Aizen's hand trembled slightly, not from pain—but from the humiliating reality settling in. He had been scarred. By a human. A boy.
He lifted his left arm slowly, fingers spreading apart as a swirl of pitch-black energy gathered in his palm. The sky above Hueco Mundo twisted into a whirlpool of darkness as his spiritual pressure coalesced—thick, sharp, and suffocating.
"You underestimate more than just my strength," Aizen growled. "Let me remind you of what true destruction looks like."
Ichigo didn't move.
Aizen's voice rang with power, syllables ancient and resonant:
"Hadō number 90: Kurohitsugi!"
The air instantly turned cold. Inky panels of black light formed around Ichigo, rising like the bars of a spiritual coffin. The sky cracked with purple lightning as the incantation locked into place. White walls sealed in with an otherworldly hum—dense, heavy, vibrating with lethal pressure.
A moment passed.
Then suddenly, those walls shattered.
BOOOOOM!
Ichigo stepped forward from the collapsing prison of energy, completely untouched. The black coffin had broken like glass against his aura alone. He hadn't even lifted his blade.
Aizen's eyes widened, disbelief flickering across his face. "Wha—"
Too slow.
Ichigo vanished.
FLASH.
A blur. A shockwave.
Then a sickening CRACK as Ichigo's fist slammed into Aizen's face with enough force to rupture the air around them. His entire body twisted violently from the blow, neck snapping sideways, eyes rolling back as he was launched like a missile across the sky.
He didn't just fly, he tore through Hueco Mundo, a streak of white sand and chaos trailing behind him.
And then—
BOOOOOOOM!
Aizen crashed into the towering walls of Las Noches like a meteor. The outer structure ruptured instantly massive slabs of stone exploded outward, pillars shattered from the inside, and debris rained down like hail. He smashed through multiple walls, each one exploding into dust and rubble before he finally skidded to a halt inside a ruined corridor, buried beneath a mound of fractured stone.
A massive hole gaped in the side of the fortress. Wind howled through the breach, scattering sand through the halls. Cracks veined across the dome of Las Noches like a spiderweb.
Ichigo slowly floated forward, his footsteps silent in the air.
He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
His silence was louder than any threat Aizen had ever uttered.
Buried in the rubble, bruised and bloodied, Aizen stirred his pride more broken than his body. And for the first time in his godhood… He looked up at Ichigo not as prey. But as the predator.
Ichigo landed silently in the shattered corridor of Las Noches, the dust still swirling in the air like the aftermath of a bomb. Rubble crumbled beside his feet, and in the center of the destruction lay Aizen—body cracked, pride shattered, breathing heavy but defiant.
Without hesitation, Ichigo stepped forward and placed his foot directly onto Aizen's chest, pinning him down with no more effort than stepping on a stone. The weight of it wasn't just physical—it was symbolic, pressing down on Aizen's arrogance, on centuries of delusion and godlike ego.
Ichigo stared down at him, eyes like cold steel.
"You think of yourself as a god," he said, voice low and piercing. "A man born with gifts, with talent, with unmatched intelligence. You're so full of yourself, Aizen. So sure the world would bend to your vision. That destiny would unfold in the palm of your hand."
He knelt slightly, pressing down harder with his heel, the pressure causing Aizen to grit his teeth.
"You thought you could see the future… But here we are—in the present. And you still can't accept it." Ichigo's eyes narrowed, reiatsu simmering around his body like black fire. "Because you're too busy dreaming of what comes next… while the now is burying you alive."
With a swift motion, Ichigo reached down and grabbed Aizen by the throat, lifting him clean off the ground with one arm. The broken stones cracked beneath them as he stood, holding the once-mighty god like nothing more than a doll.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed.
A group of Arrancar—still loyal to Aizen—rushed into the ruined hall. Their eyes widened in horror at what they saw: their lord, the one who had raised them from nothing, being choked mid-air by a human.
"No… That's impossible…" one whispered, dropping to a knee.
Another simply stood frozen, mouth slightly open, unable to breathe as the illusion of Aizen's invincibility unraveled before their eyes.
Ichigo turned his head, his grip still tight around Aizen's throat, and stared at the Arrancar with calm, kingly authority.
"I'm the king of this dimension now."
With that, he hurled Aizen through the gaping hole in the wall.
Aizen's body streaked through the sky like a comet, crashing into the sand dunes of Hueco Mundo with a thunderous impact. A shockwave burst across the desert as he tumbled through the dunes, skidding, breaking, until he finally came to rest—half-buried in white sand, staring at the shattered sky above.
He lay still, panting. Bruised. Broken.
But not defeated.
Aizen's eyes twitched. He couldn't move. He refused to lose. And yet, something was… changing.
Pain erupted in his chest—not physical, not external, but deep. The Hōgyoku within him pulsed violently, like a second heart awakening. But this time—it wasn't responding to his will.
It was rejecting it.
Aizen's body arched involuntarily as violet light surged from his core. His skin cracked with lines of glowing energy. His eyes widened in disbelief as his form began to shift—bones reforming, reiatsu flaring uncontrollably. His long coat shredded from his shoulders as new appendages, alien and jagged, sprouted from his back like growing blades.
The Hōgyoku no longer recognized Aizen as its master.
It was taking over.
He screamed—not in fear, but in rage—as the transformation consumed him. Flesh twisted, face partially masked by a new shell of spirit matter. His reiatsu grew more chaotic, less human—distorted, monstrous, free from reason.
Far away, atop the broken halls of Las Noches, Ichigo stood quietly, eyes narrowing as the air began to shift once again.
The final evolution had begun.
And this time, Aizen was no longer in control.
Ichigo appeared in a burst of compressed wind, landing softly atop a jagged piece of broken wall overlooking the battlefield. His black cloak fluttered behind him, tattered from battle but still regal in the way it clung to his form. He rested Tensa Zangetsu across his shoulder, the sleek black blade gleaming faintly under Hueco Mundo's pale artificial moon.
The air was heavy with tension, the echoes of Aizen's scream still drifting across the dunes. The ground far below was cracked and scorched, the lingering residue of chaotic reiatsu still humming faintly beneath the silence.
Ichigo tilted his head slightly, eyes half-lidded, voice calm.
"Wow… he's really gone, right, partner?"
There was a silence—an internal breath—before a voice responded from deep within him.
"Yes, he has," Tensa Zangetsu said, his tone carrying the faintest touch of disappointment. "It looks like we'll have to end it now. And I was just starting to have fun."
Ichigo gave a small chuckle under his breath, shifting the blade across his shoulder as the wind ruffled his hair.
"No matter," he said, eyes narrowing with that familiar sharpness. "We'll find more fun when the Quincy return."
He smirked, a glint of anticipation dancing behind his gaze.
Above him, the shattered dome of Las Noches moaned faintly in the wind, and far in the distance, the sand began to stir again—Aizen wasn't done yet.
But neither was Ichigo.
TO BE CONTINUED