"How should I know where she is? She's got legs of her own! She could've gone anywhere. Go bother someone else."
Kazuma had no interest in wasting time arguing with the proud little woman.
He strode over and kicked the human-shaped lump of charcoal known as Aizen.
He could still sense traces of reiatsu inside it, which meant Aizen wasn't dead yet.
"Hey, wake up. Time to eat! If you don't get up soon, I really will treat you like charcoal and toss you into the fire."
Kazuma was in a good mood and even started joking around.
His earlier attack had managed to shatter a Menos Grande's Negación.
That was a respectable result, at least proving he now had enough power to break through isolated space.
"Aizen is still alive?"
The captains were surprised by Kazuma's words.
This guy had taken Kazuma's thunder dragon head-on and somehow survived.
That was absurd even by their standards.
"He won't die that easily. At the last moment, he summoned the Menos Grande and had them cover him with a Negación. The barrier absorbed most of the thunder dragon's power. He probably only took twenty or thirty percent of the attack."
Everyone else had shut their eyes during the explosion and missed that moment, but Kazuma had seen it clearly.
"Negación? Does that mean Aizen was secretly working with Hueco Mundo?"
Suì-Fēng asked in shock.
Negación was normally a method Menos Grande used to rescue their own.
For Aizen, a Shinigami, to command one of them to cast it for him could only mean he'd already joined forces with those evil Hollows.
"You're seriously underestimating him. He wasn't just cooperating with Hueco Mundo. He beat the whole place into submission. Right now, he's the new King of Hueco Mundo."
"Hah! The King of Hueco Mundo? He's actually that strong? That's insane!"
"Insane? I still beat his ass."
Kazuma waved off the praise with contempt.
"Yes, yes, you're the biggest badass here. So badass that twenty years ago, everyone heard you'd been killed by Aizen."
"Suì-Fēng, why does your mouth never stop? You run it like a faucet no one can shut off. What happened to that shy, timid little girl from back then?"
Kazuma mercilessly dragged up her past without sparing her dignity.
His words hit Suì-Fēng like a slap to the face.
Her cheeks flushed red at once, redder than a ripe apple.
"Hahahahaha!"
The captains around them could no longer hold back and burst into laughter.
For a moment, the mood turned surprisingly cheerful.
While everyone was still laughing, Captain-Commander Yamamoto cleared his throat.
"That is enough. The jokes have gone far enough! Let us return to the matter at hand. Explain what happened with Aizen. How did the Hōgyoku still end up in his possession?"
Yamamoto stared hard at Kazuma, waiting for a reasonable explanation.
Kazuma rubbed his nose and put on an innocent face.
"It wasn't anything serious. I was just one small step too slow. Otherwise, why would I have needed to work so hard to beat him?"
He even nodded solemnly afterward, as though every word he'd said were the absolute truth.
Only Kazuma knew that he'd deliberately handed the Hōgyoku to Aizen and struck a secret deal with him!
"Hmm?"
Yamamoto frowned, suspicion plain on his face.
He understood Kazuma's strength too well.
If Aizen had truly managed to outrun him and seize the Hōgyoku, then something strange was going on.
"Yama-jii, what kind of look is that? Don't tell me you think I'd lie to you."
Kazuma widened his eyes and acted as if he'd suffered a terrible injustice.
"I will believe you for now."
Yamamoto still had his doubts, but Aizen had already been reduced to a charred body on the ground.
For the moment, the details didn't seem quite as important.
"Rukia!"
"Captain Kazuma?"
Unohana Retsu, Kuchiki Byakuya, Hitsugaya Tōshirō, and the others, their injuries now fully healed, hurried to the Senzaikyū.
The moment Byakuya entered, his eyes went straight to Rukia lying on the floor.
She lay there completely still, her eyes shut.
Byakuya's heart sank, and a terrifying thought flashed through his mind.
Had Aizen already killed her?
Tōshirō was just as shocked, though for a different reason.
Kazuma, who was supposedly dead, was standing here alive!
The sudden sight left him completely confused. He rubbed his eyes hard, wondering if he was seeing things.
Yet the man in front of him was real.
His head buzzed, and he couldn't make sense of what had happened.
Byakuya had no time to think about any of that. He hurried to Rukia, half-knelt beside her, and gently shook her shoulders.
"Rukia! Rukia, wake up!"
His voice was full of worry.
No matter how much he called, though, Rukia didn't react.
Then a strong smell of alcohol reached his nose.
Byakuya's confusion deepened.
Why did she reek so heavily of wine?
While he was still trying to make sense of it, he heard someone call out, "Captain Kazuma."
Byakuya turned and saw it was Tōshirō speaking.
The young captain was staring at Kazuma with a searching look, clearly hoping for a proper explanation.
Byakuya took a deep breath, steadied himself, then stood and walked over to Kazuma.
"Captain Kazuma, what exactly happened here? Why is Rukia lying unconscious on the ground? And weren't you… already dead?"
"You're the one who's dead! I'm perfectly alive."
Kazuma found it odd.
Kuchiki Hisana had never died in this timeline, so why had Byakuya still turned into such an overprotective brother?
No, that wasn't quite right.
He'd become an overprotective brother-in-law!
Kazuma was standing right there in plain sight, yet Byakuya's first glance had gone straight past everyone to Rukia behind them.
Was his eyesight good, because he spotted Rukia at once — or bad, because he missed Kazuma entirely?
"You don't need to worry about her. Nothing happened. She's just drunk."
Speaking of Rukia gave Kazuma another headache.
How had she turned into this?
"Drunk? Where did she get alcohol?"
