The black cloth went taut, and one wooden peg after another was sent flying.
Bone-white Hollow matter poured out of his seven orifices, further filling in the Hollow mask until it completely covered Muten Natsu's face.
A piercing screech overlapped with a deep growl, and the black cloth binding him snapped apart completely.
Black ink swam across the skull mask, shifting into complex, incomprehensible, eerie patterns.
"Uh, I mean... this is weird," Mashiro Kuna said, staring at Muten Natsu inside the Shijū Saimon. "Shouldn't we take away the Zanpakutō that's causing all this?"
Rukia Kuchiki's eyes were full of worry. "Bokukō has already turned into spiritual ink and attached itself to him, and Myōki can be stored inside his body. There's no way to separate them."
"There's no need for that anyway. Taking away his Zanpakutō would only make the area of his madness spread even further." Love Aikawa walked toward the Shijū Saimon. "Hachi, open it up. I'll go first."
"Understood!" Hachigen Ushōda changed his hand seals, and the circular black iron gate, Kokō no Jōmon, spun open to reveal the passage through its center.
Muten Natsu sensed the change in the barrier and immediately dashed toward it.
Kokō no Jōmon spun faster, blades extending from its edge and forcing him back.
Love Aikawa stepped into the barrier and drew his Zanpakutō. "You probably can't hear me, but... I'm Love Aikawa. You're awfully impatient."
Even as he spoke, Muten Natsu had already swung his sword at him.
Love Aikawa raised his blade to block, and his arm sank under the force.
A low growl sounded from beneath the skull mask. Muten Natsu actually reached out, grabbed Love Aikawa's Zanpakutō with his bare hand, forced it aside, and swung his blade down again.
"That's not... something you're supposed to grab with your hand." Love Aikawa shifted his footing and angled his body aside to avoid Myōki. "Crush it. Tengumaru!"
The Zanpakutō suddenly expanded into a gigantic spiked club more than five meters long and two meters thick. It broke free of Muten Natsu's grip, and with a single swing from Love Aikawa, whipped up a violent gust and smashed hard into Muten Natsu.
Bang!
A heavy crash rang out, mixed with the explosive sound of snapping bones and tearing flesh, and Muten Natsu was sent flying like a ragged sack.
The man with wavy blond hair felt his eyelid twitch. "Wasn't that a little too heavy-handed, Love?"
"Rose, take a closer look," Shinji Hirako said, tilting his head. "He blocked that hit."
The blond man's name was Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi, but he preferred being called Rose.
"Hm?" Rose looked more carefully, and only then did he notice the flowing black ink on Muten Natsu's body. "No wonder..."
The spikes on Tengumaru should have left wounds all over Muten Natsu's body.
But the ink had stopped the spikes and protected him.
Love Aikawa leaped into the air and raised Tengumaru high overhead. "Then what about this one. Hifuki no Kozuchi!"
Tengumaru pinned Muten Natsu's body down and smashed him hard into the ground.
The earth shattered, and a blazing pillar of fire shot skyward, only to be stopped by the barrier.
Using Tengumaru as a pivot, Love Aikawa twisted his body with a burst of force and narrowly avoided the attack coming from behind. "When did you.?!"
Mashiro Kuna raised a hand to shade her eyes. "That black mist..."
Ethereal black mist was drifting off Muten Natsu's body, stretching into a trailing line as he moved at high speed.
At the exact instant Tengumaru was about to hit Muten Natsu, he had appeared at the far end of that trail and used the cover of the pillar of fire to launch an attack on Love Aikawa.
A huge heavy weapon would dominate in a clash, but if the wielder lacked strength, its weight would make their movements slow.
But Love Aikawa had plenty of strength.
The massive Tengumaru howled through the air, displaying terrifying speed even in Love Aikawa's one-handed swing, and smashed straight into Muten Natsu's body.
Pff!
Muten Natsu's body was completely shattered, turning into thick spiritual ink that wrapped around Tengumaru.
His figure appeared behind Love Aikawa, and Myōki flashed with black light as it slashed down.
"You really are a pain..." Love Aikawa planted his toes, twisted his body, and slammed into Muten Natsu's chest, driving an elbow into him and knocking him back. "Hifuki no Kozuchi!"
Tengumaru spewed flames that burned away the spiritual ink. The explosive force launched Tengumaru high up, then drove it back down in a vicious smash.
Bang!
The lizard Hollow slammed Muten Natsu to the ground with one claw. "That gave me a scare. I didn't expect you to Hollowfy... but you're still just as weak."
The claw slowly carved a wound across Muten Natsu's chest, splitting flesh open as the lizard Hollow bared its teeth and whispered, "We're both Hollows. Why did you think a Hollow that just turned could beat me?"
