Chapter 13 – Rescue
"Captain Kyoraku, please."
Shunsui Kyoraku was a simple man. He loved simple things and he brought down everything to his simple standards. If something was not supposed to go a certain way, he would do his best to prevent it from happening. Sometimes things get out of hand, like their situation right now.
But boy, was he weak to a woman's tears. And the young woman sitting on a hospital bed before him, white hospital gown making her seem more fragile than ever, would be the death of him.
He tried his best to appease her none the less. "Kuchiki, don't—"
"You have just recovered, Kuchiki-san, please mind your health," Unohana Retsu cut off, "your brother would not want you hurt."
Yeah, she was better at it than him, anyway. He wasn't needed in the scene. Why was he there in the first place, anyway?
"Kyoraku, would you check on Kuchiki in the Fourth for me? I promised Byakuya to keep an eye on her, but you know—" a series of increasingly worsening coughing fit occurred.
"Yeah, yeah, Ukitake. You rest well now, I'm gonna go check on her."
Right.
"My brother is too busy chasing that vile piece of shit to know!" Kuchiki Rukia's sharp tone caught his ears. Unbeknownst to him, the tension in the room had increased tenfold. The young Kuchiki was glaring stubbornly at Unohana, the Fourth Captain's own mien calm and patient, a quality all Fourth Division's shinigami seem to possess. Well, maybe not for a certain clumsy seventh seat.
"I meant Lieutenant Abarai, Kuchiki-san," Retsu continued gently, coaxing understanding from Rukia's now deflating frustration.
She herself was handling multiple tasks at once—there were still many of the severely injured in her division's care, and she really didn't have time to linger in Kuchiki Rukia's room any more than she already did—there were others that needed her expertise more than the recovering girl. The fact that the young Kuchiki before her was more trouble being left to her own devices than not, was the only reason for her stay.
And also the fact that Shunsui Kyoraku might just lit the Kuchiki's stubborn determination even more being left with her alone, being a straight-forward man that he was. She wanted Ukitake to rest and get better at a leisurely pace, yes, but she wished he was there to calm the raven-haired girl himself. While Kyoraku was left mostly in charge since the Captain-Commander was currently... out of commission, he was not nearly as strict as the position demanded. It was still surreal to her that it had only been over a week since their battle with Aizen.
After making sure that Kuchiki Rukia was not leaving her room and not trying to access Kurotsuchi Mayuri's newly acquired Garganta portal to 'help' the rescue team in finding Abarai Renji—he was still sorely upset about the break-in just hours ago—Retsu turned to leave when loud shouting and hasty paces approached the room.
"I just gotta talk to Captain Kyoraku!" a young man's loud yell could be heard amongst the bustling down the corridor outside of Kuchiki Rukia's room.
It quieted down a bit when several voices—Kotetsu Isane being one of them—tried to explain something in a more toned-down voice, but a loud slam on a wooden material—a desk, most likely—followed soon after.
"I saw him entering this place, don't tell me he's not here!"
"Get off—where is he?" the young man's voice grew louder as he approached nearer, several footsteps followed—it was the nurse desk just several meters away from the room.
"J-just over th-there..." a timid voice, probably the new girl, trembled, and then a firmer voice, "sir, wait! You're not supposed to—"
"What's all that commotion?" Shunsui frowned—hearing what the person said about wanting to see him and wondering why—walking to see what was going on just behind the closed door when it burst open in his face.
From the door stood a heavily panting Rikichi who was being held restrain by a few struggling Fourth Squad guards, a panicked Kotetsu Isane followed just behind, hastily explaining the situation to the bewildered room occupants.
The young shinigami looked positively ragged, his uniform crumpled from struggling out of the guards, his eyes wild and his nostrils flared in a rampant adrenaline rush. It must have been, because there was no way Rikichi was brave—stupid—enough to ignore direct order from the Fourth Division's lieutenant—not that she was hard to disobey in the first place, being so mild-mannered that she was—and even bursting into a room filled with two of the oldest captains in Gotei 13.
"Captain! Captain, please let me go with the scouts' team!" Rikichi shouted determinedly, looking straight into Kyoraku's eyes—which, really it was so inappropriate at the time, but Kyoraku could appreciate the young man's balls—and ignoring the vice-like grips he had around his limbs.
But that got Kyoraku thinking.
What scouts team?
