"Just look at that form…"
"Seems like Hueco Mundo isn't completely full of trash after all…"
At this moment, as they watched the Black-Winged Great Demon's brand-new appearance after his second-stage Resurrección—
Inside Silbern,
the pure-blood Quincies of the Wandenreich
didn't just "change faces at light speed," their expressions turning obviously wary;
even their attitude
shifted along with it.
They no longer sat high above the world, arrogantly looking down on Hueco Mundo.
Instead—
on pure instinct, they acknowledged
the oppressive pressure brought by the Black-Winged Great Demon's fully unleashed form.
"Tch…"
"Don't get ahead of yourselves. Ichigo Kurosaki has already been beaten half to death once."
"Next, facing the Black-Winged Great Demon in his second-stage Resurrección… I'm guessing he's just going to get killed all over again, right?"
Valkyrie's lips curled up,
showing a gloating grin as he spoke expectantly.
Last time,
it had been all because of that idiot Grimmjow.
That was the only reason Ichigo Kurosaki managed to snatch his life back from the gates of hell.
But this time—
up above the dome of Las Noches,
aside from Ulquiorra and Ichigo,
in the wide, boundless desert currently shown on screen,
there was not a third figure in sight.
So then,
this time they could finally pop the champagne, right?
Valkyrie absolutely refused to believe
that the exact same development could happen twice in a row.
Surely it was impossible that…
later on…
after Ichigo Kurosaki gets killed again,
his "wife" will once more appear, cry her eyes out, and save the protagonist?
If the story really did go that way…
Valkyrie could only say: they pure-blood Quincies would have to concede defeat.
No wonder His Majesty ends up being killed by Ichigo Kurosaki in the future.
This guy…
you just can't kill him!
——
On the other side,
inside the First Division barracks.
Watching the true form of the Black-Winged Great Demon on screen,
the Shinigami captains all fell silent.
The already heavy viewing atmosphere—depressed after Ichigo Kurosaki had been one-sidedly beaten for so long—
in an instant
became even more suffocating,
as if an indescribable, formless pressure were pushing down on them.
"Heh…"
"Aizen really dropped the ball here."
"The aura this guy is putting out is in no way weaker than any of the three fighting on the Karakura Town battlefield."
"In fact… it's very possible he's actually the real strongest Espada!"
Behind his blue-and-white mask,
Mayuri Kurotsuchi's eyes rolled, and he spoke in a low, mocking tone.
Even he,
who had always possessed superhuman confidence,
who believed that with his genius brain, his various biological techs,
and his remodeled Zanpakutō, Ashisogi Jizō,
there was no opponent he needed to fear—
even he,
after watching this footage,
had to admit:
the Black-Winged Great Demon in his second-stage Resurrección
was definitely one of the strongest Arrancar he had ever seen.
Especially
that dense black spiritual pressure,
spreading through the frame like a black ocean—
the visual impact it produced
made it impossible not to acknowledge how terrifying second-stage Resurrección truly was.
"Captain…"
Behind Soi Fon,
Marechiyo Omaeda swallowed hard and said in terror, "Are we seriously about to witness, with our own eyes, for the second time…"
"…the protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki getting killed by the Black-Winged Great Demon again?!"
Just thinking about that possibility,
Omaeda was so shocked he could barely form a sentence.
It was just too absurd…
Ichigo Kurosaki was a man-made Soul King candidate—
a man who would one day stand on the same level as Aizen and Yhwach.
For someone to kill him in a straight-up fight twice in a row,
that kind of outcome made Omaeda start to doubt…
who was supposed to be the protagonist here, anyway?
——
At this moment,
before Soi Fon could reply—
on screen, after the second-stage Resurrección finished,
Ulquiorra's mercilessly cold voice came through from the video:
"The second stage of my sword's release…"
"Among all the Espada, I alone am capable of achieving a second-stage Resurrección."
"And even Lord Aizen has never seen this form!"
His aura crushed the very heavens.
Once the process of second-stage Resurrección was complete,
Ulquiorra's power had reached an unprecedented level.
It felt as if…
not only the desert beneath his feet,
but even the very frame of the video
could no longer bear his existence.
And those words,
especially the phrase "even Lord Aizen has never seen it"—
once exposed through the countdown video
and transmitted to the real world,
immediately caused another uproar.
"??"
"Even Aizen doesn't know about it? You've got to be kidding…"
Under his straw hat,
Shunsui Kyōraku frowned, genuinely surprised.
All along,
Aizen's image had been that of someone who controlled everything.
No matter what the matter was,
he always seemed to have absolute confidence and manipulate things from the shadows.
