The atmosphere around the Tenchūren turned hostile in an instant.
Neither side backed away.
Spiritual pressure gathered in the space between them, heavy enough to make breathing uncomfortable, while the captains and Squad Zero stared each other down with the unmistakable sense that one wrong word would be enough to start a fight.
Ichibē Hyōsube had spent so long in the Soul King Palace that being treated as an unquestionable authority had become second nature.
In his eyes, the Gotei 13 had always occupied a lower rung of the hierarchy, an organization he could command or dismiss without much concern for how its captains felt about it.
That assumption no longer matched reality.
The current Gotei 13 had more than twenty captain-class combatants gathered in the Seireitei, and that was before accounting for the original captains who had returned from death.
Those monsters alone were enough to transform the balance of power, and Ichibē had just experienced that difference firsthand.
Saitō Furofushi tightened her grip around her Zanpakutō.
"I've always wondered how impressive Squad Zero really is."
Her reiatsu began to rise.
"Today seems like a good time to find out."
She started to speak the next word.
"Bankai—"
"Saitō. Stand down."
A deep voice cut through the confrontation before she could finish.
Everyone turned as Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni appeared between the two groups.
Ichibē was briefly startled to see him, but his expression quickly returned to its usual self-important calm.
"Yamamoto Shigekuni. I was told you were badly injured. Why are you walking around instead of receiving treatment?"
There was almost a note of reproach in his voice, as though Yamamoto owed him an explanation.
Yamamoto's brows lowered.
"Monk, I retired some time ago. I am no longer Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13."
Ichibē's expression shifted.
"However," Yamamoto continued, "before Kazuma lost consciousness, he entrusted temporary command of the Gotei 13 to me. The Seireitei is presently under the highest level of military alert. If you came here to help, then you will be received accordingly."
His voice hardened.
"If you came here to throw your weight around and cause trouble, I will deal with you myself."
There was no attempt to soften the warning.
Had Squad Zero descended to assist Soul Society during the invasion, Yamamoto would gladly have welcomed them as allies.
But if they intended to arrive only after the fighting was over and start ordering the battered Gotei 13 around, then they could expect a very different reception.
If necessary, Yamamoto was perfectly willing to remind them what the power of the sun felt like.
Ichibē's face darkened.
He had apparently expected Yamamoto's arrival to calm the Gotei 13 down.
Instead, the old man had reinforced their position.
Before the tension could flare up again, Nimaiya Ōetsu stepped forward.
"Yo, yo, former Captain-Commander Yamamoto!"
His words came out with their usual rhythmic cadence, almost turning the attempt at diplomacy into a rap performance.
"If you're the man handling things right now, how about filling us in? We come down from the Royal Palace, and suddenly the whole Seireitei looks like somebody dropped a war on top of it. What happened here, yo?"
Ōetsu clearly had no interest in allowing the disagreement to become an actual battle.
Yamamoto gave a dismissive snort.
"At least one of you knows how to ask a sensible question."
His gaze shifted toward Rukia.
"Rukia. You will remain here and brief Squad Zero on what happened. See that they are properly received."
Then he looked back toward Saitō and the other original captains.
"Saitō. The rest of you, come with me to the Fourth Division."
His expression became noticeably more serious.
"Kazuma's condition is deteriorating. We need a treatment plan immediately."
At the moment, Yamamoto had little patience for arguments over pride or rank.
Nothing mattered more than keeping Kazuma alive.
Kazuma was currently Soul Society's strongest combatant, and with the four founders still alive somewhere beyond the Seireitei, losing him would leave Soul Society without anyone capable of reliably standing against them if they returned.
Kirinji Tenjirō suddenly spoke from among Squad Zero.
"I'll come too."
Yamamoto glanced toward him.
Kirinji had created the hot-spring healing techniques used within the Royal Palace and remained one of the greatest Kaidō specialists Soul Society had ever produced.
More personally, he was curious about what kind of injury could reduce Kazuma—the same lunatic who had once managed to kill him—to such a critical condition.
Yamamoto gave a curt nod.
"Then keep up."
He disappeared with Shunpo.
The original captains followed immediately, and Kirinji left with them, the group vanishing toward the Fourth Division within moments.
...
The emergency ward was still in chaos when they arrived.
Kazuma lay unconscious on the treatment bed, his face almost entirely drained of color.
The black-and-red filaments that had first appeared along his neck were continuing to spread, crawling steadily downward beneath his skin until they had reached his chest.
Unohana stood over him with both hands glowing green.
Kaidō poured continuously into Kazuma's body, but the foreign substance refused to retreat.
It behaved almost like a living parasite, advancing despite Unohana's attempts to suppress it while greedily consuming the spiritual power still remaining inside him.
Sweat rolled down Unohana's face.
She had slowed it.
She had not stopped it.
Kazuma's reiatsu was growing weaker by the minute.
If the process continued without a breakthrough, death was no longer merely a possibility.
It was only a matter of time.
...
Deep within Kazuma's inner world, Hokushin Raitei paced restlessly before his throne.
Kazuma himself lay unconscious nearby, completely unresponsive.
Hokushin Raitei looked down at him and sighed.
"I warned you."
He walked another few steps, irritation and worry mixing across his face.
"I told you not to force your full power while your body was still damaged, but apparently listening would have interfered with your desperate need to look impressive."
He stopped beside Kazuma.
"And now look at you."
The old injuries buried inside Kazuma's spiritual body had broken open again, but that alone was not the worst of it.
The foreign divine power left behind by the outside god had also taken advantage of his weakened condition and begun invading his spiritual body.
"You dragged your old wounds open, let that bastard god's power start eating into you, and nearly burned yourself dry just so you could put on a show."
Hokushin Raitei rubbed his forehead.
"Congratulations. You finally overdid it properly."
With nothing immediately useful to do, he dropped heavily onto the throne and reached for a flask of wine, taking a long drink in the hope that it might make the situation slightly less irritating.
His own power was immense.
That was not the problem.
If all Kazuma needed was for the foreign divine power to be expelled, Hokushin Raitei could handle that much himself.
He could tear the contaminating force out of Kazuma's spiritual body and prevent it from consuming him outright.
What he could not do was repair the damage left behind.
Kazuma's spiritual body had been injured so badly that its natural regenerative ability had effectively shut down.
Even worse, Kazuma could no longer properly absorb the immortal power Hokushin Raitei tried to feed into him.
It was like pouring water into a torn wineskin.
No matter how much went in, everything leaked straight back out.
Hokushin Raitei could provide power.
Kazuma's body could no longer retain it.
That was what made the situation dangerous.
If they were back in Hokushin Raitei's original world, none of this would have been especially difficult.
There were countless medicines, heavenly treasures, and rare materials capable of restoring injuries to the spirit. Finding something suitable would have been a matter of choosing from a long list of options.
But this was the world of Shinigami.
Those resources did not exist here.
Hokushin Raitei stared at the unconscious Kazuma in silence, irritation gradually fading from his expression.
For all his power, there was currently nothing he could simply force into place.
He could remove the poison.
He could keep the foreign divine power from finishing the job.
But he could not make Kazuma's broken spiritual body heal itself.
And so, for perhaps the first time in a very long while, Hokushin Raitei could do little more than sit there and watch as Kazuma's life continued to weaken, like a flame running out of oil.