"Nanaya...? No... that's just a puppet."
Unohana Retsu's manifested Zanpakutō froze in place, her expression hardening as her eyes snapped toward the figure floating in the sky.
As her Zanpakutō spirit, she knew Nanaya's presence intimately. She understood the overwhelming power sleeping inside that human boy's body. It wasn't just dangerous—it was catastrophic.
Even Ryūjin Jakka, the strongest Zanpakutō in history, might not be able to stand against him.
"A Menos Grande... an Adjuchas!?"
Liltotto Lamperd's golden eyes narrowed at the floating figure of Tendō Pain.
Her instincts screamed that what she sensed was merely the Reiatsu of an Adjuchas-class Menos Grande. But the pressure pouring from that body... it was beyond even a Vasto Lorde.
That impossible weight made her chest tighten.
"...Tchhh—"
A strange sound escaped Jiejin, Unohana's manifested Zanpakutō. Liltotto turned sharply toward her, surprised.
The gentle-faced embodiment of blood and blades—usually grinning with unshakable joy in battle—was trembling. Her whole frame quivered as her eyes locked onto Tendō Pain.
And then she whispered words Liltotto never expected:
"Run. You can't defeat this one..."
Her crimson body blurred into mist, streaking upward in a flash of blood-red light.
She didn't fight. She didn't resist. She fled.
Liltotto's stomach dropped. Her skin prickled with creeping dread as she looked again at the figure with the rippling purple eyes.
She knew Jiejin's power.
That being was a perfect copy of Unohana Retsu—her full Reiatsu, her Bankai, her eight thousand sword techniques—all embodied in living flesh. A force strong enough to overwhelm captains.
Yet faced with this single figure, Jiejin hadn't even dared to fight.
Her mind screamed a single thought:
How strong is he...!?
Liltotto didn't hesitate another second. Unlike other Quincy, she knew when to retreat.
Her golden wings spread wide, shimmering with jagged light. She beat them once, sharply, and shot upward into the sky, fleeing with all her strength.
High above them, Tendō Pain watched with impassive calm. Purple ripples pulsed outward from his Rinnegan eyes as he raised his hand, palm open.
"Clever... but not nearly enough."
His voice was cold, distant—like judgment itself.
"Banshō Ten'in."
A crushing gravitational pull exploded outward.
The fleeing women's bodies jerked violently as the unseen force caught them. Their wings faltered. Their flight was shattered.
Their faces twisted in horror as their momentum reversed, dragging them backward through the sky, yanked toward Tendō Pain's waiting hand.
"Impossible!" Liltotto gasped, her heart hammering in panic. "How can an Adjuchas-level Menos Grande have such terrifying power!?"
Her Vollständig was active. Her strength, at this moment, was supposed to rival the heavens themselves. She was a Sternritter, a chosen knight of His Majesty, armed with Quincy's greatest gift.
And yet—
She couldn't even run.
The puppet's mouth curved into the faintest of smiles.
"I am Tendō Pain..."
Unlike the other Paths, his raw power wasn't overwhelming. But as the representative of Heaven itself, he was the vessel that received the greatest flow of Reiatsu from Nanaya's body.
It was more than enough. Enough to crush nearly every Sternritter under his hand.
The two women were dragged mercilessly before him, their wings thrashing uselessly against the pull. Their bodies landed hard at his feet, instinctively preparing to strike back.
But Tendō Pain's gaze never wavered.
"Shinra Tensei."
The single phrase fell from his lips like a verdict.
"BOOM!!!"
The air detonated.
A violent repulsive force erupted outward, slamming into the women with merciless intensity. Their bodies smashed into the earth below, carving craters into the ground.
No matter how they struggled, no matter how desperately they tried to rise, the weight of that power crushed them down. They couldn't even stand.
"...Sister Hua."
Nanaya's voice came from above, calm but edged with exasperation. He glanced at Unohana Retsu.
"Take back your Zanpakutō."
But Unohana... was different.
Her lips curved upward, and her tongue brushed across them slowly. Her eyes glowed with ecstatic madness as she gazed at her manifested blade, her very own soul given form.
Her voice trembled with feverish joy.
"Qiye... I don't want to kill her. I like this one. She hurts me so beautifully. Let her stay like this. Let her keep this form..."
Her words were drenched in desire, her tone thick with fanaticism.
Nanaya could only stare at her in disbelief.
Sister Hua...
He had no words for this side of her. Unohana's masochistic obsession with pain and death made her both terrifying and exhausting.
He sighed. Around others, it was something to be speechless about.But in private... in bed... that side of her was far less amusing.
At that exact moment—
A thunderous roar erupted across the Seireitei.
"BURN!!!"
From one corner of the Court of Pure Souls, violent flames shot into the sky.
The fire spread like a living beast, consuming the horizon. The air turned molten. The heavens themselves glowed red as hellish heat swallowed everything.
The spiritual pressure was suffocating.
"Everything... will be reduced to ash!!!"
"Ryūjin Jakka!!!"
The voice thundered across the battlefield.
Through the inferno, a figure could be seen—like a demon born of flame. He held the blade that burned brighter than the sun, and its eruption turned night into day.
The strongest fire-type Zanpakutō. The peerless Ryūjin Jakka.
An unrivaled flame blazed from its edge.
Far away, at the heart of Seireitei, a towering tree of wood-style branches rose into the sky. Nanaya sat calmly upon it, his eyes reflecting the sea of fire above.
One eyebrow lifted, amused.
"So... he's hiding all the way at the Sōkyoku Hill."
His lips curved slightly.
"If I'm not mistaken... that flame can only belong to one blade. Old man Yamamoto's Ryūjin Jakka, isn't it?"
