Blooming Madness Act One: Parameters & General Capabilities
Without wasting any time, the Shinigami Shunsui Kyoraku is the current Captain-Commander of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. A position where he is recognized for both his might in battle and general intelligence on and off the battlefield. Qualities praised and directly foreshadowed by the previous Captain-Commander himself, Shigekuni Genryusai Yamamoto:
Referring to their skills as transcendent alongside his longtime friend Jushiro Ukitake, both were the first captains graduating from the Academy Yamamoto founded, and have held the position for centuries, showcasing not just great power, but also experience. And this is reflected in mangaka Tite Kubo's portrayal of Kyoraku, often saving him to do battle and deal with extremely powerful threats in the story and those who serve directly under the current main antagonists, such as the Primera Espada Coyote Starrk and the leader of Yhwach's Schutzstaffel Lille Barro:
We'll get into the nuances of the scaling in a bit, but for now; as it should be made clear, Kyoraku is one of the most powerful shinigami or even characters in the series, truly only falling a step short of the absolute monsters in the series like Kenpachi Zaraki, Gerard Valkyrie, Ichigo Kurosaki, etc. But what exactly does it mean to do battle as and with a Shinigami?
Well, Bleach's reputation is rather infamous, and I intend to fully lean into that with this discussion. As explained throughout the series and summarized more succinctly in the 2nd Official Character book MASKED... Shinigami or Soul Reapers are spiritual-based beings ruled by reishi and reiatsu. Those without spiritual powers are unable to perceive them, let alone interact with them:
Now I don't plan to argue you have to prove Zagred can perceive or interact with Shunsui. Personally, I believe that goes against the spirit of our mutual debate unless we agree to press the internal logic of both series against each other. What I wish to focus on is that first sentence. "Unearthly beings living in a world ruled by a different logic than the world of the living."
One of the major aspects I will be pushing is that as a Shinigami, those who exist on more than one plane of existence, Kyoraku is capable of interfering with and interacting with the rules and logic of worlds different from his own (such as the Dangai as shown), characters often needing only one experience with them to adapt if necessary. This was seen clearly in the Special Hell Arc Chapter:
Non-Captains who were unable to perceive the beings of Hell, were not only made perceptible but by the words of Ikkaku, they do not possess the same energy as nearly all Bleach characters do, and yet they were able to adapt and exert their abilities on them normally. And Hell is a dimension that predated the laws and concepts of the current Bleach Universe, following its own unique logic.
No, I am not arguing Bleach characters as passive reality warpers, conceptual manipulators, or any other potential extreme interpretation of my words. In short, I am saying that are capable of operating and adapting to different worlds' logic without too much trouble, so arguments based on one universe's unique energies or potential imperceptibility/interaction would be null and void. That is merely one aspect of their cross-verse capabilities, however, and of course, comes the more traditional aspects. Starting of course with the inherent spiritual aspects in Kyoraku's basic powerset.
With the Zanpakuto, Kyoraku is capable of cutting the physical and the spiritual body, purifying malicious souls like Hollows, and exorcising the spirit in general. Because of this, for many characters, Shinigami are capable of bypassing conventual forms of durability for those without sufficient means of spiritual powers or rather spiritual pressure. Battles between spiritual beings are battles of reiatsu, and the one with the greater reiatsu will typically overwhelm the weaker. It is simply a matter of fact in these battles and without the proper defenses, it can be debilitating, reducing one's physical capacity and even invoking various esoteric effects.
For an opponent against Kyoraku, he typically does not go on the offensive like say a Sosuke Aizen or a Kenpachi Zaraki but he does clearly exert his own passive influence, enough to offset the reiatsu of Genryusai Yamamoto:
This extends even further in Shunsui's Bankai where he allows his reiatsu to fully extend, manipulating the weather and inducing a cold sensation upon everyone present. So while an opponent may not be outright "reiatsu crushed", without the proper knowledge of how to use spiritual powers or defend against them, Kyoraku's passive pressure is enough to debilitate physical stats and limit movement and combat capabilities.
So before we get into the meat and potatoes of where and how Shunsui scales, we should be mutually aware of several key aspects that are a part of his fundamental capabilities as a Captain-Class Soul Reaper:
As a spiritual being, Shunsui exists on several planes of existence at once and can interact with the unique logic and laws of other worlds without needing their specific tools or energies.
