High in the storm-lit sky, a woman with cropped golden hair and a proud figure stood motionless. She was the Tercera Espada, Tia Harribel. Her indifferent gaze held steady as she raised the colossal shark-eyed blade in her hand, its presence like a tidal surge waiting to be unleashed.
Beneath her, the streets of false Karakura had drowned into an ocean. Water roared through the avenues, rising into towers and jets that split the air with deafening force. Facing her above the chaos, wings of ice spread wide, was a boy with hair white as winter frost—Hitsugaya Tōshirō. His body bore fresh wounds, his young frame already driven into disadvantage by the relentless tide.
Harribel leveled her blade, and with a thunderous roar another surge of water hurtled toward him. "Tch…" Tōshirō hissed, forcing his battered body aside, wings straining as torrents chased him. His zanpakutō Hyōrinmaru was meant to suppress water and bind it in frozen chains, yet Harribel's ocean was inexhaustible. Against that boundless tide, his ice was swallowed whole, unable to stir the depth of her waves.
Dodging, rolling, wings beating hard, he barely cleared the torrent.
"I told you already," Harribel's calm voice cut through the spray, "there are sacrifices you cannot escape."
Her greatsword pulsed, and this time a singular torrent erupted, thicker than all those before, a water-dragon that seemed to blot the sky. Tōshirō's pupils contracted. He readied to move—but a flicker of light behind him caught his eye.
It was the barrier of the healing ward. Within, Madarame Ikkaku, Ayasegawa Yumichika, and Hisagi Shūhei lay wounded, alongside Hinamori Momo and Matsumoto Rangiku. Outside it, Komamura Sajin, bloodied and scarred from his clash with Tōsen, stood sentinel, powerless to intervene yet unyielding in gaze.
Seeing Momo's pale face, Rangiku's weariness, and Komamura's watchful silence, Tōshirō understood Harribel's words. He could not evade. Behind him were lives that needed protection.
"There are sacrifices you can't escape… then let it be me."
His grip tightened on Hyōrinmaru, a wry, almost bitter smile flickering. If I must take it head on, so be it—even in pieces.
The water-dragon roared toward him. "Ice wall formation!!" Tōshirō's voice cracked through the storm as a fortress of ice erupted before him.
The torrent struck, shaking heaven and earth.
Inside the barrier, Momo struggled upright, eyes wide. Rangiku lifted her head weakly, while Komamura simply looked to the sky, unmoving. Rain fell heavy, streaking their faces with cold trails that could not hide their dread.
When the spray cleared, the wall still stood.
"Ha…" Tōshirō panted, pale and gasping, relief faint in his eyes.
In Harribel's calm gaze, something shifted—a glint of respect. She honored those who risked themselves for their comrades. For that was her creed as well. "Very well. Then I will give you a warrior's death, with dignity."
But Tōshirō raised Hyōrinmaru once more, determination flashing. "Don't talk down to me, you bastard! Thousand-Year Ice Prison!!"
A forest of spears erupted as icicles surged skyward, whirling around Harribel, tightening their circle. Her gaze remained unflinching, until his roar shattered the silence.
"Die!!"
The frozen storm closed in, fusing into a vast crystalline prison that sealed her within a pillar of ice.
Breath ragged, Tōshirō collapsed to one knee. "Ha… ha…" His body shook, spiritual power drained to near nothing. Yet as the last syllable left him, a sound split the prison.
Cracks webbed across its surface.
"What?!" His head snapped up just as the ice shattered apart in a hail of shards. Harribel stepped through, unscathed, water cascading from her shoulders, eyes cold as ever.
"How can it be…?" Tōshirō's voice trembled as despair tightened around him. Her blade rose again. He conjured another wall of ice in desperation—
But instead of a tidal surge, a yellow Cero blazed from her weapon.
The beam ripped through the barrier, engulfing him in raw destruction.
"Tōshirō!!" Momo and Rangiku's cries tore out together.
His body was hurled from the sky, crashing through seawater and stone, gouging a crater into the drowned street. Dark bubbles rose with streaks of blood before his broken figure emerged again, staggering.
Soaked, gasping, blood dripping from his lips, Tōshirō hunched forward but refused to fall. Each cough dragged more blood from his chest, but his voice rang iron. "You ask what I'm willing to sacrifice? I don't know. But if you ask me what I'll protect…" His eyes lifted, glacial resolve burning within.
"The things I want to protect… are deeper than icebergs! Greater than snow!"
His roar split the sky, and the heavens answered. Clouds churned, shadows fell, and the frozen sky itself began to fracture.
"Hyōrinmaru… Hyōten Hyakkasō!!"
The clouds tore open. From their rift descended an avalanche of snow and ice, countless blossoms of frost pouring from the heavens. A funeral of frozen flowers.
Avalanches bury without mercy, and among the snow, none are innocent. Harribel did not care for such truth. Yet as the storm descended, her eyes widened. Dragons of water surged up to resist, but the frozen tide overran them instantly, converting them to pillars of ice mid-flight.
The snow became countless crystalline petals, blooming upon her body. Ice flowers sprouted on her wrists, her ankles, her shoulders, blooming faster than she could react. Before she could even lift her blade, the blizzard engulfed her completely.
The avalanche swallowed her form, entombing her in a towering icicle that glittered like a monument in the sunlight.
And there, frozen in white eternity, stood the third Espada—Tia Harribel. Beautiful. Lifeless. Eternal.
Tōshirō collapsed on the icy ground, chest heaving, exhaustion gnawing every fiber of him. Yet in his dimming eyes there was relief. The first Espada had fallen. The Gotei 13 had claimed its first victory.
The sun broke through the clouds, casting its warmth on his face. Though lying on cold ice, Hitsugaya Tōshirō felt only warmth within. Victory, after all, would belong to the Soul Society.
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