The world became a trail of blurred shapes and biting wind.
He had disappeared from the plaza with a single burst of Shunpo, leaving behind the murmur of the crowd as if tearing its very presence from reality. The change was instantaneous: from humidity and noise to a cold breeze that already carried the first sighs of the night.
The city streets became mere blurs before his eyes as each step of Shunpo caused a small sonic boom as the houses and people blurred around him and the stone slabs crunched beneath his feet. The sky had begun to darken, pushed by the sun's fall beyond the horizon, where the last orange band was extinguished like a candle in a forgotten temple.
Aizen didn't stop. He didn't look back.
Not even on his best days would he have made the mistake of staying still after feeling a reiatsu like that.
Not in this new world.
Not in his current condition.
His boots barely touched the edges of buildings, darting between elongated shadows and corners that smelled of old dust and rusty metal. The city became a sounding board of stone and steel as he passed. Everything vibrated with the tension of a pursuit not yet declared, but inevitable.
"It was her. There's no margin for error."
His mind calculated with the coldness of a surgical scalpel.
It wasn't paranoia. It wasn't fear.
It was instinct.
The same instinct that had just saved his life once again. The same instinct that now roared with a silent voice: Run.
He leaped toward a collapsed gallery between two colleges, hiding for a second behind a brick chimney. The warm steam brushed his face, barely blurring his vision. But he didn't need to see.
He felt her as clearly as a candle in the darkness.
As if the night itself had tensed. As if the twilight was breathing his name.
"How did she get here?"
The thought struck him again.
"Is it a coincidence? Was she sent?"
The possibilities rearranged and rearranged themselves endlessly.
"Did she come for me?"
No.
If she had wanted to attack him, it would have been in the market.
she had no need to hide. No need to play.
But she hadn't attacked.
Hadn't even looked.
And that, perhaps, was worse.
He moved forward again. Quickly. Deftly. Like a reflex without origin.
He crossed an alley where wet fabrics hung between ropes like skin drying in the cold. A dog barked in the distance, and the first streetlights flickered with faint life, bathing the walls in greenish light. The air smelled of earth and rancid cooking oil. It was already night.
"Tsk..." he muttered, the syllable trailing behind muffled footsteps.
The city at that hour was beginning to empty. The voices faded, the doors closed, the gates were barred with the language of those who know there are things that only walk at night.
And among them, he.
And perhaps, she.
"I don't have the strength to face her."
He admitted it to himself, without pride. His power was contained, fragmented. He felt it in his muscles: the tension that didn't fully respond, the jump that took longer than usual, the chills, and the enormous pressure. Compared to his normal state, it wasn't surprising that he fled. The only reason he hadn't faced her before was to avoid being exhausted, but now he wouldn't even be able to truly fight or attack before she killed him.
"I should have known something like this would happen. I wouldn't be the only one to come to this world."
A current of reiatsu slid behind him, hitting him, like the reflection of a leaf falling into water, then turning into a wave that consumed him. It wasn't an attack. There wasn't even a way to release his Reiatsu. It was her mere presence that made him feel suffocated now.
"She's tracking me... no, she's hunting me."
But Aizen wasn't fooled.
It was worse.
He leaped toward the old neighborhoods, a maze of low buildings with tin roofs, where the wind whistled through loose sheets of metal and the ground was covered with salt crystals discarded by student interns
There he moved better.
Between damp passageways, broken stairwells, shattered windows that stared like accusing eyes.
He passed beneath a rusty structure that creaked at his touch, releasing a shower of dust and soot. The sound bounced back, multiplying in long echoes.
And then he stopped.
Just for a moment.
Not by choice.
By necessity.
His breathing quickened. His pulse trembled slightly in his fingers. Fatigue began to push from within like a wave that gives no warning.
He hid behind an overturned metal container, in the middle of a forgotten courtyard. A fallen lantern spat intermittent light from the ground, casting its shadow against the wall.
He listened.
He felt.
Only the wind.
Only the creaking of a cable.
Only the pounding of his own blood in his ears.
And, somewhere... far away... a faint trace of reiatsu.
Not cold, not warm.
Just... curious.
