"So the only opponent left is that weird guy covered in flames?"
Kenpachi Zaraki, already in his shikai state, rested a colossal blade on his shoulder, a weapon so massive it looked heavy enough to crush a car beneath it. His eyes lifted toward Ulquiorra, who remained locked in confrontation with Ichigo Kurosaki, and the savage grin on his face made it clear that, to him, there was still one very simple way to solve the situation.
"Want me to go cut him down for you?!"
"No, Kenpachi."
Ichigo did not hesitate. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword, and his gaze returned to Ulquiorra.
"Now that you're here, I need you to head to the Soul King's Palace immediately."
His voice sank, heavy enough to make the surrounding air feel denser.
"Sosuke Aizen has already…"
Even Kenpachi, who had never been known for thinking too deeply before acting, instantly understood the severity of the situation. His eyes narrowed slightly.
Aizen had already gone?
That was one hell of a problem.
"Damn it… now that you mention it, that Soul King's Palace is way up above the Seireitei, right?" Kenpachi raised his head and stared into the endless sky, as if he could carve a path to it through sheer will. "How the hell are we supposed to get up there?"
"Please leave that part to me."
Kisuke Urahara appeared as though he had stepped out of nowhere. The man who, under normal circumstances, would hide all tension behind a joke or an infuriatingly casual smile could not even pretend to be lighthearted now.
"The Royal Guard's strength cannot be underestimated… but if their opponent is Sosuke Aizen…"
"Understood." Retsu Unohana made her decision without wasting a second. "Then we will gather every remaining captain-class fighter and go together."
"That guy is yours." Kenpachi threw one last roar toward Ichigo, who hovered high above. "Don't you dare lose, Ichigo!"
After that, he left with Urahara without looking back.
"Miss Inoue?"
Unohana frowned slightly when she noticed Orihime Inoue had not followed them.
"I…" Orihime held both hands against her chest and lifted her eyes toward the two figures in the sky. "I want to witness this battle until the very end. With my own eyes."
For a moment, Unohana wanted to persuade her to leave. It was too dangerous, too unstable, too cruel for someone to remain so close. But when she saw the quiet determination in Orihime's eyes, she understood that no amount of persuasion would change her mind.
In the end, she left only a low, almost maternal warning.
"Be very careful."
Then she departed as well.
"You're kinder than I expected." Once the others had finally gone, Ichigo seemed to breathe a little easier. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he looked at Ulquiorra. "I thought you'd attack the second you heard everyone was going to stop Aizen."
"Kind?" Ulquiorra's voice was cold and empty. "What a meaningless word. Is the arrival of a few reinforcements enough to make you so pleased?"
The four wings of his demonic body beat once, and black-blue flames coiled around him again like an omen of death.
"The order Lord Aizen gave me was to kill you. For me, that remains the only priority."
He tilted his head slightly, his green eyes showing no fluctuation.
"Besides, do you truly believe reinforcements of that level can halt Lord Aizen's advance?"
"Let's fight somewhere else." Ichigo shot toward a distant area of the Seireitei, one where no spiritual pressure remained. "I won't let Orihime get caught in this."
Ulquiorra did not answer. Even so, he followed immediately.
Seeing that, the audience could not help letting their thoughts drift in a more suspicious direction. Had Ulquiorra obeyed simply because, among the Espada, his temper could be considered relatively restrained? Or was there, after all, something different in the way he treated Orihime Inoue?
When they reached the other side of the Seireitei, hovering above a completely deserted region, Ichigo finally stopped.
"Here, I can use this power without holding back."
The short blade in his left hand began turning white at a terrifying speed.
Ulquiorra's expression changed for the first time.
The sword… had turned white?
In the next instant, an extremely familiar spiritual pressure spread through the air once more. It was the same bottomless energy, vast as an abyss, but now there was an essential difference. Before, it had been wild, violent, impossible to control. Now, it flowed from Ichigo's blade as something mastered, contained within clear boundaries, as though that absurd power had finally found its owner.