With his spiritual powers, he is capable of affecting the physical and spiritual bodies, overcoming most forms of conventional durability unless they have spiritual attack resistance. And even bypassing forms of regeneration or intangibility not fully based on the spiritual.
Spiritual Pressure is capable of exerting a passive physical and esoteric influence on opponents and the battlefield allowing Shunsui to effectively hinder their physical capabilities.
Through Reikaku and Shunpo, Shunsui is able to not only maintain an advantage with relative speed but even in situations where he is at a speed disadvantage.
I've no real qualms about a higher level Hollow or Arrancar's normal cero scaling above a lower's GRC, or Cero Oscuras considering we have two clear examples of stronger beings matching or exceeding the former special cero with their regular ones. One with Cien Granz's regular Cero being mistaken for a Gran Rey Cero, as well as Zangetsu vs Ulquiorra:
As such, I have no qualms about scaling Starrk's Ceros which are implied to be his specialty amongst the Espada far above the feats shown by lower-ranked Espada and well into the Continent Busting range. With Shunsui able to take and exchange blows with him with relative ease:
This isn't the limit, however, as the Espada are overall surpassed by the Sternritter in relative power. Sternritter such as Mask De Masculine and Candice Catnipp are capable of vaporizing the garb of the Oken with their Non-Vollstanding (think Bankai) attacks. The Oken garb is cloth weaved from the bones of Squad Zero and capable of withstanding impact with the Seireitei's Shakonmaku barrier, one that extends past the Seireitei's immediate vicinity. Based on where I have the Seiretei's physical size (which I can explain if need be) this would be Contintenal+ durability. And the mid-tier Sternritter are capable of doing extensive damage to it.
The Aushwhalen stole the Vollstanding of each of the non-elites, and the Vollstanding is a Bankai (5-10x) level amp So in terms of sheer power/AP/Durability, I would argue Shunsui in the Multi-Continental range. Jumping over to speed, I've mentioned the Aushwhalen several times by now, so I'll go right into it as I hold a large number of characters scaling to and above the speed feats present with it.
I should take a brief interlude to discuss the distance from the Seireitei to the Soul King's Palace, as you can see below Kirinji one of the Squad Zero officers states it would take a week to cross with a normal shunpo, (the Soul Reaper movement technique.)
So it becomes simple from there to gauge distance, time, and speed (343 m/s for 168 hours), which is well into several hundred thousands of kilometers. In the final arc of Bleach, several attacks cross this distance in a short amount of time but the one that many characters, including Shunsui scale to most, clearly would be Auswahlen:
Given you were going back and forth on where you wanted to argue Zagred, I figured I would simply go all out and set the pace in terms of parameters. But with these two characters, stats are the last thing on their radar. And instead, their lethality lies in their versatility. And that's just what we are here to talk about. Shunsui Kyoraku's Zanpakuto is known as Katen Kyokotsu and its ability is to manipulate the space around him and subject it to place everything under the range of its spiritual pressure to its subjective reality manipulation. That being turning children's games into reality:
Katen Kyokotsu is the primary element behind Kyoraku's lethality, and he has several games in his arsenal that he subjects his opponents to. They are as follows:
Shunsui rotates with both blades facing in opposite directions, creating large wind blades that fire toward an opponent from Katen Kyōkotsu. The wind blades join together, forming a spinning circle of wind that, upon contact with a target, envelopes the target with tornado-like intensity. The attack is not only dangerous but can disorient an opponent trapped within it. The technique is powerful enough to counteract high-powered Cero blasts. The game this technique represents is a spinning top game.
The rule of this game is that whoever gets their shadow stepped on "loses". The game itself allows competitors to manipulate shadows to their advantage. For example, Shunsui has demonstrated the ability to hide in shadows when using this technique, and he can also control the shadows, using them to attack an opponent by attacking the shadow they are currently standing upon. In addition, Shunsui can make multiple shadow clones of himself that can attack his opponent from multiple angles.
