Starrk and Baraggan Arrive

Ten Unohana's training proceeded with difficulty.

Retsu Unohana could no longer keep her composure because Ten Unohana's Hollow had appeared. She kept shutting herself in her room, and no one knew what she was doing.

Rangiku learned to drink, and after getting drunk on one occasion, Yoruichi began drinking with her. At the same time, Yoruichi used her connections in the Second Division and the Shihōin Clan to frantically search for cases like Ten Unohana's. With the clan's strong support, Kisuke Urahara also began establishing the Twelfth Division's Research and Development Institute and researching Ten's condition.

Meanwhile, under Ten Unohana's influence, Aizen also began merging the powers of Hollows and Soul Reapers and creating the Hōgyoku.

Everything slowly unfolded as it had in the original story. To put it in a very clichéd way, the wheel of history slowly rolled forward, or rather, the great wheel of fate began to turn.

Everything slowly progressed behind the scenes, but a problem finally arose—

With the Shihōin Clan's support, Kisuke Urahara was making the Hōgyoku without difficulty. Aizen, however, had no such luck. Without anyone to support him, he finally hit a bottleneck in its creation.

A formidable schemer, Aizen, like Ten Unohana, set his sights on the Soul Reaper captains of the Seireitei in the Soul Reaper world.

Time slipped slowly away like fine sand through fingers, and in the blink of an eye, it was a hundred years before the start of the original story.

During that time, an "earth-shattering" event occurred in the Soul Reaper world—

Ichigo's dad, Isshin Shiba, was unfortunately badly injured and was saved by Masaki Kurosaki in the World of the Living. Yep, a beauty saved the hero, and after that, the hero promptly fell to his knees and was dragged into the grave of love. XXOO, and then Little Ichigo was born...

The wheel of the Soul Reaper world began to turn.

None of this affected Ten Unohana, because Ten was now feeling a bit too content to think of leaving. Well, how to put it? Cirucci, Tier Harribel, Sun-Sun, Apache, Mila? Rose. Surrounded by beauties, Ten let out a great shout—

Don't get the wrong idea. He had merely broken through. Nani?! A breakthrough?! Well, he had merely broken through to a new realm and could use Resurrección. In other words, Ten Unohana had finally shed that skin and could do the things he loved.

That was what Ten Unohana had in mind, and he promptly acted on it. He looked happily at the five cute girls around him. A life fit for an immortal needed no explanation! While the girls weren't paying attention, Ten Unohana grabbed Harribel and pinned her to the ground.

"Out in the open??" For some reason, a wicked thought suddenly came to Ten Unohana. Wicked thoughts meant wicked actions, and just as Ten Unohana was about to see those words through, a few uninvited guests arrived...

Ten Unohana's face rapidly darkened. No one would have been in a good mood at a time like this. Right now, all he wanted was to draw the Blade of Slaughter and viciously slash the three people in front of him.

Of the three, one was an old man whose mask resembled a crown atop his head. The other two were a lazy-looking man and a little girl. The man had short, slightly messy, curly black hair and gray eyes. The remnants of his mask formed a toothy necklace around his jaw. The girl had short ice-green hair, pinkish-red eyes, and a mask shaped like a single-horned helmet.

"Coyote Starrk! Lilynette Gingerbuck, Baraggan Louisenbairn, what do you three want?" Ten demanded angrily.

At the same time, he climbed off Harribel. The mature beauty now felt she had nowhere to hide. Someone as famous as her had been caught doing something so embarrassing. Harribel shot Ten Unohana a fierce glare, but there was nothing to be done. The visitors had come with hostile intentions, and with powerful enemies before them, infighting would be wrong. Thus, the future couple unanimously decided to face the outsiders together.

"I have no time to bother with you. Who would have thought you would dare ignore my orders and force me to hunt you down personally?" Baraggan said, putting on an act. Or rather, he spoke like a badass. After all, he had the strength to back it up, and when you had the strength, it was being a badass.

But I'll turn your badass act into a joke, Ten Unohana thought fiercely.

"Satan's Curse," Ten Unohana murmured, slowly drawing the Zanpakuto at his waist.

"Roar—"

Ten Unohana threw his head back and let out a long roar.

"Clang—"

The wings on Ten Unohana's back spread, producing a ringing metallic clash.

At the same time, a demonic mask, fangs, blood-red markings, and dragon horns appeared. His hands and feet had also become sharp claws at some point.

"Would you two mind leaving?!" Ten Unohana asked Starrk and Lilynette, looking sharply at them. If they refused, it would mean the battle had officially begun.

