In Hueco Mundo, inside Las Noches.
Within a rhombus-shaped barrier space, immense amounts of spirit energy had been drawn in.
There was so much of it that the reishi had actually undergone a kind of liquefaction, turning into streams of blue water that rippled through the air.
And even more reishi continued to roar in like a storm, endlessly swallowed by the barrier.
Unohana finally stopped moving, looking at the barrier with a hint of regret.
"The time we had to set up this barrier was still too short. If we'd had a bit longer, we definitely could've drawn in even more reishi."
The barrier created from the combined spiritual power of three captains had a radiation range comparable to a thousand Karakura Towns.
It sounded huge—but compared to the boundless Hueco Mundo, this tiny strip of land didn't even count as a drop in the ocean.
"This is already more than enough, Hana-nee."
Cole was already perfectly satisfied with the result. He stepped into the barrier's storage space and immersed himself in the ocean of blue reishi.
He could clearly feel that cool, refreshing spiritual power surging into his body like countless little hands.
It was as if his entire being were being washed clean.
At the same time…
Ichigo, Ishida, and Chad had already broken into the interior of Las Noches.
The latter two had each run into their own opponents.
Ichigo, on the other hand, happened to run into Grimmjow—who'd been left behind in Las Noches, scowling, looking for someone to fight.
Like a wolf, the Arrancar leaned forward with his hands jammed into his pockets, looking arrogantly at Ichigo in the distance.
"Shinigami, this great me didn't bother going to the World of the Living to find you, and you actually came all this way to die on your own?"
Ichigo tightened his grip on Zangetsu, not wasting a single word. He just stepped forward and cleaved down with his blade.
Veins bulged on Grimmjow's forehead, that tic-tac-toe anger mark popping out as he glared furiously at Ichigo.
"You bastard, at least listen when I'm talking!"
In Hueco Mundo, it had always been Grimmjow who ignored other people.
This was the first time someone had ignored him.
Watching Ichigo completely tune him out, Grimmjow's rage only burned hotter. Blue spiritual pressure surged around him as he roared:
"Kuzure, Pantera (Grind Away, Panther King)!!!"
He ran his right hand along the blade.
In an instant, he entered his Resurrección state.
The released zanpakuto vanished, and Grimmjow's body transformed into a white panther. Eye markings stretched to his temples, his ears became panther ears, his hair grew out into a long mane down his back, and his mask fragment slid to his forehead.
His entire body was clad in a tight white armor.
A segmented tail sprouted from behind him, its tip dyed black. The ends of his limbs also turned black, growing long fur and sharp claws.
Even his roar carried a shockwave with real destructive power.
Just looking at his released form was enough to feel the oppression rolling off Grimmjow—the aura of a hunter at the very top of the food chain.
Ichigo's gaze grew serious. He ran his hand across his face.
A black-and-red surge of spiritual pressure exploded outward.
A Hollow mask formed out of thin air over his features.
In that state, the spiritual pressure Ichigo released actually crushed the reiatsu Grimmjow had in his Resurrección.
"Shinigami, listen when I'm talking!!!"
"I don't know what you're saying!!!"
The two of them roared as they charged straight at each other, as if they wanted to decide everything in this single clash.
Only the strong…
Could make others show respect.
On the other side.
Cole stepped out of the barrier and glanced toward a certain place deep within Las Noches. Then he turned and held out his hand to Rukia with a smile.
"Rukia, come with me."
Rukia was a little dazed, instinctively placing her hand in his, flustered.
"Y-you… where are you taking me?"
The scenery of Hueco Mundo hadn't changed in a million years. As long as you stayed on the first layer, it was the same monotonous view no matter when you looked at it.
So they definitely weren't going sightseeing.
If he was taking her out somewhere alone…
Rukia didn't know what she'd started imagining, but her cheeks flushed bright red, and she didn't even dare look Cole in the eyes.
Cole rapped his knuckles lightly on her head.
"I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm pretty sure you've got the wrong idea."
He shifted his gaze toward the depths of Las Noches, his spiritual perception spreading out as he spoke calmly:
"I'm taking you to find that Hollow that looks like a Shinigami."
Joy flashed in Rukia's eyes, but she quickly thought of something and looked hesitantly toward the barrier beside Cole.
"Aren't you going to stay here and absorb reishi?"
Cole couldn't help laughing in exasperation.
"Silly girl, the reishi's all right here. You think it's going to grow legs and run away?"
