Anyone with even a passing understanding of Orihime Inoue's abilities knew she was not suited for combat.
Compared with Santen Kesshun's defense and Sōten Kisshun's healing, Koten Zanshun seemed far too weak.
Its flight speed was slow, its trajectory was simple, and Tsubaki-oni himself was too fragile. Unless he was attacking an inanimate object like the roof earlier, it was hard for him to achieve much.
But Sōten Kisshun's restorative ability was so powerful that no one expected Orihime Inoue to have strong combat abilities.
Just as no one would expect the Captain of a healing squad to have the strength of a combat squad Captain.
Everyone had their own specialty. It was enough for each person to do what they were good at.
But Orihime Inoue was not satisfied with that.
Healing and defense alone were not enough. She needed at least a basic ability to counterattack so she could stay by Muten Natsu's side even in battle.
With Hachigen Ushōda's guidance and Rukia Kuchiki's help, Orihime Inoue spent a long time finally developing a new barrier for Shun Shun Rikka, Shiten Kōshun.
Unlike Santen Kesshun, with Tsubaki-oni added to it, Shiten Kōshun not only strengthened the barrier's stability but could also release the absorbed impact all at once.
"Interesting..." Luppi licked his lips. "Looks like this will be much more fun than I expected."
"Tsugi no mai..." Rukia Kuchiki thrust her blade forward. "Hakuren!"
A surging wave of cold air rushed out, condensing into solid ice that froze all six tentacles.
"Too weak!" Luppi's tentacles swelled, shattering the ice. "Freezing at this level won't... Hm?"
His voice stopped abruptly. The tentacles that had been about to attack suddenly pulled back, guarding his front.
Muten Natsu's sleeping body trembled slightly. The black bandages wrapped around him released an ominous black mist.
It actually looked as if he were about to wake.
For a moment, Luppi did not dare move. He stayed alert for quite some time, and only after confirming that Muten Natsu had not woken did he finally let out a breath. "Hmph... looks like he..."
"He still needs a while before he wakes up." A figure appeared without warning. "How long, exactly?"
"Grimmjow..." Luppi turned and glared at the 6th Espada. "I found him first."
"Hah?" Grimmjow looked down at him with sky-blue eyes. "You only got here first because you were closer."
"I still got here first!" Luppi snapped. "He's my prey!"
"He was already my prey before you even knew about him." Grimmjow's mouth curled upward, and the broken mask on his cheek made his smile look especially savage. "You planning to fight me for him?"
Rukia Kuchiki stood beside Muten Natsu and Orihime Inoue, protecting them, her expression grave.
Luppi alone was already difficult enough. Now the 6th Espada had joined in.
Her hand tightened slightly around her Zanpakutō, and Rukia Kuchiki longed even more for the power of Bankai.
If she had mastered Bankai, she might at least have some confidence.
But now...
All she could do was delay as long as possible and wait for the other Captains to arrive, or for Muten Natsu to wake.
She certainly could not count on these two Arrancar fighting each other.
Luppi clicked his tongue. "Fine, then. He's yours. These two are mine."
"Yours?" Grimmjow's smile grew even more vicious. "Since when do you get to hand me my prey?"
"Grimmjow!" Luppi's tentacles writhed. "Don't push your luck!"
Grimmjow curled his fingers, making a crisp cracking sound. "Don't mistake my patience for permission."
"I'm going to kill those two. Are you going to stop me too?"
"Stop you?" Grimmjow took a step forward, and brutal Reiatsu surged up with him. "I won't stop you. I'll just... kill you."
Humiliated again and again, Luppi's face twisted as he shrieked, "Are you going to betray Aizen-sama?!"
"You think he cares about a small fry like you?"
"Damn it... what gives you the right to stop me?!"
"You still don't get it?" Grimmjow pointed at Muten Natsu, asleep on the ground. "He may be asleep, but he can still sense everything around him. If you hurt them, he'll wake up right away."
"Hmph..." Luppi's face filled with open mockery. "So you're afraid he'll wake up after all. I can't believe you can still act so arrogant. Fine, then. I'll wait until you kill him before I kill those two."
