Moving with the silence of a falling feather, Amamiya Miyako circled the exterior white walls of Las Noches until he reached the outside of the room holding the hostages. Fortunately, it was not a seamless cell; a large, rectangular window of opaque white crystal was set into the wall. Peering through its slightly translucent surface, he could make out two figures inside. He risked a brief, clear wave.
"Orihime, look! Outside the window… someone's waving. He looks familiar," Arisawa Tatsuki said, squinting.
"Amamiya-san?!" Inoue Orihime gasped, rushing to the window, her fear momentarily eclipsed by shock and a surge of wild hope.
Tatsuki's memory clicked. The guy who called Ichigo out that day. He's on our side.
Knowing verbal communication was too risky, Miyako extended a hand. Using precise Reishi Manipulation, he drew condensed particles of spiritual energy in the air just outside the glass, forming shimmering, temporary Kidō script.
'Inoue. Are there monitoring barriers on this room?'
Reading the words, Orihime nodded vigorously, then pointed subtly to the floor and walls, indicating they were pervasive.
Miyako's expression tightened slightly. As expected. Forcibly breaking in would set off every alarm in the fortress. He dissolved the old script and formed new words.
'Location confirmed. Will relay to Ichigo and others. Hold on a little longer.'
Relief washed over Orihime's face, followed immediately by renewed panic. She pointed urgently at Tatsuki, then shook her head, miming someone choking under pressure.
The spiritual weight of Hueco Mundo. Miyako understood. He formed another message.
'Ichigo has a temporary countermeasure for Arisawa-san. Urahara prepared it. Do not worry.' He had learned this from his brief exchange with Ishida Uryū; Kisuke Urahara, ever the preparer, had given Ichigo a special Gikongan-infused charm designed to create a minimal personal barrier against ambient hostile reiatsu. It wouldn't last long, but it would buy crucial minutes.
Reading this, the tension in Orihime's shoulders visibly melted. She turned to Tatsuki, tears of relief now mixing with her anxiety. "It's going to be okay, Tatsuki-chan! They have a way to protect you!"
"That idiot Ichigo… he actually came prepared?" Tatsuki muttered, a grin breaking through her own fear.
But Miyako wasn't finished. His script shifted again, the reishi characters glowing with urgency.
'Inoue. The Hōgyoku Aizen is forging. Have you seen it? Do you know its location?'
Understanding the critical importance, Orihime acted quickly. She knelt and, using her finger, began to trace a detailed map on the dusty floor. She outlined the main corridors, marked landmarks like specific pillars or unique arches she remembered from her escorted walks, and finally indicated the deep, central chamber where Aizen worked. Miyako's eyes, sharpened by decades of tactical analysis, burned the map into his memory. He gave a final, firm nod.
His last message shimmered into being. 'Wait. We will get you out.'
Both girls nodded, their resolve hardening. Miyako then melted back into the stark shadows cast by Hueco Mundo's artificial moon.
Now was not the moment for extraction. Even in the original timeline, a direct rescue under Aizen's nose was a task of seconds, not minutes. Now, with his own senses tingling from the potent, restless reiatsu of multiple high-level Espada saturating the palace, a stealthy retreat was the only viable move.
Guided by Orihime's map, he navigated the labyrinthine interior with lethal grace, avoiding patrols with a combination of Hirenkyaku bursts and Shunpo stealth. Finally, he arrived at a towering, ornate door at the end of a secluded hall—Aizen's private laboratory. Even from here, the Hōgyoku sealed within his own chest thrummed with a violent, sympathetic resonance. The real one was close.
'Two presences inside… Aizen, and that snake, Gin. Perfect. Even if seizing the Hōgyoku is impossible, the secondary objective can still be achieved.'
His goal was not a futile direct assault, but a single, precise delivery of information.
Inside the lab, Aizen Sousuke observed the glowing orb on its pedestal. Ichimaru Gin stood nearby, his signature slit-eyed smile in place.
"How goes the stabilization, Aizen-taichō?" Gin inquired, his tone light.
"Excellently. Inoue Orihime's rejection ability has purged the instability caused by forced Menos fusion. With a few more feedings, this new Hōgyoku will reach completion," Aizen replied, a trace of genuine satisfaction in his voice.
Aizen's head tilted a fraction, his spiritual perception catching a minuscule anomaly—a heartbeat of intent outside the door. It was all the warning they had before the reinforced door exploded inward in a shower of stone and dust.
