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"Yhwach…"
"You get it now, don't you? The reason you can't call out your sword's name is because it's already been destroyed."
Ichibe Hyosube raised his brush again.
The thick, razor-sharp tip pointed straight at Yhwach's stunned face, and the smile on the Monk Who Calls the True Name grew darker and more unsettling by the second.
"…."
Silence.
No longer forcing himself to shout the name of his blade, Yhwach glanced at it with clear disdain and simply threw it away.
Then he raised his arm with his bare hand.
"Heh… without a weapon, you still think you can fight back? How arrogant can you be?" Ichibe's eyes burned with fury. Yhwach's actions sent his blood pressure skyrocketing.
"If I can't have my power restored, then I'll just take yours instead."
His cloak fluttered despite the absence of wind.
Driven by Yhwach's will, the vast spiritual particles that hadn't yet been stained by ink were forcibly drawn together. They surged upward, gathering above Omotesando in a massive convergence.
And then—
Starlike radiance exploded outward.
The light tore through the surrounding darkness, forming an immense spiritual array. One sacred beam after another descended, pinning Ichibe's shadow firmly to the ground.
"As long as I take your power…"
"…this transcendent strength of silence and negation will become mine!!!"
Yhwach's greedy roar echoed throughout the Soul King Palace. He raised his hand toward the void and clenched it fiercely.
Clang!!!
The ritual of deprivation activated.
A colossal blue pillar of light pierced through the clouds and crashed down upon Ichibe like a divine hammer.
Suppression. Seizure. Devouring.
In the blink of an eye, the ink-stained sky began to clear as the blackness retreated in great swaths, and light returned once more.
This battle—
the clash between Shinigami and Quincy power—
seemed to end in Yhwach's overwhelming victory.
—
Underground chamber.
"Something's off…"
Tilting his head and resting his chin on his hand, Gin Ichimaru muttered to himself, puzzled.
"The more I watch this, the stranger it feels."
"If Yhwach can really steal even this transcendent power, then why didn't he try to take Ryujin Jakka's Bankai when he fought the Captain-Commander?"
With the sharp, foxlike instincts he prided himself on, Gin quickly noticed another problem.
The strength Yhwach was showing now clearly wasn't the same as before.
If not for the identical appearance, Gin might have seriously wondered whether the one who was brutally slaughtered by Zanka no Tachi had been a fake, some stand-in pretending to be Yhwach.
Honestly, that didn't seem all that unlikely.
"Maybe… he can't actually take it," Aizen said calmly. "He could just be bluffing."
"That seems hard to believe. Half the black has already faded, and the Monk's presence has weakened a lot," Gin replied, shaking his head slightly.
He didn't think there would be any kind of reversal.
However—
this world never runs out of moments that slap you right in the face.
Especially not in a battle between two transcendent beings.
All of a sudden—
Bang!
The deprivation array shattered violently.
The blazing blue light seemed to betray Yhwach in an instant, flipping back into abyssal black that surged across the sky like a tidal wave.
And that wasn't all.
Not just the scene in the video.
In the real world, everything associated with the color black was affected at the same moment. The black sheen vanished entirely.
"What's going on?!"
"The black on our Shihakusho is disappearing right before our eyes! What the hell is happening?!"
—
For a time, terrified cries echoed nonstop through Seireitei.
The Shinigami of the Gotei Thirteen stared down at their uniforms, their faces frozen in horror, as if they'd seen a ghost in broad daylight.
If not for the fear of severe punishment under squad law, some of the more timid ones might have ripped off their Shihakusho on the spot, desperate to avoid whatever unknown force was at work.
This phenomenon, so bizarre it defied all common sense, instantly plunged the entire Soul Society, even the whole Shinigami world, into panic.
It reached from the distant future into the present.
From an illusory video image, it manifested directly into reality.
Such overwhelming power truly transcended nature itself, leaving behind an indescribable sense of awe.
—
Back to the battlefield.
As the spiritual array collapsed, Ichibe Hyosube's figure reappeared within it, completely unscathed.
His eyes rolled white as he flashed a sharp, icy grin.
"Yhwach, you're overthinking it. My power can't be taken. And besides… didn't you notice? That coat of yours has already been completely stained black."
"What?!"
Yhwach snapped his head down.
Only then did he realize that blackness had crept onto his body without him noticing, spreading like a mire and wrapping tightly around him.
"By the time you notice… it's already too late."
Ichibe raised his brush and swung it down with brutal force.
Black ink poured over Yhwach like an inverted waterfall, engulfing him in an instant. Not a single trace of color remained.
Pitch black.
No facial features. No expression.
Even his limbs were glued together by the thick, viscous ink.
Seen from afar through the screen, Yhwach, the man who had lost his "name," no longer looked human at all. Apart from a vaguely humanoid outline, he had become nothing more than a bottomless pool of black ink.
The eyes exposed within that boundless darkness were empty, dull, completely devoid of light.
With his name stripped away, his power taken, and all traces of his past erased—
there was no longer anyone known as the "King of the Quincy" in this world.
What remained
was something waiting to be rewritten.
A pitiful creature, allowed to live only by Ichibe Hyosube's will.
"The Monk was right!"
"Once he was completely stained black, Yhwach's presence vanished entirely!"
"It's like he just evaporated into thin air!!!"
—
Shock rippled outward.
The crowd erupted.
The scene frozen within the compilation video showed that lone figure standing in endless darkness.
Weak. Helpless. Tragic.
And yet, he blended so perfectly into the black background that it didn't feel out of place at all.
It was as if "Yhwach" had fully merged with the ink itself.
Once Ichibe Hyosube released his blade, he would vanish along with all the ink within the Soul King Palace, disappearing from the world completely.
"It's over, Yhwach…"
"Now I'll give you a new name and redefine your lowly, laughable life," Ichibe declared in a voice that carried absolute authority, resounding through the air like a decree from a god.
The ink swirling around the Great-Eyed Monk was no longer pitch black.
Instead—
it turned a pure, cleansing white.
"True Strike!"
"Ichimonji's True Name!"
Ichibe lightly flicked the tip of his brush.
White mist drifted through the air like fine threads.
Wherever the white passed, the spiritual particles that had vanished were restored, rich and abundant once more.
Every stroke felt like rebirth.
"True Strike?"
In the underground chamber of Squad Five, Aizen frowned slightly.
"Is this another way of saying Bankai? After shifting from black to white, his presence has grown even stronger."
Within his ink-dark eyes, fierce battle intent still burned.
At this moment, Ichibe Hyosube's aura had completely surpassed the pinnacle of the Shinigami. He stood on a level so distant it felt like an entirely different dimension.
And that level of power was something even Aizen found hard to comprehend.
After all—
this was the highest realm he had never once set foot in.
"..."
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