"Aizen, huh..."
Shinji stared up at the sky like life had wrung him dry.
Cole blinked and added helpfully from the side, "If you knew Aizen back when he was in his mom's womb, you've got his schemes all figured out too, right?"
"Pfft—!"
Shinji almost spat blood. He glared at Cole, grief and rage mixing. "Enough, you little punk! I bragged once, okay? How is it that a hundred years later it still comes back to bite me?"
Back then, he'd thought he could casually handle Aizen.
It turned out to be the other way around.
Aizen casually handled him.
Just then Shinji felt a chill run down his spine. He looked at his teammates, started inching backward, and laughed weakly: "Guys... what are you doing? We're comrades, right? Don't— Aaaah!!!"
Hiyori flew in with a vicious kick, cursing as she stomped, "Damn chrome-dome! If you knew something was off with Aizen back then, why didn't you deal with him!?"
Lisa pushed up her glasses while punting him. "If you knew him back in the womb, why didn't you see his plot?"
Kensei kept hammering punches. "If you'd told me then that Aizen was fishy, I'd have beaten him half-dead!"
Love scowled and put a few boots in. "Shinji, I'm seriously doubting your IQ."
Curled up under a friendly beatdown, Shinji howled, "How is this my fault!? That guy hid too deep! I watched day and night and still couldn't tell when he made his move! Besides, I wasn't the only one who suspected him—Shunsui and Jūshirō both felt something off about Aizen, too! We just didn't have proof then. We couldn't act—and we gave him the opening... argh!"
A few minutes later...
Shinji crouched beside Cole, face swollen and bruised.
Cole couldn't help laughing. "Well? Still feeling cocky?"
To him, Shinji's lot had gotten too comfortable. Whether back in Seireitei or hiding in the World of the Living, they lacked real crisis sense—borderline smug. It gave them the illusion that if they just got "serious," they could beat Aizen in minutes.
Pure fantasy.
Aizen had accounted for almost every variable and just waited for them to walk into the trap smiling.
Not entirely their fault. For nine hundred years before Aizen, nothing major had rocked Soul Society.
"Not cocky anymore..." Shinji sighed. "Looking back, that 'peeping' I noticed might've been a crack he left on purpose—just to lull me."
If he hadn't thought he could "handle" Aizen, he wouldn't be in this mess today. Keep underestimating him, and it wouldn't be Hollowfication next time—it'd be death.
Cole nodded, satisfied. If Shinji's crew really woke up, maybe they wouldn't get one-shot. Maybe they'd last two or three swings.
While they spoke, Ichigo on the other side had been pushed to the brink—fresh cuts bled across his torso.
"Little girl—are you actually trying to kill me!?" Ichigo gritted his teeth and swung Zangetsu.
Hiyori's voice went cold. "Spit the Hollow out. If you can't, I'll kill you for real."
As she spoke, her right hand swept across her face.
A white-and-red Hollow mask snapped into place.
Her assault turned even more ferocious; every strike drove Ichigo back several steps.
More than once Ichigo almost popped bankai (Final Release), but he forced it down—he was here to control the Hollow, after all.
After several fierce exchanges, Hiyori's blade carved down again. Killing intent bristled—red light gathered fast along the mask.
In that instant, Ichigo's pupils blew wide. The sensation of death pressed real and close; negative emotions surged up all at once.
Cole narrowed his eyes. "Get ready to save someone."
Shinji, listless, said, "I'm watching. I won't let Ichigo die."
Cole shot him a look. "I meant Hiyori."
While Shinji blanked, Ichigo's eyes turned gold. A white-and-red mask bloomed out of thin air across his face, and a piercing, manic scream tore free.
"GRAAAAH!!!"
Hollowfication creeping in, Ichigo clenched Zangetsu and laughed wildly, then hacked down—
"CHAAANG!!!"
A shriek of steel. Hiyori's building cero (Hollow Flash) exploded under a single slash—Zangetsu's edge was already at her throat.
"Sonído—no, too late—"
Silver flashed toward her neck, pupils dilating to the limit—
At the split second of impact, multiple figures blurred in. Thunder cracked. Seven Visoreds slammed Ichigo to the ground and leveled seven zanpakuto at him.
Sweat beading, Shinji gripped his hilt. "What is this Hollow in him—Adjuchas-class!?"
He'd almost failed to react in time.
Kensei stared down at the thrashing, howling Hollow-Ichigo. "This guy's trouble."
The Hollows in their own bodies were just lower Menos—Gillian-class. Even so, it had cost them nine lives' worth of trials and blood battles to barely control that power.
And the Hollow in Ichigo looked stronger than all of theirs put together.
"Let's bring him back down first," Love exhaled. He lifted his blade, aiming to smash the white-red mask off Ichigo's face with the pommel.
"Wait," Cole said, thinking aloud.
The Visoreds paused and glanced back.
Cole crouched, rapped knuckles lightly on the Hollow mask—once, twice—then stood, satisfied. "Shinji, fight him a bit more."
Shinji blinked. "Fight what for? The Hollow's already out. It won't help."
"Not necessarily..." A sharp light flickered in Cole's eyes.