And yet…
Ulquiorra had actually concealed something of this level even from Aizen?
"Whatever the case, Ichigo Kurosaki's in danger now…"
Jūshirō Ukitake's expression grew grave as he spoke in concern.
Since even the greatest secret of Ulquiorra's body had been laid bare,
that meant
Ulquiorra was fighting with absolute killing intent.
In that case,
the outcome
was all too easy to imagine…
And yet—
——
What followed,
as the gap in power
expanded to a level that no method could possibly bridge,
was that the battle reverted to what it had been before:
a repeat of the first time the Black-Winged Great Demon had intercepted Ichigo,
a one-sided stomp of the protagonist.
"Boom boom boom!!!"
Figures flashed at extreme speed.
Ichigo Kurosaki was beaten until his entire body was covered in wounds,
smashed through one towering stone pillar after another
high above the desert.
Finally,
seriously injured and on the verge of death,
he was caught by Ulquiorra's black tail,
which wrapped around his neck like a whip,
and the whole person was hung limp in midair.
This cruel scene,
broadcast in full by the countdown video,
made viewers everywhere shake their heads and sigh heavily,
unable to bear watching any further.
"Sigh…"
Inside the little general store,
Isshin Kurosaki looked dejected.
As a father, he felt an indescribable, piercing pain.
"Ichigo has done his best…"
"An Arrancar at the Vasto Lorde level, with the power of second-stage Resurrección…"
"If it were any other powerhouse in his place, even a captain-class Shinigami, their ending wouldn't necessarily be any better than Ichigo's."
As he spoke,
Isshin Kurosaki's eyes dimmed.
He seemed to age more than ten years in an instant, his heart full of despair.
This was the second time—
the second time he'd been forced, in front of this transparent screen,
to watch helplessly as his son was brutally killed in the future.
Beside him,
Kisuke Urahara pulled his hat lower.
Tessai Tsukabishi shook his head and let out a heavy sigh.
If the countdown video weren't impossible to turn off by force,
they would have already cut the feed,
refusing to watch the cruel scene that was surely about to unfold.
However—
against all expectations,
suddenly, as the camera swung sharply around,
it locked onto the hole in the dome of Las Noches that had just been blasted open.
There,
amidst a swell of rising reishi,
the figures of Orihime Inoue and Uryū Ishida
entered the frame.
With absolutely no warning beforehand,
they abruptly appeared
atop the dome,
forcing their way into this battle.
At that instant,
when he saw Orihime Inoue's silhouette,
Isshin Kurosaki's expression first froze.
Three seconds of stunned silence later,
his eyes went wide with joy.
His face suddenly lit up with excitement as he shouted, practically ecstatic, "It's her! Inoue-san… Thank goodness! Ichigo's saved this time!!!"
"Hm?"
Kisuke Urahara raised a brow, equally surprised, then murmured, "So that's how it is… Now I get it."
"A classic 'beat him down then pull him back up'—repeating the same plot beat again…"
"Only this time, the one inside, Shiro… won't stand by and watch."
Urahara's eyes erupted with a fierce gleam.
With his peerless intellect,
he could instantly picture the events that were about to follow.
Inevitably—
they would unfold exactly the way he had just guessed.
The harder the Black-Winged Great Demon stomped Ichigo down just now,
the more brutally those injuries
would be repaid in full
once Ichigo was saved again by Orihime Inoue.
In the eyes of the audience,
a violent slaughter of the Black-Winged Great Demon
was about to begin.
In other words,
from this very moment on,
the real climax of the battle
was about to arrive.
After that—
in the video,
just as the viewers expected,
Ulquiorra also sensed the arrival of Orihime and the others.
He turned.
His green eyes glanced over,
and with not a single emotional ripple in his voice, he said calmly:
"Woman, you're just in time. Watch closely."
"The instant the life of the man you pin your hopes on is sealed away…"
He raised one hand.
Jet-black fingertips
traced a curve, pointing directly at Ichigo Kurosaki.
Then, under the slow-motion close-up of the countdown video and Orihime Inoue's scream—
a Cero Oscuras
blasted forth once more.
Under the horrified gaze of the global audience,
accompanied by Orihime Inoue's desperate cries,
that dark energy
pierced Ichigo Kurosaki's chest.
For the second time—
in the exact same place—an even larger hole was punched straight through him.
——
"Damn it…"
"If it weren't for that woman showing up…"
"Us pure-blood Quincies would already be able to start celebrating!"
"But instead… again with the hole in his chest… again with that woman being there! And she cried again!"
"All the conditions have been fulfilled in one instant!!!"
Inside Silbern,
Valkyrie gnashed his teeth, face dark with frustration.
