The crescent-shaped blade came down in a straight slash. Tijereta's slender body flickered as he used Sonído to shift positions.
He had always excelled in agility, far surpassing his companions in speed. Now that he had released his Zanpakutō and completed Resurrección, his injuries vanished, and the power he had built up for so long burst out all at once, making him far stronger than before.
Although Sonído looked similar to Shunpo, the principles behind them were slightly different. Combined with the ability to open Garganta and the instability of his own Soul, it was closer to flickering from one point to another than the high speed movement of a Shinigami's Shunpo.
It was still far from true teleportation through space, but it could briefly make his presence disappear to a certain extent, allowing him to evade Pesquisa.
The moment he noticed something unusual about Ichigo Kurosaki, Tijereta immediately used Sonído with all his strength to widen the gap between them.
He had survived in Hueco Mundo for many years and had immense combat experience.
This world was never reasonable. There were always beings so powerful that they defied belief.
At times like this, he absolutely could not act rashly. He had to open up some distance and observe calmly, avoid getting dragged into the other side's rhythm, steady himself first, stabilize the situation, and wait for a chance to move.
The blade brushed past him, and Tijereta escaped Ichigo Kurosaki's attack range.
Then...
Just as Tijereta was about to observe him carefully, a sharp edge rushed straight at him.
Zangetsu slipped free of Ichigo Kurosaki's grasp and shot toward Tijereta's face like an arrow.
This guy... Tijereta was startled and activated Sonído again.
His opponent had already let go of his weapon, so the next attack should have been delayed. That made this the perfect chance to get a clear look at his condition... What!?
The instant Sonído ended, Tijereta felt the blade bearing down on him again.
The white bandage that had been wrapped around Ichigo Kurosaki's left arm had somehow already come undone and was now tied to Zangetsu's hilt.
Ichigo Kurosaki gripped the silver ring, swung his arm, pulled the bandage tight, and yanked Zangetsu into a sweeping slash.
A chill ran through Tijereta. He had seen fighting styles like this before, so the method itself was not what shocked him. What truly disturbed him was the sheer abnormality of the other side's reaction speed. It was as if Ichigo Kurosaki could sense exactly where his Sonído would place him.
Forcing down the doubt in his heart, Tijereta calmed himself and thought it through.
This move certainly widened the attack range, but a bandage was not a hilt. Even if it could swing the blade, the force behind it had to be limited.
Tijereta was not known for strength, but if he judged the angle correctly, intercepted it from the side, and relied on Hierro for defense, then blocking this strike was not entirely impossible.
With that thought, Tijereta's blade-like finger claw struck at Zangetsu from the side. In that instant, he caught the smile on Ichigo Kurosaki's face, and unease rose in his heart.
It was even crazier than before, filled with the savagery of a Hollow.
His finger claw collided with the blade, and when he felt Zangetsu waver, Tijereta relaxed slightly.
His judgment had been correct. The force in Zangetsu was still within what he could endure.
The attack was terrifying, but not impossible to block.
That thought had barely formed when the situation changed.
A deep blue radiance converged and gathered on Zangetsu.
Tijereta's eyes flew wide open. He could not accept something so completely against all reason.
Could it be that, even in this state that was almost like a Hollow, this man could still use a Quincy's Reishi Gathering ability just as he had before?
Tijereta's judgment was not actually wrong. At this moment, Ichigo Kurosaki really could not control Reishi the way he had earlier.
But he did not need to control it.
He simply yanked back the Getsuga Blade he had released before by brute force, and then...
Boom!
The disorderly burst of Reishi unleashed a shockwave that hammered into Zangetsu, slamming the broad blade straight into Tijereta.
The sudden overwhelming force sent Tijereta flying before he could react.
Zangetsu spun through the air as even more radiance gathered around it, then exploded.
This time, the Reishi detonated along the back of the blade, driving the edge straight toward Tijereta.
Tijereta twisted his body to dodge, and another explosion roared beside his ear.
Pulled by the bandage and driven by repeated Reishi blasts, Zangetsu flew up and down through the air like a living thing, relentlessly pursuing Tijereta's figure.
No matter how agile he was, he could not come through such a continuous barrage without injury.
Amid Ichigo Kurosaki's manic laughter, the Reishi exploded again and again, accelerating Zangetsu over and over until it pierced straight through Tijereta's chest.
Tijereta's body went rigid. Then he felt an uncontrollable swelling in his chest.
The Getsuga Ichigo Kurosaki had released earlier began to gather back together wildly, using the Zangetsu embedded in his chest as its core...