Like an outstretched palm, untouched.
"She's not trying."
That certainty hit him harder than any attack.
"She's after me, yes... but she's not trying to reach me."
She wasn't chasing him to kill him.
Not yet.
It was as if... she was waiting for him.
"Playing...?"
He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.
Because those who don't show their fangs immediately are the most dangerous, and he knew that firsthand.
And Retsu, if it was really her, would never have needed them to face him.
He leaned his back against the cold wall. The metal returned the trembling his body could no longer hide.
"I have no more time. I need to recover energy. Hide. Change pace."
He scanned the surroundings. A poorly closed trapdoor. An access to the underground. The kind of place where students came to smoke or hide stolen books.
He opened it silently. He went downstairs.
The air below was thick.
Dampness rose up the walls like a living disease.
Black stone. Dim light. The smell of rust and confinement.
He walked among boxes, broken machines, pipes. He found a dark corner, protected by an abandoned boiler.
He sat down, concentrating on hiding every trace of his presence.
He exhaled. Slowly. Long.
The echo of his breath mingled with the distant dripping of a leak.
The whole world seemed to be holding its breath.
"If he wants me alive, it's for a reason."
"And if he wants me dead... it's not urgent."
That was what worried him most.
Because he had never been prey.
And now, perhaps, for the first time... he was.
But he didn't think he'd be an easy one.
As time passed and the night grew darker, descending into almost absolute solitude, the silence began to embrace his figure like a second skin.
Aizen remained motionless, breathing with the precise rhythm of someone who has learned to hide not only from the enemy, but also from the world. The darkness of the underground chamber was thick, cut only by pale lines of light that filtered through a rusty crack. Every so often, the dripping of a pipe marked the passage of time as if a clock without hands dictated its own language.
He had been hiding for hours. Hours waiting for the blow that never came. Hours trying to read in that presence what she didn't say.
And now, surrounded by moldy columns, he pondered how to get out of this problem. During that time, his mind came to a conclusion.
He needed power.
He needed Kyōka Suigetsu.
"You're not complete," he thought to himself, without waiting for an answer.
The echo died among the rubble.
He had felt fragments before. Echoes. A faint murmur when he was between sleep and wakefulness on his journey, as if an invisible thread still tied him to his zanpakutō. But always elusive. Always incomplete.
Now wasn't the ideal moment. He was tired, worn out.
But it was now...
Or remain a piece on another board.
He closed his eyes.
He breathed in.
The air entered his lungs, smelling of damp stone and rotten roots. The interior of the place was like a black mass before his eyes, barely pierced by the moonlight that entered through the cracks. There, in the gloom, he sat on his knees.
His hands unsheathed Kyoka Suigetsu and held it, trying to find a way to start a conversation, something that was all too common due to certain circumstances.
His mind wandered, searching for some connection.
"Kyōka Suigetsu…"
He called out to her, not with his voice, but with his consciousness, trying to find that feeling that sparked every connection.
"Please… even a little…"
A jolt of inner pressure shook him. It wasn't Reiatsu, it wasn't physical. It was a living memory:
the crystal of deception, the edge of the mirror, the mist that deceives time.
An image flickered behind his closed eyelids:
the curved blade, the almost liquid glow of steel.
The reflection of himself… looking back at him.
And then:
nothing.
Emptiness.
A void.
As if the presence responded, but couldn't reach him.
He gritted his teeth.
"You're broken."
"Or you're sealed."
"Or is it not you who is incomplete... but me?"
The thought sank deeper than the cold.
He had considered it before, in the initial days after arriving in this world: how much of his power was his zanpakutō... and how much was himself? Where did the illusion of control end and true mastery begin?
And what remained, if both had dissolved?
He opened his eyes.
There was no new light.
There was no shining blade floating before him.
Only the faint tremor of a breeze, barely a touch against his left cheek.
He sat there trying to find a way to accomplish something. The shikai shouldn't take much effort, even in his current state. It should at least be possible to free her, but he couldn't. He just stood there waiting.
He could do nothing but wait and try to focus on Kyoka Suigetsu.
Not with that reiatsu still in the distance.
Not with her... chasing him.
