"Damn… that foreign guy's got this dark prince vibe, doesn't he?"
The moment the new Arrancar appeared on-screen - played by that melancholy-eyed actor the internet loves turning into a meme - the reaction was instant. It didn't matter whether viewers were watching across the ocean or squeezed into a worn couch after a long day: there was a brief, instinctive hush… and then the same collective thought rolled through everyone at once.
He looked dangerous.
Inside the story, though, no one was admiring anyone's looks.
The atmosphere shifted before a single blow was thrown. Hollow spiritual pressure tore through the space like an invisible blade, prickling skin and sinking stomachs. The core group felt it immediately - but distance came with a cost. Ichigo Kurosaki still hadn't arrived.
The first to step in and hold the line were Ishida and Orihime Inoue.
Ishida moved forward with a stride that looked steady, but inside he was running numbers: the sheer weight of that presence, the "volume" of that energy, how much margin they had before this spiraled beyond saving. Orihime, beside him, drew a breath like she was trying to convince her own body not to shake. There was fear - real, raw fear - but there was also the quiet decision not to retreat, no matter what it cost.
In the original material, someone else would have bought them time. But this time, Alex had made a surgical cut. A character who had always felt slightly out of place, with a purpose too vague to justify the screen time, had simply vanished from the adaptation. With that piece removed from the board, the story had to redistribute the burden.
So it fell to Ishida Uryu.
And for all his occasional cruelty toward his own cast, Alex wasn't careless: he wasn't going to turn the group's "second pillar" into a footnote. Ishida took a beating - he took it hard - but he wasn't reduced to ash in two seconds. He was driven back, crushed under an overwhelming gap in power, yes… but it didn't end in empty humiliation. Every arrow, every shift of footing, every attempt to carve out space carried intent, intelligence, desperation.
Wounded, he held on long enough.
Long enough for Ichigo to finally arrive.
The impact of the protagonist's presence felt like relief and warning at the same time. Relief, because there was finally someone capable of answering. Warning, because if the spiritual pressure had already felt like a ceiling pressing down, now it was as though the whole world might buckle.
Yammy rolled his neck, irritated, like a beast that was simply too big for the street he stood on, and barked over his shoulder:
"Ulquiorra! Is it him? Is that the kid?"
Behind him, standing as though the chaos didn't deserve even a sigh, Ulquiorra kept his hands in his pockets and his gaze fixed forward. A stare that wasn't merely cold - it was empty, and that was far more unsettling than anger.
"…Yes," he answered without hurry. "The one Lord Sosuke Aizen told us to observe."
The name dropped into the air like a slab of lead.
On-screen, Ichigo's group tensed on instinct. Off-screen, thousands of viewers did the same invisible thing: a shiver, a reflex, a shared memory.
Because "Aizen" wasn't just a name.
It was a threat that carried through the screen.
Yammy, meanwhile, let out a loud, obnoxious laugh, like the universe had just told him the world's funniest joke.
"You're telling me we came all the way out here for this? What a joke!"
He lunged with a punch the size of a verdict.
Ichigo drew his blade on reflex and caught it. In the same instant, he understood - in flesh, in bone - that this wasn't a fair comparison. The force surged through his guard like water through a broken dam. His sword vibrated. His arm burned. And the feeling was the worst kind of all: like holding a door against an avalanche.
A split-second of hesitation was enough for the conclusion to form, bitter and inevitable.
He'd have to use what he'd been saving as a last resort.
Ichigo's breathing thickened.
"…Bankai."
The transformation snapped through the world. The air grew denser, sharper. Power compressed around his body like a storm trapped in a bottle - and for a brief moment, it felt like the tide had finally turned.
But Yammy didn't retreat.
He grinned.
And it was the grin of a predator watching prey try to act like a predator.
Ichigo attacked, and the fight became a violent blur. The street cracked underfoot. The collision of steel and impact turned into thunder. Even so, Yammy still didn't fall behind.
And Ulquiorra?
Ulquiorra simply watched.
