"Decay… Skull Emperor!"
Barraggan's bass rumbled.
Within that four-hued spiritual pressure, the true god of death was born—not the ones in shihakusho holding zanpakuto, but a Western-styled ruler of the underworld, the master of the Styx, a presence that chills the soul.
A crown of layered circlets sat upon his bony skull. His face and body turned skeletal; upturned boots stepped through black flames; long dark chains hung from the crown's prongs. His weapon was a massive double-edged black axe that, from afar, looked more like the reaper's scythe.
Just standing there, he made hearts quail.
Anyone could feel it—an undisputed, crownless sovereign. The steward of death itself.
Cole arched a brow at Starrk. "Starrk, with how terrifying this old man looks, how did you beat him back then?"
With Barraggan's temperament, he would never allow anyone to sit above him. He had to endure Aizen—there was no choice. But if Starrk became Primera, there must've been a serious clash.
Starrk sighed. "That was more than a hundred years ago. Why bring it up now?"
Lilynette, on the other hand, brightened and puffed herself up. "Human, listen up! When we first joined Las Noches, we thrashed Barraggan something fierce!"
She sketched the gist of that ancient scuffle.
Cole understood.
In the end, Starrk's base stats were just too high. Once he got serious, he practically suppressed Barraggan outright. If not for Starrk's disinterest in killing, Barraggan might not be standing here today.
Seeing Cole's nonchalant face, blue flames of anger flickered in Barraggan's hollow eye sockets. One hand on the dark double axe, the skeletal king advanced on Cole step by step like death incarnate.
Where he passed, all things rotted.
The solid black walls cracked wide and caved; "rumble—rumble—" rolled in waves. Any Gillian or Adjuchas-class Hollows who had wandered in or failed to flee were brushed by that sable reiatsu—and in the next instant, before a scream could form, their flesh sloughed away. They staggered as bare skeletons, then—
Crash.
Bones collapsed in a heap, and a stray gust ground them to pale dust.
Farther off, Hollows watching felt cold sweat bead on their brows.
"Lord Barraggan is too strong…"
He hadn't even struck—merely the spill of his reiatsu erased Adjuchas in passing. Worthy of the former King of Hueco Mundo indeed. Terrifying.
The gathered Arrancar grew feverish, their spiritual pressures boiling as hungry eyes turned to Cole. They could hardly wait to see Barraggan crush him—flesh, bone, organs—everything reduced to ash.
Barraggan leveled his scythe-like axe at Cole's neck and spoke with effortless authority. "Human whelp, it has been a century since I used this form. To die beneath my blade is your honor."
Cole laughed. "So the last time you pulled this out, a hundred years ago, was to face Aizen and his two companions… right?"
Blue light in Barraggan's sockets shuddered—rage. Every memory of that battle curdled him. The King of Hueco Mundo, toyed with by three Shinigami. Even as the Skull Emperor, he could not touch Aizen—not even the hem of his garment. Defeated, humiliated, and shoved into the title of Segunda—no honor, only insult.
Reading his face, Cole smiled. "leaves a nasty aftertaste, doesn't it?"
To any who'd never seen its release, Kyoka Suigetsu was just a placid water-type zanpakuto. But for those who had witnessed its shikai—it was a nightmare. Hearing, smell, touch, taste, sight… every perception you possessed fell under Kyoka Suigetsu's hand. A truly all-purpose blade.
Barraggan ground the fury down and moved without another word. One step, and black fire trailed the god of death as he cut for Cole.
The jet axe rose—high—and fell with crushing weight.
Cole's eyes flickered. He didn't retreat. Instead, he lifted his right hand.
"Death factor… aging, huh?"
Clang!
A scream of metal. Sparks spat like a shower of forge-stars where edge ground on steel—on Cole's hierro.
Yet none of the Arrancar watched the raw clash; all eyes locked onto Cole's forearm.
"Look—his arm's rotting."
"His Majesty Barraggan's death factor is humanity's deepest fear—senescence. A power over time."
"That arm will decay."
"Catching the Skull Emperor's blade with your hand—idiot…"
"Arrogant fool…"
Before them, Cole's forearm blackened, shriveled, flesh sloughing until pallid bone showed through. Laughter boiled up—howls venting every ugly urge. They waited for the human to crumble into rot—no dust left behind.
But even with the scene balanced on a knife-edge, the man at its center wasn't nervous. Cole watched his right arm crumble with genuine curiosity.
"Decay… a domain that trespasses upon time, is it?"
He licked his lips, tasting the danger. This arm might well part from him—its time was running millions of times faster than normal, enough to weather bone to powder. The pitted, sunken ground around them made it clear: Barraggan's power was brokenly strong—accelerating time to haul all things into their moment of decay until time buried them. One second, to live through millennia. And nothing in the world survives time forever. Even stars fall.
