"Guh!"
Toshiro, kicked away, sprayed blood in mid-air and then slammed hard onto the ground outside the barrier.
"Damn it! Did the plan fail...?" Toshiro lay on the ground, his expression unwilling.
On the other side, after seeing Toshiro kicked away by himself, Aizen was about to approach and finish him off, but as soon as he took a step, he suddenly stopped.
"Kuh!"
Aizen suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.
Moreover, the Hogyoku embedded in the wound on his chest also lost its continuously shining light, becoming dull and lusterless, like an ordinary stone.
At the same time, Aizen's Reiatsu, which had rapidly increased due to the forced fusion with the Hogyoku, also deflated like a punctured balloon.
Furthermore, his injuries, having lost the suppression of the Hogyoku, began to recur. It seemed he no longer had the ability to fight another major battle.
"Damn it, have I reached my limit? If only I could hold on a little longer!" Aizen said angrily.
"Now, if I want to seize the Hogyoku, I can only..."
A strange light suddenly flashed in Aizen's eyes.
Seeing Aizen's condition, Toshiro couldn't help but breathe a huge sigh of relief.
Although it was a battle lasting less than three minutes, the fighting was so intense that Toshiro was also quite seriously injured and couldn't bring out much of his strength.
If Aizen were completely unharmed and continued fighting, Toshiro would definitely be utterly defeated.
"Ugh..."
Toshiro supported himself with his sword, struggling to stand up again.
Just then, a series of footsteps suddenly sounded.
Toshiro turned his head and saw Ichigo walking towards him.
Since the barrier of the Space Stabilizing Pillars had shattered, Toshiro had directly flown out of it and happened to land not far from Ichigo.
'What a tenacious cockroach. Should I say, as expected of the protagonist? Beaten badly by Aizen and knocked down, yet able to stand up and walk again in no time...' Toshiro couldn't help but complain inwardly.
Then Ichigo walked up to Toshiro, extended his right hand to him, as if wanting to help him up.
Seeing Ichigo's seemingly kind intention, Toshiro gratefully nodded, and then actively reached out his hand.
"Thank..."
Before Toshiro could finish his thank you, Ichigo suddenly reached his hand into Toshiro's bosom.
Toshiro was astonished, shocked, and puzzled: "Ichigo, what are you doing..."
"The Hogyoku!!"
Toshiro suddenly saw Ichigo directly pull the Hogyoku out from his bosom.
Toshiro immediately panicked and reached out to grab the Hogyoku back.
Whoosh!
Ichigo's figure flashed and directly disappeared, and Toshiro grasped at air.
Then, Ichigo's figure appeared in front of Aizen, directly handing the Hogyoku to him.
"Hey... what... is going on?" Toshiro looked at this scene dumbfounded.
Ichigo, on the other hand, looked at Aizen with a foolish grin and said: "Yo, Toshiro, how was that? I helped you get the Hogyoku back. Pretty impressive, right?"
Aizen nodded, looking very satisfied, and said: "Mm, very impressive. You did very well, Ichigo..."
"But... now you're useless, so get lost!"
Bang!
Aizen kicked up, directly striking Ichigo.
And Ichigo was kicked by Aizen back to beside Toshiro.
"Hey! Ichigo! What is going on!!"
Toshiro angrily grabbed Ichigo and shook him vigorously.
"Shatter, Kyoka Suigetsu!" Aizen's voice suddenly rang out.
Hearing Aizen's voice, Ichigo only felt as if a mirror had shattered, and the scene before his eyes directly underwent an earth-shattering transformation.
"Huh? This is... what's going on? You are... Toshiro? But isn't Toshiro over there?" Ichigo looked at Toshiro in shock, then turned his head to look in Aizen's direction.
Seeing Ichigo's shocked expression, not knowing what was happening, looking back and forth between him and Aizen, his gaze shifting between the two, with an incredulous look, Toshiro couldn't help but have an absurd thought arise in his heart.
Toshiro looked at Ichigo with an ugly expression and said: "Ichigo, don't tell me... don't tell me you also..."
"That's right!" Aizen suddenly spoke up.
"Just as you think, Toshiro-kun, Ichigo was also hypnotized by me..."
"So just now, I used Kyoka Suigetsu to manipulate his five senses, making him see you as me, and me as you. The identities of the two of us were swapped in Ichigo's eyes. In Ichigo's view, I was you, and you were me."
"So, what happened just now, in Ichigo's eyes, was that 'Aizen Sosuke' took the Hogyoku from 'Hitsugaya Toshiro', and then he snatched it back and very kindly returned it to 'Hitsugaya Toshiro'. It's that simple." Aizen explained smugly to Toshiro.
'Ichigo was hypnotized...'
'Hypnotized...'
'Hypnotized...'
'Hypnotized...'
Aizen's words kept replaying in Toshiro's mind, directly plunging him into a state of utter shock.
'Ichigo was hypnotized?!'
'How is this possible!'
'Director, this script is wrong!'
'Isn't Ichigo the protagonist? How could he be hypnotized?'
'If Ichigo is hypnotized, who will fight Aizen!'
Although Toshiro had been working hard to train, wanting to rely on his own strength to protect the people he cared about and defeat Aizen and Yhwach, he also valued Ichigo very much.
After all, just in case Toshiro ultimately failed to defeat Aizen, he could still let Ichigo, the protagonist, step in. No matter what, with Ichigo, the protagonist, around, everything would be foolproof in the end.
But now...
After being stunned for a long time, Toshiro finally came to his senses.
"Aizen, you bastard... actually hypnotized Ichigo..."
Even now, Toshiro still found Aizen's actions incredible.
After all, in the original work, Ichigo was not hypnotized by Aizen. The development of events had clearly deviated from the track of the original work. How the future would develop, even Toshiro dared not be sure!
"Oh? Toshiro-kun seems very surprised that I would hypnotize Ichigo. Could it be that you already knew that I valued Ichigo very much?" Aizen said with some surprise.
"It seems that what you know is even more than I imagined. That's right, I did indeed value Ichigo very much before. In fact, I was paying attention to him from the very beginning, and even wanted to nurture him into my opponent. After all, if I could achieve my goals so simply, the road to success would be too boring without even an enemy to pass the time."
"But... the prerequisite for all this was... that I had to obtain the Hogyoku. Compared to the Hogyoku, what is a mere Ichigo?"
"Moreover... you also underestimate yourself too much, Toshiro-kun."
"With you around, someone like Ichigo is no longer important. Whether in terms of intelligence or strength, Toshiro-kun, you are above ordinary people, an existence at the peak. And even the hypnotic ability of Kyoka Suigetsu is completely ineffective against you."
"So, in my heart, you have surpassed everyone else and become the existence that poses the greatest threat to me. Having an opponent like you is already very interesting for me."