The shrieks were hair-raising.
Mountain-sized black Gillian Menos poured into Muramasa like a flood. One after another—dozens in an eyeblink—were devoured, and Muramasa's body warped, bulging and denting as though something inside was ramming to break free.
The watching zanpakuto wore faces of disgust and fear. Just imagining devouring Hollows made them sick—let alone the risk of a Hollow's stain seeping into one's heart.
Katen couldn't hold back. "Even if Muramasa's power can swallow Menos, taking in that many… won't his heart fall?"
Hollows were the fallen husks of human souls, bearing all the ugliest vices of humanity: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, lust, despair, hatred, revulsion, pain… a nexus of worldly sins. Muramasa's mind-bending power might swallow them, but he had no way to digest so many at once. The Menos would remain within him, gnawing at his reason until he fully lapsed into a Hollow.
Hyorinmaru said coolly, "That depends on whether his spirit can endure. If it can't, we kill him."
No one objected. If a heart was consumed by Hollows, Muramasa as they knew him was dead—and none of them would bow to a Menos.
Hearing them, Byakuya cast the faintest glance their way. The heaviness in his chest finally eased a notch.
Good. At least they still had selves.
They weren't completely taken by Muramasa's manipulation. If a dozen bankai-class zanpakuto had fallen fully under him, even the Head Captain might not subdue them easily.
Time ticked. Gillian after Gillian, screaming, were forced down and made a part of Muramasa.
At last, nothing else pushed through the rift. Every manifested zanpakuto present—Byakuya included—stared, grim, at the thing before them.
A lump of meat.
An irregular white sphere, its surface boiling with the contorted faces of Gillian, hideous and howling to split the air—as if they still fought to rampage free and destroy.
Minutes crawled past like that, until the lump dwindled and Muramasa's figure emerged. The white mass sank into him and vanished.
Muramasa coughed weakly, then looked around at the zanpakuto and Byakuya. "It's me."
The crowd exhaled as one. The reiatsu, the voice—yes, it was Muramasa.
Byakuya, however, felt a flicker of regret. Had Muramasa's mind been overrun, the crisis would have solved itself. A pity—his spirit was too unyielding.
He caught himself wondering: was that "uncle" of his really worth it?
In his memories, Koga was a willful shinigami—arrogant, even to excess. Cold to comrades. He believed in nothing but his own zanpakuto's power. Hard to imagine such a man's blade would endure Hollow erosion for his sake and keep a spotless inner world. Their temperaments were worlds apart.
As Byakuya pondered, Muramasa glanced at his missing arm and severed leg. He willed it—and a pale substance writhed from the wounds, crawling outward. In seconds, a new arm took shape.
Byakuya's pupils tightened; his thoughts snapped back as he eyed the regenerated limb. "High-speed regeneration."
Just like Cole's—an upper-class Hollow's broken power. Less healing than outright creation of lost parts, neatly bypassing "incurable" wounds.
"Among the hundred-odd Gillian he absorbed, one must have had high-speed regeneration…" Seichu ventured, then to Muramasa: "Sir, are you sure you're all right?"
Muramasa flexed his new fingers and smiled. "I feel excellent. The Hollow power not only restored me—it made me stronger."
The cacophony in his inner world had grown, yes, but he had gained new tools: Cero, sonido, high-speed regeneration, Pesquis—search circuits to sweep for reiatsu…
If he took another of Cole's Cero now, he wouldn't have his limbs blasted off. At worst he'd be gravely injured—then rapidly recover.
"Master… I'm almost there. I can bring you out soon…"
Excitement flashed in Muramasa's eyes. He turned to the assembled blades and said, firm, "I've sealed Yamamoto Genryusai. The remaining shinigami are still flailing in vain. We must sweep them all away—only then can zanpakuto be truly freed."
A chorus of cheers erupted from the hundreds of manifested blades. Most were weaker than bankai-class spirits—and the ones Muramasa had brainwashed the deepest. To them, shinigami were mortal enemies; only by erasing them could blades be liberated.
"The Head Captain…" A glint lit Byakuya's gaze. He had betrayed the shinigami and entered Muramasa's camp for a single aim: learn the Head Captain's whereabouts. Let the zanpakuto caper—they would vanish like mist if the old man appeared.
Next step—find where he was sealed.
Night, in a pocket-space hideout.
Cole lay on a hammock with Sode no Shirayuki and asked, puzzled, "Shirayuki, what did Rukia want with you today? She made me leave. Don't tell me she really wants you back in the blade?"
He should've had Shirayuki with him today, not Soi Fong. But Rukia had stopped her with a flushed face, saying she had important matters to discuss.
Hearing that, Shirayuki grew smug. "That's… a secret."