"Rikichi," Rukia started, finding comfort that she was not the only one who wished to go, but unsure if she wanted the young shinigami to plow his way out and jeopardized his entire shinigami career with her. He had so much potential, and Renji cared for him. Surely he wouldn't like his only apprentice to risk his life for the redhead?
It was hypocritical and entirely selfish of her, she knew that Renji wouldn't want her to endanger herself if he could help it and that he cared for her wellbeing most of all. But...
"There is a lot that you don't tell the rest of us," Rikichi said quietly, whatever bravado surging his veins seemed to drain out of his system, "but I don't care about that. Just..."
"Just tell me that Renji-san is not dead," he pleaded, looking at both Captain Kyoraku and Captain Unohana with fear in his eyes—not for him.
Rikichi knew that his lieutenant was not simply 'missing', no. He wasn't even around for the last few months due to his so-called 'mission' in the Material World, and even that he wasn't so sure about anymore. There were things that the higher-ups were not sharing with the rest of the shinigami, and he just knew that Abarai Renji was somehow involved—deeply.
After doing a post-battle head-count of his division's shinigami, accounting all those who had fallen, those who were severely injured and had to be hospitalized for a prolonged period of time in the Fourth Division, he was down to the missing lieutenant. He was not made aware of the lieutenant's whereabouts from before and until the end of the battle, hadn't seen him in the Fake Karakura Town battle and hadn't noticed the bright red mane as the Hueco Mundo team arrived with a slightly crumpled Kuchiki Byakuya.
What he noticed though, was that look both his captain and the Captain-Commander shared before they both disappeared into god-knows-where. Only to come back pale as a ghost and looked like the just fought a more grueling battle than the one that happened mere hours ago. An emergency captain's meeting was held, and then everything was as hush-hush as it was before.
A vague announcement was given two days ago—those who went MIA, those who had fallen honorably, a few wise words meant to encourage the battle-worn shinigami, that it was only the beginning—by Captain Kyoraku. Yamamoto Genryuusai was nowhere to be found. The Gotei 13 was not in order, Aizen was still on the loose, and Lieutenant Abarai Renji was nowhere to be found.
"Just like the announcement a couple of days ago, Lieutenant Abarai Renji is currently missing in action," Kyoraku calmly explained, another vague attempt at diversion, then added a glimmer of truth to offset the lie, "Captain Kuchiki and Kurosaki Ichigo is currently in a search and rescue mission to find him."
It wasn't technically a 'mission' that was 'ordered' to them, as much as the Kuchiki practically tore through Kurotsuchi Mayuri's lab and illegally used his acquired portal with Kurosaki Ichigo tagging along not unlike a leech on his back.
"There's no need to stretch our manpower even more," Shunsui added for good measure. The security in Seireitei was already bad as it was, he honestly didn't know which source the young man got that told him they were assembling a scouts team. They needed all the available forces they can get. The fact that two of their best defense left them was already a major loss.
The grapevine in Seireitei was usually top-notch and uncomfortably accurate, the words of both the Sixth Division captain and the substitute shinigami breaking in—forcefully—into the Twelfth Division should have been circulating by now.
Someone must be controlling the behind the scenes of these rumors, Kyoraku decided. Cherry-picking which one can be leaked and which should remain behind closed doors. Not that he wasn't grateful, but this particular rumor of a 'scouts team' to rescue Abarai was not good news when it concerned the redhead's infamous devoted followers. He could feel the headache coming at the thought of numerous other 'Abarai devotees' barging into this room or his office, demanding a spot in the nonexistent team since he was currently in charge of the Gotei 13.
Why can't it be Retsu? he grumbled in his head. It was harder than it looked to run an active military organization after an all-out war that left their defenses in shambles and the soldiers mostly out of commission, with their commander-in-chief currently... inactive.
Rikichi, while shocked at hearing the news that his captain and Kurosaki Ichigo was on the hunt for his mentor's location, stubbornly insisted his 'perfectly reasonable' wish to join them, "but it's only the two of them—"
"Trust me, Rikichi," Shunsui interrupted loudly, sighing and looked at the young shinigami's eyes "Kuchiki," and pointedly stared down the young girl half-standing beside her bed.
"They are more than enough."
There were definitely things that he was keeping secrets.
"A little warning next time you try to blow us all up to pieces, asshole!"
"Quiet, Kurosaki Ichigo," Byakuya shushed the grumbling orange-head who was dusting his robes from the sand sticking all over the nooks and crannies of the garment, resigning himself to bear with the particles sticking a little... deeper.
"Renji is not here."
