Deep within a disused storage chamber in Las Noches, Amamiya Miyako leaned against the cold wall, his breath a controlled rhythm in the silence. He had shrugged the black cloak back on, its reiatsu-dampening field reactivated, but the damage was already done.
He looked down at the wound Aizen had gifted him—a clean, diagonal slash running from his left shoulder down across his chest. It wasn't crippling, but it bled steadily, a dull, insistent throb that would severely hamper the fluid, dual-wielding style of Kōjin Zetsunen
'Thank god I mastered Ransōtengai.' With focused concentration, he extended a hand. Reishi, drawn from the thick air of Hueco Mundo, coalesced into a fine, glowing needle and thread of spiritual energy.
The principle was the same as the Quincy technique: using reishi strings to manipulate the body like a puppet. Now, he applied it with surgical precision, the needle weaving through his own flesh with a detached efficiency. The reishi threads pulled the wound closed, holding it taut. It was a temporary fix, a battlefield stitch that demanded constant spiritual focus to maintain, but it freed his mobility.
Testing the arm with a careful rotation, he deemed it serviceable. It was time to move. But as he took a step towards the door, it exploded inward in a shower of splinters.
Standing in the wreckage, bathed in the hall's pale light, was a figure of wild, blue-haired fury.
"Grimmjow." Miyako's voice was flat, unsurprised yet curious. His concealment had been near-perfect. How?
"Yo, Shinigami. You're lookin' a little worse for wear," Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez sneered, his feline eyes glowing with predatory glee.
Miyako stood straight, letting the cloak fall from his shoulders. Stealth was pointless now. "How did you pinpoint this room? Many have passed. None detected me."
Grimmjow didn't answer with words. Instead, he pointed a clawed finger at the floor where Miyako had been sitting.
A single, small drop of blood, almost black against the white stone, glistened in the low light. Miyako had been meticulous in cleaning his trail, but this one, fallen during his stitching, had escaped notice.
"I see. A feline's superior sense of smell… my blood gave me away." He acknowledged the flaw with a nod, a warrior respecting the hunt.
Grimmjow's gaze locked onto the freshly stitched wound, the fabric of Miyako's shihakushō dark and damp around it. A strange expression—part irritation, part something like offended pride—crossed his face. "Hey, Shinigami. I'll take you to that woman. Get patched up. Then we fight. For real."
Miyako blinked, momentarily taken aback. That woman. He meant Inoue Orihime. Grimmjow, his arm restored by her power, was offering to lead his enemy to a healer so their rematch would be on even footing. This wasn't the action of a mere beast hungering for a wounded prey.
A genuine, incredulous laugh burst from Miyako's lips. "Hah… hahahaha! You… you really are something else, Grimmjow. Truly pure."
Here was an Arrancar, an embodiment of Hollow hunger, who possessed a warrior's code more rigid than many Shinigami. He didn't want a victory over a weakened opponent; he craved the conquest of his enemy at their absolute peak.
"Shut up. I don't need your praise," Grimmjow growled, his scowl deepening. "I want to kill you when you're at 100%. Nothing less."
"However," Miyako said, his laughter fading into a calm, steely resolve. "To deal with you, this minor injury is no hindrance."
"Tch. Stubborn fool."
"Let's take this upstairs. The ceiling. No distractions there," Miyako stated, turning his back on the Espada—a gesture of either supreme confidence or recklessness. "I'll use my full power, and then I will defeat you." With that, he unleashed a concentrated burst of Hadō #33, Sōkatsui, not at Grimmjow, but at the chamber's outer wall. It blew a jagged hole open to the vast interior sky of Las Noches, and he shot out into the open air on a platform of condensed reishi.
"LOOKING DOWN ON ME…!" Grimmjow's roar of outrage echoed as he kicked off the floor, giving furious chase.
The upper reaches of Las Noches had an unspoken rule: Espada ranked Four and above were forbidden from releasing their Resurrección within the palace proper. The same restriction applied to the city-destroying Gran Rey Cero.
The immense, domed "sky" was not just decoration; it was a designated battleground, reinforced to contain the cataclysmic power of the top-tier Arrancar. While Grimmjow, as the Sexta, wasn't bound by the Resurrección ban, the ceiling was still the sanctioned zone for unleashing his full, unrestrained fury.
Arrancar guards and lesser Hollows pointed and shouted as the two figures streaked upward. "An intruder! After him!"
But Grimmjow's roar echoed down, drowning out their cries. "THIS ONE'S MINE! ANYONE WHO INTERFERES ANSWERS TO ME!"
Recognizing the Sexta Espada's claim, the pursuers halted. In their minds, the outcome was already decided.
"Look! He's breaking through the dome!" Panicked shouts arose as Miyako, gathering reishi into a piercing drill of energy, shattered a section of the colossal ceiling. Sunlight? No. The false blue sky gave way to the eternal, star-studded blackness and the stark, full moon of Hueco Mundo's true night. Aizen's illusion was peeled back, revealing the desolate beauty of the desert realm.
