In Soul Society, because the flow of time in the Dangai was different from that of Soul Society, Yushima Ōko, who had finally managed to return, hadn't even had time to look for Kurotsuchi Mayuri when he saw Higashino Shuuichi coming back out of the Dangai—holding Sakahone Saizō, whose ability to resist had been completely destroyed, like a chick in his hand.
Yushima Ōko swallowed hard.
All right, he had believed that Shuuichi-sama would definitely be able to defeat this so-called First Generation captain, but… wasn't this a bit too fast?
Didn't this just make him look even weaker by comparison?
"Shuuichi-sama…"
For a moment, Yushima Ōko couldn't even find the words to describe how he felt.
Higashino Shuuichi, however, was clearly far more clear-headed than he was.
The instant he came out and saw the state Yushima Ōko's body was in, Higashino Shuuichi went straight to his side without another word, stretched out a hand, and used his own special returning property to begin repairing Yushima Ōko's body.
"You don't need to take part in this assessment."
While treating Yushima Ōko, Higashino Shuuichi calmly laid down his instructions.
Given Yushima Ōko's current condition, trying to participate in that carefully designed assessment that Higashino Shuuichi and Aizen had put together would definitely be much more difficult. If anything unexpected happened on top of that, the losses would far outweigh any gains.
"I understand, Shuuichi-sama."
Faced with this arrangement, Yushima Ōko was very aware of exactly how limited his own abilities were, so he didn't voice any objection.
At the same time, far away at Fūryū Mountain in North Rukongai, the Shinigami of the Hirutsuki Squad taking part in the assessment were being dragged into what, in their minds, was a full-blown crisis.
Because just after the assessment was declared to have begun, when they entered Fūryū Mountain and were preparing to carry out their planned route up the mountain, a colossal Garganta like a sky-blotting black maw suddenly opened above the mountain.
As the Garganta opened, a wall of reishi hung upside-down from its rim and dropped down, completely enclosing the entire mountain.
In almost an instant, Fūryū Mountain became an isolated island within Soul Society.
"So this is the 'Dustless Domain' you developed—by expanding on the principle behind that Las Noches Baraggan once summoned, and combining it with our Negación techniques?
By using this method, we can peel a section of space within Soul Society right out of Soul Society itself, and even bring it back to Hueco Mundo?"
Tier Harribel, the current Espada No. 2 of Hueco Mundo who had come to Soul Society along with the Garganta, looked down at the panicking Shinigami below as she spoke.
At the moment there was no one around her—but very soon, a ring of white bandages suddenly appeared beside Tier, then unraveled to reveal a figure.
The man who appeared was wearing a captain's haori: the current captain of Soul Society's 3rd Division, Ichimaru Gin.
At his feet lay a thin membrane of reishi formed from Bakudō #26: Kyokkō (Curved Light), preventing the Hirutsuki Squad Shinigami below from noticing his presence.
"Of course. This is just the most basic application," Ichimaru Gin said, eyes narrowed, that faint, unreadable smile hanging on his face. "Szayel Aporro said this technology should still have plenty of room for further development. It's just that his luck's been pretty bad lately—he pushed his soul-split experiments a bit too far, and at this point it's not even clear whether he'll survive."
If Aizen Sōsuke's smile was the kind that easily made people lower their guard…
And if Higashino Shuuichi's smile made people feel a genuine warmth from the bottom of their hearts—and maybe even a little heart-flutter…
Then the smile on this Shinigami called Ichimaru Gin's face did nothing but make Tier feel a chill.
In her eyes, Ichimaru Gin was like a venomous snake. His whole "aesthetic" clashed completely with Aizen's—and he was nothing at all like that Tōsen Kaname, who almost never smiled when he came to Hueco Mundo.
At the very least, she didn't like Ichimaru Gin.
Especially since, this time, the mission Aizen had sent them on was to deal with Higashino Shuuichi—the man Tier had already decided she would dedicate her loyalty to.
Every time she saw how eager Ichimaru Gin looked when it came to working against Higashino Shuuichi—how enthusiastic and impatient he seemed—she couldn't help wanting to cut him down with her own hands.
Unfortunately, that man did not allow her to do so. He didn't want her to expose her allegiance just yet.
Tier, however, really wanted to tell that man that she didn't mind at all.
In the worst-case scenario, she would just go back to wandering around Hueco Mundo with Sung-Sun and the other two, drifting from place to place again. She could live with that.
"So what now? That Shinigami named Higashino Shuuichi doesn't seem to have shown up here the way Aizen-sama anticipated."