That got Ichigo perking up from his busy dusting, realizing that the Kuchiki was actually sensing for reiatsu's in the vicinity. He concentrated and tried to feel around the area. Aside from the rapidly approaching Espada—that Byakuya seemed to not pay attention to at all—he sensed only the two ex-captains following Aizen in the crumbling Las Noches.
"And that bastard Aizen is also not here," Ichigo growled, frowning. If everyone was there, where did Aizen go to? And he took Renji with him. A bad thought that they were never there in the first place crossed his mind. That the two were actually somewhere entirely different, not even in Hueco Mundo altogether.
Byakuya's "no" caught his attention, once again. He was slowly readying himself for the combat that was bound to happen in the next few moments.
"He was," the raven had the grace to explain his curt reply, "but his reiatsu blinked out of existence mere moments ago."
"How the hell did he do that?"
Byakuya was racking his brain for possibilities, what could Aizen do in such a short few days, what would he use, his resources.
He couldn't be dead. Then it must be...
The Hōgyoku.
Obviously. There must be powers that even Urahara Kisuke didn't know of as one of the creators of the strange, cursed orb. Was space manipulation even possible? Was the orb really that powerful?
"My assumption is that he teleported into a different location or realm," he settled. Byakuya was not one to draw hasty conclusions, but that was the most probable possibility that he could come up with, since aside from Aizen's swift death scant a few moments ago—which was terribly improbable given his trifle with the blasted orb.
Ichigo raised his brows, "how can he—"
They didn't have time for idle chatter, however, because what was left of Aizen's Espada just showed themselves.
"We've got company."
No shit.
This is gonna be a rough fight, Ichigo grimly thought as he drew Zangetsu and activated his Bankai.
"They are, no. He is... tearing them apart," Ichimaru Gin awed as he watched the battle in the distance.
Barragan Louisenbairn, Coyote Starrk, and Tier Harribel were all that was left of Aizen's Espada, the three highest-ranking officers on par with the oldest shinigami captains. The others were either disgracefully defeated or missing in action—all of which Aizen had no care about. He didn't have the time to tend to the weaklings in his ranks. Even the infamous Cuatro Espada, Ulquiorra Cifer, was defeated by Kurosaki Ichigo, the Ryoka boy.
And now, Gin would think that the three strongest Espada would be enough to at least stave off Kurosaki Ichigo's attacks—the threat that all of Aizen's followers agreed to be much bigger than the currently active shinigami captains—just below the three senior captains and the Captain-Commander, obviously.
That Kuchiki Byakuya suddenly appeared and stomped on every single one of them with ease never occurred to him—not before that very moment, as his eyes glued to the grueling yet fascinating sight before him. It was like watching a train-wreck—inevitable, you can't take your eyes off it.
Gin suspected that it was not even his Bankai, what with the Kuchiki still holding and swinging around the hilt of his Senbonzakura, blasts of petal-like blades surrounding the area around him, controlled and graceful like water, yet deadly.
A more pathetic sight—to him—was to see that Kurosaki Ichigo was not even anywhere near the main battle, fighting off whatever was left of the Fraccións and Números still loyal to the Espada and Aizen.
Besides him, Tosen Kaname could be seen concentrating to sense the reiatsu fluctuation to basically 'see' the battle just some distance away from the fortress.
Kaname never thought that he would 'see' the day that Kuchiki Byakuya would loose his tightly reined control like what he was doing that day. The Kuchiki's reiatsu control was so fine that for the longest time, he thought that the raven-haired captain never was anything special—a cold and straight-laced officer with boring worldview—until he saw him fight a real battle with some Menos Grande several decades ago, along the same time Kaname found out that the noble lost his wife.
But never would he thought the control was to this extent—that he outmatched the teenager Aizen was so interested in the last few months—and made him look like a third seat officer at best.
It was a blow to their pride, that Kuchiki Byakuya could handle three of the best Espada all by himself in Shikai, yet it was terrifying more than anything else.
"Is that truly Kuchiki Byakuya?" the sightless man awed, a mixture of disbelief and fearful admiration evident in his heavy voice.
"Indeed," Aizen Sousuke's voice was heard several steps behind the two former captains, who swiftly turned to face their leader.
"Aizen-san," Gin raised his brows in surprise.
The man before him was their leader, but not quite.
Gone was the deceivingly warm brown eyes, replaced by purple sclerae surrounding icy white orbs of a monster. His hair was noticeably longer, reaching the back of his knees and his utilitarian uniform replaced with a more streamlined white tunic.