Although the roar shook the heavens, there was no mistaking it. That power, that oppressive fire—there was no doubt it belonged to Yamamoto Genryūsai's Ryūjin Jakka.
Qiye's lips curved into a thin, amused smile."So... even the old man's Zanpakutō has turned traitor?"
His figure flickered once and vanished from the treetop, swallowed by the night.
Elsewhere in Seireitei, Kyoraku Shunsui, mid-stride as he hurried to aid wounded Shinigami, froze. His gaze tilted toward the blazing sky, the fire reflecting in his weary eyes. A sigh escaped his lips as his hand went to the brim of his hat.
"The old man's Zanpakutō betraying him... tch. This is bad. This is really bad."
The weight in his tone was heavy, even for him.
Not far away, Ukitake Jūshirō's face tightened with grim resolve. He too felt the firestorm tearing through the Court of Pure Souls. His words came out clipped, each syllable carrying urgency:
"The Captain's Zanpakutō... Aizen Sōsuke's Reiatsu... and Yhwach's as well. All of them are there."
Without hesitation, he launched himself toward the inferno, white robes fluttering in the hot wind.
Kommamura Sajin, however, clenched his teeth, his broad shoulders taut beneath his armor.
"And now the enemy adds Ryūjin Jakka to their side... with its Bankai, no less..."
A deep headache throbbed through his skull. The weight of what this meant was crushing.
In another shadowed corner of Seireitei—
A figure stepped forward, emerging from darkness like a blade drawn from its sheath. The tall man adjusted his silver cross, eyes glinting with cold focus as he watched the flames.
It was Jugram Haschwalth, Sternritter Grandmaster.
His voice was low, steady, almost eerily calm:
"His Majesty's plan is proceeding perfectly. We must move quickly to support him."
He turned, surveying the warriors gathered at his back. His tone sharpened.
"Our next enemies are the Soul King's Palace... and that human monster. Are you prepared?"
"What the hell kind of question is that?"
The reply cut through the air like static. Crackling, distorted, yet unmistakably familiar.
From the group, a figure stepped forward—carrying a massive black blade across his shoulder, eyes wide and wild.
It was White.
The hollow-born voice inside Kurosaki Ichigo's soul.
But this wasn't the pale-white form from before. His hair had turned jet-black, his body draped in a black windbreaker that flared with each pulse of his spiritual pressure. His Reiatsu was darker, heavier, almost suffocating.
His grin stretched into madness as he hefted Zangetsu in one hand.
"Nanaya... tch. I can't wait any longer. I'll rip him apart with my own hands. I'll make him pay."
And he wasn't alone.
Behind him stood several other materialized Zanpakutō, each brimming with the force of their Bankai. Among them, the souls belonging to Urahara Kisuke and several members of the Visored Corps had taken form, now fighting as independent entities.
The battlefield bristled with captains' worth of power—turned against their masters.
Jugram Haschwalth's sharp eyes narrowed slightly, his thoughts turning inward.
Even for him—the Sternritter's Sternritter—the sight was unsettling.
Aizen Sōsuke...
The name alone carried weight. The brilliance, the manipulation, the sheer audacity of this man sent a faint ripple of unease through Haschwalth's normally unwavering heart.
What kind of monster could twist reality so deeply that Muramasa himself was brought into the human world... to corrupt every Zanpakutō he touched?
Seven, maybe eight captain-level combatants—stolen from the Gotei 13.
And worse—Kurosaki Ichigo's Zangetsu.
The pressure rolling from that manifestation alone was enough to make even him hesitate.
His lips barely moved as he murmured the name to himself, tasting its weight.
"...Tensa Zangetsu."
The words carried both awe and caution.
There was no more time to waste. With one final glance at the blazing horizon, Haschwalth gathered his will and launched forward, racing with the other manifested Zanpakutō toward the battlefield's heart.
Mō execution grounds. Sōkyoku Hill.
Amidst the flames, two silhouettes stood unmoved.
Aizen Sōsuke, ever-smiling, his glasses long since discarded, and Yhwach, His Majesty himself, eyes like night filled with certainty.
Their gazes were fixed on the broken body of Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni.
The Captain-Commander lay sprawled against the scorched earth. His once-proud frame bore arrow wounds, blade cuts, and charred burns from fire itself. His breathing was ragged, shallow, every rise of his chest a battle in itself.
The indomitable pillar of Soul Society—the old flame—had been brought to his knees.
Yhwach's deep voice rolled like thunder across the execution ground.
"To seal yourself within a barrier... merely to prevent your Zanpakutō from betrayal..."
He shook his head, almost mockingly.
"Even now, Genryūsai... you are remarkable."
Beside him, Aizen's smooth, cold voice added with a faint smile:
"And yet, in order to keep hidden the truth of Nanaya's breach, we had to work... considerably hard."
His words were laced with quiet satisfaction, as if all the pieces of his long-crafted plan were falling neatly into place.
On the ground, Yamamoto's withered hands twitched against the dirt, but no strength remained in them. The fire in his eyes still burned, but his body no longer obeyed.
He had no power left. No sword. No voice strong enough to command the battlefield.
He was finished.
Yhwach's gaze shifted toward the sea of flames. Toward the towering figure of burning wrath—the manifested Ryūjin Jakka.
"To die by the hand of your own Zanpakutō..." His voice carried the weight of finality.
"How fitting an end for you, old man."
Then, his eyes glinted like obsidian, and his words cut through the crackling inferno.
"Strike him down, Ryūjin Jakka!"
The command fell like judgment from the heavens.
And the flames roared higher.
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