The moment he was bound, Shiro's whole body twisted, leaving him unable to put his strength to use.
The Reishi rope even bound Shiro's wrists, trying to force him to drop Hyōrinmaru.
But Shiro didn't give up.
The chain at the end of Hyōrinmaru began to move as if it were alive, coiling around Shiro's arm.
The crescent-shaped blade at its end pressed directly against the rope.
A powerful, icy Reiatsu invaded the rope, and the once highly active binding instantly froze over.
The freezing spread through the rope wrapped around his entire body, then shattered as Shiro moved.
The ice even spread toward Aoto's hand on Shiro's shoulder.
But Aoto's hand, charged with powerful Reiatsu, patted Shiro's shoulder again. Not only did Shiro's Reiatsu scatter completely, but his whole body felt as if it had been struck by a heavy hammer, and all his strength slackened... At last, he could no longer hold Hyōrinmaru. It fell from his hand and reverted to an Asauchi.
Rangiku Matsumoto watched from the side. She had seen Aoto's Zanpakuto abilities before, but this spar between master and disciple gave her an even clearer understanding of how well-rounded his strength was.
Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Kidō, and Flash Step—the four combat skills of a Soul Reaper.
Zanpakuto, Hakuda, Kidō, and Flash Step.
With Reiatsu held constant, the stronger these four abilities were, the stronger a Soul Reaper would be.
And if someone had only Reiatsu, without the abilities to match, they couldn't fully capitalize on that advantage.
In the fight just now, Aoto had used all but his Zanpakuto.
He'd used an incredibly swift Flash Step and powerful Reiatsu to create an afterimage. After making Shiro's eyes and spiritual sense believe he was still in place, he'd moved right beside him.
The incantationless Bakudō might have seemed the least effective, but if Shiro hadn't been able to freeze it with Hyōrinmaru, he would have needed twice as much Reiatsu to break free.
And the pat that had left Shiro unable to fight was a special Hakuda technique.
The 4th Seat Hyakume was nothing like the 11th Division Rangiku remembered.
He really was well-rounded!
Meanwhile, Aoto was gloating over Shiro, who hung his head in dejection, his body drained of strength. "Don't think you're so amazing just because you can use Shikai! There's still plenty to learn on the path of a Soul Reaper! You're still just a little kid—you've got a lot to learn!"
Shiro didn't even have the strength to speak. Otherwise, he would have argued back.
He was already over eighty! How was he a little kid?
He was just short!
Hueco Mundo, at a special underground facility.
A Garganta opened, and a giant wolf-like Adjuchas, missing both hind legs, charged out.
Even in his panic, he remembered to close the Garganta completely... Any pursuers would get lost inside it.
Only after everything was done did the giant wolf finally breathe a sigh of relief.
He'd escaped at last.
The Soul Reaper probably hadn't intended to pursue and kill him, but the giant wolf didn't dare risk it.
And as he looked at the wounds on his hind legs, he had no idea how to treat them.
The Reiatsu lingering at the cuts kept his High-Speed Regeneration from activating at all.
It was as though his body had already surrendered and didn't dare heal itself.
That left the giant wolf furious—and terrified.
So Soul Reapers were this terrifying?
Turning around, the giant wolf was about to devour some Gillian to regain his strength.
Above this place was a small Forest of Menos, where mindless Gillian born nearby were drawn in.
These Gillian were both the giant wolf's underlings and his food.
But just as he opened the door leading to the Forest of Menos, a massive hand reached in and dragged him out.
With a loud crunch, one of the giant wolf's forelegs was bitten off.
A gorilla-like Adjuchas sampled the wolf's leg, ignoring his howls of pain, and said excitedly, "That's it—the taste of a Hollow modified by Szayelaporro. We found them!"
A dinosaur-like Adjuchas came over and bit off the giant wolf's other foreleg. "Confirmed. It's one of Szayelaporro's remnants. Tch, who knows how many little hideouts that guy left behind? Hueco Mundo's so huge. Searching them one by one is a pain!"
"However many rat holes there are, anyone who opposes the great King of Hueco Mundo is in for a bad end."
The gorilla tossed the giant wolf, who was nearly out of breath, into the air. A huge whale swam past and swallowed him whole.
The hideout was soon completely destroyed by the Ceros of the three formidable Adjuchas!
Even the mindless Gillian were frightened by the attacks and fled far away.
At almost the same time, beneath Las Noches, the King of Hueco Mundo arrived beside an artificial river of magma.
At a light tap from one of the King of Hueco Mundo's finger bones, a Bone Fish living in the magma swam out.
The fish had no flesh at all. It was nothing but a skeleton stripped clean by something that had eaten it, yet it could move freely through the strange magma, whose temperature reached tens of thousands of degrees.
A Hollow was fixed in place at the Bone Fish's head.
The Hollow was only about the size of a person, and his upper body was entirely human.
That made it clear he was a Vasto Lorde.
But the superheated magma kept burning away all the flesh on his body. Then his High-Speed Regeneration restored it, only for it to burn away again... The cycle went on and on, draining his Reiatsu without end.
To him, getting out of the magma would be like reaching paradise.
"Well, hello, Szayelaporro! It's been a hundred years. How are you feeling?"
The King of Hueco Mundo greeted him with a smile. "This is the scent of Hell you love so much. How about it? You get to enjoy it without having to side with Hell. Aren't I merciful?"
Szayelaporro was a Menos Grande of Vasto Lorde class.
A hundred years ago, unwilling to endure the rule of the King of Hueco Mundo, he had conspired with beings in Hell to attack him when the King went to the Hell Battlefield, intending to drag him into Hell.
But naturally, the plot had failed. Szayelaporro hadn't escaped, either. The King of Hueco Mundo had captured him and made him taste true Hell.
After a hundred years of this, even Szayelaporro's brain—which he'd proclaimed to be the cleverest in all of Hueco Mundo—had been reduced to chaos.
"Why won't you kill me?!"
Szayelaporro truly would rather be dead by now—though he had already died once to become a Hollow—but he wanted to die for real a second time.
"Kill you? I can't do that! You're a Vasto Lorde, and your sins would surely make you descend into Hell after death."
"Granted, your Reiatsu wouldn't amount to much in Hell! But why would I send a Vasto Lorde-level enemy there?"
"If I killed you, wouldn't that be helping the enemy?"