In the Squad Twelve Captain's office, Kisuke Urahara sat with the Reishi residue data report in hand. His army-green eyes moved slowly across the pages, start to finish, then finish to start, as if confirming something he already suspected. Then he set it down and tapped a finger lightly on the desk.

"I see. Understood. I'll select someone to head over tonight. For now, go back and help Mr. Muguruma."

Izaemon Tōdō acknowledged the order and left. The moment the door closed, Urahara leaned back in his chair, gaze drifting to some point on the ceiling, as though he could see something there that no one else could.

"In that case, Hiyori. You go."

Hiyori Sarugaki was crouching in the corner, flipping through a stack of expense reports from the Technological Development Bureau. At those words she snapped her head up, her blonde pigtail nearly whipping into the document shelf beside her.

"Huh? Why me? Can't you send someone from under us?"

"All you do is complain."

The voice came from the doorway. Akon had poked half his head inside, the three small horns on his forehead catching the light, his expression as coolly composed as ever, his tone just as merciless. "Why not just resign from the lieutenant post altogether?"

Hiyori's eyes went wide. The expense reports slipped from her hands and scattered across the floor. "What gives you the right to talk to me like that! Akon!"

She lashed out a kick at the doorway. Akon's head pulled back like he'd been expecting it all along, and the kick slammed into the doorframe with a dull thud.

Urahara watched the whole thing, a faint smile touching the corners of his mouth. Not the breezy kind that left people guessing whether he was joking, something gentler than that, like a man watching a familiar routine he'd seen a hundred times. Then he stood, walked over to Hiyori, and looked down at her with those army-green eyes. His tone shifted, just slightly.

"My apologies. This kind of task can only be handled by you. I must trouble you to make the trip."

Hiyori glared at him. Her lips moved like she still had a few choice words left, but in the end she just turned her head sharply away.

"...Fine!"

She scooped the scattered expense reports off the floor and shoved them back into the folder. As she walked out of the captain's office, her voice carried down the corridor, furious and fading.

"I'm so pissed — from now on I'm blowing through the entire budget!"

Her voice faded into the distance. Urahara stood in the doorway and watched her silhouette disappear at the end of the hall. Then he turned back, walked to the desk, and picked up the Reishi residue data report again.

His army-green eyes stayed on the page for a very long time.

---

The night sky over the outskirts of Rukongai was smothered by thick clouds.

Izaemon Tōdō emerged from the darkness and stepped into Squad Nine's temporary encampment at a steady pace. The hem of his Shihakushō was flecked with grass and dirt, and his face looked tired under the moonlight.

Kaname Tōsen stood outside the tent. He "looked" in Tōdō's direction, his tone flat.

"You took your time."

Tōdō stopped and let out a breath. "Sorry. I was the only one sent straight to the barracks. Don't hold it against me." He walked up beside Tōsen and clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's switch. I'll take the night watch."

Tōsen said nothing more. He turned and walked away. Tōdō sat down on the gravel outside the tent, Zanpakutō resting across his knees, eyes sweeping the surrounding dark.

Inside the tent.

Kensei sat cross-legged on his bedroll, staring at Mashiro Kuna on the opposite side, brows furrowed.

Mashiro was spread-eagle on the futon. Her short, slightly wavy green hair was a tangled mess. Her white round-rimmed glasses had slid sideways up to her forehead. Her red scarf had been tugged loose, one end pinned under her body, the other draped over her face, rising and falling with each breath. The hem of her Shihakushō had rolled up past her knees, exposing her calf. One white stirrup sock was still on her foot; the other had been kicked off somewhere unknown. A thin trail of drool hung from the corner of her mouth, and she was mumbling something incoherent.

Kensei stared at her sleeping. He was quiet for a long moment.

"...This girl. Worst sleeping habits I've ever seen."

He reached over, lifted the scarf from her face, folded it, and set it beside her pillow. Mashiro mumbled something else, rolled over, and took the entire quilt with her.

Kensei looked at his now-bare futon. Then at the quilt Mashiro had rolled into a ball.

"...Hey."

Mashiro didn't move.

He was just reaching to pull the quilt back when a scream split the air outside the tent.

Not a Hollow's cry. A human voice. Young. A voice he knew.

Kensei's body moved before his mind did. His Zanpakutō was already in his hand. Heizō Kasagi launched off his bedroll at almost the exact same instant.

"That's Okishima and the others." Heizō's voice was barely above a whisper.