In this color-based game, you say the name of the color you want to cut with your sword, and you cannot cut anything else. If the color that you call does not exist on your body, the damage is minimal, even if the attack would normally inflict a much more severe wound. However, the opposite is also true; by calling out a color you're wearing and attacking, the damage given is proportional to the amount of that color on you. To maximize damage, you have to use a color that maximizes the risks to yourself as well as your enemy. For example, by wearing black robes and calling "black," one would inflict massive damage on an enemy if struck even if the actual blow itself was minor, but the caller could potentially be at risk of suffering major damage in return depending on how much of the enemy's skin or clothing is covered in black.
After Shunsui or his opponent is marked as being "it", the other combatant travels toward them on a trail of Reiatsu left by their attack in order to catch them by surprise. However, if the combatant who is "it" sees their opponent while they are moving, that opponent loses and thus dies. The game this technique represents is Daruma-san ga Koronda, a children's game similar to red-light green-light.
By staring hard enough at their shadow, Shunsui or his opponent can project an afterimage in a different location; the higher their opponent's Reikaku, the more realistic the afterimage appears to be. The game this technique represents is Chii-chan no Kageokuri, where children stare at their shadow on the ground for several seconds before looking at another surface, allowing them to see an "afterimage" of their shadow.
The rules of this game force the affected individuals to always tell the truth. Should any participant lie in any way, they will first lose control of their fingers, then their entire body will be paralyzed, and with the third lie, experience excruciating pain. This technique is based on the Japanese version of the pinky swear.
For now, I'll mainly be focusing on Kyoraku's Shikai for the opening stage, as even determined in character, Kyoraku prefers not t resort to his Bankai, though he is not averse to using it as a last option. And he will do so if pushed far enough. More importantly, the abilities of Katen Kyoukotsu are immense, but it is Shunsui's battle IQ and cunning that enhances their capabilities. Being able to achieve the following effects with a combination of his games:
Durability Negation
Elemental Manipulation
Shadow Manipulation (His own and His opponents)
Enhanced Illusion/Clones
And doing so simultaneously/successively makes his combos rather insane. As he was able to overwhelm and push Lille Barro into his Vollstanding without taking a single real blow:
Blooming Madness Act Three: Establishing A Win Condition
So we've reached the end of this first post and I'm quite excited to get this really started. I should hope it's fairly clear where and why I have placed Shunsui where I have and established what he can do. In terms of my initial thoughts regarding the matchup between Kyoraku and Zagred is that it will come down to cunning and their respective ability to control the flow of the battle. And I believe Shunsui holds the edge there. Though Zagred has an insane ability bordering on his own form of reality manipulation, the fact that Kyoraku controls an entire designated range that forces everyone to follow the rules of his zanpakuto is the difference here. As it forces the match to be fair in all conventional aspects. If you win, you live, and if you lose you die. And even one small mistake can prove fatal for Zagred.
With the ability to attack from multiple planes of existence and circumvent gaps and defensive methods, Shunsui has the means to wear Zagred down even with his insane regeneration.
Shunsui will typically start serious battles with Daruma-San or Kageoni meaning he will control not just the space around them but have a number of duplicates and means/range to attack from immediately. Making this battle even more dangerous for Zagred. Even if he were to know everything there was to know about Kyoraku's abilities and was smart enough to adapt on the fly like Lille or Starrk, Shunsui will still force that mistake. And that is simply because:
I'm happy to see so many people interested in this matchup, and given my opponent, this is the highest-profile CaV I've ever done despite my less-than-stellar record when it comes to posting in CaV. I fully plan on seeing this one through. My opener will consist of the following points.
Mana: I will try and shed light on the Black Clover power system in a way I've never seen anyone else attempt.
Kotodama Magic: I will explain Zagred's magic and give examples.
Power: I will scale Zagred's overall power level.
Speed: I will scale Zagred's speed.
Conclusion: I will explain how I think Zagred wins.
Mana, magic, and their connection to the soul.
Chapter 334: Fragile Soul
On the surface, Magic/Mana is a pretty basic power system. Mana is a natural energy in all people and things, including the Earth/Atmosphere. "When Mana makes its home in a living creature, it turns into power that can influence other substances, and that's magic power. When magic power is refined even further, it becomes magic." -Yuki Tabata.