A figure clad in black shot through the debris. Amamiya Miyako discarded his cloak mid-charge, his Zanpakutō already in hand. "Separrate and sever, Shikai Zetsumei!" he cried. In a flash of cold light, the twin blades morphed and fused, not into his usual greatbow, but into a smaller, sleeker Quincy-style spirit bow, its string already drawn. The arrow nocked was not pure reishi, but was infused with the Rejection property of his Bankai.
His target was not Aizen. It was Ichimaru Gin.
In the confined space, the shot was near instantaneous. The arrow struck Gin center-mass and shattered not with force, but into a cloud of shimmering, seal-like particles that rapidly spread over Gin's entire body like a second skin.
This was not the full Zanpakutō-sealing power of his Bankai, but a refined, applied fragment of it—a barrier designed to cling to Gin's spiritual body and isolate him from specific external reishi waveforms. The goal was not to seal Shinsō itself, but to create a filter. If Kyōka Suigetsu's hypnosis was later activated via reishi infusion, this barrier might just…
Without pause, Miyako pivoted, drawing and firing a second arrow in one fluid motion, this one aimed directly at the Hōgyoku in Aizen's hand.
Aizen didn't even shift his stance. "Hadō #81: Dankū," he intoned calmly. A translucent, rectangular wall of golden energy materialized before him. Miyako's arrow disintegrated against it harmlessly. It had been a feint, a normal Heilig Pfeil carrying no special power, meant to sell the aggression.
"Most commendable boldness," Aizen said, smoothly pocketing the Hōgyoku within his robes. "To come straight for me. Was the orb your aim? Yet, not targeting it first was a critical error."
"Tch!" Miyako feigned frustration, dismissing his bow. The reishi swirled back into the twin blades of his Shikai. "Manifest, Kōjin Zetsumei!" He surged forward, the blades crossing in a dual slash aimed at Aizen's neck.
Aizen effortlessly sidestepped, his movements so casual they were insulting. "You targeted Gin, not me. You used your Zanpakutō's ability on him. Do you perceive his Shinsō as a greater threat than my Kyōka Suigetsu? It seems he left quite the impression on you," Aizen mused, a knowing smile playing on his lips.
Gin, who had been observing with detached amusement, now felt a flicker of curiosity. He could still feel the connection to his Zanpakutō. The seal wasn't inhibiting his power. So what was the point of that, I wonder?
"Enough chatter," Miyako growled, pressing another flurry of attacks. This time, Aizen didn't fully evade. He seemed to hesitate for a micro-second, and the tip of Miyako's blade grazed his shoulder, drawing a thin line of blood.
It was the tell-tale sign. Kyōka Suigetsu's hypnosis was just activated.
"It's useless, Aizen!" Miyako shouted, leaping back as if reacting to an illusory attack from a different direction. "Your Kyōka Suigetsu doesn't work on me!" He then spun and slashed violently at empty air to his left, perfectly acting out the motions of fighting an illusion.
"Hmm…" Aizen's smile didn't falter, but his eyes gleamed with intellectual hunger. "I activated complete hypnosis. Yet you seem unaffected. Does your Zanpakutō's ability create a domain that negates invasive reishi patterns?" He was analyzing aloud, treating Miyako like a fascinating specimen.
But at that moment, Ichimaru Gin's eyes widened imperceptibly behind their narrowed slits. His blood ran cold.
He's lying.
From the moment the door exploded until now, Gin's vision had been perfectly clear. He had seen Aizen's true position, his every subtle movement. He had watched the real Aizen get grazed. According to Aizen's own declaration, the hypnosis should have been active for everyone who had seen his Shikai release. Gin knew for a fact he had seen it, long ago.
'How…? I haven't touched the sword's hilt to break the spell. So why… why can I see him perfectly?'
A terrifying, exhilarating suspicion ignited in Gin's mind. Could Aizen be lying to this intruder for some inscrutable reason? But that wasn't his style for a tactical experiment. Which meant…
His slit eyes fixed on Amamiya Miyako, who was now desperately 'fending off' illusory attacks. That strange, clinging arrow… its purpose wasn't to seal, but to protect. To filter out a very specific, pervasive reishi signal.
It shielded me from the hypnosis.
The implication was earth-shattering. The method to break Kyōka Suigetsu that Gin had secretly harbored for decades was perilous and depended on a single, fleeting moment of contact. But this… this was different. This Quincy-Shinigami hybrid hadn't broken the hypnosis for himself; he had, intentionally or not, granted Gin a moment of clarity.
For the first time in a century, Ichimaru Gin felt the icy grip of fate loosen slightly. He watched the frantic battle, his mind racing, his serpent's smile never wavering, but his heart pounding with a new, dangerous hope. He scrutinized Miyako, searching for a sign, a clue—was this an accident, or a deliberate message?