If he was a tremendously strong man before, he was terrifyingly alien now.
Gin was speechless. "You are..."
Besides him, Tosen Kaname was thoroughly frozen still. Such raw power was never before presented so graciously before him. His previous admiration for Aizen was slowly turning into ill-placed fear. Fear of the monster standing before him.
Gin could practically feel the man's fight or flight mechanism kicking in, especially without his sight, he sympathized with the blind man relying on reiatsu to feel the creature Aizen had become. He himself could feel the change in Aizen's reiatsu, but he suspected that Kaname's senses picked it up tenfold.
"The inner dimension has grown unstable due to the combined force of the Hōgyoku's and my reiatsu," Aizen casually explained his exit from the Hōgyoku's inner dimension, not at all bothering to explain his current state.
Gin, only now noticing the red cargo Aizen was carrying in his arms, questioned the man, "then he already...?" he trailed off, eyeing what looked like a fitfully asleep Abarai Renji.
Noticing the gaze, Aizen stiffened.
He looked down at the familiar face, the vermillion strands caught between his arms, "the Seika proves to be... disappointing," he responded tightly, "but we may just have another use of him yet."
Now that had both Gin and Kaname confused. Why would Aizen fuse with the Hōgyoku now, of all times, if he didn't already have the Seika's blessing? Wasn't that his plan all along?
While Kaname had no problem accepting the fact after his initial shock, Gin suspected that something happened in that place. Something that made Aizen throw away his carefully laid plans and made hasty decisions such as what Gin was currently seeing.
Without the Seika's blessing, fusing with the Hōgyoku simply meant that Aizen was going to get so strong that he was practically invincible. It didn't change the fact that Aizen needed a considerable amount of time and effort to forge the key to invade the Soul King's palace. The Seika was supposed to be that push to create the holy key, being an actual deity that resided in the Soul King's dimension—the addition that Aizen would be a literal god was simply a bonus.
Instead he made a different call.
"Tell the others to retreat for now," Aizen commanded, "Kuchiki Byakuya could not be defeated in his current state."
That piqued Gin's interest.
"You know what happened to him?"
Aizen gave him a passing glance as he walked to the open window overseeing the all-out battle a distance away.
"Nothing of your concern, for now."
"What is he?!" Barragan Louisenbairn grunted as he evaded a cascading fire of deathly petals.
He was bleeding profusely on many parts of his body—and he could see his fellow Espada was not in any better condition. It was shameful to admit, but he was forced to revert from his Resurrección form when he realized that his Respira was not quick enough to deteriorate the raven man's blade petals as they attacked him from all directions, bringing the miasma too close to his own body for comfort. And the disturbing fact that those blades did not deteriorate despite them being metal.
He couldn't help but illogically suspect that the man was not even a living being.
"Aizen-sama is telling us to retreat," Tier Harribel shouted from across the sand dunes, gathering the attention of Barragan and Coyote Starrk, who were both busy evading the endless blades that seemed to close in on them by the second. She had received a message from Ichimaru Gin from her in-ear communicator—a device courtesy of the now-deceased Szayelaporro Granz, he was useful, for a while.
Starrk's Resurrección was still activated, but his attacks proved to be futile against an enemy that he couldn't even see beyond the wall of tiny blades, his barrages of ceros not having any impact at all in making an opening enough for him to fire his attacks successfully on the standing raven just beyond that destructive wall.
He tried once again to send in his wolves, Lilynette's gun forms on steady hands, ready to fire another barrage of ceros once his wolves managed to bite through and blasted off the wall of blades—but he admitted that he was not optimistic of the outcome.
That he did. Because the explosion caused by the wolves simply did nothing to the blades that were now lashing like whips to his direction—evade!
And he was not fast enough—even Tier, the swiftest of them all, was not. What could he expect? He just managed to evade the majority of the blades, but the few that managed to injure him did it quite spectacularly. A dozen slashes across his back sent him falling to the sand, coating the white particles in his red, red blood. He would survive, but he didn't think that he wanted to get up anytime soon.
He deactivated his Resurrección and Lilynette rushed to tend to him, equally beaten up. The raven-haired beast, benevolent as he was, deemed that Starrk was no longer a threat, focused his blades on the other two Espada.
Barragan, seeing the state that the Primera Espada was reduced to, shouted back in frustration, "retreat where, exactly!"
