Chapter Eighteen

Aura Michibane’s life could be said to have been half determined by momentum. The woman who had no life purpose or attachment to the world had no particular reason to turn down Tokinada’s invitation, and she accepted his proposal as an opportunity to use the one and only thing she had an interest in—her Fullbring.

At first, she did not know what Tokinada was doing.

She did as she was told, and as she was defeating Hollows and such, her senses slowly inched toward death. She might as well have been already dead from the start, her body still moving due to some error.

The more she felt that illusion, the more she simply did what she was directed to do, mechanically, day by day. However, in contrast to her enthusiasm, her foundational Fullbring powers continued to grow with the momentum of shooting bamboo stalks, and by the time she realized it, Aura had enough power that the average Soul Reaper or Arrancar could do nothing to harm her. She had turned into a human-shaped monster.

If she were to live in the living world, she had enough power to be unbound and make all serve her. Though Aura had obtained powers that could bring her money and prestige to her heart’s content, she had no interest in either and instead simply continued to follow Tokinada’s instructions for the simple reason that she had no reason to object.

She was brought to the Soul Society, and since she had stolen the zanpaku-to that had been passed down in his family from the head of the household, Tokinada’s behavior morphed from simple fun to ambition with a clear vision.

She controlled the raging torrent of spiritual pressure to find a vast Kyogoku from inside the Garganta and offered it to Tokinada.

As for the Tenkai Ketchu that Kisuke Urahara had created, she stole a miniaturized version from the safe and offered it to Tokinada. When she was told to mass-produce those inferior devices that had been created using the Tsunayashiro clan’s techniques, in the range of hundreds of thousands, she did what she was told. She created them and offered them to Tokinada.

When she was told that there needed to be a human to handle and also extol the birth of the king, she had started the religious organization as Tokinada’s puppet. Then, by displaying all kinds of “miracles,” she had recruited several hundred thousand believers and offered them to Tokinada.

When she had been told that a new throne was needed to symbolize the new world, Aura created a castle even more mammoth than a skyscraper in the Kyogoku's sky and offered it to Tokinada.

When she was told he wanted a bed to look up at it, she had created a palace and offered it to Tokinada.

However, she could not make any sense of it.

Though she could do the most absurd things by controlling the reishi of objects in the living world and the Soul Society, taking them into her own body and reorganizing their structure, she could not fathom what it was that Tokinada wanted with all the things she offered to him. Though she had been told to create a throne, the one to sit in it would not be Tokinada. She was not particularly interested in knowing who, but eventually she found out.

A war between the Quincies and Soul Reapers called the Great Soul King Protection War had occurred. Though the Tsunayashiro clan of the Four Great Noble Clans had been attacked and a great number of people had apparently died, all the Quincies who attempted to attack Tokinada had the tables turned on them by Aura.

Then again, Tokinada himself hadn’t been at the residence at the time, and using his own zanpaku-to’s power, he had stolen a different sword from a place called Hoohden.

He seemingly hadn’t been highly regarded, since not a single Stern Ritter with a Schrift showed up. When things wrapped up, she had wiped out nothing but ordinary Quincy soldiers.

However, at the time that battle ended, Tokinada’s “fun” had truly started.

“I will have you give birth to the king’s body.”

“Do you mean you want me to have a baby?”

When Aura asked that indifferently, Tokinada shook his head, smiling.

“Of course not! Do I look like a man who thinks a woman’s only purpose is to create children? In addition, I am at least faithful to my late wife. I don’t see others in that way anymore. Though I do see others as playthings to have my fun with and to damage as much as my heart desires…” While saying such vile words, Tokinada celebrated a half Soul Reaper who had ended the war. “Yes, in that sense, Ichigo Kurosaki is a deeply interesting one. He is magnificent! Though he had been planned by Aizen, I cannot understand how something as ambiguous as love could create such a miracle between a Soul Reaper and a human.”

Then, as Aura listened to him, she noticed it. The throne and the believers were certainly for the king. It was just that they were coming in the wrong order. Once Tokinada finished all his preparations, he was attempting to create the king to go with that foundation.