He'd been up for several hours now, and in an act of exhaustion, he leaned slightly to the side, resting his forearm on a dusty box. The metal was cold. Too cold. Not from the temperature of the place, but from his own body.
Exhaustion was coming over him in waves, and that irritated him more than any threat.
"I haven't let my guard down... but this isn't a normal chase anymore."
At least five hours had passed since he disappeared into the bowels of the city. Enough time for any real pursuer to have tracked his Reiatsu or simply reduced the entire district to dust, in his case.
But she hadn't.
Not an attempt at pressure. Not a spiritual sweep. Nothing.
Just that constant lightness…
Like the echo of a perfume that refuses to leave.
Aizen narrowed his eyes, leaning his head against the rough wall. The shapes of the outside world danced in his mind: the alleys, the balconies, the wires that had hissed in his ear as he flew past them… and the pressure. That split second when she could feel him, and he her. There was no hostility. No anger.
Only… recognition.
And what did that mean?
How had she recognized him before he recognized her?
It wasn't a minor question. If they had both come to this world with their powers… why did hers seem complete and his weakened? What if he had retained only fragments and she her true power? And why was she expressing that pressure and feeling that was so obvious it screamed "Kenpachi?" It wasn't the healer, but that woman from a thousand years ago. There was a clear expression in her pressure that screamed something primitive about him, something he recognized and it chilled his blood, leaving many questions.
He stood up.
He couldn't stay there.
Not until he understood the game.
Nor could he simply wait.
If she had her full power and he didn't, if she was Retsu Kenpachi and he was a mere mortal.
Well, this was just a bet, but considering what would happen if he failed or just stayed there, it made no difference. But if his theory was correct and his bet paid off,
A smile spread across his face as he held his Zanpakuto.
The basement creaked around him as he moved. He climbed the stairs carefully, like someone stepping on the remains of an old trap that could still be activated. As he stepped through the trapdoor, the fresh air hit him like a forgotten memory.
The night had already settled in.
The rooftops shone with moisture. The lanterns were golden stains melting in the puddles. High above, the moon cut through the clouds like a pale dagger. The world slept… but not he.
He moved again. Not at the speed of before. It made no sense. Now the rhythm was different.
"If she doesn't run… neither do I."
He moved through the deserted streets like a ghost. He wasn't seeking to hide. He was seeking to understand.
In an alley flanked by broken columns, he paused for a moment. He closed his eyes.
He felt.
And there it was.
That presence…
Distant.
Constant.
Unhurried.
It was as if it were watching him move, without needing to catch up. As if it knew exactly where he was.
And decided not to go.
"This is… theatrical."
The word floated through his mind like a dissonant note. He repeated himself, breaking it down as if analyzing an ancient poem:
"Theatrical."
"she simulates a chase, but doesn't execute."
"she knows where I am, and he doesn't attack. Is he waiting for me to tire? An ambush?"
No.
It wasn't that.
He knew those strategies. He'd executed them. He'd taught them. He'd dismantled them.
And this wasn't a trap.
It was a ritual.
A walk.
A game.
"What if I'm not the prey? What if I'm simply… a piece?"
A slight shiver ran down his spine, not from fear, but from the proximity of a dangerous idea. Yet right now he had a plan, and anyone who knows him knows how dangerous that is.
He wasn't running. He wasn't hunting. He wasn't talking.
she just followed him.
As if watching him move was part of a routine.
As if she expected him to do something first.
"she's cutting into my space."
Not violently, but elegantly.
A shadow passed along the ledge to his left. It wasn't human. A night gull, perhaps, but it reminded him how vulnerable he was.
He looked up.
Nothing.
No, she wasn't there.
She never was.
But every street seemed narrower. Every corner brought him back to the same pattern. As if no matter which way he turned, the paths bent against him.
Or in favor of her.
"She's leading me."
That certainty settled like ice under his tongue.
"But... where?"
A light flickered on the horizon, a street in the center of the city, wide and perfect for a fight.
And yet... there he felt the reiatsu more intensely.
"It can't be a coincidence."
He moved forward.
The footsteps on the stone cobblestones were no longer swift. They were cautious. But not out of weakness. It was something else.
