"Oh, strength? Equal footing?" Hiroki looked as though he'd heard a splendid joke. The mask of indifference he'd worn finally cracked, revealing a grin so arrogant it bled contempt and absolute confidence.
He lifted his gaze past Barragan's colossal skeletal frame and, without the slightest evasion, drove it straight into Aizen's face. The curve of his mouth was pure provocation.
"Captain Aizen, you're absolutely right!" Hiroki's voice vaulted sky-high, echoing through the desolate ruins. "Without strength, you don't even qualify to speak! So—"
His eyes turned as cold as northern ice. Center of gravity sinking, a completely different, almost indescribable pressure condensed around him; the very air thickened like wet cement.
"Take one sword-stroke from me first!" he barked, insolent to the point of rudeness. "Survive it, and I'll admit you're worth talking to—"
"What?!" For the first time, Aizen's gentle smile froze into genuine shock. He grasped Hiroki's intent in an instant: not a probe, not a warning, but a single slash set as the threshold for alliance—an absolute gauge of power! Such audacity—yet before Aizen could shape his surprise into words—
Hiroki gave him no instant to react. Palms flashed together at his chest, the motion lightning-fast. An arcane formula, ancient as the cosmos, rumbled from his lips like primordial thunder:
"O gods, apogee of change—"
Every syllable carried crushing weight, forcing the surrounding space to groan. Hueco Mundo's ashen sky dimmed; the white sand in the ruined palace stirred without wind, whirling in frenzy.
Barragan's huge skull jerked upward. The azure flames in his sockets danced wildly, instinctive terror making the giant bones creak.
Gin's ever-narrowed eyes snapped open a fraction, a sliver of gold flashing with disbelief.
Tōsen, though blind, tensed like a drawn bow, shock written across his face.
Even Aizen Sōsuke's eternal composure cracked at the first syllable. Astonishment fixed on his face, pupils shrinking to pinpricks; a primal dread doused him like ice water.
"…whose word births all wonders, beyond shape or question—"
Hiroki's voice grew titanic, divine. A tide of power vast enough to swallow Hueco Mundo erupted, blazing light spearing the eternal gloom. Within that radiance his figure blurred and towered, becoming the eye of a cosmic storm.
"Tai Xu Sword Qi—"
As the final word fell, Aizen's shattered mask of civility crumbled away, leaving only raw shock—and a heart-spasm of fear toward the unknown. He barely managed a reflexive defensive stance.
"—Divine Implication!!!"
A sword-intent imbued with infinite divinity, a law that unmade all things, a slash that tore star-rivers apart—descended.
Like the first light that once split primordial chaos from clarity.
(Damn! A hundred-thousand points—just for this flex! …Worth every penny!)
A deafening sword-cry shredded Hueco Mundo's eternal silence, the very plane seeming to howl. That single resplendent arc—pure concept—hurled itself at Aizen, Gin, Tōsen, and the kneeling Barragan, erasing "existence" itself.
Time and space froze, then shattered.
Aizen's ever-calm smile tore apart under unprecedented dread; pupils contracted to dots. Kyōka Suigetsu, said to fool every sense, could not stir a ripple against this beyond-dimensional strike aimed at the root of being.
"What—?!" A hoarse roar of disbelief and soul-deep tremor burst from the monarch of death himself—Barragan. The azure flames in his sockets nearly guttered; his bones groaned on the brink of collapse. Any resistance, the slightest pressure, would bring instant erasure by that divine law.
(Holy—! A hundred-thousand points—my heart, liver, lungs all ache from this flex!)
A torrent of thoughts detonated in Hiroki's mind, along with a hollow ache: every scrap of reiatsu, stamina, even a slice of life itself had been drained the instant the sword fell. A cold tide of exhaustion swallowed him.
Can't… stay… upright—gonna collapse!
Just as the radiant conceptual blade brushed the tip of Aizen's hair—
Whummmm—!!!
No earth-rending crash—only a silent cosmic wail as background radiation was torn out of existence. The slash was no physical cut; it was a higher-dimensional eraser, sweeping across Aizen, Gin, Tōsen, and a hundred-meter sphere of space.
Time resumed.
The broken shell of Las Noches convulsed. A bottomless chasm, edges mirror-smooth, now yawned where the three had stood. Sand, bone, masonry—all gone without sound, only lingering annihilation.
At the canyon's rim on Hiroki's side, a figure stood rigid, arms crossed, shihakushō in tatters. Half-shattered glasses revealed eyes churning with shock, lingering dread, deep wariness—and a blazing, newly kindled hunger for knowledge.
Aizen Sōsuke!
His reiatsu surged violently; for the first time his breathing lost its perfect rhythm. Across the arms folded over his chest, several wounds deep enough to show bone slowly seeped blood. In that instant just now he had abandoned every flashy illusion and probe, relying on instincts forged in a thousand battles and overwhelming fundamentals to burst back at full power while defending with everything he had—only then did he barely escape the core of that "Divine Implication Erasure," yet the terrifying aftershock of law still mauled him. The injuries were far lighter than Barragan's, but to Aizen's unfathomable pride the impact was unprecedented.
