"This doesn't look good—the scales of victory seem to be tipping toward the Gotei 13, Captain Aizen."
Gin Ichimaru's eyes narrowed to their customary slits. He could feel it clearly: ever since Ichigo Kurosaki had appeared on the battlefield, Sōsuke Aizen's Spiritual Pressure had begun to stir with a restless, electric agitation.
"There's a possibility you've had one thing wrong from the start, Gin."
Aizen tilted his head slightly, his gaze drifting past the chaos below. "I don't believe I ever told you what kind of victory I was actually after."
Whether the Gotei 13 or the Espada came out on top—did it matter?
Not in the slightest.
The appearance of Ichigo Kurosaki in his three-in-one Shikai state had done something Aizen hadn't anticipated: it had set ripples moving across the still, undisturbed surface of his heart. Something had been stirred—a battle-hunger he hadn't felt in a very long time.
Not even Captain-Commander Yamamoto had ever given him this feeling.
It was as though he and Ichigo Kurosaki were fated to cross blades. The strange thought drifted up from somewhere deep in his chest, and Aizen found himself glancing up at the clear blue sky almost involuntarily. He had never believed in fate—so why had that inexplicable impression just surfaced in his mind?
"Tōsen."
He smiled—a quiet, unburdened smile—and took a single step forward. Before moving, he offered one last instruction to Kaname Tōsen, who stood at his side. "Adapt to whatever comes next."
With that, the Spiritual Pressure coiled around his body surged outward.
He was done playing along with Gin Ichimaru's theater. Something far more important needed to be confirmed—something that had taken root in his own heart.
The flame cage of Ryūjin Jakka that had sealed the three of them was extinguished in an instant, washed away by the flood of Aizen's erupting Reiatsu.
"So you're finally making your move, Aizen."
Captain-Commander Yamamoto's gaze blazed with intensity. He fixed his eyes on Aizen, who had just shattered the flames, and his thumb pressed lightly against the guard of Ryūjin Jakka. The silver-white blade slid partially free of its sheath.
"My apologies, Captain-Commander."
"But... you are not the one I intend to draw my blade against."
Sōsuke Aizen's gaze swept briefly over the Captain-Commander and Soifon, then he shook his head.
"Hmph! Arrogant fool!"
The Captain-Commander let out a laugh that was equal parts fury and contempt. He was on the verge of clearing Ryūjin Jakka from its sheath entirely—when Soifon's hand came down, steady and firm, on the pommel of his blade.
The Captain-Commander's draw just now had been genuine, not a feint. The force behind it was real. Not just anyone could push his sword back into its sheath with that kind of casual ease.
Soifon tilted her head back slightly and held the Captain-Commander's furious glare without flinching. "If you and Captain Aizen unleash a full, unrestricted battle here... how many of the Gotei 13 members you brought to this place, and how many of these four pillars, do you think will come out of it intact?"
The Captain-Commander's eyes narrowed. He was silent for a long moment—no one could tell what he was thinking—and then the killing intent bled slowly out of his posture, his body relaxing by degrees.
It seems neither Soifon nor Aizen have noticed the Ennetsu Jigoku I laid beneath the ground.
Perhaps it could be held in reserve as a finishing move...
And so, Ryūjin Jakka's blade gave a faint, reluctant ring of protest—and slid back into its sheath.
Aizen took in the entire exchange without a word, then turned his gaze back toward that orange-haired boy in the distance.
He stepped forward. Invisible steps seemed to materialize beneath his feet, carrying him down through the air one stride at a time, until he came to a stop a short distance from Ichigo Kurosaki—facing him across the open sky.
"Ichigo Kurosaki."
Sōsuke Aizen drew Kyōka Suigetsu first. "I'm certain you felt it too—that a battle between us was inevitable."
"What feeling?" Ichigo stared back at him, bewildered. "What are you even talking about? I have absolutely no desire to fight you."
He flicked his eyes toward Soifon.
—Is this guy out of his mind?
Soifon stood high in the air above, watching the scene below. The corner of her mouth curved upward, just slightly.
"Humor him, Ichigo."
"If you don't defeat Captain Aizen, this battle today won't end."
"And you don't want this to drag on any longer than it has to, do you?"
As her words settled, Sōsuke Aizen—standing opposite Ichigo—gave a small, composed nod, as if lending his own endorsement to what Soifon had just said. "That's right. Defeat me, and the battle ends. It's that simple, Ichigo Kurosaki."
