Chapter Seven

The Rukongai

Thunder and a blinding flash swallowed their surroundings.

“Hah. How’d you like that? How’s it feel to be scorched by someone you misjudged as weak?!” muttered the woman in the white Western clothing, still enrobed in lightning.

The woman was Candice Catnip, and she was one of the Quincies that had infiltrated the Soul Society. She currently found herself in an extraordinarily complicated position, albeit only from her perspective. Viewed objectively, she amounted only to a prisoner who had been captured by the Soul Reapers and put into forced labor.

Until half a year ago, she had been a Stern Ritter who belonged to the Vandenreich. After being defeated by the Soul Reapers, but before she could be absorbed by Yhwach’s Auswählen, she had been “retrieved” by Torue and others from the Twelfth Company.

At present, she had been half zombified by Mayuri Kurotsuchi as a functioning specimen and was turned into the Department of Research and Development's registered bloodhound through their “equipment.” Rather than being simply a prisoner, she and the other captured Stern Ritters were being treated exactly like guinea pigs. Naturally, the Quincies weren’t obediently following orders, but Mayuri Kurotsuchi was extraordinarily adept with the “carrot and stick” approach to manipulation. He had eroded away the roots of their minds from their very foundations. And so, in Candice’s case, she had been ensnared using a poison-filled “carrot.”

≡

Several Days Ago,
Department of Research and Development

“My, my, aren’t you stubborn? You’re still not in the mood to cooperate.” Mayuri Kurotsuchi was expressionless as he uttered these words with the test subject in front of his eyes. He was looking at a gigantic cylindrical tube. It was half full of some sort of liquid and a woman whose bottom half was submerged in the liquid yelled angrily, “Why would you ever think I’d yield to you under these circumstances? Huh?!”

Facing Candice, whose entire body was wrapped in chains to seal her, with tubes and electrodes and such attached to her limbs and the back of her neck, Mayuri Kurotsuchi nonchalantly said, “What strange things you say. If you’re able to raise your voice like that, you should realize that’s the best kind of welcome a test subject could give.”

“Well, at least I realized you’re a crazy sadist way before this.”

“So close. If you put it in modern terms, you would call me a scientist, not a sadist.”

“So you’re not going to deny you’re nuts…”

“From an ordinary person’s point of view, the acts of a genius will naturally seem odd. Though it makes me feel such pity for those who can only quiver in fear and reject any new endeavor they encounter. Humoring every single one of them is just a waste of time.”

In response to Mayuri, who was serene but arrogant, Candice tsked.

“So? What, you want me to cry tears of gratitude to the Soul Reapers who healed my wounds and just become your pawn?”

“We didn’t really heal your wounds, to be precise. It’s more accurate to say we ‘rebooted’ what was almost a corpse. Well, while you were half dead, we more or less finished our experiments, including dissection.”

“Wait…what did you just say?! Dissection?!”

“As far as we see it, we saved you from a heartless owner who, far from abandoning you, was about to mercilessly devour you, so I don’t think it would be out of order for you to offer a word or two in gratitude.”

She glared at Mayuri as he said that, and she bluffed with a smile.

“Hah…all you did was uncollar a hunting dog. I haven’t sunk low enough to choose scum like you as my new owner.”

“I am so upset you think I’m scum. I am known as a prominent gentleman even among the Thirteen Court Guard Companies, so I would hate to rough up a lady.”

“And you think this isn’t roughing me up, you bastard?!”

Ignoring her objections, Mayuri sighed dramatically and continued, “We’ve already long finished our research into you Quincies, rare species that you are. Though it was somewhat difficult analyzing the Quincies, who received the divided power of that subspecies Yhwach…or would it be more accurate to say ‘pure breed’…finalizing the results was easy enough because we had enough samples. Had we not, we would have simply analyzed you until you were nothing more than goo, like our past samples.”

Mayuri recalled the numerous ghastly experiments done on Quincies in the past—the days of experiments that had, at times, involved chopping Quincies up, or mashing them, or drilling holes in their skulls while they were still living, or having Quincies roast their own children to death.

No one else could possibly know whether Mayuri didn’t conduct those experiments on Candice at present because it was unnecessary in his opinion or because he had had a change of heart concerning experiments. To Candice, who in fact had no idea about the preceding Quincies' terrible fates, those words seemed like yet another bluff.

“I have no idea why this is happening, but if you’re done analyzing me, you can hurry up and off me already. But don’t think I’ll go down without a fight. I’ll turn you all into cinders before I go! I’ll start with that Ichigo Kurosaki for making a fool outta me!”

