If Ulquiorra's reiatsu had already been overwhelming during his initial Resurrección, Askin had assumed that was his absolute limit. That belief had guided everything — even the lethal condition he'd set against him.
But the moment Ulquiorra invoked his Segunda Etapa, that assumption shattered.
The surge of reiatsu was immediate and catastrophic. What had once been immense now expanded severalfold, exploding outward in a black storm of energy. The sand cracked. The air screamed.
It was the kind of increase that rivaled a shinigami's leap from Shikai to Bankai — five, maybe ten times stronger. The pressure alone warped the landscape.
"Are you kidding me?!" Askin shouted, eyes wide in disbelief. "I've never even heard of a second-stage Resurrección!"
For the first time since the battle began, panic slipped into his voice.
The ability to perform Resurrección — to "return to the blade" — was the defining trait of arrancar. It released the sealed power within their Zanpakutō and restored their original hollow essence, healing their injuries in the process.
The Wandenreich had studied that thoroughly. Years of research from the Karakura War had confirmed the mechanics of arrancar transformations. Nothing in that research had ever hinted at a second stage.
And yet here it was. Ulquiorra Cifer, standing silent amid the storm of his own power, his form transformed into something that defied every chart, every precedent, every law of combat logic.
'A second-stage Resurrección…?' Askin thought, frozen. 'That's— impossible! Why do the others only have one? What is this thing facing me?'
The thought was half disbelief, half outrage.
Why did one arrancar get to rewrite the rules?
And another thing gnawed at him — Ulquiorra was only ranked fifth among the Espada. The fifth! If this was the strength of Number Five, then what kind of monsters had been ranked above him?
He frowned deeply. 'No. That doesn't make sense. Before coming to Hueco Mundo, I read all the records. None of the previous Espada reached this level.'
After all, Bazz-B had crushed Harribel, the former Fourth Espada, with ease. Yet this man — ranked below her — had just erased Askin's death formula with a single pulse of reiatsu.
'Then why… why is he fifth?'
The thought lingered, unanswered.
Ulquiorra finally broke the silence. His tone was calm, almost analytical.
"It's natural that you've never heard of it." he said, voice quiet but cutting. "Even Aizen-sama never witnessed this form."
"What…?" Askin's eyes flicked up sharply.
"This form," Ulquiorra continued, "is one I achieved on my own — during the ongoing war in Karakura Town. While Aizen-sama fought in the real world, I remained behind and engaged Kurosaki Ichigo in battle. It was there… that I surpassed my own limits."
The black aura around him thickened, the air distorting with pressure. His tone did not change — detached, clinical, and yet utterly final.
"At that time, I was incomplete. Only after awakening this form did I transcend that imperfection. This is not evolution. This… is my true self."
He paused briefly. "And as for Aizen-sama never seeing it — that is only because he never returned from the world of the living."
Askin's face twisted. "You're telling me this form—this power—didn't exist in any of our records because you evolved mid-battle?"
Ulquiorra didn't respond. He simply moved.
The wings at his back vibrated once, releasing a thunderous boom as he vanished.
*Whoosh!*
Askin barely had time to react. He threw himself backward, invoking Hirenkyaku — the Quincies' high-speed movement — but Ulquiorra was already upon him.
Askin's eyes widened. He conjured a Heilig Bogen, his reishi bow, and tried to condense an arrow. But even for someone of his caliber, forming a Heilig Pfeil took a heartbeat of focus.
That heartbeat was too long.
Ulquiorra's tail flicked like a whip — crack! — slamming across Askin's arm and halting his motion entirely. The half-formed reishi arrow dispersed in a shower of sparks.
"Tch!" Askin clicked his tongue and shot backward with another Hirenkyaku. The technique was faster than any shinigami's Shunpo, but even that wasn't enough.
Arrancar possessed their own superior movement technique — Sonído — a transfer that manipulated space itself.
And Ulquiorra's was beyond perfect. He was already behind Askin before the quincy had even reappeared.
Black spiritual energy surged around Ulquiorra's hand.
A chill ran through Askin's body. His instincts screamed in alarm.
'That attack… that's not an ordinary Cero…'
"Cero Oscuras."
