Chapter 198: A Different Aizen, A Different World
Perhaps Aizen was right.
Only when someone was completely powerless did they finally earn the chance to speak normally.
Gin Ichimaru had to admit one thing with bitter clarity, he did not trust Sosuke Aizen in the slightest.
Even the so called weakness of Kyoka Suigetsu, that touching the blade could break its hypnosis, depended on one fragile premise. That Aizen had no reason to lie.
And why would Gin ever accept that?
Kyoka Suigetsu might lack direct killing power, but as a complete hypnosis Zanpakuto, it was disgusting in every other way. Thought, judgment, perception, instinct, every path ended with Kyoka Suigetsu blocking the road.
So Gin had never wanted to understand Aizen. He had never needed to.
Aizen did not require understanding from anyone.
But today felt wrong.
Even earlier, when Gin had spoken as if he would help deal with Kurosaki Ichigo, he had sensed something off. Aizen felt different. His presence, his rhythm, his choices, all of it diverged from the man Gin had watched for so many years.
Logically speaking, at this point, Kurosaki Ichigo should not have been a match for Gin.
Yet Ichigo had displayed a power so alien it was terrifying, and the entire Seireitei had been carved apart as if someone had replaced the laws of the world overnight.
Then came Gin's own humiliation.
Every trump card he carried had been laid bare, effortlessly read, effortlessly countered. Now he lay in the ruins like a broken tool, while Aizen calmly tossed the Hogyoku, the thing Gin had desired for decades, right beside him.
It had all happened too quickly.
Too cleanly.
Too far outside Gin's expectations.
Why?
It had only been a few days. How had the world tilted this much?
Gin understood his own condition better than anyone.
That silver poison he had released had done its work, but something else had seized his body afterward, something heavier, stranger. A foreign power clogged the flow of spirit particles like wet sand poured into a river. His internal organs and spirit structures had been shredded almost instantly. The impact that flung him like a cannonball was only the surface.
Inside, it felt worse.
It felt like a bomb that could explode at any moment, held down only by invisible chains.
Meanwhile Aizen, who had turned into wood and returned to flesh as if it were a casual trick, looked down at him with a faint smile.
Gin hated it.
He hated that Aizen was right.
Only now, with his life dangling by a thread, did Gin feel an opening for dialogue. In this state, whether he wanted to listen or not no longer mattered. His spirit particles were sluggish, muffled. Even the voice of his Zanpakuto felt distant and distorted, as if it were speaking through water.
Where did I slip?
When did I let anything show?
I should have hidden it forever. I should never have let even a thought breathe.
So why?
Aizen's voice cut through the fog, calm as ever.
"Are you thinking about my affairs? There's no need. What I'm dealing with now is beyond ordinary thinking."
Gin coughed, blood sliding down his chin.
Aizen sat down casually on a chair that had somehow survived the slaughter and collapse, as if the Central Forty Six Chambers were just another meeting room. His gaze rested on Gin with something that almost looked like regret.
"If I were not certain you had no goodwill toward me, I would not have forced this conversation. But you understand now, I understand your Bankai, and I know the truth of your feelings."
Aizen's fingers brushed his glasses.
"I no longer need what I once longed for. I have reached a more ideal state."
Gin forced air into his lungs.
"That's… really… congratulations… Captain Aizen…"
"But this joy isn't mine alone, Gin."
The Hogyoku shimmered faintly in the rubble beside them.
It manipulated spirit particles in a way Gin had never seen. Not like Kido, not like a Zanpakuto technique, not like any ordinary flow of Reishi. It felt as if the force was reaching past the body and touching the soul itself, or even the foundations of the world.
Gin could feel it repairing him.
Rebuilding flesh. Reweaving spirit.
Then, a heartbeat later, the foreign power inside him would tear something apart again, as if Aizen's influence was cutting him down in the same motion that the Hogyoku restored him.
Growth, dismemberment.
A slow, agonizing death that refused to end.
Gin coughed until his vision blurred, then finally dragged himself upright and leaned against broken stone. He squinted at Aizen, watching him flick his blade to shake off blood like it was nothing.
This man looked familiar.
And yet, he did not.
"I don't remember saying anything that could make you suspicious," Gin rasped.
"Because I came back from the future."
Gin blinked once, then smiled bitterly.
