"C… Cole, I… I'm going to kill you…"
"I almost suffocated just now…"
The two women gulped mouthfuls of air, panting hard. It took quite a while before they finally calmed down. Then they lifted their heads and glared at Cole through gritted teeth.
They'd been captured by Aizen and dragged around Hueco Mundo for days without dying.
If they really ended up dying under their own ally's spiritual pressure…
That would go down as the biggest joke in the history of the Soul Society.
Cole looked a little embarrassed.
"Your presence is just a bit too low. I couldn't help it, I kind of forgot you were there."
When he'd been teaching those two female Arrancar a lesson just now, he really had forgotten all about Hiyori Sarugaki and Lisa Yadomaru.
It wasn't his fault. Those two women just didn't have much presence.
No—
It was more accurate to say the entire Visored group didn't have much presence. In the original story, they were glorified cameo support.
They made this super high-class entrance—
And then Aizen cleared them out like they were small fry.
So with two people split off from that same Visored group, it was hard for him to get fired up about them.
Hiyori and Lisa were furious all over again. They were both former lieutenants—how could anyone say they had no presence?
But when they thought back on their recent experience in Hueco Mundo, they could only grit their teeth and admit…
Cole wasn't wrong.
They really did have very low presence.
Or rather, their "value" was too low.
Even Aizen couldn't be bothered to pay them any attention.
"Alright, alright. You're not weak. Shinji definitely isn't stronger than you. Let's head back first."
Cole hurried to usher them along. He had way too much on his plate right now to be coaxing these two "little girls."
No—
In terms of Shinigami age, these old crones who'd lived for centuries should be the ones coaxing him.
All of a sudden, Rukia, Hiyori, and Lisa stopped walking at the same time.
The three of them turned to look at Cole suspiciously.
"Cole, did you just curse me in your heart?"
"I got the same feeling."
"Yeah, all of a sudden I feel super annoyed."
Cole's eyelid twitched. He stared at them, dumbfounded.
Was a woman's "sixth sense" really that sharp?
He quickly shook his head.
"No way. You're overthinking it. Why would I curse you? Don't be so paranoid. Hurry up, we've gotta get back to the World of the Living."
Rukia ground her teeth.
"You're still lying. You totally spaced out just now. You were absolutely badmouthing me in your heart."
She launched herself straight at him, clinging to him as a wave of cold burst from her body.
"Tell me the truth or I'll freeze you into an ice sculpture. My body temperature right now is sitting at a nice, cozy minus one hundred and fifty degrees."
"Oh yeah? Sode no Shirayuki (Sleeve of White Snow)!"
"Wait—Sode no Shirayuki, don't listen to him! Raise my temperature, raise it!"
Rukia, cheeks puffed out, could only admit defeat, clutching her zanpakuto Sode no Shirayuki and grumbling nonstop about how her own sword was siding with an outsider.
Sode no Shirayuki vibrated happily in her hand.
After the three of them left, back in the room—
Loly Aivirrne and Menoly Mallia were tied up in perfect five-flower fashion with golden chains, grinding their teeth as they glared at the tightly shut wooden door.
"That damn Shinigami…"
"She even used this kind of knot to tie me up…"
Just looking at the pattern of knots on each other's bodies made them feel an urge to kill someone just to vent.
It was too humiliating.
An utter disgrace.
Once they got free, they would absolutely hack those Shinigami into tiny pieces.
…
Just after leaving the main hall of Las Noches and passing by the towering bone throne, Cole suddenly stopped walking.
The three women stopped as well.
Hiyori, in particular, tensed up. Staring into the pitch-black space ahead, she drew her zanpakuto and said warily,
"What is it? Enemy?"
As she spoke, she was already primed to release her zanpakuto. No matter what kind of danger it was, she'd chop it first and ask questions later.
Cole gave Lisa a strange look.
"In about three seconds, something pretty interesting is going to come out of that wall. If you don't move, it might smash you flat."
Lisa sucked in a sharp breath. Without a word, she leapt straight at Cole.
"Save me—!"
Boom!!!
The thick, towering walls of Las Noches were blasted apart by brute force.
A wave of scorching heat and blazing fire punched through the dust.
Flames patterned with strange markings roiled inside that glow.
With another thunderous crash, a pair of massive, flame-wreathed hands clawed through the broken wall, tearing the gap even wider.
Rukia immediately drew the zanpakuto at her waist. White cold seeped out along the blade as she stared solemnly at the shadowed figure within the dust.
Even as a hazy silhouette, it was clear that this was a colossal creature.
At least over ten meters tall.
Suddenly, Rukia froze. She stared blankly past the giant form, at the spiritual pressures pressing in behind it.
"Brother, Captain Kenpachi, Captain Mayuri, even Captain Unohana is in there. Are they all chasing that Hollow?"
Cole narrowed his eyes slightly, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"Well, would you look at that. An old friend."
Right then, a gust of wind whipped through the hall, blowing away the dust that had covered the hulking form's body and revealing its true face.