Though she spoke those words in a tone of simple banter, Candice’s eyes said she was completely prepared to fight until her final moment.

“That man is already long gone from the Soul Society. And he’s so naïve that if he saw your current circumstances, I wouldn’t put it past him to complain that I was being unreasonable.” Mayuri lightly brushed off the woman’s death stare and started to slowly slide “carrots” into his words. “In any case, we have no need for specimens for internal research. However, if you are uncooperative in the next battles…In other words, if you don’t work with us to evaluate your performance in battle, we will need to stock up on replacements.”

“Replacements…?”

When Candice seemed dubious, Mayuri turned an ogling glance toward her and continued. “It seems that the zombie girl and the little glutton girl you were working with have been sneaking around Hueco Mundo of late. Well, we have finished our research into zombies and have our conjectures about the gluttony ability, so I don’t have any particular interest in them.”

“What…”

At first she hadn’t understood what he was saying, but her memory immediately made the connections and the flame of hope that had long disappeared in her once again began to quiver.

“Hey…wait. Lil and Gigi are alive?! Then is Bambi too?!”

“Yes, the bomb girl seems to be still zombified, however. Really, even after showing their faces to me, I cannot believe they wouldn’t realize that I inserted tracking bacteria into them. Quincies truly are a heedless bunch.”

Mayuri grinned ominously, and Candice hid her faint joy under a veneer of irritation as she raised her voice. “If that’s the case, why’re you leaving them alone? Other than you, the other Soul Reapers don’t have a reason to leave them be, right?”

“Though it is exceedingly unfortunate for me, the Captain General and the others accepted their offer to set up a united battlefront against Yhwach during the war. That means they no longer see them as a hostile force. My, my, though they did it for the purpose of defeating Yhwach, I believe they are being incredibly generous.”

“A united front? So they betrayed his majesty?”

Candice was bewildered by the many facts he had relayed to her that she was hearing for the first time. However, since she had a very clear memory of the sensation of Yhwach attempting to steal her power in the end, she guessed what happened in her own way.

“Actually, I can’t believe his majesty actually tried that with us… If that’s the case, knowing Lil’s personality, she’s definitely capable of it…”

As Candice muttered, deep in thought, Mayuri continued to speak. He converted the poison he had inserted into the conversation disguised as information into a sweet treat.

“What do you think? As I am someone who is known to have love running through his veins in place of blood, if you will tell me that you will cooperate, then…

“I wouldn’t be opposed to returning the specimens that have completed their experiments to your fellow Quincies.”

≡

Present Day

In fact, Candice Catnip hadn’t believed what Mayuri said. In the first place, she didn’t trust Soul Reapers, and of them she especially did not trust Mayuri Kurotsuchi. However, she pretended she was going along with what he was telling her and believed there was significance in having a means of contacting the outside world.

There was a chance she would be able to contact Meninas McAllon, who had also been captured, so they could work together, and she thought the Soul Reapers might leave an opening, perhaps allowing her to reverse the situation if she were able to get into contact with Liltotto and the others who were outside.

Of course, she understood that was overly optimistic, but for Candice, it was enough reason to become a temporary puppet of the Soul Reapers—even if all of that had been a part of Mayuri Kurotsuchi’s calculations.

That was exactly why Candice didn’t make any adjustments of her own to the work she had been given.

“Render the Fullbringers powerless and secure their bodies.”

Though Candice had fought Hollows and Soul Reapers constantly as a Quincy, she didn’t know much about Fullbringers. She recalled that Liltotto had once mentioned something about them, but she had judged them simply a minority group with a couple of powers, not even qualifying as a hostile force, and she hadn’t really listened.

However, Candice had no intention of letting that cause her regret. No matter what kind of enemy they were, they wouldn’t amount to anything against her lightning, and she was confident there was no way they would be able to defend against it. Then again, her confidence had been smashed to smithereens once before in the war with the Soul Reapers, primarily by Ichigo Kurosaki. That was the exact reason why, when her first arrow was blocked by the large sword, the electronic limiter on a girl who was known for her short temper quickly went out of order.

In addition, she would use the equipment that Mayuri had prepared as a base for the shadow teleportation that was characteristic of the Vandenreich, in order to strike her targets with a massive hit of lightning from a short distance.

Though its power had decayed after her Voll Stern Dich had been stolen, she still hit them with her “Electrocution” force, which surpassed the power of natural lightning.