"I see… I see… So that's why I was exposed. That's really not something to laugh about…"
He did not doubt Aizen.
Not because he trusted him, but because Aizen, standing with absolute advantage, usually spoke what he believed to be the truth. To Aizen, he had seen the future, then returned to the past.
For anyone, that would be a miracle.
For Sosuke Aizen, a man who had already touched other worlds and dragged impossible power back with him, it was almost inevitable.
Even Shinigami bodies could be turned into wood and continue living. A toxin that corroded flesh meant nothing to something that was not flesh.
"You came back from the future," Gin murmured. "No wonder you knew my Bankai. No wonder you saw everything. Did you bring this power back from the future too, Captain Aizen?"
"No," Aizen answered. "This power is for everyone."
Gin's brows twitched.
"Everyone?"
"Yes. Everyone. Whether you want it or not. Whether the Shinigami want it or not. Everyone, except those who deserve punishment, can obtain a power that can almost be called wish fulfillment."
Aizen's voice remained steady, almost gentle.
"The root of Soul Society's chaos is the Soul King system, and the nobles who parasitize it. With this power, people can finally control part of their own destiny."
His eyes sharpened by a fraction.
"I am giving everyone a seed of rebellion."
Gin laughed, then coughed, blood splattering the stone.
"A seed of defiance against fate?" he echoed, voice hoarse with mockery. "Don't joke around. People like us will always exist."
His smile returned, thin and tired.
"Powerful people ignore pleas and live according to their preferences because they can. That's natural. Eventually, even the ones who swear they're different become the same."
He was not speaking about himself and Aizen.
He was speaking about himself and Matsumoto Rangiku.
No matter their talent, no matter their will, they had still been captured, still been caged, still forced into Aizen's laboratory to serve Aizen's preferences and ideas. Gin had seen it with his own eyes. He had lived it.
So no, he did not believe in reformation.
Not from Aizen.
Aizen did not ask him to believe.
He simply stated his view.
"Everyone's heart is different," Aizen said calmly. "So the shape of the result will be different. Your sarcasm changes nothing."
Gin dragged in a breath, forcing himself to stand, one hand pressed to his abdomen.
"Does this even need a result?" he murmured. "After all, it was you who did it."
Aizen's gaze did not waver.
"But the outcome is good, Gin. You can achieve a better ending without sacrificing yourself. You can restore the soul of the person you love."
Gin's smile turned tragic.
"That's true, Captain Aizen… but how do you calculate grudges that have piled up for so many years?"
"That grudge is not mine," Aizen replied. "It belongs to the nobility and the Soul King system."
Aizen spoke as if it were obvious.
From the very beginning, this had been his thought. Before any transmigration, before any new world, and even after returning with foreign power, it remained the same.
He did not deny the slaughter.
He simply knew why he had done it.
To erase this cannibalistic world forever.
That was the most fundamental wish he carried.
Aizen wanted companions. He wanted to be an ordinary Shinigami. Yet beneath that simple desire was a relentless drive to reform a corrupt system. Without that lofty goal, his smaller impulses would have drowned him long ago.
But Aizen endured.
And he recognized his own flaws.
That, more than anything, separated those who accomplished things from those who did not.
He never forgot his methods.
He never tried to paint his hands clean.
And he spoke that truth now, without hesitation.
"I am personally sorry for what I did to you and your childhood friend, Gin," Aizen said quietly. "But I have never regretted that choice."
His voice was steady, merciless in its honesty.
"If I had to choose again, even now, I would still place Matsumoto Rangiku's soul into the Hogyoku to ensure my path remained smooth."
Gin fell silent.
"But now," Aizen continued, "I have better conditions. So I will help those who could not reach them before. That is the kind of person I am."
He placed the Hogyoku into Gin's hand.
Then he closed Gin's fingers around it, forcing him to grip the small, dazzling sphere.
"My next order is simple. Muddy the waters of Seireitei. I do not care if I am exposed. I do not care if news of the Central Forty Six slaughter spreads."
Aizen's eyes narrowed slightly.
"As long as the people in Seireitei start moving, start watching each other, start doubting what they assume is true, that is enough."
Gin held the Hogyoku like it might burn him.
The sensation was unreal, like clutching a dream that had somehow turned solid.