In front of her was a heap of corpses and konpaku fragments almost mountainous in size. “I recovered these from the battlegrounds. We have a mountain of Soul Reapers, Quincies, and bodies. I can have as many human and Fullbringer bodies as you need brought in from the living world, so use them as you like.”

Then he gave her a component that the Tsunayashiro clan had been perfecting. It was a mass of reishi clearly different from the rest.

The thing emitted a presence that made it seem as though it had substance and intent though it was not alive, and Aura felt something within her curiously resonate with it.

Aura was befuddled by what the thing could possibly be, but Tokinada smiled and gave her an order: “Set the reishi to work and play around with it until it can wriggle around on its own. I don’t mind if it isn’t human shaped. I’ve come upon a favorable part to use as the brain, so you do not need to make one. Anyway, if the Saketsu and Hakusui can at least get to the stage where they can function, I know a genius who can make it live under any circumstances.”

Tokinada smiled vulgarly as he spoke to Aura.

He spoke that way to the woman who knew nothing about children.

He told her to become a god—a mother—and create the life of a new king.

≡

Kyogoku

“So they’re here.”

Tokinada, who was looking up at the floating castle from the courtyard of the palace, grinned as he sensed the disturbance of spiritual pressure from the edge of the Kyogoku.

“This spiritual pressure… Oh my, no one but the Captain General himself has graced this place with his presence directly. Old Yamamoto aside, why are the Court Guards’ Captain Generals so full of youthful vigor?”

Knowing that Kyoraku was not “full of youthful vigor” at all, Tokinada spoke sarcastically.

“What do you intend to do?” When Aura asked that from the side, Tokinada told her, “First, let us see what they can do.

“After all, no matter which route we take, no one will be going home.”

≡

Kukaku’s residence

“Don’t you need to go too?”

The question was from Ganju Shiba, who had been left with the role of feeding spiritual pressure to the equipment to keep the garganta open. Mayuri replied irksomely, “I must control the path of the garganta from here. I will at least do a decent job of making sure a path back remains open.”

“That thing is like an offshoot, isn’t it? Can’t you leave your real body here and send your offshoot over there or something?”

“My next task is to address the fact that controlling it becomes inaccurate with distance. There is a self-destruct mechanism in it, but going out of the way to give the enemy information would be foolish.”

“Giving the enemy information. Who has the time for that? If it were just the Arrancars and Quincies, it’d be one thing, but there are three captain-class people over there.”

Mayuri gave a pitying glance to Ganju, who was dubious and possibly too prone to worry, as he matter-of-factly continued with his work.

“You better not be ignoring me! You’re acting like I’m a fool—like it’s no use explaining to me!”

“Oh, it seems that you are capable of self-awareness. You’re a pretty remarkable man to challenge my conjectures.”

“That’s no compliment!”

Ignoring Ganju’s anger, he instead indifferently offered his opinion. “It’s obviously a trap.”

“It is?”

“Rubbish though they may be, the Tsunayashiro clan are still the supervisors of the Visual Department. Though they are far from my level, they are more adept at gathering information than the ordinary person. Naturally, they should already know that we have gathered at the Shiba clan’s residence.”

“Huh?”

Rather than talking to Ganju, who was raising an eyebrow, Mayuri seemed to be talking to Kukaku, who was leaning against a pillar with her arms crossed. He continued, “I thought of the possibility that he might interfere with the garganta being opened, but instead it seems as though he would like us to jump right into the middle of his bosom. Hm.”

Mayuri sensed the waver of the spiritual pressure meter he had put into his own body and said something difficult as though it were not a big deal. “As evidence of that, it seems that they will be enclosed in a barrier immediately.”

“Whaaat?!”

“The moment they entered the Kyogoku, the information coming to this side entirely ceased. It seems that the doorway to return from within the Garganta has also been closed.”

“Wha…?! That’s super serious! Don’t we need to go save them?!”

When Ganju panicked, Mayuri looked genuinely confused and said, “Why would I leap into a trap set right under my nose in order to save them?”