She bit her lip with a small smile.
Cole's curiosity only burned hotter. He jostled her and murmured in her ear with a grin, "Tell me, Shirayuki. Good Shirayuki. Cutest in the world. Greatest beauty. Kindest soul…"
Her cheeks flushed, but with the morning's "lesson" in mind, no amount of sweet talk got an answer. Instead, she took Cole's hand, pressed it to her, drew him down to pin her, and whispered, "Cole, love me…"
With Shirayuki that shy, there was no holding back. Cole administered corporal punishment with a growl: "Let's hear you beg it out."
She closed her eyes, red-faced, arms looped tight around his neck.
Elsewhere, Rukia, tossing sleepless on her hammock, suddenly gasped and stared into the distance, crimson-faced. "Shirayuki…"
She'd begged so much that morning—and Shirayuki still bullied her at night. After a moment's hesitation, Rukia slipped down, crept to yesterday's vantage, and peeked again. Soi Fong followed, the second time making it easier. The two girls, cheeks pink, watched in tacit silence.
Dawn.
Cole eyed the darker panda-rings under both girls' eyes. "Really going for the panda cosplay, huh?"
They glared and laid into him with pink fists; Soi Fong even drew her blade. Steel rang—sparks flew off Cole's skin. Shirayuki stifled a giggle and shot Rukia a proud look: "Trash-tier master…"
Rukia fumed and bit Cole's shoulder. "You jerk!"
Day three dawned. Their circles were darker; their steps floated. Cole squinted. "Soi Fong, did unrequited love for Yoruichi drive you to night-raiding Rukia? Otherwise why not sleep?"
Soi Fong snarled, "My love for Lady Yoruichi is written on heaven and earth!"
Day four.
The first sunbeams spilled in; Cole rose and blinked at them, startled. "So you two are done being shinigami and switching to immortal cultivation?"
Their eyes were so black it looked like smoky makeup—captains turned delinquent brats, with a morbid, drop-dead-any-second aesthetic. They said nothing, just stared at Cole like he was a monster.
"Monster," Soi Fong muttered.
"Big monster," Rukia added.
Four nights of peeking, and every night Cole was a human beast, bullying Shirayuki to tears; they were afraid for the tiny ice maiden—and yet if they tried to stop watching, an invisible cat clawed at their hearts until they returned.
"Shirayuki, come with me…" Rukia, cheeks aflame, took her snow-cold hand and led her off. Soi Fong yawned, planning a day of sleep. The manifested blades had been quiet lately—plotting something—so the shinigami had clawed back ground.
Cole murmured to himself, "Kuchiki, Ise, Tsunayashiro… almost gnawed clean. Time for the Shihoin…"
"Absolutely not!" Soi Fong exploded.
Cole glanced over. "Wow. Sitting up from the deathbed, are we?"
She pounced to hug him tight. "I am of the Fon line. We guard the Shihoin. I will never let you tear that house down."
Cole blinked.
Ten minutes later, she watched with grief and indignation as the Shihoin estate drew closer, then bit his arm hard. "No. I won't allow it. That's Lady Yoruichi's home…"
Cole raised his right arm, lifting the petite captain with it and waving twice, laughing, "Ta-daaa—Soi Fong brand human keychain!"
Soi Fong nearly died of rage—and despair. She simply couldn't beat the brat anymore. His reiatsu and his strength both dwarfed hers. So she could only puff her cheeks and glower as he turned mansions into blue reiryoku, absorbing them one by one.
Then Cole stopped, surprised, and looked toward First Division. "That is…"
From that sky burst a staggering reiatsu—and a golden pillar plunged from above. A thunderous crash rolled across Seireitei, reaching even here.
"Kinda looks like my Ruyi Jingu Bang…" Cole said, intrigued.
Soi Fong stiffened, sliding off him to stare, solemn. "Heavenly Pill Palanquin… The Royal Guard has come!?"
Even the disaster a century ago—four captains hollowfied—hadn't drawn them out. Nor Aizen's defection months back. If they were descending now… did they deem the zanpakuto rebellion a threat to the Soul King Palace itself?
"Heavenly Pill Palanquin?" Cole arched a brow.
Soi Fong explained, expression tight. "It's the Royal Guard's conveyance from the Soul King Palace to Seireitei—absurdly hard and able to traverse space."
"The Royal Guard…" Cole drew out.
"The king's special agency," she said—the one he'd once described. "Every member has power beyond a captain. I don't know which ten came…" She swallowed. As Commander-in-Chief of the Onmitsukidō (Stealth Force), she knew those monsters by name—and rumor said one among them even surpassed Yamamoto Genryusai.
Terrifying hardly covered it.
(End of Chapter)
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