"…"
Rukia did not say a word.
It felt as if her entire brain had crashed.
Just now…
What had happened?
She had clearly heard what Ichigo said and already given her answer.
Then she'd sensed a strange power and had told Ichigo to go home while she went to check it out herself.
After that…
Rukia frowned as her memories grew hazy.
What had she seen?
Herself.
Right!
She had seen herself… in the square!
But what happened after that?
Then…
She was just back here?
What was this?
Rukia truly couldn't figure it out. She held her aching forehead.
"Rukia?"
Seeing that she had stopped speaking, Ichigo frowned.
"No, it's nothing."
Rukia shook her head and buried what had happened deep in her heart. Then she said softly,
"It's getting late. You should head home first."
"Alright…"
Seeing that Rukia seemed lost in thought, Ichigo could only nod and take his leave.
…
On the other side, Yoshio, who had successfully fused the Two-Headed One node into the Hōgyoku shard inside Rukia, clapped his hands in satisfaction.
With the power of the Hollow King's right arm, no one could possibly know what had just happened.
Because he had rewound time.
Theoretically, once time was reversed, everything would return to its original place.
However, as the master who had released the domain, Yoshio's actions were partially exempt.
In other words, even after time was rewound, all the changes inflicted by him would remain.
In this respect, it was somewhat similar to Yhwach's concept of altering the future.
The only difference was that Yhwach was a direct saboteur of causality—he could alter the future to whatever he wished.
Yoshio, by contrast, performed his actions, then rewound time afterward, returning everyone's "future" to that point, so that the damage he'd caused in their "future" would be carried backward and applied to their past.
However, the limitations were considerable. He could only do what he had in fact done, and once he reversed time, his original attack would also be somewhat weakened.
The real core was to use this on an opponent who didn't know his abilities.
Just like earlier—many people must have seen what was happening in the world, but Yoshio had done his work before their eyes, then rewound time. In the end, only the involved party would know what had truly occurred.
After successfully integrating the Two-Headed One node into the Hōgyoku shard, Yoshio began to wait.
Of course, he didn't simply sit idle.
…
One month later—
Rukia had already been in the World of the Living for nearly two months. In that time, under her guidance, Ichigo's power had grown by leaps and bounds.
However, "accidents" always arrived unannounced.
That day, while Rukia and Ichigo were out on their daily patrol, an accident occurred.
Suddenly, a Garganta appeared in front of them.
It looked like the mouth and jaws of a monster, and a sinister reishi pressure poured from within.
Very soon, a man stepped out.
He had light blue, short, spiky hair, several bangs hanging over his forehead, sky-blue eyes with blue eye shadow, and a fragment of a white mask under his right eye.
He wore a white jacket open at the chest, revealing a strong torso—and most horrifying of all was the black hole in his abdomen.
A Hollow hole?!
This wasn't Ichigo's first time seeing a Hollow, and he understood what one was. But he had never seen such a bizarre Hollow.
He had a clearly hollowed chest—
Yet he looked completely human!
"An Arrancar…"
Rukia's pupils contracted sharply as she muttered,
"Why would an Arrancar appear in Karakura Town?!"
This wasn't her first time seeing an Arrancar; but even in the most chaotic periods of Karakura's history, the number of Arrancar that had come here could be counted on one hand.
They had already escaped the range of beings driven by pure instinct and knew how dangerous Karakura Town was, so they rarely intruded lightly.
On top of that, this was a special period.
With the Gotei 13 clearing out the Hollows in the area, what could possibly attract an Arrancar here now?
Rukia was confused, but she still made ready for battle.
"Arrancar are Hollows that used Shinigami powers to shatter their masks."
At the same time, she explained to Ichigo,
"After breaking their masks, they obtain a Zanpakutō and gain a massive increase in power!"
"Enough idle chatter. I'm here to bring you back."
The man—Grimmjow—spoke lazily as he walked toward her.
"Bring… me back?"
Rukia forced herself not to move rashly. The man's reishi pressure was like that of a monster.
"You were originally one of us."
Grimmjow grinned.
"So what are you doing in the human world? Even if you've fallen, you don't need to fall so far that you live with humans, right?"
Rukia's pupils contracted.
"Ichigo, run!"
But how could Ichigo run?
No matter how slow he could be, he understood that this man was targeting Rukia—and that his strength far surpassed hers.
He stood up. A long golden sword instantly appeared in his hand.
After training for so long with Rukia, Ichigo could now control the power and aura within his body. The golden blade's strength had grown to the point that Hollows could no longer easily devour it.