The words were calm — deathly so.
The black beam erupted from Ulquiorra's fingertip like a pillar of night, devouring the air, light, and everything in its path.
The power was so immense that the shockwave rippled outward like a hurricane.
*BOOOOM!*
The blast consumed Askin completely.
Kaname and Bazz-B, locked in their own duel nearby, were forced to disengage, leaping aside as the explosion swallowed half the square. The light turned the world white for a moment, then black again as dust and debris rained down.
Cang Du and Grimmjow turned their heads instinctively toward the detonation.
Even the stoic quincy's expression flickered. "What the hell was that…?"
But then, his focus snapped back to his own opponent. Grimmjow was still alive — bloodied, battered, but defiant.
Cang Du sneered coldly. "How long can you keep standing, beast? You can't pierce my steel. You're wasting your strength."
Grimmjow said nothing. His grin was bloodstained, his eyes wild. He refused to yield.
The two clashed again, their fight resuming even as the ruins trembled from the blast.
Meanwhile, Kaname and Bazz-B hovered on the edge of the destruction zone. Bazz-B squinted toward the crater, flame flickering along his hand.
"What the hell…" he muttered. "Even Askin got hit by that? That's not supposed to happen…"
After all, Askin wasn't just any quincy. He was one of Yhwach's Schutzstaffel — his personal royal guard. For someone like that to fall behind was unthinkable.
The blast finally began to subside. Dust settled. The remains of the square were a shattered wasteland.
Amid the crumbling debris, Askin stirred.
He was alive — barely. His uniform was shredded, blood running down his face. The skin of his arms was burned, cracked, and his breath came raggedly.
He looked up, face contorted in fury. "Damn it… damn it all!"
The ground beneath him hissed with the heat of the attack.
He couldn't believe it. The battle that had been his to win — the calculation he had so carefully crafted — was unraveling before his eyes. All because of that second-stage transformation.
And that, right there, was the fatal flaw in his power.
Once Askin set a lethal condition, it couldn't be changed immediately. It required preparation — precision. The more complex the target, the longer the setup time. The condition he had painstakingly crafted for Ulquiorra was now useless.
Ulquiorra's reiatsu had far exceeded the threshold he'd defined. It was impossible to reset so quickly.
"I'll make you die in agony!" Askin snarled.
His voice cracked into a roar as blinding light erupted from his body. His Reiatsu flared like a supernova.
"Vollständig — Gift Bereich!"
The perfect holy form of the quincy unfolded around him.
As the light faded, Askin's body was entirely transformed. Complex molecular structures glowed faintly across his skin, forming intricate formulas and sigils. A halo shaped like intersecting molecules floated above his head, and protective goggles covered his eyes.
From his shoulders extended twin luminous wings formed of intersecting energy wheels. Micro reishi particles drifted around his arms like orbiting atoms, connected by shining bonds. His abdomen bore a lattice of glowing triangles, while molecular-shaped rings spun at his waist, folding into the pattern of a short bow.
Then, the environment itself shifted.
A vast black sphere expanded outward from Askin's body — Gift Ball Deluxe, his lethal domain — spreading like ink through water.
*Whooom!*
It engulfed everything in seconds.
Ulquiorra was the first to be enveloped, but the sphere didn't stop there. It kept expanding, swallowing the battlefield — Kaname, Bazz-B, Cang Du, and Grimmjow alike.
Kaname stopped mid-step, his spiritual senses flaring.
Bazz-B's eyes widened in alarm as the dark reishi wave closed in. "You've gotta be kidding— Askin, you're crazy!"
*****
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✓ Killed For 100 Years in Hueco Mundo, Aizen Invited Me To Soul Society!
✓ Naruto: Senmei Asahi
✓ Naruto: Uchiha's Intelligence Dealer
✓ Naruto: The Fifth Hokage Is Naruto's Uncle
✓ Naruto: Who Made Him a Ninja?
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✓ To Love-Ru: Spoiler Route [R-18]
✓ Naruto: The Accidental Incubus [R-18]
✓ The Academy's Saint Is Too Popular, But He's Not the Protagonist [R-18]