The battlefield had been reduced to ruins. Sand was gone—vaporized. Craters stretched for miles. The sky above Hueco Mundo, once a perfect artificial dome, now looked fractured—spiderwebbed with cracks of black lightning.
Ichigo floated mid-air, Tensa Zangetsu pulsing in his hand. Blood trickled from his lip. His cloak was torn. Yet his eyes burned—sharp, unrelenting, resolved.
Across from him hovered the abomination that Aizen had become.
Twisted. Shimmering. Radiating energy that even the dimension struggled to contain. His form cracked with power, raw veins of spirit energy crawling beneath hollowed armor. And in his hand, his reiryoku blade trembled with compressed fury.
Aizen lifted it high, and for the first time—his voice was truly unhinged.
"CERO... OBLITERANTE!"
He pointed the blade forward. Energy poured into it—purple, black, acidic. It grew into a vortex of spiraling death, pulsating like a cursed heart. A massive spear of light surged from the tip, twisting and howling, brighter than anything he had released before.
The pressure alone crushed the landscape below. Time seemed to bend around it. The air screamed.
Ichigo, still and silent, raised Tensa Zangetsu to his side, his free hand extended along the blade's spine.
A wind picked up—no, not wind—space itself twisting around him. His reiatsu compressed. Condensed. Hardened into something sharp, pure, and final.
Black energy wrapped around the blade.
Crimson veins cracked through it like lightning.
And his voice rang out—not in rage.
But in judgment.
> "GETSUGA…
SAIGA!!"
("Moon Fang... JUDGMENT FANG!")
The sky shattered.
Literally.
Above them, the false heavens of Hueco Mundo broke apart like black glass, shards floating upward as if gravity reversed. From Zangetsu's edge, a colossal eruption of power surged forth—a dragon-shaped blast forged from twisting black reiatsu, outlined with glowing crimson veins that pulsed like arteries.
The dragon opened its mouth as it flew, roaring with the sound of a thousand Ceros compressed into a single scream. Its body writhed like a god of chaos, consuming all light in its path.
Aizen's Cero Obliterante fired.
Two titanic forces raced toward each other.
When they met—
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The impact didn't explode right away.
First, everything went silent.
Utterly silent.
As if a black hole had opened. The world went mute. The light bent inward, sucked into the convergence of Ichigo's Judgment Fang and Aizen's unholy blast. The stars above flickered. The ground below cracked.
Then—
Detonation.
An explosion like no other.
A ring of destruction tore through the horizon, vaporizing mountains of sand. The sky peeled back, a tidal wave of raw spirit energy exploding in a dome of void-black light and red fire.
The entire dimension shook.
Las Noches collapsed in the distance—its towering walls finally giving way under the divine force.
Wind screamed. Dust choked the air.
Then… silence.
Ash drifted from the heavens like falling snow.
And through that smoke, at the very center, Ichigo stood—blade lowered, body rising with each breath. His clothing was burned. His shoulder bled. But his eyes—
His eyes were clear.
Not far off, Aizen lay in a crater. His blade, the purple reiryoku saber, flickered… then vanished. His Hollow mask cracked. Chunks of armor fell away like ash. His spiritual pressure flickered in and out—unstable, dying, afraid.
The Hōgyoku no longer resisted Ichigo.
It trembled inside Aizen's chest. Confused. Submissive.
Ichigo took one step forward, dragging Zangetsu through the air, the blade humming faintly.
"Judgment has been delivered," he said quietly.
Ichigo stepped forward through the scorched battlefield, each footfall silent against the cratered ground. The last embers of their clash still flickered in the air, drifting like fading stars.
A few meters ahead, Aizen lay broken in the sand. His monstrous form had begun to crumble, piece by piece, until only the man remained. The Hollow mask shattered completely, revealing his bloodstained face—eyes fluttering shut as his body gave in.
Then, with a soft hum, the Hōgyoku began to rise.
It floated out from Aizen's chest, pulsing softly with a bluish-violet glow. No longer violent. No longer rejecting or fighting. It was… calm. As if relieved to be free.
Aizen exhaled sharply—and passed out.
The Hōgyoku hovered slowly through the air, weightless, timeless, until it floated in front of Ichigo. He stared at it quietly, Tensa Zangetsu resting at his side.
A glimmer danced across the gem's surface—reflecting Ichigo's face back at him.
He spoke aloud, voice low and thoughtful.
"Do you want us to have it, Zangetsu?"
There was a pause.
Then his partner's voice echoed back, thoughtful and edged with curiosity.
"It's said to manifest its user's deepest desires… So what would it do to someone like you? Or… us?"
Ichigo's eyes narrowed. He exhaled slowly, then gave a small shrug.
"I don't know."
His gaze shifted slightly, watching the gem shimmer gently in the air.
"All I do know… is that it wouldn't be wise to leave it here. God knows what would happen if some Hollow or lunatic stumbled across it."
He reached out with his hand.
"So I guess I'll be keeping it. I'm sure Kisuke will understand."
At that very moment, as if in agreement, the Hōgyoku responded. It flared briefly, then shot forward—
—and sank directly into Ichigo's chest.
Fwooom.
There was no pain. No struggle.
Just stillness.
The Hōgyoku nestled inside him, reading him, scanning his soul—his goals, his regrets, his dreams.
And then… it stopped.
No changes. No new form. No surge of power. Because Ichigo was already what he desired to be. Just himself.
Steady. Grounded. Complete.
A faint breeze rolled across the battlefield, sweeping away the last remains of the chaos.
'I just need to get my Quincy abilities,' he thought. 'I'm sure I'll get them sooner or later.'
He paused, turning his head toward the distance. A familiar presence tingled in the back of his mind.
'I should go visit Nel… Hope she's alright.
I can sense her somewhere nearby.'
Ichigo walked over to Aizen's unconscious form, knelt, and gently picked him up over his shoulder. There was no malice—just duty.
With a final look at the ruined desert, Ichigo turned away.
BOOM
In a flash, he vanished.
The battlefield, once filled with explosions and screams, was now silent.
Peace had returned to Hueco Mundo—at least for now.
And Ichigo Kurosaki, still just a man with a sword, carried both the weight of victory… and the soul of a god.
TO BE CONTINUED