Respect, perhaps.
Respect for a player who, without moving a piece, had thrown the entire board into disarray.
The top of a building facing the vast space wasn't high, but the wind seemed colder there.
And the silence was deeper.
The entire city lay behind him, even though he was at the center of it all, spread out like a sleeping creature.
And when he reached that place, he knew he wasn't alone.
He didn't see her.
He didn't have to.
She was there.
Not hidden. Not on guard.
Simply present.
And for the first time, Aizen didn't take another step.
Because for now, that was all he needed to understand:
Analyzing the entire situation that had unfolded tonight, he understood something:
She wasn't chasing him to hunt him down.
She was following him to watch him run.
It was a cold night that chilled everyone to the bone. The street was vast and deserted. A fountain stood in the middle, adorning everything, and enormous stone buildings surrounded the place. Everything was like the scenery for a play between two people preparing the plot.
A strong gust of wind blew past, tearing the clothes lined up from some houses and carrying with it many leaves from different trees planted in the city. The entire place was flooded for a moment, blocking all vision, both because of the things it carried and because of the intensity that made him close his eyes, only to then look back at the place.
And there she was.
Alone.
Standing.
Looking at him.
The moonlight revealed just enough: her loose hair that barely moved, her clothes, like an ordinary person who had seen a modest blouse and a long skirt that almost touched the ground, both a dull color, her hands still at her sides.
There was no threat.
No smile.
Only the certainty of her presence.
Aizen didn't move.
Not out of fear.
But because, for the first time in hours, she didn't know what to say due to the variables.
Her plan was a done deal, but it had to be very meticulous, and without a doubt, the less he showed and the more she showed, the better, either to avoid betraying her weakness or to avoid revealing her doubts.
She just watched him. Like someone watching a child trying to remember an old song without knowing why it hurts.
He narrowed his eyes.
She didn't move away.
She didn't move forward.
She didn't disappear.
Aizen frowned. The air between them seemed thicker.
And suddenly, a current of reiatsu surged toward him like a wave that hit him and tried to knock him down.
Silence.
He didn't respond verbally. That current was enormous, but it certainly wasn't at the level of a captain, much less her, but there was something...
Kyōka Suigetsu's weight suddenly became noticeable. There was no total connection. There was no edge like before. But there was something. An echo. A crack in the crystal. And for a moment, he could see it, a crystal that showed nothing but black water like liquid obsidians.
And that was enough for Aizen. He truly smiled for a long time as he concentrated on that sensation. The small cracks began to become more noticeable to him, as if he were forcing a mirror to break.
As he analyzed this, his eyes remained fixed on it, his mind working to understand and complete the task, forcing his parallel thinking.
And then, a laugh.
Small.
Too brief.
Barely a breath.
But real.
A laugh.
That disconcerted him more than any attack.
"Perhaps you should pay more attention to what's in front of you."
He immediately followed her eyes to her waist where she held the hilt of Kyoka Suigetsu.
Suddenly another breeze hit them, bringing with it moisture and various objects that once again blocked the view in front of them, as soon as it dissipated. Their eyes met again, this time fixed on him.
This time she spoke. Bluntly. Without gentleness.
"You're not running away anymore."
It wasn't a question.
Not a threat.
Just a statement laden with intent.
Aizen remained motionless. Not out of fear. But out of analysis.
That voice... it was definitely not that of a healer. It wasn't gentle. It wasn't patient.
It was sharp, so much so that it was as if her throat was bleeding from her words.
"Is that what you wanted?" he said, each word measured. "To see how far I could run?"
She looked at him as if measuring him from within. As if every cell in him held a familiar vibration.
"I wanted to know if you were real."
And there it was. Not mockery. Not cynicism. Just... something visceral.
As if he'd finally come across something that could smell his blood from afar.
Aizen didn't respond. Instead, he let the silence stretch, tightening the air between them like an invisible thread.
"Who are you?" she finally asked. The question came out quieter than she'd intended. As she took a step forward. Just one. But the dust crackled as if something awoke with that .
The moon bathed her face. And for an instant, he saw her.
That smile that was never hers.
That mask that once hid an unfathomable madness.
