Budo was as stubborn as a rock. "I can already tell, you and the Revolutionary Army are not on the same path. Otherwise, there's no way you would have stood by and watched them suffer such heavy losses without stopping it."
"Even if you're cooperating now because you share a common enemy, sooner or later you'll split apart. When that happens, this country will fall back into chaos once again… and that will be the moment for His Majesty to return as king!"
"With that level of insight, I really can't tell whether you're smart or foolish." Iori shook his head and looked at Budo with a playful expression.
"You're not wrong, but for cooperation to fall apart, both sides need to be evenly matched. If the gap in strength is too big, it's not a 'break' at all, it's just annexation. Don't tell me you actually think they're strong enough to compare with me?"
"That is precisely why…" General Budo stared gloomily at Iori and Esdeath. "Today, I will eliminate the two of you, even if it costs me my life!"
"Ha!"
Before Iori could speak, Esdeath laughed first.
It was an unrestrained reaction, the kind that bursts out when one sees something utterly ridiculous.
"You?!"
As she spoke, the temperature of the air dropped again and again. On Budo's armor, patches of pure white frost gradually began to form.
"Justice will prevail!"
Budo's expression was firm, like that of a pilgrim or a martyr, and it made Iori feel a trace of emotion.
"What exactly is it that makes you fight so desperately for an emperor who's already been completely sidelined? He hasn't shown you any real kindness, has he?"
"His Majesty was born supreme," Budo said solemnly. "What I am loyal to is the heir to the Empire's thousand-year imperial authority, righteousness is on my side!"
"Born supreme… heh!"
Iori sneered. "Was the first emperor born supreme too?"
Budo, "..."
"Heaven grants the mandate to those with strong troops and fine horses!"
Iori laughed coldly in disdain, then pointed forward. "Go, Esdeath. Slap him twice and stop him from ranting here!"
"Ice Storm Lotus Bloom!"
Esdeath clasped her hands in front of her chest. A snowflake condensed out of thin air in her palm.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
The temperature plunged.
During the fierce battle earlier, the frost marks left all over the steel giant rapidly spread. Thick slabs of solid ice appeared and fused together, and in just two or three seconds, the Shikoutazer was frozen solid from bottom to top.
'She's improved again, truly a combat-type genius,' Iori thought, giving Esdeath an appreciative glance.
"Thunder God, answer my call!"
General Budo naturally wouldn't allow Esdeath to restrain the Shikoutazer. He crossed his arms and raised them toward the sky, his steel gauntlets colliding and sparking with blinding arcs of electricity.
The clouds gathering above responded in kind. As shadows covered the ground, a massive bolt of lightning crashed down from deep within the clouds.
"Sever the Void!"
Buzz! BOOM!!!
As Iori's lips moved slightly, an invisible transparent wall suddenly unfolded above their heads. The furious lightning slammed into it and scattered violently, turning heaven and earth into a blinding white.
"The power really isn't bad."
Feeling the pressure borne by "Sever the Void," Iori judged that the lightning had reached the level of an eighty-series Kido, and one cast with full incantation, no shortcuts taken.
In fact, a chantless "Sever the Void" would have difficulty blocking it completely. Though Iori's spiritual pressure was strong, it still hadn't reached captain-class.
"What a pity… Lightning is the power that rules the sky. No matter how well it's used, without matching authority and presence, it's nothing more than empty spectacle!"
BOOM!
This time, General Budo himself, wreathed in violent lightning, charged at Iori like a raging beast.
Iori drew the Sword of Kusanagi. Pure white radiance burst forth from the jewel, transforming into a crescent arc that shot skyward and collided head-on with the lightning.
"AAAH!"
General Budo let out an unyielding roar. The lightning around his body grew so dense it nearly took solid form, like a suit of armor, forcibly grinding down the sword pressure without losing momentum.
At the same time, the head of the ice-covered Shikoutazer lit up with a dangerous red glow. A powerful, imposing force erupted, accompanied by a beast-like howl, shattering the ice encasing it.
