The rock walls crumbled, and dust swirled across the wasteland.
In the pocket dimension of Fullbring created by Yukio, Yasutora Sado—known to his friends as Chad—was locked in a struggle with his formidable nemesis, Shukuro Tsukishima.
"Just give up already, Yasutora."
The enemy stood there, looking annoyed as he brushed dust from his clothes. Chad, on the other hand, was exhausted, forced down to one knee. The gap in their strength was undeniable. This wasn't the overwhelming physical violence he had felt when facing the Espada Nnoitra; rather, this man radiated an indescribable, eerie chill that made him a monster far beyond Chad's capacity to handle.
But the source of his fear wasn't merely the man's refined combat skills.
"...This doesn't feel right."
"What doesn't?"
Chad glared at Tsukishima, who was tilting his head with an air of mock innocence. Chad did not hide his disgust.
"I don't understand your familiar attitude. I'm saying you're a creepy man."
Because of his towering stature and heritage, Chad was often kept at a distance by others. The only people who had ever called him by his first name were his guardians—his aunt and uncle—and his late grandfather, his Abuelo.
He certainly had no memory or reason to be on such intimate terms with an enemy he had just met.
At those words, Tsukishima's brow furrowed in a performative display of hurt. "That's harsh."
However...
"But I suppose it can't be helped. After all, you've forgotten everything."
When those eyes—dark as a bottomless abyss—fixed on him, Chad's skin crawled. He felt a sickening illusion that the man's lies were actually the truth.
His heart eroding under Tsukishima's alien presence, Chad desperately tried to drown out his anxiety with violence.
"I haven't forgotten... a single thing!"
—Giant's Strike: El Directo!—
A pale blue comet tore through the wasteland. The power of the technique, honed through the inspiration he took from Orihime and Uryu, was worlds apart from what it had been a year and a half ago.
He wasn't arrogant, however. Chad kept his eyes fixed on the rising dust, vigilantly searching for his opponent's presence.
"You're hurting my feelings, Yasutora."
Suddenly, a hand reached out and stroked his right arm—his armored shield—while he was still in his follow-through.
"What?!"
"The Right Arm of the Giant... how nostalgic. I was so happy with what you said to me when you first manifested this."
Chad immediately used his Fullbring footwork to leap back. He broke into a cold sweat, realizing that he hadn't even seen the man's afterimage. Had there been true killing intent behind that move, Chad would already be dead.
"Ugh... Left Arm of the De—"
"The Left Arm of the Devil... I know that one too. It's the 'fist for fighting' that you manifested because you wanted to fight by my side, right?"
"!!?"
His right fist, swung with total abandon, was caught gently in Tsukishima's palm.
It was impossible. He hadn't felt any special technique or spiritual pressure from the man's movement. Chad was baffled as to how his power had been dispersed—until he realized the truth behind his own impulsive action.
He hadn't been stopped. He had stopped his own fist at the last second.
"Wh... Why...?"
"Hmm. So the influence hasn't been completely purged after all."
Chad was in a state of total confusion over his own inexplicable behavior. The thin smile on Tsukishima's face widened.
"! ...What... what are you talking about...!"
"Hmm? Oh, I'm just saying 'thank goodness.' It seems our bond still remains, even now."
Bond.
The moment he heard that word, unfamiliar scenes flashed through Chad's mind.
His grandfather, Abuelo, being shot by thugs in the slums. Someone saving him. His younger self taking a liking to that person. A simple coin necklace given as a parting gift. That same man fighting back-to-back with Ichigo against the Gotei 13...
...This is wrong. What are these memories? I don't know any of this.
"There's nothing wrong with it. Once hearts have been shared, the connection isn't broken just because memories vanish. That's the miracle you and Ichigo showed us, Yasutora."
...Stop. Don't call me by that name.
As if mocking Chad's desperate resistance, Tsukishima continued to summon more impossible memories.
"Poor thing. I went to the trouble of letting you throw away your 'lonely past,' but now that it's been partially dug up, you're confused by the differences in the 'past we shared' together."
Tsukishima nodded reassuringly and transformed the bookmark in his hand into a blade.
"I am your precious older brother, the one your Abuelo entrusted you to. Let me... re-insert your other self for you."
Chad knew instinctively that he could not let that blade touch him. Everything that had happened—every inexplicable event—started and ended with that weapon.