Then the Hogyoku responded.
Gin's imagination expanded, and the world around him shivered with it.
The corpses in the chamber trembled.
The last remnants of their spiritual pressure refused to disperse. The dead elders of the Central Forty Six, those ancient pillars of Soul Society's history, began to twitch on the platform like puppets pulled by invisible strings.
These were the most stubborn enemies of change.
They had refused reform for centuries. They judged, imprisoned, condemned, and called it order. They had committed atrocities with clean hands and righteous voices.
And now, under the Hogyoku's glow, they clawed their way back into motion.
They touched their chins and heads as if confused, trembling like resurrected monsters. Slowly, a layer of white armor began to form around them.
Gin stared at the sphere in his hand.
This was the Hogyoku.
Aizen had given it to him, directly.
"Do what you want," Aizen said, voice calm behind him. "If you want core information, ask me directly."
Gin did not answer.
Aizen continued anyway, almost casually.
"I am not particularly skilled at persuasion. But I am confident in teaching and guiding chakra. After you find Matsumoto Rangiku, I recommend you come that way. In a sense, it is my home."
Gin wiped the blood at the corner of his mouth and smiled, tired and sad.
"There's no need, Captain Aizen. Give these things to people who need them more."
He looked down at the small sphere, feeling both threat and blessing wrapped together.
He had planned to ambush Aizen.
He had failed.
Aizen was no longer even human in the way Gin understood humans. What could Gin possibly do?
If anything, he should find the woman he loved and speak to her, before he truly reached the end.
Gin never believed he would survive normally in a world like this.
And yet, as he staggered toward the exit, white bandages began to coil around him, wrapping his body, stabilizing him. In a blink, he vanished through the doorway, swallowed by the shadows of Seireitei.
Only then did a low voice speak from behind.
"Is it really acceptable to let him go like this, Lord Aizen?"
Kaname Tōsen stood there in pure black, so still he might have been part of the darkness itself.
Aizen glanced at him, then watched the doorway where Gin had disappeared.
"I believe him," Aizen said. "Or rather, I believe his view of love."
Kaname's posture tightened slightly.
"As long as Matsumoto Rangiku lives, Gin will not do anything unnecessary. He will sacrifice himself to fulfill her wishes, and he will not act irrationally."
Aizen's tone turned faintly amused.
"Because no matter the era, no one is more irrational than him. For a promise, for the fear that someone he loves might be harmed, he hid beside me for years. In some ways, his persistence surpasses even yours."
Kaname hesitated.
Aizen's eyes softened by a fraction.
"I believe he will make the right choice. And next, we still have preparations to make. This drama can become far more interesting."
Kaname's brow furrowed, confusion leaking through his calm.
"…?"
"Love is the most unpredictable thing," Aizen said simply. "For Gin, that woman's safety matters more than his own."
Kaname lowered his head slightly.
Then, as if remembering something, Aizen added, almost absentmindedly, "Sometimes, you should read Kyoraku Shunsui's newspapers."
"Yes," Kaname replied. "I've learned a lot."
"That was not praise," Aizen said, though his tone carried no anger.
He watched the doorway for a moment longer, then finally relaxed his brows.
Kaname was not weak.
But he was soft.
A good man chasing justice, and good men were often the easiest to break. Aizen could understand Kaname's future with barely a thought. His resolve did not have the same sharpness as Gin's.
Aizen could trust Gin with certain tasks even while expecting betrayal.
But he would never give Kaname a mission that demanded cruelty without hesitation.
Kaname was safer at his side.
"So what do we do next, Captain Aizen?" Kaname asked.
Aizen's smile returned, faint and patient.
"What's next? We watch what they do."
"Them?"
"Yes. Only when they act do we respond. Once the situation becomes serious enough, our opportunity will naturally appear."
Hueco Mundo was merely a stopgap.
In the end, the true key was the path to the Soul King's Palace.
So why rush?
Why fight for the key?
When enough chaos gathered, the Zero Division would come down on its own.
And when the Zero Division descended, it would finally be Shiba Kukaku's turn.
If the pieces were set loosely, relationships would pull the rest into place by themselves.
Aizen rose slowly from the ruined chair, gaze lifting as if he could already see the next stage.
Ichibe Hyosube.
A truly worthy enemy.
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