Chapter 168: I am Aizen
Soul Society was a realm with a history measured in millions of years. By comparison, the Shinigami and the Gotei 13 were young, almost embarrassingly so.
And yet, among all the regions that had already rotted into decadence, the Gotei 13 was one of the few structures still capable of reform. They recruited talent, pushed new technology, rebuilt training systems, and constantly sharpened their overall strength.
On paper, Soul Society had no rivals left. The Quincy, their greatest threat, had been exterminated a century ago. Hueco Mundo existed largely as a balancing weight, a necessary counterpoint to keep the scales from tipping.
It should have been the end of the story.
But Soul Society did not stop. It continued refining itself, striving toward a higher standard of self evolution, as if fear of stagnation had become instinct.
That alone was impressive.
Even a sinner like Mayuri Kurotsuchi worked with manic devotion inside the system. The Gotei 13 was not exactly youthful, but it pulsed with ambition. Associations sprang up. Newspapers spread. Advanced training programs multiplied across divisions. From high ranking officers to the lowest seated Shinigami, everyone absorbed knowledge in their own way, grinding forward like a machine that refused to rust.
Even the smallest problem was reported quickly.
Administrative efficiency like that was rare in any world.
So, how difficult was it to change one's identity in Soul Society?
Aizen Sosuke did not find it difficult at all.
He was the Fifth Division Captain. The mask was already his. All he had to do was kill himself, then act according to memory. What problem could possibly remain?
A traveler's misfortune? What traveler's misfortune?
Mayuri built a machine that screamed and then went quiet. If his instrument could not endure reality, that was Mayuri's embarrassment, not Aizen's.
Compared to the hundreds of years he had lived in Soul Society, the twenty odd years he spent in Konoha felt like an extended vacation. Once he returned to Seireitei, his composure snapped back into place as if it had never left.
The moment he arrived, he used a space time ninjutsu entirely different from anything in Seireitei to confirm his location. Then he activated Kyoka Suigetsu across the room.
Before anyone could even breathe, he drove a blade through his own heart.
Two more strikes severed the spirit particle release organs in his hands.
A final thrust pierced his skull.
Less than three seconds.
A perfect execution.
Then, after finishing that slaughter in plain view, he used Kyoka Suigetsu to seize their five senses and teach them what they would remember. Aizen guided their brushwork, corrected their strokes, smiled gently, and, all the while, adjusted the energy within his body, calibrating it until his chakra, spiritual pressure, and every numerical value matched the man he had replaced.
At the right moment, a Hell Butterfly delivered Mayuri's movements toward the First Division.
So Aizen did what Captain Aizen would do.
He intercepted Mayuri.
He mocked him.
He smiled.
And in that single harmless exchange, everything that belonged to Aizen Sosuke returned quietly into Aizen Sosuke's hands.
No one would ever know what had happened, not even Kaname Tosen, the man who could not be hypnotized. Tosen would never realize that the Captain he followed had been replaced in silence.
Aizen's reason for killing the Aizen of this world was simple.
He would never submit to anyone.
Not even himself.
In truth, he had to admit it. His action was not built on logic. It was passion. It was irrationality, sharpened into an impulse so pure it overrode explanation.
The moment he returned to Soul Society and saw himself, that impulse reached its peak.
He killed him without hesitation, without delay, and the reasons he found afterward were only attempts to justify something he had already decided the instant he arrived.
If he was honest, he could not find a convincing reason for that Aizen to remain alive.
Technology? He could create clones.
Power? Without the Hogyoku, a Shinigami's ceiling meant nothing to him now.
Keeping the original alive only created risk. Two identical spiritual pressures appearing in the same world increased the chance of exposure for no benefit at all.
If chakra did not exist, he might not have chosen such an immediate replacement after being thrown across worlds.
But chakra did exist.
And chakra carried a technique that was almost offensive in its convenience.
Shadow Clone Technique.
Learning, research, action, infiltration, production, everything could be multiplied.
So what use was a second Aizen Sosuke?
Kisuke Urahara could remain.
Mayuri could remain.
Anyone else could remain.