"Why..." Muten Natsu's voice overlapped with a low growl. "...can't I?"
Bone-white Hollow matter sprayed out of the wound, flowed back, and solidified.
"High-Speed Regeneration?!" The lizard Hollow reached for Muten Natsu's head with a claw.
Ethereal black smoke seeped out from Muten Natsu's body, and his figure blurred.
The lizard Hollow's claw passed through the afterimage, and in the very next moment, Muten Natsu stomped down on it.
With the sound of snapping bones and tearing flesh, the lizard Hollow let out a howl and swung its other claw in a sweeping strike.
"Welcome back..." Muten Natsu lifted his eyes. "Ink Fortress. Myōki!"
With a sharp clang, ink spread out and blocked the lizard Hollow's attack.
The inward-curving blade of Myōki cut through the ink, flashing with a fierce cold gleam as it severed the lizard Hollow's neck.
"Three... two... one! Ten minutes. Switch out." Rose, the blond man, rose to his feet. "Hachi, open it."
Kokō no Jōmon opened once more. Rose rushed inside while Love Aikawa quickly withdrew.
"Huff... huff..." Love Aikawa panted, still shaken as he covered the wound on his throat. "That was close... how much rest time do I get?"
"Eight people rotating," Shinji Hirako replied. "Ten minutes times eight is eighty minutes!"
"Why are you multiplying by eight?" Hiyori Sarugaki, already healed by Orihime Inoue, snapped irritably. "You're supposed to exclude one person when calculating the rest time, baldy!"
"Then that makes seven." Shinji Hirako recalculated with equal annoyance. "Seventy minutes of rest."
"But I'm only handling the barrier." Sweat had already formed on Hachigen Ushōda's forehead from maintaining it for so long. "I shouldn't count, right?"
"Then sixty minutes!"
"What about me?" Rukia Kuchiki raised her Zanpakutō. "I can also..."
"You can't." Shinji Hirako cut her off. "This fight isn't just to stop Muten Natsu from causing too much damage. It's also meant to influence him with Hollowfied Reiatsu. You can't Hollowfy, so you can't join."
Rukia Kuchiki bit down on her lower lip and looked toward Muten Natsu inside the Shijū Saimon.
He had used High-Speed Regeneration countless times. His body was now covered in white matter like armor, with sharp spikes growing from it in chaotic profusion. Compared to a human, at least half of Muten Natsu's body now looked more like a Hollow.
What worried Rukia Kuchiki most were the bulging veins on his chest.
Those black veins gathered there, faintly outlining the shape of a Hollow Hole.
"The internal struggle to suppress the Hollowfication lasts about an hour." A cold glint flashed over Lisa Yadōmaru's glasses. "By the time it's your turn again, it should be over."
"Over..." Orihime Inoue had a vague feeling of dread. "What do you mean?"
"Either he successfully suppresses the Hollowfication, or he fully turns into a Hollow and we destroy him." Lisa Yadōmaru's gaze was icy. "Either way, that's an ending."
Orihime Inoue's breath caught, and her hands twisted helplessly together.
"No..." Love Aikawa shook his head. "Not an hour."
"Huh?" Shinji Hirako stared blankly. "Did I mess up the math again?"
"You'll understand once you've fought him." Love Aikawa's expression grew grave. "We can last ten minutes, but they probably can't..."
A hundred years ago, Shinji Hirako, Kensei Muguruma, Love Aikawa, and Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi had all been captains, while Hiyori Sarugaki, Lisa Yadōmaru, and Mashiro Kuna had been lieutenants.
In Love Aikawa's view, the captain-class fighters might be fine, but the lieutenants... probably would not last ten minutes.
"Seriously?" Mashiro Kuna asked curiously. "People who Hollowfy usually turn into idiots. They're pretty easy to deal with."
After Hollowfication, they usually lost their minds. Those frenzied attacks were terrifying, but to someone with plenty of combat experience, attacks without any pattern were actually easy enough to handle.
"That's exactly the problem," Love Aikawa warned. "In that fight just now, did he look like he'd lost his mind?"
"Huh?" Mashiro Kuna pressed a finger to her lips. "Now that you mention it..."
The way Hollowfied Muten Natsu had fought just now could only be described as cunning.
"Don't tell me..." Kensei Muguruma frowned deeply. "He hasn't fully Hollowfied yet?"
[Hollowfication Progress 83%]
[Warning]
[Severe Module Damage]
[Document Display Error]
[Unable to Retrieve External Information]
A red screen flickered unsteadily before his eyes. The displayed contents kept changing, and every line was riddled with errors.
