"What is it? Why won't you act? Sosuke Aizen, if you steal my Bankai, you can end this battle immediately, can't you?"
Seeing Aizen remain motionless for far too long, Yamamoto-Taicho spoke again, provoking him without the slightest trace of impatience.
That attitude, however, nearly gave the shinigami fans watching a collective heart attack.
Seriously, old man… did you really have to keep talking?
If Aizen still hadn't stolen your Bankai, then why not just finish him off already?
People always said only villains liked to toy with their advantage, yet here stood one of the greatest symbols of the righteous side doing exactly the same thing, as if he were daring fate itself to answer him.
Even so, Aizen still did not move.
Yamamoto-Taicho narrowed his eyes beneath his heavy brows and let out a cold, cutting smile.
"As I thought. It isn't that you don't want to steal my Bankai… it's that you simply can't."
The words detonated like a blast.
Can't?
But why?
Without haste, almost as if he were stepping beyond the screen to explain it directly to the audience, Yamamoto-Taicho began to reveal his reasoning.
"A tool capable of stealing a Bankai - a finishing technique - should not have been used against the inexperienced brats under my command. The proper moment would have been to wait until I released mine. Then you could have taken it in one stroke."
His voice carried absolute certainty.
"And yet you chose to reveal that trump card from the very beginning. That gave me room to stay on guard. With a mind like yours, it is impossible that you did not realize that."
Then he delivered his conclusion, each word heavier than the last.
"That is why I arrived at a single answer. If you did not do it… then there can only be one reason."
His voice rose sharply, slicing through the air like a blade.
"You are incapable of stealing my Bankai."
The whole world seemed to hold its breath.
Yamamoto-Taicho did not stop.
"That badge of yours must require a specific condition in order to steal a Bankai… am I wrong?"
Outside the story, countless fans dressed in shinigami robes burst into applause. The feeling was so overwhelming that many were instantly reminded of L from Death Note.
In that story, L had risked his own life to prove that the Death Note needed both a face and a name to kill. And now Yamamoto-Taicho was doing the exact same thing - betting his own body to rip the truth out of his enemy.
It carried that same flavor of psychological warfare: sharp, elegant, merciless.
Exactly what one would expect from a work by Alex.
On screen, after a brief silence, Sosuke Aizen finally smiled.
"As expected of the most powerful shinigami of the last thousand years, Yamamoto-Taicho. You are correct. The activation of this badge does indeed require a condition."
His pause was brief, but deliberate.
"The Bankai being stolen must remain within the range that its wielder is capable of controlling."
Then he feigned regret, though the gleam in his eyes told a different story.
"What a shame. Your Bankai is simply too powerful. Naturally, this badge cannot activate its ability against it."
Yamamoto-Taicho let out a snort laced with contempt.
"If that is the case, then this invention is hardly impressive. The children under my command need harsher training as well. To think they had their strength taken by something so trivial…"
The old commander's half-lidded eyes concealed a murderous intent.
"All of the crimes you have committed end here, Sosuke Aizen."
The moment the words fell, Yamamoto-Taicho surged forward with Zanka no Tachi in hand, launching himself straight at Aizen.
And the image froze right there.
"Next episode! Come on, next episode!"
In a single instant, hundreds of millions of viewers across the world completely lost their minds.
It was too insane.
The final season had barely begun, and the Captain-Commander - the absolute ceiling of power among the Thirteen Court Guard Squads - had already revealed his Bankai in the very first episode. In any other series, a card like that would be saved for the end, maybe even the final climax itself.
Alex understood the audience in a way that was almost infuriating.
"I really didn't expect the Captain-Commander to be that monstrous. His Bankai is so absurd that even Aizen's new artifact can't steal it."
Groups of boys watching together argued loudly, still buzzing with excitement.
And it made sense. If that object had no limitations at all, it would have been too invincible.
But amid the hype, a smaller part of the audience began to feel something else.
Unease.
At first, seeing two absolute monsters clash to the death was thrilling. But once the adrenaline settled even a little, the inevitable thought began creeping in.
If Aizen were truly defeated there by Yamamoto-Taicho… then what would be left of the story?
After all, Ichigo Kurosaki was the protagonist.
Shouldn't the final boss fall to the protagonist's hands?
Which meant Yamamoto-Taicho might…
But before that thought could fully take shape, those viewers shook their heads hard, as if trying to drive it out by force.