"Just follow the orders," Tier grunted as she dodged a whip-like blades formation, her entire body trembling with rage—and was it fear?—as she finally saw the shinigami standing just some distance away as if deeming it unnecessary to even protect himself with the wall of blades, anymore. She suspected that he never even needed them in the first place.
She wondered where was he when the shinigami were fighting Aizen's forces in the Human World before—surely, he would prove to be a larger threat than even the Captain-Commander himself, with his god-like power.
But then, they wouldn't be having this battle, and Aizen wouldn't even get this far ahead in his plans, if the raven was there.
She decided that retreating was the best course of action. A tiny voice in her head said they were running away, but she would take that too. It didn't really matter to her as long as she didn't have to fight the monster before her anymore, given the little time she had to prepare for him. It was a blatant excuse, she knew, but call her anything you want—she was a pragmatist.
So she evaded another attack, and gathered Coyote Starrk in her arms, his Fracción holding on to his form like a lifeline that he was to her, and called Barragan to stop being stubborn and follow her.
"This is a disgrace," the old Espada snarled, but didn't have any fight left in him to retaliate to Aizen's orders anymore. They were simply fighting a losing battle.
"Hey, where are you running off to!" Kurosaki Ichigo shouted as the Arrancars he was fighting—whatever was left since the beginning of the battle—suddenly jumped off and ran away.
"Let them be, Kurosaki Ichigo," Byakuya ordered the substitute shinigami lowly. He swiftly swung his rapidly reformed Zanpakuto to get rid of nonexistent dust and re-sheathed them back in his scabbard. Senbonzakura was practically purring at being used to his full potential even for such a short battle. He couldn't blame the spirit, even the noble himself was vibrating in an adrenaline rush. It was exhilarating to be able to let loose, even if the circumstances were less than desirable.
Ichigo decided that he wouldn't mess with the Kuchiki anymore. He was fighting his own—decidedly less exciting battle, he grumbled—but he could still see the nearly manic look in the noble's eyes as he fought, barely moving from his spot yet doing devastating damage to the enemies. Some of the Fraccións that Ichigo was fighting were even caught in the noble's petal blasts and swiftly disintegrated. And he wasn't using his Bankai for god's sake!
Now, the last time Ichigo fought Byakuya, they were at best on par with each other—Ichigo having a slight edge since the noble was already quite worn from his battle with Renji—but now? Well, blame it on his ego, but Ichigo wouldn't want to be caught fighting when Kuchiki Byakuya was around to compare.
"I sensed Aizen's reiatsu," Byakuya's clipped tone snapped Ichigo back to the matter at hand.
Right. Find Renji, save him. Kick Aizen's ass if they had the time.
"And Renji's," Ichigo breathed in relief as he felt the flickering reiatsu, weak, but discernable enough—warm and red and stubborn and Renji.
"Aizen-sama," Tier Harribel called as she struggled to lift the heavy burden of Starrk's unconscious form. While she was able to do so effortlessly given her at peak form, she was both severely injured and mentally tired.
A few steps behind her, Barragan Louisenbairn trudged on slowly healing legs, limping on one side as the other was decidedly fractured. It was a miracle that they could get to the rendezvous point without the two shinigami intercepting them on the way.
But it was a small window. They had to leave now if they wanted to see the proverbial light of another day.
"Where are we going to go?" Tier questioned her leader as she deposited Starrk's body to the ground gently, noticing the redhead loosely held by Aizen's arms—and that the brunette looked alien at best. She didn't have the energy nor the will to ask him about it.
"Just follow me," the brunette walked past them and put the unconscious cargo to a relatively dust-free spot—it was an open space with desert surrounding them, after all.
"Wait," now it was Ichimaru gin's turn to question their leader, "we're leaving him here?"
Aizen was silent, and it was more than enough gesture to keep the rest of his followers quiet. Don't question me, it said.
"Months of effort to get him and we let him go in less than a week," Barragan's snide words—meant to keep to himself than shared to the world—reached the rest of his comrades.
Aizen stilled.
Everyone held their breath.
And then the brunette continued walking to a large area.
"Don't test him, Barragan," Tier hissed at the subdued former King of Hueco Mundo, and followed her leader as he proceeded to open a portal with his Hōgyoku infused power.
And there was no trace of them ever existed in the crumbling fortress save for whatever was left of one Abarai Renji.
When Ichigo and Byakuya arrived, Aizen and his group were barely gone. Ichigo cursed and kick the offending sand on the ground as if they just desecrated his mother's grave and scrubbed his face in frustration.