Yet before his sword, Grimmjow didn't even bother to defend himself.
Ichigo's sword fell toward Grimmjow's chest—
And was stopped by Grimmjow's bare hand.
"What…"
Ichigo's pupils widened. He stared at the scene in disbelief.
"As expected, humans are only human."
Grimmjow sounded utterly bored.
"Even if you have a bit of strength, that's all it is. Pathetic."
"Get out of the way, Ichigo!"
Rukia stepped forward anxiously—but it was already too late.
She watched Grimmjow's figure flash past Ichigo, not even clearly seeing what he did. All she knew was that a gap had opened in Ichigo's chest and blood spurted out like a waterfall.
Ichigo glared up at him with wide eyes, disbelief written across his face, but he was utterly helpless.
All his strength drained away, and he crashed heavily to the ground.
"Killing you now would be too boring. It'll be more fun to let you feel your life slowly ebb away."
By then, Rukia had already rushed in.
Grimmjow paid little mind even to her Zanpakutō—he simply raised his arm and blocked her slash with his bare forearm.
Rukia was shocked.
Her sword hadn't even managed to scratch his skin.
This man…
He was even stronger than that Arrancar from back then—
Shawlong Koufang!
Rukia still remembered encountering that overwhelmingly powerful Arrancar in Hueco Mundo. Even with Absolute Zero, she had been unable to truly finish him.
And now, this man stood above even that Arrancar.
But…
"You underestimate me too much."
Rukia's eyes cooled. The next instant, the temperature around her dropped abruptly.
White vapor billowed from her body, condensing like steam turning into ice crystals.
Seeing her current state, Grimmjow could not help saying,
"So this is your ability. I heard that guy Shawlong talking about it… seems interesting."
He hadn't been interested in this mission at all.
He had no idea what the people at the top were thinking. They actually wanted him to capture a Shinigami?
If it had been a captain, he might have had some interest.
But it was only a lieutenant.
"Minus 273.15 degrees—Absolute Zero."
Rukia was actually glad that this man hadn't taken her seriously at first; his carelessness had given her enough time to prepare. Otherwise, given the gap in their basic strength, entering Absolute Zero would have been extremely difficult.
Now that she had entered her strongest form…
She would use it to settle this quickly.
Rukia in the Absolute Zero state was no longer comparable to her normal self. The difference was as vast as heaven and earth.
Her Zanpakutō, encrusted with a thin layer of ice, slashed toward Grimmjow.
Grimmjow was still a little careless. But when the blade neared, a sense of crisis suddenly shot through him and he leapt back.
Because of this retreat, the strike meant for his waist only slashed across his chest, yet the skin that had previously been as hard as steel was now sliced open as if it were paper.
Grimmjow's pupils shrank. After a brief shock, his expression turned into one of wild delight.
"So strong, huh?!"
"Why didn't you say so earlier?!"
"By the way—Shawlong said that back then you weren't this strong yet, right?"
Those words left Rukia momentarily stunned.
Shawlong?
He must mean Shawlong Koufang… but hadn't Captain Yoshio killed him?
Did Shawlong possess some hidden escape method, allowing him to secretly flee back to Hueco Mundo after being struck by Yoshio?
And the information about her had been passed from Shawlong to this man.
So Shawlong had returned?
If she hadn't held back, she might have killed this man with a single slash just now…
Rukia regretted it somewhat, but she could not remain in Absolute Zero for long. She had to kill him quickly.
By now, Grimmjow no longer underestimated her. As Rukia continued her assaults, he swept his arm and fired several red blasts at her.
These were not Cero, but bala—Hollow bullets, twenty times faster than a standard Cero.
However, every bala was shredded by Rukia.
Because in the Absolute Zero state, she took full true damage from any reishi that touched her temperature field.
The moment the bala entered the range of Sode no Shirayuki, they froze solid and were immediately cut apart by her razor-sharp blade.
Seeing that the bala couldn't stop her, Grimmjow finally pulled out his own Zanpakutō. Rukia's charge was halted.
Even with his sword drawn, he felt a strong pressure. The icy air crusted his blade with frost and rapidly spread down toward his body.
Grimmjow, forced to break her guard with brute strength, raised his hand again. This time he didn't use bala, but Cero—his strongest Cero, Gran Rey Cero.
With power enough to distort the very fabric of space—
Boom…!
Gran Rey Cero was not as fast as bala, but at Rukia's current distance, by the time she repelled him and rushed back, the Cero was already fully charged.
