Bleach: Awakened — Chapter 96 - I Hate Scientists the Most

"Well, I suppose it's about time I got going."

"...Huh?!" Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck's face was pure disbelief. "You're leaving already?! Ichigo!"

"You've barely been in Hueco Mundo any time at all! I still wanted to play games with you!"

"Ah well, grown-ups... no, wait... adults... no, what I mean is, I still have a lot of things to take care of." Ichigo rubbed his nose. "Let me think for a bit."

"Okay, okay!"

Those large, childlike eyes locked onto him without blinking. Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck was afraid that if attention slipped for even a moment, Ichigo would vanish right out from under watch.

"You don't have to do that..." Ichigo said with a wry smile. "Just give me a moment... to think about how to handle your situation."

Compared to those old schemers with centuries behind them, Ichigo still seemed quite young, but his mind was sharper than it looked. He had seen at a glance that something was off about Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck.

Arrancar were, in essence, forced products that Sosuke Aizen had artificially ripened using the Hogyoku. There were countless Arrancar across Hueco Mundo, and not every Hollow was qualified to undergo Arrancarification at Sosuke Aizen's hand.

Either they possessed some special ability that gave them a certain uniqueness after the transformation, or they were simply of extraordinary strength to begin with, their combat power rising further once transformed. Trash-tier Hollows had no standing to become Arrancar. That was just the reality of it.

Against that backdrop, how could Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck possibly be the so-called garbage everyone seemed to think? Those two older brothers wore a dopey look about them, sure, but even their spiritual pressure had reached vice-captain level, stronger than most ordinary vice-captains, in fact.

Add the broken mask fragment sitting on top of Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck's head, and the answer practically announced itself. Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck had once been a formidable Arrancar. Somewhere along the way, whether defeated head-on or ambushed, that mask had shattered, and regression had followed. Those two brothers were clearly former comrades or subordinates who had refused to leave, no matter what.

"Let's try something." After thinking it over for a long while, blue spiritual pressure gathered once more in Ichigo's hand. "I'm not skilled in healing, and this isn't exactly healing either."

"Think of it as a manifestation of one particular power I have. It can grant my strength to others. I can't predict exactly what will happen, but it should help."

His left hand came to rest on top of Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck's head. The blue light flickered steadily as spiritual pressure poured into the body. The cracked mask began to repair itself piece by piece, and Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck's expression went blank.

"That should be about enough. Any more and it won't do good."

The blue light faded. Ichigo stopped the transfer. The mask was half-repaired, and Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck returned to normal.

"I feel..." Staring at those small hands, Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck murmured. "I feel really, really good!"

"Thank you! Ichigo!"

"Hey, don't mention it!" Ichigo laughed, bright and easy. "Aren't we friends? Friends help each other!"

"If anything comes up later, come find me in Karakura Town!"

"Oh, oh, oh!"

"Well then." He ruffled that grey-green little head one more time, and then his eyes went cold. "Before I go, let me take care of one last thing."

"Just now. What were you trying to do."

THUD,

The dull sound of spatial transfer and Ichigo's ice-cold voice reached Szayelaporro Granz's ears at the same instant.

"What... what do you mean, what was I trying to do?"

The voice trembled. Among all the Espada, Szayelaporro Granz had sustained the lightest injuries and burned the least spiritual pressure, from start to finish, the only attack made was a single strike with those tentacles.

"Among the lower-ranked Espada, you're the most cautious one." Ichigo stood directly in front of Szayelaporro Granz, a smile at the corner of his mouth that held no feeling whatsoever. "Is it that your ability isn't suited for direct combat?"

"Or is it that your whole style of fighting revolves around gathering intelligence first and then targeting weaknesses. Something like that."

"Come to think of it, ever since I entered Las Noches, I've been destroying certain insects along the way. Ones that had nothing to do with surveillance. Someone placed those." Ichigo slowly raised his left hand. "Was that you?"

"Wanting to collect data on my spiritual pressure and build targeted strategies from it. Along those lines."

"One last question." Ichigo's palm turned toward Szayelaporro Granz's face, each word deliberate and measured: "Are you a..."

"Scientist."

Szayelaporro Granz was silent for a long moment. The shape of the end had already made itself felt. And at the very last, a crazed smile spread across that face.

"Yes. I am a scientist." The words came out burning with fanatical heat. "If I could, I would dissect you right here and now—study every inch of you—and find out exactly what this so-called Transcendent is all about!"

"Is that so... just as I thought?" Ichigo nodded slowly. "When I was preparing to destroy Las Noches, none of the other Espada made a move. You were the one with the strongest reaction."

"The spiritual pressure of every living thing had clearly gone silent by then, and yet you still reacted."

"Quite the careful observer." The tentacles beneath thrashed wildly. Szayelaporro Granz's spiritual pressure surged. "I—"

"I'll tell you something." Ichigo cut the words off. Blue-gold light flickered in his palm. "I hate scientists."

BOOM!

The blue-gold light swallowed Szayelaporro Granz whole in an instant. It was not a Cero. It was something far more terrifying than a Cero.

"Scientists like you especially. The kind with no bottom line."

When the light cleared, Szayelaporro Granz was gone, ash, smoke, nothing. Not a fragment remained. Not even a faint trace of a spirit particle.

"That just now... what was that?!"

Horror spread across Coyote Starrk's face, and of everyone present, Coyote Starrk was the one most attuned to souls. What registered was unmistakable: Szayelaporro Granz had not been purified. Had not fallen into Hell. Had simply disappeared. Utterly and completely.

"It's not disappearance in the literal sense..." Coyote Starrk stared at Ichigo, a chill rising that wouldn't stop. "I can feel it, at the level of the soul... no. Something even more fundamental than that."

"Szayelaporro Granz has been annihilated. Completely and utterly."

"UWAAAAAAAA!"

The golden-haired Arrancar, a subordinate officer under Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, suddenly let out a howl. Blue-gold light ignited across that body.

"What's wrong, Ilfort?!"

The surrounding Arrancar cried out in alarm. Under their horrified gazes, the blue-gold light blazed brighter. The howling stopped. Like something burned to nothing by the flames, the golden-haired figure crumbled into scattered black ash.

BOOM,

The blue-gold light flashed once more, and even those ashen fragments vanished without a trace. The Arrancar standing nearby could only stare at one another, at a complete loss.

"Ngh...!"

In a corner no one was paying attention to, motionless since Ichigo had declared the destruction of Las Noches, carried out by some kindhearted Arrancar who had once treated the injury, a woman with a skeletal mask covering half her face cried out in pain and crumpled to the ground.

BOOM!

Blue-gold light blazed across her body like fire. But unlike the golden-haired figure, the light lasted only a brief moment before it vanished, as though it had simply destroyed something that had been living inside her.

➤ Next: The Sword Hanging Overhead