"I'm afraid he'll wake up before he's had enough sleep and won't be able to fight me at his best." Grimmjow sat down on a nearby rock. "If you want to watch, stay here and wait."
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Luppi waved his tentacles. "The enemy is asleep, and you're going to wait? What do you think this is..."
A black light suddenly shot toward Grimmjow.
Grimmjow dodged aside, then turned to stare in the direction the black light had come from. His sharp teeth ground out a name. "Nnoitra..."
"What do you think this is, a children's game?" A black-haired man over two meters tall appeared, pulling a black chain and dragging the weapon that had attacked Grimmjow back into his hand. "Want me to play your daddy?"
A disk-shaped collar rose behind his head. Nnoitra was tall and slender, and against his oddly shaped Zanpakutō, he looked especially thin.
The massive scythe-like weapon resembled a figure eight made from two crescent blades. A black chain extended from the end of the long shaft and connected to Nnoitra's waist.
Nnoitra's left eye was covered by a white eyepatch, while his exposed right eye was narrow and filled with naked ridicule. "As long as you're properly filial, I'd be more than happy to."
"You're talking pretty big today..." Grimmjow glanced at Nnoitra's weapon. "Nnoitra Gilga!"
"That's because I'm Number 5." Nnoitra stuck out his long tongue, revealing the black number [5] on it. "Grimmjow, you found the enemy and you're not attacking. What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm going to beat him in a fair fight! I'll make him accept his loss completely!"
"Then don't call me daddy. I don't have a stupid son like you." Nnoitra swung his scythe and glanced at Nell in Orihime Inoue's arms. "What the hell does fighting have to do with fairness? Strong is strong. Weak is weak. The winner takes all, and the loser gets trampled."
"One after another, all trying to steal my prey..." Grimmjow's figure flickered, and he appeared in front of Nnoitra, reaching for his throat. "You want to die that badly?"
Bang!
"Good..." Nnoitra raised his arm and blocked Grimmjow's attack, the corners of his downturned mouth lifting in pleasure. "Now I really have to kill you..."
Red light flared in Grimmjow's palm. After a brief charge, a terrifying Cero erupted and blasted Nnoitra in the face at point-blank range.
"An attack at this level..." Nnoitra's unharmed face emerged from the smoke. Only his eyepatch had been destroyed, revealing the Hollow Hole where his left eye should have been. "Did you forget I have the hardest Hierro among the Espada?"
"That kind of thing," Grimmjow reappeared, reaching for Nnoitra's face, "is something only you brag about over and over."
Nnoitra completely ignored Grimmjow's attack and swung his scythe.
The instant Grimmjow's attack landed, Nnoitra's attack would also reach Grimmjow's body.
The difference was that Grimmjow did not have Hierro as hard as Nnoitra's... No!
Nnoitra's narrow right eye widened, reflecting the dark purple rhombus in Grimmjow's palm. "You...?!"
The rhombus fell into the Hollow Hole in Nnoitra's left eye socket and burst with purple light, projecting pitch-black fragments into the air.
The light pulled the fragments together, wrapping completely around Nnoitra before contracting into a black dot and vanishing without a trace.
The instant Grimmjow attacked Nnoitra, Luppi also launched his attack on Muten Natsu.
In Luppi's expectations, the fight between Grimmjow and Nnoitra would last quite a while. That time would be enough for him to eliminate Muten Natsu.
But to his surprise, Grimmjow had actually used Caja Negación.
That was originally something Aizen-sama had given the Espada to punish their subordinates.
If used on other Arrancar, they would be sealed permanently inside a dimensional space.
Used on an Espada, it would probably only seal Nnoitra away for two or three hours.
And that much time was enough for Grimmjow to...
Pfft!
Luppi spat blood as Grimmjow's arm pierced clean through his chest.
"I told you." Grimmjow's arm was covered in blood. "I would kill you."
"You bastard..." Luppi's eight tentacles stabbed toward Grimmjow at once. "Die!"
"Heh." The Cero in Grimmjow's other hand had already finished charging. With his soft laugh, it erupted and swallowed Luppi's body.
All eight tentacles vanished in the Cero, along with half of Luppi's body.
The rough-edged half of his body collapsed to the ground, spilling crimson blood.