Is that how it is...
Ichigo lowered his head, thinking for a moment, then drew a deep breath. "Then I'm sorry about this... Mr. Aizen!"
Before the last syllable had left his mouth, his figure vanished from the spot.
Fast. Coming from the right.
Aizen raised Kyōka Suigetsu and deflected toward the right, going off the afterimage he'd just barely managed to catch.
The expected attack never came from the right. Instead, a bone-chilling cold rose up from both their left sides—
Wait—he changed direction before even touching down?!
—That wasn't Shunpo. That was Fēilián-kyaku!
In the split second available to him, a transparent Hōgyoku defensive barrier materialized on his left side.
But even the defensive barrier of his 3rd-stage Hōgyoku fusion shattered like paper. A single touch from Zangetsu's blade punched straight through it.
The massive edge of Zangetsu came down with crushing weight on Aizen's arm. A force beyond all comprehension drove him out of the sky and pile-drove him into the ground below.
The earth detonated on impact. An enormous crater yawned open, and a pillar of smoke and dust shot skyward.
Aizen lay at the bottom of the pit. His right arm was bent at an unnatural angle. The white uniform across his chest had been torn open, exposing the faintly pulsing purple light of the Hōgyoku embedded within—and the web of cracks spreading outward across his skin from it.
"This kind of... power... as I thought—"
Purple light pulsed and flowed. Aizen's arm mended itself at a rate visible to the naked eye.
"Mr. Aizen, you're surprisingly durable, aren't you?"
Ichigo blinked, genuinely surprised. He'd expected that last strike to end the fight outright—he had, after all, calibrated his output carefully against the opponent's Spiritual Pressure. By any reasonable logic, Aizen should not have been capable of getting back up.
"Are you pitying me, Ichigo Kurosaki?"
Aizen climbed out of the crater, tilting his head up to look at the boy above him. "A mere mortal wound is not sufficient to put me down."
In that case—!
Ichigo Kurosaki had just found himself a very, very durable punching bag.
"Getsuga—"
A dark crescent of blue-black flame latched onto Ichigo's half-blade, half-bow weapon, coiling along its edge with hungry energy.
Oh? A Getsuga Tenshō? But at this distance, there's no way he can land a direct hit on me...
Aizen raised his blade again. He felt a faint pity at the sight of Ichigo winding up for a finisher from so far away. Still too green...
"—Tenshō!"
At a speed Sōsuke Aizen's reactions could not follow, Ichigo Kurosaki had crossed the entire distance between them in the blink of an eye—he was right in front of Aizen's face.
Aizen had the strange sensation that time itself had slowed. Every single Spirit Particle of blue-black energy scattered in the air around them was individually, perfectly distinct.
He stored the Getsuga Tenshō's energy—then Shunpo'd into point-blank range and detonated it in his face. Truly impeccable execution.
Faced with an attack so sudden and so close, Sōsuke Aizen did something that left every single witness stunned.
In the same instant that the Getsuga Tenshō engulfed him—Sōsuke Aizen completely reversed his back to face it head-on.
"Suicide?"
A moment later, the Captain-Commander shook his head in silent refusal of his own thought. Aizen was not the kind of man whose will would break so easily.
There—nestled in the blind spot at the base of Aizen's neck—the [Million Shield] activated with a snap as the Getsuga Tenshō crashed over it. The pale green luminescent barrier was like a tiny boat in the midst of a tsunami against that tide of blue-black brilliance, clinging on for its life.
Fortunately, the radiance of the crescent gradually dimmed. The Million Shield, though barely holding together at the end, had endured every last bit of it—despite the deeply undignified posture required to make it work.
"An... incomprehensible... amount of power..."
Aizen pressed a hand to the back of his neck, shaken in a way he very rarely was, and turned back to look at Ichigo Kurosaki. "Even after breaking through to a level like this—the one million layers of Hōgyoku shielding I had positioned at the back of my neck were completely destroyed by that single slash."
"However... thanks to the life-or-death crisis just now, I've also achieved yet another breakthrough."
"Thank you, Ichigo Kurosaki."
As he spoke, he raised a hand to his forehead—and from the center of his brow, a crack split open, radiating a faint violet light, as if something was on the verge of tearing through from within.