After sweeping her gaze across the area below, Tier asked Ichimaru Gin.
Even though her current status was Espada No. 2, and according to the ranking Aizen had assigned, she could be called "second only to one, above ten thousand Hollows" within Hueco Mundo, when it came to operations that required entering Soul Society and coordinating with Shinigami, she still had to match her actions to theirs.
So Tier simply tossed the question to Ichimaru Gin.
"It's fine. Even if he's not here right now, once he learns what's happening, he'll definitely come. With his abilities, breaking into this isolated space will be child's play."
Ichimaru Gin spoke while staring at the Shinigami below.
He wanted to repair his relationship with Higashino Shuuichi.
Because Matsumoto Rangiku had vanished without a trace in the World of the Living, Ichimaru Gin believed that whether Matsumoto Rangiku was alive or dead, how she was living now—only Higashino Shuuichi, the person involved, could possibly know the answer.
But since he'd already revealed his true allegiance to Higashino Shuuichi once before, Ichimaru Gin knew that unless he completely cleared his own name, trying to mend their relationship would be extremely difficult.
Still, that didn't mean he had no chance at all.
For example, this time—after his repeated urging, Aizen had finally agreed to let him participate in this plan.
And because Aizen had no intention of killing another captain and further provoking Soul Society with this operation, once Ichimaru Gin got involved, Aizen would have to use Kyōka Suigetsu (Mirror Flower, Water Moon) to provide him with an ironclad alibi.
That much Ichimaru Gin had predicted perfectly.
So this time, he planned to fight Higashino Shuuichi once more with his true body. The difference was that, during this battle, he would deliberately drop certain guiding remarks to mislead Higashino Shuuichi into thinking that "Ichimaru Gin" was just an impostor.
Then, combined with the alibi Aizen created for him in Soul Society using Kyōka Suigetsu, Ichimaru Gin felt the odds of his plan succeeding were quite high.
Of course, the one possible point of failure in this plan… was Ichimaru Gin's own strength.
Ichimaru roughly weighed things in his mind. If it were a life-and-death battle, he was confident that, relying on the abilities he'd kept hidden, he might be able to take Higashino Shuuichi down in a surprise kill.
But if the battle had to be fought under the condition of not killing Higashino Shuuichi, then he figured even ten of himself wouldn't be enough to match one of Higashino Shuuichi's hands.
That was why he had gone to Aizen again and asked for help from the current No. 2 and No. 3 Espada of Hueco Mundo: Tier Harribel and Neliel Tu Odelschwanck.
As for why he hadn't asked the current No. 1, Starrk…
On that question, Ichimaru Gin was helpless. It wasn't that he didn't want to ask.
But the moment Starrk heard that the target was Higashino Shuuichi, he refused outright.
As the uncrowned king of Hueco Mundo, Starrk was so strong that even Aizen, in terms of sheer power, wouldn't necessarily come out ahead against him. If Starrk refused, Ichimaru Gin really didn't have any way to force his help.
That was something only Aizen himself could push.
But Aizen agreeing to let Gin take part in this plan at all was already an act of great generosity. Now Ichimaru Gin wanted to push his luck further?
That would've been nothing but wishful thinking.
There was, however, one thing Ichimaru Gin could never have imagined—that the reason Starrk had refused to join this plan wasn't because he feared Higashino Shuuichi, but because he knew Higashino Shuuichi wasn't the real enemy.
Which meant that any battle between them this time would inevitably be a meaningless, staged fight.
And that was something he detested.
Starrk wanted every battle between himself and Higashino Shuuichi to be fought with both sides going all out.
Only then would it be a battle worth remembering, regardless of victory or defeat.
Having known each other and interacted deeply for so long, Starrk had no doubt that these two Shinigami—Higashino Shuuichi and Aizen—were the ones who understood him best in this world.
In fact, in Starrk's view, Higashino Shuuichi's understanding of him was even more precious.
After all, Aizen felt similarly only because he had also reached a point where he had no true opponents left.
Higashino Shuuichi, on the other hand, had genuinely put himself in Starrk's place and tried to understand him.
Because of that, Starrk had always cherished this Shinigami who, for him, was one of the very few people he could truly call a friend.
That was why, every time Baraggan provoked Higashino Shuuichi in the past, Starrk had always chosen to stand on Higashino Shuuichi's side, and always stepped in just in time to pull him out of Baraggan's grasp.
Otherwise, who knew during which trip to Hueco Mundo Higashino Shuuichi would already have been killed by that Baraggan who couldn't stand the sight of him.
After Ichimaru Gin finished speaking, another tall figure came to hover beside the two of them.
