During this period, Mayuri Kurotsuchi had already investigated all Shinigami ever registered in the Seireitei. Not just the current ones—he dug through the last thousand years of records. He even went beyond Shinigami; anyone who had ever handled a Zanpakutō at Shin'ō Academy was included in his investigation.
Naturally, the result turned up nothing. So Mayuri went on to check whether any Zanpakutō had gone missing.
All Zanpakutō in the Seireitei are forged by Ōetsu Nimaiya, the God of the Sword. A Shinigami's Zanpakutō is never inherited: as long as you remain a Shinigami, you keep the blade, but once you retire, the sword is reclaimed and returned to Nimaiya to be reforged back into an Asauchi.
In other words, the total number of Asauchi is fixed, and each one is recorded.
Mayuri discovered that the total number of Zanpakutō hadn't decreased. Which means the Zanpakutō in this woman's hand wasn't made by Ōetsu Nimaiya at all!
Indeed, while it looked like a Zanpakutō on the surface, anyone sensitive enough could detect odd traces in its spiritual aura.
Thus, he concluded Gabriel wasn't a Shinigami of the Seireitei.
"Shinigami is just a pretty title you invented to beautify your own deeds," Gabriel said coolly. "It wasn't until after the founding of the Gotei 13 that Shinigami became an official profession."
"Hrmm… you have a point," Mayuri chuckled, "but it's not very convincing coming from someone wearing a shihakushō and holding a Zanpakutō."
He sounded excited. "Enough chatter. Once I bring you back to the lab, you'll obediently tell me everything!"
He glanced at Nemu; she immediately understood and rushed Gabriel.
Gabriel recalled Yoshio's warning: Mayuri is one of the most dangerous captains, not because of his combat prowess, but because of his bizarre inventions. And second…
Nemu Kurotsuchi.
Nemu is the perfected result of Mayuri's Nemuri Project. Once she unleashes her true power, not even a Captain-class Shinigami could easily stop her. She normally appears weak because Mayuri dislikes perfection—so she accompanies him in this intentionally flawed state.
Therefore, when facing Nemu, don't get entangled. Drop her in a single blow and render her completely unconscious. If you try to kill her outright, you might force out her latent soul potential; if you merely injure her and leave her conscious, she'll go berserk if she sees Mayuri hurt.
So, knock her out—hard—but without endangering her life.
Gabriel drew her blade and immediately released it.
"Flow, divine power."
At her whisper, the Zanpakutō became a mass of water, coursing along her slender arm.
As Nemu darted in, Gabriel raised her hand; in an instant, streams of water formed expanding blue rings. By the time they enveloped Nemu, each ring had widened to a meter across.
Nemu shot backward five or six times faster than she had advanced, crashed into a massive boulder with a thunderous crack, and slumped beneath the falling rubble.
One strike to crush and KO Nemu.
Mayuri's pupils dilated. After all, Nemu was still his Lieutenant; not many could one-shot a Lieutenant.
"Seems I underestimated you. How about this: I'll ask your name now. With your strength, you deserve your own private storage cell. I could even name the area after you. How about it? Acceptable terms, no?"
"My, my—so the mighty Captain of the Gotei 13 has a sense of humor," Gabriel replied. "Since you're being so magnanimous, I suppose I should be moved."
She slipped her left hand into her pocket, lifted her right hand, and pointed her palm at Mayuri. "I'd love to say I only need one hand to deal with you. But thinking it over… that might be going too far, so…"
She folded four fingers, leaving only her index finger extended. "I'll fight you with just one finger."
"…!"
Mayuri's pupils trembled; his eyes turned gloomy. "You little girl—you do have a mouth."
In the next moment, Gabriel pointed that finger skyward. A vast volume of water gathered above her fingertip, forming a massive blue sphere.
It swelled past a hundred meters in diameter, heavy with distilled essence of water, weighing close to a million tons. Then it began to compress—shrinking from over a hundred meters to ten.
She lightly pointed down. The sphere plunged toward Mayuri.
Mayuri pulled a vial from his robes and flung its contents forward. Immediately, the water vapor dissipated; the falling blue sphere began to unravel mid-flight.
"Hmph. Once I learned your power, you think I wouldn't prepare?"
He had seen Gabriel manipulating water when she neutralized the five human bombs he sent.
So of course he prepared.
If it's a sudden encounter, a scientist might be at a disadvantage. But if it's a prepped battle—sorry, even gods leave bones to gnaw on.
