On the endless white desert that had remained unchanged for a million years—
The blood-red domain finally faded away, but the blood of the three inside had already flowed out, staining the pale sand.
Three blood-soaked figures were revealed as they collapsed heavily onto the dunes.
"Too… too enjoyable… Cole…"
Unohana's cheeks were flushed as she lay weakly in the white sand, panting hard, as if she had just experienced supreme fulfillment.
Hueco Mundo had no sense of time.
Here, no matter when or where you looked up, an eternal moon hung in the sky.
Because of that, Unohana had no idea how long they had been fighting.
Maybe it had been a single day.
Maybe a whole week.
All she knew was that she had fought until she was completely exhausted, with not a shred of spiritual power left in her body.
You could say—
This had been the most pleasurable battle of her life.
Cole's condition was far better than Unohana's,
But even he felt worn out—
Mostly in terms of mental fatigue.
He weakly waved his hand.
"Hana-nee, we're done this time. For the next two months, I don't want to fight you again."
Unohana loved the feeling of pain.
Cole did not.
He had only learned to endure it.
This battle—
Had pushed him a bit past his mental limit.
Unohana was still immersed in the afterglow.
Her face remained flushed, and after a long time she finally said, satisfied,
"Mm. Then let's do it again in two months. By then, I'll be even stronger."
Cole nodded in satisfaction, then suddenly thought of something.
He glanced southwest and raised his voice.
"Harribel, how are you doing? Still alive?"
He was actually worried Harribel might have a mental breakdown from this.
After all, this space was a domain of pure slaughter.
Physical wounds could be healed.
But mental wounds were not so easy to treat.
Even he, during his very first battle with Unohana,
Had felt like he was on the verge of breaking.
A few minutes passed after he spoke.
Only then did Harribel's grinding, furious voice come from the distance.
"Cole! Unohana! You two are monsters! I am never, ever fighting with you again!"
She had fought more in this one battle than in the entire last hundred years combined.
Every single second, new wounds had opened on her body.
If all the blood she'd lost were poured into basins, it would take at least several just to hold it all.
These two…
Were far crazier than any Hollow.
If this continued, she might become stronger—
But she would definitely go insane.
Harribel was thinking this when she suddenly realized it had gone quiet nearby.
Curious, she looked over.
"What are you two—"
Her sentence cut off.
Harribel's face went bright red in an instant.
"Why are you two doing that!?"
She herself still felt pain all over from the battle.
Her spirit, especially, was completely drained.
And those two over there—
Still had the desire to reproduce.
Cole lifted Unohana into his arms.
While "bullying" the limp, boneless Unohana, he laughed,
"I'm not a masochist. A fight at that level really messes with my head. Of course I need to blow off some steam."
Unohana wrapped her arms around his neck, cheeks flushed as she panted,
"I also really love this kind of after-battle 'slaughter'…"
Harribel's face burned, but she did not even have the strength to leave.
In the end, she could only stand there blushing, acting as part of the scenery.
No one knew how much time passed.
Finally, Cole picked up the completely limp Unohana, her body as soft as water, and smiled.
"Harribel, we're heading back."
Harribel nodded, her cheeks still rosy.
The three of them returned to Las Noches.
After putting Unohana back onto the bed,
Cole went to stand by the spirit pool.
During his intervals of fighting with Unohana,
The blue spirit pool had once again built up quite a bit of energy.
After absorbing it, Cole exhaled, rolling his shoulders and flexing his fists, a smile creeping onto his face.
"Almost there. Time to head back and take a look."
It had been about half a month since the battle in Karakura Town ended.
By now, Soul Society should have stabilized more or less.
Thinking this, Cole grabbed at the air with his right hand.
He tore it open hard.
A black rift opened before him.
At the same time—
Seireitei, Fourth Division.
The newly appointed Captain of the Fourth Division, Isane, slumped back in her chair, sweating profusely and on the verge of tears.
"Being captain is way too hard… How did Captain Unohana handle all this!?"
Because of the recent battle in Karakura Town,
A huge number of Shinigami had been grievously injured and were all hospitalized in the Fourth Division.
Hitsugaya, Ukitake, Kensei, Momo…
All of them had been on the brink of death.
The Fourth Division members had used every trick they knew,
Cycling through kaido (restorative kido) treatments one after another,
And had barely managed to pull them back.
Even so, with their current medical skill,
Several days of work had only brought the wounded back a tiny bit.
"If Captain Unohana were here, she wouldn't even need to use kaido. Just with flesh mending, she could get them back on their feet…"
Isane muttered bitterly.
Finally, she reached under her desk and pulled out a doll shaped like a black-haired boy.
She pounded it with both fists.
"Stupid little brat! Seducing Captain Unohana like that—
Die, die, die…!"
If it weren't for that damned human brat,
Captain Unohana would never have left.
Evil incubus.
Lewd little devil.
In the middle of venting, she suddenly sensed something.
Her face changed as she turned hurriedly toward the southwest.
"Why is there a Hollow's reiatsu!?"
In the past, Hollows from Hueco Mundo sometimes tore open a garganta and invaded directly into Seireitei.
But after the war in Karakura Town,
Seireitei no longer dared to underestimate Hueco Mundo.
They had reinforced the Seireitei barrier especially for that reason.
