"Hey, hey, hey, little lady — you've been completely distracted this whole time~"

Shunsui Kyōraku brought both blades down in a high overhead slash. Nelliel raised her sword and blocked.

The moment her emerald blade met his Zanpakutō, a force erupted that the strike had no business producing. Katen Kyōkotsu's Takaoni rule had activated, the one holding the higher ground struck with multiplied power.

The impact launched Nel like a cannon shot. She plummeted toward the ground, emerald hair cutting a clean vertical line through the air.

Falling, she opened her lips just slightly and fired a Cero straight at Shunsui's feet.

She was aiming at his shadow.

Shunsui's expression shifted. He stumbled, and the Cero hit his shadow dead-on, detonating an entire section of the building. Rubble cascaded down in sheets. Dust and smoke roared skyward.

"You catch on fast, little lady. That shot just now was aimed at Kageoni, wasn't it? If I'd been half a beat slower, my own shadow would've blown me to pieces. Close call, close call."

Nelliel flipped herself upright in midair, emerald hair sweeping an arc through the wind. She looked up at Shunsui, and the eyes that found him held no anger, only the honest bewilderment of someone who had run the math and come up short.

"That's completely unfair. Can these games really just be switched on and off whenever you feel like it? That slash earlier too, the force behind it didn't change at all, but the power suddenly multiplied several times over. How many sets of rules do you even have?"

"Now, now, don't say that. Rules are rules. I'm not cheating. Takaoni simply means the one standing higher wins. Nothing more."

He rested both blades across his shoulders, tone as flippant and unhurried as ever.

Nel stared at him for a moment. Then she raised both hands and slapped herself hard across both cheeks. The sharp crack rang out over the sand.

Her cheeks flushed pink. She drew a slow breath and tightened her grip on her Zanpakutō.

"Sorry. Too much on my mind. I zoned out. Perverted old man."

Shunsui nearly dropped his swords.

He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. His floral haori rippled in the breeze. The smile on his face was noticeably stiffer than a moment ago.

"Arre, is that really the verdict? I'm a captain of the Gotei 13, you know. Being called a perverted old man to my face by an Arrancar girl I've known for all of a few minutes... how exactly am I supposed to explain that to my colleagues?"

"Well, setting aside the fact that you're wearing women's clothing, you don't even follow the rules when you play. That shadow game earlier was the same thing. You said whoever has their shadow stepped on loses, but the moment I fired a Cero at your shadow, you just switched it off. What is that if not cheating? Where we come from, if you lose a game, you admit it. You don't get to change the rules halfway through."

"So Arrancar play games too. That genuinely surprises me. I assumed Hueco Mundo was all fighting and killing. I didn't realize anyone out there played games. What do you usually play?"

"Of course we do. I play with Pesche and Dondochakka every single day. Sometimes dodgeball, sometimes hide-and-seek, sometimes running laps around the quartz trees. But they don't cheat like you. You're way worse than either of them. Completely unqualified as a playmate!"

Shunsui scratched his chin, an awkward smile hanging at the corner of his mouth.

"Oh dear. It seems I'm disliked. Rejected as a playmate, and called a perverted old man as a captain. Now that's a true double blow."

Nel went quiet for a moment. The light in her emerald eyes dimmed, just slightly.

"Hey. Perverted old man. Do you Shinigami worry about your comrades while you're fighting? If you're fighting and worrying at the same time, how do you stay focused?"

Shunsui went quiet for a moment.

He raised a hand and pressed his woven hat down over his brow. The lazy curve at the corner of his mouth pulled back, just a fraction, and then he let out a soft, low chuckle.

"I see. You've been distracted all along not because you're afraid of me, but because you're worried about your friends. I take back what I said earlier. You're far more than just quick-witted." He paused. "Rather than worrying about whether your comrades are safe, trust them. Trust that they can take care of themselves when you're not there. Trust that they'll be where you need them when it counts. All you can do is focus on the fight in front of you, and come back alive to see them. That's all."

Nel held his gaze for a long time.

Then she raised her Zanpakutō before her again. The light in her emerald eyes came back on.

"Yeah. You're still a cheating perverted old man. But I'll remember that. So then, let's keep playing."

Shunsui smiled.

"Well then. The next game is Irooni — white."

