"What do you mean, hiding in the shadows and stirring up trouble? The Three Worlds belong to us in the first place! We have every right to interfere with them however we please!"
The Tsunayashiro founder remained as arrogant and insufferable as ever.
"The only real fool was Adnyeus. A few words from us were enough to manipulate him completely. He obediently let us do whatever we wanted with him like an idiot!"
In the eyes of this wildly ambitious man, only the founders of the Great Noble Clans were qualified to rule the Three Worlds.
As for the Soul King, Adnyeus, who'd ultimately been mutilated and reduced to little more than a living torso?
He was apparently not even worth mentioning in the same breath.
"Heh…"
Kazuma stared at him for a moment.
Then he started laughing.
"You second-rate relics seriously have the nerve to call yourselves rulers of the Three Worlds?"
The longer he laughed, the worse it became, until his stomach actually started hurting.
"What, have you old bastards been drinking cheap liquor for so many centuries that it finally rotted your brains?"
Kazuma had already gotten a good read on their strength.
At most, each of the four was roughly comparable to Yhwach after opening two eyes.
That was certainly powerful.
But with only that much strength, they wanted to call themselves the supreme rulers of all Three Worlds?
It was so ridiculous that Kazuma could barely take them seriously.
"Arrogant bastard!"
The Kuchiki founder exploded in rage.
His dark eyes locked onto Kazuma as fury surged through him. He drew his blade in one smooth motion and charged forward like a bolt of lightning.
"Hah! Perfect."
Kazuma showed no fear whatsoever.
"Let me see whether you old fossils actually have anything worth bragging about!"
His own Zanpakutō flashed from its sheath as he met the Kuchiki founder head-on.
CLANG!
The blades collided with a deafening crash.
Sparks erupted between them as the impact shook the surrounding void, even tearing thin cracks through the strange space around them.
Then Kazuma's expression changed.
He'd been pushed back.
More importantly, the spiritual power inside his body had momentarily stalled when their weapons collided.
And the force coming from the Kuchiki founder was not ordinary spiritual power at all.
It was something strange.
Something completely unfamiliar.
The energy radiated an aura of evil, decay, cold, and death so intense that it felt capable of devouring a person's soul.
"Hm?"
Kazuma narrowed his eyes.
"That isn't spiritual power…"
For an instant, simply standing near the Kuchiki founder made him feel as though he'd been thrown into some barren land of the dead, surrounded on all sides by the oppressive presence of death.
Now this felt more like what the power of an actual God of Death should be.
Compared to ordinary reiatsu, this sinister force filled with death and desolation certainly fit the name Shinigami much better.
Still, if the Kuchiki founder thought suppressing Kazuma's spiritual power was enough to kill him, he was dreaming.
Even without relying on spiritual power at all, Kazuma still had Hakuda and a level of swordsmanship refined over countless battles.
That alone was enough for him to beat this old bastard.
"Tsk, tsk."
The Kuchiki founder smiled contemptuously.
"So this is all you amount to, Kazuma? It seems I overestimated you."
That single exchange, in which he'd gained a slight advantage, instantly erased most of his earlier caution.
If this was Kazuma's level, then perhaps allowing him to run wild in Soul Society had never been much of a threat after all.
Kazuma looked at his smug face with disgust.
"Shut that revolting mouth of yours!"
"Isn't the Kuchiki Clan supposed to be famous for elegance?"
The bastard had won a single exchange and was already acting like the fight was over.
Celebrating before halftime had even ended?
At this rate, he'd die without understanding what killed him.
"Die."
Kazuma slid his sword back into its sheath.
His breathing settled.
His mind became still.
Draw.
Slash.
Sheathe.
All in one seamless motion.
Not a trace of spiritual power went into the attack.
It was pure swordsmanship.
The Kuchiki founder's face changed instantly.
'Fast!'
Far too fast.
He threw everything he had into trying to evade, yet his body seemed frozen in place, almost as though some invisible force had locked his limbs and severed the connection between thought and movement.
The blade was already approaching.
For the first time, genuine regret flashed through his mind.
Why the hell had he provoked this monster?
At the final instant, he desperately forced the strange power inside his body into motion and managed to drag himself half a step backward.
It was barely enough.
Shhk!
Blood sprayed across the void.
A horrific slash appeared diagonally across the Kuchiki founder's chest, deep enough to expose bone beneath mangled flesh.
If he'd failed to move back by even that tiny distance, Kazuma's blade would have split him from shoulder to waist.
He would have died on the spot.
"Hiss…"
Black smoke began pouring from the wound.
Then, before Kazuma's eyes, the torn flesh slowly started knitting itself back together.
The ability resembled a Hollow's High-Speed Regeneration, but the dark power saturating the wound was on an entirely different level.
It was thicker, more ominous, and saturated with death.
"Tch."
Kazuma clicked his tongue.
"Still a little slow."
He sounded genuinely dissatisfied with himself.
"Haven't fought seriously in too long. You should consider yourself lucky my hands are rusty, or you know exactly how that would've ended."
Failing to cut the bastard in half was simply unacceptable.
Clearly, Kazuma had been drinking too much lately.
His sword hand was getting unsteady.
That had to be it.
"I'm quitting alcohol."
Before the Kuchiki founder could even process that declaration, Kazuma slashed again.
This time, the old man had learned his lesson.
He had absolutely no intention of trying to block Kazuma's sword directly.
Deathly energy erupted around his body and rapidly condensed into a thick barrier, completely enclosing him.
He'd effectively crawled into a turtle shell.
CLANG!
Kazuma's blade struck the barrier.
The impact actually produced the ringing sound of metal striking metal.
Kazuma blinked.
"This thing's pretty damn hard."
He slashed again.
And again.
And again.
Sparks sprayed wildly from the shell as strike after strike hammered into it, yet not even a hairline crack appeared.
Then a smug voice emerged from inside.
"Come on!"
The Kuchiki founder laughed.
"Kill me!"
"You can't, can you?"
"You can't even break my defense!"
Safe inside his shell, the Kuchiki founder had apparently recovered all of his confidence.
The technique had one obvious weakness: while maintaining the barrier, he couldn't attack.
The instant he tried, the protective shell would disappear and Kazuma would immediately cut him.
But that little limitation did absolutely nothing to stop him from running his mouth.
"You fucking turtle bastard!"
Kazuma's eyes practically erupted with fire.
"When I break that damn shell, I'm going to chop you into pieces and feed you to the dogs!"
His blade became a blur.
Slash after slash crashed against the barrier so rapidly that afterimages filled the surrounding void.
Kazuma had apparently made it his personal mission to hack the damned thing apart.
"Hah… hahaha!"
The Kuchiki founder laughed so smugly from inside his shell that anyone listening without context might have assumed he was the one beating Kazuma.