≡

Mayuri Kurotsuchi, who was observing that lightning from a distance, narrowed his eyes and shook his head.

“Good grief, it seems she did not properly understand what ‘secure the bodies’ means.”

She had released the lightning with the intent to reduce her opponents to cinders. Hearing the roar that tore through space itself a few seconds later, Mayuri sighed dully, “I don’t remember preserving her so sloppily that it would result in brain decay.”

The deep voice of a man emanated from behind him. “Didn’t I tell you so? That tomboy doesn’t seem to have any grace, so delicate strategies just aren’t her thing…”

“Who gave you permission to speak?”

Mayuri pressed a button in his hand without turning, and there was the sound of an electric shock whizzing behind him, then the shrieks of several men and women rang out in unison.

“Ha ha…In the face of ultimate beauty, a shock like this is the same as a spotlight!”

“Grr… Don’t make such a fuss of it! Why must we be dragged into this and receive an electric baptism?!”

“Actually, why’s Charlotte so ecstatic when she's the main one who got it?!”

“Just when I thought I was getting used to it, he increased the voltage, didn’t he…?”

The four of them, who were wearing white Western clothing and exhibited characteristic scars, each praising themselves and complaining, were:

Charlotte Chuhlhourne

Dordoni Alessandro Del Socaccio

Cirucci Sanderwicci

Luppi Antenor.

They were powerful Arrancars who normally wouldn’t have existed in the Soul Society. They had been treated as the living dead in the Department of Research and Development for much longer than Candice and the others and were used as both the subjects of experiments and as hunting dogs in the Kurotsuchi Corpse Unit. Their reactions to this situation were varied, with Dordoni and Cirucci doing the job as though it were their own contract work without submitting mentally, Luppi accepting it half out of resignation, and Charlotte enjoying herself to a certain extent.

“In any case, did we really need to come all the way out here?”

Mayuri casually replied to Dordoni’s question without taking his eyes off of the lightning. “You are like suppression equipment for any Quincy subjects that malfunction. Have you realized how generously lenient I am to allow you to breathe air from the outside?”

“If you just need them suppressed, why can’t you just use that lightning or poison you’re so proud of?”

“Hey, stop saying weird stuff to provoke him. What good will goading him into another shocking do?”

Cirucci voiced her complaints as Luppi scolded her. Meanwhile, a short distance away, Charlotte was posing for mysterious reasons.

“Actually, what about that promise to let us see the orange-haired niño?”

In response to Dordoni’s comment, Mayuri shrugged as though he found the thing tedious and replied, “I plan on bringing him along soon. In fact, the target we are capturing this time is a Deputy Soul Reaper like Ichigo Kurosaki…and he is also the man whose thread of life Ichigo Kurosaki himself severed.”

When he heard those words, Dordoni’s face scrunched.

“Oh… If he killed a human like himself rather than Hollows like us, does that mean he left his naïveté behind? In that case, I can’t call him a niño anymore.”

“He is a unique specimen to call a human. If I were to elaborate, he is the man who cut down the Quincy Uryu Ishida.”

At that point, Cirucci, who hadn’t been very interested until then, spoke up. “What?! You’re screwing with me! There’s no way that irritating four-eyes Quincy could have been killed off so easily by such a nobody!”

“Ah, then that just proves he isn’t such a nobody. Well, that is exactly why I ordered the Quincy corpse to go retrieve him this time around.”

As Mayuri continued his observations, Luppi looked toward the place where the flash of light had come from and murmured to himself, “There’s no retrieving any bodies—they’ll be cinders by now.”

However, Mayuri showed no obvious sign of being flustered.

“This is quite entertaining, isn’t it?”

“Huh? What is that?”

Then, as the smoke rose from that spot and the afterglow that had burned into their eyelids started to fade, the corpse company, starting with Luppi, opened their eyes wide when they saw the vision that replaced it. Mayuri smiled merrily as he compared the scene to the data that flowed from his observation equipment.

“If that’s just a fraction of the Fullbring power, it really has caught my attention.”

≡

What is this thing?

What am I seeing right now?

Candice, who had been certain of her victory, broke into a cold sweat immediately.