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Violent power erupted again and again, completely swallowing Tijereta's slender body.
"Grimmjow..." Tijereta murmured within the Reishi storm.
At the very last moment before his consciousness faded, he remembered the day he met Grimmjow.
For a lower-tier Menos like a Gillian, there was no such thing as numbers.
Hollows devoured human souls to fill the void left by their missing core, to ease their hunger for souls, and to sustain their own existence.
But in Hueco Mundo, there were not that many human souls to consume.
Under the double pressure of outside threats and their own destruction, those too weak to survive would seek help from their own kind.
In other words, the souls of other Hollows.
Hollows seeking the souls of other Hollows would naturally gather together, then begin devouring one another. After that, their souls would merge, and they would lose themselves.
In the end, they became Gillians. Massive, powerful, and mindless.
But if one Hollow possessed abilities and self-awareness far beyond the others, and managed to hold on to its sense of self throughout the entire process, then it could take command of that fused giant body and become a self-aware Gillian. By devouring other Gillians, it could evolve further into a higher existence, the Intermediate Menos Adjuchas.
But after becoming an Intermediate Menos, an even greater terror awaited.
The terror of evolution.
Because of the hollow in their chest and the incompleteness of their Soul, a Hollow's power was always slipping away.
The stronger they became, the more power they lost.
If an Intermediate Menos could not continue devouring Hollows of the same attribute, then the consciousness it had fought so hard to preserve would gradually fade as its power dissipated.
And then...
It would devolve into a lower-tier Menos, a Gillian, lose itself completely, and never again be able to become an Intermediate Menos Adjuchas.
An individual merged into the collective in order to survive, then preserved its own will in order to lead that collective.
But if it could not control the collective's power and lead it to greater growth, then once that collective fell apart, it would lose everything.
Tijereta had realized this very early on. So he quickly gathered four other Intermediate Menos and had them act together, hunting Hollows of the same attribute across Hueco Mundo.
That was when they met Grimmjow.
That leopard-like Intermediate Menos, pathetically small compared to them.
The hunt began.
The hunt failed.
["What's your name?"]
["Grimmjow."]
["My name is Shawlong,"] Tijereta said, speaking his name aloud. ["Join us, Grimmjow."]
...
The corners of Grimmjow's mouth curled up. Paired with the Hollow mask fragment on his right cheek, it made him look even more savage. Faced with Muten Natsu's mockery, his response was simple and brutal.
Ink marks appeared beside Muten Natsu, only to be violently crushed apart in the next instant.
Bokukō spewed spiritual ink to protect his body as Muten Natsu was sent flying back into the air. The air under his feet creaked as it helped him steady himself.
"At the moment you're hit, you draw on the power inside your body and gather it at the point of impact to block the attack, and the Reiatsu that leaks out forms those ink marks." Grimmjow chased him up into the air. "But even the slightest movement affects how that power gathers, so the moment you use this move, you can't move at all. Your body freezes for an instant!"
With one punch, he blasted through the ink marks, then drove his hand blade straight forward.
"You gave up attacking on your own and settled for passive defense... idiotic!"
Another layer of ink spread out in front of Muten Natsu, expanding faster and over a wider area.
Muten Natsu poured his spiritual ink into the Ink Fortress to strengthen its defense.
"Tricks!" Grimmjow roared. As the sound waves rippled out, the spiritual ink collapsed with them.
Although the Ink Fortress could block an attack, it could only hold for an instant.
If it wanted to block again, it needed time to gather itself back together.
Grimmjow reinforced his roar with Reiatsu, using the sonic shock to trigger the Ink Fortress. Then he raised his palm like a blade and, taking advantage of that tiny gap in timing, thrust at Muten Natsu's throat.
In just one exchange, he had already seen through Muten Natsu's ability and chosen the right way to counter it based on its nature.
Beneath Grimmjow's arrogant exterior lay sharp combat instincts and an exact grasp of battle timing.
Clang!
The broad blade of Bokukō blocked Grimmjow's attack, while Myōki swept horizontally toward Grimmjow's waist and abdomen.
Ignoring Myōki's strike completely, Grimmjow opened his hand and grabbed Bokukō's blade, then flung Muten Natsu away in one motion.
Muten Natsu twisted in midair and swung Bokukō, unleashing a wild dance of ink blades.
Grimmjow flashed behind him, one hand still in his pocket, and lifted his foot to stomp down on the center of Muten Natsu's back.
Muten Natsu's figure flickered as well, reappearing from within one of the ink blades. He tugged Myōki, and threads of Reiatsu wrapped around Grimmjow's body. Entangling Silk Flash!
