Aizen stared fixedly at Cole's figure.
He wasn't trying to pry into Cole's ability to look for a weakness.
He was genuinely curious and confused.
What exactly was that power?
Its strength was so terrifying that it had given him the illusion of being rejected by the world itself.
How could a mere human possibly possess such an ability!?
"My ability… huh?"
Cole rested the golden staff across his shoulder. He didn't bother hiding anything and said calmly:
"I already told you—my ability is just simple suppression. Its strength depends entirely on how much spiritual power I have."
"Then your power…"
"My power comes partly from myself, and partly from the space I've suppressed. That's my domain. Inside that domain, I can control the entire space."
As he spoke, Cole tapped the golden staff lightly against the ground.
In that instant, an invisible force acted on the surrounding space.
"Hm!?"
Aizen froze for a moment, then looked around warily.
"Space… has changed a lot…"
This time, he carefully felt out the space and sensed the difference.
If, before Cole's tap, space had been vast and boundless—cold and indifferent, treating everyone equally—
Then after Cole's staff struck, the heavens and earth all around seemed to have gained a master, a mind, a will of their own.
And the scope of that space…
Encompassed all of Karakura Town.
Suddenly, Aizen's heart trembled.
He realized the truly terrifying nature of this ability.
"You brat, you…"
Cole nodded, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"You guessed right. Within my ability, every attack I unleash carries the power of heaven and earth. It's equivalent to the world itself striking you."
Why had his power become so overwhelming?
Because the moment Dinghai Shenzhen (Sea-Calming Divine Needle) suppressed the land, it merged with heaven and earth, inheriting the weight of the world.
"Dinghai, 'calming the seas'—what does that mean?"
"It means suppressing the entire world."
Harnessing the power of heaven and earth.
When he swung the staff down—
It was equivalent to the boundless space itself crashing down.
Unless Aizen had the strength to obliterate several thousand kilometers of land in a single blow, there was no way he could withstand that power.
While Cole and Aizen were talking—
Urahara quietly slipped an arm around Ichigo's shoulders and signaled to Hachigen to take him away.
On the side, Isshin whispered:
"Hey hey hey, isn't that overkill? From what I'm seeing, Cole can completely suppress Aizen right now."
He was still a father, after all. He really didn't want his son to lose his Shinigami powers.
If Ichigo lost his powers—
Then after he died, he'd just be an ordinary soul. He wouldn't be able to become a Shinigami.
Urahara, however, muttered under his breath:
"To be honest, I don't think Cole can suppress Aizen. That guy can evolve infinitely."
Just now he'd thought they'd managed to seal Aizen.
But who could have guessed—
Aizen had still managed to keep evolving.
That was why he didn't feel safe, and wanted to add Ichigo into the equation.
"Shopkeeper Urahara, don't you think that's enough already?"
Cole's unhappy voice sounded right in Urahara's ear.
Cold sweat instantly broke out down Urahara's back.
He turned his head to see Cole somehow already beside him, and forced out a smile.
"Cole-san, when did you get here? I don't really understand what you mean…"
Cole sneered, rolling his knuckles.
Then he slammed his fist straight into Urahara's face.
"Ah!!!"
Urahara screamed miserably as a huge bruise bloomed around his left eye.
It was obvious that hit had not been light.
Cole pulled his fist back, shook it out, and snorted.
"Don't understand? Do you understand now? You old schemer. You're always plotting against people. Of course I'd know what you're up to."
As he spoke, he flicked Ichigo's forehead with his finger, looking pained.
"And if you absolutely have to scheme, why do you always only scheme this one guy? Ichigo wasn't that bright to begin with, and now he's just getting even dumber."
Was bullying an idiot supposed to feel good or something!?
Ichigo never understood a word people were saying, and he'd been manipulated so much that even Cole felt sorry for him.
"Hey, Cole, that's enough already!"
Ichigo glared at him, teeth clenched.
"You keep calling me an idiot! Do I really look that dumb to you!?"
Isshin, Urahara, and even Gin standing nearby couldn't help nodding.
Right.
You're practically off the charts.
Ichigo had a sudden urge to kill someone.
Urahara, teary-eyed, looked at Cole with a pitiful expression.
"Cole-san, that's too much. I just want to defeat Aizen. One more fighter means one more sliver of hope. It's all for the sake of protecting world peace."
"Heh heh heh."
Cole responded with a cold laugh.