Though it wasn’t as powerful as it had once been, that lightning should have been powerful enough to turn even a reasonably strong Soul Reaper into ash. However, when the lightning that she had called forth settled, the forms of the three men who seemed to have survived the lightning strike emerged. But that wasn’t what had struck fear into Candice. What had left Candice flabbergasted was the gigantic, thick-rooted tree that seemed to stretch into the air as though it were stabbing at the heavens that had abruptly appeared by the men who were her targets. Though Candice had been the one to surprise attack them, she had at least known her own surroundings. That thing hadn’t been there just before she had unleashed her Electrocution.

Damn it! Most of the lightning strike was redirected into the tree!

Most of the thunderbolt that surpassed natural lightning had been absorbed into the ground through the gigantic tree, and the man in the black jacket had brushed any extraneous lightning that broke away using his large sword just as he had before. Before she could take in what had happened, a blade closed in before Candice’s eyes.

“Guh!”

Candice narrowly leapt backwards as the place she had been was sheared by the blade of the large sword, which glinted silver.

“Huh…?!”

An electric chill ran down Candice’s spine.

As she twisted her body and leapt to the side, the attack unleashed by the sword ripped through the reishi in the air and grazed her. The slashing attack plunged through the smoke that came from the gigantic, lightning-singed tree, and eventually pierced the side of a distant hill and blew part of the slope away.

“That was…Ichigo Kurosaki’s attack just now!”

“Hunh…? You’ve fought that guy, little lady?” The man who had unleashed the air-rending slash raised an eyebrow, then he smiled as though to provoke her. “So that’s how you dodged it. Got pretty lucky there, didn’t ya? You better thank Ichigo for that.”

“Whaaaat?! You want me to thank who?!”

Though just moments ago she had escaped life-threatening danger, Candice became enraged and lightning coiled around her entire body.

“Oh dear. Aren’t you a short-tempered little lady?”

Sighing as he leapt back to make some distance between them, Ginjo glanced at the large, scorched tree standing next to him.

“We’ve been pretty reckless in our own way.”

When Ginjo spoke those words to him, Tsukishima shrugged lightly and replied, “That wasn’t anything. I just nurtured a tree in my spare time while I was reading. I tried everything I could do while it was a sapling.”

“Just how many years ago did you insert yourself into it?” Ginjo said, exasperated.

When their opponent had appeared, Tsukishima had turned his bookmark into a sword using his Fullbring and used his Book of the End ability to cut a tree near him. He inserted himself into the tree’s past and gave the tree a twisted form of nourishment in order to turn it into a massive giant.

Tsukishima had used his unique ability in a way that broke the rules and that only had an effect on his target, and the woman who had attacked them seemed unable to comprehend what had happened. If she’d heard the conversation that had just occurred, she might have been able to guess at what his ability was, but the would-be assassin seemed unable to read their lips as a result of the blood rushing to her head.

Well, I’m sure she’d just throw up her hands if we told her all of it was an act.

After their conversation, Ginjo once again guessed at what the woman could be. “You don’t look like a Soul Reaper. Since you use a bow, you seem to be a Quincy, but…if you’re one of the survivors of those that fought the Soul Reapers, then I don’t get why you’d want to attack us. Have you got a connection with Xcution in the living world?”

For the last few days, Ginjo and the others had been going around talking to the newly dead from Japan who had come to the Rukongai in order to gather information on a religious group called Xcution that had recently become well-known in the world of the living.

He had formulated his own theories about it, and since they had been attacked right as he was considering how to contact Yukio or Riruka in the world of the living, he thought that if the enemy wasn't a Soul Reaper, it wouldn’t be odd if she was related in some way.

“Why are you spouting nonsense?! No tree is going to protect you now! Just be good and turn into cinders already!”

The Quincy had recovered from her confusion and started a rapid-fire attack using her bow clad in lightning, so Ginjo and the others didn’t have time to leisurely analyze the identity of their opponent.

Unknown to Ginjo and the others, lurking a slight distance away, a shadow was carefully observing Candice and the Fullbringers’ fight.

“Good grief, that idiot’s completely forgotten she’s supposed to capture them. I hope I don’t get treated like an incompetent by that perverted scientist with her.”

The man was wearing the same kind of white clothing as Candice—he was NaNaNa Najahkoop. He was close to being a corpse after one of the Stern Ritter Bazz-B had served him a fatal wound, but Mayuri made him into one of the “rebooted” Quincy.

“Well, make sure to make a good show of crushing each other.”

Though he hadn’t shown any rebellion toward Yhwach until the very end, now that Yhwach was gone, he prioritized surviving and biding his time for a chance to escape.

“Since I can ‘observe’ tons.”