Forget it.
Better not think about that yet.
If Aizen really could defeat a monster like Yamamoto-Taicho, then everyone wanted to see what method he would use to do it.
The second episode began.
Yamamoto-Taicho vanished with a flash step and reappeared right in front of Aizen. The spiritual pressure pouring from him was so overwhelming that every time he stepped through the air, the space itself exploded with a terrifying sonic boom.
The blackened blade, glowing like charred metal fresh from the furnace, carved through the void.
Aizen, cautious, did not dare block it head-on with Kyoka Suigetsu. He twisted aside at the last second, and the tip of the sword tore away a fragment of his white cloak.
No flames?
Aizen's brow tightened ever so slightly.
If there were no visible flames, then what exactly was the power of that Bankai?
The answer came in the very next instant - and it was so extreme that it left the entire world stunned.
At the exact moment the tip of Zanka no Tachi brushed against the fabric of Aizen's robe, nearly one-third of Karakura Town vanished.
Not "turned to ash."
That still would not have been enough to describe it.
Ash was something that remained.
This left nothing.
In a single instant, too fast for human eyes to follow, everything was consumed, erased, broken down to the molecular level and scattered into the air. All that remained was an enormous burning crater, so deep it seemed bottomless.
That single swing left billions of Bleach fans across the world in utter shock.
Even the blindest Aizen fanatics went silent.
It was too strong.
So strong it felt offensive.
In a low voice, Yamamoto-Taicho finally revealed the nature of that form.
Zanka no Tachi concentrated the entirety of Ryujin Jakka's heat into the very tip of the blade. It did not burn with spreading flames, nor did it erupt in blazing explosions. It simply erased whatever it touched, wiping it from existence without leaving a trace behind.
A heavy silence fell over the audience.
Less than an hour earlier, everyone had been worried about the fate of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads.
Now, for the first time, they had started worrying about Aizen.
Because that was absurd.
Absurdly oppressive.
"Can… can Aizen really beat that?"
But Aizen himself, after the briefest flicker of surprise, regained his composure almost instantly. His expression returned to its usual calm, as though he had already reorganized the entire battle in his head.
"Worthy of the oldest and most powerful Zanpakuto. Even so… surprisingly manageable."
And contrary to what many expected, he made the first move.
"If that is the case, then all I need to do is kill you without touching that blade."
Then, in the next moment, his voice cleaved through the battlefield.
"Hado number ninety-nine… Goryutenmetsu."
The effects exploded in full force.
The ground of Karakura Town began to crack apart. The vice-captains who had already fallen on the battlefield went pale the moment they felt the crushing force of that kidō.
"Everyone, run!"
Luckily, at that moment, Jushiro Ukitake and Shunsui Kyoraku had recovered just enough mobility to act. Without wasting a second, they grabbed the fallen vice-captains and dragged them out of the impact zone with every ounce of strength they had left.
From the broken earth, a pale violet pressure erupted upward, as if the ground itself had been torn open.
Then it took shape.
Five colossal dragons, roaring toward the heavens.
The sight made the audience's scalps tingle.
Just moments earlier, Aizen had casually shown off a level ninety spell with terrifying ease.
And now he was throwing a level ninety-nine technique onto the screen as if raising the stakes on a whim.
The eastern dragons opened their jaws and lunged in fury, large enough to devour an entire city without effort. In the next instant, they swallowed Yamamoto-Taicho whole.
Most people thought the same thing.
No matter how monstrous the Captain-Commander's Bankai was, that was still a Hado of level ninety-nine.
There was no way he could come out unharmed.
But in the very next second, the dragons were torn apart from the inside out.
The scene perfectly mirrored what Aizen had done earlier when he had dispersed Yamamoto-Taicho's wall of fire with pure spiritual pressure - except now the roles had been reversed with brutal force.
"Foolish!"
Yamamoto-Taicho's voice thundered from the heart of the collapse with overwhelming majesty.
"Did you not hear what I said?"
Then came the second revelation of his Bankai.
A torrent of indescribable heat began pouring from the old commander's body. Not like ordinary flame, but like an infernal mantle fused to his very existence. The fire wrapped around him like living armor, surging across his body, climbing over his face, igniting even his eyebrows and beard with a terrifying glow.
Yamamoto-Taicho stood there, upright in the center of destruction, surrounded by an aura so extreme it felt capable of reducing the world itself to a wasteland of ashes.
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