"So, our mission right now is just to wait here for that Higashino Shuuichi to show up?"
Neliel Tu Odelschwanck, the current Espada No. 3 of Hueco Mundo, stopped in mid-air, her voluptuous figure no less generous than Tier's, and asked.
"Of course. But if you two have any ideas about those Shinigami down there, you can go down and play around as you like. As long as that female Shinigami named Ise Nanao doesn't die, the rest are fair game."
Ichimaru Gin glanced at the newly arrived Arrancar and smiled.
The main reason Ise Nanao couldn't be allowed to die was because she had the 8th Division's captain, Kyōraku Shunsui, at her back.
That man looked like a carefree slacker most of the time, but as someone who'd held a captain's position for so many years, Ichimaru Gin was very clear about the hidden strength behind that façade.
When the former 8th Division lieutenant, Yadōmaru Lisa, was branded a traitor by Soul Society for being hollowfied, Ichimaru Gin had seen with his own eyes the sorrow and regret that overflowed in Kyōraku-taichō's gaze.
That was what had led to the current "special case"—Ise Nanao, who was nominally only a captain's assistant, yet in practice handled the duties of a lieutenant.
Ichimaru Gin knew all too well that this was a form of protection for Ise Nanao.
If something on the scale of the original hollowfied Shinigami incident ever happened again, as long as Kyōraku Shunsui wished it, he could legitimately refuse any orders from above involving Ise Nanao by using the excuse that "she's not a lieutenant."
For that reason, not even Aizen wanted to completely enrage the 8th Division captain over something like this and drag Soul Society and Hueco Mundo into open war ahead of schedule.
And for someone like Kyōraku Shunsui, one of the Head Captain's most gifted disciples, pulling that off wouldn't be difficult at all.
However, in this, Ichimaru Gin was being a bit naïve. The two female Arrancar he'd chosen this time were fundamentally different from the others.
"Hmph. I'm not interested."
"Oh, I'm not interested~"
Tier and Nel answered almost in unison.
They were only here because Aizen had ordered them to come to Soul Society and work overtime. Asking them to do more on top of that?
Not a chance.
What's more, both of them were, by nature, tired of slaughter.
They wouldn't voluntarily butcher their fellow Hollows in Hueco Mundo, much less come all the way here just to bully a bunch of Shinigami.
And so, the atmosphere in mid-air suddenly turned strange.
Ichimaru Gin, Tier, and Nel just hung there, staring at one another in silence.
Compared to their lighthearted mood, though…
The people below—Madarame Ikkaku, Shiba Kaien, and the others—were far more tense.
After all, if Aizen had arranged three people to intercept Higashino Shuuichi, how could he possibly have failed to prepare a "little gift" for Shiba Kaien and these Shinigami as well?
"Aaroniero Arruruerie—that's the name I gave him, Aizen-sama."
Not long ago, before Szayel Aporro began his own soul-split experiments, after he had completed all the tasks Aizen had assigned him, he stood in front of his lab bench, pointing proudly at a Gillian he had just finished modifying as he introduced it.
This was the brand-new, second-generation product he'd developed by iterating on that previous successful experimental subject—Atedis Utori, the one who had once driven Higashino Shuuichi into a desperate corner.
This new great Hollow could not only generate inverted reiatsu that naturally countered the spiritual power of targeted Shinigami—it could go a step further and directly devour them, gaining everything about that Shinigami in the process: appearance, voice, and abilities alike.
It was no exaggeration to say that the Aaroniero Arruruerie before them was the crowning achievement of Szayel Aporro's last seven years of research.
Of course, Szayel Aporro knew this was only the beginning. The Aaroniero Arruruerie before him still didn't possess a complete sense of self. As a Gillian-class Menos, it didn't yet have the capacity for autonomous thought like Vasto Lorde-class Hollows or Arrancar.
So, for the time being, Aaroniero Arruruerie couldn't yet be called a truly handy weapon.
But turning it into a perfect weapon… was actually very simple.
Eyes burning with excitement, Szayel Aporro looked at Aizen Sōsuke across from him—and, as he'd hoped, Aizen produced that dazzling gem.
"It's as brilliant as ever! Just one glance is enough to make me lose myself completely—there's no pulling away!"
Gazing at the Hōgyoku in Aizen's hand, Szayel Aporro poured out his praise without the slightest restraint.
This was the great Hōgyoku.
A shrill cry rang out in the laboratory!
A roar erupted over Fūryū Mountain!
Bearing Aizen's orders, the newly born Arrancar—Aaroniero Arruruerie—made his entrance!
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