"So..." Grimmjow repeated his original question. "How long, exactly?"
Rukia Kuchiki had not expected the Arrancar to actually start fighting each other, much less for one of them to die.
But she did not know how long Muten Natsu would sleep either.
The Reishi in the area, stirred up by the battle just now, gathered madly around Muten Natsu's body. Under Grimmjow's expectant gaze, Muten Natsu opened his eyes. "Not long."
Battlelust surged in Grimmjow's eyes as he reached out and drew the Zanpakutō at his waist. "Sleep enough?"
"Almost. But it's enough to deal with you." Muten Natsu stood, patted Orihime Inoue's hand, and lightly pressed Rukia Kuchiki's tense shoulder. "As thanks for what you did just now, you can rest for a while and recover your strength."
"Rest? No need..." Grimmjow charged at Muten Natsu. "This is enough to deal with you!"
The two blades clashed, sending bright sparks flying, reflected in both their eyes.
...
A deep blue glow flickered in Ichigo Kurosaki's eyes. He swung Zangetsu and knocked away the approaching blade. The wound on his chest ached faintly, covered by branch-like blue light patterns that stopped the bleeding.
"Dodge!" Renji Abarai could not control his right arm at all as it swung the blade. All he could do was shout a warning to Ichigo Kurosaki.
What the hell is going on...
They had clearly dealt with their own enemies, yet Renji Abarai's arm had suddenly begun moving on its own and attacking Ichigo Kurosaki.
Ichigo Kurosaki did not dodge. Instead, he moved forward to meet it.
Tree-like light patterns appeared on his skin, forcibly holding back the blade. Ichigo Kurosaki took the chance to close in and grab Renji Abarai's right wrist.
Renji Abarai pressed down on his own right wrist with his left hand as well. With both their strength combined, they finally forced his disobedient right hand under control.
"Ichigo, I..."
"I know you didn't do it on purpose." Ichigo Kurosaki carefully examined Renji Abarai's right arm. "This has to be an enemy attack. But if we don't figure it out, there may be more trouble later."
Ichigo Kurosaki narrowed his eyes, the light patterns within them flickering. "Was this thing here before?"
His right arm was still trying to break free. Renji Abarai awkwardly lowered his head to look. "What?"
"This black pattern that looks like a sun." Ichigo Kurosaki sensed Hollow power from it.
The black pattern was printed on Renji Abarai's black Shihakushō. If Hollow power had not been leaking from it, it would have been difficult to distinguish with the naked eye, even up close.
"The 6th Division's Division flower is a camellia, not a sun!" Renji Abarai finally saw the strange pattern. "This definitely wasn't there before!"
Ichigo Kurosaki swung his blade and cut off Renji Abarai's sleeve. "Looks like this is the problem!"
Once the sleeve separated from his body, Renji Abarai immediately felt his arm lighten. The arm that had been fighting him all this time finally settled down.
"Looks like I'm fine now..." Renji Abarai tried moving his arm. Although it felt a little strange after losing control earlier, his arm was indeed moving according to his will. "Where's the enemy?"
"The enemy is right here!!!" A yellow lion plush came running over. It was the Modified Soul that had been acting with Ichigo earlier, Gon. "Ichigo! I saw... I saw a dark-skinned bald guy. No, not bald, he had spikes on his head... yellow eyes, a golden Arrancar..."
After the battle began, Gon had used his enhanced lower body to move somewhere he would not interfere with Ichigo Kurosaki's fight.
In other words, a safe zone where he would not get caught up in the battle.
After the battle ended, he had planned to meet up with Ichigo Kurosaki right away, but he unexpectedly spotted someone strange.
That person had only glanced at Renji Abarai, and Ichigo Kurosaki had been cut by Renji Abarai.
Only after that person disappeared did Gon dare run out to warn them.
"I saw someone over there just now." Gon pointed in the direction he had come from. "But he vanished, and now I don't know where he is... where..."
Gon's footsteps stopped abruptly, and he stared in terror behind Renji Abarai and Ichigo Kurosaki.
"Here." A deep, heavy voice sounded from behind Renji Abarai and Ichigo Kurosaki.