Being able to see the outside, collared or not, was an opportunity for him, and in order to fully take advantage of this ability, he intended to observe as many Soul Reapers as he could.

The ability of The Underbelly, his “U” Schrift that he had received from Yhwach, Morphine Pattern was a technique that searched for holes in the spiritual pressure of his opponents and could force those to open wider in order to stop the spiritual pressure’s operations. Though it had been powerful enough to paralyze all four of Sosuke Aizen’s limbs, when he tried to use it against Mayuri, the result had been Mayuri declaring, “There’s no point in observing me. Changing your spiritual pressure pattern every second is fundamental.”

Since he couldn’t actually follow along in his observations with the fluctuations in the patterns, Najahkoop had ended up getting an electric shock from the equipment Mayuri had inserted into the Quincy’s body. So, unable to come up with a way to get out of there, he was stuck in his current situation.

“But are those guys what they call Fullbringers?” Najahkoop muttered dubiously about the Fullbringers that Mayuri had ordered him to observe.

“This is my first time seeing them, but…there certainly is something Hollow-like mixed in with the patterns of their spiritual pressure…”

≡

The World of the Living,
Karakura Town

“Please wait a moment, Mr. Urahara. Why are you bringing up his name now?”

Urahara saw the agitation on Hisagi’s face and pointed it out readily. “Oh, were you acquainted with him? When Miss Kuchiki and the others came to give Mr. Kurosaki his Soul Reaper powers, I believe you weren’t present, were you?”

“Well, I just happened to run into him in the Rukongai earlier.”

“That’s quite the coincidence. He’s basically living as a human, so you wouldn’t feel anything odd from his spiritual pressure unless you were to fight him.”

It really was exactly as Urahara said. When he thought back on it, he normally couldn’t tell that there was some other element mixed into Ichigo Kurosaki’s spiritual pressure, and it wasn’t as though he had the analytical abilities of someone like Urahara or Mayuri Kurotsuchi.

Under these circumstances, he would need to decide whether to believe what Urahara was saying. But if he were to doubt the man now, then the whole entire interview would be pointless. Hisagi resolved himself to his fate and decided to continue his conversation with Urahara on the assumption that what the man was saying was true.

“Does the Fullbring ability have anything to do with this?”

“Yes. Would you like me to review things just a bit from that point?”

When Urahara brushed the edge of the tatami mat, a giant whiteboard dropped down from the ceiling. Alongside unintelligible equations, the board featured sinister-looking drawings of Soul Reapers and, at the top, the title “Strange! Thrillingly Grotesque! How to Make a Demonic Soul Reaper (temp.)!”

“Oops, sorry.”

When he pressed a corner of the board, somehow the writing and diagrams that had just been there all neatly disappeared, leaving nothing but the board’s pure white, shiny surface.

“All right. First, about the Fullbringers…”

“What was that just now?! You tried to cover it up all casually, but that’s a little much!”

“Well, it’s quite embarrassing. Demonic Soul Reaper is just a temporary name, so don’t worry, I’ll come up with a more stylish name to rival the Karakurizer.”

“That’s not the issue! What even is a Karakurizer?! Also, that just made me remember! After the war ended, Miss Shihoin was looking terrifying as hell, going around asking everyone who went to the Reiokyu ‘Did you see me when I fought the last battle?’ And when anyone was careless enough to say they did, she seemed to kick them around until their memories were oblivion! Does that have anything to do with this?!”

As Hisagi masterfully employed his great sense of intuition, Urahara averted his eyes and chuckled loudly.

“Well, I was certainly in dire straits after that, but it’s not directly related. I suppose you could say that putting my craft to use is all in a day’s work…”

Though there were some things he still wasn’t clear on, the information on the whiteboard was already gone. Though he believed that Urahara’s intention was to calm him, Hisagi had to stop himself from saying something sarcastic.

“Sorry… Please tell me what the Fullbringers are.”

“Then how about I get the easy stuff over with first?!”

Hisagi, now calm, watched with unamused eyes as Urahara started to write text on the whiteboard in a carefree manner.

“So in this world, there are several intelligent races. To put it in broad terms, those are the humans, Soul Reapers, Pluses, and Hollows, I suppose. Well, putting aside that Hollows were originally human konpaku, fundamentally, Fullbringers are derived from humans.”

“So does that mean they’re mutations?”

“I suppose you could say they are forced to mutate through external forces. To put it generally, Mr. Sado and Miss Inoue are also included here.”

“Huh?”

