A short while ago in another universe…
Coyote Starrk was floating high in the air over a large city. However, he didn't appear in the same form that he was currently in at the Military Base. He was in the same form as the image that had appeared before Tsukuru. In each of his hands, Starrk held a longsword made out of glowing, light-blue energy.
Starrk was currently fighting a somewhat old man with long, brown hair pulled into a ponytail. Due to his hair being pulled back, you could see the roots, and his forehead was bare. He had a single, thick bang of hair that hung down from the right side of his head, reaching down to his left cheek. The man wore a long-sleeved black robe with a thick white sash around his waist. He also wore a set of tan sandals.
In each hand, the man carried a large scimitar sword. Although the one in his right hand was longer than the one in his left.
"Black," the man replied, and swung his left arm out. The sword slashed cleanly across Starrk's chest in a horizontal arc to the right, going straight across the black circleon his chest. An unusually high amount of blood was created from the wound, and cracks began to spread out from around the black hole, like glass shattering. Blood began to spurt from the cracks.
A moment later, a geyser of blood erupted from Starrk's chest. It looked like a dam had just been ruptured. Starrk then began to fall from the sky.
As he did, he glanced over at another man. The man had short, spiky, gelled-back, brown hair, and wore a long-sleeved white suit.
"I'm sorry, Lord Aizen," Starrk replied. "It seems…that I won't be able to repay you."
However, at that exact moment, Starrk's body began to change. His whole body began glowing light-blue, and he began to look like a translucent hologram. A moment later, Starrk's whole body began to physically glitch. Then, he glitched out of existence.
Looking down at Starrk, the eyes of the man with the ponytail widened upon seeing this.
'What was that?' he thought.
***
Starrk glitched back into existence in a strange place. It was an endless, light-blue sky with an endless, long slab of jet-black earth. There was a strange grid pattern covering the ground, glowing in a light-blue hue. Floating through the air were countless little square and rectangular pixels.
As Starrk appeared in the strange place, his whole body had changed. The massive wound on his chest was now completely gone. It was as if the man in the ponytail had never cut him down in the first place.
Additionally, his wardrobe had changed. First of all, his eyepatch was now gone. Secondly, he was now wearing a strange, full-body white outfit. Its top consisted of a long-sleeved white tunic with black accents. The bottom of the tunic seemed to have a mismatched length, as the right side reached down to his ankles, while the left side only reached down to his thigh. This allowed his pleated pants to be shown on his left side. He also wore a thick, black sash around his waist. Shoved under the sash on his right hip was a katana sword. The sword had a gold handle and scabbard, but had a white pommel and handle.
He also now had the lower jaw of a white skeleton around his neck like a weird necklace.
Starrk held out his arms in front of him at chest level and looked down at them. Seeing that the ash-gray fur on his sleeves was now gone, his eyes narrowed.
"What happened to my Resurrección?" he asked.
A moment later, strange symbols began to appear in the air in front of Starrk in the form of glowing light-blue lines. The lines formed a sort of magic circle. It consisted of two overlaid, five-pointed trapezoids. The two trapezoids were reversed, with the top one right side-up and the one belowitupside-down. Doing so, they formed a ten-point star. While the five points of the bottom trapezoid all had circles depicting an eye inside, the five points of the top trapezoid each contained a smaller, but no less intricate, magic circle. At the very center of the magic circle, there was an eight-pointed octogram.
And at the dead-center of this octogram, there was another circle. Contained in this circle was a triangle with an eye in the center. Finally, the magical circle had a set of runes lining its border.
Seeing the strange symbols in the air in front of him, Starrk's face took on a look of suspicion. The magic circle was quite large. Being equivalent in size to a Portal.
Slowly, Starrk stepped forward towards the magic circle. As he pressed his left hand flat against it, the magic circle rippled like a pond.
Then, Starrk felt something on the other side. He felt…a hand. And a small hand at that. No bigger than that of a teenager.
Acting on pure instinct, Starrk wrapped his fingers around the hand. He could feel the warmth of the person's body heat and feel their pulse.
A moment later, Starrk felt his arm slowly being pulled in.
His eyes widened in surprise.
Out of curiosity and slight boredom, Starrk stepped through the magic circle, letting the hand on the other side guide him.
When Starrk emerged on the other side, he let go of the hand and stretched his arms high above his head.
"Man, that was a weird dream," he muttered, assuming that everything that just happened was all in his head, and that he had just woken up from one of his usual naps in Los Noches. "It's kind of weird waking up by myself. Usually Lilynette does that for me."
Starkk then cracked his neck.
"Hey, Lilynette!" he yelled. "I'm up!"
However, there was no response.
"Lilynette?" he asked.
Confused, Starkk then opened his eyes.
As he did, his eyes narrowed. He now found himself in a strange room. While its walls had the same white coloring as Los Noches, it looked somewhat more modern. It looked…for a lack of a better term…Human. In the middle of the room, there was a long, rectangular table.
"This isn't Los Noches…" he muttered.
Starrk's gaze drifted downwards, and he saw the person whose hand had dragged him through the Portal. And when he did, he found himself shocked. The individual was significantly smaller than Starrk had expected. It was a short boy possessing short, blonde hair, and wearing a strange navy-blue uniform with splotches of gray.
'He kind of reminds me of that ice kid who was fighting Harribel,' Starrk thought.
"Who are you?" he asked. "And…where am I?"
The boy continued to stare at Starrk for a moment. As he did, Starrk noticed that he had a somewhat complicated look on his face. As if he were trying to figure out how to explain a hard truth to Starrk.
Eventually, the boy let out a sigh and turned towards the back of the room.
As he did, Starrk followed his gaze. In the back of the room, he saw a woman in her early twenties. She had long brown hair that reached down to her back, and wore the same outfit as the boy. Albeit being more form-fitting.
"Shizuka," the boy replied, obviously talking to the woman. "Get me a tablet."
***
Back in the present, at a random point between two broken-down buildings in the abandoned Human Shelter on Pioletic, a small cluster of Rattaclaws was scurrying about, searching for food.
Suddenly, the space between the buildings began to distort. Electricity fired off in random directions.
The Rattaclaws let out a "scree" and scurried away like rats from a sinking ship.
A moment later, a tear appeared in the air, forming a large vortex of swirling purple energy.
Slowly, a figure began to emerge. A young woman with light-blue hair that reached down to her back. She wore the typical uniform of Military Base 2, although it was significantly shredded.
As the woman walked through, the swirling vortex began to collapse in on itself. A moment later, it snapped shut.
The woman looked around.
"So far, so good," she replied, before snapping her head towards the right side of the shelter. "Now, to the Training Center."
She took a few steps forward and spotted the corpse of a dead Rattaclaw nearby. Embedded in its head was a moderately large dagger with a significantly wide blade. The dagger was jet-black in color, making it look as if it were carved out of volcanic glass.
The woman smiled and approached the Beast.
"Officially, this 'Salvage Mission' was a total loss," she replied as she easily wrenched the dagger out. Looking down at it, she could see that its blade was covered in dried Beast blood. "However, I suppose that I can 'salvage' at least one of student Hikiko's daggers."