The moon hung high over Hueco Mundo's endless desert, silver and cold. The dunes whispered with quiet wind as the darkness thinned around the rocky crag of Tier Harribel's lair.
They stepped out into the open Kurokujaku first, tall and composed, hands still behind his back. Harribel followed silently, her blade arm flexing as faint steam curled from her body in preparation.
Appacci, Sun Sun, and Mila Rose lingered behind, watching intently.
Tier's golden eyes locked on his back.
"You said you wouldn't kill me."
Kurokujaku didn't turn, but he spoke low and measured.
"I won't. There's no need. This is not a battle. It's a demonstration."
He turned then, slowly, one step, placing him opposite her.
"You asked to see the difference. I'm simply obliging."
Tier didn't reply. She raised her arm-blade and lowered her center of gravity. The dunes flattened beneath her feet under the pressure of her spiritual energy.
Kurokujaku sighed quietly, then slid one foot back and lifted both bare hands open, calm.
"Begin when ready."
Tier blitzed forward with a speed only a Vasto Lorde could muster, her arm-blade slicing in a tight arc. The edge was sharp enough to tear through Gillian masks in a single strike.
Her blade collided with his open palm.
Clang.
No blood. No recoil. No resistance from him at all.
Her eyes widened.
"Hierro," Kurokujaku murmured. "A layer of compressed spiritual particles reinforcing the skin. Not unique to Arrancar… but in our case, weaponized."
He pushed forward gently, and her blade was deflected away like wind brushing past silk.
Tier's Counter Flurry
She pivoted, thrust, spun, leaped, her blade whistling through the air. A blur of strikes rained toward his head, his chest, his legs.
Kurokujaku swayed.
That was all. He barely moved, yet none of her strikes touched him. His steps were too precise. His frame is unreadable.
"You've never faced a true Sonído, have you?" he asked gently as he slid sideways, hands still folded behind his back now.
"It's not merely speed. It's… transcendence. A statement."
Tier growled, stepped back, then swept her blade horizontally.
A Cero bloomed along the edge of her weapon, yellow and brilliant, ripping across the sand in a wide arc.
FWOOOM!
It carved a trench into the earth, a scalding wall of destruction.
Kurokujaku was already gone.
She spun too late. A hand rested on her shoulder from behind.
"Don't be discouraged," he said softly. "This is not mockery. It'sa revelation."
She whirled again, blade slashing in a furious diagonal. He raised a forearm CLANG! and the sparks vanished into his coat.
Tier's Final Attempt
Harribel leapt back, chest heaving, sweat and sand clinging to her toned skin. Her mask fragment gleamed under the moonlight.
Crouched low, she roared, letting out a howl of Hollow power, and charged up one final Cero, a compressed, high-speed spear launched directly at his center mass.
He stood still this time.
His eyes glowed.
He stepped once, not Sonído, just a casual pace.
The Cero passed behind him, scorching the dunes.
He was before her now.
Close enough that she could see her own reflection in his golden eyes.
"Your power is vast," he said. "But it's aimed only outward. Toward others. You shoulder too much. You fight so they don't have to. And so you haven't truly fought for yourself in a long time, have you?"
He gently lifted a hand.
She struck desperately now, but he caught the arm-blade in his bare palm again.
This time, the metal cracked.
Her breath caught.
Surrender
The dune stilled.
Tier stood, tense, eyes narrowed.
Then slowly, she dropped her weapon.
The wind carried her quiet words.
"...I yield."
Kurokujaku said nothing at first. Then, a gentle smile touched his lips.
"Then come. There is still time to become more."
He turned, walking away across the silver sands.
Behind him, Tier stood frozen, watching the ghost-like elegance of his gait.
"He didn't even use his sword…" Sun Sun whispered.
"He didn't even need it," Appacci grunted, awe and frustration mingling in her voice.
"Still…" Mila Rose added quietly. "He didn't kill her. That… says something."
Tier looked over her shoulder at her fracción. Without a word, she signaled with a small nod.
The three moved in behind her, still stunned but obedient.
She turned once more to the tall, fading figure ahead and began to follow.
-----
The sands stretched endlessly before them, but their footsteps were deliberate, unhurried.
Kurokujaku Tsukikage walked at a measured pace, hands folded behind his back, the moonlight gilding the silver embroidery on his white Espada coat. At his side, Tier Harribel walked with the stoicism she always carried, though now, her eyes were contemplative, and her breath just a little heavier, not from the battle, but from the weight of her decision.
