Above Karakura Town.

Sōsuke Aizen stood on a Reishi platform at the boundary between Hueco Mundo and the World of the Living. Kaname Tōsen, Gin Ichimaru, and a handful of Arrancar flanked him from behind.

Shigekuni Yamamoto Genryūsai stood opposite, both hands resting atop his cane, the main force of the Gotei 13 arrayed in a line at his back.

"Sōsuke Aizen. Is this meager handful all you brought?"

Yamamoto's voice was low and resonant, rolling through the Reishi barrier suspended above Karakura Town. "It seems Seijūrō caused you no small amount of trouble over there."

Aizen looked at him and laughed.

That smile, bordering on pity, made Yamamoto's brow furrow.

"What exactly do you find so amusing?"

"I'm laughing because you don't even know how you've already lost."

Aizen's gaze drifted past Yamamoto, sweeping over the captains assembled behind him. "You must have dispatched several captains to Hueco Mundo. So then, "

He drew his gaze back, letting it settle on Yamamoto's eyes, clear and sharp as blade-cuts. "How many people are left behind to guard Soul Society?"

"That is not your concern. There is only one thing you need to worry about right now."

Yamamoto drove his cane down hard through the air. Reiatsu erupted from his body like a volcano breaking open. "Worry about your own survival first."

Captains and lieutenants surged forward at his word, crashing into the Arrancar in an instant.

Soul Society.

Alarms screamed across the squads in overlapping waves.

In the corridors of Shin'ō Academy, students were being evacuated at a run.

A squad member stood at a corridor junction, waving the panicked new students toward the underground shelter.

"Move! Don't look back! Head straight for—"

A shadow flickered past.

His voice cut off.

His body was severed diagonally from shoulder to hip. The upper half slid away slowly. The Zanpakutō at his side never left its scabbard.

Students screamed and scattered in every direction.

Zommari Rureaux stood at the far end of the corridor, blood still dripping from the tip of his blade.

Expressionless, he flicked the steel clean and turned his gaze toward the fleeing students.

He raised his sword and brought it down toward the nearest one.

Metal rang through the corridor like a thunderclap.

Zommari's blade stopped dead against another edge.

Kaien Shiba stood between him and the students, Asauchi held across his body, sparks showering from where the two blades ground together.

His arms strained against the force. His deep smoke-blue eyes didn't blink, locked on the Arrancar in front of him.

"A Shinigami worth fighting has finally shown up."

Six pillars of light dropped from above, pinning Zommari's limbs and torso with perfect precision.

Kaien didn't hesitate. He swung down, blade sweeping across Zommari's throat.

No blood. No resistance.

Zommari's form dissolved beneath the strike like smoke.

The fading echo of a Sonído reached him from directly behind.

A single slash came down.

A gash opened across Kaien's back, deep enough to show bone. Blood burst outward and splattered across the stone wall. He lurched forward two steps and dropped to one knee, bracing the Asauchi against the floor to keep himself from going all the way down.

"Instructor Kaien!" The students' voices carried from the far end of the corridor.

"Only worth fighting a little, it turns out."

Hueco Mundo. The white sands.

Soi Fon drove her fist straight into Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi's face, knocking him two stumbling steps sideways.

"Shut your mouth! You absolute idiot!"

Rōjūrō clutched his swollen cheek, his baton nearly slipping from his fingers.

"Captain Soi Fon, I was simply explaining my ability. That's completely standard practice in battle—"

"Standard my ass!"

She drove another fist into the top of his head. His long blond waves exploded into chaos. "We literally just took the upper hand. Why can't you keep your mouth shut for five seconds?"

Rōjūrō blinked. "It's not like knowing changes anything for him—"

"I swear I'll use my Bankai to blast you into orbit."

Soi Fon ground her teeth, the coiled ring-braid at her shoulder swinging hard. She knew this habit intimately, she'd done the same thing herself, lecturing targets on Suzumebachi's mechanics before striking, and Seijūrō had called her out on it more times than she could count.

Ulquiorra Cifer stood across from them, green eyes as flat and still as ever.

Luz de la Luna had returned to his hand. A small patch of scorched flesh marked his shoulder where Hirviendo had caught him, but it was already closing at a speed the eye could follow.

"You only needed to hear the sound? What a surprisingly simple countermeasure."

He raised Luz de la Luna and turned its tip toward his own ears.

The blade went in.

Blood ran down his jaw and soaked into the white collar of his uniform.

His expression didn't change by a single degree.

"I had wondered whether your ability might also incorporate vibrational frequency. As it turns out, once hearing is removed, the water and fire attacks stop working entirely."

"You see that?! You idiot!" Soi Fon hit Rōjūrō again.

"How does he just do that to himself?" Rōjūrō's fingers trembled faintly against his baton.