Granted, this wasn't full prep. All he knew was that Gabriel could manipulate water; everything else was unknown.
The agent he used was an anti-water reagent. Not merely evaporating water, it injected a force whose reishi properties are the exact opposite of water, annihilating it at the source.
In theory, water can't be completely destroyed. But this method erases a body of water at its root.
"Second Director of the Shinigami Research and Development Institute, Mayuri Kurotsuchi—your reputation precedes you," Gabriel said, sounding almost impressed. "Wiping out my power that easily—not bad."
"However, how much of that reagent did you bring?"
She raised her finger again. Then something unbelievable happened.
Behind her flowed the river and at that moment, the entire river seemed to boil.
Columns of water surged upward from the river and flew to Gabriel's back, forming two immense wings of water. More columns coalesced into spheres of various sizes in front of Mayuri—some soccer-ball small, some as big as houses, and others like the hundred-meter orb from before.
In a place with water, Gabriel's power is limitless.
Mayuri's brows knit. Gabriel's strength exceeded his expectations. He had guessed she might be Captain-class, but he hadn't expected this level.
His anti-water reagent couldn't handle so many spheres.
This girl…
As he stared, Gabriel said, "Lastly, I suppose I should tell you my name."
"Gabriel—the one who ends your sins."
Gabriel disliked Mayuri—like most normal people would. With a single gesture, countless water spheres roared toward him.
Mayuri flung more anti-water reagent, but as Gabriel said, her power was practically inexhaustible. His rate of neutralization couldn't keep pace with her rate of creation. In the blink of an eye, he was swallowed by the deluge.
Just like that.
Gabriel's strength far exceeded Mayuri's. As she said, one finger was enough.
Well—strictly speaking, not just one finger, since she had an entire river backing her, providing an endless source.
Still, Mayuri isn't particularly strong by raw stats. Though he's lived long, his fundamentals—reiatsu, Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Shunpo, and Kido—are not top-tier among captains. He fights primarily through inventions.
Knowing his profile ahead of time, Gabriel never gave him the chance to drug her—keeping a wide distance from the start. True, the distance gave him more time to react to attacks, but it took away any opportunity to dose her.
And above all, she didn't waste time talking.
No extra prep time for Mayuri—Gabriel ended the fight with overwhelming force.
Bazz-B ranks among the strongest of the Sternritter—he even countered Yamamoto's enraged flames, helping teammates survive. A split from him would hardly be weak. Among the thirteen captains, Gabriel's power ranks near the top.
With prep against Mayuri's methods, she ended the battle easily.
Where Mayuri falls short of Urahara is that Urahara can conceive boundlessly creative tactics and doesn't rely on a single category of tools. Mayuri's combat leans heavily on reagents. Against someone unfamiliar, it works. But once you're prepared, his combat value drops.
The flood poured into a lakeshore basin; with another gesture, Gabriel drew the water back up and returned it to the river behind her.
When the waters cleared, Mayuri was gone.
Gabriel wasn't surprised. With his bag of tricks, he had plenty of escape routes.
But since they'd made contact, he wouldn't be having a good time going forward.
Gabriel's body dissolved into water and vanished.
Her mission was complete: show herself once without exposing her intel, draw attention in Karakura Town to herself rather than Brainleaf Co., and hand Yoshio a bit of actionable intel.
…
In the R&D Bureau, a liquefied Mayuri seeped up from the floor and reconstituted.
"Damn it…"
He clutched his chest. He felt as if his blood had been replaced with water. Without circulation, he was suffocating.
Fortunately, he carried specialized reagents and life-support devices. He managed to survive.
Most reagents he injected turned into plain water in his body; only a small fraction retained effect. Gabriel's ability countered him hard. For someone whose fighting strength rests largely on reagents, an enemy who can reduce liquids to mere water is a natural predator.
She said she'd heard of him? More than heard—she understood his fighting style intimately and never gave him a chance to use drugs. He didn't even get to release his Bankai.
That woman…
Mayuri's expression turned gloomy as he staggered into a massive machine and lay down. He needed to heal.
…
In Las Noches, Yoshio and Aizen watched the footage of Gabriel vs. Mayuri.
"Pretty outrageous," Yoshio said beside Aizen. "An entire river as her power source—if she were by the sea, she'd be virtually infinite."
"This is your discovery?" Aizen looked intrigued; clearly he didn't know Gabriel's identity. "Interesting…"
"Also, I analyzed her Zanpakutō," Yoshio continued. "It isn't a Shinigami's Zanpakutō."
"Oh?"
