Ulquiorra's body slowly began to crumble into dust.
Grains of darkness peeled away from his skin, scattering into the air as though some invisible wind were carrying away the last traces of his existence. That cold, absolute, almost inhuman presence that had once seemed impossible to shake was fading now, grain by grain, silence by silence.
Before he disappeared completely, his gaze turned toward Orihime.
And in that fleeting instant, something appeared in his eyes that had never seemed to belong to him: reluctance.
It was faint. Almost impossible to catch. But it was there.
"After all this time… I had finally started to find you people interesting…"
Those were his final words.
When Ulquiorra's body vanished entirely, the broadcast screen was instantly buried beneath a flood of comments. There was no empty space left. Every corner of the interface filled with grief, theories, outrage, and rushed farewells, as if millions of fans across the world were trying to hold onto him for one last moment with nothing but words.
Another beloved character had exited the stage.
Some called him by affectionate nicknames, mourning him as though they had lost someone close. Others said he had given his heart to two people: Sosuke Aizen and Orihime. Many argued over whether what he felt for Orihime had been romantic, while just as many insisted it had never needed such a simple label.
To them, the bond between those two was closer to salvation, recognition, and the late understanding of something human. Not every connection between a man and a woman had to be love. Some were wounds. Some were mirrors. Some were the quiet proof that even an empty soul could one day understand what a heart meant.
But amid all that grief, there was also raw indignation.
Alex had done it again.
He had killed another character they loved.
The first episode of that week's update ended with Ulquiorra's death. Then, in the final scene, the image shifted to the front of the Soul King Palace.
Sosuke Aizen placed one hand against his chest, lowering his gaze slightly. His expression remained calm, but there was a heavy pause in it, a subtle crack so restrained that only those who had watched him for a long time could notice it.
"I see… Ulquiorra has…"
He did not finish the sentence.
A moment later, Aizen raised his eyes toward the monk standing before him.
"Come, Ichibe Hyosube."
The episode ended there.
In front of countless screens, viewers exhaled without realizing they had been holding their breath.
At this point, whenever an episode from the final season of Bleach ended, they no longer rushed to click the next one like they used to. They needed a moment first. They needed to breathe, to talk, to argue, to turn the weight in their chests into words. Comment sections, forums, private groups, and fan communities all boiled over like cities under emotional siege.
Because Bleach had become far too heavy.
Komamura and Tosen, two old friends who had once broken apart, only to find something like reconciliation at the edge of death. Byakuya Kuchiki, cold on the outside but burning within, a nobleman who had always worn his pride like armor, reaching the end of his life and casting away his dignity to bow his head before Ichigo Kurosaki with a desperate plea.
And now Ulquiorra, who died without abandoning his loyalty to Sosuke Aizen, yet in his final moments came to understand the meaning of the word "heart."
The strange, undefinable feeling between him and Orihime became a subject endlessly discussed by hundreds of millions of Bleach fans across the world. Some insisted it was love. Others said it was something sadder, rarer, and perhaps purer. No one could reach a final answer, and maybe that was exactly why the farewell hurt so much.
Only after discussing it with friends, debating it in comment sections, and releasing some of the tension with fellow fans did the audience gather the courage to open the next episode. Their excitement was still there, but now it was tangled with nervous dread.
No one knew who Alex would cut down next.
The second episode of the week began.
And there was no doubt at all.
This episode belonged to Sosuke Aizen and Ichibe Hyosube.
In the very first scene, Ichibe raised his enormous brush and drew a massive sealing character in midair. The spiritual pressure around him shifted, becoming dense, ancient, and almost sacred, before condensing into a colossal palm that blotted out the sky like the hand of a god.
The next instant, the attack descended upon Aizen.
The force was absurd. Space itself seemed to bend beneath the impact, as if that palm was not merely striking a body, but crushing the rules of the world around it. Aizen was sent flying like an insect before some primordial being.
"Hm."
Even so, he merely touched the black emblem at his chest.
That was Yamamoto's Zanka no Tachi.
In the next moment, flames of extreme heat wrapped around Aizen's body. The temperature became so intense that the image itself seemed to tremble, as though a miniature sun had been born around him. The air warped. The ground looked ready to disintegrate. Anyone watching instinctively understood that approaching him would be the same as accepting death.
Zanka no Tachi had appeared.
"A defective version of the bankai you obtained from Yamamoto," Ichibe said, his voice thick with disdain. "And you think that will be enough to stop me?"
The gigantic palm continued pressing down on Aizen, apparently unafraid even of the most destructive zanpakuto ever wielded by a captain-commander.
Aizen's eyes narrowed.
Then he drew his blade.
The explosion was deafening.
The entire Soul King Palace shook violently, and the spiritual palm was finally consumed by ancient flames, reduced to ash by a fire so absolute it seemed to come from the end of the world. Aizen landed back on the ground, but for the first time since the final season had begun, he appeared to have been placed at a disadvantage right from the opening exchange.
"That bankai of Yamamoto's really is troublesome," Ichibe muttered. "In that case, I have no choice. I'll kill you."
