"Bakudō #39: Enkōsen."
With a flick of his fingers, Aizen conjured a rotating disk of spiritual energy. The golden shield spun before him, absorbing the tail end of the explosion just enough to prevent injury. As the debris and golden glow faded, he turned calmly in the direction the laser had come from.
Even while encircled by assassins and locked in combat, Aizen's Reiatsu sense had remained sharp—monitoring every ripple of the battlefield. The moment Akira's Reiatsu surfaced within range, Aizen had already noted it.
But after seeing his older brother watching quietly, eating spiritual melons in the stands, he simply chose to ignore it and continued to toy with his opponents.
Unexpectedly, that same bystander had suddenly intervened—with a single laser attack that erased the battle's conclusion.
"To think you'd take this long… against enemies with Reiatsu that weak."
Akira's voice came from above, calm and slightly amused.
Their eyes met—one brother observing, the other judging.
As he spoke, Akira slowly lowered his raised index finger, which still shimmered faintly with residual golden light.
"They made a nice offering to me," Akira said evenly.
"In return, I merely let them experience a wider world. That… was the most generous return I could manage."
Aizen smirked. Even while facing his own blood, he couldn't help but maintain his distinct air of superiority.
"Oh?"
"You know the name of your Zanpakutō, then?"
Akira's gaze shifted, drawn toward the sword in Aizen's hand.
"Kyōka Suigetsu," Aizen answered, as he gently turned the blade point-down toward the earth.
"Its ability is Kanzen Saimin—Complete Hypnosis. All five senses are under my control the moment someone sees the release. Even a single glimpse is enough… for a lifetime."
"Oh! And," he added casually, "it's widely regarded as the most powerful illusion-type Zanpakutō."
His tone was smooth, rhythmic—nearly musical. There was a subtle flair in how he spoke, a rhythm that pulled attention.
Only in front of Akira would he so openly reveal his secrets—and even then, not without showing off.
"Kyōka Suigetsu, huh?"
Akira's lips curled into a half-smile.
That Aizen would casually unveil his Zanpakutō's abilities without hesitation revealed something deeper than pride—it was trust.
From past to present, from every cold expression to every polite façade Aizen wore with others, Akira had seen it all.
To outsiders, he was always the same: courteous, composed, and cold beneath the surface.
But in front of him?
He was just a little brother.
"And you?" Aizen asked suddenly.
"When you expanded your spiritual perception earlier, I couldn't detect your Reiatsu at all… but the next moment, you were just there. And that laser—faster than a lightning strike…"
He paused, tilting his head slightly.
"Is light your Zanpakutō's domain? Creation and manipulation of light for combat?"
Aizen was genuinely curious. Akira's composure, even upon hearing about Kyōka Suigetsu's terrifying ability, had been utterly unshaken.
That calm—that indifference—was worth investigating.
"As you guessed," Akira answered with a nod.
"My Zanpakutō allows me to create and control light. Its nature is dual: speed like the light that splits the heavens, and destruction like the radiance that burns shadows to ash."
"Its name is Zhuyin—Candle Shade."
"Oh! And, for what it's worth, it's considered the strongest Zanpakutō in the photonic or radiant-type classification."
Akira's voice echoed Aizen's cadence deliberately.
Same tone.
Same nonchalant delivery.
Same subtle mockery.
"…!"
Aizen's smirk froze.
Same format. Same smugness.
Except this time—it was aimed back at him.
Even though he knew Kyōka Suigetsu's ability was truly in a league of its own, somehow… hearing it mirrored made it lose its punch.
Akira hadn't just answered him—he'd returned the performance.
"Heh…"
Both brothers locked eyes.
Silence.
Then suddenly—laughter.
It was quiet, almost imperceptible, but filled with something rare: warmth.
This side of them—the one that laughed genuinely—only appeared when they were alone, facing each other.
Who else could handle their weight, their games, their secrets?
Who else was worthy of honesty—and playfulness—at the same time?
Fwish—
But then—two new Reiatsu signatures flared in the distance.
Simultaneously, both brothers detected it. Their expressions remained unchanged, even as the atmosphere subtly shifted.
Their smiles lingered, but now with a different flavor—more composed, more refined.
The purity of their moment vanished.
"Akira."
"Aizen."
"What's the situation?"
The night had not yet ended.
And the game was still ongoing.
