Back to the video—
Kurosaki Masaki's actions
were, of course, seen by Hollow White as provocation!
"Roar—!!!"
A savage bellow.
The black figure dove straight down, charging at Kurosaki Masaki!
Its razor-sharp arm-blade
sliced through the air as it moved at high speed, making the entire battlefield ring with a shrill, piercing shockwave.
High above the city of Karakura Town,
that sound reverberated again and again without fading.
The already dangerous atmosphere intensified threefold!!!
"Aunt Masaki is so brave…"
"If it were me, my legs would've given out on the spot. I'd probably have turned around and run…"
"Same here… If only I could be as amazing as she is!"
Asano Keigo was stunned.
Sado Yasutora stared, completely dazed.
Inoue Orihime's eyes went wide, filled with awe and admiration.
In the eyes of the three friends, Kurosaki Masaki at this moment was practically a real-life super-heroine—
brave, strong, confident… it felt like there was nothing she couldn't do!!!
Only Kurosaki Ichigo—
although he was just as shocked by his mom's abnormal behavior, and deeply worried about the consequences—
found that what truly kept him on edge, every second,
was the right side of the screen—
where, cloaked in black and hidden by a reiatsu-concealing mantle, Aizen watched from beginning to end, ready to stab someone in the back at any time!!!
"That scumbag Aizen…"
"He's not seriously thinking of ambushing a woman too, is he?"
"Dad's fine—his spiritual body is strong and he's Captain-class!"
"But Mom… she only has a normal human body!!!"
Ichigo didn't even dare imagine it.
If Aizen suddenly couldn't resist taking action, and slipped in a strike from behind—
then in less than a second,
before Hollow White's arm-blade could even swing down—
his mother, Kurosaki Masaki, would already be lying in a pool of blood, run through by a slash and dead on the spot.
She'd become yet another victim of the Zanpakutō Kyōka Suigetsu!!!
That was the outcome that filled Kurosaki Ichigo with the deepest despair.
However—
it was almost as if the video wanted to put him at ease.
Just then, the camera slowly panned upward,
switching perspectives for a moment.
It no longer focused on Kurosaki Masaki,
but turned instead to Aizen's trio—
revealing their conversation in the darkness.
Shing—!!
Tōsen Kaname was the first to draw his blade.
His Zanpakutō Suzumushi flashed coldly, exuding a killing aura.
"Lord Aizen…"
"An unexpected variable has appeared. Allow me to remove it."
But—
just as Tōsen was about to act, Aizen raised a hand to stop him.
"Wait, Kaname."
Under the black cloak,
Aizen smiled faintly. "What comes next may deviate from our initial objective, but it will surpass our original plan."
"Shinigami, Hollow, Quincy…"
"With such a rare convergence, what exactly will be born in the end…"
"That's something I'm eager to see."
——
Watching this,
in the real world,
Kurosaki Ichigo froze, then suddenly realized something deep inside.
"No way…"
"Don't tell me that black Hollow is going to be taken out by Mom and Dad working together, and in the end… it even self-destructs?"
"I'm starting to feel like… there's some kind of connection between it and me…"
Frowning tightly,
Ichigo's expression turned extremely complicated.
After so many hours of watching, he didn't feel anything for Hollows.
From the bottom of his heart, he rejected these emotionless, savage creatures.
But—
Aizen's earlier words,
combined with the video's deliberate close-up shots,
made Ichigo instinctively feel
that this scene right now had extraordinary significance for him!
And sure enough—
what happened next quickly proved his guess right.
The distance closed.
Hollow White's black blade came crashing down from the front—
but Kurosaki Masaki didn't move at all.
She let it rip through one of her arms with brutal force,
but with her other hand, she calmly raised it.
"Got you…"
Her voice was steady.
The holy reishi bow flashed back into existence.
Masaki drew the string with one hand and flicked her fingers,
firing a holy arrow at point-blank range!
Boom—!!!
At this distance, it was an instant headshot.
The arrow pierced straight through Hollow White's skull, punched a hole through its bull-shaped mask, and ended in a huge fiery explosion!
Boom——!!!
Smoke and shockwaves billowed outward.
The screen filled with fire, lighting up the night sky as the situation flipped in an instant!
"So strong!!!"
"This human Quincy girl… her way of thinking is really out there!"
"To think she defeated that terrifying monster like this!!!"
Inside Squad One's barracks,
the Captains' eyes were wide. Every last one of them was stunned.
Her posture was cool, and her personal charm maxed out in that instant.