It was the very same Cero Espada he'd fought in the World of the Living not long ago—the dinosaur-like Arrancar Yammy Rialgo.
Only now, all the wounds he'd taken in the World of the Living—the severed limbs, the bloody gashes—were completely gone.
His wounds had healed.
His lost limbs had regrown.
And on top of that, his entire body had undergone a complete upgrade.
He'd already been a monster before. Now he burned with violent, raging heat.
Flames boiled all over his body. His skin had turned a deep purple. Heavy armor covered him, crimson cracks constantly splitting open across its surface.
A blistering heat poured out from those glowing fissures.
It might not have rivaled Ryūjin Jakka (Flowing Blade-like Flame), but it was still in the millions of degrees.
Most striking of all—
The tail behind him had become two tails.
He'd gone from a primitive dinosaur aesthetic…
To a full-on hell-demon style.
The instant this magma-beast Yammy saw Cole, it was the perfect example of "enemies meeting face-to-face and anger flaring sky-high." Rage almost shattered what little reason he had left.
"Cole!!!"
He threw his head back and roared at the ceiling.
All the hatred he'd felt earlier flooded back in that moment. He swung one massive fist and hurled it straight at Cole's face.
"I'm gonna rip you into tiny pieces!!!"
Strangely, in the face of that death sentence, Cole didn't look scared at all.
If anything, his expression grew a little odd.
"You sure you wanna swing at me?"
Yammy froze for a heartbeat.
And in that instant, behind him, Byakuya, Kenpachi, Mayuri, and Unohana all attacked at the same time.
Cherry blossoms—
Whirling blades—
Poison—
Sword aura—
Even in this magma-beast form, Yammy could only let out a blood-curdling scream as their combined assault slammed into him.
Kenpachi, gripping his massive sword, charged forward like a madman, shouting with fanatical glee,
"This guy's my prey! I want a one-on-one fight with him! The rest of you get lost!"
Mayuri snorted.
"Don't damage his research value. A three-stage Resurrección Hollow—this has never appeared in the history of the Soul Society."
As he spoke, his eyes burned as he stared at Yammy.
"Incredible. Truly incredible. Unlike second-stage Resurrección, the third stage fuses all the power directly into the Hollow's body…"
He'd only studied it for a short while, but he could already imagine how precious that substance was.
If he could fully analyze this material—
Then in the future, he could ride Kisuke like a horse to First Division captain's meetings.
Byakuya ignored their bickering. He simply found a spot to sit and rest, quietly recovering the spiritual pressure he'd burned through in the battle just now.
Unohana did the same, restoring her reiryoku while tending to the wounds on her body.
Cole glanced over and raised an eyebrow.
"Hana-nee, what happened to you? Don't tell me that big guy did all that?"
Unohana smiled with half-closed eyes.
"Cole, you mustn't underestimate him. His strength is quite formidable. He almost slapped Captain Byakuya to death earlier…"
"Captain Unohana!!!"
Byakuya's face darkened.
He'd only been heavily injured—
And then slapped flying by Yammy once. That was all.
Taking a deep breath, he said seriously,
"Cole, don't underestimate him. He claims to be the strongest in Hueco Mundo…"
"The strongest?"
Cole's expression grew even stranger as he remembered the day before.
He'd taken on the entire Espada alone and nearly wiped them out, to the point where Aizen himself had to step in and save them.
After being beaten that badly, someone here still thought of themselves as "the strongest"?
And that someone was Yammy?
Had he lost his mind?
As Cole was thinking, Yammy's roar thundered through the hall.
His magma-coated, flame-wreathed fist crashed down from above like a volcanic eruption.
Byakuya, Kenpachi, Mayuri, and Unohana all blanched.
They'd just been fighting this form of Yammy and knew exactly how terrifying he was in this state.
They shouted in unison, almost on reflex.
"Run!!!"
Boom!
A searing wind scythed across the hall from above.
But there was no deafening crash.
Because Cole had raised one hand and caught Yammy's volcanic punch in his palm.
The scene left everyone stunned.
It was like a human being casually stopping a falling meteor with one hand.
The entire hall went utterly silent—
Filled with a deathly stillness.
Cole exhaled slowly, let go of Yammy's fist, then tightened his grip around the golden staff in his hand.
His body rose lightly into the air.
"Yammy, I don't know what you were thinking," he said quietly, "but picking a fight with me means you're having a very unlucky day. Brace yourself."
In the next heartbeat, Cole appeared in front of Yammy.
He swung the golden staff in a single, crushing blow.
The magma-dinosaur of a giant went flying, smashing through building after building in a line of destruction.
Even though his body had grown even larger than before, and his physical strength had soared along with it…
He was still nowhere close to being a match.
Cole walked forward from the distance, each step echoing in the silence.
"What's wrong?" he asked softly.
"This is all a three-stage Resurrección amounts to?"
(End of Chapter)
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