You absolutely could not show even a shred of mercy or trust to these old foxes, or you'd never know when you'd get schemed against.
Being ignored yet again, Aizen's eyes filled with fury.
"Cole, you're just barely holding the advantage," he said darkly. "Are you really this confident? Do you really think you can devour me completely?"
Cole's bankai had genuinely surprised him.
But that was all.
He'd seen millions of zanpakuto, with abilities as strange and varied as the stars in the sky. There was no shortage of ones that could overturn the heavens.
On top of that, there were all sorts of peculiar beings in the world.
Quincy, Bount, Fullbringer…
Chad and Orihime were such cases—especially the latter. Her powers trespassed upon the realm of the gods, enough to startle even him.
But no matter how strong those powers were—
He was confident he could conquer them.
Because he had fused with the Hōgyoku.
And the Hōgyoku's defining trait was allowing its host to constantly break through limits, to the point of shattering the very barriers between dimensions.
So long as Cole couldn't kill him in a single blow—
Then Aizen could keep evolving under threat, again and again.
As he thought this, the pale, grotesque wings on his back fluttered.
His figure turned into a streak of blinding white light that slashed toward Cole.
"Human!!!"
Aizen roared, swinging his right hand. A terrifying sword pressure raged forth, a white river of light cleaving toward Cole.
Cole exhaled lightly.
"Didn't I say it already? In this space, my power is the power of heaven and earth."
Facing the incoming white sword pressure, Cole extended his right hand and spoke softly:
"Faintly crackling symbols of murky filth, unruly, arrogant, frenzied talent.
Tides surging—denial, paralysis, a single instant that hinders eternal sleep.
Crawling princess of iron, self-mutilating doll of mud.
Unite, rebound, extend to the ground—know your own impotence."
"Hadō no Kyūjū - Kurohitsugi (Way of Destruction 90 - Black Coffin)!!"
As his voice fell, pure black substance appeared in the sky like falling rain, gradually forming flat planes of darkness.
The pure white sword pressure—and Aizen himself—
Were all swallowed by the black material.
The next second—
A black coffin hundreds of meters tall, dwarfing even the tallest skyscraper in Karakura Town, took form, towering into the clouds in grim silence, like the end of the world itself.
"This is… Kurohitsugi!?"
Byakuya, who had just arrived, stared up, pupils shrinking as he took in the colossal coffin.
He could also use Hadō no Kyūjū.
But the Kurohitsugi he cast was at most a few dozen meters tall, not even a tenth the size of Cole's.
Kyoraku drew his gaze back, letting out a helpless sigh.
"Cole, are you really human? How is the spiritual power inside you this crazy?"
He'd lived for several hundred years. His spiritual pressure was already at a truly frightening level.
Yet compared to Cole—
He was a firefly facing the full moon.
It even made him wonder:
Did absorbing spiritual power buildings directly increase one's reiryoku?
How else could he explain Cole's absurd energy reserves?
"I'm a genius, obviously," Cole said with a grin.
Kyoraku curled his lip.
Inwardly, he'd already made a decision. Once they got back to Seireitei, he was going to absorb a lot more of those reiryoku buildings.
Run some experiments.
See if he could boost his spiritual pressure.
And similar ideas were surfacing in the minds of every Shinigami present.
They all secretly resolved that once this was over and they returned to Seireitei, they were going to cling to those reiryoku buildings and take a nice big bite.
Suddenly, Urahara stared at the Kurohitsugi with a strange look in his eyes.
"Um… if I'm not misremembering, Aizen's favorite kido is also Kurohitsugi. And now you're using Kurohitsugi too, Cole…"
Cole's lips curved up.
"I like using Kurohitsugi as well. But for Aizen… I guess this counts as mockery, doesn't it?"
"No kidding…"
That thought flashed through everyone's mind.
Using your opponent's signature kido against them—anyone would be livid.
Right after that, they heard countless blade-piercing sounds echo from within the massive Black Coffin that seemed to herald the death of the world.
The harsh noise—
Was mixed with bloodcurdling screams.
It was hard to imagine what kind of torment was happening inside.
After several minutes, the screams hadn't stopped—
But the towering Kurohitsugi shattered.
Aizen stepped out, hair disheveled.
He looked incredibly bedraggled.
Even the white Hollow material covering his body had been torn apart.
Clearly, he'd been ravaged to a miserable degree inside the coffin.
