—Mission complete.
Immediately after that massive spiritual pressure bore down on the boy Kurosaki Ichigo's surroundings, the battered Grimmjow, raising his fighting spirit, was suddenly enveloped in a pillar of light.
It was right after Ichigo had thought he'd finally grasp victory—driving Grimmjow to the brink with the double-edged sword of Hollowfication but unable to finish him off, only succeeding with the help of his partner Kuchiki Rukia and his teacher Hirako Shinji.
"Negación...!"
"This spiritual pressure... don't tell me..."
The same technique Aizen Sosuke had used when fleeing the Soul Society. But the shock for Ichigo and the other two came from the sudden appearance of a single girl between the light pillars.
"What the hell is this ridiculously huge spiritual pressure...? Does it belong to that young lady...?"
"Vice-Captain Hinamori...!"
Everyone was shaken by the sudden change in circumstances. Rukia, battered by the spiritual pressure, was particularly haggard, and the same was true for Ichigo himself, severely exhausted from overusing Hollowfication.
She—Hinamori Momo, whom he was reuniting with for the first time since she'd helped suppress his inner Hollow a month ago—radiated a tremendous presence as if she were a completely different person.
"Tch, someone screwed up over there."
Grimmjow's complaint suddenly reached his ears. Though spitting out dissatisfaction, his expression showed a hint of resignation, indicating the girl's appearance was intentional.
"Next time will be the final battle, Kurosaki Ichigo."
"...!"
And the strong eyes of the departing Espada from the battlefield crossed with Ichigo's.
"We're launching a decisive battle against the Soul Society soon. If you survive that woman, come to me first. Until then, our fight is on hold!"
Grimmjow gestured with his chin toward his female death god superior. It was as if foreshadowing the storm she was about to unleash...
"Though..."
—You probably won't be killed.
It simultaneously showed that once again, without Ichigo's knowledge, some great scheme was involving him.
***
And the ominous premonition became reality.
"Mr. Urahara!!"
At the end of Ichigo's gaze, his reliable teacher fell ungracefully to the ground like a dead branch. Less than five minutes had passed since the nine of them had surrounded and challenged Hinamori Momo.
"Ikkaku...! Renji...!"
Looking down, he saw the Seireitei Thirteen Court Guard Squads' strongest warriors—who had once fought death matches with him—instantly killed and rolling like garbage. Ayasegawa Yumichika and Matsumoto Rangiku also lay motionless on the ground.
"No way... Hirako...! Ms. Yoruichi...!"
And Ichigo's teachers—Urahara and the others who'd launched a coordinated surprise attack with perfect synchronization—also dropped from the battlefield one by one. Toyed with by clones and techniques that erased presence and appearance, her overwhelming spiritual pressure stood unreasonably tall, treating even such skillful indirect tactics as child's play.
Before the extraordinary violence supported by Hinamori Momo's cunning, everyone was thus forced to their knees helplessly.
"Damn it... haaaaah!"
"Stop! Don't be rash, Ichigo!"
All that remained were him, Rukia, and Hitsugaya Toshiro, trembling in despair. To protect the two whose fighting spirit had been equally broken in body and mind, and to unravel the mystery that had continued for six years, Ichigo squeezed out his last strength.
But the Tensa Zangetsu he swung down was caught by Hinamori Momo's slender fingers as if pinching a feather.
There was an overwhelming difference in power reminiscent of Aizen Sosuke himself.
"Who... who the hell are you...!"
Still, Ichigo didn't falter.
"Bankai, Hollowfication... that white me...! And appearing in my inner world like him and old man Zangetsu..."
"..."
"Answer me, Miss Hinamori! Just what do you know about my power... about me?!"
Even the Visored he'd relied on—Hirako and the others—had failed him. The boy's desperate cry for the secrets about himself that he didn't know echoed through the air.
But the mysterious girl who had once called herself "the book-loving older sister" now only stared at him silently.
"Tch, giving me the silent treatment...! Then—"
Dominated by indignation, Ichigo made up his mind.
"What?! Ichigo, that's...!"
"Stay back, Rukia!"
The Hollow mask that shouldn't be usable more than twice a day after breaking once covered his face, and tremendous power filled Ichigo's body.
The gamble paid off. Then there was only one thing to do.
"I'll force it out of you with everything I've got! Getsuga Tensho!!"