Now, any Hollow that tried to invade Soul Society would only be able to get into Rukongai,
Not Seireitei itself.
Thinking that,
Isane rushed to the place where the space was warping.
She stared tensely at the twisting air, gripping her zanpakuto tight.
"Hashire, Tōun (Run, Frozen Cloud)!"
As her words fell,
The antiquated zanpakuto in her hands shifted shape, splitting into three blades—two short, one long—radiating icy chill.
It was another ice-type zanpakuto.
Not as beautiful as Sode no Shirayuki, perhaps,
But its cold was not much weaker.
Before her, space twisted as if about to tear.
Golden light began to leak from the center, enveloping the distortion.
With a sharp crack,
A slender hand punched through the space, reaching out.
In the gaps around it, one could glimpse the darkness of the other side.
Isane was about to swing down with her blade—
When a leg followed, stepping out through the broken space.
Then, all at once, the distortion collapsed.
A right hand closed casually around her descending zanpakuto,
And no matter how hard Isane tried, she could not push the blade down any further.
"Raaahhhh!!!
Hollow! Just die already!!!"
Isane squeezed her eyes shut and bellowed,
Ice-cold spiritual power surging along the blade.
Snowflakes began to bloom in the air around her.
"Hold it, Captain Isane. That's enough. Do you want Captain Unohana to end up a widow?"
Cole's exasperated voice rang out.
He extended the index finger of his left hand and tapped lightly on Isane's forehead.
With his right, he simply plucked the zanpakuto from her grip.
Isane gasped in pain, then snapped back to herself.
Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at Cole.
"Cole… How did you get in here? Didn't they reinforce the Seireitei barrier?"
Cole shrugged and tossed her zanpakuto back.
"That kind of barrier doesn't do anything to me. I'm the master of space, remember?"
Any space anchored by the Ruyi Jingu Bang—
Was completely unaffected by barriers, seals, or anything similar.
That was his confidence in invading Soul Society.
He reached out and ruffled Isane's hair.
"Anyway, you're a captain now. You've got to stay sharp. If something feels off, you should go straight to bankai."
Hearing that, Isane finally broke down.
Her voice trembled as she started pounding his chest with her fists.
"Give Captain Unohana back! I don't want to be captain! My zanpakuto isn't a healing type at all, I can't do anything like she could…"
Cole couldn't help but laugh.
He thought for a moment and said,
"If you want Hana-nee to come back so badly, how about you go talk her into it yourself?"
Isane blinked in confusion—
And then Cole gave her a gentle shove on the shoulder.
She plummeted into boundless darkness.
From the edge of the rift, Cole called after her kindly,
"Run deeper into the dark, quickly. If space collapses and you're still hanging around there, you'll fall into the Dangai."
Isane's scalp tingled.
Her voice practically in tears, she cursed Cole up and down for a while, then sprinted into the darkness.
"Captain Unohana, I'm scared…!"
She had no idea how long she ran.
Eventually, a light appeared ahead.
Isane threw herself toward it in delight.
Weightlessness rushed up from beneath her feet—
And she dropped onto a soft, huge bed.
Harribel, who had been wiping Unohana's body, froze when she saw Isane.
"Shinigami? How did you get here?"
If it hadn't been for what she'd experienced in the Karakura battle,
She would have attacked the moment she saw a Shinigami.
Isane was terrified, her face pale, about to explain—
But then something on the bed caught her eye.
"Captain!!!"
She stared blankly at Unohana.
The captain she had been longing for day and night was lying there fast asleep.
Not a single stitch of clothing on her.
Pale skin marked with faint bruises,
And a lingering look of pleasure still on her face.
The longer Isane looked, the redder her face became,
Until she was as flushed as a ripe apple.
Clapping a hand over her mouth, she whispered shyly,
"Damn pervy brat… How could he be so rough with Captain Unohana…"
"…It really is different here in Seireitei. Compared to Hueco Mundo, the buildings are hundreds of times better…"
Walking through the familiar streets of Seireitei,
Cole could not help but sigh in admiration.
He even felt his hands itching a little.
Maybe he had absorbed too many Seireitei buildings before.
Now, whenever he saw the structures here,
He wanted to absorb them again.
But in the end, he held back.
He had conquered all of Hueco Mundo now.
He really had no interest in the meager spiritual power inside Seireitei's buildings.
The Shinigami he passed along the way did not see it that way.
The moment they spotted him, their faces twisted with terror.
They scrambled to throw their arms around the nearest walls.
"Oh no, it's Cole! Cole's here!!"
"Protect the buildings!!"
"Don't let him absorb them! We spent a month rebuilding those perfectly!"
"Damn it, how did he get in?!"
"…"
While quietly appreciating Seireitei's "enthusiasm,"
Cole made his way to the Fifth Division.
"So Rukia's a captain here now?"
He took a moment to size up the building, then gave a slight nod.
His figure flickered, and he appeared inside the captain's office.
He had heard that Rukia had originally been appointed captain of another division.
But after the Visoreds—Shinji, Kensei, the others—returned,
She had been transferred here to lead the Fifth Division.
"I think the vice-captain here is Momo, right? Is that really okay…?"
Mumbling to himself, Cole finally spotted Rukia,
Sitting at her desk, working through paperwork.
He walked over and gently covered her eyes with his hand.
"Rukia-chan, guess who I am?"
(End of Chapter)
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