The axe fell for him again.
"Why don't you dodge?" Barraggan asked, almost puzzled. Cole's speed earlier proved he could. Was he another battle-madman like Nnoitra—stepping into attacks for the thrill?
If Cole heard that, he would've sprayed him with a mouthful of soda. As if.
He smiled at the bare white of his arm. "I thought I could use raw reiatsu to hard-block your ability, but I fell a bit short."
In this world, power was measured in spirit. Take Soi Fong's zanpakuto—Nigeki Kessatsu (Two-Strike Kill). They say two marks means death, but with enough reiatsu you can tank it. He figured the Skull Emperor's power would be similar.
He had underestimated Barraggan.
The former king's level was at least captain-class. That was why even his hierro hadn't held out against time's gnawing.
"Then you're a fool," Barraggan sneered. "A moment of arrogance for the cost of an arm—and your life."
"Nope." Cole wagged his left index finger. "I told you—this is an experiment. Even if it fails, I won't be hurt."
Barraggan's gaze cut to the gold-haired girl in Cole's arms—Orihime.
Her hands hovered over Cole's right arm; a gentle gold radiance washed it. The rotted flesh and bared bone… wound backward, as if time itself rewound.
"Impossible!"
Blue fire trembled in his eyes. "You reversed the decay of death?!"
His Skull Emperor could rot all creation—the end written for all things. None could withstand time's flow.
Yet that girl had made decay retreat.
Shaken, Barraggan refused to waste another heartbeat. He stamped forward, black axe howling as the black god came to claim Cole's life.
Cole extended his intact left hand and smiled at him.
"Bakudo 61: Rikujokoro (Six Rods Light Prison)!"
Six gilt panes bloomed out of air and speared toward Barraggan like sheets of hammered gold.
They never touched him.
The black miasma around his body aged them to dust, their light guttering to nothing as his steps never slowed.
"Human whelp," Barraggan intoned, axe dropping again, "I said it already. I am the master of death. Anything that touches me falls into the abyss of decay."
Cole tried a few more arts; even binding-type kido could hardly catch him—everything near him simply… aged. The moment a spell neared, it withered to nonexistence.
"Then how," Cole mused, slipping aside from another reaping blow, rubbing his chin as he cast Barraggan a strange look, "did Aizen beat you?"
Barraggan's face darkened.
"All right, another angle," Cole chuckled, one more sliding step carrying him to Tatsuki's side. "Faced with something this troublesome, what exactly did Aizen do?"
"Cole!" Tatsuki barreled into him, relief flooding her voice. She bickered with him endlessly, but right now nothing felt safer.
"Yeah, yeah…" Cole set Orihime down from his arms. His fully restored right hand closed around a golden staff. Light rippled along its length.
He stepped, reiatsu surging—and swung.
"It's useless. Your zanpakuto will decay as well."
Barraggan's skeletal hand reached for the gold staff. Black power roared over his palm, the proof of death's arrival.
Everything dies. Shinigami. Zanpakuto.
Boom!
The world bucked. Stone heaved. Space itself seemed to warp beneath the weight.
Before countless disbelieving Arrancar eyes, the former King of Hueco Mundo—returned in Resurrección as the underworld's monarch—was lifted off his feet by a single staff-blow and hurled away like a comet.
Apacci swallowed. "Big sis… did I just see Lord Barraggan's hand bones… fly?"
Tier Harribel's gaze sharpened. "You didn't missee it. That guy nearly smashed his whole frame apart…"
In this skeletal form he had only the black, flame-like mantle for "flesh." To lose bones here meant he'd been truly, brutally hurt.
The two women traded looks as Barraggan's body howled backward. He didn't smash through walls or pillars; everything he neared turned to drifting ash before contact under the scouring of his reiatsu. Then—
Crash.
He cratered into the floor. Black pressure billowed out and aged a yawning pit into the ground.
Several seconds ticked by before Barraggan climbed out. The regal menace was gone; only a battered wreck remained. The flame-black cloak was in tatters. A middle joint on his right middle finger was gone. His left forearm bone, his fourth rib on the left—missing. He looked like a half-finished skeleton soldier you could summon by the hundred.
"Brat…" he grated, teeth clicking with fury.
Cole only smiled, twirling the golden staff. "Former King of Hueco Mundo—if I'm not wrong, this is exactly how Aizen and his two companions handled you a century ago, isn't it?"
Hate seethed behind the blue lights in Barraggan's skull. A hundred years, and the shame replayed.
(End of Chapter)
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