The battle continued.
After Kyoka Suigetsu's name was stolen, Ichimonji was swung once more. This time, the blade did not merely erase the name of Aizen's sword. It dyed Aizen's pure white body in black as well.
At that instant, Sosuke Aizen lost his name.
This was not something as simple as forgetting what he was called. It meant that the meaning carried by that name, the very significance of the being known as Sosuke Aizen, had been stripped away along with it.
Ichibe Hyosube had declared that all "black" in the world belonged to him.
And now, Aizen's very existence had fallen under his control.
In front of their screens, the hearts of countless viewers trembled.
Compared to the overwhelming destructive force of Yamamoto's Zanka no Tachi, this power felt even more terrifying. It was no longer just a matter of strength. This was practically a weapon of causality itself.
Even though everyone knew that, as the final great villain, Sosuke Aizen would eventually have to be defeated by Ichigo Kurosaki, none of them could imagine how this ability could possibly be countered.
Having lost his name, Aizen stood there as nothing more than a black shadow, motionless.
Or rather, after losing the meaning of his existence, he had become an empty shell that could not even move.
"True Name…"
Ichibe Hyosube split his mouth into a wide grin and drew a massive circle in midair.
At the same time, he explained that the Zanpakuto in his hand was an evolved Zanpakuto born before the very concept of Bankai had appeared.
It could grant a new name to anything touched by Ichimonji's ink.
And the new name he gave Aizen was -
Black Ant.
"How does it feel, Black Ant who was once Sosuke Aizen? Your power is now no different from that of an insect crawling across the ground. Fragile, tiny, and insignificant."
In the next moment, Ichibe Hyosube's boundless spiritual pressure transformed into a gigantic Buddha-like foot and came crashing down.
"So this is the full extent of your power, Ichibe Hyosube?"
Yet at that very moment, Aizen, who should have been completely buried beneath black ink, suddenly spoke.
The black ink covering his body was blasted away by more than half. A slash of sword energy from Kyoka Suigetsu instantly tore open a bloody wound across Ichibe Hyosube's chest.
"Why did I not die? Why is your power falling away from my body? Why are you about to be defeated?"
That calm, unhurried smile once again appeared on Aizen's face.
"Do you wish to know so badly?"
"…"
Ichibe Hyosube remained silent, then raised his blade once more.
"I do not know what you did, but it seems you have grown rather proud simply because you escaped the name Black Ant, nameless one who was once called Sosuke Aizen."
"With your entire body dyed black, how do you intend to defeat me? Do not forget…"
"All black belongs to me."
As he swung his blade again, surging waves of pitch-black ink swallowed Aizen once more.
No.
It did not swallow only Aizen.
It covered the entire Soul King Palace.
"Eternal night… long night… come to me…"
Along with Ichibe Hyosube's chant, a stack of ritual cups appeared in his hand at some unknown point. He caught the ink dripping down from the air, then drank it into his body.
In the next instant, Ichimonji was driven into the ground before him.
"Become my sacrifice - "
"Futen Taisatsuryo!"
A spiritual pressure that seemed to rise from the abyss itself took form. A black mausoleum, built entirely from dark ink, descended upon the battlefield like a tomb meant to erase existence itself.
"This is a field of mourning gravestones prepared for you by stealing one hundred nights from the Soul Society one hundred years in the future."
"It will absorb the black within you. Whether it is your flesh, your blood, or your soul, everything will collapse into blackness and vanish into nothing."
"Not even reincarnation will be possible."
"Fall… into the infinite black hell."
Ichibe Hyosube was utterly confident.
Unlike Yamamoto's Zanka no Tachi, which pursued pure destructive force, Futen Taisatsuryo was not a physical attack. It dyed the target's very soul black, dragging both body and spirit down into hell together.
Yet just as Ichibe Hyosube prepared to deliver the final blow to Aizen, his expression suddenly changed.
Because he saw it.
Futen Taisatsuryo was standing behind Aizen.
And Aizen, who should have been covered in black, had somehow returned to his original pure white form.
"What!?"
It was not only Ichibe Hyosube. Even Gin Ichimaru and the three Espada watching from far away had their expressions shift at once.
"Kyoka Suigetsu?" Starrk asked curiously.
The audience thought the same thing.
After all, had Aizen not once used Kyoka Suigetsu to switch himself with Momo Hinamori?
"No," Harribel said in a low voice. "It is not that simple."
Crack.
At that moment, a sound like porcelain breaking suddenly rang out.
Looking closely, everyone realized that the surface of Aizen's body was cracking like ceramic. Fine fractures spread at terrifying speed, racing across his entire form.
A faint mockery filled Aizen's face. The corner of his mouth rose into a thin, contemptuous smile.
"I will surpass all things."
"The one who has fallen into namelessness is you… Ichibe Hyosube. No… the existence once known as Ichibe Hyosube."
The moment his voice fell, Ichibe Hyosube's body was completely swallowed by blackness.
He stood frozen in place, motionless.
At that instant, his previous situation and Aizen's had been completely reversed.
Boom - !
Futen Taisatsuryo, which Ichibe Hyosube himself had summoned, now stood on the opposite side and turned back against its own master, devouring him instead.
Just as Ichibe Hyosube had said to Aizen moments before, flesh and soul alike were swallowed by blackness, disintegrated, and dragged into the endless great hell.
The only difference was that, although those words had been spoken to Aizen, the one who personally experienced them in the end was Ichibe Hyosube himself.
"What the hell just happened?"
"How did the castle that monk summoned suddenly end up on Aizen's side?"
"Isn't that Kyoka Suigetsu?"
"It definitely isn't. Aizen never released his Zanpakuto from beginning to end. This has to be a new ability."
Even until the moment of his death, Ichibe Hyosube never understood how Aizen had broken through his Futen Taisatsuryo.
And the billions of viewers watching from their screens were just as stunned.
Snap.
At that moment, Aizen's body shattered completely.
Or rather, the body he once possessed shattered completely, and a brand-new form was born from within like a butterfly breaking free from its cocoon.
The spiritual pressure pouring out from the "cocoon" began to fill Aizen's body.
The pure white coat from before transformed into a hardened shell, white above and black below. Three pairs of dreamlike wings floated behind him.
Kyoka Suigetsu, which had once been held in his hand, had disappeared. It had fully merged with Aizen's new body.
At the same time, his cracked arms were gone as well.
No.
More precisely, they had become two severed arms floating in midair.
At the ends of those arms, structures bloomed like mirror-flowers, and within them shone a deep night glow as vast as the universe.
At the very center of Aizen's chest, the Hogyoku had turned a deep purple. Four diamond-shaped crystals guarded its core in the shape of a cross.
Through Aizen's body, it released a terrifying energy.
It was a new power that stood above all things, a power that seemed capable of holding the laws of existence in its grasp.
The Fearless Realm.
"Is that… Lord Aizen?"
Harribel swallowed hard and asked with extreme caution.
"What are you afraid of, my comrades?"
Aizen's voice sounded gentle.
"Let us go. Squad Zero has been annihilated."
His gaze turned forward.
"Next, it is your turn, Soul King."
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