He would fulfill the promise he'd made with her that day, right here and now.
Having subdued his inner Hollow, Kurosaki Ichigo showed his growth to that mysterious benefactor from that rainy day.
"I see."
But that Getsuga disappeared.
"What... the hell...?!"
Neither metaphor nor illusion. The moment the girl opened her slender arms and defensively accepted Ichigo's spiritual pressure slash into her embrace, it vanished as if absorbed into her body.
There had been no sign of strange techniques or spiritual power movements. Unable to understand what had happened, Ichigo stood dumbfounded.
"You're still..."
—Not fully developed, are you?
When he realized it, the boy had accepted her left hand into his chest, just like before.
"Damn... it..."
"Ichigoooooooo!!"
The spiritual power throughout his body froze.
His partner's scream faded.
In his fading, distant consciousness, the last thing Ichigo could do was futilely reach out toward the girl in white death god uniform, shadowed by disappointment.
"Ah... ah..."
And Kuchiki Rukia faced Hinamori Momo for the first time in forty years.
Hitsugaya Toshiro, Matsumoto Rangiku, Abarai Renji, Kira Izuru, and even Ichigo living in the living world. Hinamori Momo, who connected hearts with many people while also hiding secrets, was an important person to Rukia as well.
"Nice to meet you! I'm Hinamori Momo from Abarai's class!"
"P-please cheer up, Miss Kuchiki..."
"The incantation for 'Black Dog' here should depict the most ferocious mad dog possible... yes, yes, that's it!"
A reliable kido teacher and friend who had helped her countless times during her sulking days at the Spiritual Arts Academy. Unable to say goodbye to her when fast-tracked to the Court Guard Squads, she'd regretted the severed thread of their connection in a corner of her heart ever since. When she'd spotted her at the Female Soul Reaper Association ten years later, there was already such a difference in their positions that conversation was awkward.
And now, the gap between them had widened so much that... even meeting each other's eyes was no longer permitted.
"Miss Hina... mori—"
While vaguely watching the red, bewitching petals dance around her, Rukia tearfully asked the girl in her heart.
Ah, do you still remember? The day that kido first succeeded, when the two of them noisily celebrated at the teahouse—those naive academy days...
"Goodbye, Miss Rukia."
The girl's hand touched her gently. Though she'd become an enemy and could never connect with her again, her heart seemed to show one last faint fragment at the end.
***
"Hina... mori..."
What is this? How did it come to this?
Five elite Court Guard Squad members, and even former captains Urahara and Shihoin, along with Kurosaki and the living world's strongest forces—all instantly killed without being able to do anything.
It was, without room for argument, and regardless of any reason, an absolutely unforgivable act of clear rebellion against the Soul Society.
"Why...?"
Trembling pathetically, Hitsugaya Toshiro felt nausea rising from the agony as if watching a nightmare.
He'd known it would come to this eventually. He should have stopped it.
But reuniting with his precious childhood friend without resolve, faced with how drastically she'd changed, before reality that tumbled downward worsening, Toshiro could once again only stand frozen pathetically.
"No..."
And the boy who'd missed his chance finally realized when everything was too late.
That it had been the only, the last—the final chance to bring Hinamori Momo back to the Soul Society...
"No...! No! I won't let you go to Aizen...!"
Composure was beyond hope with his thoughts in such chaos. Position, spiritual pressure, emotions. He desperately flew through the sky with his Bankai ice wings, trying to close even a little distance with her who had drifted endlessly far away.
But—
"Don't come!!"
His beloved childhood friend whom the boy couldn't save wouldn't even let him close the small distance between them.
"If you come... I'll defeat you too... Captain Hitsugaya...!"
"...!"
She held her sword in warning, calling his name with the formal title she'd hated so much.
But her blade tip, her voice, her body trembled, and the chest of the clothes she clutched with one hand was wrinkled all over.
On the battlefield where only the two of them remained, what she showed him was feelings so great, so great for the boy that her maintained villain's mask peeled away.
"—!!"
It was a split-second, desperate action.
"Don't...! N-no... stop..."
Hinamori groaned pitifully and staggered backward.
"No... don't come...!"
The girl's tears became the power for Toshiro's wings.
"Don't... come..."
Driven by joy, regret, and strong affection, the boy flew toward her without looking aside.
And then—
"Hinamori."
Toshiro finally, finally held the woman he loved in his arms.