Kensei threw back the tent flap.

Moonlight leaked through a crack in the clouds, spilling over the small clearing at the edge of the camp.

Shinobu Okishima lay in a pool of blood. His lean body was slumped sideways on the gravel. The lapel of his Shihakushō was still perfectly neat, not a single wrinkle, but the chest beneath was soaked through. His Zanpakutō was still in his hand, the blade drawn only halfway, frozen there forever. The blood spread slowly beneath him, seeping between the stones. His eyes were open. His face, clean and young, held no expression at all, as if he hadn't understood what happened even at the very end.

Kaname Tōsen lay beside him.

Izaemon Tōdō stood between the two of them. His Shihakushō was clean. No blood. His arms hung at his sides, his right hand gripping a Zanpakutō, his own. His face was young and steady, exactly as it always was. No expression. He turned to face Kensei. Moonlight fell across his face. His pupils were empty. Then his throat split open. Blood didn't spray, it jetted, forced out under pressure, squeezed from the inside by something. It arced through the air and hit the gravel at the edges of Okishima's and Tōsen's blood pools.

Izaemon Tōdō's body dropped straight down and hit the gravel with a dull, heavy thud.

Heizō Kasagi stood behind Kensei, his toothbrush mustache trembling faintly, thick fingers already wrapped around the hilt of his Zanpakutō.

"Kasagi! Draw your blade. The enemy is still close." Kensei's voice was low and tight. He turned back and shouted into the tent: "Mashiro! Get up! Mashiro!"

A pained whimper came from behind him.

Kensei spun around.

Heizō Kasagi stood with his Zanpakutō half-drawn. His neck had opened up. The wound was in the same place as Tōdō's, left carotid to the Adam's apple, a clean cut, the kind only an exceptionally sharp blade could make in a single stroke. Blood surged from the gash, poured down the front of his Shihakushō, and pooled on the gravel.

A drop clung to the tip of his mustache. Then the flood washed it away.

Heizō Kasagi pitched forward and hit the gravel face-first. His bald head cracked against the stone.

Kensei's pupils snapped tight. His fingers locked around his Zanpakutō, Reiatsu gathering at his feet, and then he couldn't see anything.

Not darkness. Something more thorough than that. More absolute. As if someone had scooped his eyes out of their sockets and taken his Reiatsu perception along with them. His vision went pure black. Every trace of Reiatsu vanished. Not suppressed. Not disrupted. Stripped.

A blade drove into his back.

The tip punched through his chest, through the Squad Nine Captain's haori, through the "69" tattoo, through skin and muscle and bone. Blood seeped along the blade and dripped onto the gravel, one drop at a time.

Kensei looked down at the section of steel protruding from his chest. Moonlight caught the blade. He saw his own face in it.

"...It's you?"

---

The Squad One barracks.

Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto sat in the Head Captain's seat. His cane struck the stone floor with a deep, resonant crack. His long white beard hung to his waist. The scars on his brow and right forehead looked deeper than usual in the dim light. His eyes were narrowed, his gaze moving heavily, deliberately, across every person in the room.

"Squad Nine Captain Kensei Muguruma and Lieutenant Mashiro Kuna — Reiatsu gone. Squad Nine Third Seat Heizō Kasagi, Fourth Seat Shinobu Okishima, Fifth Seat Kaname Tōsen, and Sixth Seat Izaemon Tōdō — Reiatsu completely gone. This is the first time in Soul Society's history that an entire captain-level unit has gone dark simultaneously."

He paused. His cane struck the floor again.

"A support force must be dispatched immediately."

The door opened.

Kisuke Urahara walked in at a clip, the Squad Twelve Captain's haori moving behind him. No smile. His army-green eyes went straight to Yamamoto.

"Head Captain, please allow me to accompany them. Hiyori has already departed."

Yamamoto's gaze settled on him. A moment of silence. Then he shook his head.

"Denied. You will remain on standby in Squad Twelve. The Technological Development Bureau needs you."

Urahara stayed where he was, lips parting like he wanted to say something. But Yamamoto had already looked away.

"Squad Five Captain Shinji Hirako. Squad Seven Captain Love Aikawa. Squad Three Captain Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi. The three of you will proceed immediately to the Rukongai outskirts, investigate the cause of Squad Nine's Reiatsu disappearance, and confirm the safety of Kensei and the others. Squad Two Captain Yoruichi Shihōin will remain on standby, ready to provide high-speed support at a moment's notice. Squad Six, Eight, and Thirteen will hold the Seireitei."