Byakuya ignored the substitute's antics, and instead chose to observe his surroundings. Amidst Kurosaki Ichigo's frustration, he couldn't sense that there was one flickering reiatsu left behind. Small and weak, yet sure and steady.
There, surrounded by the grand white walls of Las Noches, was Abarai Renji's body.
He laid unmoving, so still that untrained eyes would deem he dead.
But Byakuya was persistent. He marched to the spot where his fallen lieutenant was, Ichigo finally noticing the redhead also, scrambled to get to the other. He noticed that the noble was significantly calmer now, his pulsating reiatsu no longer destructive to his surroundings.
That was also noteworthy, Ichigo thought as he filed his finding away for later inquiries. There were many on his list, even he wasn't sure where to start.
Byakuya approached his slumped lieutenant cautiously as if a hunter not wanting to scare away his prey. But the prey itself wasn't even conscious to begin with.
White robes on equally pale skin. Fragile body limp like a marionette cut from its strings. Dull, once vibrant crimson mane that lost its luster, its life.
It painted a picture he knew all too well.
Hisana.
"Why did they leave him?" Kurosaki Ichigo's bewildered voice was white noise to his ears. He kneeled there, frozen. His eyes glazing as pictures and phantoms of a time long gone chased away his vision of reality.
Flashes of sound, images of a beautiful raven-haired woman smiling, coughing, bleeding. In his arms, dead.
"Forgive me, Byakuya-sama," a frail, soft voice of the woman he loved. Even on her last breaths, she was so warm, cherished, loved.
"I couldn't return Byakuya-sama's love."
Violet eyes looked at him sadly for the last time, before glazing, and closing shut forever.
Hisana.
"He's weak," an outsider's voice reached him.
But he was uncaring as his delirious visions continued, he looked down at the woman he held in his arms, the love of his life. Pale, weak, dying and red.
Red.
Red hair, a grin, heart-warming lunchboxes.
A sad smile, slumped behind a cell, dull.
A silent vow, his promise—nothing will happen to you—broken. Taken.
And the clouded vision was gone. The image of his deceased wife was replaced by a sight that made him wish for another reality.
Renji. In his arms.
Dying.
He knew what must be done now.
"FATHER!" the Kuchiki hollered, his voice booming and echoed through the vast walls of Las Noches, carrying a haunting quality that shook Ichigo to his core.
It was a lion's roar. A beast's wail. The wind's howl. Nature's rage.
It was terrifying to hear. As of heaven's horns were blown for the first time since Christ's Ascension. A natural phenomenon occurring from a person's voice.
It was a Call.
"Byakuya, what—"
The Kuchiki continued his booming howl, "FATHER!"
"TAKE US!"
Ichigo had enough of the fear-inducing Calls, moved to grab the Kuchiki by his shoulder, "Byakuya, stop this!"
The raven stilled and all was silent.
Ichigo retracted his hand as he watched in horrifying awe as the raven turned his head in an inhumane manner to him—swift, smooth, alien. The cold slate eyes was hollow and black and impossibly wide.
It would make even the strongest man unable to sleep from fear of never-ending nightmares.
"There's no other choice," a figure shrouded in shadows sighed on his enormous seat.
"King?"
"We take them," the figure nodded to his attendant.
"Do not touch me," the creature warned.
For what was it, if not a monster?
He had no time to ponder, and thank all the gods known and unknown to him when the Calling stopped and a bright white pillar of light shot down from the sky, tearing apart Las Noches to its core.
Shadows of five figures emerged from the pillar of light.
.
.
.
"Welcome back, Byakuya."
- to be continued -
Additional Notes
Numerós: Lit. Numbers; Hollows that were turned into Arrancars by Aizen to serve in his army as combat experts. They rank from number 11 and above according to their time of birth. Aizen may hand-pick highly distinguished Numerós and promote them to Espada.
Fracción: Lit. Fraction; Numerós that are selected by the Espada to be their subordinates.
Resurrección: Lit. Resurrection; it is when an Arrancar unseal their Hollow offensive abilities from the sealed form of their weapons. A different principle but much like a shinigami's Bankai in practice.
Respira: lit. Breathe; one of Barragan Louisenbairn Resurrección technique, in which he released smoke-like miasma that ages and rots anything that it comes in contact with. He based it on the principle that all that is created and are made of living things will be affected because all living things will eventually die.