---

Soul Society. Central Shin'ō Academy.

"Truly remarkable. Such an obese body, yet your speed is extraordinarily agile."

Marechiyo Ōmaeda lowered Kaien Shiba from under his arm, his movements uncharacteristically free of their usual lumbering drag.

The wound carved across Kaien's back had stopped bleeding thanks to Isane Kotetsu's initial treatment, but his face was still pale. He lay on his stomach in the corridor, catching his breath. He raised his good arm and waved Ōmaeda off, signaling he was fine.

Isane knelt beside him, the green glow of Kaidō rising from her palms and spreading over the wound.

Zommari Rureaux stood at the far end of the corridor, arms folded across his chest, his eyes sweeping calmly across the lieutenants one by one.

"You only sent your captains to the World of the Living? All lieutenants held in reserve here. It seems Soul Society hasn't deployed all of its elite after all. Keeping you here to guard against a surprise attack from Lord Aizen, that judgment wasn't wrong. But have you considered whether the few of you can actually stop me?"

Ōmaeda flashed a grin. "Actually, Captain Aizen deliberately scattered you all so we could take you down one by one. Captain Aizen is our undercover agent."

"Huh? You fat bastard, what are you, "

A bolt of yellow lightning dropped from the sky.

Zommari reacted instantly. The muscles in his legs contracted, Sonído already loaded, and then he realized he couldn't move. A thin, hard shell of frost was spreading from his ankles up his shins, locking him to the stone pavement of the corridor.

He looked down. The frost was coming from the other side of the hall.

Rukia Kuchiki stood behind a stone pillar, Sode no Shirayuki leveled before her, pure white light running cold along the blade. Her breathing was quiet. The hand on the hilt didn't move at all.

"Kōkō Gonryō Rikyū!"

A massive pillar of yellow thunder came crashing down from the sky.

Zommari looked up. Both hands snapped out. A Cero roared from his palms, purple Reiatsu meeting yellow lightning in midair.

The density of that Cero should have been enough. It wasn't. The rolling thunder swallowed it layer by layer, consuming the purple light from the outside in. The Cero disintegrated inch by inch. The lightning followed its trajectory straight down and swallowed Zommari whole.

"You fat pig! Don't you dare use Lord Aizen to distract me!" His voice was nearly lost in the thunder.

The lightning came down, and more than half of the Central Academy's corridor ceased to exist. Stone and rubble rained in every direction.

---

On a rooftop some distance away, Mayuri Kurotsuchi sat in a portable folding chair, his monocle catching the last of the lightning's afterglow.

Nemu Kurotsuchi stood quietly at his side.

Mayuri watched the dying shockwave from Sasakibe's strike, and the corners of his mouth curved into something unpleasant.

"Lieutenant Sasakibe has been carrying quite a load of pent-up frustration after being left behind when the Captain-Commander went to deal with Aizen. This really isn't the moment to wander into his line of fire."

He turned and pulled his gaze back from the ruins.

Behind him, Szayelaporro Granz stood in Resurrección, locked in a defensive posture, pink strands of hair drifting faintly in the wind.

His body was completely rigid. His golden eyes reflected Mayuri's smiling face. His lips were slightly parted, as if words were forming somewhere behind them, but each syllable took a small eternity to travel from his throat to his mouth.

He could see Mayuri's lips moving. He could hear the sound. But when it reached him, it was as if the words had been submerged in something thick and viscous, each one taking an age for his brain to finally parse.

"Ah, right, I forgot. Under the Superhuman Drug, it'll take you quite a while to actually hear this. No matter. It wasn't anything important. What I said was, how fortunate. How fortunate that the one you ran into was me. I'll let you hear, in a state of perfect lucidity, every single reason you failed. Explained in full, one by one. Now that is what science looks like. Wouldn't you agree?"

"As expected of Lord Mayuri," Nemu Kurotsuchi said, standing calmly at his back.

"Hmph. Tedious." Mayuri's voice dropped into something flat and contemptuous. "Absolute perfect life. What a concept. It's an outright desecration of science, of everything science is supposed to be. Life is life precisely because it is imperfect. Because it is imperfect, it evolves. It breaks through its own limits. It corrects itself. A perfect life doesn't exist. What exists is only the process of approaching perfection while never being able to reach it. Szayelaporro Granz, you actually thought you could turn yourself into a closed loop through Gabriel. What exactly did you take yourself for? You treated science as a religion and made yourself its god. That is a mistake even the most foolish scientist wouldn't make."

