Chapter 191: Flesh Bombs and Departure
When dealing with Mayuri Kurotsuchi, compassion was the least important thing.
He was also the one who could show the true face of Soul Society.
Aizen's notes mentioned him in painful detail, not because of his intellect, status, or combat ability. Those things meant little to Aizen, Ichigo, and Kisuke. What mattered was why a monster like Mayuri could exist here at all.
He had been a criminal, dragged out of the maggot ridden prison nest by Kisuke himself. A mad scientist with no taboos. Some people, after seeing enough of him, might even call his behavior "quirky," or convince themselves it was acceptable, at least by Soul Society's standards.
But the moment you understood it, you were already infected by it.
Mayuri was one of the few who truly grasped the essence of Zanpakuto, and then treated that truth like raw meat on a laboratory table. He modified them, dissected them, and carried out live experiments on countless Shinigami and wandering spirits. From that research came artificial bodies, grotesque tools, and biotechnologies so repulsive they made the stomach tighten, yet so effective they were rewarded instead of condemned.
That was why he remained the director of the Research and Development Bureau.
In Soul Society's eyes, Mayuri's crimes were only "a little disgusting." Not unforgivable. Not worth overturning the table over.
Even the number of souls Aizen had sacrificed to forge the Hogyoku was less than the number Mayuri, and even Kisuke, had burned away in the name of research.
And the worst part was that many experiments involving wandering spirits and Hollows had been authorized and pushed by Shinigami themselves, sometimes at Aizen's request, sometimes as revenge against Seireitei.
This included the former Fifth Division captain, Seigen Sujiba.
Compare the two, and the ugliness stopped being an abstract idea. It became a clear shape you could point at.
Aizen's voice seemed to echo beside Ichigo's ear, calm, clinical, merciless.
"Because your strength far surpasses theirs, you can't fully appreciate how Soul Society works. Gin severed the arm of a Shinigami who served the Gotei 13 for centuries. To you it was nothing. To a Shinigami, an arm is more than flesh. One of the spirit particle organs is located in the wrist. What you watched so easily was the end of his path."
"And that was Gin's mercy. Many captains would have killed him without hesitation. Failure at the gate is a grave offense. Zaraki is the same. He looks for death battles, and sometimes he never lets you come back."
"Does anyone care about those background figures. Very few. They call the powerful 'individualistic,' and they call bullying and torture 'rights.'"
"This is Soul Society. And Mayuri is the one who makes it visible. You'll understand soon enough."
Now, Ichigo was watching it happen.
"Well, young man," one soldier said, voice trembling with shame, "our captain is just that kind of person. I'm a little sorry."
"Don't blame us," another whispered. "We're only following orders…"
They moved reluctantly, surrounding Ichigo like men walking toward a cliff.
Ichigo looked at their faces with pity, then raised his hand.
Light blue frames formed in the air, swelling outward, rapidly expanding into huge translucent spaces. They tried to close around the soldiers, to trap them, to stop them without harming them.
Before the frames could fully take shape, Mayuri yawned.
With maddening casualness, he pulled a bright red remote from his pocket.
Then he pressed it.
The soldiers' expressions twisted in horror.
Their bodies swelled.
And in the next heartbeat, they burst.
A series of muffled booms rolled through Seireitei, shaking dust from rooftops like a grim snowfall.
Smoke and spirit particles surged outward in a violent wave.
Ichigo stood inside the cloud, unharmed, watching the chakra construct in his hand fade away, piece by piece, as if even his power could not undo what had already been done.
Mayuri clicked his tongue.
"Even as flesh bombs, those idiots couldn't hurt you. Worthless trash."
Ichigo's eyes did not move.
He remembered their faces.
One was a bearded man, middle aged, close enough to his father's age that it made the stomach twist.
One was a timid young woman, roughly his own age, who had looked like she wanted to run, but still stepped forward anyway.
They had tried to speak. To apologize. To persuade.
Then their bodies had become pressure, heat, and shredded spirit particles.
A gust fluttered Ichigo's long hair.
The only proof they had ever existed was the scattered remains of Shinigami uniforms on the ground, already dissolving into light, already vanishing.
Ichigo's expression grew colder, until it was almost empty.
"Are you really going to wear me down with your own subordinates," he asked, voice low, "and use people as bombs. Don't you think that's too cruel."
Mayuri laughed, as if Ichigo had said something charming.
"Loyal subordinates. Attrition." He tilted his head. "What a strange misunderstanding. I only used tools to test your combat ability."
Ichigo stared at him, eyes like winter.
"So to you, death, comrades, lives, they're all just tools."
Mayuri did not deny it.
He did not need to.
The other squad members were terrified, desperate, and yet none of them objected. None of them tried to escape. Not even after watching their teammates explode.
Ichigo felt something in his chest sink, as if the last faint hope he had been holding was quietly strangled.
Soul Society is a relaxed place.
Rukia's words returned like a slap.
Relaxed.
Where.
All Ichigo had seen was hostility, cruelty, and a system so numb it called atrocity "normal."
"I've heard Soul Society is an easy place," Ichigo said quietly. "But all I've seen is this. Do you find it interesting, Captain Kurotsuchi."
He looked at Mayuri, genuinely confused.
"You clearly have many ways to test me. So why sacrifice your own soldiers. Was it meant to test whether I'd feel sympathy."
Mayuri's pupils widened.
"How interesting," he murmured. "That tone. Condescending." He pinched the golden horn like protrusions on his head, then smiled in a way that made the skin crawl. "You remind me of a man who made me very unhappy."
He leaned forward slightly, voice sharpening.
"I've decided not to kill you. Your power is unique, completely different from spirit particles. I will mold you into the perfect tool. Today, I'll show you the pinnacle of Soul Society's technology."