Unlike the Hollows inside the Visoreds, Ichigo's "Shiro" was on a whole different level—with two forms.
This first phase was what they saw now.
The second was the Bull-Head Hollow—a Vasto Lorde-level monster. In raw power, it might surpass Shinji.
If Ichigo could seize control of that...
His combat strength would skyrocket. He might even one-shot Ulquiora.
They didn't fully get it, but followed Cole's lead and resumed the clash.
Hollow-Ichigo raged, fingers lashing Zangetsu's white cloth—spinning the blade into a silver blur.
"Hahahahaha... Too weak, too weak! Try harder—hahaha!"
He screamed with a razor-edged laugh, blades sparking as he crashed against Shinji.
Cole watched only a moment, then looked away and ruffled Hiyori's hair with a grin. "Got scared, huh?"
The mask might look cool, but paired with that crushing Hollow aura, a first-time face-to-face could scare someone half to death. A moment ago, if the Visoreds hadn't stepped in on time, "Shiro" would've lopped Hiyori in one stroke.
Hiyori wiped the corner of her eye, snapped her head aside, and huffed, "I wasn't scared! That little idiot just changed so much so fast it startled me, okay!"
Cole chuckled. "Right, right—no fear. Hiyori's the toughest—such a thoughtful, gentle girl."
Her cheeks tinged red.
...
The battle raged on. Even Hollowed, Ichigo was still suppressed by Shinji. Just as Shinji started to get bored, his brows twitched—surprised.
Ichigo's Hollow reiatsu was still rising. The mask crawled, growing thicker, whiter.
Five minutes later—
"ROOOOAR!!!"
A deafening bellow ripped the air.
Ichigo's form twisted again—completely unlike before. The mask had turned white-and-black, heavier and more suffocating, steeped in death. Atop his head, white matter gathered into two brutal horns. His whole body turned corpse-white. A black hole opened in his chest, four black lines streaming from it.
The first impression: despair. Slaughter.
A demon out of hell, stripped of humanity.
All eight Visoreds sucked a sharp breath, staring at the Menos before them.
Yes—Menos.
Humanity gone, utterly.
Shinji's throat clicked. "Vasto Lorde..."
This wasn't Gillian or Adjuchas. This was the highest order of Menos Grande.
He turned stiffly to Cole. "You knew?"
Cole nodded, smiling. "Captain Shinji, I'm entrusting Ichigo to you. You must help him complete his Hollowfication."
"Complete my ass!!!" Shinji almost swore aloud.
A Vasto Lorde—rarer than rare even in Hueco Mundo. Any one of them could crush an average captain.
He didn't get to finish. Bull-Head Ichigo stamped once—and ghosted behind Shinji.
With a savage roar he chopped down with shikai (Initial Release) Zangetsu.
"Taorero, Sakanade (Fall down, Counter Stroke)!!!"
Shinji shouted and unleashed, slashing to meet Zangetsu.
BOOM!!!
A thunderous blast—Shinji went pinwheeling eight hundred meters and smashed into the warehouse wall. The barrier webbed with cracks.
The others' scalps prickled. They charged the Bull-Head in a panic.
Bull-Head Ichigo thrust out his right hand. Thumb, index, and middle finger closed together—scarlet glared between them.
"Cero..." Kensei started—and the world bled red.
KABOOOOOM!!!
The warehouse erupted. The Visoreds tumbled end over end.
"ROAR!!!"
Bull-Head Ichigo stepped once, crossing the gap to Kensei. Zangetsu fell like a crescent moon.
Ignoring his wounds, Kensei bellowed through the pain, "Be reduced to nothing—Tachikaze (Earth-Severing Wind)!!!"
His old-fashioned blade warped into a short dagger, green gales writhing around it. He whipped the knife, winds raging to double his force, trying to catch that moonlit edge—
Blood flashed.
Kensei stared, stunned—his chest split open, crimson gushing.
"How... is that possible..."
A captain, shikai already released—and he couldn't even parry one slash from this monster.
He staggered twice and crashed forward.
Bull-Head Ichigo didn't slow. He pinned Kensei underfoot, dipped his head; violent reiatsu flared between the two white horns.
In a heartbeat, the red cero swelled into a burning sun.
Shinji's scalp went numb. "Cole—stop him! Kensei will die!"
"Don't need you to tell me..." Cole muttered. He leveled the end of Ruyi Jingu Bang at Bull-Head Ichigo. "Long! Long! Long! Long!"
The golden staff shot out like Gin's Shinsō, stretching hundreds of times in a blink. A streak of gold smashed square into the Bull-Head and shoved him hundreds of meters away.
At the same time, Love looked up to see the charging Bull-Head barreling toward him. He almost died on the spot from fright, swore, and released in a rush: "You brat—did you do that on purpose!?"
"Uchikudake, Tengumaru (Smash it, Heavenly Dog)!"
His zanpakuto morphed into a giant spiked kanabō. With a roar he swung Tengumaru down at the Bull-Head.
At that exact instant, the cero crowning the horns detonated.
KRA-KOOOOM!!!
A world-rending blast swallowed the warehouse.
(End of Chapter)
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