The moment Kai entered the Legendary Grade starship, a power took hold of him.
It rattled his Mysteries, propping up an invisible, unbreakable mental wall in Kai's mind, preventing him from even thinking of accessing them again.
The power accomplished that by enclosing Kai's Mindscape — the Ad Infinitum — in a spherical dome, practically making the Echoes, including the ones that already existed and the ones he had planned to infest the starship with, useless.
The power didn't stop there, though.
It distorted reality.
Activated Fiend and brought it to completion.
Restricted the Skills that remained constantly activated, like Biokinesis and Petyr's Relentless Love.
Going against logic, it made the use of all Abilities, other than those that had become Mysteries, sluggish.
And all that brought such nausea, a faux powerlessness, over Kai that he had never experienced before, forcing him to stumble, his knees striking the metallic floor with loud thuds.
It was less to do with the restricted Skills and Abilities themselves and more with how Kai kept sharing them with Black at a rate of several hundred times per second.
Ever since almost succumbing to the Blind Executioner's Bankai, Kai had been forced to adopt such a method, allotting it a significant portion of Ad Infinitum's processing power. In that way, if they happened to find themselves in a similar scenario, one of them could get away with the most crucial Skills and Abilities, drastically increasing their chances of survival.
The sudden breakage of that crucial, survival-related process made Kai falter.
He narrowed his eyes, realizing the worst Lucky Intuition had come true.
…
Lucky Intuition No. #$#$#$# — Once I enter the ship, I cannot trust my senses, as the first thing that the Inquisitors will do is to cripple Ad Infinitum and smother my Luck.
…
That was all well and good, though.
Kai had come here not to conspire against Fate, but to throw a Name and sow a Doubt.
Once he had done that, it would give the Inquisitors a fresh target — Zelretch the Deep One from Fate Bubble. Under the Trial's procedure, they would be forced to chase the Deep One down and know the truth from Him regarding Selene.
But…
Selene would have already received the Father of Jewel Magecraft's True Ancestor Blessing by then, becoming one of his most interesting projects — a non-human species with a chance of becoming a Successor, something none of His past experiments had been able to accomplish because of The Banished One.
Good luck convincing Zelretch to let go of Selene to be slaughtered, then.
No matter how powerful the Inquisition was, and no matter if even a Deep One needed to follow its rules, Kai had absolute trust in Zelretch to find a way to cheat the system.
And the best way to do that was to stretch things to infinity.
There was no time limit to the Inquisition's completion.
So, what did it matter if it completed in the next ten years, or a hundred, or… thousands of years?
For the Inquisitors that amount of time mattered less.
For the Deep Ones, it was inconsequential.
But, for Kai, it would be a chance to grow unrestricted.
Once he became a King-level existence himself, he would easily come back to Harry Potter and annihilate the entire Order of Immortal Lotus, who had accused him of the crime regarding the Night of Truce, making the entire Inquisition invalid.
The greatest thing about this plan was that it was simple.
Kai would neither need to scheme against the Inquisitors, nor would he need to search for drastic measures… like moving up the Timeline's Karmic Dissolution to… right now.
With Zelretch and The Banished One's involvement in the matter, the Inquisitors would be stuck in the middle of the process.
In fact, he wouldn't even give them another choice but to reach out to Zelretch and confirm the veracity of his claims, Kai had decided.
Taking some confidence in that simple but infallible scheme, Kai took a deep breath and nodded.
Suddenly, a mechanical noise entered his ears.
Kai looked forward and found R2-D2. Once the droid noticed that he was looking at it, it turned around and rolled away, heading deeper into the empty corridor.
Frowning, the Contestant stood up and followed the droid.
…
Sousuke Aizen.
Darth Vader.
Dracula.
Kai had known that he wouldn't be able to sense the immenseness of their powers just by standing in their presence. So, all he had planned to do was to observe the three Inquisitors and let the AI record as many variables as it could.
With the AI clogged under a blurry mist, befuddling its processors, that task was already a pointless endeavor.
However, even then, Kai had never expected he would see one more person, other than the Inquisitors. One person who had no business being present during his Inquisition. One person who hadn't even remotely come into the picture during the times of the Night of Truce.
Albus Dumbledore.
There was a table in the middle of the Court, projecting a hologram of the Earth; the Earth in whose space the ship was suspended.
Lord Black Phoenix stood on the left side of that table, looking at him.
Kai, without getting any direction, walked to the opposite side of that order before coming to a stop.
"The Inquisition will begin with statements from Witnesses first, Yellow Warlock," Dracula, seated in the middle of the three Inquisitors on a high-backed chair, said flatly. "Along with the Witnesses, we will also accept Evidence about the Inquisition submitted by them, if we find it relevant. Once we have covered all the Witnesses and Evidence, you will be given a chance to present your defense."
Kai used Calm and didn't let a frown appear on his face.
Dracula didn't present those words as a question, but as a statement.
Which meant that Kai would have no choice but to follow the process.
Which, in turn, meant he would have no time, or chance, to throw the Name and sow the Doubt as per his simple plan.
Which meant… he would have to improvise on the spot… with a clogged Ad Infinitum and smothered Lucky Intuitions.
Meanwhile, Sousuke Aizen tapped the arm of his chair, carrying a small smile on his face.
"Let the Trial…" the Inquisitor from Bleach Bubble said, looking at Kai. "… Begin."