Ichigo's expression did not change.
"Is that so. Then I'll watch."
That calm, indifferent gaze made Mayuri's irritation boil into hatred.
He despised being compared to Kisuke. He despised anything that implied he stood beneath him. Being rescued by Kisuke and living under his shadow had been worse than the maggot nest. The prison had restrained his body, Kisuke had tormented his spirit.
Now this boy looked at him the same way some people had looked at him back then.
As if Mayuri were merely an object.
A joke.
Mayuri's smile twitched.
"…I've changed my mind."
He drew his Zanpakuto slowly, blade sliding free with a sickening intimacy.
"Your strength is impressive," he said, "but I hate your eyes. I'll gouge them out, along with your organs, and study your life cycle. You won't die just because you lose skin or limbs. I'll let you experience the delight of my medicine."
His spiritual pressure erupted, flooding the street like a tidal wave.
Nearby soldiers screamed and dropped to their knees, bodies shaking, throats crushed by invisible weight.
Mayuri lifted his blade.
"Bankai. Open your claws, Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo."
A dim yellow flash.
The sword twisted, expanded, and grew into something nauseating.
Purple mist poured outward.
From within it, a gigantic golden infant head rose slowly, blank gray eyes staring forward. Beneath that head, reptile like pillars spread and grew, draped in a red cloak. Whatever the original form had been, Mayuri had remade it into a grotesque nightmare.
The poisonous fog rolled across the street.
Soldiers behind Mayuri clawed at their throats and tried to run. They did not make it far. Their faces turned blue and purple, their bodies collapsing in choking spasms, incapacitated within moments.
The massive golden monster shifted as if to turn and devour the fallen.
Then it stopped, as if receiving a command, and returned its attention to Ichigo.
Ichigo stood inside the purple mist, unchanged.
Mayuri scratched his head, genuinely baffled.
"The poisonous fog has no effect," he muttered. "So you weren't an unprepared traveler. What's wrong with your respiratory system. Did you cure the infection with that strange power. Or is your body simply more vigorous than any known life form."
He leaned in, voice quickening, hunger bright in his eyes.
"What exactly are you."
Ichigo did not answer.
He only stared at the Bankai, and his gaze sharpened with disgust.
"Your Zanpakuto is unpleasant," he said.
Then he extended a finger.
His voice was calm, almost merciful, and that mercy made it worse.
"I've decided. Let it rest. It looks miserable. For anyone, living like that would be torture."
Mayuri's grin snapped wide.
"Arrogant brat. You still don't understand the true power of my Bankai. But that's fine. Watching you suffer is what brings me joy."
Ichigo's eyelids lowered slightly.
"I'm tired," he said. "So we'll end with this."
He spoke a name.
"Golden Wheel Rebirth Explosion."
There was no warning. No spiritual pressure spike. No step.
Time itself seemed to skip.
One moment Ichigo stood in the fog, the next he was in front of Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo.
Behind him, the Truth Seeking Balls shot forward and fused into a pale blue glow. Ichigo's hand emerged from his coat, fingers held like a blade.
He slashed horizontally.
A golden halo spread outward from his hand, expanding across Seireitei for miles in an instant. It passed silently over buildings, flowers, trees, walls, and artificial hills, touching everything without sound.
When the wave reached the palace gate in the distance, it scattered into countless smaller halos, as if deliberately thinning itself there.
Then gravity answered.
Everything the golden light had touched fell.
Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo's massive body split cleanly in two, purple blood pouring onto the street.
Mayuri's body was severed as well, his upper half sliding away from his lower half in a grotesque, quiet collapse.
Buildings, walls, and structures around them sank and toppled, as if the world had suddenly remembered it was supposed to be heavier than air.
The pale blue glow condensed back into a black sphere and floated behind Ichigo.
He stared at the bisected corpse of the golden infant monster, then at Mayuri's dismembered body, then lifted his gaze toward the distant palace.
At the entrance, Shunsui sat cross legged atop the gate in his floral kimono, staring across the flattened Seireitei. His gaze traveled the miles, meeting Ichigo's without effort.
Ichigo glanced toward him, but did not advance.
Instead, he looked back down at Mayuri, lying still, cut at the waist.
"It seems your Bankai isn't enough to save you," Ichigo said quietly.
He turned his head toward the incapacitated soldiers and shook his head.
"That's enough. I'm tired. Rukia said Soul Society is a good place, but it seems she was wrong."
He raised a finger and pointed to the space beside him.
Black cubes spread outward as if the air had been commanded to open. A gap formed, person sized, a hole carved into space by invisible order.
Ichigo pulled his coat tighter, gave Mayuri's corpse one last indifferent glance, and stepped into the darkness.
Light and shadow flickered.
Then the world smoothed itself, as if nothing had happened.
Ichigo vanished from Seireitei.
Only the severed Mayuri remained.
Only the bisected corpse of Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo remained.
For a brief time, everything was still.
Then a twitch.
A breath.
A fanatical glare.
Mayuri's upper body jerked upward, eyes blazing as he stared at the empty space where Ichigo had disappeared.
He dragged himself forward with both hands, crawling across the blood soaked ground, scrambling back to his lower half.
Ignoring the gore, he tore through his own flesh with frantic precision, rummaging as if his body were a cabinet.
He found it.
A small sphere of condensed flesh and blood, cupped in his palm like a treasure.
Inside it, a faint golden light flickered.
It was thin, almost nonexistent, yet it illuminated Mayuri's face with fervor.
"What is that power," he whispered, voice trembling with delight. "A system completely different from spirit particles."
He laughed softly, then hugged the sphere closer.
"Even if the sample is small," he murmured, "it should be enough."
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