Mayuri stood up from his chair. He crossed to Szayelaporro and leaned his face in close, baring a row of large golden teeth.

"Did you really think the liquid you fed the Grand Kidō Chief — that so-called Soul Reaper suppressant — actually did anything? From the moment the Grand Kidō Chief first laid eyes on you, your defeat was already decided. Every piece of data you gave him, every fragment of intelligence, he passed all of it to me. Including the Reishi spectrum analysis of that little drink of yours. You thought supplying him that liquid, latching onto his stomach to spy through him, keeping a foot in both camps, you thought any of that would save you?"

He let that sit for a moment.

"True science cannot play both sides. You wanted to use Aizen's resources to pursue the perfect life, and at the same time keep a line open with the Shinigami as a fallback. You placed bets on both boards at once, and never realized the man you were betting on was pushing your pieces onto my board the entire time. And incidentally," he added, his tone dropping to something almost bored, "infiltrating through Picaro as a parasite is, honestly, nothing more than a trick I outgrew a long time ago."

He stepped back. He straightened his sleeves, removed his monocle, and turned toward the Senkaimon.

Nemu Kurotsuchi fell in behind him without a sound.

Szayelaporro stayed where he was. Mayuri's retreating figure shrank in the reflection of those golden eyes. His lips twitched open and closed in agonizing slow motion, some refutation still trying to form, somewhere in the wreckage of his thoughts.

But by the time he finally forced out the first syllable, Mayuri was already gone.

➤ Next: The Lonely Monster

Chapter 91 - The Lonely Monster

"Hey, do you mind if we take a break?"

Starrk remained in his Resurrección form, sitting on a fallen quartz tree trunk.

Byakuya Kuchiki stood ten paces across from him, his Shihakushō burned through with several scorched holes from Cero blasts.

Sajin Komamura stood at Byakuya's side. His Myō'ō had long since dissipated. Tenken was planted in the sand, and he leaned against the hilt with one hand, his burly wolf-headed frame covered in scorch marks of varying depths.

Not far behind the two of them, Soi Fon and Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi lay collapsed on the sand.

"Counting you two, that makes five captain-class fighters I've traded blows with today... That white-haired kid at the very start was captain-class too, wasn't he? That makes six. Your fighting styles really are something else, each one."

Byakuya studied him.

He could sense that Starrk's Reiatsu remained steady and deep, undiminished after several consecutive battles.

Not deliberate conservation. He simply hadn't used his full power.

"Your Reiatsu hasn't shown the slightest sign of waning."

"Well, my Reiatsu might be plentiful, but getting run through a captain gauntlet like this would wear anyone out. One goes down and another shows up, two go down and another pair arrives. Just sitting here now, my arms are aching."

Starrk scratched his head, set the left-hand pistol on his knee as well, and worked the numbness out of his jarred fingers.

Then he did something that stopped both Byakuya and Komamura cold, he lay flat on his back on the sand, folded his arms behind his head as a pillow, and closed his eyes.

The crescent moon hung directly above him, spilling moonlight across his loose, curly brown hair.

"I just want to rest for a bit. If you still want to fight, we can talk about it later."

Byakuya and Komamura exchanged a glance.

Komamura's ears flicked. He gave a slight shake of his head. He sensed no killing intent from Starrk, no intention to ambush.

"With power like yours, why are you willing to follow Aizen? You're a Hollow, aren't you? Between us and Aizen, we are all Shinigami in the end. A Hollow submitting to a Shinigami—that's not a natural thing."

"Yeah. Why is that, I wonder."

Starrk opened his eyes and stared up at that eternal crescent moon.

He was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Byakuya began to think he had no intention of answering at all.

"I didn't join Aizen because I agreed with his ideals or his plans. It was more like—searching for a place where I wouldn't have to be alone anymore. Before I met him, I'd been drifting through Hueco Mundo. Because I was too strong, any Hollow that came near would be crushed by my Reiatsu before it could even get close. So I split my soul in two. That way I finally wasn't quite so alone. But even after splitting my soul, I was still that same lonely monster. Then Aizen found me. He said he needed my power, and in exchange, he'd give me somewhere to belong. In Las Noches there are the Espada, there are Fracción, there are beings with strong enough Reiatsu that they won't be accidentally crushed by me. Even if those people each have their own problems—at least they won't die just because I'm too strong. That's the whole reason I joined him."

