Too terrifying!!!
As expected, a finisher-level technique!!!
"This should be the strongest killing move of the Zanpakutō Ryūjin Jakka in its Shikai, right?"
"The whole city of Karakura… got destroyed in an instant!!!"
In that instant,
the real world
felt as if someone hit a forced pause.
Every viewer held their breath. Not a single gasp.
The footage on screen
delivered the most violent visual shock in history.
Know this:
within the Scorching Hell, each vortex of flame
spreads for hundreds of kilometers—"fire reaching the sky" is not enough to describe it.
Even more extreme:
there were many pillars of the same kind,
practically filling the battlefield with no dead angles.
While delivering absolute destruction,
they raged across the land again and again, burning it clean.
It looked exactly like the doomsday scene of a city
after a nuclear war had ended.
"Provoke the Head-Captain, and this is the sacrifice you face…"
"That guy Aizen… it's time he paid the proper price!!!"
Ukitake Jūshirō's white hair was dyed red by the firelight all around.
Even his complexion no longer looked frail.
And even now,
the moment Aizen's name came up,
Ukitake's expression was still complicated, hard to put into words.
If Aizen had never turned,
then this— a one-on-one between the top of the Shinigami—
would never have happened in the future.
In other words, the captains of the Gotei would never have fought their own.
And,
the overall combat power of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads
would have soared, because Aizen would not have kept faking it and would have shown real strength openly.
Nor would the pure-blood Quincy of the Wandenreich
have found a gap to exploit in the future.
The next images
were just as Ukitake implied.
When those towering tornadoes of fire completely filled the screen,
the video camera angle
"suddenly slowed down!!!"
"What is that…?"
"Everyone move!"
"Those tornado flames are going to sweep toward Aizen and swallow him!!!"
The same alarmed shouts
erupted everywhere across the Shinigami world.
Countless viewers chose to back away and flee at once.
In the shortest time,
they got as far from the transparent light-screen as possible.
And in that process—
"BOOM!!!"
Spiritual particles detonated.
A dimensional shockwave formed, broke through the barrier of the video, and rolled into the living world.
And then—
"Uwaaah—"
Wails and screams in sheets.
All across the Shinigami world—be it the Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, or the human realm—
cries sounded one after another.
Shinigami, Hollows, humans, and pure-blood Quincy—
viewers of every race
were struck without distinction.
Scorched by the spillover heat, their faces went white.
They were outside the scene,
just viewers watching the video,
yet they still suffered serious collateral damage from the Scorching Hell.
Everyone seemed to be taking the same punishment Aizen was taking.
For a while,
because of this Ryūjin Jakka finisher,
the Shinigami world fell into chaos and the audience mood collapsed.
At the end,
enduring the risk of being burned,
some viewers finally managed to see Aizen's silhouette
snuffed out in the endless flames—
the camera itself destroyed with him,
until all turned black.
—
"So over the top…"
"Looks like back then the Head-Captain had resolved himself to mutual destruction with Aizen if need be."
"This Scorching Hell… is heart-stopping!!!!"
Inside the shop,
Urahara Kisuke snapped open his folding fan and fanned hard.
He almost slumped, speaking with lingering fright.
Honestly,
if it weren't Aizen—
someone whose personal power could match it,
a powerhouse standing at the pinnacle with the Head-Captain—
Kisuke would not doubt it for a second:
if it were anyone else,
including himself—
the moment they were in that scene,
they would melt within a second, not even bone ash left.
That is no exaggeration.
"And this is only Shikai…"
"Hard to imagine. If he went Bankai, in rage the Head-Captain might be able to destroy the Soul Society…"
Yoruichi tied up her glossy hair.
The purple ponytail hung down and added a wild edge to her.
Honestly,
if guests weren't present,
Yoruichi would have stripped off her sweat-soaked bodysuit
and kept watching the video stark naked.
Given her open nature, she'd do it.
"Bankai?"
Eyes glinting,
Urahara thought for a moment and shook his head slightly.
"It's been roughly a thousand years since Ryūjin Jakka's last Bankai…"
"From here on, unless something happens that steps on the Head-Captain's emotional landmine—"
"Otherwise, to avoid the Seireitei—or the entire Soul Society—being destroyed,
I don't think the old man would release Bankai lightly."
However—
just as Kisuke finished speaking,
the transparent light-screen that had gone black
suddenly flickered.
After a brief flash, a new clip flowed in seamlessly—
Scene change.
No longer any battlefield.
Rather—the place the captains cared about most right now:
The First Division barracks.
"Look!"
"Those people are… pure-blood Quincy!"
"Hooded punks. They dare invade the barracks?!"
At a glance,
the captains frowned, eyes hard with hostility.
On screen,
in the quietest, most secluded open area within the barracks,
the air suddenly wavered.
Then nineteen figures, dressed in white imperial uniforms,
appeared abruptly as if stepping through time.
Before everyone's eyes,
they invaded—as enemies—the most dangerous place within the Seireitei.
"Scum…"
"The pure-blood Quincy…"
"Past or future, they're rats that can't bear the light."
"If in the future they still dare such arrogance, provoking this old man to his face—
intolerable!"
At the head seat,
the Head-Captain gave a cold snort.
His grey-white whiskers flared up, fire in his eyes.
Even a thousand years ago,
when the Thousand-Year Blood War erupted,
the Head-Captain's absolute strength kept every pure-blood Quincy
from setting foot in the First Division's domain,
let alone the barracks where he worked or rested.
This reveal
not only left the Head-Captain thundering with wrath;
it also made him set aside, for the moment, his personal grudge with Aizen,
and refocus on the pure-blood Quincy who had lurked in the dark for so long.
From the stream of countdown footage,
the Head-Captain had realized that compared to Aizen, Hueco Mundo, and the Arrancar army,
at least in the future
both sides would fight openly in Karakura Town.
But the Wandenreich—
the pure-blood Quincy—were different.
Even now, their hiding place was still a mystery.
And that former defeated foe—
the progenitor of the pure-blood Quincy, "Yhwach"—
could lead his subordinates in a comeback at any moment.
Therefore,
looking to the future,
the pure-blood Quincy were the greater threat.
Facing them, the Head-Captain's anger would not cool.
"First time meeting…"
"You are the Head-Captain of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, Lord Yamamoto Genryūsai, yes?"
The leading Quincy asked what he already knew.
Though his face was hidden beneath a hood,
his tone was icy and arrogant, with no hint of respect.
His next words
stunned the audience once more.
"I must say…"
"To be invaded so easily—
for one who serves as Head-Captain, is your sense for security perhaps a bit too dull?"
It sounded like a cold question,
but it was deliberate mockery—bragging, even.
That jab,
coming right after the prior footage,
hit hardest for those still shaken.
Many Gillian-class Menos,
weaker and with limited thresholds,
had been completely unable to resist the heat overflowing from the screen just now.
A number of them were badly injured;
even core members of Hueco Mundo suffered damage of varying degrees,
which would seriously affect their future evolutions.
Because of that,
nearly every Menos and Arrancar
chose to fear and avoid the Zanpakutō Ryūjin Jakka—
like mice meeting a cat.
They had no time to run,
let alone the nerve to provoke it.
So calling them "fragile" was not excessive.
Some among the Arrancar army even felt
the pure-blood Quincy were practically asking for death.
Why would you ever—
[clip continues]
(End of Chapter)
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