No expression. No urgency. Not a hint of being impressed. As if all of it - Ichigo's effort, the group's desperation, the spectacle of power - was just a predictable line in a report he'd already read.
It was in that sliver of space, that fraction of time where Ichigo had to breathe and recalibrate, that Yammy found what he wanted. A minimal lapse. A tired muscle. A single millisecond.
His fist drove straight for the kill.
"Damn it!"
The world narrowed.
And then… something woke up.
A force impossible to explain flooded Ichigo's body like poison and salvation at once. Something that didn't feel like it belonged to him - yet had been waiting inside him all the same. His blade came down in a brutal arc, and the impossible happened:
Yammy's right arm was severed as if it were paper.
For a second, the monster didn't even understand. He stared at the empty space where his arm had been - and only then did the blood come, the pain, the humiliation.
Ulquiorra took a step forward for the first time.
Both Arrancar felt it.
This wasn't just strength.
It was a power that resembled their own.
On-screen, the audience could see it clearly: Ichigo's face was traced in white, the outline of a mask - unfinished, unstable, but unmistakable. Enough to ignite an instant recognition in anyone who'd been following since the beginning.
In the crowd, someone shouted, too excited to hold it back.
It was Choi Yun.
"He's shown that before! In the fight against Byakuya!"
Anyone who'd watched the Soul Society arc remembered it perfectly - the same sense of destiny cheating, the same impossible leap past the limit. With that incomplete mask, Ichigo became something else for a handful of breaths, and just like last time, he began to drive his enemy back.
Yammy retreated. Ichigo advanced.
The music rose. The audience's heartbeat rose with it.
And for a few seconds, everyone believed what they always believe when a protagonist enters "monster mode":
Now he wins.
It was precisely then - at the moment victory felt inevitable - that reality reminded everyone who was in control.
A green-black afterimage cut between them.
Ulquiorra.
He moved so fast the shot almost looked like an editing mistake. A jump. An impossibility. By the time Ichigo registered him, it was too late: Ulquiorra raised his hand casually, like he was making a small gesture to interrupt a conversation.
And then he pierced.
His finger drove into the center of Ichigo's chest with clinical precision, as if he knew exactly where life lived.
The impact sent Ichigo flying.
His body hit the ground with a sound that wasn't only physical - it was symbolic, like something inside the audience's expectations shattered with him.
That was the moment veteran fans froze.
It couldn't be.
It didn't make sense.
Ichigo, in that "out-of-control" state - the same power that had defeated Byakuya - had just been neutralized in a single strike?
One strike.
A lot of people could've accepted it if it were Sosuke Aizen himself. He was the kind of figure who bent logic just by existing.
But a subordinate?
A subordinate doing this?
The word that flooded the internet wasn't "strong." It wasn't "terrifying."
It was "cheap."
Yammy, on one knee, breathing hard, his ego still trying to hold what his body had already lost, managed to complain anyway:
"Ulquiorra… I said I could handle it."
Ulquiorra didn't argue.
He simply looked.
Then, without warning, he drove a blunt punch into Yammy's stomach like a lesson delivered without patience. Yammy folded, choking on air, humiliated, one knee grinding into the ground.
"W-what the hell was that?!"
"Idiot." Ulquiorra's voice didn't rise. "Learn to read the situation. For an instant, his spiritual pressure surpassed yours. If you kept pushing, you'd only corner yourself."
In less than a minute, the script had done what some writers need entire arcs to accomplish: sell an antagonist the audience respects - even while hating him.
Coldness. Competence. Ruthlessness toward enemies, but a strange kind of… order with allies. It wasn't kindness. It was hierarchy. Discipline.
Still, it was enough to hook far too many people.
The kind of character a slice of the fandom starts defending with their teeth before his second appearance even happens.
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the world, a veteran director - one of those men the industry loves calling a "living legend" - watched with his chin propped on his hand, trying to hide his irritation.
He didn't like Alex.
Not out of "morality." Not "ethics." It was simpler and sharper than that: ever since Bleach exploded, the press wouldn't shut up about how Alex was "the next era," "the new name that will redefine the medium," "the guy who'll steamroll everyone."