Komamura was quiet for a moment.

He pulled Tenken from the sand, set it point-down against the ground, and lowered his wolf head slightly.

"A Hollow that does not go for the kill against Shinigami. This old man has never seen such a thing. You are different from the other Arrancar."

"That's exactly why I didn't want to fight you in the first place."

Starrk withdrew his arms from behind his head and sat up. "You came looking for the Shinigami sealed inside the Caja Negación, didn't you?"

"Indeed."

"Could you tell me what kind of person he is?" Starrk tilted his head, a touch of genuine curiosity in his voice.

"Why should I tell you?" Byakuya's brow furrowed.

"Because depending on your answer, I'll decide whether to let him out. The orange-haired kid and that little girl being kindhearted is one thing. But even Pesche and Dondochakka were willing to sacrifice themselves to save him. I want to understand, what kind of Shinigami makes that many people risk their lives for him?"

---

The World of the Living. Above Karakura Town.

The wounded Abirama Redder dragged himself back to Baraggan Louisenbairn's side, one arm nearly deformed from Mashiro Kuna's kick.

His Resurrección was on the verge of collapse, the Reishi mantle covering his skeletal form shattered and torn.

"I'm deeply sorry, Lord Baraggan. These fighters can use Hollow power too. The moment they put on their masks, their Reiatsu surges and their attack patterns change completely. I was no match for them at all."

Mashiro Kuna and Hiyori Sarugaki stood across from him, white Hollow masks covering their faces.

Beneath the masks, both of their Reiatsu continued to climb.

Baraggan slowly turned his head. A dark red glow flickered faintly in the depths of his sunken eye sockets.

He set one skeletal hand on Abirama's shoulder. The touch was light. Almost gentle.

"It's fine. Just become my strength."

"Yes, I have always been your strength, you—" Abirama never finished the sentence.

Without any warning, Baraggan opened his maw. His skeletal jaw unhinged outward at an unnatural angle, and he bit off Abirama's head in a single motion.

Purple Reishi blood erupted from the severed neck, spattering across Baraggan's skull mask and trickling slowly through the cracks in the bone.

Abirama's body buckled at the knees and crumpled to the ground, dissolving into Reishi dust.

Charlotte Chuhlhourne stood nearby, rooted to the spot as if nailed there.

He watched Baraggan swallow Abirama's head and Reishi whole. Watched him lick the purple bloodstains from the corner of his mouth in satisfaction. Watched a hideous grin spread across that skeletal face.

"You're not Lord Baraggan! Who are you?!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, little lady, you wouldn't do something like that, would you?" Shunsui Kyōraku swallowed hard at the sight.

Nelliel's pupils widened slightly. She watched Baraggan devour Abirama's remains piece by piece. Watched Charlotte collapse to his knees, utterly broken.

"When Baraggan was defeated by that Shinigami, I seized the opportunity and devoured him! All of his power belongs to me now, the authority of aging, the breath of death, even that insufferable arrogance of his, it's all mine! I am the Espada No. 2! Lord Aizen tacitly permitted my existence as well, because a Baraggan who could be devoured had no right to keep sitting in that seat. Don't you agree, Charlotte? Your former master was nothing more than scraps for me to eat!"

Wearing Baraggan's skull-like face, Aaroniero Arruruerie let out a wild laugh that had no business coming from that ancient husk.

"You bastard!"

Charlotte surged up from the ground and snapped his gaze toward Aizen in the distant sky.

Aizen stood in midair, hands at his sides, his white Arrancar uniform stirring softly in the wind.

He was locked in a silent staredown with Genryūsai Yamamoto across the distance, their Reiatsu colliding soundlessly in the air, tearing the surrounding clouds to shreds.

"Lord Aizen! Did you permit this?!" Charlotte's voice rang out across Karakura Town.

Aizen did not answer. He didn't even turn his head to look.

His attention remained entirely on Genryūsai Yamamoto.

