"Final Flame Sword: Sun-Clad Armor."
"Its temperature reaches fifteen million degrees. You cannot even touch me."
"At this moment, both my body and my blade are wrapped in the sun itself."
The roar of the flames thundered through the speakers and echoed into the audience's ears as though the very air inside the venue had caught fire. And the instant Yamamoto-Taicho revealed the true nature of his power, a silent shock swept across the entire crowd.
Even children knew that the surface of the sun was around six thousand degrees.
Fifteen million.
That was no longer a metaphor for power. That was the core of the sun turned into a weapon.
Across from him, Sosuke Aizen's expression shifted as well. His face remained calm, but there was gravity in his eyes now, a cold, absolute focus. He lifted the zanpakuto in his hand ever so slightly, as though preparing to unveil yet another hidden card.
"You're going to use Kyoka Suigetsu again? How tedious."
Yamamoto-Taicho spoke with disdain, yet his hands did not hesitate for even a second. The Final Flame Sword plunged violently into the ground, and the old commander's voice rang out like a judgment passed down by a war god.
"Spirits of the dead, I grant you once more the joy of battle..."
"Final Flame Sword: Great Funeral of the Trillions of Burning Dead."
The ground of Karakura Town, already overturned by Aizen's previous destruction, suffered a second desecration. Cracks split open everywhere. From the depths below, countless charred skeletons began clawing their way upward, their scorched hair hanging in ragged strands, their blackened bones still carrying the stain of fire, their every movement soaked in hatred. These were the dead once slain by Ryujin Jakka, now turned into Yamamoto-Taicho's puppets, dragging with them a curse so thick it seemed capable of staining the screen itself.
"You won't even have the chance to use your hypnosis!"
The Captain-Commander's roar tore across the battlefield, and the sight of those dead surging forward in waves was enough to send a chill down countless spines. This was not merely a powerful technique. It was sacrilegious, cruel, overwhelming to the point of horror.
The reactions exploded instantly. Some called it the most savage Bankai ever shown. Others were already asking in disbelief whether a battle on this level meant the story was approaching its end. Many still clung to the idea that Aizen could only retreat, because imagining his victory against Yamamoto-Taicho felt too absurd, even for a series like this.
But Sosuke Aizen kept moving forward.
"You think puppets like these can restrain me, Captain-Commander?"
His voice remained composed, clean, entirely free of urgency. He cut down the spirits rushing toward him and shot straight toward Yamamoto-Taicho. Yet before his next strike could land, a mountain of skeletons erupted from the earth and intercepted his blade. Bony arms reached out from every direction, clamping onto his shoulders, torso, legs, and wrists, pinning him in place with a savage, desperate grip.
"Well?" Yamamoto-Taicho advanced one step at a time, his voice growing colder with every word. "Now that it has come to this, do you regret the path you chose?"
He did not wait for an answer.
"You want to run? Fine."
"I will catch you the very next moment... and kill you."
The instant the words fell, his sword rose once more. Cloaked in heat that rivaled the sun, the blade descended toward Aizen's head, drawing nearer and nearer, inevitable, ready to split him in two.
The entire audience held its breath.
The fans supporting the Soul Reapers shot to their feet, shouting before the strike even landed. On the other side, those cheering for Aizen and the Arrancar clasped their hands together like a silent prayer, their eyes locked onto the screen, unable to blink.
Then Aizen smiled.
"Beautiful."
It was only a single word, but it was enough to make Yamamoto-Taicho's face change instantly. A colossal surge of spiritual pressure erupted from Aizen's body like a beast finally breaking free of its cage. The impact was so violent that the old commander, who had been a mere instant away from cleaving his enemy in half, was hurled backward for more than a hundred meters.
"What...?"
Disbelief cut through his voice.
The smoke began to thin slowly. Footsteps echoed through it, steady and unhurried, and the figure that emerged was no longer the same as before.
Sosuke Aizen stepped out in a new form.