Miyako floated in the silent vacuum above Las Noches. The pale moonlight washed over him, eerily reminiscent of the night he first awoke in this world. He closed his eyes, centering himself, feeling the vast, cold reishi of Hueco Mundo swirl around him. He waited.
Grimmjow burst through the hole, coming to a halt opposite him. Seeing Miyako with his eyes closed, seemingly at peace, ignited his rage anew. "You've got a death wish, Shinigami! You know what this place is for? Down there, Gran Rey Cero is forbidden. Up here… I can blow you to atoms without holding back!"
"No, Grimmjow," Miyako replied, his eyes opening, calm and clear. "I should thank you. Down there, I would have had… reservations. Up here, I can face you with everything I have."
"ENOUGH TALK!" Grimmjow drew his Zanpakutō, Pantera, and lunged, a blue streak of murderous intent.
Miyako didn't reach for his own blades. He simply raised his right hand and clenched his fist. The dense reishi of Hueco Mundo responded instantly, flowing into his grasp and solidifying into a long, slender blade of intense blue-white light—a pure Quincy spirit weapon. He met Grimmjow's downward slash with a sharp clang, holding the panther Arrancar at bay with one hand.
Grimmjow's eyes widened, then narrowed in fury. "What is this?! You were holding back in the World of the Living?!"
"And you?" Miyako retorted, shoving him back with a burst of force. "With your arm restored, you still cling to your sealed form. Aren't you looking down on me?"
A savage grin split Grimmjow's face. "Fine. Have it your way." He held Pantera horizontally, running his other hand—already shaped like a claw—down the blade with a metallic screech. "Grind, Pantera!"
His Zanpakutō dissolved into swirling blue reishi. It enveloped him, and when it cleared, Grimmjow stood transformed in his Resurrección: Garra de la Pantera. His form was leaner, more bestial, clad in white bone armor, with a long, flexible tail swishing behind him. A low, predatory growl rumbled in his chest.
Miyako let the spirit sword dissipate. He reached to his hips and drew his twin Zanpakutō. "Bankai," he stated, his voice resonating with power. He threw the blades forward. In mid-air, they fused, their shapes melting and reforming not into his standard greatbow, but into a weapon of terrifying, elegant simplicity: a massive longbow of pure white, its string humming with latent energy. "Shinya Zetsumei - Jōmetsu Kyū."
The atmosphere thickened. This was different from the Bankai he had used before. The spiritual pressure was denser, more focused, humming with a deadly finality.
"Finally!" Grimmjow exulted, his fighting spirit blazing. "Now we can really go all out!"
"One moment," Miyako interjected, raising a hand. "I don't want any interruptions once we begin."
"Hah? What now?" Grimmjow scoffed, but he waited, his warrior's honor outweighing his impatience.
Miyako nocked an arrow on the massive Jōmetsu Kyū, but instead of aiming at Grimmjow, he pointed it straight up at the Hueco Mundo sky. He released. The arrow shot upward, then split into six separate streaks of light that arced out and down, embedding themselves in a massive hexagon around them in the empty air.
"Chains of the heavens, iron fortress, dragon's fang, lion's roar, tiger's dash, wolf's tread! Sever the bindings of the realm before they crumble! Hadō #81: Dankū!"
But this was no ordinary Dankū. The six points of light flared, and from them erupted not a single wall, but six immense, interlocking planes of translucent golden energy. They connected, forming a perfect, gargantuan cube that sealed the two combatants inside a kilometer-wide arena of void. The interior hummed with contained power.
"This is a 'Rejection'-type Dankū, fired through my Zanpakuto. It rejects all external interference. It won't fall unless I am defeated. For the outside world, it's an impenetrable fortress. For you…" Miyako allowed a small, fierce smile. "You might see it as a cage."
"A cage?!"
"I was going to call it 'Miyako's Special Room,' but it does have a proper name," he announced, his Bankai's bow glowing brighter. "Seiiki—The Holy Cage."
This was Amamiya Miyako's ultimate defensive technique, a fusion of his trinity of powers: the absolute rejection principle of his Bankai, the structured might of Kidō, and the environmental mastery of the Quincy.
The six Dankū planes were sustained by the arrowheads, which constantly absorbed ambient reishi from Hueco Mundo's rich atmosphere, making the barrier self-perpetuating. It was a declaration. Even Aizen Sōsuke would require significant time and effort to breach it.
Within this space, there would be no allies, no reinforcements, no distractions. Only a victor and the vanquished.
Grimmjow stared at the glowing walls surrounding them, then back at Miyako, his grin widening into something feral and ecstatic. "A cage? Wrong, Shinigami. This isn't a cage…" He crouched, his claws extending, his tail lashing. "This is my HUNTING GROUND!"
With a deafuring roar that shook the very reishi inside the Holy Cage, Grimmjow launched himself forward, and the final battle for their pride began.