Byakuya's hands were trembling; the terror his body felt had his entire frame shaking. This feeling of sheer helplessness—he remembered it.
He used to feel this exact way back in the day.
He remembered it like it was yesterday, his body trembling once more as he stared up at the being looking down at him. It felt as if the Soul King himself were passing judgment.
Lucius, meanwhile, looked rather bored. With his hands tucked into his pockets, he seemed entirely uninterested in whatever Byakuya might have planned.
"One," Lucius said, offering nothing more. Byakuya would have four more attempts before Lucius decided whether he was even worth his time.
As things stood right now, Byakuya's chances of winning were well below zero. Lucius had grown so incredibly powerful that he wasn't an opponent the Soul Society could just send a single person to fight one-on-one. He was a goddamn raid boss.
They would need several Captain-class Shinigami just to take him down, and even then, those Captains would need the most broken, hax Bankai and belong to the absolute upper echelon of power. We are talking about sending people like Yamamoto, Prime Unohana, Aizen, and Shunsui all at once.
However, the Soul Society currently only had access to two of those people. Aizen was currently busy fully fusing with the Hōgyoku, likely training night and day inside a Garganta to master that power in hopes of eventually overthrowing Gabriel.
Trying to destabilize Gabriel's kingdom from within was a complete non-starter.
For one, it would be nearly impossible to convince the Hollows to switch sides, and even if you tried, convincing the relevant, powerful ones would be a lost cause.
Secondly, Gabriel was the one who gave them this power; all it would take is a single touch from him to strip it right back away. Gabriel's morals were just as loose as Kisuke Urahara's.
If you were confused about what that meant: Gabriel would have absolutely no qualms about turning his right-hand men into literal pills with a single touch.
If they weren't in his harem, or if their name wasn't Harribel, betraying him meant you were getting touched.
His kids, of course, were another exception. Gabriel may have slowly gotten used to his own twisted ideology and his intense selfishness, but he honestly couldn't give less of a fuck.
Sure, he had changed, but everyone did—especially after practically a hundred years. He was a completely different person now, and he accepted that fact.
He had started changing the exact second he became a Hollow. Honestly, if the current, ruthless version of himself was the version that kept his family safe, then that was the best version of himself.
Good or evil, why care? All that mattered was that the people he cared about and loved were secure. As for anyone else, they could go fuck themselves.
Sure, if they asked for help, he would probably help them—but he'd find a way to turn a profit off it first.
Lucius's ideology ran along similar lines, though he simply viewed every other entity as beneath him.
He was perfect, and anyone who wasn't part of His Majesty's perfect bloodline was inherently inferior.
Byakuya's body continued to shake. Looking up at Lucius felt like an apex predator staring down at an ant; it wasn't even funny.
Byakuya's instincts were screaming at him that this was not a battle he could win, yet his stubborn pride absolutely refused to let him back down.
"Four remain." Lucius glanced coldly at Byakuya.
Byakuya gritted his teeth. You know what? Fuck this shit.
"BANKAI! Senbonzakura Kageyoshi!"
Thousands of cherry blossom blades erupted around them, yet the hybrid looked completely unfazed by it all.
The familiar sea of pink petals spread across the arena. The spectators watched in dead silence.
Even those unfamiliar with Senbonzakura could feel just how incredibly refined the technique was.
Shunsui folded his arms, his expression grim. "...He's going all out."
Yet deep in his bones, Shunsui knew this wasn't going to help in the slightest.
Meanwhile, over with the Hollows, Harribel simply watched with an indifferent expression.
"...Pointless."
Gabriel yawned a bit. It seemed he had heavily overestimated the Shinigami. He had thought they would be much stronger, but it looked like they were getting weaker by the day.
The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. His kingdom dealt with the Hollow attacks now, and since Hollows had stopped invading the Rukongai, the Shinigami didn't get much real combat practice anymore.
Plus, they were incredibly low on manpower, and only the Noble families had access to the best resources. This meant that instead of getting stronger, the Soul Society was in a slow, steady decline every single year.
Maybe he should just go kill Squad Zero.
They really weren't much of a threat to him anyway; he had personally modified all of his Horsemen and Sins to be completely immune to the Zero Division's hax.
Ichibē could not strip them of their names, Ōmatsu could not slash them with his sword, and the lady who wove things could not trap them.