His brown hair, swept back, now fell all the way to his waist. His eyes were deeper than night itself, carrying a dark glimmer that made people uneasy just from looking at him. At the center of his chest, a sphere pulsed with a radiance impossible to fully describe, beautiful and menacing at once, as though it contained some higher law of existence within it.
The moment that spiritual pressure spread outward, even the captains watching from afar changed expression. The shock was immediate.
That power had already reached the same level as Yamamoto-Taicho.
The comments erupted again. At last, some said, Aizen's new form had appeared. Others wondered whether this was his true trump card. And amid the chaos, plenty of voices were already captivated by the sheer visual impact of it: long-haired Aizen looked impossibly imposing. Deep down, many of them had known all along that this could never end so easily. A villain like him would never step onto the stage without a final answer hidden beneath the surface.
"As expected... worthy of the strongest Soul Reaper since the founding of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, Yamamoto-Taicho."
For the third time, Aizen praised the old commander with complete sincerity. A smile appeared on his face, yet in that state, the expression no longer carried elegance or calm. There was something deeply disturbing about it now, something that made the scalp prickle for no reason at all.
"Only you could force me this far, push me to the edge, and compel the Hogyoku to evolve."
The Hogyoku.
Only then did many viewers remember. In the middle of such overwhelming spectacle, they had nearly forgotten that thing still existed.
"Evolve...?"
Even with Bankai still active, Yamamoto-Taicho's brow tightened.
"Exactly." Aizen lifted his gaze, and his voice grew lower, heavier. "The Hogyoku is capable of absorbing the desires of the hearts around it and making them reality. It can also prevent its host from dying. When the host's life or power is pushed to a critical point, it leads them to a new stage."
The smile on his lips deepened.
"Unfortunately, my strength had already surpassed the combined might of the Espada. There was no one left around me who could make me feel genuine danger."
His eyes locked onto Yamamoto-Taicho.
"That is why I chose you."
"The strongest Soul Reaper since the founding of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, wielding the strongest zanpakuto... only you could drive me into the desperation needed for the Hogyoku to take me beyond."
"And now... I have succeeded."
At that point, the reaction in the real world was already beginning to turn into something else entirely.
Inside the entertainment industry, everyone watching could feel it clearly. The younger actresses, the rising stars, the women who had started the series out of simple curiosity were now thoroughly ensnared by Aizen's presence. Some were dazzled by Alex's acting. Others had simply fallen for the character completely. It was always like that with villains of this kind. A protagonist had to grow, stumble, learn, and rise. The audience needed to witness the climb. But someone like Aizen could be introduced fully complete. Perfect from the moment he first stepped onto the stage. Frighteningly perfect.
And Sosuke Aizen was not merely powerful. He was refined in every possible way. Appearance, bearing, voice, intelligence, control, charisma, cruelty - everything about him seemed tuned toward achieving an almost unfair level of allure. And when the audience watched Yamamoto-Taicho, who had looked like a living calamity only a minute earlier, get pulled exactly where Aizen wanted him, the feeling became unavoidable: Alex had created a final boss who was nearly flawless.
For the male actors who already couldn't stand Alex, it was even worse. Because behind Aizen, they could see the enormous gulf between his talent and theirs. And that difference was neither small nor debatable. It was brutal. They could torment themselves trying to deny it, but deep down, they knew they would never have conceived a character of that magnitude.
No one needed to say it out loud.
This week, Aizen would dominate the conversation again.
On the screen, Yamamoto-Taicho let out a furious roar and charged like a meteor wrapped in flame.
"Insolent!"
The spiritual pressure pouring from Aizen was now enough to make him feel real danger. Even so, it had not surpassed his own by some utterly insurmountable margin. There was still a chance.
But Yamamoto-Taicho knew better than anyone that, at this point, a chance was not enough.
He had to win.
He had to, because if he failed, then no one else would remain who could stop that monster.