On the other side, Ichimaru Gin emerged from a crater of white sand eaten away as though corroded. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and the ever-present fox-like smirk had vanished without a trace, replaced by grimness and a barely perceptible lingering fear. His fox-narrow eyes were now wide open, locked on Hiroki across the battlefield; within those vertical golden pupils burned an appraisal he had never shown before. Farther away Tōsen Kaname knelt on one knee, his ragged breathing audible; the white sand beneath him had been furrowed deep by the reiatsu he'd released while struggling, proof that he too had paid a price.
As for Barragan… that mountain-sized skeletal frame had lost its left shoulder and a good portion of its ribs, erased as cleanly as if wiped away by an eraser, vanished into that canyon of nothingness! The remaining torso shook violently, the ghost-blue flames in its eye-sockets flickering with the terror of one who had barely survived and the utmost humiliation of being hurled into the dust. Even the thought of resentment was momentarily crushed by fear.
The entire battlefield sank into a silence deeper than before the Divine Implication descended.
Every gaze converged on the one who had unleashed that world-shaking strike—the "culprit," Shihōin Hiroki—his figure now swaying uncontrollably, face as white as paper, as if he might collapse at any moment.
He could feel the nerves of the four Uchiha behind him snap to their very limit, their vigilance skyrocketing. Izumi even instinctively stepped forward half a pace, ready to support him, but stopped at the unspoken command of Hiroki's iron will.
Hold it together! The persona can't crumble! If you act the part, you finish the performance!
Hiroki clenched his teeth, using the lingering might of his sword-strike and that air of unrivaled arrogance to nail his nearly limp body in place, spine straight. He lifted his chin slightly, eyes beneath the tousled fringe meeting the battered Aizen head-on. Though his voice trembled imperceptibly from extreme weakness, he maintained an unquestionable loftiness: "Aizen Sōsuke… you're not bad. When your wounds are healed, come find me at the Shihōin Clan." A grin—hardly handsome but undeniably cocky—spread across his lips.
Each word struck Aizen's heart like a hammer-blow.
Aizen lowered his gaze to the bone-deep gash on his arm beneath the cracked lenses. The sharp pain and the greater mental shock kept him silent for several seconds. When he looked up again, all shock, lingering fear, and humiliation in his eyes behind the broken glass had been forcibly suppressed, replaced by a light of extreme complexity—excitement at meeting a worthy opponent, greed for an unknown power, a re-evaluation of his target, and… a fanaticism as though he had found the key to a higher plane!
Slowly, he pulled an unprecedented, heartfelt, bloody smile. It was no longer gentle, no longer false, but filled with the rawest, barest dark ferocity.
"Heh… hehe… hahahaha!" Aizen's laughter rose from low to loud, echoing across the dead Hueco Mundo ruins, brimming with twisted delight. "Hahahaha! Shihōin Hiroki… you truly make me…"
He pushed the remnants of his spectacle frame; the cracked lens reflected pale light as he spoke, each word ringing like struck iron: "…deeply honored!"
He'd won the gamble! This madman really goes for this act!
The boulder in Hiroki's heart crashed down; he almost gasped aloud in relief. Maintaining his façade, face still declaring I'm-awesome-therefore-inevitable, he said: "I'll be waiting at the Shihōin Clan." Without letting the other finish, he cut in and ordered, "Shisui—withdraw!" He had to leave at once; every second of pretense was a titanic test of will. If he slipped, the consequences would be unthinkable!
Uchiha Shisui reacted fastest. The instant Hiroki's command left his lips, his prepared Mangekyo Sharingan erupted—not to attack, but to condense a green Susanoo!
Thus the group departed the ruined Las Noches from within the Susanoo's "cockpit."
"Heh…" Aizen adjusted the broken lens, his smile growing ever deeper and unfathomable.
"Captain Aizen…" Ichimaru Gin's voice drifted up, laced with playful intrigue. "Truly terrifying. I suspect that wasn't even that lord's full strength."
Gin was genuinely shocked; he had never imagined that among the nobles of Seireitei such fearsome power could still hide.
Aizen gave no direct answer. Gazing at the deep wound on his arm still carrying the aura of annihilation law, feeling the lingering tremor deep in his soul, he chuckled softly: "Gin, don't you think… the game board of Soul Society is becoming more and more interesting?"
He lifted his gaze, as though piercing the walls of Hueco Mundo to look toward Seireitei.
"Prepare yourself. We're going to pay a temporary 'visit' to this deeply concealed 'partner.' And that 'sincerity'… must be weighty enough."
The moment Hiroki's soles touched the familiar polished wooden corridor of the Shihōin estate, the willpower he had forcibly maintained collapsed like a dam of ice shattering.
Thud!
Before he could even make out what lay ahead, his knees buckled; his whole body, as though bones had been removed, pitched forward. Thanks to Uchiha Izumi's quick eyes and swift step, a faint fragrance brushed past as she caught his nearly disintegrated weight with her slender frame.
"My lord!" Uchiha Fugaku's deep, anxious voice sounded at the same instant; on the other side an iron-steady hand gripped Hiroki's arm.
Supported by Izumi and Fugaku on either side, the completely spent Hiroki could not even raise his head. Forelocks hung down, hiding a paper-pale, bloodless face. Each feeble breath tore at his lungs as though he inhaled not air but red-hot grit. His heart pounded wildly and erratically in his chest, as if it might burst or stop at any moment, every beat tugging aching muscles into a chorus of agony.
Damn… I'm hollowed out… Hiroki struggled to jest at the edge of consciousness. This feels… worse than after clearing that space station… even my bones… are mush…