Now that's the TLDR basic explanation of magic. I want to change how people view Black Clover, so follow along as I dive deeper into magic. Based on Lucius' words. First, look at the relationship between the soul and a person's magic type. We know that the soul is the source of a person's magic, so rather than thinking about magic in a more formal tone, I like to think of it as an extension of the soul. When two souls inhabit a single body, each soul is given its grimoire and magic type that the other soul can't use. This provides a direct link between a person's soul and their specific magic. Lucius reinforces this when he gives Lily a new magic type by transforming her soul, again showing a link between a person's soul and their magic. This goes further because it can be assumed that a person with solid magic has a stronger soul.
When Magna uses his new spell, "Soul Chain Death Match," it is implied that a person's soul equals their magic. Before Manga uses the attack, we see a representation of Dante and Magna's magic, with Dante being 1000 and Manga being 2; after Magna connects their souls, it becomes 501, adding their power together and splitting it evenly. Connecting two souls to divide magic evenly has clear implications. I've shown how magic is an extension of the soul but can Zagred interact with a soul? The answer to that is yes.
Five hundred years into the past, when Zagred first appeared on the mortal plane, he wasn't a physical being. He was just a soul. Even though he was a soul, Zagred was still able to interact with those around him, as well as be interacted with. If this still isn't enough to supplement Zagred or BC characters, in general, interacting with Souls, Zagred also used his magic to send the souls of dozens of dead Elves into the future.
This being said, I believe it's safe to conclude Zagred can fight spiritual beings. After seeing the mechanic behind "Soul Chain Death Match" and how it splits magic evenly via connecting souls, the implication is that soul strength and magic power coincide.
Kotodama Magic: giving power to words.
Zagred's magic is "Word Soul" magic based on a Japanese mythos called "Kotodama." Using Koto (word; speech) in combination with Tama (spirit; soul), which translates into English as something like "Soul of Language," the idea behind this power is that power dwells in words.
Using this power, Zagred can control reality. In the image above, you can see an example of this, Patri uses magic in an attempt to attack Zagred, but the spell is erased with the command "vanish." Below is a table with an order on one side and the effect on the other this is to give an example of the sort of thing Zagred does with his magic.
Zagred can not only command reality with his words doing things like creating matter and magic on a whim, but he can also undo abilities or return attacks to the sender and even spawn attacks on his target like his "Iron spears" command or something like "Bind." This could spell disaster for my opponent because it gives Zagred a way to manipulate the games in his favor. An example is if Shunsui selects himself as "it" and Zagred happens to provide a command like "come here," that could be the end of the fight based on the rules of Durama-san. The possibilities are endless for Zagred to manipulate the setting of this battle using nothing but his voice.
Zagred also comes equipped with a spear that "Breaks down whatever it touches," which may sound hyperbolic, but the spear is confirmed to trap light and warp space, and given the spear is from the underworld, you'll need the ability to interact with said dimension if you want to deal with it. (Here's my blog showing this)
Zagred can copy other people's magic, such as Lumiere and his Light magic, Ronne and his teleportation, and Baval's dice magic. Given that magic is a power based on the soul, similar to that of Bleach characters, I believe the possibility of Zagred copying the attacks of a Shinigami exist.
Lastly, Zagred being a Devil, is protected by a "Devil's Heart," which grants him godlike regeneration and invulnerability capable of restoring his entire body in an instant and shrugging off things like spatial-based existence erasure. The only things in Black Clover to have ever destroyed a Devil's Heart are Asta's anti-magic and the malice purification of Saint Stage users such as Yuno and Noelle. Others have been suggested to work, such as Yami and Dark magic, Julius and his Time magic, and Gray with her Transmutation magic which can alter how magic works. Although these characters have been suggested, they have not done so on panel, and given that Zagred's magic requires you to match his dimension, you would have to meet that requirement before even attempting to combat the Devil's Heart.
The Power of Zagred:
The feat in question is one that most of you already know. Litch can destroy the Clover Kingdom even if Lumiere blocks most of it. New information surrounding the feat has been revealed, such as,
A size upgrade for the Clover Kingdom.
A confirmed method of destruction.
For the size of the Kingdom, all credit goes to @maestromage. He did all the work below, and all I'm doing is copying it here.
The first reference we get of any kind of size is less than 30 chapters in, when the captains and vices are teleported some several hundred kilometres from the capital where they were
Story context clue lead us to believe that this is still within the clover kingdom, but nothing concrete can be gained beyond that. So let's look beyond to the larger continent.
