So You Cannot Become King

"How did you do it?"

Kyoraku's voice trembled slightly.

Aizen himself was clearly still standing before him, and he had not even drawn his Zanpakuto... No, Aizen's Zanpakuto had already vanished.

Yet regardless, Aizen had so vividly—even immersively—projected the battlefield at Soul King Palace, thousands of miles away, before everyone's eyes.

This was not merely a display of strength. It proved that he could ascend to Soul King Palace at any time.

He did not go simply because he did not wish to.

"As you can see."

Aizen stood with his hands behind his back atop those virtual clouds, his tone calm.

"With my current Spiritual Pressure, if I wished, I could pull this lofty Soul King Palace down inch by inch and smash it onto the ground of the Seireitei."

He lowered his gaze to Kyoraku's pale face, his eyes brimming with amusement.

"So, Captain Kyōraku, even after seeing this, do you still naively believe that Captain Ross was the one preventing me from going to Soul King Palace?"

Those words struck Kyoraku's heart like a sledgehammer, plunging him into complete silence.

That was right.

If it had merely been Ross stopping him, then with Aizen's current heaven-shaking methods, he had ten thousand ways to circumvent it—or simply fight his way up.

Yet the truth was—

Yhwach, that rat they had used, had gone up there and gotten bloodied and battered.

While Aizen, the one who truly possessed both strength and ambition, stood here at ease, broadcasting the battle as if watching a play.

A terrifying suspicion surfaced in Kyoraku's mind.

He suddenly raised his head and stared fixedly at Aizen, his voice dry.

"Yhwach went up there because—"

"You forced him up together?"

"You anticipated that he would abandon the Wandenreich in desperation?"

"It was not only Ross