The Reiatsu threads caught nothing. Grimmjow grinned viciously and slashed out with a clawed hand, but he also hit nothing.
Muten Natsu used Shunpo to evade, twisting his body as he swung Myōki.
Grimmjow finally raised the hand that had been in his pocket and used his forearm to take Myōki's blade head on, then snapped a kick toward Muten Natsu's head.
Reiatsu burst from Myōki. Using Insect Flash, Muten Natsu created worm-like masses of Reiatsu that wrapped around his body and acted as an air cushion, blocking Grimmjow's attack.
The remaining force still sent Muten Natsu flying back once again.
The Hell's Eye on his forehead, ringed with bulging veins, shifted as Muten Natsu locked onto one direction.
"Where... are you looking?!" Grimmjow closed in with a claw strike, murderous intent blazing in his sky-blue eyes!
Ink bloomed in front of Muten Natsu as his footwork changed and he adjusted his position.
Although he had blocked Grimmjow, he still could not stop worrying about the others.
So he had been using the Hell's Eye the whole time to watch the other battlefields.
The most dangerous one was, unexpectedly, the Urahara Shop, the place he had felt safest about before.
Kisuke Urahara and Yoruichi Shihōin were nowhere to be seen, and Tessai Tsukabishi was not in the shop either. At that moment, only the two children, Ururu Tsumugiya and Jinta Hanakari, were there.
In front of the Urahara Shop, the crimson light at the tip of the horn-like mask on Arrancar No. 15, Yylfordt Granz, had already finished charging. His pale golden hair whipped through the air, and the handsome features on Yylfordt's face twisted as the urge for destruction in his heart showed itself together with the completion of his Cero. "Hah!"
A violent crimson torrent burst out and slammed recklessly into the barrier protecting the Urahara Shop.
The barrier covering the shop fully appeared, then shrank and condensed. By the time the Cero vanished, the sturdy barrier shattered completely like glass.
The instant he saw the barrier disappear, Jinta Hanakari let out a low shout, dove into his spiked club, and shot straight into the sky. "Ururu, run!"
Ururu Tsumugiya did not hesitate for even a moment. She moved even faster than Jinta Hanakari, but she was not running away.
"Let me see what exactly is hidden in here..." Yylfordt swung his Zanpakutō and was just about to charge into the Urahara Shop when a chill ran down his back.
The smile on his face vanished instantly as Yylfordt turned his head.
Bang!
He only managed to turn his head. The rest of his turn was completed by force under a terrifying blow.
Ururu Tsumugiya's eyes were vacant as she kicked Yylfordt in the face, sending him flying away with an explosive blast of air.
When Jinta Hanakari saw the emptiness in Ururu Tsumugiya's eyes, his heart sank.
This is bad...
Drawn out by that Arrancar's Reiatsu, something inside Ururu Tsumugiya had already awakened, pushing her into a killing state!
"Damn it!" Half of Yylfordt's face was twisted and mangled into a bloody mess, and his left eye could no longer open at all. He planted his feet against the air to steady himself. "What are you. Ugh!"
The rest of the question never left his mouth before Ururu Tsumugiya's small hand was already clamped around his throat.
"Dangerous... you... are very dangerous... to us, very dangerous. Dangerous means... enemy. If you're an enemy... then you have to be..." Ururu Tsumugiya murmured softly. Her slender fingers tightened little by little, and within those once delicate, pitiable eyes, a cold and indifferent killing intent slowly emerged. "Removed."
Her clenched fist smashed into Yylfordt's face. The violent force punched through his skull, tracing the blurred shape of a fist through the air, while a thunderous boom rang across the sky.
His throat was torn open, his right eye burst, and Yylfordt flew off to the side. Before he could even fall, another punch struck him and sent him soaring back into the air.
He swung his blade in a horizontal slash, but Ururu Tsumugiya moved as if she had already predicted it. Her slight body dodged with ease, and then she kicked Yylfordt flying away once more.
"You damn brat... you've really pissed me off!!! You dare look down on me... damn it... damn it... I'll kill you! I'm going to kill you!" Forcing open his remaining left eye, Yylfordt glared at the approaching Ururu Tsumugiya and roared, "Skewer, Del Toro!"
Within the storm of Reiatsu, a savage body gradually became clear. After his Resurrección, Yylfordt transformed into Del Toro. The entire upper half of his body, along with both arms, was covered in skeletal armor, and two curved horns grew from his head. On one of those sharp horns hung Ururu Tsumugiya, her body pierced through.