That was the nice thing about a barrier like this.
As long as it had been successfully established, it didn't need anyone to maintain it and could last for hundreds of years.
The barrier he'd set up would continue to draw in the reishi of Hueco Mundo and compress it non-stop.
Rukia didn't hesitate anymore. Delighted, she let Cole pull her along as they hurried forward.
Behind them.
Unohana watched with a squint-eyed smile. "So this is what young people are like. Just seeing them makes me feel like I've gotten old."
Lying on the ground, Kenpachi replied very honestly, "Feels to me like you're already old…"
"Ah."
A single flash of sword light brushed past Kenpachi.
A thunderous boom followed as the white desert was split open by that one slash. The sword light carved a ravine several kilometers long across the sands.
Cold sweat poured down Kenpachi's forehead.
Beside him, Byakuya and Mayuri were also drenched in cold sweat.
Unohana slowly sheathed her blade, her smile as gentle as ever.
"Captain Kenpachi, please don't say things like that next time, okay?"
Kenpachi swallowed hard and nodded stiffly.
"Got it…"
"So this is… Las Noches!?"
Walking under the open sky among the stark buildings, Rukia stared around in shock.
Unlike the ordered neatness of Seireitei, Las Noches felt rougher, but that roughness gave it an added sense of desolation and emptiness.
While Rukia was still looking around in every direction, Cole suddenly stopped walking.
She didn't notice in time and—thud—ran straight into his back. Rukia rubbed her nose and grumbled,
"Cole, what are you doing? Why'd you stop all of a sudden? That really hurt, you know."
Cole didn't answer.
He only pointed at the massive door in front of them.
"Rukia, the one you're looking for is in there."
Hearing that, Rukia stopped complaining. Her eyes grew serious as her right hand settled on her zanpakuto.
"A Hollow… that looks just like a captain?"
She pushed her right hand forward.
The huge doors swung inward, revealing the scene inside.
It was pitch black within, lined with countless glass tanks filled with green liquid. Severed heads floated inside them.
And standing before all those glass tanks—
Was a figure in a white coat.
Rukia's eyes went blank for a moment.
"Captain Shiba…"
The man before her had black hair, deep gray-blue eyes, and the Shiba clan crest—"Fallen Tears from the Heavens"—tattooed on his left wrist.
His hairstyle and face were very similar to a black-haired Ichigo.
That much was understandable—after all, the two of them were cousins.
Leaning casually against the doorway, Cole folded his arms and looked at the Hollow with interest. Then he turned to Rukia.
"Rukia, need me to kill this guy for you?"
Rukia jolted like she was waking from a dream and quickly gripped Sode no Shirayuki.
"N-no. This is my business. Let me settle it myself. It's a promise I made back then."
"Alright."
Cole didn't argue.
The matter of Kaien had practically become a heart demon for Rukia. She had to face it herself to truly move past it.
And now that Rukia had mastered her bankai…
With her absolute-zero form, killing the Ninth Espada really shouldn't be a problem.
Seeing that Cole didn't plan to make a move, Aaroniero Arruruerie—still wearing Shiba Kaien's face—finally let out a quiet sigh of relief in his heart.
Once he came back to his senses…
He almost wanted to curse out loud.
Talk about running into a ghost.
No—considering who he was looking at, meeting Cole was dozens of times more terrifying than meeting a ghost.
This monster…
He'd taken down all ten Espada by himself.
With those thoughts in mind, Aaroniero put on Kaien's warm smile, speaking gently to Rukia.
"Rukia, you've grown up. You've become a Shinigami who can stand on her own. It makes all the guidance I gave you back then worth it."
"Captain Shiba…"
Looking at that familiar face and that familiar gaze, Rukia couldn't help tightening her grip on her zanpakuto.
Even though she kept reminding herself over and over that this wasn't Kaien, but the Arrancar Hollow who'd devoured him…
That identical appearance still made her waver.
Aaroniero's gentle smile deepened.
"Rukia, I know you're surprised. But in truth, I really am the Shiba Kaien in your memories. Back then I was gravely wounded by that Hollow and, by coincidence, ended up in Hueco Mundo, where—"
"And now, for just nine hundred and ninety-eight reishi, you can hop on the train back to the Soul Society, right?"
Cole cheerfully finished the sentence for him.
Aaroniero almost choked to death on his own words.
What the hell was "nine hundred and ninety-eight reishi"!?
And what train!?
Didn't Shinigami use Senkaimon to travel between worlds?
