While everyone in Konoha went about their own lives.
Far away, within the Land of Rivers.
At the site of a massive canyon, a somewhat cruel ritual had just concluded.
Rumble!
Thunder rolled through the sky.
Thick dark clouds slowly drifted over from afar, as though bringing an oppressive air to what was about to happen.
At that moment, at the bottom of the canyon's chasm.
Three ninjas dressed in the uniforms of different ninja villages floated in midair, their faces deathly pale.
Their mouths hung open, their eyes rolled white, and they wore expressions of unbearable pain.
Then, the layer of chakra covering their bodies slowly peeled away, drifting into the air before being drawn into the enormous mass of energy above them.
Once the last trace of power within their bodies had been extracted, the three figures suddenly went limp and fell helplessly to the ground.
Bang! Bang! Bang!...
They lay sprawled on the ground, their wounded bodies in a miserable state, completely motionless. It was impossible to tell whether they were dead or alive.
Not far in front of them floated Aizen.
His eyes glowed purple, and his pupils—containing only a sliver of white—looked incredibly eerie. His expression was utterly cold and indifferent.
He slowly spread his hands apart.
Before him floated an enormous, compressed sphere of bizarre energy!
The color of the energy sphere became increasingly strange, as though blue and purple had been mixed into black ink, radiating an unfathomably eerie aura.
A channel extended from that massive energy sphere, connecting directly to Aizen's body.
Several figures stood around the canyon, their expressions tense as they watched the scene with utmost focus.
"Next... Lord Aizen is going to summon his former subordinates!?"
Yahiko stared wide-eyed, unwilling to miss even a single moment of what came