Feeling the overwhelming force gathered in the Cero, Rukia's heart remained utterly calm. Gripping her Zanpakutō with both hands, she cried out in a low voice:
"Second Dance – Hakuren!"
She swung down. In an instant, countless white beams of light burst from her blade and met the Gran Rey Cero head-on, freezing it into a massive white ice pillar.
Then the ice pillar surged toward Grimmjow, encasing him in an enormous block of ice.
Seeing Grimmjow sealed, Rukia finally exhaled in relief.
"You underestimated me too much."
She said coldly.
"To scorn your opponent in battle is taboo."
Almost as though her words had been heard, a muffled voice rang from within the ice.
"Is that so…"
In an instant, the block shattered.
Grimmjow burst out of the ice with a twisted grin. He rubbed his neck and looked at Rukia, whose eyes trembled slightly, and said,
"The reason I scorn you is because I don't need to be on guard at all. You really can't understand this truth, Three-Digits?"
He vanished and appeared before her in a flash.
This is bad!
Rukia's consciousness wavered. Her Absolute Zero had already reached its limit; her body could hardly endure the cold.
The extreme cold surrounding her weakened slightly, no longer at true absolute zero.
Absolute Zero and "not Absolute Zero" were worlds apart.
In a normal state—body temperature maintained—Rukia was at her weakest. When the temperature dropped below freezing, her attack power rose sharply, though not by much compared to her normal state.
But once she hit minus 273.15 degrees, True Absolute Zero, the level she reached was an entirely different dimension.
It had to be that specific number. If the temperature was even slightly off, the effect was gone.
Having sensed her power fading, Grimmjow instantly appeared before her.
He grabbed Rukia by the hair and slammed her into the ground.
"Gah!"
Rukia crashed into the pavement. Grimmjow kicked her away and she barely steadied herself, landing shakily, only for Grimmjow to appear before her again.
Rukia's pupils dilated.
This time he already had a bala in his hand.
Thud!
The bala blasted from his palm, piercing Rukia's abdomen.
Rukia's strength drained away. With a look of anguish, she fell to her knees.
"They should be about there by now…"
After finishing his work, Grimmjow roughly estimated the time, then turned back with some annoyance.
"Next time, goodbye, Three-Digits."
Suppressing his urge to kill Rukia on the spot, he could only obey Aizen's orders and opened a black garganta once more.
He didn't understand why Aizen insisted things be done that way.
He was to seize the "Three-Digits" of this world—Rukia—inflict grievous wounds, then let her return when the time came.
He couldn't make sense of it. Had he not been bored out of his skull in Las Noches, he never would have accepted such a chore.
Thinking along those lines, Grimmjow stepped into the Garganta and left the World of the Living.
Once Grimmjow departed, the ruined street returned to silence.
Traces of frost scarred the cityscape; Ichigo was among them.
With the severity of Ichigo's injury at that time, he would have died sooner or later.
Rukia had been unable to heal him. During her fight against Grimmjow, she had been able only to freeze him, temporarily preserving his life.
Rukia herself was not so fortunate.
After Grimmjow grievously wounded her, Sode no Shirayuki's power began to bite back.
Using Absolute Zero was inherently dangerous and placed immense strain on her body. Rukia could only freeze reishi by relying on a special method. No matter how much she froze, she could not avoid the backlash entirely.
Especially now, when Rukia had lost the ability to slowly thaw her body. Sode no Shirayuki, weakened as she was, rapidly raised Rukia's body temperature from minus 200 degrees back to normal.
The damage that caused to Rukia's body was immense.
Her flesh was covered with countless tiny wounds, as though sliced by innumerable invisible blades.
"…Damn…"
Rukia's consciousness grew more and more blurred. Even now, she could not comprehend what that man had meant, nor why he had suddenly left.
But her severely injured body no longer had the strength to ponder.
At the last moment, she seemed to see someone approaching.
"Rukia!"
There were three of them—
Her brother, Kuchiki Byakuya…
Captain Hitsugaya…
And Renji… still alive…
Seeing that reinforcements had arrived, Rukia finally relaxed and slipped into unconsciousness.
Hitsugaya and Renji quickly rushed over. Hitsugaya immediately checked Rukia's condition.
The terrifying injuries all over her body shocked him.
But just as he prepared to perform basic treatment on her, a sudden change occurred.
"?!"
Boom…!
A powerful reishi pressure suddenly burst from Rukia's body.
It wasn't just powerful—it was chillingly evil, like…
Like a Hollow.
White reishi pressure surged, billowing like an inverted clouded abyss, and the hole in Rukia's abdomen instantly closed.
This…
High-Speed Regeneration?!