Rukia, however, snapped fully awake at his interruption. She took a deep breath, cast aside her distracting thoughts, and glared coldly at the Hollow in front of her.
"Captain Kaien would never be defiled by trash like you. He was a noble, proud man—there's no way he'd stoop to consorting with Hollows!"
"San no mai: Shirafune (Third Dance: White Blade)!"
The elegant blade of Sode no Shirayuki swept through the air.
From its tip, the blade extended with pure ice. That biting cold traced a white arc straight across Aaroniero's body.
He was furious now.
Staring at the arm that had nearly been cut off, he narrowed his eyes and growled,
"Rukia, I already told you—I'm the real Shiba Kaien. The reason I stayed here was to wait for you to come."
As he spoke, he drew the zanpakuto at his waist and intoned:
"Suiten ni makase, Nejibana (Let Water and Heaven Swirl, Nejibana)!!"
The instant the words left his mouth, his zanpakuto changed shape.
It became a long trident reminiscent of the sea god Poseidon, its tip a spiraled drill wrapped in deep blue water.
The sight of that familiar zanpakuto—
Paired with that unforgettable face—
Made Rukia dazed all over again.
Had she been wrong?
Was this really not a Hollow, but the same Kaien from back then…?
"Whoosh!"
"Boom!"
The sound of something tearing through the air and the thunder of an explosion rang out together.
The noise snapped Rukia back to reality. She turned, startled, to look at Cole.
"Cole, you…"
Cole lowered his outstretched finger and chuckled.
"Rukia, what's the point of overthinking it? All it'll do is dull your zanpakuto."
If you could feel Hollow reiatsu coming from Aaroniero…
Then what was there to hesitate over?
You just cut him down.
Rukia's face flushed a little at his words. She clenched Sode no Shirayuki and looked toward the rubble where Aaroniero was buried.
With a series of sharp cracking sounds, Aaroniero crawled up from the shattered stone.
But his appearance now—
Made Rukia's gaze turn utterly frigid.
"Hollow…"
The Arrancar before her still wore the same white coat.
But Kaien's face was nowhere to be seen.
In fact, there wasn't even a face at all.
Above his body was a glass tank filled with crimson liquid, with two brains floating up and down inside.
On the surface of one of those brains was a large, black number "9".
Just looking at him made Rukia's scalp prickle.
When she thought about how she'd just treated a monster like this as Captain Kaien, she almost felt like throwing up.
It was disgusting.
Even among countless Hollows…
This one was easily among the most grotesque.
Cold air surged outward as Rukia's spiritual pressure erupted. Gripping her pure-white zanpakuto, her voice grew as icy as a frozen lake.
"So it really was you, monster. You're the one who killed Captain Kaien. I will never forgive you…"
"Ha ha ha…"
Aaroniero only laughed it off, drawing his own zanpakuto as he cackled.
"Rukia, foolish… so foolish. Even a hundred years later, you're still that little girl. How could you possibly stand against me?"
As he spoke, his spiritual pressure surged higher, and he called out his release phrase:
"Tabetsukuse, Kui Kyo (Eat Him All, Hollow-Eater)!"
In an instant, Aaroniero's upper body remained the same, but everything below transformed into a huge, hideous octopus-like mass.
Wet, sticky purple tentacles whipped and writhed.
One of those purple tentacles lashed out toward Rukia like a whip.
Rukia swung Sode no Shirayuki up to meet it. Bone-chilling cold erupted outward, as if it were going to freeze that tentacle into a perfect octopus ice sculpture.
But the moment the two collided, Rukia's expression changed drastically.
"What is this power!?"
It was just a single tentacle.
Yet the force behind it was like a mountain crashing down, making her arms tremble from the impact.
Aaroniero threw his arms wide and laughed madly, eyes fanatical as he stared at the two of them.
"This is my ability. I can devour all living things—Shinigami, Hollows, anyone—and gain their powers and skills from when they were alive…"
"Rukia, can you even begin to guess how many Hollows I've devoured?"
"A total of 33,650 Gillian-class Hollows!"
"In my Resurrección, I possess the power of more than thirty thousand Gillian. And you think you—" he sneered, "could ever hope to be my opponent!?"
As he spoke—
His gaze grew feverish as he looked over Cole and Rukia.
"The two of you will be my 33,651st and 33,652nd meals. Don't worry…"
"I'll savor your corpses slowly."
(End of Chapter)
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