A day and a night passed.
Above the Soul King Palace, the sound of hammering from the Hōōden still echoed.
Looking again at the target being struck before Ōetsu, it had long since lost its human form and had become the shape of a blade burned red-hot.
Aizen had disappeared.
Or rather, Aizen had already been hammered by Ōetsu into the form of a sword.
This blade was somewhat peculiar. Its main body was a katana based on Kyōka Suigetsu, but at the center of the blade, a bead was embedded within it.
The excitement on Ōetsu's face had already turned into joy.
The Zanpakutō was nearly complete.
Only the final step remained.
Quenching.
"Hasuka Hashihara, Tokie Tonokawa, move!"
Ōetsu brought down the final hammer blow and shouted to the two Zanpakutō beauties.
Hasuka Hashihara and Tokie Tonokawa exchanged a glance.
Tokie Tonokawa hurriedly drew over a great mass of seawater, while Hasuka Hashihara grabbed the crimson-red Zanpakutō and threw it into the water.
Boom!
The seawater by the cliff was completely lifted, forming a whirlpool as it gathered toward the Zanpakutō.
As the seawater receded, the dried seabed beneath was exposed.
Every drop of seawater offered up everything it had to contribute to this quenching.
Pshhh!
The sound of exploding steam resounded throughout the entire Soul Society.
Inside the Hōōden, not only Ōetsu but every member of his royal guard was left dumbfounded.
"How powerful indeed, my new work!"
Ōetsu proudly put on his sunglasses, preparing to quietly admire the new Zanpakutō he had spent so long forging.
The dense steam gradually dispersed.
Ōetsu took the initiative to walk to the edge of the cliff.
But just as he was about to personally grasp the new Zanpakutō, the smug expression on his face stiffened.
Ōetsu waved a large hand, and a fierce burst of Reiatsu instantly scattered the mist, revealing the scene beyond the cliff.
High in the air beyond the cliff, there was no sign of any Zanpakutō.
The only thing left was the bead that had been embedded within the blade.
Had the quenching failed?
This problem, which had not appeared in who knew how long, surfaced in Ōetsu's mind at that moment.
As the God of the Sword, he was no longer the apprentice he had once been. How could there possibly be a failure in quenching that caused the blade body to shatter?
Ōetsu's Reiatsu rapidly swept across the dried ground below the cliff.
There were no fragments of a shattered blade.
In other words, there had been no problem with his quenching.
The problem lay with that bead in the sky.
"What is that? Ōetsu seems off. Manager Urahara, move the camera over there!"
Tsunayoshi leaned beside Kisuke Urahara and shouted.
With the image currently on the screen, they could not make out what had happened outside the Hōōden at all.
Kisuke Urahara, whose shoulders were being shaken back and forth by Tsunayoshi, could only smile wryly. He refused Tsunayoshi's demand.
"Don't even think about it. The fact that we can observe without being discovered is already impressive. If we move even a little closer, forget Ōetsu — even those pretty young ladies would notice us."
Hearing Kisuke Urahara say he had done his best, Tsunayoshi stopped urging him.
Instead of pushing the magnification further, he turned his gaze to the other screens.
The surveillance spirit insect that had followed Aizen into the Soul King Palace was not the only one. The other surveillance spirit insects that had not entered the Hōōden were waiting around its outskirts.
Tsunayoshi searched the other screens for what he wanted to find.
Suddenly, on a screen in the corner, a black shadow flashed past.
No one else noticed it.
Only Tsunayoshi caught sight of that figure. However, it was moving too quickly, and for the moment, he could not identify what it was.
"Kisuke, save the footage from the screen in the corner. Afterward, carefully analyze the black shadow that flashed by five seconds ago," Tsunayoshi said to Kisuke Urahara.
"Is something wrong?"
Kisuke Urahara moved quickly. Tsunayoshi rarely called him by his given name. Guessing that this was important, he did not dare delay at all.
"Nothing much. Maybe a little rat slipped into the Hōōden. It's not important. We can deal with it after the Aizen incident ends."
A smile appeared on Tsunayoshi's face.
He could roughly guess who that rat was.
"Wait, Tsunayoshi. Are you saying Aizen isn't dead?" Shinji asked in shock.
He had watched the entire process of Aizen being hammered into a Zanpakutō blow by blow.
Watching that process, he had even felt a little secretly pleased.
"Personally, I don't think Aizen would die that easily. Simply accepting his own fate like this isn't Aizen's style," Tsunayoshi said, gently shaking his head.
The way Aizen had stopped resisting had been too strange.
Even if his Zanpakutō, Shinigami power, Kidō, and Hollow power had all become useless, Aizen should not have accepted his fate so easily.
With Aizen's personality, even if everything had failed, he should have struggled with all his might Like a pig at the slaughterhouse.
The fact that he had not done so meant Aizen still had a trump card.
The Hōgyoku.
That was the most important thing hidden inside Aizen's body.
He could have fully poured his desire to escape into the Hōgyoku, allowing it to respond to his expectations and help him break free.
But Aizen did not.
Instead, he fell silent and accepted Ōetsu's hammering.
From that moment onward, Tsunayoshi no longer believed that Ōetsu could kill Aizen.
Back on Ōetsu's side, he felt both doubt and anger toward that bead.
This result had surely been caused by that strange bead.
His anger came from the fact that after expending so much effort, what he obtained was not a Zanpakutō, but a bead.
"Do you want me to retrieve it for you?"