“Why you little…”

“In addition, I said that I had the role of ensuring they have a path home, did I not? I don’t think either of you have the skills to keep the pathway to the Kyogoku open, do you?”

“Hn?”

Ganju, who felt like what Mayuri was saying was contradictory, had nowhere to put his gripped fist in his confusion.

Then Kukaku scolded her little brother, “Just leave it, Ganju.”

“But, sis!”

“Yoruichi and that old guy Kyoraku definitely went fully aware it was a trap. Long story short, that guy wearing a mask like a Go game board is completely convinced that they’ll crush the enemy, break the barrier, and come back.”

“I have no idea who you could possibly be referring to when you speak of a Go mask, but don’t you think you would have done better on his side? If we follow Tokinada Tsunayashiro’s wishes, they say you may even be able to regain your aristocrat status.”

Kukaku had casually heard about this situation from Yoruichi, and there was a chance Mayuri had also found this information through his own methods.

Kukaku sighed lightly and then replied as though she were genuinely annoyed, “I haven’t got any interest in that. Aristocrats or not, I just do what gives me no regrets. My older brother and uncle were the same.”

She was talking about Kaien Shiba and Isshin Shiba.

As she thought about her blood relatives who had done what their hearts desired, or the unceasing chain of Shiba blood going into the future, the corner of Kukaku’s mouth rose as though she were enjoying this.

“It seems that that’s our family’s fate.”

≡

Kyogoku

“Looks like we’ve been sealed in. Well, I suppose this is going as expected so far.”

Kyoraku and the others had made their way to a sandy place at the edge of the Kyogoku. The feel of the sand on the bottoms of their feet was dry, but a clammy and pronounced spiritual pressure seemed to cling to them and caress them.

The moment they were thrown into that place, the rift that had been opened in space until then had been forced closed by some other force. However, brushing off the dust easily, Kyoraku once again turned his eyes to his surroundings.

Hirako, who had also likewise been looking around, seemed peeved from the bottom of his heart. “So? Did you predict this situation too, Captain General?”

“More or less.”

All around them was a horde of similarly shaped, Hollow-like monsters. He realized they were the same things that Ikomikidomoe had generated from his gigantic body in their fight earlier.

It was a horde that had grown not only to the hundreds or thousands, but somewhere in the tens of thousands. They were divided into troops based on whether they could fly or were creatures of the ground and, in their great numbers, turned into a white tsunami as they tried to surround the group as though they were creating a gigantic cage in the wilderness.

“What is this? The main body isn’t around.” Seeing that Hikone and Ikomikidomoe weren’t at the scene, Hirako became increasingly exasperated as he muttered to himself, “So you just made monsters and left them behind—absurd.”

“That’s not all. Each one of these guys has completely different spiritual pressure from the ones before.”

Just as Liltotto had said, if the horde from earlier were normal Hollows, these were individually surrounded by the spiritual pressure of huge Hollows and occasionally Gillians and Adjuchas.

“In the battle at the Soul Society, that main body was ‘eating’ our attacks. It might be the type of thing that can take in surrounding reishi to raise its own spiritual pressure.”

At Halibel’s words, Nelliel sighed slightly.

“In that case, this means some trouble. This place isn’t like the Soul Society—the reishi is even denser than in Hueco Mundo.”

“Well, it’s abundantly clear where that high and mighty Tsunayashiro is, at least.”

Hirako jerked his chin to point at a gigantic structure floating in the sky that seemed much like a royal castle.

“Really now. That’s basically a plagiarism of the Reiokyu. Oh well.”

“Regardless, it looks like the answer has come to us easily. We know what he’s planning on sending over using the Tenkai Ketchu.” Kyoraku spoke in a gentle tone but beneath it was extreme caution.

In order to send over something with the mass of what was floating in the sky, he would have needed gigantic Tenkai Ketchu set up in the four corners of Karakura Town. However, Kyoraku guessed that Tokinada had likely already finished those preparations.

“It would have been better if he were sending that thing to the Rukongai or Hueco Mundo. If it’s Karakura Town, as I suspect, then we should probably go pretty quickly.”

While putting on his hat, Kyoraku unsheathed his zanpaku-to.