Shunsui Kyōraku was leaning against the wall. Jūshirō Ukitake stood beside him, white hair falling across his shoulders, his face paler than usual. Neither of them spoke.

"Squad Four Captain Retsu Unohana — prepare to receive the wounded."

Retsu Unohana bowed slightly. Her long black hair was parted down the middle and woven into a three-strand braid draped across her chest. Her expression was gentle, her bearing serene.

"Head Captain, I should be the one going to the scene. To treat the wounded as quickly as possible."

"The enemy is hidden. We are exposed." Yamamoto's voice was slow and even. "You will remain in the Seireitei. Treating the wounded requires Squad Four's full facilities. Furthermore—"

He paused. His cane touched the floor once.

"Dispatch Kidō Corps Grand Kidō Chief Iwakizhi Tetsusai and Vice Kidō Commander Hachigen Ushōda to coordinate with the support force."

Shunsui Kyōraku pushed off from the wall. His pink haori caught the light softly. "Head Captain, sending both pillars of the Kidō Corps — isn't that too much of a risk? What if something—"

"It is precisely because the enemy is hidden and we are exposed that we need the Kidō Corps." Yamamoto cut him off. His voice left no room for argument. "In a situation with unknown enemies, the barrier and sealing abilities of Iwakizhi Tetsusai and Hachigen Ushōda are essential."

Kyōraku was quiet for a beat. Then: "How about this. Let my lieutenant, Lisa Yadōmaru, go in place of the Grand Kidō Chief. Lisa's Kidō isn't at the Grand Kidō Chief's level, but she's the best among the lieutenants. If the Grand Kidō Chief stays in the Seireitei, should anything unexpected happen, at least the Kidō Corps still has its core intact."

Yamamoto looked at him. A moment passed. His cane struck the floor.

"Granted."

---

A crack split the thick clouds over the Rukongai outskirts.

Moonlight poured through, washing over the dry riverbed, over the tents of Squad Nine's temporary camp, over the blood pools on the gravel that hadn't yet finished soaking into the ground.

Hiyori burst out of the darkness. Her blonde pigtail whipped hard in the night wind. Her feet tapped the gravel in rapid bursts, Shunpo pushed to its limit. The camp was right there, tent shapes sharp under the moonlight. She didn't slow down.

A figure surged from the shadows beside a tent.

Not surged. Pounced. Like an animal that had lost every last trace of reason. It moved so fast that the moment Hiyori registered its presence, the strike had already landed.

Hiyori's body was launched off the ground. She hit the gravel hard. Pebbles drove into her back, pain radiating from her spine through her arms and legs. She pushed herself up and raised her head.

And then she saw the face.

White. All white. Not skin, a mask. Pure white, covering the entire face. Where the mouth should have been, a row of jagged teeth patterns instead. The back of the mask extended out behind the head like the tied hair of an ancient warrior. Several rectangular slits cut across the surface, arranged in a pattern she didn't recognize. Behind the mask, those eyes, she knew them. Or she used to. Kensei's eyes were sharp. Direct. Like a blade edge. These eyes were hollow. Empty of emotion, empty of recognition, carrying nothing but pure, undisguised killing intent.

Kensei Muguruma stood in the moonlight. The Squad Nine Captain's haori still hung from his shoulders, collar open, the "69" tattoo on his chest torn open where a blade had punched through from behind, the blood dried and dark. His Zanpakutō was nowhere.

White substance crawled from the mask's edges, spreading over his neck, his shoulders, his arms. Not clinging, eroding. The power of a Hollow was consuming him from the inside, rewriting his Reiatsu, his body, his very existence, piece by piece into something else.

Kensei moved. Not Shunpo. A pure charge, raw and unrefined. Faster than Shunpo. Fast enough that Hiyori couldn't track the trajectory at all. The Hollowfication-fueled brute force behind it was enormous, his combat blade slammed into the patch of gravel where she'd just been lying. CRACK. The ground split open in a deep trench.

Hiyori rolled sideways. Gravel bit into her shoulder and ribs. Her hand found the hilt of her Zanpakutō and stopped there. She stared at those hollow eyes behind the mask, and her fingers locked up.

How long had she known Kensei? Since the day she'd made lieutenant of Squad Twelve, he'd been the captain of Squad Nine. They'd sat through countless captains' meetings together, drank together more times than she could count, passed each other in hallways she couldn't remember anymore. Kensei was loud. Blunt. Strict with subordinates, lenient with Mashiro, and generous with everyone else. He was the kind of person you never thought could go down.

