Mayuri stumbled backward.
"You just want to cut me open because you think I'd make good research material."
Kenpachi might hate complicated explanations, but he was not an idiot.
And when Mayuri looked that pleased while holding a surgical knife, the correct answer was always no.