Struggling in a daze, Chad summoned every ounce of his strength for one final strike, staking everything on his bond with Ichigo and the others.
"Uaaarrrgh... OAAAAAAARRRRGH!!"
—The Death: La Muerte!—
A fist of darkness was unleashed. A bolt of spiritual lightning gouged the earth. The massive technique, which had evolved into a new dimension of power since his battle in Hueco Mundo, consumed everything in its path.
And yet...
"I told you, Yasutora. You can't hit your own family."
While Tsukishima offered a gentle smile, completely unharmed, Yasutora Sado watched the approaching blade with a heart full of despair.
†††
The sounds of battle that had echoed through the Fullbring wasteland ceased abruptly. Looking down at the fallen giant, Shukuro Tsukishima frowned in a way that didn't befit a victor.
"...Something is definitely wrong."
As the man who knew the nature and application of the Fullbring Book of the End better than anyone, Tsukishima felt a profound sense of wrongness about his current situation.
"How is this possible? That final strike... the Yasutora I know didn't have a move like that."
It wasn't just him. Orihime Inoue's Five-Heavenly Fighting Shield that had defeated Giriko, the strange black binding device she used on the roof, and Ichigo Kurosaki's Fullbring that took the form of that masked girl—none of these existed in the "past world" that Tsukishima knew.
Tsukishima's ability was a Fullbring manifested from his favorite bookmark. The relationship between a book and a bookmark, combined with his own spiritual talent, allowed him to treat a target's past as a book and insert his own presence into it as a bookmark at will.
Therefore, Tsukishima should have a perfect grasp of the subject's entire life, from birth to the present—including their emotions and childhood events, not just their own conscious memories. There was nothing about Chad's or Orihime's lives that he shouldn't know.
Normally.
"...Wait."
A possibility suddenly occurred to him. A single explanation for why his own memory felt distorted.
The essence of Book of the End wasn't merely planting false memories; it was closer to preparing a version of the person from a parallel world where Tsukishima had actually existed as a close friend or lover, and then overwriting the person in the real world with that version. Because of this, "remembering original memories" shouldn't happen. The person had lived in a different world where those original memories simply didn't exist.
And yet. Regarding that terrifying ability he was so proud of...
Tsukishima did not know whether or not he could apply it to himself.
"!!?"
Impossible. How could I not know such a vital detail about how my own power works? Tsukishima frantically searched through the "jars" of his memory.
But as he sifted through the countless "books" scattered there, he caught his breath.
There was a Transcendent existence capable of causing such an anomaly—one powerful enough to affect Shukuro Tsukishima's own memory.
One "book" that should have been the most prominent, containing fatally important information, was missing. It had vanished unnaturally.
"...It's gone! Her book is nowhere to be found... the memories of that woman I should have gained by inserting myself into Orihime's past...!"
—The memories of the "Reader"!—
A violent shiver ran through his entire body.
He couldn't have forgotten. He remembered the sheer terror he felt, and how he had warned Ginjo over and over again not to get involved with her. He still felt the absolute conviction in his heart that she was a monster beyond their control.
And yet, the reason for that conviction—the memory of the moment he learned her true identity—did not exist anywhere in his mind.
"This is insane...! This... this shouldn't be happening!"
Am I being robbed of my memories by some means that woman possesses? Or am I actually a version of myself from another world, created by my own ability?
Tsukishima felt a frantic agitation that bordered on madness. He searched his hippocampus with desperate intensity for a single "book."
He kept the past lives of many people on the shelves of his mind like novels. Among them was one particularly prominent, horrifying story that radiated a forbidden aura.
Clinging to the record of the one hundred and fifty years lived by that pitiable hollow shell, Momo Hinamori, Tsukishima opened the cover...
...and found himself lying face-down in a street of wooden houses with the Seireitei in the distance.
+++
...Ah, why? Why did I make that choice back then?
The time was about a week before the day they were to steal Ichigo Kurosaki's Fullbring.
On the night he had altered Orihime Inoue's past, Tsukishima had reported the results—and his concerns—to the leader of XCUTION, Kugo Ginjo.
The reason, of course, was the letter left by that female Soul Reaper he had encountered in Orihime's past.