But there was no madness now. Only restraint.
Too much restraint.
Meanwhile, Aizen maintained his simple smile upon seeing her, using that kind face he always had, because with this, if it were true, this world would soon be in his hands, and very easily.
Well, that question...
That question sparked something inside him, a very interesting idea.
she doesn't remember.
she didn't say it. He didn't think it through with certainty.
But if it was true, and he confirmed it, that would explain why she was that woman from a thousand years ago and not the healer he knew. Even so, the simple revelation brought with it many more questions, but for that, he had to first continue with what was in front of him.
"You don't know, and yet you still follow me?"
"I do. Because there was something about you," she replied.
Aizen raised an eyebrow. He didn't hide it. That answer was ambiguous.
No... it was something more.
"Something?" he repeated in a low voice.
She tilted her head, like a curious cat.
"Your energy..." she began, and for a moment her voice softened, not out of tenderness, but with almost animal pleasure. "Every time you moved... that power came out like a wave... like an onslaught I couldn't ignore."
Her eyes shone.
Not with human desire.
But with a disturbing mix of that maternal manner she had as a healer and a predatory desire, either to dominate... or something more disturbing.
"It wasn't Haki. It was as if... something old was beating me. Something that remembered my own pulse."
Aizen didn't respond. But his thoughts multiplied.
"Old?"
"His own pulse?"
So she also feels like she doesn't belong in this world? Or is it just the reiatsu? he thought
She moved forward again. Another step.
And the ground creaked with a soft sound, like bones grinding against stones.
"Have you ever... felt like no one can touch you?" "She asked, her voice barely above a whisper, as if confiding a secret she didn't know she was carrying as the scene shifted from a light encounter to one charged with emotion, as if having him in front of her had broken the dam holding all those emotions in. "That everything around you is made of paper... that if you pushed even a little, everything would break..."
Aizen stared at her.
"Yes."
She smiled.
"You... you weren't from this place, were you?"
Aizen's eyes narrowed in surprise as his pulse quickened and his body tensed, while her eyes never left his.
They weren't curious eyes; they were as if they recognized something.
"When you appeared, a few days ago," she continued, "I could feel it from that direction as she pointed her head at a spot in the forest. Looking at it, Aizen recognized it as the route he had taken to get there.
"The world stopped being so... still. As if something finally breathed like me."
Aizen understood, at least in part.
She was trapped too.
Not in a prison.
But in a world that didn't understand her existence.
A creature of war... containing itself in a place without a battlefield. And that, honestly, terrified her.
"And what do you expect from me?" he said, his voice harsher than he intended.
She stopped.
The silence between them trembled like a taut string.
"I don't know..." she said, but her tone belied the statement. "But when I saw you... something in me woke up."
Aizen took a step back. The anticipation kept making him nervous, and his mind kept analyzing.
"And what woke him up?"
Retsu took a deep breath.
Her eyelids closed for a moment.
"The desire to tear something apart."
Instinctively, her grip on Kioka Suigetsu shifted, as if she expected to be drawn for battle at any moment.
"Me?"
Fear began to seep into her bones like a night breeze.
"Maybe." She said, as if she truly wasn't sure what was next.
"Or everything around us?"
She opened her eyes.
The calm was still there...
But now it was mixed with a spark of something wild.
She wasn't Unohana; she was the first Kenpachi.
"I don't know. But with you... I wouldn't have to hold back."
There it was.
That velvety-soft killing intent.
She didn't scream. She didn't roar.
But it was all the more terrifying for that. Aizen couldn't read her mind. But it was enough for him to see how her breathing changed as she felt his reiatsu.
She recognized him. She wanted him. She needed him
.
But not as an equal.
Not yet.
Like a lonely beast that, after wandering in the stillness of a false world, had finally felt another vibration like his own.
A part of him wanted to take a step back.
Another, deeper, quieter part... wanted to see her break.
Because he knew firsthand how she would be. If he wanted her to do something, he would have to break her by force.
"You're not normal," he said, cutting through the air.
She smiled.
"And you?"
Aizen didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because they both knew the truth.
Because the same note beat in their souls.
A note that only the two of them shared.