When the names of people he knew came up, Hisagi seemed somewhat puzzled. He had heard that they could use skills—Orihime through her hairpin and Chad through the skin of his arms. But what Hisagi had never guessed was that those things would connect them to the Fullbringers.

“But I heard that their powers came from the influence of being near the Hôgyoku…”

“Yes, that’s why the events leading up to their becoming that way are slightly different from other Fullbringers. However, only the mechanism was different and their origins and the results are the same.”

Drawing a diagram on the whiteboard, Urahara continued with the explanation.

“Fundamentally, Fullbringers were still in the womb when their mothers were attacked by Hollows. If they are able to survive that attack and are safely brought into the world, the children are influenced by the Hollow factor, and it is thought that the possibility their Fullbringer abilities will awaken in the future is high.”

“I feel like I’ve definitely heard that somewhere before… But I’m impressed they’d be able to survive a Hollow attack.” Hisagi recalled a time when he had been attacked by a Hollow while powerless, and put that misgiving into words.

“A Soul Reaper or Quincy likely came to their rescue in the nick of time…at least, that would be the conclusion one might naturally come to. But if that were the case, then how aware would the Soul Society have been…about the fact that the children of those pregnant women they had just saved had the potential to become Fullbringers?”

“Oh.”

“I also have been gathering all kinds of information on Full-bringers since I learned of their existence, but could it be possible that the Soul Reapers, who have fought Hollows for tens of thousands of years, would not have noticed that before me? I had Miss Amakado look into it, but what seemed to be proof of just that, which had just recently been at Dai Reisho Kairo, seems to have disappeared.”

“Well, they’re only obligated to keep information about the Soul Society over there, so I don’t think they’d have much on the living world…”

As though to interrupt Hisagi, Urahara brought up the name of a certain organization…

“But how about the Visual Department?”

The temperature in Hisagi’s heart plummeted. Over the last few days, he had looked into many things in his own way. Among those were activities relating to the time period when the Tsuna-yashiro family had established the Visual Department.

“Is that why you’re telling me about this now?”

“It wouldn’t be strange to think you’d know something. Well, I’m not the one who needs to do the rest of the work now—that’s the job of a journalist with a backbone.”

“So then the Fullbringers…or rather Ginjo and the others…are also involved with the Tsunayashiro family in some way?”

What came to Hisagi’s mind was the reason Ginjo had given him for why the Fullbringer betrayed the Soul Society. If the Tsunayashiro family were involved, he could understand why Kyoraku had told him he wanted to “wait a bit.

“Whoa there, don’t have such a stern expression! Jinta might actually wet his pants if he came home to that!”

While jokingly scolding Hisagi, Urahara continued to speak as though he were a child up to some sort of trick. “But a guess is nothing more than that. This is all the information I can give to you as of right now. I have several other conjectures, but in the unthinkable chance that I’m mistaken, I’d be causing a great deal of trouble to many people. On account of that, I’d like a bit more information to settle my guesses.”

“In other words, you want information from me too?”

“I’ve asked Miss Yoruichi for the same. I’d like data from all angles. As a matter of fact, what you just told me about that child Hikone was an extraordinarily useful data point. Thank you very much.”

“I feel like you’re getting the better of me, but I understand. If you’re willing to put your trust in me as a journalist and a Soul Reaper, then I’ll do what I can.”

With that acceptance from Hisagi, Urahara opened his folding fan and put on his businessman’s smile.

“Well, what do we have here? Looks like we’ve got ourselves a deal! I suppose we’ll be badgers in the same hole for many years to come!”

Was I being a little too hasty…?

With that thought, Hisagi mentioned something that suddenly came to his mind. “Actually, what’s the relationship between Fullbringers and Hollows? Oh, I don’t mean their origins, but their current power dynamic…”

“Their parents were attacked by Hollows, so I’d guess there would at least be some ties between them. I’m sure that Hollows also vary in whether they’d be cautious or amused upon seeing humans with the same traits as them.”

Urahara shook his head as he thought of the Arrancars he knew.

“Well, ultimately we have to take it on a case by case basis.”

“Since there has been an increase of fairly thoughtful Arrancars lately.”

≡

The Soul Society,
The Rukongai Outskirts

At the far reaches of the Rukongai, piercing thunder rang out countless times.

Of course, the neighboring residents hadn’t approached after the first lightning strike and everyone had sequestered in their homes to hide. Naturally, the lightning had been observed from the Seireitei, but Mayuri had recently put in a “Petition to perform Department of Research and Development experiments,” so none of the Soul Reapers came to check on what was happening.