Ginjo, who had been standing behind him, attempted to test him. “We came with you, but we’re going to do what we want.”

“Yes. I won’t go so far as to ask for your cooperation. If our goals are the same, it would be better to act separately than to make a clumsy battle formation.”

Recalling their attack when the Vandenreich had remade the Reiokyu, Kyoraku nodded at Ginjo.

“It’s not like I’ve grown to trust you. Once this is over, I’ve got a mountain of questions for you.”

“I think that the answers you want are probably better known by Tokinada than me.”

As he clucked his tongue at Kyoraku, who spoke as though he were hinting at something, Ginjo told Tsukishima and Giriko, “We’re going,” and kicked off the ground.

It looked as though they were heading right into the middle of the enemies, but after Giriko fiddled with something like a dial that had appeared over his clothes, spheres put together with crystals and black boxes floated around him and quivered.

“Hm… If we are hiding ourselves among this number, the three of us have exactly twenty seconds. Don’t forget that if we attack while hidden, it will be a contract violation for me.”

“Yeah, that’s more than enough time to make a break for it.”

As he replied the spheres momentarily glittered, and then, like they were melting into the air, spiritual pressure and all, they disappeared.

“Pretty handy. Can that eye-patch guy do anything he wants?”

When Hirako said that, Kyoraku smiled cynically.

“If we’re being referred to by our eye patches, then Captain Zaraki and I are in for some complications. That man’s name is Kutsuzawa, so make sure you call him by that.”

Hirako narrowed his eyes at the Captain General, who seemed to know all the names of the Fullbringers with Ginjo, shrugged, and shook his head.

“Kyoraku, you are your hat, and Kenpachi, beyond reason, is Kenpachi. It’s not confusing.”

“Doesn’t that make it seem like I am a hat?”

Though at first glance, it would have seemed like they were having an easygoing conversation, their spiritual pressure was already tuned up so that they could respond to the situation around them.

The other Soul Reapers, Arrancars, and Quincies were doing the same, and Kenpachi let his zanpaku-to hang as he tried to look for the strongest spiritual pressure around them.

“What? They’re all small fry. Where’s their boss?”

“They’re probably in that thing that looks like a castle floating in the sky over there.”

At Madarame’s words, Kenpachi looked up at the multistory structure high in the air.

“I see. Then I’m heading there. You guys can clean up the small fry however you want.”

At Kenpachi’s words Hirako narrowed his eyes as though he were exasperated.

“Honestly, Kenpachi is just getting more and more narcissistic. I do agree that beating the boss would be the fastest way to go about things though.”

Kenpachi started to run in the direction of the castle in the sky. The white monsters reacted and tried to swarm him, but—

“You’re in the way.”

With a roar, his wicked blade glinted. With a light swing of his sword, Kenpachi gouged a crescent into the ground and sent it flying. Several hundred of the enemies were annihilated in the aftermath.

Faced with such power that defied logic, the Arrancars and Quincies who were supposed to be on the same side as him gulped. At that point, the white, grotesquely shaped horde seemed to switch from perceiving Kenpachi as a foreign substance that had wandered into the Kyoguku to a clear enemy, and they raised strange voices as they closed in to attack him.

In the next moment, the grotesque things thrust their arms and legs in the ground and gave birth to other monsters the same size as them from their backs.

“Self-propagation?!”

Nanao’s voice was surprised, and Halibel narrowed her eyes as she muttered, “So this is the same type of power as Rudobon’s.”

In Rudobon’s case, he created his underlings by turning himself into an Arbol, but the things in front of her eyes could each become the parent body and give birth to their own offshoot.

“They are pulling in the reishi from the Kyogoku and creating their own offshoots, I guess. They likely cannot multiply forever, but at this rate, this seems like it will become a war of attrition.”

Kyoraku sighed as though this meant trouble. In mere seconds, even more of the grotesque things than had been annihilated by Kenpachi had been birthed, and they were closing in on Kenpachi like an avalanche. However, Kenpachi didn’t pay them any mind at all and simply waved around his zanpaku-to haphazardly and boldly started to run.

