The ugly-faced baby split its mouth wide open. Beneath it, short tentacles wriggled like maggots, while countless sharp blades protruded from its lower abdomen. It spewed purple poison gas and charged at Szayelaporro like an out-of-control truck.
Yet, watching the baby rush toward him, Szayelaporro did nothing. He merely stood where he was, his expression cold and cruel.
The instant Big-Headed Baby came within five meters of Szayelaporro, its entire body began to swell violently. Its muscles and bones seemed to have been pumped full of air, and with a sound like a bursting balloon, blood and flesh blossomed through the air in a nauseating flower.
Szayelaporro stood bathed in blood, without the slightest sign of discomfort. He casually stretched out an arm, caught a piece of flesh, and placed it in his mouth. Chewing, he said to Mayuri Kurotsuchi, "Toxins can sometimes display entirely different properties depending on the individual. Toxins developed using Reishi, especially, possess extremely strong mutability and unpredictability. You know that much common sense, don't you?"
Mayuri Kurotsuchi looked at the Zanpakuto that had turned into chunks of flesh filling the sky, and his expression did not change in the slightest, as though it were not his Zanpakuto that had shattered.
He simply tossed away the remaining hilt in his hand, then crushed some of the flesh on the ground beneath his foot. There was not the least bit of affection for his own Zanpakuto in his eyes.
Szayelaporro said nothing at the sight. The flower bud behind him gradually opened, and strands of thick, dark-blue fluid secreted from his body. As the fluid poured in, a small figure slowly began to gestate within the flower bud behind him.
On closer inspection, the figure inside the flower bud was identical to Mayuri Kurotsuchi's Zanpakuto in both