The instant the blue crescent finished taking shape, Ichigo Kurosaki swung Zangetsu hard and released another crescent.
The two crescents crossed into a shining cross and shot toward Grand Fisher.
"Getsuga Jūjishō!"
Grand Fisher looked completely at ease. He had just cut through a single crescent without any trouble. How much stronger could two be?
With a savage grin, he swung his blade down. But the moment his sword struck the crossed crescents, the grin on his face froze.
An overwhelming force burst from the point where the two crescents intersected, driving his huge blade back by force and pinning it tightly against his shoulder.
The ring in Ichigo Kurosaki's palm gave off a faint glow. With a twist of his wrist, the cross-shaped crescent that had nearly come to a stop suddenly spun at high speed, drawing in the surrounding Reishi.
The massive crossed crescent compressed into a single point, and the instant it reached its critical limit, it exploded.
Violent Reishi surged outward in a terrifying shockwave. As the smoke and dust cleared, Grand Fisher's mangled body was revealed.
Of the long blade that had seemed so fearsome before, only the hilt remained in his hand. Grand Fisher's ribs were exposed through torn flesh, stark white bone visible beneath the gore as thick blood dripped down.
"You..." Grand Fisher staggered, forcing himself upright, and stared at Ichigo Kurosaki in disbelief. "You were actually holding back just now?!"
The gap between the power of the two attacks was far too obvious. Ichigo Kurosaki clearly had not used his full strength in the first strike.
"Sorry about that. I've already gotten the hang of this kind of power." Ichigo Kurosaki's gaze was cold and indifferent as he slightly altered Grand Fisher's earlier words. "I'm afraid I can't let you die too easily."
"Damn it..." Grand Fisher had originally planned to drag Ichigo Kurosaki's corpse to Muten Natsu. Now it looked far more likely that he would be the one ending up dead. The boy he had once been able to toy with so casually had grown this far.
"How dare you get arrogant in front of me, you damn brat!"
"Don't think that was all I had!"
Grand Fisher raised the broken blade in front of himself.
"Reel in. Pez Cazador Real!"
Sharp, broad scales layered over his body one after another. The severe wounds covering him healed completely the instant he released Resurrección. Grand Fisher's body swelled even further, and reverse-growing spines sprouted from his back, each one longer than the last. The longest rose from the top of his head like an enormous fishing rod, ending in a bizarre crimson head that opened its mouth to reveal rows of densely packed spikes inside.
"An Arrancar's Zanpakutō is different from a Shinigami's. It seals the core of our power into the form of a blade."
The scales on Grand Fisher's body rippled and clattered together with crisp metallic sounds.
"The release of that blade unleashes our true power and our true form. Tremble before this strength. And before you die, regret your sins with everything you have!"
"I'm not like you. I didn't seal my power away. Before you got here, I had already released quite a lot of power during training."
Ichigo Kurosaki looked at his palm.
"And my left hand can gather the Getsuga I release back together."
Grand Fisher's heart lurched. Ichigo Kurosaki's calm, matter-of-fact reaction gave him an uneasy feeling.
Ichigo Kurosaki raised his left hand.
"So... take a guess. Before you arrived, how many Getsuga do you think I released?"
"Bluffing. "
Grand Fisher's voice cut off abruptly.
His terrifying ability to gather Reishi erupted in full. The converging spirit particles became a storm, swallowing Grand Fisher's voice whole.
"Getsuga..."
Ichigo Kurosaki shifted slightly, and countless blue crescents packed his left palm. As he swung his blade, they burst forth all at once.
"Ranbu! (Rampage)!"
The exploding crescents rained down on Grand Fisher, crisscrossing through the air and sealing off every possible path of escape.
Grand Fisher had nowhere to run. The instant he worked up the courage to counterattack, his long spines were cut away, his tough scales shattered and blasted off, his flesh sliced apart, and his bones severed. The storm of crescents carried Grand Fisher's blood high into the sky before it fell back down as a crimson rain.
Ichigo Kurosaki looked up.
After six years, the rain fell across his face one last time, then dissolved into Reishi.
"Thank you," Ichigo Kurosaki said, his voice trembling slightly. "Muten."
Muten Natsu stepped out from the darkness nearby.
"I didn't do anything."
"Thank you for not doing anything. That let me finish all of this on my own."
"Do you feel a little better now?"
"A little..." Ichigo Kurosaki's tightly drawn brows eased at last. "I was never really that full of hatred for a Hollow like that to begin with."
Muten Natsu tilted his head.
