The last faint sound of the blast door closing was shut out of his consciousness completely.
Utter exhaustion swept through every limb and bone, finally breaking the nerve Yoriichi had stretched to its limit.
The last thing he saw was Retsu Unohana approaching, her face full of concern. Then profound darkness swallowed everything.
He did not know how long he had been falling through the darkness before the oppressive feeling around him gradually receded.
Yoriichi opened his eyes again and found himself standing on an endless expanse of water.
Clear water spread beneath his feet, rippling finely in the breeze and stretching beyond the limits of his sight.
He raised his head and looked up.
A massive sun hung in the very center of the sky, radiating dazzling, scorching light that illuminated this vast inner realm.
This was his mental world.
In principle, returning to this absolute domain that belonged to him alone should have allowed him to relax and recover completely.
Yet he felt no peace at all. Instead, he was unusually agitated.
Dong.
A dull toll echoed over the water without warning, its lingering resonance following the ripples in the air, refusing to fade.
Yoriichi's brow furrowed deeper. He raised a hand to rub between his eyebrows, then paced a couple of steps back and forth across the water.
Ripples spread in ring after ring beneath his feet, yet did nothing to dispel the vibrations acting directly on the depths of his soul.
That damned noise.
The strange tolling had appeared ever since he stripped away his own power to fill the hole left in the world by the Soul King's death.
More than half the power that had once filled his body had been forcibly drawn away.
As his power continued to drain, the tolling grew louder