Even though he'd just personally watched
Ichigo Kurosaki die a second time,
he still couldn't feel happy at all.
On the contrary—
he only felt, more and more clearly,
that all the buffs had been fully stacked.
Ichigo Kurosaki's cheat—
was about to activate again any second.
"Next…"
"It should be even more ferocious than at the Seireitei cleansing, right?"
Lille Barro said, "After all, this time, because Ichigo Kurosaki's died and his consciousness has temporarily vanished…"
"Shiro will be completely unrestrained as it returns to its fully true form."
The moment he mentioned Shiro, the inner Hollow who would immediately take over,
even as the leader of the Schutzstaffel,
Lille Barro's face was still filled with reverence. He didn't dare show
even a trace of arrogance.
And that sixth sense unique to the strong
told Lille Barro that what they were seeing now
was nothing more than the calm
before a raging storm.
Next up—
a world-shaking, earth-shattering massacre
was about to unfold.
——
Sure enough,
the pure-blood Quincies' intuition was right.
Afterward,
under the tense, excited stares
of viewers all around the world—
with Uryū Ishida risking himself to draw Ulquiorra's attention,
Orihime Inoue, sobbing,
rushed to Ichigo Kurosaki's fallen corpse.
On the verge of mental collapse, she activated her power,
using Shun Shun Rikka's "Sōten Kisshun" to heal him.
At the same time,
the camera zoomed in
for a close-up on Orihime's tear-streaked face,
playing back her desperate scream:
"Kurosaki-kun…"
"Please, do anything you have to… Just save Kurosaki-kun!!!"
As this cry
was transmitted to the real world through the countdown video—
inside Las Noches,
the atmosphere that had finally livened up a little because Ulquiorra had killed the protagonist a second time
instantly went dead silent,
as if someone had hit a universal mute button.
All the Arrancar present—even…
Ulquiorra himself—
at this moment,
their pupils shrank sharply,
their expressions changed in unison.
An indescribably intense sense of foreboding
surged from deep within their hearts like a spring.
Everyone knew—
something big
was about to happen.
"Tch…"
"Ulquiorra…"
"Right now, deep down, you've got to be panicking more than anyone, right?"
"I really can't say what kind of monster is going to come bursting out of me this time…"
Even though he was uneasy as well,
Grimmjow still kept both hands in his pockets, smirking wickedly.
The narrow-eyed Nnoitra
also joined in the mockery, sneering, "If you have to face Shiro head-on, with nothing binding it… now that's going to be one hell of a show."
Even now,
in the minds of the viewers,
they could still hear Shiro's roar echoing across heaven and earth:
"I am Shiro…"
"In order to protect my master, I'm willing to give everything!"
"Even if I have to destroy the entire world, I will never back down!"
Even Ulquiorra himself was convinced
that there was a one-hundred-percent chance Shiro would soon come out to fight in Ichigo's place.
At this point,
the only remaining question
was how long his second-stage Resurrección self would last in front of that monster.
Or rather—
whether he would even have the power to fight back at all.
That was the only hope
Ulquiorra had left.
——
Sure enough,
the moment everyone had been waiting for—
"Boom!!!"
Responding to that call—
Ichigo Kurosaki's body, which had already gone cold,
suddenly twitched,
limbs jerking to life.
At the same time,
a deep crimson spiritual pressure,
like searing flames and so heavy it seemed capable of crushing the sky itself,
erupted in a tangible torrent.
"It's here!!!"
"The ultimate cheat is activating!!!"
"What terrifying reiatsu! Even the image is starting to warp!"
"The Black-Winged Great Demon's aura got completely overwhelmed in an instant!!!"
In that moment,
the entire Bleach world fell silent.
Countless viewers opened their eyes as wide as they could.
Terror, delight, shock, anticipation…
A storm of mixed emotions
whirled through the hearts of every powerful fighter watching.
Even Aizen himself couldn't help but lean forward,
his attention and gaze
utterly locked onto the screen.
Then—
amid the howling storm of spiritual pressure inside Las Noches,
as the cheat rebooted once more,
a brand-new, invincible form
that the audience had never seen before
burst into view:
On his chest, a gigantic spiral-shaped hole.
Human skin swallowed up under the white outer hide of a Menos Grande–type Hollow.
His short orange hair suddenly grown long, streaming wildly in the storm.
Most striking of all—
three huge masks
were exposed for all to see.
The horns up top were unimaginably sharp,
radiating the most primal bestial ferocity and savagery.
Right now,
this horned Ichigo had only just been born—
and he had already surpassed the limits of what a live broadcast could handle.
He was, truly,
the strongest Hollow in history.
(End of Chapter)
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