"Huh? Oh!"
Ichigo hurried past everyone sprawled on the ground and carried Senna over to Yuko, carefully setting her down.
Watching Senna's body slowly disappear, Ichigo bit his lip. "Aunt, please."
Tears glimmered in Senna's violet eyes. "Ichigo... Teacher..."
She didn't want to die. Even for her friends, she didn't want to die.
Senna's body was turning into Reishi. Countless tiny points of light peeled away from her and were dragged toward the sky by an enormous force. It was the instinct of the Blanks: the Valley of Screams reclaiming its energy.
Yuko pushed herself up from the grass and crooked a finger at Kisuke Urahara.
Only then did Ichigo see a blood-red butterfly rise from Urahara's arm. It traced a crimson arc through the air and settled on the back of Yuko's hand. With a rainbow flash, it sank into her skin and became a blood-red butterfly tattoo.
At the same time, Yuko's long red hair stirred and turned white. A pair of fierce, pointed Demon Horns grew from her head, blue veins surfaced beneath the skin of her cheeks and arms, and the red pupils in her eyes split into pairs of golden pupils.
"Butterfly, return!"
At Yuko's command, the Zanpakuto embedded in the riverbed gave a clear hum and leaped back into her hand.
Freed from its restraint, the entrance to the Valley of Screams erupted. Golden light blazed from the submerged opening, and a vast pull threatened to swallow the entire river into the void. The reflection in the water began shrinking furiously—a sign that the Valley of Screams was about to vanish.
"Senna!" Ichigo watched in horror as the girl in his arms dissolved into a brilliant cloud of violet light, about to be swept into the shattered rift by the spatial torrent.
When the