"I don't know exactly what it is, but it wasn't forged by the God of the Sword in the Soul King Palace," Yoshio said. "I suspect the shihakushō is a disguise. She might not be a Shinigami at all. Possibly a new species analogous to Arrancar. Her identity won't show up in the Seireitei's records."
Aizen appeared thoughtful. "Interesting… Continue tracking this."
"Mm." Yoshio nodded, then added, "By the way, Captain Aizen…"
"I've been working on a new project. Can you take a look?"
"What kind of research?"
Yoshio took out several design sketches and data sheets and handed them to Aizen.
"Based on Starrk and Lilynette's split, I want to create a tool that can split the self."
It was the design for the Mind-Rending Blade.
To be honest, it wasn't truly a tool. In essence, Yoshio would use his soul abilities to produce it himself; presenting it as a device just made it plausible in front of Aizen.
He brought it up now because he needed Aizen's help.
He'd already raised Tsukishima's favorability to 60, which granted Yoshio a one-time use of "Big Cousin."
He could become someone's cousin.
His target: Yhwach.
Reason given before—mainly, he couldn't get to the Soul King Palace. If he could, he'd use it on the Soul King.
There are only two ways up: the Tenchūren, fired by the Shiba family's cannon, or the Ōken. Neither was realistic now.
The Royal Guard wouldn't descend under normal circumstances; access to the Palace was highly restricted—being a captain wasn't enough.
As for the Ōken, that was a no-go too. You need a Reishi-concentrated zone and a hundred thousand souls—out of the question, even if… he knew the method.
The materials aren't enough; you also need the craft.
Creating the Ōken is a special spiritual art. Aizen mastered it; Yoshio did too, from the archives he'd obtained—lost arts and Kidō, including the Ōken creation method.
He'd learned it, but had no interest in actually doing it.
So entering the Palace was unlikely. Even Aizen, after all his work in canon, never made it in.
Yoshio settled for second-best: target Yhwach. Becoming Yhwach's cousin would do.
But now that Yhwach had fully awakened, Yoshio couldn't stroll into the Wandenreich anymore. Even with Baelz's cover, he could only act within her quarters. Using the Holy Trinity to share Big Cousin wouldn't work either: he only had the ability temporarily, and the Holy Trinity only shares permanent abilities.
Temporary powers aren't truly yours—like a loan. Permanent ones are gifts—true ownership.
So he turned to Aizen.
After blade-unification, Kyōka Suigetsu could deceive even Yhwach after absorbing the Soul King and nearly all Quincy power. Though Aizen wasn't yet transcendent, Yhwach was still early in recovery, so Yoshio believed Kyōka Suigetsu would work—more than work, it could immerse Yhwach in illusion.
In the Thousand-Year Blood War, Aizen and Yhwach had a clear gap; right now, Aizen might even surpass newly awakened Yhwach.
Having studied Aizen psychology for years, Yoshio was sure: given a Mind-Rending Blade, Aizen would gladly give himself a slice. As for the split-off entity… Aizen would likely brainwash it—not physically, but emotionally, like he did Hinamori.
The split Quincy Aizen would probably not be very bright, maybe simple-minded—easy to manipulate. And since it's still him, Aizen might send her into the Wandenreich as a mole. That would let Yoshio tag along and, under Kyōka Suigetsu's veil, meet Yhwach.
And as expected, Aizen was interested. After a glance, he asked, "Do you intend to use this on yourself?"
"Me? Not really." Yoshio wondered what his split-off would be like. He spends his time grinding others' favorability—would the split be someone others feel compelled to curry favor with?
Ugh. Mary Sue?
"If anyone, I'd slice Matsumoto. She's always slacking—I'll make a diligent version to handle my paperwork!"
Aizen asked, "Do you have a finished prototype?"
"More or less, but untested," Yoshio said. "Maybe try it on a random Hollow?"
"No. Too wasteful on small fry," Yoshio mused. "Let me think…"
He fell silent, then had an idea. "Captain Aizen, how about… Ukitake?"
Aizen was surprised, then nodded. "A fine choice. Strong enough, and retired—won't draw attention."
Yoshio had a deeper reason—he'd just thought of it. Ukitake carries the Soul King's right hand. If you split him…
Would the split carry a Soul King fragment too?
Could the Mind-Rending Blade even duplicate Soul King power?
If it could, what would emerge? The Soul King's right hand represents Stasis, left hand Progression. The opposite of the right hand—would it be the left? Or…
Something entirely different from the Soul King's power?