Though it was still daytime, Karakura Town, devoid of people at this very moment, was utterly silent. The low cries of birds, the roars of beasts, even the howling of the wind... all had fallen completely still.
It was as though everything in this world feared the arrival of that being in the sky.
Under the divine might radiating from that creature, most people's minds had gone nearly blank. Yet amid their shock, they also felt unwillingness. They naturally understood what Aizen had just said.
That terrifying existence which had nearly wiped them all out was merely a special Gigai created by Aizen... They dared not believe it, much less accept it.
But the truth had already been laid bare before their eyes.
Yet not everyone reacted that way. One person was exceptionally different. He did not look at Aizen in the sky, but at the special Gigai on the ground, formed from the entirety of the Wandenreich's members.
Everything here had been cast from his mind—or rather, nothing here could draw his attention anymore.
"How could this be? If that was Yhwach... then what meaning did all my preparations over these years have?" Ishida Ryuken muttered, bringing Kurosaki Isshin beside him back to his senses.
After briefly considering Ishida Ryuken's words, a complicated expression surfaced on Kurosaki Isshin's face as well.
If one had to name the person who understood Ishida Ryuken best, it would definitely be Kurosaki Isshin. Not even Ishida Ryuken's own son could compare.
Because aside from Kurosaki Isshin and Urahara Kisuke, no one knew what this man had sacrificed to avenge his wife.
Ishida Ryuken's wife had been a mixed-blood Quincy.
Yhwach, meanwhile, was the ancestor of the Quincy. After his defeat in the battle a thousand years ago, Yhwach took nine hundred years to