At this moment, the Empire's two strongest forces joined hands to unleash an unstoppable attack.
Yet Iori's expression remained calm. His eyelids lowered as he called out softly, "Esdeath."
"..."
There was no verbal reply, but an unspoken understanding existed between the Ice Queen and Iori. With a shift of Esdeath's will, pure white ice rapidly spread along the ground. In that instant, the air itself seemed to freeze, becoming harder than steel!
General Budo and the Imperial Arm were both inevitably slowed down by countless times.
"Let this 'valiant charge' be the final punctuation mark for a thousand years of monarchy…"
Crystal-clear dew dripped from the mercury-colored long sword. The icy surface instantly transformed into a smooth, flawless mirror that reflected everything, a true realm of reality.
He could see it… everything was perfectly clear.
In this slowed-down world, the effects of the Mirror Domain were even more terrifying. Every minute detail was reflected in the boy's eyes.
And so he knew that Budo, who appeared brave, fearless, foolishly loyal, actually revealed a look of relief, as if he had long known how this would end.
As for the seemingly flawless steel giant, because its pilot had failed to activate a true combat state, it had left behind a fatal weak point somewhere.
There was no difficulty at all, so easy it was almost boring. But the fall of an empire (an evil dragon) deserved a dragon-slaying blade.
Clang!!!
BOOM!!!
The weak point at the center of its body was pierced by an invisible blade. Because of this unremarkable wound, the massive steel giant abruptly lost all mobility and collapsed like a toppled mountain, smashing down and completely destroying the palace, which had already been reduced to ruins.
General Budo deactivated his lightning-clad combat state and landed calmly on the ground. He turned back to glance at the fallen giant, a mix of three parts relief and seven parts desolation flashing across his face.
Blood seeped slowly from somewhere on his body, pooling at his feet into a basin-sized puddle. A surge of cold air rushed in, instantly freezing the hot blood and then encasing his entire body in solid ice.
Esdeath walked up to her former colleague. Though she felt extreme disdain for his foolish actions, she still closed her eyes and paused for three seconds,
Then a cold flash of light, and her saber severed the ice sculpture's head.
"So strong, yet bound for his entire life by so-called family honor and loyalty, never once living for himself. What a pitiful man~"
After glancing at General Budo's calm expression in death, Esdeath looked up at the boss approaching.
"With this, the country falls into your hands."
"It's just a battered old ship. Just patching the holes and bailing out water is already a huge pain."
Iori was quite calm. He had planned for this moment for a long time, shuttling back and forth between Hueco Mundo and the Empire dozens of times, even forcing himself to endure boredom by getting involved in political matters he had no interest in.
Now that he finally had the Empire firmly in his grasp, he didn't feel as excited as he'd imagined. Instead, there was a sense of "it's finally over."
Naturally, he'd long since grown sick of all these tedious formalities…
"The palace is already destroyed, so things like the throne and the royal seal inside must be gone too… hmm!"
"Esdeath, you raise the throne high into the sky."
"Hm?"
Iori's words seemed abrupt, but Esdeath wasn't foolish. Following his gaze, she immediately understood.
Without saying much, she waved her hand, and a massive surge of cold air condensed out of thin air around the enormous steel Imperial Arm.
Whoosh!!
One ice pillar after another rose from beneath the Shikoutazer. Dense, uneven pillars, long and short, fit together like a perfectly molded sofa, propping up the steel giant's upper body at an angle, forming a slope like a staircase.
Then ice spread over it, and an extremely steep, narrow staircase truly took shape.
Facing that dangerous curve with no protection at all, probably no one would dare to try it.
But Iori walked up calmly, step by step, steady and orderly, neither rushed nor slow, climbing the lonely path with the symbol of royal authority laid beneath his feet.
At the same time, faint ripples of light shimmered along the Sword of Kusanagi like waves on water. Then large amounts of water vapor condensed from the air, leaving crosshatched, crack-like markings on Iori's left arm.