Even the Captain-Commander
completely put aside his prejudice against pure-blood Quincies, and for the first time, cast a look of approval toward Kurosaki Masaki's figure on the screen.
However—
before the Captains could finish marveling,
an unexpected turn of events struck.
Because its head had been blown apart,
Hollow White's black bull-like body began to collapse.
But, to everyone's surprise—
Hollow White chose to self-destruct!
BOOM——!!!
The explosion happened in a blink, another column of fire lancing into the sky.
Under the camera's deliberate, slow-motion tracking,
the audience could clearly see
that after Hollow White's self-destruction, its fragmented soul and power
rode the flames and shockwave—
and seeped entirely into Kurosaki Masaki's body,
the Quincy who stood opposite it.
With that,
the clip ended.
The incident twenty years ago—
another Hollowfication experiment scheme masterminded by Aizen behind the scenes—
came to a close in a way no one had expected.
In the final frame,
viewers could clearly see Aizen in mid-air, the corners of his lips curled upward.
He seemed very satisfied with Hollow White's decision to self-destruct.
He even—
looked faintly delighted.
"Heh…"
"Forget Aizen—"
"After seeing all that, even I can't help feeling excited and curious!"
Inside Squad One,
while everyone else was still in a daze from the chain of events,
Kurotsuchi Mayuri bared his teeth in an excited grin.
"What do you mean by that?"
The Captains—all of them,
including the Captain-Commander—
turned to look at Mayuri.
When it came to human experimentation, soulfusion, and similar taboos—
Mayuri was the unquestioned expert. If anyone understood what was going on, it would be him.
"Human…"
"Shinigami…"
"Hollow…"
"Pure-blood Quincy…"
With each word he listed, the expression under Mayuri's blue-and-white mask grew more animated—almost狂狂, borderline manic.
"Tell me…"
"If these four types of powers and identities were completely fused together—born within a single individual…"
"Then just how high would that person's future upper limit be?"
Before the other Captains could even start thinking it through,
Mayuri could no longer hold back. He flung his arms wide and shouted in excitement:
"Four-in-one, an all-powerful fusion of forces…"
"Wouldn't that be equivalent to creating… another Spirit King?!"
Those words—
that wild conjecture—
hit everyone like a bomb.
The entire Squad One barracks instantly shook with shock!
"What!!!"
"The Spirit King? Did we hear that right?!"
"Captain Kurotsuchi… you're not joking, are you? The Spirit King is a unique existence—the core that allows the Soul Society to exist at all!"
"How could something like that be artificially created just because of one Hollowfication experiment?!"
Mayuri's statement was too insane.
And it even touched on—
the still-mysterious Spirit King, who had yet to appear on screen.
Because of that,
not even the Captain-Commander could stay calm this time.
He felt Mayuri was out of his mind,
twisted by Aizen's experiments and going off the rails.
In response,
Mayuri only gave a cold laugh.
His expression smoothed out again as he asked, in a chilly tone:
"You don't believe it? Then tell me—have any of you ever seen anyone, any powerful being in our world—"
"who simultaneously possessed and controlled all of these different powers?"
That question
left everyone speechless.
Even the oldest of them—the Captain-Commander, Unohana Retsu, and Sasakibe Chōjirō—
whose lives had spanned eras—
all fell silent, minds racing.
After careful thought,
all three of them shook their heads.
They couldn't recall a single person in their long memories who matched such a description.
"Exactly…"
Seeing even the Captain-Commander at a loss for words,
Mayuri's grin widened as he gave his reasoning:
"Based on what I've learned, there aren't many Quincy families left in the Human World these past decades…"
"Among them, the Kurosaki family is a nearly extinct royal bloodline."
At that point,
the answer was already taking shape.
Byakuya Kuchiki was the first to react.
His usually stoic face showed rare disbelief as he spoke:
"You mean… Kurosaki Ichigo?"
"That human boy who was previously shown battling me in the Human World, and later intervening in the Fake Karakura Town battle—"
"the one who fought Ichimaru Gin…"
"You're saying he bears all of these powers, and that his future potential rivals the Spirit King's?!"
Shock.
Disbelief.
Byakuya's poker face completely cracked.
Kurosaki Ichigo—
nicknamed, the 'Little Spirit King'?
That was insane.
"…"
No one else said anything.
The impact on their minds was enormous; even the Captains' certainties began to waver.
Because yes—
based on the scenes already shown in earlier clips,
Ichigo's identity was indeed human,
and he also clearly possessed Shinigami powers.