When it came to Kenpachi’s shunpo, his physical gravity was more significant than his skill. Regardless of that, his haphazard movements made him faster than a normal Soul Reaper’s shunpo, and he only eased up in the moments that he waved his sword and kept cutting away the waves of white monsters that came at him.

Following after him instinctively, Madarame and Yumichika had also started running. As the strongest firepower even within their mixed team, Kenpachi Zaraki broke through to that place using brute force.

“This won’t do. There’s no cooperation in this organization.”

Hirako was exasperated as he realized the things surrounding them were creating a white wall as they steadily encroached in a circle.

“Well, in a situation like this, that will work.” Without minding the obvious opposition, Hirako grinned. “Kyoraku, you should break through with Kenpachi. If we really engage with these guys, it’ll take all day.”

“But these guys are pretty fast. Even if we get through, if we fight them over there, I think they’ll just chase after us and corner us.”

In reply to Nelliel’s concern, Hirako waved his hand lightly at her and replied, “Then I’d be a great anchor. That would be better than being at a stalemate here, wouldn’t it?”

“What? Are you saying you’re going to hold these guys back all by yourself?”

When Candice looked at him dubiously, Hirako sighed and said, “This isn’t the time to hem and haw. Kenpachi is going to be gone soon.”

“Then I suppose we will rely on your word…”

After Kyoraku met Hirako’s eyes, he turned around and kicked at the ground to follow Kenpachi. Though those around him were dubious of Kyoraku’s nonchalance, no one in particular opposed him.

Even the belligerent Grimmjow and others had no interest in simply mechanically hunting the masses. Glancing at the monster horde like it was a nuisance, they followed after Kyoraku without a word.

Kenpachi had already broken through the white wall that the interwoven white monsters had created. The others were leaping out of the enclosure to slip past the wall at the same moment the monsters were closing the wall back up.

Naturally, there was no way the monster horde would let them get past unnoticed. The white wall turned into an avalanche that followed after them, and they churned along the Kyogoku’s ground while multiplying constantly.

They were like a mist of murder closing in on them from behind. Other than someone as strong as Kenpachi, most wouldn’t have been able to make it out unscathed.

“So it’s finally come. What’ll we do? Should we stop them?” Liltotto made a proposal as she eyed the overwhelming mass closing in from behind. “This is your time to shine, Peeping Tom. Make them stop in their tracks.”

“Don’t screw with me! A hundred or two is one thing, but doing this many in one go is obviously impossible! I don’t even have time to observe them!”

“Tsk. Useless.”

Liltotto clucked her tongue at Najahkoop’s angry bellow, then she started to calculate whether she and Bambietta could take any action, but Hirako eased his speed between the wall approaching the girls and said, “I’m pretty sure I told you I’d be the anchor. Hurry up and go ahead.”

“You seriously doing this on your own?”

“Last time I didn’t join either side and didn’t do anything, right? I need to show my cool side now or Hiyori will punch me down for being the one who's always caught by surprise.”

“Who’s this Hiyori person?”

Ignoring Liltotto’s quip, Nanao was surprised as she yelled at Hirako, “Captain Hirako! That’s reckless! Even a captain like you can’t stand alone against such numbers!”

Kyoraku stopped her with his hand.

“Captain General?”

Nanao looked at him dubiously, and after he smiled to show her it was okay, Kyoraku asked Hirako, “Are you intending to do that?”

“Yeah. It’s not like it won’t work in this situation.”

“Got it. Once you’ve finished cleaning up here, make sure to follow after us right away.”

With a humble expression, Kyoraku lowered his hat.

“Sorry I’ve dragged you into something so bothersome and entangled with aristocrats.”

“I really don’t mind. Well, especially now. I don’t care for aristocrats who do things like this.”

Grinning, Hirako stopped and stood by himself. Then, he looked up at the vast horde of monsters as they closed in on him and said his zanpaku-to’s name.

“Collapse, Sakanade.”

≡

“What, did they force their way through or something?”

Ginjo, who was no longer under the presence-blocking Time Tells No Lies power, muttered as he watched the tsunami of monsters that followed in the wake of Kenpachi’s sword pressure.