Hasuka Hashihara walked to Ōetsu's side.
Before Ōetsu could speak, her twin-tails had already shot out.
"Wait!"
Ōetsu had no time to stop her.
The twin-tails were about to touch the purple bead.
The twin-tails snapped shut.
They caught nothing.
Hasuka Hashihara's twin-tails passed straight through the middle of the bead. The bead seemed as if it did not exist.
And yet, whether through the naked eye or through Reiatsu, everything clearly told them that it was right there.
"Kyōka Suigetsu?"
Ōetsu murmured.
The bead's behavior just now immediately made him think of Aizen's Kyōka Suigetsu.
Hasuka Hashihara turned to look at Ōetsu.
She could not grab it. What to do next needed Ōetsu's instructions.
"All of you, try it," Ōetsu said.
The women of Ōetsu's royal guard immediately moved into action, each displaying their own abilities in an attempt to catch the bead.
But no matter how they leapt and darted around, the bead seemed to possess a life of its own, easily avoiding their attacks.
Ōetsu's expression turned ugly.
He thought of an embarrassing possibility.
"Aizen, you can hear me, can't you?"
His tone was certain.
The moment Ōetsu spoke, the members of his royal guard froze.
Had Aizen not been hammered by Ōetsu into a Zanpakutō?
Aizen's confident and relaxed voice came from within the bead.
"You finally noticed? You are not quite as foolish as I thought."
A powerful Reiatsu suddenly erupted from the Hōgyoku, pushing all the members of Ōetsu's royal guard back onto the cliff.
From Aizen's tone, it was clear that not only was he still alive, he was doing very well.
After exhausting every method, Aizen had indeed submerged his consciousness into the Hōgyoku.
At the time, he had also intended to use the Hōgyoku's power to escape his predicament.
But after thinking carefully, these members of Squad Zero possessed Blood Oath Rotation.
If they could capture him once, they could capture him a second time.
At worst, they would rotate once more and spend a little more time.
And if there was one thing Squad Zero did not lack, it was time.
After realizing this, Aizen rejected the idea of escape.
He wanted to search within the Hōgyoku for a possibility — the possibility of becoming stronger.
It just so happened that Ōetsu was forging him together with his soulless Kyōka Suigetsu.
This allowed Aizen to see hope.
To survive by placing himself in the jaws of death, he cast aside everything and transferred himself, together with Kyōka Suigetsu, into the Hōgyoku.
Aizen used the power of Ōetsu's hammer blows to accelerate this process.
When he completely entrusted himself to the Hōgyoku, Aizen truly obtained its power.
It was what he had dreamed of all along:
fusion with the Hōgyoku, and fusion with his Zanpakutō.
Kyōka Suigetsu indeed had no soul.
It possessed no blade spirit.
But that did not matter.
Aizen would use the Hōgyoku, which could respond to wishes, as his blade spirit.
Using this as the opportunity, Aizen, recognized by the Hōgyoku, comprehended his own power beyond Bankai.
At the same time, this gave birth to the blade Ōetsu had been forging — that useless sample with the Hōgyoku embedded within it.
"You were played, you idiot!"
The most hot-tempered one, Mera Hiuchigashima, scorched Ōetsu's face with her words.
Ōetsu's expression was gloomy.
Even if he was angry, he had no grounds to vent at his royal guard. This had been his own error in judgment.
In the end, Aizen was different from that ancient Menos Grande.
"No matter. If once isn't enough, I'll do it twice. I'll refine you for forty-nine full days. I refuse to believe you won't change at all!"
Ōetsu pulled his sunglasses down slightly, revealing his small but serious eyes.
"The one thing Squad Zero lacks least is time!"
"Heh. Ōetsu Nimaiya, you don't truly believe the current me can still be manipulated by you, do you?"
Aizen's mocking voice came from the Hōgyoku.
"Maybe not you. But Kyōka Suigetsu…"
Ōetsu curled a finger toward the Hōgyoku.
Then he froze in place.
He discovered that he seemed unable to locate Kyōka Suigetsu anymore.
Aizen let out a sneer.
After fully completing his fusion with his Zanpakutō, he had finally understood why that earlier blade had been unable to pierce Ōetsu.
Fundamentally speaking, as long as one still used a Zanpakutō, the root of that Zanpakutō was the Asauchi forged by Ōetsu.
Those Zanpakutō should obey the command of the God of the Sword.
Even if a Shinigami learned Shikai or Bankai, they could never escape Ōetsu's judgment, because those abilities all had to be expressed through a Zanpakutō as their vessel.
But Zanpakutō fusion was different.
It formally returned the power belonging to the user from the Zanpakutō back to the user themselves.
From that moment onward, the existence of the Zanpakutō was no longer important.
What mattered was that the user could freely mobilize their own power.
Only after that did the Zanpakutō truly become something belonging to its wielder.
The backdoor Ōetsu had buried within the Asauchi no longer worked.
"What's wrong? You didn't think that curling your finger would make me come to your side on my own, did you?" Aizen deliberately asked with a teasing laugh.
"How mischievous…"
Ōetsu pretended to be relaxed and touched his hair.
His sharp gaze pierced painfully through his sunglasses.
"Then I'll just capture you again."
Unfortunately, Ōetsu's intimidating stare meant absolutely nothing to the Hōgyoku bead.
Aizen did not care about his threat at all.
He even controlled the Hōgyoku to circle around once, provoking Ōetsu.
"Say that after you can catch me…"
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