In the depths of Hueco Mundo.
Mazuru walked through the dim corridors of the Las Noches, descending toward the experimental sector.
After he had ordered the transfer of the captured quincies, the research division of Hueco Mundo, those eccentric arrancar scientists, had begun their work with enthusiasm. The first experiment they conducted was something that Aizen himself had once pursued: Hollowfication.
Aizen's early successes had produced both the Visored and the Espada, proof that shinigami and hollow power could coexist.
The question now was: could the quincy undergo a similar transformation?
The answer, as it turned out, was a resounding no.
When the researcher-type arrancar injected concentrated hollow essence into a quincy's body, the initial reaction was promising. A circular void opened in the quincy's chest, the familiar hollow hole, and traces of spiritual corruption began spreading through his veins.
But before the change could complete, the subject's body collapsed inward—bones cracking, flesh vaporizing—and then came death. Instantaneous, irreversible.
Even the researchers were taken aback.
These scientist-arrancar were not ordinary beings. Recruited during Aizen's reign, they had once worked under Szayelaporro Granz. Each of them was obsessive, brilliant, and disturbingly devoted to experimentation. Their combat strength was mediocre, but their minds were dangerous weapons.
Much of the equipment still running in the palace had been built by them.
However, their intellectual zeal often eclipsed reason.
When they saw the quincy die under hollow energy, they didn't stop. They intensified their trials, driven by a feverish curiosity to understand why.
Dozens of captured quincy had been brought to Hueco Mundo along with the Sternritters — Askin, Bazz-B, and the rest. Soon, the next test subject was brought forward. The procedure repeated.
Again, death.
The pattern was unmistakable.
One could dismiss a single failure as coincidence, but two, three, ten, it was clear that something fundamental prevented the quincy from surviving hollow energy.
Each quincy, strong enough to manipulate reishi at will, should have been able to endure some level of corruption. Yet every time, their souls unraveled completely, like the scattered spirits of lowly residents of Rukongai who lacked spiritual cohesion.
Even when their physical bodies disintegrated, there should have been lingering consciousness. Instead, nothing remained. Not even reishi dust.
Finally, the researchers reached a conclusion.
The power of the hollow was antithetical to quincy existence.
In simple terms, hollow power acted as a toxin to the quincy.
This revelation shocked even the scientists.
They knew that when a quincy destroyed a hollow, the creature vanished utterly, its soul erased from the cycle of reincarnation. That destructive reaction had long been treated as a quincy technique's side effect. But now, the truth stood bare: Hollows and Quincies were natural poisons to each other.
The power that the quincy absorbed and purified was devoured in turn by hollow essence. Once hollow energy entered a quincy's body, it began erasing the very foundation of their existence, the spiritual blueprint of their souls.
To verify the result, the researchers adjusted their methods, injecting smaller, measured doses of hollow power. Yet, the results did not change. Even a trace of hollow energy was fatal.
Curiously, when they replaced Hollow essence with shinigami reiatsu, the quincies' bodies handled it far better.
Among the research team was Ran'Tao, one of the few shinigami who had joined Hueco Mundo's laboratories after Aizen's fall. Driven by curiosity, she willingly contributed samples of her own spiritual pressure for testing.
The results fascinated everyone.
When infused with shinigami power, the quincy subjects survived. Their bodies adapted, though the foreign energy was suppressed by their own innate power, it did not destroy them.
The contradiction was striking.
The hollow's energy obliterated them instantly, yet shinigami energy coexisted with theirs.
So, what would happen if both forces, the hollow and the Shinigami, were introduced together into a quincy's body?
The next experiment answered that question.
A hollow essence was injected first, followed by controlled bursts of reiatsu from a shinigami.
For the first time, the quincy subject did not die.
His body trembled violently, reishi fluxes colliding in waves, but he lived, barely. Instruments detected a strange harmony forming within him: the hollow energy suppressing quincy power, the shinigami energy suppressing hollow energy, and the quincy essence restraining the shinigami energy in turn.
A closed loop. A perfect cycle of mutual suppression and coexistence.
The researchers stared at the monitors, speechless.
The three great forces — Quincy, Shinigami, and Hollow, had achieved a temporary balance within a single body.
Their report was promptly sent to the throne room of the Las Noches.
Sitting upon the obsidian dais, Mazuru read through the results with a quiet sense of wonder. He had suspected this outcome long ago, but seeing it confirmed stirred a different emotion.
He recalled an old case — a woman named Kurosaki Masaki, mother of Kurosaki Ichigo.
She had been attacked by the hollow known as White, and from that moment, the hollow's power had taken root within her. For a quincy, that infection was a slow poison, one that corroded her spiritual balance day by day.
It had been her bond with Shiba Isshin, a former shinigami, that stabilized her life. His shinigami power counteracted the hollow's, preserving her equilibrium.
Later the day Yhwach activated Auswählen and reclaimed the quincy power dwelling in all his descendants which he deemed impure.
With her quincy essence removed, she succumbed to hollow's attacking Ichigo.
Mazuru closed the report, murmuring softly, "Unbelievable… and yet perfectly logical."
He leaned back, his eyes narrowing.
Yhwach, the son of the Soul King.
The origin of all quincy power traced back to the Soul King's divinity. The shinigami drew strength from that same source, their order founded to serve the King. In theory, the quincy's energy should have been parallel, perhaps even superior. But that was only theory.
In practice, the quincy dominated because they controlled the reishi of the world directly, whereas shinigami merely harnessed their own inner reiatsu.
The shinigami wielded Kidō, swordsmanship, and discipline, all dependent on self-generated spiritual power. The quincy, however, commanded the environment itself. Against such mastery, a shinigami's strength could easily be suppressed.
Then why were the quincy suppressed by the hollow?
Because the hollow's instinct was devouring.
Born with emptiness at their core, hollows sought endlessly to consume other souls to fill the void. Their power did not merely oppose manipulation, it erased it. Against such primal hunger, even control became meaningless.
"If hollow energy is poison to the quincy," Mazuru mused aloud, "then perhaps this… could be used."
A new thought emerged, sharp, tactical, dangerous.
After the awakening of his Zanpakutō, Mazuru had gained an ability unlike any other: he could channel his own spiritual power into another's body, either to heal or to consume. That dual nature of restoration and devouring mirrored the paradox now proven in the laboratories.
Within him flowed both shinigami and hollow power, interwoven into one form.
What would happen, he wondered, if he were to inject the hollow essence within his power directly into a quincy?
A strong quincy might survive for a time, just as Kurosaki Masaki had, enduring the corrosion while the hollow slowly gnawed at her soul. But in the end, the result would be inevitable.
Even the purest blood cannot withstand poison forever.
And as Mazuru contemplated that grim truth, the faintest smile touched his lips.
For Hueco Mundo had just uncovered a new weapon against the invisible empire.
*****
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✓ Killed For 100 Years in Hueco Mundo, Aizen Invited Me To Soul Society!
✓ Naruto: Senmei Asahi
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