But Aizen Sosuke, the arrogant man who believed no one could understand him, could not be allowed to remain.
Because Aizen understood exactly what Aizen was.
An egotistical bastard to the extreme.
Gentle expressions meant nothing. Warm words meant nothing. Even if he spoke like a saint and moved like a gentleman, the core did not change.
He was Aizen Sosuke.
He would never allow a second version of himself to exist in the same world, not even as a possibility.
Others surpassing him was their business.
A second him existing was an insult.
Behind him lay his own corpse in Seireitei. In front of him, Aizen calmly continued teaching the Fifth Division members calligraphy, along with the principles hidden behind the brush.
It was something he had always done. It was one of the reasons the Fifth Division adored him.
Anyone could pretend to be a gentleman for a short time. But Captain Aizen had maintained this reputation for centuries, rescuing low level Shinigami, advocating for wandering spirits and the powerless, submitting petitions to the Central 46 and enduring criticism without backing down.
That consistency built trust even the Captain Commander could not ignore.
The calligraphy lesson continued.
Aizen spoke softly, corrected posture, refined habits, and allowed the Fifth Division to sink back into the rhythm of their world, unaware of the blood that had already dried beneath a vanished body.
Meanwhile, the corpse on the scroll dissolved.
Spiritual particles, spiritual power, essence, origin, everything that made the dead Aizen Aizen, broke down and flowed into the living Aizen like ink soaking into paper.
It felt like absorbing a being of the same origin, accepting it, hiding it, then releasing it again through two distinct channels, as if testing whether a new spiritual particle structure could be born from that overlap.
As Aizen was weighing that possibility, a soft voice reached his ears, trembling slightly.
He looked up.
A gentle face, bright and earnest, stood at the edge of the room, cheeks faintly flushed.
"Um, Captain Aizen. I have some questions I do not quite understand. Could you help me?"
Aizen's expression remained warm.
"Lieutenant Hinamori. Please wait a moment. The calligraphy class is still in progress, do not disappoint everyone."
"Oh, okay. I am so sorry. I will wait outside."
"It is alright, Hinamori."
She hurried out, fidgeting as she went, and Aizen pushed up his glasses.
For some reason, a faint listlessness settled over him.
He increased Kyoka Suigetsu to its limit, letting the entire room fall deeper into the illusion that he was guiding them alone, exactly as always.
Then he sat down, alone, on the seat where the corpse had been nailed.
From within his robes, he produced an object.
A small device shaped like a compass.
At its center sat a rigid, lifeless Mangekyo Sharingan.
At its nine corners burned nine lamps, each a tailed beast chakra light.
The chakra once poured into this tool, chakra comparable to dozens of planets worth of accumulation, had already been exhausted. In the final moment, it had been thrown into Soul Society, and now it rested in his palm like a powerless toy.
From the outside, it looked like the kind of one time transmigration artifact found in cheap stories, used once and then forgotten, never mentioned again across hundreds or thousands of chapters.
But to Aizen, it was the most precious treasure in existence.
The condensed Ten Tails.
A device that could truly change the world.
Unlike the Spirit King's system, a world made only of spirit particles stretched over Hell, this was something else entirely.
A new power system.
A complete deconstruction.
Aizen stared at the Ten Tails compass in his palm, felt the alien structure within it, and the flame that had once been smothered inside him began to burn again.
He had too many regrets in Soul Society.
All his talk about guiding others forward, hoping the world would grow better, had always been compromise.
Because he could not break the Spirit King's constraints. Under the Spirit King's suppression, no matter how he dressed his thoughts, reality remained unmoved.
The foundation of this world was the Spirit King's system.
To fight the Spirit King with the Spirit King's own laws only created the next Spirit King.
Soul Society itself existed because of that self sacrifice. In the universe Aizen had once known, there had been no other visible solution.
Perhaps that was true.
And still, Aizen had not chosen to let the world perish with him.
When Yhwach appeared, Aizen chose the path that might cost his life, creating an opening for Ichigo Kurosaki to strike. He had always known what he was doing.
The Hogyoku was a ladder.
Karakura Town as the Royal Key was a gate.
Reaching the Royal Palace was a step.