But he had gone down. No, he was gone. The thing standing in front of her wore his haori, held his Zanpakutō, carried his Reiatsu. But those hollow eyes had nothing left in them. Kensei wasn't there anymore.

His blade came down again. A blue-green wind pattern swept an arc through the moonlight. Hiyori closed her eyes.

A figure stepped in front of her.

Pale-blond hime-cut hair fanned out in the night wind. The Squad Five Captain's haori billowed in the Reiatsu currents. Shinji Hirako's Zanpakutō caught Kensei's straight across. CLANG. The shockwave from the colliding Reiatsu swept outward in all directions, stones spinning up into the moonlit air.

Shinji turned his head. Pale-blond hair slid off his shoulder. No smile. Voice low.

"Are you crazy? Why didn't you draw?"

Hiyori opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

Kensei swung again. Shinji's blade rose to meet it. Steel met steel under the moonlight, sparks bursting between them. The Reiatsu shockwaves rolled out one after another, plowing trench after trench through the gravel. Then Shinji's pupils pulled tight. He finally saw Kensei's face clearly. The pure white mask. The rectangular slits. The part that extended back like a warrior's hair. And behind it, those eyes, hollow, empty, with nothing human left in them.

This wasn't Kensei. Kensei was gone. What stood before him was a Hollow. A Hollow in a Squad Nine Captain's haori, gripping Tachikaze, carrying Kensei Muguruma's Reiatsu.

Kensei brought his blade down again. Shinji held. But this time the force through the steel was heavier. The Hollowfication was deepening, Kensei's power swelling at a pace you could see with the naked eye.

"Love! Rōjūrō!" Shinji called out.

Two figures swept past him. Love Aikawa's Zanpakutō drove in from the left. Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi's came from the right. Three blades bore down on Kensei's at once. Reiatsu sparks burst between all four of them. A low sound came from behind Kensei's mask, not human, a Hollow's. The blue-green wind patterns on his blade flared and blew all three away at once.

Hachigen Ushōda arrived late. Black Shihakushō of the Vice Kidō Commander. Short pink hair. A round face with eyes perpetually narrowed to slits. He didn't say a word, he simply raised both hands and let his fingers trace the air. The Kidō incantation took shape at his fingertips without a single spoken syllable, not a chant, but a higher-order release, the incantation carved directly into Reiatsu. Bakudō #99. Kin. Black bands shot from the void and wound around Kensei's limbs, his torso, his neck. A roar came from behind the mask. His body lurched against the restraints and the bindings shrieked under the force, but held. Hachigen clasped his hands together. The bands pulled tighter.

Kensei stopped moving. Those hollow eyes stayed open, sweeping over Shinji, over Love, over Rōjūrō, over every person on that riverbed.

Shinji stood catching his breath, the tip of his Zanpakutō dipping toward the ground. He looked at the mask. Looked at the eyes behind it that no longer held anything of Kensei.

"Not bad for the Vice Kidō Commander... a ninety-nine without an incantation?"

"It was... a bit of a stretch..."

"Can Kidō handle this situation?"

Hiyori stood behind him. One hand pressed over the shoulder Kensei had struck, blood leaking between her fingers. Her brows were pulled tight, lips pressed into a thin line. Her light-colored eyes carried anger, and something underneath it that she hadn't noticed herself. Fear. She opened her mouth to say something,

White substance surged from her throat.

It didn't come up the way vomit does. It welled out, like water over a broken dam. The white material coated her lips, her chin, her cheeks, her forehead. Her eyes went wide. Her light pupils shrank violently behind the forming mask. She tried to scream. What came out was a muffled, strangled whimper.

The moment the mask finished forming, Hiyori's hand pressed onto the hilt of her Zanpakutō.

Draw. Slash.

The blade traced an arc through the moonlight and cut toward Shinji Hirako's back.

Shinji felt the Reiatsu shift behind him. Not a Hollow's Reiatsu, Hiyori's. But wrong. Twisted. Strange. Hollow and berserk in exactly the way Kensei's had been. The strike hit him hard.

"Hiyori—"

Kensei's roar came from behind. The restraints had begun to fracture. One band snapped. Then another. Sweat beaded on Hachigen Ushōda's forehead, his hands trembling, but he didn't let go.

"Captains! Kensei is almost free!"

Love Aikawa gritted his teeth and prepared to direct the others.

