Death Is Just Death

As Shinji Hirako, Kurosaki Ichigo, and the others fell one after another, the once-mighty storm of rebellion finally reached its end.

On the vast Tenth Division plaza, only a handful of living people still drew breath.

Ross stood high in the air, his indifferent eyes slowly sweeping over the battlefield below.

Aside from Kirio and Kenpachi Zaraki, who were still fighting one-on-one amid flying flesh and blood like two wild beasts in a corner over there—

Only a scant few enemies remained.

Byakuya Kuchiki, Captain of the Sixth Division; Oetsu Nimaiya and Ichibei Hyosube of Zero Division; Yoruichi Shihoin, Captain of the Eighth Division; and Chōjirō Sasakibe, Captain of the First Division.

As well as several Lieutenant Captains who were too weak to do anything but watch and now could only tremble in fear.

Most of them were either crippled or badly wounded.

They no longer charged forward blindly. Instead, they sat amid the ruins below in silence, each wearing an expression of incomparably complicated despair as they looked up at the two men in the sky, who seemed like demon gods.

Ross and Aizen were, in everyone's eyes at that moment, two insurmountable chasms.

At that instant, everyone understood one truth with absolute clarity:

Before absolute power, the moment a blade truly pierced one's heart and ended one's life was not actually the most painful part.

It was like this—knowing full well that all resistance was futile, knowing the defeat was already decided, yet still being forced to watch their companions fall one after another.

Like lambs awaiting slaughter, quietly waiting for inevitable death and judgment to descend.

That torment, stripped of all hope, was the cruelest torture of all—the kind that shattered reason most thoroughly.

"Ross! You won this time."

Oetsu Nimaiya raised a hand to cover his