"...You're welcome, Mr. Aizen."
Ichigo blinked. This was a first—an opponent who ate one of his moves and then thanked him for it while still alive. A genuinely rare specimen.
High above, the Captain-Commander's brow furrowed deeply. He could feel it—Aizen's Spiritual Pressure had climbed again, right on the heels of taking Ichigo Kurosaki's slash.
At this point, Sōsuke Aizen's Reiatsu had already surpassed the Captain-Commander himself—the man acknowledged as the strongest Shinigami in a thousand years. The gap was still perceptible, but the direction it was heading was unmistakable.
If I use Ennetsu Jigoku, even this much of a difference won't matter.
But Ichigo Kurosaki's killing intent is too thin. If Aizen is allowed to keep growing without limit, this will spiral out of control...
The Captain-Commander's eyes sharpened. He looked down—and realized that the spot where Aizen and Ichigo were fighting was positioned directly at the center of where he had laid the Ennetsu Jigoku.
In a flash of lightning-quick decision, he moved.
In a single instant, he drew every ounce of Spiritual Pressure in his body to the surface. Three layers of Bakudō snapped into place around Soifon at his side—and then, without looking back, he hurled himself downward on Shunpo, closing the distance to Sōsuke Aizen's back in a heartbeat.
He drove his fist forward with everything he had.
—Sōkotsu!
The crack of shattering bone, followed by the dull, heavy impact of flesh struck to its very limit—and Aizen's body launched from the sky like a cannonball and smashed into the ground below.
Without pause, the blade of Ryūjin Jakka drove straight down after him, piercing cleanly through Aizen's chest. The eruption of Reiatsu and flame that followed pinned him to the earth like a nail through wood, forcing down every attempt to rise.
"As expected of you, Captain-Commander..."
"Seizing the opening in the very instant before I had time to grow accustomed to my new power..."
As he spoke, his bloodied hand reached for the blade that had pierced his chest. His fingertips barely grazed the hilt—and were instantly seared, wisps of black smoke curling from the burnt skin.
"Ennetsu Jigoku!"
The Captain-Commander offered no response. He simply reached down through the earth—and ignited the inferno he had buried there.
Decades of accumulated flame erupted through the ground in dozens of pillars, each one wider than ten meters across, blasting skyward in a ring—then, at a visible, inexorable speed, they began to contract inward, with Aizen at the center.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Before all the pillars converged to a single point, the Captain-Commander stepped back and abandoned Ryūjin Jakka where it stood, flash-stepping up to hover in the sky. It was only then that he noticed—with a start—that Soifon had already broken free of the three Bakudō he had placed on her. In mere seconds.
The next moment, all the pillars completed their convergence. It was as though a miniature sun had been born and detonated at the bottom of the crater.
First, a ring of pure white light burst outward from the inferno's core—so intense it vaporized Spirit Particles themselves as it passed. Then the flames, compressed to their absolute limit, released entirely, and a howling firestorm swept across the entire battlefield.
"You really do go overboard, Captain-Commander..."
Soifon raised one hand. Four barriers of Dankū—each one as wide and thick as a city wall—materialized instantly in front of each of the four Tenkaikekchū, sealing off the force of the Ennetsu Jigoku's eruption. The effect was to protect the pillars—and, incidentally, to concentrate the explosion's destructive power even further inward.
—You're welcome, Aizen.
Before Soifon could exchange so much as another word with him, the shockwaves of the Ennetsu Jigoku faded—and the Captain-Commander found himself staring at a butterfly-shaped silhouette standing amid the ruins.
He stared for a long moment.
A third eye had opened on Sōsuke Aizen's brow. Three pairs of enormous butterfly wings had grown from his back. At the center of his chest was a hollow aperture, the Hōgyoku mounted within it like a jewel set in a socket.
The cracks radiating outward from that eye on his face were growing more pronounced by the second, threatening to split his skin entirely.
---
[Fusion]
3rd Stage of Fusion
The outer shell covering his head crumbles away. Aizen's face is revealed once more—but now, his irises and whites are inverted, granting him eyes of singular, aberrant sight. Having sensed his arrival at a new pinnacle, he advances toward the outermost edge of reason. The Hōgyoku, now embedded in his pierced chest, drives his body ever further into evolution. Aizen demonstrates that the power of his own will surpasses all logic, and in doing so, tears apart both time and space. Governs: Kōtotsu.