"Ho, my name was in the bookmark? A declaration of war from the 'Reader'... how interesting."
Tsukishima had grit his teeth at the leader's amused reaction.
He hadn't reported everything that happened in Orihime's past in detail. But even after hearing a heavily biased explanation of that woman's danger, Ginjo showed no intention of backing away from Ichigo.
...Looking back, that was the final turning point.
"...I want you to return the fragments of my ability that you're holding."
Tsukishima had suppressed his fear with anger and made the proposal.
Ginjo's eyes had widened.
The Fullbringers in the World of the Living relied on the man's Cross of Scaffold—which allowed for the theft and transfer of abilities—to restrict powers that were difficult to handle. That system was proof of XCUTION's trust, but it was also their final trump card.
"...Going for the big play, huh? I guess that means she's an opponent who requires that kind of move."
"Yeah. She's already got her eyes on us. If we stay naive, there's no telling what she'll do."
The enemy he faced in the "past world" was an enigmatic, elusive existence. Now that he knew she was targeting Ginjo—the benefactor who was everything to him—Tsukishima couldn't afford to care about appearances.
The pink envelope that arrived the night he "inserted" himself into Sado. The meaningful bookmark handed to him in Orihime's past. Her reach was closing in, bit by bit.
If they had any chance of winning, it was only now, while she was still toying with them and underestimating them.
"Fine. But don't mess up the order. You have to use that power carefully..."
—...or you'll lose track of your own past.—
Hiding his true feelings, Tsukishima had offered a smile and a nod to his benefactor's warning. Ginjo's satisfied expression had signaled the end of their meeting.
"..."
On his way home, even though he had the cards he wanted, Tsukishima's face remained clouded with grief.
"...This is bad."
The youth murmured a rare moment of weakness. Having never experienced such a disadvantageous situation in the past, he had to admit that he was becoming indecisive.
What Tsukishima wanted had never changed since the very beginning. He wanted the safety of Kugo Ginjo, the man who had saved him from loneliness when he was a child. To him, nothing else mattered.
Even if that included himself.
"But Ginjo isn't like that."
He was a man who continued to walk the thorny path of revenge. A precious benefactor who was reckless and dangerous to watch. Yet, he was a natural leader who loved and united his comrades.
He was the only one in the world who could protect that man—the only one who could save him.
"We're both idiots."
A smile of resignation touched his lips.
Gathering the courage to dive into the raging inferno, Shukuro Tsukishima finally...
...took the final step toward opposing the "Devil."
"...Did you think I couldn't use Book of the End within someone else's past world?"
Regret underestimating me, Soul Reaper.
I don't even need to touch you directly. Not your beautiful body, nor your ugly heart—nothing.
"From now on, every single thing you hold dear..."
—...I'm going to defile them all.—
†††
In the First District, Junrinan, which lay in the western part of the Rukongai, a petite figure was running through the streets lined with traditional houses.
"—Seriously, give me a break already...!"
The figure was a girl in her early teens. Her voice was lovely, contrary to her rough tone, and her blossoming beauty drew the constant gaze of every male she passed.
Avoiding the bothersome crowds, the girl arrived at a deserted back alley and crouched down, hugging herself.
"...This is wrong. This is supposed to be the divine district of Junrinan where Toshiro and Momo lived. What is Shueisha thinking, turning this place into some 'end-of-the-century' nightmare where guys are targeting my backside...?"
Perhaps as a form of escapade, she murmured to herself, "Is the theory about Tite Kubo true? Does he really see every beautiful girl as a puppet for tragedy?" Her eyes were dark and vacant. As she fumbled with her slender, curvy body, the darkness in her eyes deepened.
"This really is a woman's body... damn it, what am I going to do? In the world of Bleach, every girl pretty enough to be harassed by men is basically guaranteed to become one of the author's 'dolls for pain'... am I dead...?"
Unable to adjust to her new life and with no one to rely on, her grief in this vast world was immense. This was the Soul Society, the world of the dead where all spiritual beings eventually arrive. The girl was just one of many who had arrived here—a powerless soul who had only recently been summoned to this land.
...However, a hand reached out to save her from her loneliness.
"—Are you alright?"
The name of the youth reflected in the girl's wide eyes was Shukuro Tsukishima.
A tragic hero who had descended from the True Future to save his one and only benefactor.
***
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