The spiritual pressure poured over Ichigo and wrapped around his face. When it dispersed a few seconds later, a horn had emerged from the left side of his head, growing from his temple. It was the same form that had appeared only once before, yet had remained unforgettable to the audience.
The left side of his face was also covered in black markings, and that eye, once human, had transformed into the dark, unsettling pupil unique to his Hollow form.
"Kurosaki…?"
Orihime, who had run there despite the danger, froze when she saw him like that. The memory of Hueco Mundo returned like a cold blade in her chest, bringing with it the image of that brutal, almost bestial power Ichigo had unleashed back then.
"Don't be afraid, Orihime. I'm still me."
Ichigo smiled at her, but immediately failed to hold back a reprimand overflowing with concern.
"And I told you to stay away! If you keep running after me like this, what was the point of moving the battlefield just to keep this guy away from you?"
Hearing that scolding, so full of care, Orihime smiled from the heart, with a tenderness she could not hide.
At that moment, she was completely certain.
Kurosaki had not lost his mind.
"Are you finished talking?"
Ulquiorra's voice sounded coldly, cutting through the moment like a blade.
Immediately afterward, enormous spheres of black-blue energy condensed before the four wings of his fallen-angel form. In the next instant, they fired like devastating beams, tearing through the sky.
Cero Oscuras.
Stronger than it had been in his second release.
And this time, four shots at once.
Ichigo, in his semi-complete Hollow form, raised his head. At the tip of his left horn, a crimson sphere of energy formed in silence. Then, in the same instant, it erupted outward and collided head-on with Ulquiorra's attacks.
Gran Rey Cero.
The explosion came like the collapse of a world.
Waves of black and red energy expanded in violent rings, sweeping through the air and ripping the wreckage of the Seireitei from the ground. Broken walls, stones, pillars, and ruins were dragged skyward before being crushed into powder.
The scene was pure intensity, the kind of battle spectacle that set the blood on fire, loaded with visual impact and absolute power. Even so, the audience's discussions drifted in a slightly crooked direction.
"I knew it! Ulquiorra is jealous, isn't he?"
"Ulquiorra: We're fighting here. What the hell are you two doing spreading romance in the middle of battle?"
"Critical damage against single Hollows."
"I'll say it again: Orihime Inoue will never end up with anyone other than the protagonist. Ulquiorra should find someone from his own circle and move on."
"You've gone too far with this shipping obsession, haven't you? Anyone can see Harribel seems much more inclined to admire Aizen."
"Girls, don't let the Ichigo and Orihime fans get too arrogant. Ichigo and Rukia are still the supreme pair."
"This is an action story! Anyone here to argue romance, get out!"
While the comments boiled outside the story, inside the Twelfth Division's Research and Development Institute, the impact of that collision shook everything.
Rukia, Renji Abarai, and the others, hastily gathered by Urahara, nearly lost their balance from the sudden earthquake.
"Damn it… what kind of monster is Ichigo fighting?" Rukia complained, struggling to steady herself.
"Let us leave the Fourth Espada to Mr. Kurosaki."
Urahara stood before a complex mechanism. His gaze passed over Rukia, Renji, Kenpachi, Unohana, and everyone else present. Then his voice dropped several tones.
"So… these are all the fighters we can still send to stop Aizen?"
To be honest, even with all of them together, Urahara was not certain they would be a match for Sosuke Aizen.
"Mr. Urahara." Rukia saw through his thoughts almost immediately, and her expression tightened. "You're not already assuming we'll lose before the fight has even started, are you?"
She stepped forward, her voice firm, without the slightest tremor.
"If you want to give up, then give up alone. But before that, send us to the Soul King's Palace and run away afterward. We… are not giving up."
The moment the heroine spoke those words, everyone around her revealed the same smile, as if that determination had spread through the room without needing explanation.
That direct, clean, fearless declaration made even Urahara lower his head slightly, overcome by a rare respect.