And then, all light went out.

Not the kind of dark where clouds block the moon. Something more thorough. More absolute. As if every light source in the world had been extinguished at the same instant. Vision, gone. Hearing, gone. Smell, gone. Reiatsu perception, gone. Even the sensation of gravel beneath their feet was blurring, muffled by something that kept getting thicker.

Only touch remained. The hilt in their hands. The heartbeat hammering against the inside of the chest. And, the feel of a blade moving across skin.

Shinji Hirako went down. Love Aikawa went down. Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi went down. Hachigen Ushōda went down. Lisa Yadōmaru went down. Hiyori went down. Kensei went down.

No one saw the attacker. No one heard a blade cut air. No one felt so much as a ripple of Reiatsu.

In complete and total void, they fell to the gravel one by one.

Then, vision came back.

Moonlight poured through another crack in the clouds and fell across the riverbed. It lit up the figures scattered over the gravel, not corpses. Their chests were still moving. Blood was still flowing. But every single one of them lay in a pool of it, Zanpakutō dropped beside their hands, white masks covering their faces.

Squad Nine Captain Kensei Muguruma. Lieutenant Mashiro Kuna. Third Seat Heizō Kasagi. Fourth Seat Shinobu Okishima. Sixth Seat Izaemon Tōdō. Squad Five Captain Shinji Hirako. Squad Seven Captain Love Aikawa. Squad Three Captain Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi. Vice Kidō Commander Hachigen Ushōda. Squad Twelve Lieutenant Hiyori Sarugaki. Squad Eight Lieutenant Lisa Yadōmaru. All of them, down.

Only one person was standing.

Kaname Tōsen stood in the center of the blood. His deep purple afro drifted slowly in the night wind. His brown face was as still as stone under the moonlight, those pure white eyes aimed at the sky with nothing in them. His Zanpakutō was in his right hand, the blade still wet, Shinji's blood, Love's blood, Rōjūrō's blood, all of theirs. The Squad Nine Fifth Seat badge sat squarely on his left arm. Not a drop of blood on it.

He sheathed the blade. Not slow, not fast. The movement of someone who had done this many times before. Then he turned and walked toward the shadows at the edge of the camp.

Someone was standing in the shadows.

Short brown hair. Black-rimmed glasses. The Shihakushō of a Squad Five Lieutenant. The eyes behind the lenses were calm and gentle, like a pool too deep to see the bottom of. Sōsuke Aizen stood there, watching the figures in the blood across the riverbed, watching the white masks covering their faces, watching his former colleagues being devoured from the inside out.

Tōsen stopped in front of him. "Lord Aizen. Completed as planned."

Aizen didn't look at him. His gaze was on the gravel, on Shinji Hirako. On the white mask covering Shinji's face. Behind it, Shinji's eyes were still open. No emptiness in them. No killing intent. No sign of being swallowed. He was looking at Aizen. With his own eyes. Looking directly at Aizen.

The Hollowfication hadn't taken his mind. Not completely. Not yet.

Aizen crouched down. Through the black-rimmed glasses. Through the white mask still in the process of forming. He looked at Shinji Hirako's eyes. Shinji's lips moved. Something came from his throat, indistinct, barely audible.

"So it really was... you..."

"You noticed. When did you figure it out, I wonder?"

"Like you even need to ask... I knew from the moment you were still in your mother's womb."

"Is that so... I owe it all to your suspicion of me, Captain Hirako. You never realized, did you — that the person walking behind you all this time was never me. My Zanpakutō, Kyōka Suigetsu, can control the five senses of anyone who sees its Shikai. That ability — it wouldn't be an overstatement to call it Perfect Hypnosis."

---

Seijūrō came out of Nanamagari and walked along the branching alley toward the main street.

He passed the corner. Moonlight stretched his shadow long across the gray stone road.

There was a figure ahead. Short, bald head picking up a faint greenish sheen in the moonlight, wearing the Shihakushō of Squad Five. He had a thick stack of books cradled in his arms, his stride steady, his posture straight from behind. Seijūrō's gaze settled on him for a moment.

That bald guy again.

"Yo."

The voice came from behind. Seijūrō turned.

Shunsui Kyōraku was strolling over from the other end of the stone avenue, unhurried, wearing that signature lazy smile.

"Captain Kyōraku." Seijūrō dipped his head.

"Out wandering this late." Kyōraku came up beside him. "The Seireitei hasn't been very safe lately. Head home early."