"Hm?"
"If there's still some resentment I can't get rid of..." Ichigo Kurosaki looked up at the sky. "Then it's only that feeling of helplessness. Watching my mother die right in front of me and being unable to do anything."
Muten Natsu turned away.
"Don't direct your hatred at the wrong target, and don't be too harsh on the people close to you, the people you cherish... That's something I only realized recently."
When all you do is blame yourself, it becomes easy to overlook the concern in the eyes of the people around you.
Even if you still can't forgive yourself, that's fine. Just don't forget... even the worst version of yourself is still someone precious to those beside you.
"Muten, that Hollow just now seemed different from the ones before."
Changing the subject, huh... Muten Natsu thought, then answered casually, "I'll ask someone about it tomorrow. Don't worry about it."
Arrancar... Hollows that possessed Shinigami powers, along with a Resurrección similar to a Zanpakutō.
What Muten Natsu knew was limited, but this was obviously connected to Sōsuke Aizen.
"There are more enemies ahead, and more dangers too." Ichigo Kurosaki clenched his fists. "Muten Natsu, I want to keep fighting!"
"Are you sure? This isn't like the trip to Soul Society. I don't know anyone in Hueco Mundo... Huh?" Muten Natsu paused to think. "Actually, I might know someone after all."
"I don't want to be a child who can only cry in the rain anymore." Ichigo Kurosaki frowned again. "If I'm not ready to protect my family, then all I can do is passively endure the pain of losing them. So if there's another fight... you have to take me with you!"
"Don't worry." Muten Natsu waved a hand. "I'm not going off on my own anymore. If there's danger, I'll definitely drag you along."
Watching Muten Natsu disappear into the darkness, Ichigo Kurosaki smiled faintly.
"That move just now was amazing!" The lion doll spirit jumped onto Ichigo Kurosaki's shoulder. "You scared the hell out of me."
"Where did you run off to just now?"
"You know Modified Souls all have different abilities, right? I was using mine to help you."
Ichigo Kurosaki thought of Ririn's illusion. "What's your ability?"
"Leg enhancement." Kon puffed out his chest proudly. "I run crazy fast, so you can focus on fighting!"
Ichigo Kurosaki was silent for a moment.
"...Thanks a lot."
By the time Muten Natsu got home, the earlier misunderstanding had already been cleared up.
Even so, Orihime Inoue still looked a little shy whenever she looked at Muten Natsu, while Rukia Kuchiki's gaze toward him still held a trace of caution.
It was only when Muten Natsu brought up the Arrancar that the strange atmosphere finally disappeared completely.
Rukia Kuchiki sent a message back to Soul Society to ask about them.
The reply from Soul Society was brief, and it was not until the next day that more detailed information arrived.
Arrancar referred to Hollows that had removed their masks and gained both Hollow and Shinigami powers.
Arrancar had existed before, but their numbers had been small, and most of them had been incomplete.
The Research and Development Institute had never found many traces of Arrancar, only occasionally detecting unusual Reiatsu and making judgments based on that.
But after Sōsuke Aizen left Soul Society, the amount of observed data immediately increased.
At the same time, a large number of monitoring devices were damaged.
The Research and Development Institute concluded that Sōsuke Aizen had likely been researching Arrancar long before this, and had probably already created many Arrancar in Hueco Mundo while lying low.
Only recently had they begun to move openly and without restraint.
"The important thing is the strength of the Arrancar. Among Menos, there are three ranks." On the rooftop, Rukia Kuchiki explained while drawing diagrams. "The lowest class of Menos, Gillian, is like that old hag Hollow we saw before. Huge body, slow movements, and intelligence about on par with a wild beast."
Muten Natsu watched helplessly as Rukia Kuchiki drew pointed noses and round eyes on each little mushroom. "A Gillian is formed when hundreds of Hollows go through a long process of slaughtering and consuming each other until they finally fuse into a new individual. Souls that become Hollows lose their original self-awareness completely during that process. Everything gets twisted together in chaos, with no individual consciousness left, and they act purely on instinct."
Rukia Kuchiki drew a little bear. "But if one Hollow in that fusion has an individual consciousness and strength far greater than the others, then it may become a Gillian-class Menos with its own mind. That lower-class Menos grows stronger by devouring other Gillians of the same rank, and eventually evolves into a middle-class Menos, [Adjuchas]."
Muten Natsu added, "Compared to lower-class Menos, middle-class Menos are smaller and much rarer, but far more intelligent. Their combat ability is several times greater than that of lower-class Menos, and they lead huge numbers of them. Their features are a beast-like build and white armor similar to a Hollow mask."