"Aw, come on, don't be like that. I really do want to make a friend," Starrk said lazily.

Ten Unohana picked up the Poppy Scythe from behind his back and said, "If you came to make friends after I finished fighting this skeleton, I think I'd welcome you, provided your timing wasn't as bad as it is today."

But Starrk said, "I can't do that. I'd like to do that too, but I want to know even more whether we can be friends. You know, it's lonely at the top!"

Starrk's words made Ten Unohana a little wary. Their meaning was obvious: Starrk had no intention of leaving. Not only that, but there was another very important matter—Starrk was also preparing to fight.

Ten Unohana was a little speechless. Damn it, if he wanted to make friends, he could just make friends! He was number one in Hueco Mundo, and plenty of Hollows wanted to be his friend, but who would be bored enough to fight him just to become his friend? Someone could die! What if he didn't hold back when he attacked? Right??

What made Ten Unohana most anxious was—

"Hunt them down, Los Lobos!"

Lilynette and Starrk merged, releasing their Zanpakuto. Starrk had gotten serious.

This left Ten Unohana a little speechless. Starrk happened to counter him. Although Blood Sea's ability could resolve the problem, Ten Unohana had yet to develop it. The Poppy Scythe's ability was not very effective against Starrk's Infinite Reload Cero, because Ten Unohana had to fend off not only Starrk's attacks but also Baraggan's aging ability.

"Rot, Arrogante."

Seeing Starrk use Resurrección, Baraggan promptly did the same.

Great. Now they had both close-range and long-range fighters, and not just any fighters either, but the First Espada and Second Espada from the original story.

In the original story, Starrk had faced the protagonist and Kenpachi at the same time and successfully taken Orihime Inoue away from them. He had also faced Kyōraku and Ukitake, then fought the two Visored captains, Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi and Love Aikawa. Only after facing so many people was Starrk defeated and badly injured.

As for Baraggan, he was another man whose badassery knew no bounds. In the original story, he was the only Espada who dared attack Aizen. Although he ultimately failed to injure Aizen, he was still a badass. He fought Soi Fon, Hachigen Ushōda, and Ōmaeda at the same time, and then, because he was not on the protagonist's side, was killed by his own ability. He could be called the most tragic of the Espada, defeated by himself...

Ten Unohana looked at the three who had become two Hollows and let out a long breath. He said to the five women, "Everyone except Little Bell, leave the battlefield first. Little Bell, stand at a distance, use Resurrección, and provide me with ranged fire support."

Ten Unohana had actually wanted Harribel to leave, but when he thought of Starrk's Infinite Reload Cero, he decided to have her stay.

The other four women also wanted to stay. Cirucci said, "But I..."

"Enough. Your abilities aren't suited to this battle. Cirucci, your Golondrina isn't suited to a fight this intense. Sun-Sun, your Ayon isn't suited to this fight either. Listen to me and leave first. Hurry."

Ten Unohana was getting anxious. The fighting would start very soon. Whether it was Starrk's Infinite Reload Cero or Baraggan's aging ability, could anyone just wander into their attack range?

Sensing the Reiatsu of the other four women slowly moving farther away, Ten Unohana let out a soft breath. Although they hadn't left, they were now outside the battlefield.

"Bell."

"Mm. Conquer him, Tiburón."

With a casual wave of Ten Unohana's hand, the silver chain connecting the Poppy Scythe and the Blade of Slaughter wrapped around his entire body. After all this time, although Ten Unohana had not developed Blood Sea's ability, he had become very adept with the silver chain. As for why—

He had too many weapons. Even Ten Unohana felt somewhat helpless about that. He had the Poppy Scythe, the Blade of Slaughter, and Satan's Sigh, his released Zanpakuto. Three weapons were a bit of a problem when he had only two hands. Although the Blade of Slaughter's and the Poppy Scythe's abilities could be transferred and shared through the silver chain, Ten Unohana didn't want to put either weapon away.

So Ten Unohana came up with this method: he could control the Blade of Slaughter by freely extending and retracting the silver chain. In the course of developing it, he also discovered that the silver chain could use the abilities of the Blade of Slaughter and the Poppy Scythe.

So Ten Unohana promptly wrapped himself in the silver chain first, using the Poppy Scythe's ability to absorb attacks to achieve absolute defense. However, for ease of movement and for the sake of his appearance, many parts of Ten Unohana's body remained uncovered by the silver chain. Those were also the only places where he could be hit.

Ten Unohana's enemies would later be quite speechless about this. How could an ability be so shameless?!

But in any case, the battle began.