"Shiro... chan..."
"Yeah, it's me. It's me, Hinamori..."
The released Bankai ice scales crumbled away, and glittering diamond dust blessed the two embracing.
The lonely person he loved, who had endured behind a bright smile all along, finally reaching out to him for help as a last resort, clinging to straws.
That fragile hope betrayed, yet still, his beloved childhood friend held the powerless man called Hitsugaya Toshiro dear.
Such a woman. She who had been suffering alone with no one to rely on.
Now, finally, finally...
"Gah..."
Suddenly.
Lukewarm droplets splashed onto Toshiro's cheeks and hands.
Not one or two drops. Thickly sticky, the familiar iron-smelling, unpleasant colored liquid.
"Hina... mori...?"
The girl he'd locked in his arms to never lose again suddenly gasped painfully and began convulsing.
"Kah, ah, gah—"
"Hinamori?! Hey, what's wrong, Hinamori?!"
And before Toshiro's eyes—
"AAAAAAAAAAH!!"
From the body of the person he loved whom he should have protected, a horrifying crimson explosion erupted.
"Gah—aaaah?!"
Blood sprayed in dark red. The girl's tremendous spiritual pressure raged like a tornado.
Blown away limb and torso by the blast as if a nuclear bomb had detonated in his arms, Toshiro—his arms and legs torn off—crashed to the ground spinning like a rag.
"Ah, ah, gah, uah..."
What just happened?
Desperately controlling his head spinning wildly with pain and confusion, Toshiro searched the area for Hinamori's figure first, without regard for his own grievously wounded body missing an arm, a leg, and an eye.
"...Hina... mo...!"
There.
The girl floating unsteadily in the air, flowers of blood and spiritual pressure blooming all over her body. Bleeding like a waterfall, pouring down on the ground where Toshiro lay collapsed. It wouldn't stop.
Seeing this, Toshiro understood only the most desperate reality amid the incomprehensible chaos.
—At this rate, Hinamori will die.
"Uah, ah, ah, uwaaaaaaah!!"
Why? How did it come to this? His screams of pain and grief echoed throughout the town.
What did Hinamori do? Why must she—loved by everyone, treasured by everyone—suffer such a cruel fate? But the lamenting Toshiro had no power to shatter her tragic fate.
"Someone...!"
Miserable, frustrating, pathetic.
"Someone... save her...!"
Yet for the powerless boy who could do nothing, the only way he could find to save her was... to throw away everything he had and beg mercy from an unknown strong person.
"Help—"
And that tragic plea...
"That won't do, Hitsugaya."
Reached the ears of the one man in this world it should never have reached.
"Ai... zen...?!"
"Well, it's been a while. Have you improved your skills a bit?"
In the sky the limbless boy looked up at while crawling pathetically on the ground stood the great traitor—Aizen Sosuke.
Holding in both arms Hinamori Momo, whom Toshiro should have reached with desperate struggle.
"You... bastard... what are you... doing...! What did you... what did you do to Hinamori...!"
"'What did I do?' What a strange question."
To the blood-soaked boy demanding answers, Aizen opened his mouth with that detestable thin smile plastered on his face.
"All the fault lies with you, who excited Momo. At the crucial time when she was adjusting to the power I gave her, her heart was disturbed."
"What...?"
It was an unnecessarily gentle voice, as if explaining to a slow-witted fool.
"Don't you understand? This is, Captain Hitsugaya—'a problem you caused,' I'm saying."
Provocation through and through. Driven by fury too hot even for hatred, Toshiro tried to stand with his remaining leg...
"Don't... mock—"
But suddenly crushed by the man's overwhelming spiritual pressure, he collapsed limply into the dirt.
"Ah... gah..."
"Sorry, Captain Hitsugaya. For this stabilization—"
—You're in the way.
In a corner of Toshiro's consciousness vanishing into darkness with a second bitter regret—
That word left by the great evil who'd carried away his beloved childhood friend sounded both like handling a mere object and like cherishing a beloved wife and daughter...
Three days later.
Hitsugaya Toshiro, who'd finished limb regeneration surgery at the Fourth Division barracks and woken last among the advance unit members, missed joining the captain-class unit that had gone to Hueco Mundo to rescue Abarai Renji and the others.
The rampaging, violent boy was forcibly incorporated into the decisive battle unit led by Head Captain Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni.
***
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