“It is a savage spiritual pressure. It’s exactly the right thing to be the decoy for a horde of beasts.”

“Have you got something against that scary-faced Soul Reaper?”

“It’s in your head. I am always placid when the flow of time is before me.”

When Giriko turned his eyes away and went silent, Ginjo didn’t press any further and rubbed his chin as he muttered, “Now what mess have we got here?”

“Oh? Haven’t got a plan this time?”

At Tsukishima’s words, Ginjo shook his head slightly.

“We didn’t just separate from them without any thought. I haven’t decided who to side with yet. For now, I want to collect info on this Tsunayashiro guy.”

“Hm. But do you really think there will be any information you’ll recognize in a place like this?”

In a wilderness that went on as far as they could see, it didn’t seem as though there would be any kind of clue. However, Ginjo nodded at Giriko’s question and called out to his surroundings, “I know you can hear me, Yukio!”

Then static ran through a place where there should have been nothing, and a boy appeared from the rift in space-time.

“It’s been a year, hasn’t it? I’m impressed you noticed.”

With the boy—Yukio Hans Vorarlberna—in front of him, Ginjo said sourly, “Since I’ve split a part of my powers with you, if there’s even a slight amount of your spiritual pressure around, I can tell.”

“Uh-huh. I wonder if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“Depends on your response.”

Ginjo immediately made his pendant turn into a sword and pointed it at Yukio as he asked, “What’s going on here? That religious organization Xcution that’s been throwing its weight around in the world of the living…you got anything to do with it?”

“Right. I didn’t have anything to do with it earlier. But now I’m in league with them.”

“Do you mean individually? Or do you mean our Xcution is?”

“I guess that depends on your reply, Kugo,” Yukio responded expressionlessly.

“What does that mean?”

“It depends on what you wish, Mr. Kugo Ginjo,” a strangely charming voice resonated from behind him.

In response to the voice that came from a place where Ginjo felt no spiritual pressure at all, he instinctively swung his blade. The sword cut the air. The form of a young person seemed to be there, but Ginjo’s blade slipped through her like it was cutting through smoke.

“Who the hell are you?”

Ginjo was cautious as he probed into his opponent’s powers. Through his years of experience, he perceived her identity at a glance. The person who stood in front of his eyes was neither Soul Reaper nor Quincy, much less a normal human.

He realized the person who stood on the same ground as them was, in short, a Fullbringer.

“My name is Aura Michibane. It is such an honor to meet you. Should I call you the religious founder of the real Xcution?”

Then, looking at his opponent, Ginjo answered, “I was never a religious leader. Xcution isn’t a creed. It’s a gathering of idiots that’s turning the world upside down.”

≡

The giant avalanche of monsters was closing in on Hirako. They encroached on him with a force that seemed it could destroy the world. Just as the colossal mass attempted to swallow Hirako, in a moment it seemed as though they had hit a boundary, and their movements slowed.

The order in the colony that was once perfectly coordinated had vanished, and the horde hit an invisible wall. That moment came when Hirako had said his zanpaku-to’s name and activated his shikai.

The sword had transformed into a strange form, the metal at the top turning into a circle. Putting his fingers on that, Hirako let his zanpaku-to’s blade swing like a pendulum.

“Hypnotism doesn't work all that well on opponents like bugs. I’m just glad that the illusion is working.”

With the tens of thousands of monsters in front of him chaotically scattering in all directions, Hirako smiled wryly, like a swindler who has just hoodwinked a mark.

“I’ve changed the directions to up, down, left, right, and front, back all over the place. Even though you were facing front, now you’re facing back—frightening, isn’t it? All the better when you’re all jam-packed together.”

Hirako Shinji’s zanpaku-to Sakanade’s ability was to reverse the senses of his opponents. Like Aizen’s Kyoka Suigetsu, it was a hypnotism and illusion ability, and its power could be said to be unparalleled against anyone who depended on their vision—with a few troubling exceptions, that is.

“Hm?”

Hirako cocked his head to the side from where he had, at some point, ended up floating in the air upside down. The monsters started to move in a different way.