Given that, because of the continuing, bombastic thunder, Ginjo and the others had missed hearing something incredibly important: the sound of the gigantic tree, which had been standing upright just moments before, being snapped by something’s fist.

“No, no, Candy.”

Along with the leisurely voice of a woman, something came fluttering down from the sky.

“Your orders were to capture them, so I think you’ll get in trouble if you burn them…”

Ginjo and the others, who realized that a shadow had appeared over their heads, looked up to see a Quincy holding the broken tree in one hand and dropping it.

“Hey, how can you be so stupid strong?” Ginjo asked in exasperation as the lightning-scorched tree came down on him.

With a rumble, the ground quivered and a dust cloud rose around them.

“Are you an idiot, Minnie?! We’ll get in trouble if you crush them too!” Candice opened her eyes wide as she yelled at Meninas McAllon, the holder of the “P” Schrift for “The Power,” who had appeared as her reinforcement.

“But if all I do is crush them, I think that weird scientist would still be able to do somethin’ with them…”

“Then he’d be able to fix them up even if I burned them! Well, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, we need to use this chance to try getting in contact with Lil and the others…” Just then, a crushing sound resonated from the tree on the ground.

“Huh?!”

“No way! Nobody other than Minnie can do something like that…”

Just as the name suggested, Meninas’s ability, “The Power,” was unadulterated and mighty brute strength. In a simple contest of strength, Meninas’s power was analyzed to likely be unbeatable even by Kenpachi Zaraki, but in the next moment, a “power” that rivaled hers slung the scorched tree into the air.

“Ah!”

Meninas and Candice dodged it narrowly. In front of their eyes was a man whose silhouette had completely transformed from earlier.

“Phew… Looks like this time we’re just facing some strong-armed blockhead.”

Based on his eyepatch, it seemed as though this was the slim man who had been wearing a gentlemanly outfit until just a moment ago.

However, his height currently seemed to exceed five meters and his silhouette had transformed into that of a huge Hollow with swelled and distorted muscles. He looked strong enough that they guessed that not only had he stopped the gigantic tree, but had also thrown it back at them.

Facing the eyepatch-wearing man who had become a beefcake in front of her, Meninas, who had been called “a strong-armed blockhead,” vacantly said the first thing that came to her mind: “I think swelled-up muscles like those are gross…”

“When you really go all out, Minnie, your arms and everything end up looking like that too…”

For his part, Ginjo scowled when he saw his companion Giriko’s transformation.

“You stop making a big show of things too, oi. Actually, what was that about ‘this time’?”

Come to think of it, I never asked Kutsuzawa how he died.

As Ginjo considered that, Giriko acted in a way that was the reverse of his usual calm, gentlemanly self, speaking excitedly about his powers. “Ginjo, I made a mistake. In order to properly wear the god of time’s power on my own body, I must have a clear offering of time to give!”

“R-right.”

“Yes, what governs over my Time Tells No Lies is time! I will offer the vast amounts of time that Tsukishima inserted into that gigantic tree to the infinite torrents of time, and pure strength has roosted within me! I will not make the same blunder as before! Now, let me thoroughly demonstrate this power I have received from god!”

“Why’re you getting so worked up about this…?”

Beside Ginjo, who was at a loss as to how to react, Tsuki-shima smiled thinly as he shook his head.

“What am I going to do after you’ve gone and offered the past I inserted?”

Just as he and Giriko had expected, the gigantic tree that had been thrown into the air had, at some point, shrunk back into a small tree and was shattering into pieces as it fell. Taking that as a sign, the enemy Quincies started to make their move.

“Your blustering ends now! No matter how this goes, you’re all getting the death penalty!”

“Again, I don’t think we can kill them when we’re on a mission to capture them…”

Candice poked fun as Meninas started to thrash the man with the eyepatch who had become a giant clad in muscle armor. Her arm, which swelled like a gigantic log and creaked with strength, swung down diagonally as though it were spring-loaded.

“Mgh!”

Though he wrapped his enlarged hand around it, the gigantic man’s balance crumbled under the attack that had come at him with the force of a cannon.

“Oho, if you’re able to make me stagger, then you can at least talk.”

“I haven’t actually said anything though.”