Ulquiorra watched them.

"Reading your lips — you seem surprised by the self-inflicted damage?"

He rose slowly into the air, black wings spreading wide behind him. "My High-Speed Regeneration is the strongest among the Espada. Something like this can simply be repaired afterward."

He raised his hand. Luz de la Luna condensed again within his palm.

Elsewhere.

With Byakuya's arrival, Rudbornn Chelute had chosen to fall back.

Senbonzakura's pink petals still drifted above the dunes. The remnants of the Exequias were dissolving in the distance into black Reishi dust.

Uryū Ishida lowered Ginrei Kojaku back to his shoulder and pushed his glasses up.

Yasutora Sado let his arms return to normal and said nothing, watching the direction Rudbornn had gone.

"That Arrancar isn't an Espada. He called himself the Exequias, his ability is replication and proliferation. Every one of those soldiers just now were Reishi copies he generated himself."

Byakuya gave a slight nod.

He had heard enough from both of them.

"Then we move to Las Noches now."

The three of them were just about to set off when a colossal, warped Reiatsu detonated from somewhere deep beneath the white sand.

The pressure spiked in an instant to something suffocating, the air thick with savage bloodlust and raw, mindless hunger.

Distant quartz trees shuddered under the force of it. Sand exploded skyward. A massive black shape hauled itself upright inside the storm.

It was a monster that dwarfed even Runuganga. Pitch-black Reishi wrapped its entire body. Its limbs were thick as pillars. Every inch of its hide churned with dark spiritual matter seething outward.

And its Reiatsu kept climbing. No signs of stopping.

"Continue on to Las Noches."

Byakuya drew Senbonzakura. The blade caught the moonlight cold.

Ishida and Sado exchanged a look, nodded once, and ran.

Byakuya's Shunpo left silver-white traces across the sand, crossing kilometers in a handful of steps.

He came down at the crest of a dune. Sajin Komamura was standing a few paces away.

"Captain Komamura. What is the situation?"

"Unknown. This thing appeared without warning. It was weak at first, then it had some kind of fit and suddenly expanded in size."

Komamura's gaze stayed fixed on the swelling shape inside the sandstorm. "I tried to suppress it with my Shikai. It just grew larger the more it was hit, and eventually reached this."

Even as they spoke, Yammy expanded again.

His Reiatsu had already blown past every estimate on record for the Tenth Espada, faintly clearing several of the top five as well.

His roar shook the dunes. Every bellow distorted the surrounding air into visible rings of pressure.

Those burning eyes beneath the black Reishi shroud locked onto the two captains on the ridge.

"His Reiatsu is still accelerating. At this rate, within minutes it will surpass Baraggan Louisenbairn's Resurrección. But the more immediate problem, he's heading toward Las Noches. If we don't stop him now, he'll run straight into the Ryoka about to enter. In the state they're in, a head-on collision with this thing will kill all of them."

Byakuya raised Senbonzakura. Pink petals streamed out around him like a river of stars. "We stop him here before he reaches Las Noches."

Komamura nodded.

He brought Tenken level across his chest. Gold Reishi patterns flared to life along the steel.

"Bankai, Kokujō Tengen Myō'ō."

The black Myō'ō materialized from empty space, massive cleaver raised high.

"Bankai, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi."

Petals flooded toward the Myō'ō's blade like a tide, millions of tiny edge-blossoms coating the weapon from hilt to tip until the entire broadsword gleamed with a cherry-blossom light under the weight of infused Reiatsu.

Yammy opened his mouth. A dark-red sphere of Cero gathered in his throat.

Larger than any he had fired before. Brighter. More lethal.

It wasn't aimed at the two captains.

It was aimed at Las Noches.

At the Ryoka racing toward the inner chambers, and at Seijūrō, sealed somewhere inside.

Byakuya and Komamura moved at the same moment.

The Myō'ō's cleaver, wrapped in Senbonzakura's petals, crashed into Yammy's lower jaw at the exact instant the Cero was about to release.

The blast lurched off course and erupted diagonally from the corner of his mouth, grazing the flank dome of Las Noches and blowing an entire stretch of quartz wall into fragments.

Yammy howled in fury and turned his full mass toward the two captains.

Any sense of distinct targets was gone. Every Shinigami in front of him needed to be ground into nothing.

Komamura swung again. The Myō'ō mirrored him, a single devastating overhead cleave.

Byakuya's Senbonzakura came from the flank, petals drilling into the Reishi plating across Yammy's hide, tearing through his defenses from within in perfect time with the Myō'ō's blow.

No words. No signals. Just two captains standing their ground in the desert, driving strike after strike into the sand and the dark.