Their body parts started to creak and squeal, and they were calling to each other like insects. Then a distinct change in their movements became apparent.

The horde that had suddenly scattered into chaos steadily contained that mayhem and once again consolidated their movement.

“So they’re not using their eyes…”

They started to close their eyes with something that looked like eyelids and closed off their vision to render Sakanade’s ability useless. Then, through their release of noise, they were able to confirm each other’s location. They seemed to be communicating perfectly as though they were having a conversation and together started to adjust their movements. They sensed where Hirako was generally, using their spiritual pressure senses, and by releasing sounds in that direction, they could grasp the terrain by way of echolocation. Feeling that they were coordinating their movements, all of their mouths twisted open at once.

“Whoa, whoa. This is not really a great situation…”

As he broke into a cold sweat, the monsters all attacked Hirako at once.

“…Just kidding.”

They slipped right past his side and crashed into bare rock behind him.

“Hhhhhh!”

They made strange sounds resembling shrieks as one after another they ran into the terrain around them or each other and their bodies were destroyed.

“Didn’t I tell you?”

Seeing the situation around him, which was in even more confusion than earlier, Hirako smiled.

“I can also invert the sounds you hear.”

Hirako calmly started walking through the gaps between the monster horde.

“I’d like to train a little more so that I can invert hot and cold too. But of course, that seems like it’ll be a difficult thing to learn.”

He did not follow after Kyoraku and the others, but instead headed for the center of the swarm of tens of thousands of monsters.

“Well, it’d be easy cutting you down one at a time. But doing it with so many of you seems like it’d be tiring. I should’ve just taken a nap at home.”

Even as he complained, Hirako seemed to be enjoying himself as he continued to walk his path. While he did that, the monsters tried to attack him one after another, but he changed their trajectory, making them dodge him, and they crashed into the ground, bare rock, or each other, and their body parts scattered around them.

The monsters were not so unintelligent. They could even understand the words Hirako was saying. They were intelligent enough to think that the Soul Reaper, who had revealed his ability, was obviously looking down on them and insulting them—and they had just enough intelligence to get angry about that. However, Hirako hadn’t just told them his ability for no reason. His words themselves were another weapon to confuse his opponents. Though anyone would attempt to adapt once they found out their opponent’s ability was an illusion, no one had ever been able to do that in the past except Aizen. That was because the moment Hirako sensed his opponents were getting used to a line of attack, he would immediately switch the illusion on or off, or occasionally he would leave their sense of up and down alone, but only change their sense of right and left. He would fine-tune the attack repeatedly.

They would accept Hirako’s words without question, and the more they tried to analyze his actions, the more the opponent would get stuck in his technique and move forward on the path of self-destruction. However, it seemed that the monsters had changed their way of thinking, and a vast number of them stopped moving at the same time.

“Huh?”

Hirako, who was suspicious, watched as they stuck their arms and legs into the ground and, just as when they had been killed by Kenpachi, started to create their own offshoots.

“I see… So that’s how you do things.”

The smile disappeared from Hirako’s face, and he remarked with a humble expression, “Are you trying to increase the number of you that aren’t under my Sakanade’s powers?”

Of course, he couldn’t impede the creation of new offshoots with Sakanade’s ability. Hirako sighed slightly and muttered as sweat dripped down his face, “Are you really trying to start a battle to see whether Sakanade’s ability or your self-propagation is faster? Are you idiots? That’s crazy.”

He continued watching them with a despairing expression on his face. As though they had confirmed they had broken the spirit of their opponent, they seemed to laugh as their bodies shook and creaked, and they continued to multiply with Hirako at their center.

≡

“Hey, those guys have started to multiply real fast,” muttered Liltotto when she noticed what was happening far behind her.

When they turned around, the swarm of monsters with the volume of a white tsunami really was furiously surging. In a matter of seconds, it looked as though a mountain of them had been newly created.

“Even Sakanade can’t deal with that many!”

Nanao, who was thinking they really ought to send some reinforcements, felt Kyoraku lightly grab her shoulder.