Then he saw the truth of the Spirit King, and escape became meaningless.
When Yhwach came, Aizen sacrificed himself so the world could continue to exist.
He never wavered.
Arrogant, flawed, painfully human, but moving forward according to his own heart, even when it proved his own powerlessness.
Even after the Thousand Year Blood War, Aizen could not find a true breakthrough against the Spirit King system.
His last hope, then, had been Ichigo, a transcendent beyond the limits of death, and the descendants that might follow.
That was why he told others to move forward.
Because he himself had reached the end of what death could achieve within that system.
But now, chakra existed.
Now everything was different.
A new path.
A new choice.
In this world, he could finally build something instead of merely resisting.
That was the root of his confidence.
That was why he killed the Aizen of this world without hesitation.
"Wood Release, Wood Clone Technique."
He drew on the remaining power inside the shrunken Ten Tails. A foreign system spread outward, quiet and smooth.
Chakra was not spiritual power.
It did not obey the models of spirit particles.
Long range monitoring instruments could track spiritual particle density and abnormal structures, but chakra existed outside their entire logic.
It would not register.
It would not appear.
It was there, subjectively real, yet unmeasurable by their current methods.
Aizen understood this better than anyone. He had once framed Kisuke Urahara, and he knew exactly what their technology was built on.
Soul Society was spirit particles.
Quincy combat was spirit particles.
Fullbring drew on remnants of the Spirit King's power and, again, spirit particles.
There was no chakra anywhere in their equations.
So for spirit particles, chakra was effectively invisible.
At least for now, until someone built the tools and research needed to see it.
A Wood Release clone formed in the academy, pale and silent, then quickly reshaped itself into Aizen Sosuke's appearance.
Then Aizen injected spiritual pressure and spiritual power into it, creating a perfect shell that could walk, speak, and exist as a Shinigami while concealing the truth beneath.
After twisting and restarting chakra, using Yin Yang Release to create a clone was not difficult. He shaped it carefully, remade it completely, and gave it a face that matched his own.
No one in Soul Society could see through this.
It was a cheat, a system breaker, something that should not exist in this world.
But even that was not enough.
Aizen needed allies.
Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tosen were useful, yes, but he required more people, people who could truly help him dismantle the Spirit King's political order and rebuild something new.
He had to admit it.
He felt strongly for Soul Society.
He did not want to live forever in someone else's shadow.
He stared at the Ten Tails compass, and emotion surged through him like a violent tide.
Kisuke Urahara was necessary. His mind was too valuable to discard.
Mayuri only cared about research, and chakra would tempt him like poison sweetened with honey.
But the other captains?
Most of them would reject any change that threatened their stability.
The Central 46 would need to be slaughtered again, perhaps more than once. They were the greatest beneficiaries of the Soul King's order. They would never surrender power willingly. Only death and blood could make them yield.
And yet their existence was still necessary to keep Soul Society stable. Some portion of the aristocratic system would have to remain, if only to preserve legitimacy.
Zero Division was not a threat to fear blindly.
They could resurrect infinitely, theoretically, but that was based on the Spirit King's Word of Power. They were the strongest supporters of the system, bound to it more tightly than anyone. Leaving it would invite a terrible fate.
Therefore, they must be the last to learn anything.
As for the countless low level Shinigami, they would likely welcome chakra. It was not a curse for them, it was an option. They could train chakra with their physical bodies while remaining Shinigami, and Soul Society already possessed prosthetic soul technology.
So many possibilities.
So many moving parts.
Then, outside the door, a voice muttered in anxious circles.
"I wonder if Captain Aizen would like this…"
Aizen's thoughts paused.
"…Ise said it should be fine, but that is Captain Aizen, you know? I am absolutely loyal. Won't this make Captain Aizen think I am slacking off? Should I go back to my official duties, um…"
Hinamori stood there, fiddling with her hair, head lowered, speaking as if the air itself might judge her.
And for the briefest moment, Aizen's plans, grand enough to rewrite a world, were interrupted by something far smaller.
Aizen pushed up his glasses again, gaze distant.
He had too many regrets in Soul Society.
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