And as far as he was aware, the fat lady didn't really have a broken hax ability like that, so it was fine for now. Killing them would be pretty easy.
'Why did I even keep them alive to begin with?' he pondered to himself. Maybe he would wipe them out in the future, but for now, his eyes were mostly focused on his wife's glorious pair of tits. Those areolas were looking great.
Granted, she had plenty of clothing on—a lot of clothes, in fact—but his eyes saw right through it all. He was a horny bastard, after all.
Grimmjow smirked, crossing his arms. "He still thinks numbers matter."
Back in the battle, Lucius looked at the endless storm of petals surrounding him.
"...Pretty."
That was all he had to say. Pretty.
Byakuya's eye twitched with rage. "They are blades."
"I know."
"They are beautiful."
"..."
"..."
Byakuya's jaw clenched tightly. "Scatter."
The pink ocean exploded forward. Millions upon millions of blades consumed the entire arena, attacking from every conceivable angle.
From above, from below, striking blind spots and dead angles—places that were mechanically impossible to evade.
The spectators lost sight of Lucius entirely as the arena disappeared beneath the devastating storm.
The noise alone was deafening: a violent symphony of grinding metal, rushing wind, and crushing Reiatsu.
Several seconds passed. Nothing. No scream, no clash, no movement.
Eventually... the petals dispersed.
Lucius hadn't moved a single inch. Every single blade hovered less than an inch away from his skin, frozen in mid-air, as though reality itself had refused them permission to advance.
Infinity was absolute. The countless blades simply floated there, unable to push forward and unable to retreat.
Byakuya's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "...Impossible..."
Lucius looked around lazily. "Hm." He leaned forward slightly, casually examining one of the sharp petals. "Very sharp."
His index finger lightly tapped it.
Tink.
The single petal shattered. Then another. Then another. Like a massive chain reaction, the entire Bankai collapsed.
Millions of blades shattered into completely harmless spiritual particles, raining down like dust.
Byakuya staggered backward, horror written all over his face. His Bankai... broken with a single finger.
Lucius looked back at him. "I will be gracious and count this as one attack." His gaze turned freezing cold. "That will be two."
The number echoed heavily through the stadium. The silence that followed felt completely suffocating. Rukia instinctively took a step forward, her heart aching for her brother.
"...Brother..."
Shunsui stopped her, holding out a firm arm. "No. He has to finish this."
Gabriel watched quietly from his throne, showing no expression, no smile—nothing. It was as though this exact outcome had been entirely obvious from the very beginning.
Lucius sighed softly. "Three attacks remain. I recommend using them. I dislike wasting time."
Byakuya's breathing became ragged and uneven. His pride, his decades of training, everything he had built—it was accomplishing absolutely nothing. He hadn't forced Lucius to move.
He hadn't forced him to actively defend. He hadn't even made him truly acknowledge the attack.
Lucius looked genuinely disappointed. "I expected more from the head of the Kuchiki Clan."
"..."
"But I see I have placed far too much faith in you." His gaze locked onto Byakuya's trembling form. "The head of a clan of insects... is still nothing more than an insect."
That sentence cut deeper than any physical wound could. Byakuya roared, his voice echoing with absolute desperation.
"SHUKEI!"
His Reiatsu erupted violently. The remaining petals condensed instantly, forming brilliant white wings of energy behind his back as his sword transformed into a blade of pure, blinding white. His strongest Bankai form—his ultimate, final technique.
The Captains in the stands immediately recognized it. "He skipped straight to Shūkei..." Shunsui whispered, his brow furrowing. "He really has nothing else left."
Lucius nodded once in approval. "Good. There. That's closer. For a brief moment... you almost looked worthy."
He slowly removed one hand from his pocket. The entire audience stiffened at the motion; even Gabriel raised an eyebrow in curiosity. Lucius extended only his index finger toward his opponent.
"I'll allow myself one finger. If your third attack actually manages to reach me... I'll consider drawing my sword."
The sheer arrogance. The absolute, unshakeable confidence. There wasn't the slightest hint of doubt in his voice; he genuinely believed Byakuya couldn't even touch him. And somehow, to everyone watching, that terrifying confidence felt completely justified.
A/N I plan on making this very throughout, like have the humialition be somehow worse than the Bl of Hiruzen and Danzo.
It easier for me to write those chapters since well, I already wrote them, just hated how the war turned out and scrapped it, might have to scrap war idea.