"How shameful of me." His voice came out lower. "Then, everyone, please leave the rest to me."
The scene returned to Ichigo Kurosaki and Ulquiorra.
To portray this battle, Alex had poured an absurd amount of creative energy into it. On one side stood the only Espada capable of reaching a third stage of release, the strongest Arrancar among them all. On the other stood the chosen one who carried four bloodlines within his own body and had likewise pushed his power to its absolute limit.
The clash between them was not merely a fight.
It was the collision of forces that, within that world, stood beneath only the gods.
Wherever they passed, the sky tore open, the earth split apart, mountains collapsed, and rivers seemed to defy their own direction.
In the end, Ichigo still gained the upper hand. By combining the new Getsuga Tensho with Gran Rey Cero, he gravely wounded Ulquiorra.
But unlike the original version of that tragedy, Ichigo was not in a state of uncontrolled rampage. Because of that, he could not deliver the final blow.
At that moment, the true Zangetsu in his hand hovered less than half a centimeter from the center of Ulquiorra's head.
Just moments earlier, Ichigo had used the new Getsuga Tensho combined with Gran Rey Cero to completely break Ulquiorra's third release. He could have split his skull in two. He could have ended everything right there.
But he stopped.
"Why don't you cut?" Ulquiorra asked, his eyes half-lidded.
"I don't have…" Ichigo pressed his lips together, and his hand refused to move forward. "I don't have a reason to kill you."
Until that moment, aside from low-level Hollows with no reason or identity, Ichigo had never truly killed a conscious life. Not a Shinigami. Not a Hollow.
"How uninteresting…" Ulquiorra murmured. "Even at the end, you remain someone who satisfies no expectations."
In the next second, he pressed his hand against the back of Zangetsu's blade and drove it violently into the center of the hole in his chest. There, the sphere of energy that resembled the Hogyoku in a disturbing way was pierced by the tip of the sword and shattered into fragments of light.
"You… why?!"
Ichigo and Orihime's expressions changed at the same time, both struck by absolute incomprehension.
"My third release…" Ulquiorra's voice became uneven, broken. "Was a power granted to me by Lord Aizen… through the power of the Hogyoku. When I died… that power would naturally return to him."
"You…" Ichigo clenched his teeth. For some reason, seeing this enemy, who had defeated him so many times, standing at the edge of death brought him no joy at all. "Has your loyalty to Aizen really reached that point?"
"This…" Orihime slowly approached, her gentle voice wrapping around the heavy silence that had formed between them. "This is the heart."
Ulquiorra looked at her.
"That loyalty, that admiration you feel for Aizen… that, too, is what we call the heart."
The words struck Ulquiorra like an invisible tremor. His pupils shook, and in his mind echoed the questions he had once asked Orihime in Hueco Mundo.
What is the heart?
If I tear open your chest, will I be able to see it?
If I split open your skull, will I be able to understand it?
He had always said he did not care about the answer. He had always treated the question as something trivial, insignificant, unworthy of attention. Even so, it had remained there, lodged somewhere deep inside him, impossible to remove.
His loyalty to Lord Aizen… was the heart?
Then… what was this feeling he had toward this woman?
Thinking that, even Ulquiorra did not understand his own gesture.
Slowly, he raised his hand toward Orihime. His voice came out weak, almost fading, but still clear enough to reach only her.
"Are you afraid of me… woman?"
Orihime froze for a brief instant. Then she answered with a kindness that seemed to pass through every ruin around them.
"I'm not… not even a little."
Hearing that, something like relief passed through Ulquiorra's eyes, too fleeting to be called a smile, but too deep to be ignored.
"I see…"
As soon as he spoke, the hand he had just raised began to fall, drained of strength.
Seeing that, Orihime moved forward by instinct, wanting to hold that hand before it was too late.
But in the final instant, when their fingers were about to touch, Ulquiorra's hand - and then his entire body - dissolved like fine sand carried away by a silent breeze, disappearing into the wind.
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