Bleach: Awakened — Chapter 59 - Ichigo Gets His Intelligence Steamrolled

His expression had gone ugly. Standing there, Ichigo finally understood, the terror of Sosuke Aizen wasn't only his strength, standing at the absolute pinnacle of what a Soul Reaper could be. It wasn't only his Zanpakuto ability, which was as close to unsolvable as anything Ichigo had ever faced. It was the hundred years of patience behind every move, and a mind that saw a hundred steps ahead from a single one.

"That's right, exactly as you're imagining." Aizen laughed softly, turning the Hogyoku over in his hand, that priceless, one-of-a-kind treasure. "In that instant, after it absorbed your spiritual pressure, it manifested power that surpassed even its complete form."

"In that moment, my mind held only two thoughts. The first was to seal off the space."

"To lock down the spatial boundaries of Hueco Mundo completely, so that no matter whether from Soul Society, the World of the Living, or even Hell itself, no one would be able to open a door leading there." Aizen glanced at Ichigo, who was visibly itching to move, and smiled. "Don't think about rushing through while this Garganta is still open."

"I said I had two thoughts. The other was to push Kyoka Suigetsu to its absolute limit."

BOOM!

The words had barely left his mouth when countless pillars of fire erupted skyward, and in the next instant, every single one of them poured into the Garganta. Captain-Commander Yamamoto's Ryujin Jakka had released once more.

CRACK,

But from the direction of the Garganta came a strange, inexplicable sound of shattering. The sky itself looked as though it had fractured, veined with cracks, wrong in a way that felt deeply unreal.

"The power of Kyoka Suigetsu, at this moment, stands at the level of a Transcendent."

The next instant, countless Gargantas tore open across the sky. Countless copies of Aizen appeared alongside them, each flanked by his two companions. Sight, hearing, spiritual perception, every sense screamed the same thing to everyone present, Ichigo included: every single Aizen up there was real.

If it was truly as Aizen said and the passage to Hueco Mundo had been locked shut, then with no way to identify the true Garganta now, reaching Hueco Mundo afterward would be next to impossible. Launching a wide-area attack like Getsuga Tensho right now would be meaningless, even for Ichigo as he currently was, a wide-area release still required a beat of time, and Aizen was far too close to the Garganta. That beat of time was more than enough for him to escape.

"I see..." Ichigo looked up at the sky, his voice quiet. "Just yesterday we were all discussing why the execution had been moved up again, whether you'd found another method, besides the Sokyoku, to extract the Hogyoku."

"At first I dismissed it. Then someone raised the point: if there was already another method, why wait for the Sokyoku at all."

"Heh." Aizen laughed, soft, mocking, unhurried. "So you've only just figured it out."

"Was it simply to announce your betrayal before a crowd? To flaunt your own power? That was my first thought." Ichigo kept going. "But I ruled it out. Someone who endured in silence for hundreds of years wouldn't think that way, not unless he had absolute confidence in his escape. Otherwise the risk would be too great."

"But you know perfectly well, back in the Dangai, I destroyed the Kototsu."

"Quite right." Aizen nodded, a trace of genuine surprise in his expression. "I didn't expect you to arrive at that. I had you pegged as the same type as Kenpachi Zaraki."

"If even the Kototsu—something operating on the same plane as a fundamental rule—could be destroyed by me, then the Negacion might not be reliable either." Ichigo let out a slow breath, paying no attention to the mockery. The feeling settling into him was dull and heavy: the helplessness of being outthought at every turn. "So it was deliberate. What you were waiting for was that one slash."

"You used that slash to eliminate your own hidden vulnerability completely. Bought yourself enough time for the Hogyoku to fuse. And then grow stronger."

"That's right. The power you demonstrated was far too overwhelming." Aizen's voice was unhurried. "Without the Hogyoku, I could never match you."

"So the next time we meet, we will stand on the same level. When that time comes, I hope you can bring out an even greater power than you have now, and help me rise to a higher plane. To a place above the heavens."

With those words, every copy of Aizen in the sky entered a Garganta simultaneously. Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tosen followed close behind. The moment all three passed through, every Garganta sealed shut at once, and the sky above Sokyoku Hill returned to silence.

And just like that, with the defection of those three, a war that would be written into the annals of history slowly drew back its curtain.

The next day.

"This is... really awful..."

Ichigo lay flat on the wooden floor of Squad 13's training hall, staring up at the ceiling with the look of someone who had completely stopped caring about being alive.

"I feel like my intelligence just got run over..."

A full day had passed since the three captains defected. The shockwaves through Seireitei hadn't stopped.

Setting aside Squad 3 Captain Gin Ichimaru, whose first impression had always been suspect, no one could have imagined that Squad 5 Captain Sosuke Aizen and Squad 9 Captain Kaname Tosen were the masterminds behind the whole chain of recent events.

The slaughter of Central 46, most of all. A deed so brazen it was... so utterly depraved, a heinous act Seireitei had not seen in a thousand years. Aizen had been branded, immediately and definitively, as a criminal of the most vicious kind.

"There's nothing to be done about it." Uryu Ishida said from the doorway of the training hall, voice resigned. "The others are all ancient monsters who've lived for hundreds of years. Losing to them is only natural."

"Seriously..." Ichigo sat up. "That Squad 12 person—Mayuri, whatever their name is, what did they say? How long to break the spatial seal?"

"No chance of it in the short term." Uryu Ishida shook their head. "I ran into the captain of Squad 8 earlier. He passed along a message from Squad 12: breaking through the spatial seal on Hueco Mundo would take at least a month, no matter what."

"A month?!" Ichigo bit down. "In a month that Aizen will have already finished fusing with the Hogyoku! There's no way we can just sit and wait!"

"I should get back to the World of the Living and ask Urahara about it, maybe he could..."

"Hmph!" A contemptuous snort cut through the air. The distinctly unusual-looking Mayuri Kurotsuchi had arrived at the training hall. "That Kisuke Urahara has absolutely nothing. The spatial seal Aizen created with the Hogyoku cannot be broken by any so-called technology. It requires a force of equivalent level and related nature to even be effective."

"You understand what that means, don't you, Ichigo Kurosaki. Only a Transcendent with spatial ability would be of any use."

With Aizen having raised the concept and Ichigo serving as the benchmark, the idea of a Transcendent had now been formally confirmed.

Put simply, a Transcendent as currently understood was an existence that had surpassed the biological limits of the Soul Reaper species. First: the power to effortlessly overwhelm any being below Transcendent level. Second: only those of First-Class Spiritual Rank could even perceive their spiritual pressure. Beyond those two points, nothing further had yet been identified.

"By the way, what are you doing here." Uryu Ishida made no effort to hide the hostility. "You're a captain. Are you really this free?"

"You think I wanted to come." Mayuri Kurotsuchi replied, expression thoroughly displeased. "Captain-Commander's orders, you're to attend the Captains' Meeting, and a captain must personally escort you there."

"Jushiro Ukitake left for it long ago. I was the only one still nearby."

"So a captain has to come escort me personally..." Ichigo nodded. "They're showing quite a bit of respect. Fine, let's go."

"But, Mayuri, right?"

"...Hm?"

"Going is fine. But if you dare try anything strange on me, collecting anything, putting anything on me."

Ichigo looked at Mayuri Kurotsuchi and smiled. Bright, easy, and completely empty of warmth.

"I'll cut you down."

➤ Next: Have You Considered Taking the Position of Captain-Commander