Seijūrō picked up his pace and left.

Kyōraku's gaze drifted to the bald figure still walking ahead. His pink haori swayed softly in the night wind.

"Hey! Aizen, same goes for you! Leave the books for tomorrow, get back to the barracks already!"

➤ Next: Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō vs Dankū

Chapter 22 - Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō vs Dankū

"When did you realize..."

Aizen tilted his head slightly, as if savoring the question.

"From the moment you were still inside your mother's womb."

Shinji went silent for an instant. Then the corner of his mouth twitched, not out of anger, not out of fear, but something closer to a reflex. On that face already beginning to Hollowfy, a faint smile surfaced anyway.

"...I see."

Aizen watched him.

"Truth is, I always thought you were dangerous. Someone who couldn't be trusted." Shinji's voice came in broken pieces, every word forced up from his throat. "That's why I made you my lieutenant—all of it was to keep an eye on you, Aizen!"

Aizen was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed, soft and brief.

"...Yes. I'm quite grateful to you for that, Captain Hirako."

"You probably never noticed, but the one who's been following you around all this time wasn't actually me."

Shinji's pupils snapped tight.

Aizen raised his right hand and gripped the Zanpakutō at his hip. The blade slid free of its scabbard, the full length of it catching the moonlight, green hilt, a rounded cross-shaped guard, an elongated blade that gleamed with cold silver. He held it with the tip angled toward the ground, the eyes behind his glasses resting on Shinji.

"Making my enemies dance in the palm of my hand, leading them to misjudge everything in this world, that is the true ability of my Zanpakutō, Kyōka Suigetsu." His voice was unhurried. Every word landed clearly on the gravel of the riverbed. "That ability, I call it Perfect Hypnosis."

Shinji's lips moved. "...Perfect... Hypnosis...?"

"You're a perceptive man, Captain Hirako." Aizen's tone stayed gentle, the easy cadence of someone discussing nothing of consequence. "If you'd treated me the way other captains treat their lieutenants, you might have seen through it fairly quickly. But you didn't. Because you didn't trust me, you always kept your distance. Never opened up, never shared information. Never let me get close to anything."

He paused, his gaze settling calmly on Shinji's face through those black-framed glasses.

"That's exactly why you never noticed I had already been replaced entirely by someone else. Because you understood nothing about me, Captain Hirako."

Shinji lay on the gravel, chest heaving. The white mask was spreading from his cheek toward his forehead, eating into him with every second that passed. He parted his lips. A name scraped out of his throat.

"Aizen..."

"Oh, and one more thing." Aizen's voice kept that same gentle, perfectly measured cadence, like an instructor circling back to a point he'd forgotten to mention. "You said you made me your lieutenant to keep an eye on me, yes? Squad members do have the right to refuse an appointment to that position."

He pushed up his glasses.

"So why didn't I refuse? Because your suspicion of me was simply too useful for my plans."

The moonlight fell across the riverbed. It fell across Aizen's face. It fell into the bottomless depths of his eyes behind those lenses.

"Do you understand now? It wasn't you who chose me. It was I who chose you."

Shinji Hirako's fingers clenched hard against the gravel. His nails dug into the gaps between the stones, knuckles going white. He wanted to draw his sword. Wanted to stand up. Wanted to drive his Zanpakutō straight through that gentle smiling face. But his body wouldn't move. The Hollowfication was devouring him from the inside, his limbs were lead, so heavy he couldn't even lift an arm. All he could do was lie there on the gravel and watch Aizen stand over him, holding that green Zanpakutō, wearing the same gentle smile he'd seen every single day since the first moment he met this lieutenant.

"You really are wonderful test subjects."

Aizen raised his Zanpakutō. The blade swept a bright silver arc through the moonlight.

"Damn you—!"

Shinji's roar tore across the riverbed.

Aizen's blade came down. A figure lunged from the shadows at his back, a black cloak spreading wide in the night wind, hood pulled low over the face, leaving only a pair of calm, sharp eyes. A Zanpakutō swept out from beneath the cloak, its edge cutting through the moonlight.

Aizen sidestepped. The blade grazed his left arm, didn't break skin, but it sliced cleanly through the strap of his lieutenant's armband. The armband tore free from his Shihakushō, tumbled on the night wind, and landed on the gravel. Moonlight caught that small scrap of cloth and lit up the characters sewn onto it: Squad Five Lieutenant.