Muten Natsu waved a hand to dismiss the screen, temporarily shutting off Myōki's notifications, then lifted his gaze toward the familiar pure-white space.
All he could see were black cracks.
They were dense, crisscrossing, and still growing.
Tiny fragments surrounded by those cracks were constantly falling into the deep darkness below.
Without Myōki's help, Muten Natsu could only analyze the situation himself.
That should have been a dream just now. The moment Muten Natsu realized he was dreaming, he had been able to control the dream to some extent.
Once he grabbed Myōki and killed the lizard Hollow, the dream ended.
And Muten Natsu was finally able to face his inner world directly.
The cracks in this pure-white space were most likely the collapse of his soul brought on by Hollowfication.
He still did not know what was happening outside, but right now the thing he had to worry about was the collapse in front of him.
Only by solving the problem here could he leave this place and deal with whatever was happening outside.
The solution, naturally, was to defeat the Hollow inside him.
But... pff!
A blade pierced through his chest. Muten Natsu turned his head with difficulty and saw the Primordial Form behind him, wrapped in a willow-colored cloak.
But the problem was, he had never beaten it even once.
The Primordial Form twisted its wrist, shredding Muten Natsu's organs before pulling the long blade back out.
This time, however, was different.
A bone-white substance, like melted bone, spurted from the wound, then quickly flowed back and sealed it shut.
As more cracks spread, Muten Natsu activated High-Speed Regeneration, healed the wound in his chest, and slashed backward in one motion.
A cold flash cut through the air, and the arm holding the sword spun away before his eyes.
Myōki suddenly released a burst of suction and absorbed the severed arm.
Muten Natsu raised his left hand and gripped the hilt. White Hollow matter spurted from the wound on his right shoulder and condensed into a new arm.
The instant both hands closed around the hilt, dazzling cold light burst forth and slashed toward the Primordial Form.
Pff! Pff! Pff!
Just like the Primordial Form's left arm, three short blades pinned themselves into Muten Natsu's shoulder, sealing off the force of his swing.
The long sword thrust through the gap between his arms and pierced his chest again.
The pure-white space shuddered, and great sheets of white fell into darkness. The surging white Hollow matter forced the blade back out of his body and turned into armor that wrapped around his chest.
Black ink ran over his body. Muten Natsu had already tried before to use Ink Fortress to block the Primordial Form's attacks, but the other side was simply too fast. So fast that even Ink Fortress could not keep up.
Beneath the skull mask, veins bulged on Muten Natsu's forehead. Hell's Eye slowly opened, and cracks spread over the skull mask, revealing a crimson eye fixed on the Primordial Form.
I can see it...
Muten Natsu raised his sword to meet the Primordial Form's swing. His vision blurred, and the blade seemed to pass straight through Myōki, slashing toward his throat.
No.
What Hell's Eye showed him was a completely different scene.
At the instant the blades were about to collide, the Primordial Form's left hand shifted on the end of the hilt and its right wrist twisted, letting the blade slip past Myōki at an extremely small angle and at incredible speed.
Clang!
Ink spread around Muten Natsu's neck and blocked the Primordial Form's attack.
Muten Natsu seized the opening and thrust his blade straight forward.
The Primordial Form flickered and vanished from directly in front of him.
Shunpo!
Myōki spun in Muten Natsu's hands. Gripping it in reverse with both hands, he stabbed behind himself.
The Primordial Form's downward slash was knocked back with perfect precision by Myōki.
Seeing the Primordial Form's arm thrown high into the air and the long blade knocked behind it, Muten Natsu immediately turned his body and slashed horizontally.
Pff!
Behind its back, the Primordial Form let go of the hilt and caught it with its left hand, not giving Muten Natsu the slightest opening as it skillfully pierced his chest again.
"Got you..." The armor on Muten Natsu's chest opened up, then snapped shut the instant the long blade pierced into him, clamping it tight.
Ignoring the fact that his chest had been run through, Muten Natsu grabbed the Primordial Form's wrist and continued the sweeping motion.
Beneath the cloak there was only darkness. Its face could not be seen, but the terrifying pressure it gave off was as deep as an abyss.
The Primordial Form leaped lightly, avoiding the sweeping Myōki.
Its body turned over in midair. It landed on Muten Natsu's shoulder, gripped the hilt with one hand, and twisted sharply. The blade sliced open the armor on Muten Natsu's chest and disemboweled him.
More white vanished into the cracks. Bone-white Hollow matter filled the wound, and Muten Natsu's eyes glowed crimson like Hell's Eye itself.
Even this still isn't enough?
His inner world was collapsing, and the situation outside might be even worse.
If he could not defeat the Hollow inside him before this pure-white space fully collapsed, then he would probably become a Hollow completely.