"Damn it! Then I'll pay tribute to my former master right here, in my own way!"

Charlotte drew his Zanpakutō and released his Resurrección. His Reiatsu spiked in an instant, a swirling storm of pink Reishi wrapping around him.

He broke into a full sprint toward Aaroniero.

A green flash cut across the edge of his vision.

Nelliel appeared at his side and with one light tug sent his momentum completely off course.

One hand caught the back of Charlotte's collar. The other delivered a precise strike to the back of his neck, measured and controlled, just enough to knock him out.

She caught the unconscious Charlotte, crossed the distance to Tier Harribel in a few bursts of Sonído, and set him down gently at Apache's feet.

"Hey! Why are you dumping Baraggan's Fracción on us?! Nelliel!" Apache put her hands on her hips, her mismatched pink-and-blue eyes wide, wearing an expression that said exactly what she thought about being handed someone else's problems.

"Let it be."

"Lord Harribel, even you, " Apache grumbled, but she grabbed Charlotte by the collar and hauled him into the pile of wounded all the same.

"How ironic." Genryūsai Yamamoto's voice was low and resonant.

"Ah. Indeed it is." Aizen's tone was perfectly even, the way someone agrees with a remark about the weather.

---

Far above, the Soul King Palace.

Above the sea of clouds, golden palaces floated in silence within the void.

A bald, heavily bearded monk sat cross-legged on the edge of a suspended veranda, hands tucked inside his wide sleeves. He watched the Reiatsu fluctuations rising from Karakura Town below and shook his head.

"Didn't expect it to end like this. That boy Baraggan was one of the very best in Hueco Mundo back in the day. And this is how he goes out."

"Why do you say that?" Kirio Hikifune stood behind him, a look of mild confusion on her face.

Ōetsu Nimaiya leaned against a nearby pillar.

"You came late, so it makes sense you don't know. In ancient times, there were two Hollows standing at the very peak of Hueco Mundo. One was Baraggan. The other, the Captain gave it a name: Ikomikidomoe. A mid-tier Adjuchas, one that held a crucial place in the evolution of Hollows, yet refused Arrancarification. It relied on sheer force of will to maintain its original form while accumulating wisdom over centuries. Eventually, because it had devoured so many Hollows, it was deemed a calamity. It clashed with Baraggan, though neither could finish the other. Then, more than 2,000 years ago, ordinary prey stopped being enough for it. It turned its gaze toward the Soul King. It wanted to devour him. It even defeated a young Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto once and pushed all the way up to the Soul King Palace. In the end, the Captain and I subdued it together. The Captain erased its original name and gave it the name 'Ikomikidomoe,' then I reworked it into a Zanpakutō. It's sealed at the bottom of the sea beneath the Hōōden now."

"Then the Hollow that devoured Baraggan—"

"A descendant of Ikomikidomoe, most likely. No Arrancarification, preserved its original form through willpower alone, strengthened itself all the way by devouring powerful kin. Walking the exact same road as its ancestor. Baraggan fought Ikomikidomoe for most of his life without ever being devoured, and in the end, some junior picks up the scraps. Ironic, really."

Kirio Hikifune looked down at that sea of clouds torn apart by Reiatsu and spoke quietly.

"An existence over 2,000 years old, and its descendant is still walking that same path. Nimaiya, that Hollow that refuses to become an Arrancar. How does Aizen see it?"

"Aizen? He probably treats it as a disposable piece. To him, an Adjuchas that won't undergo Arrancarification is just a worthless relic. What he wants are perfected warriors after the transformation, obedient, controllable, willing to die on command. That creature refusing to change was never part of his plans. Devouring Baraggan was probably its way of proving its value to him. But it won't matter." Nimaiya's tone didn't shift. He was stating something he had already known the ending to. "Aizen never revises what someone is worth to him based on what they do."

Kirio Hikifune said nothing more.

She looked down at the mutating skeletal shape far below and thought about what Hollows were, at their core.

A Hollow's evolution has no end, because a Hollow's nature is hunger, and hunger is never satisfied.

What this Adjuchas wanted to devour next, no one knew.

No one cared, either.

Not Aizen. Likely not Yamamoto.

To those who stood at the peak, this was nothing more than noise at the edge of the board.

➤ Next: Future