The black cloak landed in front of Shinji. Beneath the hood, those eyes moved across the riverbed, over the figures lying in spreading pools of blood. Kensei. Hiyori. Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi. Hachigen Ushōda. Lisa. Finally they settled on Shinji's face, on the white mask still taking shape there. Shinji looked up into those eyes beneath the hood. His lips moved. No sound came out.

Aizen glanced down at his left arm. The armband was gone. Only a clean slash mark remained on the sleeve of his Shihakushō. He looked up at the cloaked figure. The curve of his smile didn't change.

"...My, what an interesting guest. What brings you here, Captain Urahara, Grand Kidō Chief Iwakizhi...?"

Gin Ichimaru stepped out of the shadows. His short silver-gray hair caught the moonlight with a cold, flat gleam. His narrow eyes curved into two thin crescents, his face wearing the exact same smile as when he used to crouch under the pine tree and scratch patterns in the dirt. His Zanpakutō was still sheathed, one hand resting idly on the hilt, relaxed as a man who'd simply wandered onto this riverbed by chance.

"Caught us, did they."

Another voice from deeper in the dark. Low. Level. Nothing extra in it.

"I'll kill them."

Kaname Tōsen's silhouette surfaced from the darkness behind Aizen.

"No need."

Aizen's voice was quiet, but Tōsen's hand came off the hilt. Gin tilted his head, silver-gray hair shifting in the moonlight, and said nothing more. Aizen turned to face Kisuke Urahara. The moonlight struck his glasses and threw a small patch of glare across the lenses, swallowing the expression in his eyes.

"Lieutenant Aizen."

Urahara's voice was low. His army-green eyes were fixed on Aizen.

"Here." Aizen's tone was mild, unhurried, the voice of a student responding to a question in class.

"What are you doing here?"

"Nothing, really. As you can see, I happened to come across the captains who were injured in the course of the soul disappearance incidents. I'm attempting to treat them."

Urahara's gaze swept across the masked faces lying across the riverbed.

"Injured in battle?" His voice dropped. "This is Hollowfication."

Aizen looked at him. Across those black-framed glasses, across that moonlit stretch of gravel. Then he smiled. Wider than any smile he had worn before. Something rose up from underneath it, like a hairline fracture opening across a sheet of ice, spreading outward in every direction at speed, and beneath the ice the water was black and without a bottom. Aizen's smile never reached his eyes. His eyes had never held a smile at all. The gentleness, the courtesy, the perfectly measured sense of propriety, every last piece of it was Kyōka Suigetsu.

"I see... You're exactly what I thought you were."

That look sent a cold ripple through Urahara's chest.

"Let's go, Gin. Kaname."

Aizen stepped forward, moving toward the depths of the shadows.

Iwakizhi Tetsusai burst out from behind Urahara. Both arms spread wide, the sleeves of his Shihakushō snapping in the Reiatsu-driven gust. Behind his reflective glasses, his eyes locked onto Aizen's retreating back. The veins on his forehead stood out faintly.

"Get back, Lord Urahara!"

He thrust out his right hand, fingers splayed, palm aimed at the direction the three of them were heading. Reiatsu gathered in his palm, not a normal gathering, but compression at the edge of physical manifestation. The air around him began to shudder. Pebbles on the gravel lifted off the ground and hung suspended in midair. His lips moved, each syllable falling like a hammer on iron.

"Hadō #88—Hiryūgekizokushintenraihō!"

His palm exploded with white light. A massive beam surged outward, pure Reiatsu, compressed to its absolute limit. Its diameter alone was nearly as tall as Iwakizhi Tetsusai himself. The core was blazing white. Around it, a layer of pale blue lightning wrapped the entire column. The beam ripped through the air, plowing a deep trench into the gravel wherever it passed. Pebbles melted into dark red liquid under the heat, then flash-cooled into black glass. Lightning crawled across the outer surface like countless tiny serpents coiling around the core, and the roar it produced shook the entire riverbed. For a moment the whole stretch of the bank burned as bright as noon, and the white masks on the bodies lying in the blood below reflected a harsh, flat glare under the light.

Aizen didn't look back. Steady pace, straight back, walking toward the dark.

"Bakudō #81—Dankū."

Low voice. No incantation, no hand signs, no wasted motion. Just those few syllables, spoken while he kept walking.

A translucent barrier unfolded behind him. It didn't rise from the ground, it formed directly from empty space, as if precision-cut into three dimensions. No visible top. No visible edge. Its surface carried a faint silver sheen, and within that sheen, barely visible, ran thousands of fine geometric patterns, a barrier structure compressed into its own architecture.