With a few quick strokes, Rukia Kuchiki sketched a little rabbit. "If a middle-class Menos evolves again, it regains its sense of self during the process and becomes an upper-class Menos, [Vasto Lorde], whose form is extremely close to that of a human. Their numbers are incredibly small. It's said there are only a few in the Hollow world, but their power exceeds even that of a Captain!"
"And most importantly..." Muten Natsu pointed out the real issue. "No one knows what kind of abilities a Menos will gain after becoming an Arrancar."
Ichigo Kurosaki pictured Grand Fisher's form, so completely different from before.
He knew very well how strong a Captain was.
An upper-class Menos stronger than a Captain, and then turned into an Arrancar. The increase in power would definitely far surpass Grand Fisher's.
Yasutora Sado silently clenched his fists.
Uryū Ishida pushed up his glasses. "Why does a Menos become so much stronger after becoming an Arrancar?"
"You can think of a Hollow as a shattered Soul. The power inside the Soul breaks through its boundaries and spills out, but at the same time that power is constantly dispersing. That is why Hollows need Souls to replenish their strength and maintain their existence. The Hollow Hole in the chest is the manifestation of incomplete consciousness, and the Hollow mask is both a disguise and an escape from their true nature." Muten Natsu explained, "An Arrancar, on the other hand, represents a clearer understanding of its true self. It means instinctive power has come under rational control, so naturally its combat strength rises with it. At the same time, the core of its power, once sealed into a blade, can absorb and store the energy leaking from that damaged Soul."
"No wonder all of Grand Fisher's injuries healed after Resurrección." Ichigo Kurosaki recalled the earlier battle. "So before an Arrancar uses Resurrección, no matter how big an advantage we have, we can't let our guard down."
The bell rang for class, and their exchange of information came to an end.
"Then all we have to do is destroy them before they can use Resurrección." Uryū Ishida stood up. "At the end of the day, they're still Hollows. They're enemies that Quincy are meant to eliminate."
Uryū Ishida's Reiryoku had grown even weaker.
Even Muten Natsu, whose perception of spiritual power was extremely poor, noticed that something was wrong with Uryū Ishida.
It looked very much like the state Muten Natsu had once been in after being burned dry by Hell Flames.
When the body is pushed to the brink, the Soul uses all of its power just to maintain life.
In the process, Reiryoku is drained to exhaustion.
"Muten." Orihime Inoue, who had been quiet the whole time, tugged at Muten Natsu's sleeve. "I have an idea."
"Hm?"
"If Arrancar gain power by breaking their masks..." Orihime Inoue's big eyes sparkled. "Then could I use Sōten Kisshun to restore their masks?"
"How could that..." Muten Natsu rejected the idea on instinct. Then he thought for a moment, shook his head hard, and refused in a firm tone. "Absolutely not."
"I think I could do it..."
"Your ability might be able to," Rukia Kuchiki said, realizing what Muten Natsu was worried about, "but the process would be far too dangerous. Shun Shun Rikka could easily be damaged by an Arrancar."
Allies being healed would not attack Shun Shun Rikka, but an Arrancar being restored would never be that cooperative.
Orihime Inoue let out a disappointed sigh.
Muten Natsu rubbed her head gently. "Your ability is already incredible. You have to leave me at least a little room to shine."
"Hehehe..." Orihime Inoue nuzzled against his palm.
Rukia Kuchiki slapped Muten Natsu's hand away and pulled Orihime Inoue to the side. "No getting handsy!"
"How was I getting footsy... When was I getting handsy?" Muten Natsu rubbed his ear, his gaze drifting aside on instinct.
Rukia Kuchiki glared at him. "So you really were thinking about getting handsy with your feet too?"
"...I wasn't."
...
Karakura General Hospital.
Uryū Ishida pushed open the director's office door and heard his father's voice from behind the desk.
"So, you came?" Ryūken Ishida turned a page in the file in his hand. The floor-to-ceiling window behind him was filled with fiery red clouds. "Then tell me. What is your answer?"
"I want to..." Uryū Ishida's forearm muscles tensed, and his brows drew tightly together. "Get my Quincy powers back!"
Ryūken Ishida turned his head slightly, his eyes narrowing behind his rimless glasses. "And then?"
"I... am willing to swear it." Uryū Ishida opened his mouth and met his father's gaze. "From this day on, I will sever all ties with the Shinigami."