Iori rarely recited a full incantation. He then swung his arm, releasing spiritual pressure that formed a huge, spiral-shaped array pattern and flew out, fixing itself suspended in midair. From it, fine black lines spread outward along the plane.
Binding Kido No. 77: Tenteikura.
This Kido was originally used to search for and lock onto the positions of multiple targets via spiritual pressure and transmit information, requiring extremely precise control.
But Iori wasn't focusing on finding any specific target now. Instead, he completely unleashed his spiritual pressure, capturing every object with a soul fluctuation within his perception range.
To put it simply, a normal No. 77 Binding Kido is like sending group texts. Iori was using it as a public broadcast.
Inside the mech's cockpit, most of the young emperor's body was frozen solid. Yet perhaps because the Imperial Arm placed special emphasis on protecting its host, he had survived the earlier chaos.
He was barely conscious now, lifting his head to see Iori walking along the white steps four or five meters above him, his expression twisted with rage.
He wanted to shout, to struggle, more than anything to kill the traitor who dared to stand above him.
But no matter how hard his small body strained, he couldn't move. Iori wasn't far away, yet remained completely untouchable.
Suddenly, he seemed to understand something and slumped his head in despair…
And it was at that very moment that Iori's voice reached the ears of countless lives through an unseen line of fate.
"The emperor and ministers have been executed. The war is over!"
Those words stunned all the imperial troops. Already demoralized, they now lost all fighting spirit, staring blankly toward where the palace once stood, only to see a strange mountain formed of ice and a giant.
And a slender, beautiful ice bridge… as for the figure on it, from afar it was just a tiny black dot.
Yet it was precisely this "black dot" that spoke in a voice filled with authority, one that compelled people to believe, "Mutual hatred, mutual plunder, mutual devouring, no hope, no salvation, only endless darkness and despair..."
"Such days will end today!"
"I, the Faceless One, the Masked God of Death..."
"Aizen Iori, hereby declare, the monarchy that ruled the Empire for a thousand years has come to an end. This country, this land, and the people who live upon it, you shall welcome a brand-new dawn!"
At that moment, whether Revolutionary Army or Imperial Army, from ordinary civilians to battle-hardened Imperial Arm users, whether enemies standing against Iori or subordinates who had pledged loyalty to him, all who heard the "proclamation" felt their hearts tighten.
Not everyone possessed the wisdom or broad perspective to fully grasp what was happening, but even the lowest-ranking soldier could vaguely sense that something was about to change.
It was like the sky and the earth, things that had always existed as a matter of course, suddenly disappearing.
"Those who fight against injustice and evil, the war that destroyed all that was beautiful is over. This long road covered in thorns has reached its end, and before the gates of peace there are no obstacles left!"
"Lay down your weapons. No matter your stance, now is the time to bury the ugly past and regain your reverence for life."
Iori slowly ascended to the top of the Shikoutazer. Amid the shattered steel crown, he turned calmly and sat high above the heavens, gazing down upon the imperial capital. The black-and-gold mask without expression gleamed like flames in the light of the setting sun…
Around him, the surviving Revolutionary soldiers looked on in awe.
"The age of darkness is over!"
———
[Hueco Mundo]
In the desolate white desert, a squad of extermination force members wearing black Shihakusho, almost all wounded, staggered forward in a desperate hurry, or, more accurately... they were running away.
They had originally been assigned nothing more than a routine patrol, with the added task of checking for nearby Hollow activity. Unexpectedly, they ran into a quicksand phenomenon in the desert and were sucked into a nest.
It was an underground cavern occupied by numerous lesser Hollows and massive Gillians. Just the mass-produced "faceless men" alone numbered six or seven, far beyond what their small patrol squad could handle.
Fortunately, this didn't seem to be a Hollow trap. Their sudden fall startled the Hollows as well, who thought a large extermination force had come knocking.
That brief moment of confusion bought the Shinigami time. They successfully cast Kido such as "Red Smoke Escape," creating chaos and managing to flee.
Of course, the Hollows weren't idiots. Once the initial shock faded, they quickly realized what was going on and immediately gave chase.