Meninas tilted her head quizzically for a moment, then unleashed several consecutive attacks using her arms as the upper half of her body turned. The man with the eyepatch continued to receive and handle them without breaking a sweat, as the ground started to crack beneath them. When Giriko’s gigantic knee sank into it for a moment, Meninas found a good opening to add on a powerful strike. However, in response the man straightened his leg all at once and released his power into the ground as though he had been waiting for it.

“Feel it with your own body! Know that you cannot budge the flow of time with strikes that lack reverence to god!”

“Uh!”

What came in the form of a simple diagonal shoulder tackle from below was accompanied with a sound like the impact of a train striking a large cow as it blew Meninas high into the air.

Giriko tried to use his Fullbring right away, on the ground and atmosphere, but countless arrows pierced him and at the same time, high-voltage lightning rushed through him.

“Mgh?!”

“Hah! You know what a giant is? A good target!”

Though even more arrows came flying, Ginjo, who had come out in front, brushed them all off.

“You’re being too careless, Kutsuzawa. Making yourself big just makes you a more convenient mark for the Quincies.”

“Not at all. There’s no need to worry about me. The power I gained through the contract should hold back even the pain from a lightning strike.”

It seemed he really hadn’t taken much damage from the arrows that pierced him. However, on the other side, Meninas also looked unfazed when she landed after being blown high into the sky.

“Guess that’s all there is to it…I’ll make a distraction. While I do that, Tsukishima, you insert yourself into one of them.”

“Yeah, all right. If I look into their pasts, I should be able to figure out exactly what their goal is.”

Ginjo, who had judged that if they kept things up it would simply be a battle of wills on both sides, planned to coordinate and end things early, but…

He sensed a strong presence rising up from the distance, one that seemed to be ridiculing the fight itself.

≡

“Captain! We’ve found an anomaly in the reishi! Three spirit miles to the west-northwest…a garganta’s about to open!”

When Mayuri heard the radio report from Rin Tsubokura, he turned his eyes dubiously in the specified direction. A garganta—it was the method of transportation characteristic of Hollows. Its peculiar shape brought to mind a jaw opening in the atmosphere.

“An Arrancar, then. I’ve seen this turn of events before.”

Just glancing at the data that had been sent over to him, Mayuri immediately knew the identity of the foe they were dealing with.

“It isn’t that plaything of the Four Great Noble Clans. This one is a genuine Arrancar.”

Mayuri’s eyes narrowed then, and as though he’d had a sudden memory of someone’s face, he continued in a disappointed tone, “Good grief, Ichigo Kurosaki isn’t even here. Every last one of them is such a nuisance. Really now.”

≡

The garganta had opened far into the west. The white silhouette that had appeared there manipulated their body through the Soul Society exactly like one of Candice’s bolts of lightning—just like a predator rushing directly into the savannah after spotting its prey.

“Huh!”

“Uh?!”

They had likely noticed the strong presence of Arrancar approaching them. The Quincies and Fullbringers who had been battling at the outskirts of the Rukongai simultaneously turned their attention toward it. It was a presence too formidable for them to ignore and focus on their fight. More importantly, it was heading straight toward them with seemingly malicious intent.

Before Ginjo and the others could prepare themselves and attempt to figure out the identity of their opponent…

There was wind.

A blue-haired beast surrounded by a surge of wind tore strikingly through the air of the battlegrounds. Bulldozing through lightning and the gigantic boulders the Quincies had thrown and turning them into powder on the way, the figure rushed into the middle of the battleground. Then the wind subsided and within the thinning dust storm a single Arrancar revealed himself.

“What is with this?”

The Arrancar, who was muttering as he showed up, didn't seem very interested in the cautiously steeled Quincies and Fullbringers before him.

“I came here ’cause I thought I felt the presence of something mixed, but it ended up being neither of ’em.”

He observed Ginjo as though appraising him, then eventually, as if remembering his purpose there, the Arrancar who had caused everything to freeze said arrogantly, “Well, never mind. Kurosaki wasn’t the target today.”

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez.

His sudden appearance had turned this into the most chaotic location in the Soul Society at present.

Soul Reapers.

Quincies.

Arrancars.

Fullbringers.

Each of these groups had once been an enemy of Ichigo Kurosaki, and they seemed to be meeting here in the Soul Society, the base of the Soul Reapers. Was it a coincidence or was it an inevitability?

Grimmjow, who had appeared as though he were drawn to the center of calamity, made a single demand to Kugo Ginjo, whom he had determined was the strongest of the lineup currently in front of his eyes.

“You better hurry up and tell that kid Hikone that I came to finish what the little brat started.”