"Oh, is that so?"
Mazuru's tone carried neither surprise nor curiosity. His gaze lingered on Bazz-B — calm, analytical, as if dissecting every word, every trace of energy that clung to the man's soul.
He finally spoke, voice smooth and cold.
"The so-called Holy Schrift — the holy mark — is nothing more than the symbol carved into your soul when Yhwach dripped his blood into the wine and made you drink. That act carved his signature upon you. Through that blood, his soul could enter your body."
He leaned slightly forward, his expression unreadable.
"Although the abilities you gain afterward manifest as your own — a reflection of your essence, much like a shinigami's Zanpakutō — the origin is different. A shinigami's Zanpakutō is born from writing their soul into a asauchi. But the quincy… the quincies are another story entirely."
Mazuru's eyes sharpened.
"Yhwach's power doesn't awaken you. It unlocks you. His blood is a key — one that opens a sealed gate within your being. When he chooses to withdraw that key and seal the gate again, the power you thought was yours simply vanishes. That is the true nature of your so-called divine gift."
Bazz-B lowered his head slightly, his expression dark. "It seems so." he admitted. Outwardly, he agreed — but deep inside, his thoughts burned.
No, Yhwach's power was more than a key. It was a parasite — a blood-sucking leech that fattened itself on others.
His soul fragments lived within them all.
Though the quincies received Holy Schrift and awakened their latent powers, the cost was absolute. Those fragments — hidden within their souls — allowed Yhwach to reclaim everything at will.
If he so desired, he could pull back every fragment he ever gave, and in doing so, the quincy would crumble — their power, their soul, their very existence devoured and added to his own.
That was why Yhwach was strong. His strength was stolen, piece by piece, from others.
Though not all quincies had received his direct touch, they were all bound to him by blood. He was their progenitor — the origin. Through that ancient link, he could still command them, no matter how far they ran.
Nine years ago, the world had witnessed his cruelty.
The Auswählen.
It was under the guise of purification — but what it truly meant was extermination. Pure-blood quincies survived, but the mixed-blood ones… they were erased.
It was said to be the natural selection of divine lineage, but in truth, it was genocide.
If Yhwach had been even slightly more ruthless, even the pure-bloods would have vanished that day. The very existence of Yhwach was a curse upon the quincy race.
To Bazz-B, only one truth remained.
'Dead ancestors are the best kind of ancestors.'
Mazuru's gaze never wavered.
"Having lost your Holy Schrift, does it not bother you?" he asked quietly. "To lose most of your strength — to fall from the status of a chosen quincy?"
Bazz-B's reply was deep, steady. "If it were the me from before, I might have felt uneasy. After all, the power of the Schrift was awakened by Yhwach, but I spent years mastering it. Blood, sweat, and everything I was went into it."
He paused, the faint flicker of a smile tugging at his lips.
"But now? I can accept it."
Death had changed him. Losing everything had stripped him of fear.
Yes, his Schrift was gone, but so too was Yhwach's fragment — the invisible shackle that had bound him. He no longer felt that lurking connection, that parasitic link to the emperor's will.
Yhwach could not repeat the mass Auswählen easily.
Even Bazz-B — who had lived beside him, hated him, studied him — knew that such a power required immense preparation. It could not be done casually.
He lifted his gaze to Mazuru again.
"Even without the Schrift, I'm still a quincy."
His voice carried conviction now — stripped of arrogance, full of clarity.
"The true strength of a quincy isn't the gift from a king. It's the ability to command the reishi around us — to bend the world itself into our bow and arrow."
He exhaled slowly.
"Without my flames, I still have that."
…
Far away — in the human world.
Karakura Town.
Since the great war more than a year ago, the once restless city had quieted. The reason was simple: the spiritual veins beneath Karakura Town now belonged to Mazuru.
Without them, the area no longer pulsed with spirit energy. The air grew thinner, lighter — less spiritual. Newborns rarely possessed spiritual sensitivity anymore.
In a way, peace had returned.
But it was a hollow kind of peace — a silence born from absence.
During the past year, the only major disturbance came from the former underling of Szayelaporro, Roka's resurgence in the world of the living with a small band of Pícaros. For a brief moment, Karakura Town descended into chaos again — but it was fleeting.
When that turmoil vanished, calm returned, blank and fragile.
For Kurosaki Ichigo, this stillness was both mercy and torment.
Ever since the battle with Aizen — the battle that ended with his loss of shinigami powers — he had lived like an empty shell. He could no longer protect anyone.
The only solace was that the number of hollows had dwindled drastically.
But even calm, he knew, could not last.
Some months ago, he had seen Kuchiki Rukia again. Through her, he learned of the new storms gathering beyond the human world — of Hueco Mundo and the Soul Society, locked once more in quiet warfare.
Only then did Ichigo learn that after defeating Aizen, another war had erupted — one that ended with the Soul Society's defeat at the hands of Kyo Mazuru.
Mazuru's betrayal had not shocked him; he had seen glimpses of it in Hueco Mundo, the way the former captain stood beside the arrancar.
What shocked him was that the Soul Society had lost.
Upon hearing there was a way to regain his shinigami powers, Ichigo didn't hesitate.
For over a year, he had lived hollowed-out — half-human, half-memory. Once lost, power became a part of the soul that nothing else could replace.
He trained, fought, and regained his powers.
Soon after, a group of Fullbringers led by Ginjo Kugo appeared — allies, the Soul Society claimed, meant to strengthen Ichigo's comrades. Inoue Orihime, Sado Yasutora, and the others joined under their guidance, preparing for whatever war was to come.
Yet Ichigo noticed something strange lately.
A quiet unease.
It came from one person — Ishida Uryo.
Uryo had been distant, his thoughts clouded. Whenever Ichigo spoke to him, he seemed absent, distracted by something invisible.
What Ichigo didn't know was that Uryo had already met someone.
A man cloaked in shadow, sharp-eyed and silent — the one who had appeared before him called himself Jugram Haschwalth, Grandmaster of the Sternritters.
The Emperor's right hand.
The man closest to Yhwach.
*****
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✓ Killed For 100 Years in Hueco Mundo, Aizen Invited Me To Soul Society!
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