His eyes rapidly turned white, losing their pupils entirely, and an endless killing intent poured from him like a freezing tide. It was not anger. It was not rage. It was something older and far more terrifying: the calm decision to erase someone from existence.
Aizen put away Zanka no Tachi and drew his own blade, Kyoka Getsu.
Across from him, Ichibe also raised his enormous brush.
The instant their weapons collided, terrifying spiritual pressure swept across the entire Soul King Palace.
Behind them, the three remaining Espada did not dare move closer.
The spiritual pressure itself had already told them everything.
This was not a battle they had any right to interfere in.
The next moment, Ichibe dragged his bulky frame forward and leapt, bringing the brush crashing down with overwhelming force. Aizen only smiled faintly and allowed the blow to land on his shoulder.
"So this is the level of the leader of Squad Zero?"
After partially fusing with the Hogyoku, Aizen's defense had already reached the limit of both Shinigami and Hollow. A blunt weapon should not have been capable of injuring him. It should not even have scratched him.
But Ichibe stared at him coldly.
"My brush does not cut flesh. It cuts names."
At that exact instant, Aizen's left arm sank.
The entire limb seemed to fill with lead, dropping heavily toward the ground.
"Your arm feels heavier now, doesn't it?" Ichibe said. "Your strength has been halved. Your abilities as well. That arm can only do half of what it used to do."
Aizen gave no reply.
He simply swung his sword again.
But to the audience, his movements looked as though they had been slowed to half speed. Every motion had lost its sharpness, its precision, its supremacy. The man who had seemed unreachable until now was moving with a slowness so obvious it was almost insulting.
"Naturally, your speed has also been halved."
Ichibe smiled coldly and struck back, sending Aizen flying.
In front of screens around the world, countless Bleach fans nearly jumped out of their chairs.
Sosuke Aizen had been blown away.
Since the start of the final season, this was the first time they had seen Aizen pressured like this. It was not a balanced exchange of arrogance and provocation. It was not some theatrical misdirection. He had been hit, weakened, and thrown back.
"Now you are only half of Sosuke Aizen," Ichibe mocked. "How does it feel to be torn apart by your enemy?"
"How does it feel?"
Far away, amid the dust raised by the impact, Aizen slowly walked out of the smoke. His silhouette appeared first, calm and upright. Then a pair of white wings unfolded behind him, radiant like those of an angel, yet twisted by something unsettling, almost blasphemous.
He looked like a god on the verge of reaching his final form: noble, beautiful, irresistible, and at the same time wrong in a way the human instinct could not ignore.
"Are you referring to the feeling of evolving once again?"
Seeing this new form, many viewers immediately remembered Aizen's previous battle against Yamamoto. Aizen had once said that the more his fusion with the Hogyoku was pushed to its limit, the further his evolution would progress.
The fans' dread turned into shock.
And that shock turned into a nervous, trembling excitement.
Because Aizen was not merely enduring.
He was being pushed toward something even worse.
Ichibe narrowed his eyes and raised his right palm.
In the next instant, a storm took shape, forming the silhouette of a sacred beast before charging toward Aizen with a roar powerful enough to swallow the heavens.
"Kido?" Aizen said, showing no concern at all. "There is no need to be bound by form."
Monstrous spiritual pressure overflowed from his body, forming an invisible barrier that warped the space around him. The storm slammed into that wall and was stopped cold.
"All one needs is enough spiritual pressure to crush everything."
But at that very instant, Ichibe appeared in front of him.
One hand seized Aizen's throat, twisting with the clear intent to crush his windpipe. Aizen answered by slashing the monk's wrist with his sword, opening a deep, brutal wound.
Both of them retreated at the same time.
Ichibe landed on the ground and spun the enormous brush in his hand.
"You invaded the Soul King Palace," he said, his voice carrying an authority that felt almost primordial. "And you even dare trample the body of a member of Squad Zero. There is a limit to insolence."
Then he released his weapon.
"Blacken, Ichimonji."
The moment he spoke the release command, the tip of Ichibe's brush transformed into a short blade. But in the next second, when Aizen tried to observe it more carefully, his vision seemed to blur, and the blade once again appeared to be a brush.
What had happened?
He had no time to think.
The two clashed again, and the battle resumed with even greater violence. Each swing from Ichibe scattered large amounts of black ink through the air, and part of it struck Kyoka Getsu, coating Aizen's blade in thick darkness.
"What meaning does this kind of attack have?" Aizen asked, his disdain obvious. "I have grown tired of your performance."
He raised his sword.
"Shatter…"
But the sentence died halfway.
For the first time, Sosuke Aizen's expression froze.
He could not remember the name of his own zanpakuto.
At that moment, countless viewers understood all at once, and a chill ran down their spines. The story was nearing its end, but the abilities of these new characters were becoming more and more outrageous. Aizen, who could evolve infinitely when pushed, was already an absurd existence on his own.
And now, standing before him, was someone capable of stealing the "name" of his target.
Even so, perhaps there had never been any other choice.
Alex had created Aizen as a living cheat.
And to defeat one cheat, only another cheat would do.
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