But as the Kurohitsugi broke apart, Aizen's injuries began healing at a speed visible to the naked eye. His aura also grew a bit stronger than before.
"Cole, I told you already. Your attacks are useless on me. They're nothing but trials on my path to the throne of the heavens!!"
Aizen shouted hoarsely, practically on the verge of a mental breakdown.
Even if the wounds didn't really matter—
He still felt deeply humiliated.
That was his specialty kido.
And now it had been used by his enemy to beat him bloody.
"Yeah, yeah. You keep telling yourself that."
Cole replied casually, then chanted:
"Wall of iron sand, tower of priestly form.
Glowing embers of hot iron—unyielding, until all falls silent."
"Bakudō no Nanajūgo - Gochūtekkan (Way of Binding 75 - Five-Post Iron Pillar)!"
The moment he heard the incantation, Aizen's expression changed. He immediately retreated, trying to avoid the falling pillars.
The trouble with kido that required a chant—
Was that it was easy for enemies to notice and react.
But Cole had long predicted that Aizen would dodge.
Face calm, he swung the golden staff and tapped it lightly against the ground.
"…Suppress."
In an instant, the gravity in the patch of sky where Aizen was increased by millions of times. Even space itself twisted and warped under the pressure.
The ground boomed as a massive crater yawned open.
Aizen had to pour out all his spiritual power just to avoid being flattened.
And at that moment, five colossal iron pillars fell from the sky like meteors and slammed into him.
Under the impact, Aizen could no longer stabilize his position.
His body crashed into the earth—
Forced into an utterly humiliating all-fours posture and pinned there, roaring and struggling madly.
Isshin watched, heart pounding, and couldn't help swallowing.
"Now that's a great pose."
Everyone nearby froze for a second.
Then they all sucked in a breath and stared at Isshin in horror.
Was this guy some kind of pervert!?
Isshin's mouth twitched. He darkened his face and swung his flaming zanpakuto, Engetsu.
"What're you all thinking? I just mean that in that position he can't fight back. It's perfect for us to attack."
He slashed down fiercely with his fire-wreathed blade.
"Getsuga… Tenshō (Moon-Fang Heaven-Piercer)!!!"
The flaming crescent blade roared downward.
Hope lit up in everyone's eyes, their gazes locked on Aizen as they prayed this strike would finish him.
Cole didn't even look up.
As he tore open the space in front of him, he said mildly:
"You're overthinking it, Uncle Kurosaki. Even if Aizen stood still and let you hit him right now, you still wouldn't be able to break his defense."
And reality played out exactly as Cole had said.
Before the flaming Getsuga Tenshō could even reach Aizen, it was shattered effortlessly by the invisible shield surrounding him.
Everyone's hearts sank.
Cole was able to severely wound and suppress Aizen—
Because the two of them were on the same level.
They, on the other hand, couldn't touch Aizen at all.
It was like an ant trying to hurt a human.
They simply weren't in the same dimension.
Urahara, sporting his fresh black eye, looked at Cole with a grave expression.
"Cole, I still think Ichigo needs to go train. Otherwise, relying on you alone, it will be hard to truly deal with Aizen."
If they couldn't injure or kill Aizen in one blow—
Then any attack would just become fuel for his evolution, letting him grow stronger and stronger until he ascended to the throne of the heavens.
Urahara was really worried that under Cole's attacks—
Aizen would evolve to a truly terrifying level.
Ichigo, hearing this, couldn't help getting a little excited.
He didn't know what technique Urahara was talking about—
But it definitely sounded cool.
"Don't worry. I already have a plan."
Cole stopped what he was doing and turned to the yawning black crack hovering before him, a grin spreading across his face.
His power had grown a lot.
The Garganta (Black Cavity) he tore open now could cross far greater distances, taking him straight to his chosen target.
He could even see the streets on the other side, lined with black Shihakusho and figures they all knew very well.
Everyone hurried to look into the crack.
And once they did—
They were all stunned.
Because on the other side of the rift was a solemn, ancient street full of tranquil wooden buildings.
It was a scene all too familiar to them.
Kyoraku stared, dumbstruck, pointing at the crack.
"Isn't that… Seireitei? In Soul Society? And that's the 4th Division… What are you planning to do, kid? You're not gonna toss Aizen in there, are you?"
Cole rolled his neck, raised the golden staff, and pointed it at the space before him, smiling.
"I already said it before, didn't I?"
"I'm going to knock the Soul King Palace out of the sky."
(End of Chapter)
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