The heart kingdom to the east is referred to as a "enormous" country which gives a certain perspective but still, not much more than that
Instead, we must look to the anime for something more specific. The anime's canonicity is something we've talked about before, but for those not privy to those discussions, the short version is that events characters and on occasion abilities exclusive to the anime are later referenced in the manga, particularly the events during the filler arc that covers what happened during the 6 month time skip, which is also where what I'm about to show comes from. And also I really don't care and would use it even if it wasn't canon.
TLDR, it's said by Noelle that Asta running from the Black Bull's hideout to his home village of Hage would take... days. No real specificity beyond the plural so let's go with two.
I'm assuming Asta can't maintain his otherwise superhuman speed for days on end as well, but I'll still go with the upper end of human ability for fairness sake, since that would still be more of a jog to him and running full pelt for 2 days straight is a bit much to believe (edited)
He'd have to stop to sleep at the very least for ~8 hours each day (assuming Noelle factored that in) so were looking at around 32 hours. Google says running speed is around 8mph so that's 256 miles, or roughly 411km. Now let's put that into perspective for the country as a whole and the larger continent.
The distance from the BB hideout to Hage is shown in the black line, making the height of the clover kingdom roughly 1100km
In turn, this makes the width of the continent roughly 3800km, making it quite a proper continent
In terms of area, the Clover Kingdom teeters over a million square kilometres (~twice the size of France, comparable to Peru) and the continent as a whole over 7 million (~Australia, not far behind Brazil)
So the statement of the Heart Kingdom being a large country is fairly reasonable.
Again I'm not taking credit for this work. Maestro did it, and I agree with his findings.
Using this new size upgrade, the CK is roughly 2x France in size, so all that's left is finding the method of destruction, which is easy.
As Litch charged up the country-destroying attack, the passive heat was enough to vaporize the stone pillars passively. This is pretty explicit, and Zagred's words back it up, "There won't be anything left, you know."
Destroying a country 2x the size of France using this method easily comes out in the Multi Continental range.
Zagred is strong enough to fight not only Litch but his equal Lumiere simultaneously, so it's safe to say Zagred belongs in this tier.
Fast as Sin:
Black Clover and Speed are something that goes hand and hand. Most people have seen the feats or the scaling so I won't waste too much time here.
Light magic is,
Confirmed the SOL
It reflects and refracts
It's called light
etc
It checks all the boxes if it's needed. I can cite all of these points, but I don't feel it's needed with how well this aspect of Black Clover has been established.
When it comes to explicit speed feats, Black Clover is pretty wild; the feats range from Julius taking a light-speed attack, increasing the flow of time around the attack, making it twice as fast, and then outpacing the attack to its target. In his base form, Asta reacted to an attack twice the speed of light from sub 5 meters away. One of my favorite PTS feats from Black Clover is this feat accomplished by Yuno, where he dances through 30+ SOL attacks.
I had a lot of fun working on this post, Darth and I agreed to have fun with it, so that's exactly what I wanted to do. I can't wait for Darth's first counter. I know he'll push me to do even better.
At first glance, I believe Zagred to have the following advantages.
Power wise I think these characters are similar.
I think Zagred has the advantage in speed due to Black Clover being otherworldly with its speed feats.
The protection of Devil Heart and the dimensionality of Zagred's magic boasts a variety of defensive capabilities.
Zagred's Word Soul magic can directly target Shunsui and possibly alter the games in his favor.
Zagred has his "Dimension of Origin," creating an everlasting threat.
Zagred has versatility in the form of power mimicry and his spear.
@darthjhawk: nice first post! I realize I have been ignoring a few things about Koryaku after reading!
I know nothing about Zagred. I will only witness Zagred through Decaff's presentation so now I am interested in this CaV.
I hope you like it.
Currently, I am staying out of other threads for when this gets done I will give my vote to the one who I think argued the best with proper reasoning based on the argumentation used here only (unless other outside argumentation is referenced in this thread by the CAV members directly) so I actually find it great that you are not pulling your punches with arguments previously made by others.
Not gonna lie it's a nasty post. I personally do not read BC as I've previously stated but this post took me aback, I truly had no idea how strong the BC kingdom was, I often heard it had speed but there seems to be plenty else to spare as well.
🤔 This makes me wonder how Darth will respond to your post...
Good job on the first round for you two, I am looking towards the second round of posting for this CAV.
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