That long, black Zanpakutō of his was proof enough.
On top of that—
Mayuri had already confirmed it:
the Kurosaki surname belonged to an old Quincy branch family that really had existed in the past.
Most importantly—
thanks to the countdown video's guidance,
the Captains themselves had witnessed Hollow White self-destruct and its soul fragments invade Kurosaki Masaki's body.
That meant—
in the future,
once she married, became pregnant, and gave birth—
her Quincy power, along with the raging Hollow force left by Hollow White's lurking soul,
would all be inherited as part of the bloodline—
passed down to Kurosaki Masaki's child.
"Come to think of it…"
Hitsugaya chose this moment to speak up. "From his facial features and hair color, that Kurosaki Ichigo does share some similarities with the Quincy girl."
"…"
"And the more I think about it, the more he actually resembles Captain Shiba as well…"
Hitsugaya's comment
made the room fall silent again.
Time,
missing pieces of identity,
and the background and locations—
every clue pointed to Kurosaki Ichigo.
At this point—
even if the Captains still had doubts in their hearts,
the conclusion was basically carved in stone.
First, Kurosaki Ichigo was almost certainly the son born of those two great bloodlines.
Second—
if Mayuri's theory was correct,
then Kurosaki Ichigo—that human boy who had only appeared a handful of times in the countdown—
might very well be
the single most promising potential stock in the entire Soul Reaper world.
He might even,
one day,
stand shoulder to shoulder with the Spirit King.
After all, a four-in-one fusion of all races' powers—
that was something not even Aizen, Yhwach, or the Monk Ichibē possessed.
None of those apex monsters had ever carried every type of power at once.
Right then,
Unohana Retsu, who rarely spoke up,
raised her eyes and said softly but seriously:
"In that case… shall we take the hypothesis one step further?"
"Is it possible that the mysterious, impossible-to-predict number one—"
"the one above even the eliminated Captains, Aizen, and the Monk—"
"is actually the Zanpakutō in Kurosaki Ichigo's hands, after he has fully grown into his potential?"
Her suggestion
hit the room like a magnitude-ten earthquake.
"W-What!?"
"Kurosaki Ichigo… that human boy… surpassing all other powerhouses and taking the top spot?!"
The Captains turned to stone.
They stood there like statues, dumbfounded.
Seriously?!
First 'Little Spirit King,' now potential number one on the list—
what was Kurosaki Ichigo trying to do, conquer the entire setting?
Even if the guy was 'cheating'—
there had to be a limit, right?
In just a few years, he'd skyrocketed in strength, leaving every veteran powerhouse in the dust.
That kind of growth speed—
only highlighted just how useless the Captains' centuries of effort looked by comparison.
Had they been living like dogs all this time?
Completely wasting their years?
It was infuriating!!!
However—
that shock and indignation
was soon interrupted by the next scene.
The pitch-black screen lit up again.
A new clip began to play.
Tap, tap, tap—!!!
Hurried footsteps echoed.
On the screen, a dark, narrow staircase corridor appeared.
Two figures ran down it, one ahead and one behind.
As the camera drew closer,
the Soul Reapers of the Gotei 13 immediately recognized them.
"That's…"
"Captain Hitsugaya!!!"
"And Lieutenant Matsumoto!!!"
"And this location… it looks like the Central Great Court of Justice!"
"This is the Central 46's emergency passage on the west side!!!"
Just that one shot
was enough to throw all of Seireitei into an uproar.
"What's going on?"
"How did we… end up breaking in there?"
"Normally, without orders from Central 46, not even the Captain-Commander is allowed to enter at will…"
Hitsugaya frowned,
watching his own image sprinting through the corridor.
He had a very bad feeling.
Sure enough—
as they reached the top of the stairs and followed the passage around a bend to a massive door—
the next footage that appeared on the screen,
and the shocked exclamation that came from Hitsugaya's own mouth,
instantly horrified every Soul Reaper watching.
"This…"
"This is impossible!!!"
On screen, Hitsugaya stood frozen in the doorway of the Central 46 Chamber.
His small body trembled slightly from sheer shock.
Behind him,
Matsumoto Rangiku's face went pale with terror.
Their gazes swept across the scene before them—
and everywhere they looked, there was blood.
Bodies lay scattered across the floor, corpses piled haphazardly.
Even the bloodstains had long since dried.
Clearly, an unspeakable massacre had taken place.
The moment this scene of carnage was revealed—
the truth behind the slaughter of Central 46
rocked the Soul Society as never before!!!
(End of Chapter)
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