(My computer went in for repairs and I'd said updates would be on hold for 5 to 7 days, but after seeing everyone in the comments, I dug out a tablet and typed this by hand. The input method has no memory saved, so updates will come slowly for now, but they'll keep coming.)

➤ Next: The Lone Blade and the Wolfpack

Chapter 87 - The Lone Blade and the Wolfpack

Kenpachi Zaraki and Coyote Starrk faced off atop the dome of Hueco Mundo.

The white quartz beneath their feet caught the moonlight and threw it back cold. From this rooftop the entire white desert spread out below them, and in the distance the rising and falling bursts of Reiatsu painted the dunes like signal fires across a battlefield.

They had just traded a round of blows.

Kenpachi's Zanpakutō had been beaten back inches from Starrk's body, a crimson Cero grazing the blade and shearing the entire peak off a nearby dune.

Starrk still stood at the roof's edge, hands tucked into his sleeves, perfectly unbothered.

Kenpachi spat and turned toward where the Cero had come from.

His single eye moved past the dunes, past the quartz forest, and settled on the massive black shape swelling continuously several kilometers away.

Even at this distance, Yammy's roars shook the sand.

Byakuya's Senbonzakura drifted like a pink galaxy in the moonlight. Sajin Komamura's Myō'ō brought its blade down in heavy cleaves. With every stroke, Yammy's Reiatsu climbed instead of dropping, the black reishi shell tore under the edge and sealed itself back together, and each time it sealed it was larger than before.

"What's wrong? You've been irritated for a while now." Starrk followed his gaze toward Yammy.

"Yeah. I have."

Kenpachi rested his Zanpakutō back on his shoulder, eye still fixed on that distant battle. "I thought I'd found a decent opponent. Turns out the interesting one went to Byakuya. That thing's Reiatsu keeps surging — way more kick than cutting you had."

"That really hurts, you know. I took plenty of your slashes back there. Anyone else would already be dead."

Kenpachi turned, his single eye boring straight into Starrk.

"You bastard. You've acted like you don't even want to fight from the very start. Full defensive stance, not one offensive swing. Utterly boring! If you really don't want to fight, get out of my way so I can go find the big guy!"

Starrk closed his eyes and scratched the back of his head.

His messy brown curls got messier under his fingers.

"Sorry about that. But I really don't want to—"

His words cut off.

Lilynette Gingerbuck's shout came from below: "Starrk!"

The instant Starrk opened his eyes, Kenpachi's blade was already against the bridge of his nose.

The notched edge was less than an inch from his face. The golden Reiatsu coiled around the steel stung his skin.

He wrenched his head aside. The edge grazed his ear and sheared away a few curls, and his whole body vanished as an afterimage.

A Sonído cracked through the air dozens of meters away.

Starrk stood in midair with his hands on his hips, his right foot trailing a thin wisp of blue smoke where it had scraped to a halt against nothing.

Kenpachi stood on the roof holding his blade in one hand. In the other hand he held the eyepatch he'd just pulled off.

"Pull yourself together, you bastard. Keep this up and you'll lose your life — don't expect me to care."

He tossed the eyepatch onto the rooftop. Reiatsu erupted from his body.

Golden light shattered every quartz tile within dozens of feet. The roof under his feet sank into a massive crater.

The Reiatsu kept climbing. The air thickened until it was hard to breathe.

Starrk stared at the eyepatch lying on the ground. The shape was unusual, intricate sealing runes engraved along the edges, something tooth-like churning faintly inside.

He understood immediately what it was.

"I see. A self-imposed restraint." He let out a slow breath. "What a pain. I ran into a battle maniac."

Kenpachi didn't wait for him to finish.

Shunpo detonated across the roof. He closed the gap in an instant, Zanpakutō wrapped in golden Reiatsu, and cleaved straight at Starrk's center.

Starrk drew the blade at his waist and parried. Kenpachi didn't pause for a second, when the vertical slash was blocked he rolled it into a horizontal sweep, and when the sweep was deflected he used the momentum to circle the flank and drive an upward diagonal thrust.

Every stroke targeted a vital. Every stroke carried killing intent.

Starrk gave ground and Kenpachi pressed forward, completely indifferent to counterattacks. A few times he deliberately took a hit on the shoulder just to buy himself a closer angle.

Starrk's boot heels carved two long white grooves across the stone.

"You're completely out of your mind!"

Starrk rarely furrowed his brow. He twisted aside at the last second and barely avoided a thrust.

Kenpachi grinned.

"That's exactly what I'm going for!"

---

Down on the sand below.

Lilynette Gingerbuck had seen enough. She stamped her foot and was about to fly up.

Two small hands reached from behind and grabbed her arms.

She spun around. Yachiru Kusajishi stood watching her, pink hair drifting in the moonlight, that unreadable smile on her face.