Everyone's gaze immediately locked onto Kazuma, suspicion written all over their faces.
Captain-Commander Yamamoto's eyes were especially sharp.
Only moments ago, Kazuma had insisted he'd merely been a step slower than Aizen, and that was how Aizen got the Hōgyoku.
Under Yamamoto's questioning stare, Kazuma began to look a little flustered.
"Well… that… I honestly have no idea where Rukia got the alcohol. Maybe one of the Shinigami guarding her brought it."
Even as Kazuma tried his best to distance himself from it, he didn't sound very convincing!
He searched his memory and vaguely recalled that some Shinigami had often brought Rukia different kinds of food.
But no matter how hard he thought, he couldn't remember who.
At that moment, Byakuya spoke from beside him.
"You are most likely referring to Yamada Hanatarō of the Fourth Division. While Rukia was detained by the Sixth Division, he was responsible for bringing her meals and seeing to her daily needs."
As a hopelessly overprotective brother-in-law, Byakuya naturally knew everything about Rukia's situation.
As for the things Hanatarō had done, he'd simply chosen to look the other way.
Kazuma seized on Byakuya's words like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline.
"Yes, yes, exactly! Yama-jii, you heard him. This had absolutely nothing to do with me."
Kazuma had been worrying about who else he could blame, only for Byakuya to play along and hand him the perfect excuse. It was exactly what he needed, right when he needed it.
Wonderful!
Giving a condemned prisoner a little wine before death was perfectly reasonable.
The story had come full circle now, leaving Yamamoto with no easy way to keep questioning him.
"Enough. First, imprison the criminals Aizen Sōsuke and Ichimaru Gin. After that, we will hold a captains' meeting to decide their punishment."
Yamamoto waved his hand and decided to deal with the immediate situation first.
By then, the lieutenants of the various divisions had also begun arriving at the Senzaikyū one after another.
"Gin…"
Among the crowd, Matsumoto Rangiku looked at the bound Ichimaru Gin, her expression complicated.
She didn't know how to face him.
Back in Central 46, Gin's strike had clearly spared her life.
Just as Suì-Fēng and Komamura prepared to bind the human-shaped charcoal that was Aizen, something unexpected happened.
A long, deep crack suddenly opened in the sky above Soul Society, like the gaping jaws of a vicious beast.
From within that terrifying rift, two brilliant beams of light shot out like lightning, racing straight toward the charred Aizen and Ichimaru Gin beside him.
"No! It's another Negación!"
Suì-Fēng cried out in alarm.
The captains' expressions changed at once as a terrible feeling rose in their hearts.
They could only watch helplessly as Aizen and Gin were rapidly wrapped in the mysterious pillars of light.
Anxious as they were, they had no way to interfere and found themselves completely powerless.
With no other choice, every gaze turned toward Kazuma.
Inside the Negación, the Hōgyoku embedded in Aizen's chest suddenly shone with a strange light and poured out an endless stream of overwhelming power.
Under its influence, the charred black layer covering his body rapidly faded, as though time itself were reversing around him.
In the blink of an eye, his terrible injuries healed completely.
Not even a scar remained.
"Captains, we will meet again. Especially you, Captain Kazuma. I will remember the wounds you gave me today. Rest assured, one day I will come in person to settle this debt with you."
Aizen's voice passed clearly through the Negación, carrying a faint threat.
"Farewell, Rangiku…"
Gin didn't say those words aloud.
But as the Negación rose, Rangiku, who had never taken her eyes off him, understood the movement of his lips at once.
Endless sadness and reluctance filled her gaze.
Now fully recovered, Aizen returned to his elegant, handsome self.
Standing confidently within the Negación, he lifted his chin slightly and ran a hand through his smooth hair with shameless flair.
Then he calmly turned to Gin and gave him a slight nod.
Together, the two slowly rose into the sky and headed toward Hueco Mundo.
In truth, Aizen had awoke some time ago.
While the captains were talking, he'd quietly gathered reiatsu and healed his injuries in secret.
He understood that only after recovering enough power to protect himself could he guarantee his own safety.
That was why he'd pretended to stay unconscious, patiently waiting for the best moment.
Once he felt he had enough strength to defend himself, he immediately summoned the Menos Grande again and had them wrap him in Negación.
"Do something, Kazuma! What are you standing around for? You shattered a Negación earlier, so hurry up and do it again!"
Seeing the situation, the anxious Suì-Fēng couldn't help shouting at Kazuma to act.
"Too late. This time, there's really nothing I can do."
Kazuma shook his head helplessly.
To break through the first Negación, he'd spent a massive amount of reiatsu and energy.
More importantly, his strongest attack needed a long time to prepare.
Even if he started gathering power now, Aizen and Gin would have vanished long before it was ready.
"How can there be nothing you can do? You clearly shattered one earlier!"
Suì-Fēng's eyes went wide with disbelief.
Her panic had made her lose sight of the difference between the two situations.
Earlier, Kazuma had attacked first, and Aizen had hastily summoned Negación only after he realized the danger.
This time, Aizen had summoned it before anyone could act and was already escaping.
There simply wasn't enough time for Kazuma to react and counter.
"Captain Suì-Fēng, please face reality. Breaking through Negación is no simple task."
Komamura stepped forward to defend his respected former captain.
Protecting Kazuma's reputation was naturally his job!
"My apologies. I didn't think it through properly."
Suì-Fēng quickly admitted her mistake and apologized for acting on impulse.
Captain-Commander Yamamoto, however, gave Kazuma a long, meaningful look.
His suspicions had never fully disappeared, and now this had happened too.
Kazuma owed him a reasonable explanation.
Just not here, and not yet.