The two clashed again, and for the third time they delivered a battle that seemed far too grand for television. The sky wailed. The earth trembled. Even space itself seemed to lament the collision of their power.
Watching from outside the battlefield, Mark swallowed hard.
"The amount of money burned on these visual effects is probably on the level of an entire movie budget..."
Lena rolled her eyes.
"Do you even realize how many fans Bleach has around the world?"
Her answer came with the natural ease of someone who saw the full picture. Broadcast rights, reruns, merchandise, future licensing, event invitations, paid appearances, partnerships - by now, Alex's work was no longer just a series. It was an empire. Even she understood why so many women in the industry, despite knowing exactly what kind of man he was, still couldn't stop fantasizing about becoming Mrs. Alex.
Mark let out an awkward laugh. Even though he had already profited immensely just from playing the protagonist, he still felt intimidated by the sheer scale of what he was seeing on screen.
This was wealth on an almost indecent level.
But the spectacle was not over yet.
"This kind of attack no longer works on me."
Faced with those endless legions of burning spirits and corpses, Aizen - now fusing with the Hogyoku - merely moved his sword once. The impact crushed an entire hill-sized mass of skeletons and reduced it to dust. The supreme technique of the Final Flame Sword could no longer hold him back.
Then Yamamoto-Taicho played another card.
"Way of Destruction #96... Ittokaso!"
It was a high-level spiritual art, one of those techniques that normally demanded the user's own body as a sacrifice. But under the state of Sun-Clad Armor, its destructive power had been amplified to the highest possible degree. The crimson blast tore through the battlefield and finally struck Aizen.
For an instant, it looked as though the attack had done some damage. A thin line of blood nearly traced its way down beside his forehead.
It was little, but it was still something.
Yet before the fans on the heroes' side could fully cling to that relief, Shunsui's voice rang out from the distance, heavy with despair.
"Even in this state... Ittokaso only managed to do that much?"
The line killed that relief at its root.
Only that much?
Was that all that remained?
The sense of powerlessness returned at once, colder than before. If even Yamamoto-Taicho, at this monstrous level, had no way to win... then what was left?
And at that moment, from within the red flames that still had not fully dispersed, a hand suddenly emerged.
It clamped down hard on the blade of Aizen's zanpakuto.
Yamamoto-Taicho.
The old commander reappeared wrapped in fire, half his body charred black, his face filled with a resolve that had already moved far beyond fear of death.
"I've got you... Sosuke Aizen."
Aizen let out a brief laugh, almost amused.
"And what do you intend to do now? Are you certain that the body you seized... is really mine?"
"That's true..." Yamamoto-Taicho tightened his grip on the blade even harder, despite his left hand being blackened, cracked, his fingers nearly severed in the process. The sight was so brutal that many viewers could barely stand to look at it. "Simply watching with your eyes... or trusting what your body feels... that is not enough to break your hypnosis."
He raised his head, and his eyes burned.
"But the spiritual pressure flowing from your sword does not lie!"
Aizen kept smiling.
"You're going to use the Final Flame Sword from this distance? At this range, even you will be swallowed by it."
Yamamoto-Taicho roared back, pouring his entire soul into the words.
"I bear the name of Captain-Commander! I resolved myself to this long ago!"
His spiritual pressure erupted once again. The world seemed to freeze. The sky, the earth, the very space around them was flooded by a force so overwhelming that any instinct for survival would have bent beneath it.
He held nothing back.
Not even the slightest trace of hesitation.
He would not allow Aizen even the smallest opening to escape.
At that moment, even Aizen's most devoted fans fell silent. Even those who had wanted the Soul Reapers to lose could not stop themselves from feeling respect. Because in the face of that decision, in the face of that old man willing to die alongside his enemy in order to save everyone else, there was no longer room for sarcasm.
Only reverence remained.
And then, like a sentence pronounced from the depths of hell, Aizen's voice rang out once more.
"You walked right into my trap, Yamamoto-Taicho."
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