The beam of Hiryūgekizokushintenraihō hit Dankū's surface.

No explosion. No shockwave from clashing Reiatsu. No flying gravel. The instant the beam made contact, it parted around the barrier like water splitting against a boulder, each current diverting to the side. The pale blue lightning struggled against the silver surface, flaring, jumping, then breaking apart. The white-hot core was dispersed with precision into countless threads of Reishi, channeled outward along the geometric patterns in every direction, and quietly dissolved into the night sky. The surface of Dankū didn't ripple once.

The whole thing took less time than a single breath.

Iwakizhi Tetsusai stood frozen on the gravel. His right arm was still raised in the casting stance, palm already dark. His eyes were wide. In them were reflected the towering translucent wall. The last threads of blue lightning still drifting across its surface. The three retreating figures growing smaller in the dark. His mouth opened. No sound came out.

Dankū. Bakudō #81, absolute defense against all Hadō of rank 89 and below. No incantation, no gestures, no pause in his stride. Sōsuke Aizen had deployed it while walking away, with the ease of something done 10,000 times before.

Dankū began to fade. Like a reflection broken up by wind, the translucent wall dissolved from the edges inward, becoming motes of light that scattered and were gone.

The riverbed settled back into dark. Moonlight leaked through gaps in the cloud cover and fell on Iwakizhi Tetsusai's arm, still held out from the casting, and on the eyes behind his reflective glasses that hadn't found their way back from the shock yet. His arm came down to his side. His lips moved.

"...Can someone at lieutenant rank actually do something like that?"

Urahara stood behind him, his army-green eyes fixed on the direction the three had vanished. Then he turned and crouched beside Shinji Hirako. The white mask had covered more than half of Shinji's face, but his gold eyes were still open, still watching. Urahara's fingers hovered over the mask without touching it. He studied the white substance. Watched it erode Shinji's Reiatsu structure at a speed you could see with the naked eye, not clinging to it, but rewriting it. The Hollow power was rewriting a Shinigami into something else. At the cellular level. At the level of Reishi. At the level of existence itself.

Iwakizhi Tetsusai came and stood beside him.

"Lord Urahara. You said 'Hollowfication' just now, if you can name it, you know how to suppress it."

Urahara didn't answer immediately. His fingers stayed hovering above the mask, his army-green eyes tracking the white substance as it slowly continued to spread.

"...I do. But it takes time. And it needs the right place."

"Leave that to me." Iwakizhi Tetsusai's voice went low and deep, like water drawn from the bottom of an old well. "I'm going to use forbidden techniques, Jikanteishi and Kūkanteni."

Urahara looked up at him.

"Once you use forbidden techniques, Central 46 won't let it go."

"I know."

Iwakizhi Tetsusai raised both hands. His ten fingers moved through the air and Reiatsu poured from his fingertips, not the explosive outward force of Hadō, but something older, something closer to the true nature of Kidō. His lips moved. The incantation formed inside his mouth slowly, one word at a time. Not a chant. A command. A command to time. A command to space.

"If you don't mind—please cover your eyes and ears."

Urahara closed his eyes.

Iwakizhi Tetsusai brought both hands together hard. Reiatsu expanded outward from him, not a shockwave, not an impact, but something quieter and more absolute. The pebbles on the gravel stopped rolling. The night wind stopped. Pine needles that had been falling from the branches hung suspended in the air. Time stopped. The clouds no longer moved. The moonlight no longer shifted. The blood still seeping from wounds across the riverbed stopped spreading between the stones. All sound ceased, not suppressed. Time simply no longer carried it.

Iwakizhi Tetsusai opened his eyes. His hands parted slowly, ten fingers tracing another path through the air. Spatial displacement. The gravel of the riverbed began to blur, like a painting left in water. Shinji Hirako's body began to turn transparent. Kensei's body began to turn transparent. Hiyori, Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi, Hachigen Ushōda, Lisa, all of them, all at once.

Then they were gone.

The riverbed held nothing but gravel now. The blood pooled in the stones, still not fully soaked in. And the moonlight.

Iwakizhi Tetsusai let his hands fall. Time resumed, pine needles touched down, the night wind crossed the riverbed again, the blood continued its slow spread through the crevices. His tall frame threw a long shadow across the moonlit ground.

Urahara opened his eyes.

They were in the Squad Twelve research laboratory.

➤ Next: Framed — Face to Face