And for someone used to being the benchmark, that kind of talk felt like grit between the teeth.
Still, out of sheer stubbornness - and a touch of curiosity - he hit play.
And even though the world of reapers, masks, and swords felt a little too delirious for his taste… he had to admit, grudgingly: Alex knew how to build presence.
He remembered the first time he'd watched Sosuke Aizen turn the whole board over with a smile that looked too polite to be real. It had been… uncomfortable. Not because of what happened, but how it happened. That sense that the story was being dragged forward by someone who already knew he'd won.
And now, watching a subordinate recreate that same effect with an even colder simplicity… it was a reminder.
Alex wasn't merely adapting.
He was building a mythology.
As if saying - without ever needing to say it - if you don't like me, that's your problem. I'm not obligated to like you either.
Back on-screen, Yammy forced himself upright, chewing on his anger, and pointed at Ichigo's fallen body.
"Fine, fine, I get it… but he's done now, right? I'll finish him - "
He took a step.
And was stopped.
Two presences cut into the scene: Urahara Kisuke and Yoruichi.
It was a short entrance, but it carried that weight only seasoned characters possess - the kind that says, without words: keep going, and the bill changes size.
Yammy snapped:
"Seriously?! They keep crawling out like roaches! I'll kill every last one of them!"
"Enough, Yammy." Ulquiorra spoke again, emotionless. "That's Urahara Kisuke and Yoruichi. At your level, you can't win. We're leaving."
Then he lifted a finger and drew a line through the air, like he was cutting reality itself.
Darkness opened into a warped corridor - a hollow, chaotic passage that looked bottomless.
Fans recognized it instantly.
The same kind of gateway Sosuke Aizen had used when everything fell apart.
The Garganta.
"Running away?!" Yoruichi spat, direct and unimpressed.
Ulquiorra turned his head just enough for a small, nearly nonexistent smile to show.
"Boring provocation. If you try to fight while protecting that… trash - " he glanced aside, as if the entire world were beneath him " - you know the outcome."
His gaze dropped to Ichigo, unconscious, defeated in a way that felt personal even when it wasn't.
"I'll report to Sosuke Aizen. The half-baked reaper he's taken an interest in… is nothing. Not even worth the effort of killing."
And then, as if a meeting had simply ended, Ulquiorra stepped through the Garganta with Yammy and vanished.
Urahara and Yoruichi didn't waste time. They gathered Ichigo, Ishida, and Orihime and disappeared with urgency - because in that world, surviving always came before avenging.
When the scene ended, what lingered wasn't just anticipation.
It was bitterness.
This was the very first episode. The opening of a new phase. And the protagonist had just taken a loss heavy enough to make the entire fandom ask the same question:
If it starts like this… how does it escalate without breaking?
And as always, the internet detonated.
"Alex is a bastard - he's addicted to grinding the protagonist into dust. Last arc he played Aizen and humiliated Ichigo himself. Now he's sending subordinates to do it?"
"You're telling me the henchman deletes masked Ichigo - the one who beat Byakuya - in ONE hit? That's power-scaling-breaking levels of nonsense."
"Relax. Byakuya was already at his limit in that fight. It's not a clean comparison."
"It's wild how everyone under Aizen is the king of 'I arrived and I humbled you.' Last arc it was him. Now the opener is his employee."
"I'm already an Ulquiorra fan. Brutal to enemies, but he'll yank his ally back from doing something stupid. Who wouldn't want a teammate like that?"
"You just like his face."
"Ulquiorra's the strongest of Aizen's crew, right? If a couple more show up at this level… how does Soul Society even survive?"
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Additionally, more chapters exclusive content are available on Patreon: https://patreon.com/ImmortalEmperor?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
- CHRONICLES OF THE ICE SOVEREIGN
-PLAYING ANIME LEGENDS
-THE OTHER WORLD'S ANIMATOR
Join now and help shape the future of the story while enjoying special rewards!