Behind them, Appacci, Sun Sun, and Mila Rose followed quietly, their expressions unreadable.
For a while, no one spoke.
Then Tier broke the silence.
"You spoke of evolution through our Resurrección... that our kind hasn't finished changing. Do you really believe that?"
Kurokujaku's head tilted faintly, as though the question had scratched at a deeply personal idea.
"Absolutely."
He slowed his steps, gaze distant.
"You know of Resurrección as a return to our true form. But to me… it is also an invitation. A whisper from our past selves. It is our Hollow essence remembering how it devoured, endured, and adapted."
He paused.
"But I suspect… it can be pushed further."
Tier's brows furrowed. "Further?"
He looked skyward.
"We are fragments, shattered masks, drifting through existence. But if the first evolution made us humanoid… what if the next returns us not to monsters, but something else? A harmony between self and hunger. Between soul and instinct."
A glimmer of something excitement? madness? flickered in his eyes.
"My second release is only a glimpse. A ripple. The third… I've seen it in dreams. I can feel it. But it would shatter this world if released fully. The walls of Las Noches would dissolve. The sky of Hueco Mundo would split."
He looked at her with those glowing amber eyes.
"We are not the end of the chain, Harribel. We are its future."
Tier was silent for a while.
Then finally, she asked, "What is your Resurrección?"
Kurokujaku smirked faintly, slowing his steps just enough to let moonlight spill across the peacock-shaped guard of his sealed Zanpakutō.
"You'll find out when you reach that point. Evolution speaks only to those who truly seek it."
She didn't argue.
And neither said another word as Las Noches rose in the distance, white and immense, like a fallen god turned to stone.
-----
The gates of Las Noches opened with a hiss of spiritual energy, the massive white walls parting like a maw of ancient ivory. The sentries bowed silently as Kurokujaku passed, Tier and her followers close behind.
Inside the vast halls of the fortress, Sōsuke Aizen awaited them.
He stood with his hands calmly folded within his haori, flanked by Gin Ichimaru, eyes slitted and smiling, and Kaname Tōsen, impassive as ever.
Aizen's voice was smooth as still water.
"Welcome, Tier Harribel. You've made a wise choice."
Tier met his gaze, calm but firm. "You intend to change us."
"Correct." He turned and gestured for them to follow. "Come. There is much to be done."
They walked through long corridors lined with angular structures and strange devices humming with faint spirit energy. Eventually, they entered the deepest wing of Las Noches Aizen's private lab.
It was a chamber of cold steel and glowing glass, filled with soft humming machinery. At its center pulsed a small, spherical object, suspended in a cylinder of energy. The air rippled faintly around it.
The Hōgyoku.
Aizen turned to them.
"This is the device by which you shall become more than what you are."
Appacci tensed. Sun Sun's eyes widened. Mila Rose stared, as if feeling the air change around her already.
"The Hōgyoku doesn't create evolution, it forces it. It draws out potential. The further along your evolutionary path you are... the more powerfully it reshapes you."
He looked directly at Tier.
"You, a Vasto Lorde, will become something truly terrifying. Your fracción, still Adjuchas… they will reach the shape of finality, shedding their hunger at last. But the quality of that evolution will depend on what lies within them."
Tier stepped forward.
"And if they're not ready?"
"They'll remain incomplete," Aizen replied matter-of-factly. "But they will still be useful."
A silence passed. Then Tier looked back at her girls, who nodded firmly in unison no hesitation.
"We're with you," Mila said.
"No matter what," Sun Sun added.
"Let's finish this damn journey already," Appacci growled.
Kurokujaku finally stepped beside Aizen, folding his arms.
"We've walked in sand long enough. Time to see what lies beyond it."
Aizen smiled faintly.
"Step into the chamber."
A crystalline chamber slid open on the far wall. Pale light filled its core. Tier and the others walked into it slowly, as if stepping into the maw of transformation itself.
Aizen raised a hand, and the Hōgyoku flared, pulsing like a heartbeat, violet and blue light cascading through the glass.
As the energy flooded the room, the four Hollows fell to their knees, gripping the floor as their bodies began to fracture… and change.
Kurokujaku watched silently, eyes glowing.
"Let's see what kind of queens they become," he whispered.