"Let go, you little brat!"

"No. You're not allowed to interfere with Kenny's fight."

Yachiru's grip tightened. Her voice was still that same childlike lilt, but there was nothing negotiable in it.

"Get off me!"

Lilynette yanked a curved Zanpakutō from her horned helmet and swung it at Yachiru.

Yachiru rolled clear with ease, pink figure skipping twice across the sand, then latched onto the hem of Lilynette's clothes again.

"Starrk and I are one! Only together are we our true form — our real strength!"

Lilynette yelled as she struggled.

On the roof, Kenpachi stopped.

He turned toward Lilynette. Something flickered in his single eye, surprise.

"Is what that kid saying true?"

Starrk pressed a palm to his forehead.

His Zanpakutō was still held defensively across his chest, but the energy had gone out of his posture entirely.

"We were originally one. She and I share a single soul. When we became Arrancar we split into two individuals. She's not wrong, the two of us together is my true form."

Kenpachi heard that and grinned.

He swung his Zanpakutō back onto his shoulder and called down toward Yachiru: "Hey, Yachiru! Let the kid up! I want to see whether this 'one and the same' of theirs is worth my blade."

Yachiru let go.

Lilynette turned back and stuck her tongue out at her, then flew up to the roof.

Yachiru stayed on the sand below, head tilted up, watching the three silhouettes above.

Her hands were clasped behind her back. The wind came in from across Hueco Mundo and stirred her short pink hair.

She watched for a long moment. Then she turned around and spoke softly into empty air, her voice so small that only she could hear it.

"But Kenny, we're like that too. Two souls made to fight side by side. When will you ever realize it?"

---

On the roof.

Lilynette Gingerbuck flew up beside Starrk and pumped her arm.

"Starrk, let's take this arrogant jerk down!"

"Lilynette, the guy wasn't even interested in fighting anymore, you know."

Kenpachi Zaraki stood on the roof, blade on his shoulder, relaxed as ever.

"True enough. You were about to make me lose all interest in cutting you. Dodging from start to finish, I nearly fell asleep."

"You're always like this, Starrk! But if you don't fight, he'll go after the other Arrancar. Yammy Llargo might be dumb and slow and ugly and awful to talk to. But he's our comrade. If you don't keep this lunatic busy, he really will go hack Yammy to death."

Starrk was quiet for a moment.

Lilynette was right.

He looked down into her amber eyes and sighed.

If he did nothing, this man would hurt his companions.

So, he raised his hand and rested it gently on top of Lilynette's head.

Then he looked at Kenpachi Zaraki. For the first time, something close to resolve had settled into those half-lidded eyes.

"I really don't want to fight. But I can't just let you run wild, either. My apologies, I'll be taking this seriously from here."

He channeled Reiatsu into his palm.

Lilynette's body broke apart into countless motes of emerald reishi. Starting from her horned helmet, drawing inward from her fingertips and toes, she dissolved into pure energy beneath the moonlight.

The light streamed into Starrk's palm like water into a riverbed, merging into his body, resonating with the black Hollow Hole in his chest.

"Hunt him down, Los Lobos."

When the glow of the Resurrección faded, Starrk had changed completely.

He wore a white coat with a thick grayish-white fur collar over a buttoned white shirt, black ribbons hanging from the front. A dark visor covered his left eye. In each hand he held a black rectangular pistol.

He hovered in the air in an almost obscenely relaxed crouch.

He spun the pistol in his right hand around one finger, smooth, unhurried, the emerald-green cord on the grip tracing a faint arc through the air.

He raised his eyes to Kenpachi Zaraki. Both pistols spun halfway in his palms until the muzzles pointed down.

"That's roughly what my Resurrección looks like. So, you should use your Bankai too, battle-maniac Captain."

"Bankai? I don't use that. Haven't even seen my own Bankai. This sword is more than enough to cut you down."

Kenpachi gripped his Zanpakutō in both hands. Golden Reiatsu burned along the blade like fire.

Starrk looked down at his twin pistols. A faint curve touched the corner of his mouth, so faint even he didn't notice it.

"All right, then..."

He suddenly pressed a hand below his chest. A dull purple light flickered there.

"Are you all right, Starrk?"

"Yeah. Fine. Seems like this thing has been rejecting and repelling me the whole time."

He drew his hand back and leveled both pistols at Kenpachi Zaraki.

Cerulean light ignited at the muzzles. Ceros condensed inside both chambers at the same time.

Not one. Dozens. Each with its own trajectory, its own target. Every single one denser than that red beam that had come screaming over from Yammy's direction.

Los Lobos, cerulean Ceros screamed from the twin guns like a pack of wolves unleashed.

➤ Next: Exhaustion — Steel and Blood