It took only a few seconds from the moment the unfamiliar Reiatsu signatures entered their sensory range for Akira to lay eyes on them.
Jūshirō Ukitake arrived first using Shunpo, his white haori fluttering gently in his wake. He halted beside the battlefield, his eyes calmly sweeping across the carnage—bodies pierced cleanly by blades or reduced to ruin by Hadō-type destruction.
Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni, the founder of the Gotei 13 and Spiritual Arts Academy, followed silently. His long white beard drifted slightly in the evening air as he leaned heavily on his cane-like Zanpakutō, Ryūjin Jakka. His gaze locked onto Akira—ancient, profound, and unfathomably deep, like the bottomless ocean.
"This was an assassination attempt."
Akira's tone was calm, as if commenting on the weather.
"After lectures at the Academy, Aizen and I returned to our dormitory. But just as we were about to open the door, our surroundings distorted. Reality became blurred, and before we could react, Aizen and I had been separated—teleported to different locations."
He gestured lightly toward the battlefield strewn with corpses.
"As you can see, we were forced to kill our attackers in self-defense."
Despite the grim context, his voice remained level, devoid of emotional weight.
"Kidō incantation.
A Forbidden Technique—Space Transfer."
"A precisely calculated ambush."
Yamamoto's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Within Akira's brief description, the Captain-Commander, with his centuries of battlefield experience, reconstructed the attack in his mind. Each detail—the spatial disruption, the forced separation, the precision—suggested not mere thuggery, but a high-level, premeditated assassination plot.
It was as if he had stood in the scene himself.
"Ah, I almost forgot," Ukitake added suddenly. "Akira, allow me to introduce you."
He turned and gestured respectfully.
"This is the Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13, founder of the Spiritual Arts Academy—
Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni."
Akira and Aizen stood side by side, but when they spoke, their honorifics were notably different.
"Headmaster."
"Your Excellency, Captain."
The deliberate distinction caught both Yamamoto and Ukitake off guard, if only for a moment.
Especially Yamamoto.
Despite spending centuries in Seireitei, surrounded by bureaucracy and protocol, he remained attuned to even the subtlest of nuances. He understood the weight of titles.
'Headmaster.'
The usage wasn't born of ignorance, but choice—a gesture of respect not for the military power of the Gotei 13, but for the academic and spiritual ideals Yamamoto once stood for.
It was a clear indication of Akira's nature: graceful, independent, unbound by rigid formality.
Aizen, by contrast, remained within conventional decorum. Respectful. Controlled. A model noble.
From just a title, Yamamoto gleaned more about the brothers than many would after years of observation.
Akira—free-spirited but sharp.
Aizen—refined, composed, and calculating.
"A promising pair."
He didn't say it aloud, but the thought lingered.
Yet the surface was just that—the surface.
"Regrettably, not a single assassin survived," Yamamoto finally said. His voice was calm but carried immense weight.
"Had one been captured, the Onmitsukidō or the Kidō Corps could've extracted the identity of the mastermind quickly. Still—no matter. We will find them. When the time comes, Seireitei will give you an answer."
The Captain-Commander's words were resolute, but Akira and Aizen understood what lay beneath them: political promise, not personal conviction.
Ukitake crouched beside one of the attackers, peeling the charred black hood from its face.
The skin beneath was disfigured, foreign. A stranger.
No insignia. No spiritual signature of any known division.
"Unfamiliar," Ukitake muttered. "No ties to any Gotei unit."
The assassination of ordinary Spiritual Arts Academy students would never warrant the arrival of a captain—much less Yamamoto himself.
And a direct personal assurance of justice?
In Soul Society, such a gesture was laughable. The system was rigid, outdated, and steeped in layers of noble control and spiritual dogma. A stagnant world hidden beneath white haori and polished corridors.
But this was different.
The Akira brothers weren't just students.
They were the first prodigies in generations.
Akira himself had already earned quiet murmurs among the upper echelons as a future captain-class soul—a talent that emerged once in a century.
And Aizen… was quietly sharpening his blade in the shadows.
They weren't assets.
They were investments.
And someone had dared to try and erase both in a single stroke.
Seireitei wouldn't let that pass.
Not out of principle, but out of fear—of loss, and of what that loss might mean in the wars to come.
Ukitake stood slowly.
He understood.
This wasn't the last strike that would come for them.
Just the first.