“It’s fine, Nanao.”

“But Captain General…”

As though trying to calm Nanao, who was uneasy, he told her with a gentle tone that was filled with trust in Shinji Hirako, “This situation is still likely going just as Captain Hirako has planned.”

≡

Though Hirako had stopped moving for a while as though he were frozen, his keen spiritual pressure senses confirmed that Kyoraku and the others had gone past a specific distance. The moment that happened, Hirako’s sweat dried and his face broke out into the smile of a swindler.

“Well, that was really a lifesaver.”

He stopped his act and was delighted that the swarm that had a certain amount of intelligence had reacted as he had expected.

“You’re as simple as I thought you were.”

≡

“Huh?”

Several of the people running around Kyoraku doubted his words.

Only one person knew the mystery of Hirako’s Sakanade power. Kensei Muguruma was the exception. Kyoraku intentionally kept quiet about the particulars of the situation with those around him, who could potentially be enemies in the future, and simply stated it in such a way that only Nanao would understand. “You know my bankai, don’t you?”

“Oh!”

Nanao, who had a good intuition, understood everything just from that. That was because she remembered something she had heard from Kyoraku before.

“My bankai isn’t that easily usable. I suppose you could say it has a corresponding recoil for how strong the ability is. It has a flaw: It doesn’t distinguish between friend or foe within the range the ability reaches.

“You’ll find them occasionally—users of bankai that involve anyone surrounding them regardless of whether they’re an ally or enemy. As for those you’re aware of, Captain Kurotsuchi’s Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo is one of them. It’s a brutal bankai that scatters poison in its scope. Well, someone like Captain Kurotsuchi could probably modify it to distinguish between friends and enemies. There’s also one more… Since he’s dead I think I can talk about it. The seventh Kenpachi who used to be my friend had a bankai like that too.

“It was called Gagaku Kairo, and it was an uncommon power that could chomp up anyone—friend or foe—within a radius of several spirit miles. Because of that, Central 46 forbade him from using it within the Soul Society.”

“Then the reason you left Captain Hirako by himself was because…?”

“Yes, I believe in his abilities too, but…”

Kyoraku smiled wryly as he quickened his pace heading toward the castle in the sky.

“We wouldn’t even be dead weight to him…we would end up swallowed by Sakanade and actually dead. That’s all it is.”

≡

A hopeless scene engulfed Hirako’s surroundings. In the living world, high-rise buildings are called skyscrapers, and in exactly that way, a gigantic, white multistory building that seemed to scrape the heavens formed around him.

That wall created by a swarm of several tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands was over a hundred meters tall. Hirako himself hadn’t gone to Hueco Mundo, but based on what he had heard, he could imagine that this scene would be like the entire desert itself that made up that world coming to attack him.

“Yeah, I wonder what you’re supposed to say at a time like this. I’m pretty sure some guy who was stupidly gigantic said something appropriate.”

While recalling a Quincy he had battled in the past, Hirako said, “Right, right—‘If I reverse this situation, it’d practically be a miracle.’—was that it? I might be getting the details wrong, but that’s all right.”

The monsters determined that Hirako was dangerous. In a certain sense, he was even more trouble than the Soul Reaper with an eye patch who had slayed a number of them at the beginning. The colony murmured its shared thought that this was an enemy they could not allow to survive.

The only allies they had were themselves and the parent that had given them life, Ikomikidomoe. They did not consider Hikone Ubuginu, the wielder of Ikomikidomoe, to be an ally, and because of that, their solidarity as the same type of being was much stronger than any half-friend Hollows and Soul Reapers.

The ones that had just been born knew that instinctively. That was exactly why they determined that though there was only a single person in front of their eyes, it was a villainous existence that confused them and must be crushed with all their power.

In response to those who had been born with that unifying strength, the Soul Reaper who had stepped into their world with a zanpaku-to of lies spoke, and they could not determine whether it was the truth or another lie: “In that case…it’s almost time for a miracle. I’m going to turn things around.”

Then, with the next words the man had uttered, the world once again turned upside down.

“Bankai—Sakashima Yokoshima Happo Fusagari.”