4th Stage of Fusion
Even after the Hōgyoku is extracted, Aizen continues to change. From the hollow in his chest, a cross-shaped pillar—its purpose to seat the Hōgyoku—manifests with terrible solemnity. The Hōgyoku in Aizen's hand is drawn in, and settles at the center of the cross upon his chest—as though this is exactly where it was always meant to be. His Spiritual Pressure has grown beyond all capacity to comprehend. What lies ahead—only Aizen can perceive it.
---
"My gratitude, Captain-Commander. Your gift has been most generous."
"I feel... that I have evolved into an entirely higher dimension. The next step—"
Sōsuke Aizen crossed space itself and appeared before Soifon and the Captain-Commander in an instant.
"Your evolution has gone in the wrong direction, Aizen."
Soifon cut off his victory speech without ceremony. "If you keep evolving into an increasingly hideous monstrosity, I'm going to have to consider ending you right here."
It had to be admitted—up until this point, Aizen's evolution had been, on the whole, reasonably impressive.
That was, of course, setting aside the catastrophic wrong turn of stage five.
"Evolution... incorrect?"
"I wonder... might Captain Soifon allow me to witness what correct evolution looks like?"
Aizen looked down at his own hands. He had never felt such a torrent of power surging through him. He raised his eyes to Soifon, and the burning heat of battle-will flickered in his gaze.
—Now, finally, he could wipe away his humiliation, couldn't he?
"So it comes down to a fight after all..."
Soifon looked Aizen up and down, and felt a familiar itch in her own fists.
—A durable punching bag. Those didn't come along very often.
"Hey. Ichigo."
She raised her voice toward the bewildered Ichigo Kurosaki in the distance. "Tag out. I'm taking over from here."
"...Alright."
Ichigo Kurosaki nodded, looking just slightly disappointed.
BOOM—
Soifon wrapped both her arms in Infinite Shunkō, shifted into Blut Arterie, and launched herself forward. Aizen barely managed to catch a single afterimage streaking past his face—and then Soifon's small hand had already seized his entire head, the blade-winds of Shunkō slashing at him ceaselessly from every angle.
With her hand clamped around Aizen's skull, Soifon drove him through building after building—skyscraper after skyscraper—carving a trail more than ten kilometers long through the streets of the replica Karakura Town.
"How is this possible..."
Sōsuke Aizen shook his rattling, spinning head and pushed himself upright from the rubble at his back, climbing out of the pile of concrete. The cracks spreading across his face were beginning to peel away, revealing something dark and absolute underneath.
"That's exactly what I've been saying—the direction you're heading in is wrong."
Waiting for him as he rose was Soifon's right hook. "Stop right there! Whatever you do, do not turn into an abomination—!"
"Bwugh—"
Another mouthful of old blood. Spat out courtesy of Aizen.
An abomination? Aizen genuinely could not parse what Soifon meant.
Thud—
After completing an unassisted freefall through the open air, Aizen crash-landed on the edge of a park fountain.
He dragged himself upright once more and looked down—catching his own reflection in the pool's surface.
"This is..."
"What an utterly wretched appearance..."
Nearly half the skin on his face had peeled away. Beneath it was something dark and ominous. The butterfly wings on his back had begun to warp and distort—like an animal mutated by radiation poisoning.
Soifon dropped down beside him. The two of them looked at his reflection in the water together. "Have you finally calmed down?"
"...My apologies." Aizen touched the cracking lines on his face. "The surge of power caused me to lose my composure somewhat, Captain Soifon."
Soifon folded her arms and regarded him with a look of dry amusement.
"It's not too late to have regrets."
"At this point, the power of your Hollow side has taken over dominance of your form. That is what's wrong."
"If I weren't able to keep you in check, you would have genuinely turned into a freak, Aizen."
The words sank in. Aizen stared blankly at his own reflection for a long moment, and something in his expression shifted—as if a piece had finally clicked into place.
He steeled himself, reached into the hollow aperture in his chest, and hooked into the Hōgyoku. Slowly, deliberately, he began drawing out the excess Hollow power, coaxing it free from his body strand by strand.
Gradually, his current form began to recede. The terrifying Spiritual Pressure that had enveloped him shrank back in kind—retreating, contracting, until it settled back to the baseline of his 4th-stage Hōgyoku fusion.
____
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