Days Go By Without Weight

An Eternity of Bliss

Forged By Ignorance

Serving A Coffin

All Too Often Does Change

Break The Cycle Through Hate

A Predator Among Us

White Deicide VI

My Lie Is Truth

Kirio Hikifune has seen much during her time as a Shinigami. As a Captain of the Zero Division, she had only been serving for a little over a century, as she been a Captain of the 12th Division prior to then. Her research and production of the gikongan - the 'temporary soul' - had led her to being invited and transferred to the Royal Palace as a Zero Division member.

There she left Soul Society behind, joining the Royal Guard. She put her abilities to the test by being the palace's cook, and providing the banquets necessary for those remade by the Soul King's Ouken. Transformed, she benefited longevity and eternal life in service to one who deserves it most.

The anchor of reality and the lynchpin of all realms, the Soul King.

So it's to her surprise that she is informed of a potential threats, hailing from the Gotei's midst. One Sōsuke Aizen, a Captain without peer, and abilities beyond anything the 13 Divisions has seen since the Captain Commander Yamamoto. As her comrades kept appraised and prepared for a potential outcome, something changed.

Aizen died, and his Hōgyoku, a mysterious gem of ominous power he created, fell into the hands of another entity. An Arrancar in the body of a dead Shinigami, Aaroniero Arrururerie. She wreaked havoc, killing many - least of all the innocent human lives in Karakura Town.

Now she's taken another life, Tenjiro Kirinji the Hot Spring Demon. Just as she is about to defile his corpse, Kirio blocks Arrancar's path. Flanked on two other sides were her cohorts, Ouetsu Nimaiya and Senjumaru Shutara.

Facing them off, she received a chilling threat: 'I'll enjoy feasting on you all!'

The reiatsu ebbing off the creature before her is vast, seemingly endless. Like a whirlpool pouring into an abyss, never filling up but never emptying. Where others could feel only the discordant wails of all other entities she's consumed: Hollow, Human and Shinigami. There had to be tens of thousands inside of her, yet it paled in comparison to the Reiryoku being amplified by the Ouken she manufactured, and then this peculiar thing called a Hōgyoku.

Yet, she had no knowledge of what it is apart from what Ichibe said of its name. Mysterious, ominous and otherworldly. It was almost as if…

"Aaroniero," Coyote spoke up, getting the excited transcendent to stop her manic laughter for a few moments. "Do you want assistance with this? These guys look pretty strong, and there's likely something to their power like the last guy."

"We could split them up, get them all to fight us one on one," Gin proffered with a light tone.

"That won't be necessary," Aaroniero dismissed with a smile, shaking her head. "No, I'll handle all three on my own. I didn't even break a sweat in my last scuffle. Let's see if these three can pick up the last one's slack."

"Aye, that's quite a big talk coming from an Arrancar!" Ouetsu spoke up, causing Aaroniero to look behind herself over the shoulder at the shorter man. He narrowed his eyes, a thin lipped smile shown to the transcendent in contempt. "You really ought to quit while you're ahead. At this rate, you're going to get crushed."

Aaroniero retaliated.

An invisible tether of reiatsu whipped out in an arc, the short man ducking in a blur, narrowly avoiding what became of the floating pillar behind him.

KRAK!

A loud snap, and the whole of the center of the cylinder is smashed into dust, causing the rest to fall into depths far below. As this happened, four golden limbs snaked out to run sewing needles into the Arrancar.

Sparks shot out, making contact with a barrier just a few inches shy of herself. In that manner she fired another tether out at her, while slinging another at Ouetsu again, seeing both guards evade in swift dashes.

Kirio herself produced a large spoon, a ladle really, and swung it like a club down onto Aaroniero's head. It too is also stopped by a barrier, but Aaroniero took the time to smirk in retort.

"You're really not helping your case, piggy, by using a kitchen utensil for a weapon," She snarked, "What, you couldn't bother grabbing an actual blade before getting snacks from the ice box?"

Kirio didn't react to the scathing comments. Instead she gauged the pressure of Aaroniero's reiatsu, the density and amount it actually had in use. Smiling, she leaped back, picking up her comrade's corpse with her as she held her spoon in defense.

"Where do you think you're going?" Aaroniero asked in a bemusing tone, her tethers still snaking out to pursue the rapidly evading pair of guards. Occupied in getting her meal back, the transcendent swung her sword, releasing a powerful burst of freezing reiatsu in the form of a tidal wave of snow.

Disappearing in a pop, the wave of snow fell far below and enveloped the pillars bordering the space the Shinigami once was. The Arrancar clicked her tongue, feeling the guard's reiatsu disappear and move itself away from the battlefield.

I'll catch her and the body later. I can take my time dealing with these two, She decided, turning to face Ouetsu and Shutara.

Taking a step, she appears behind the elegantly dressed woman, running her through with Sode no Shirayuki. Slicing it away with Shirafune, the body dissolves into frozen dust while she darts towards Ouetsu and cuts him down the middle, in a splash of frozen blood that disperses into snowflakes.

"Disappointing," She exhaled out a frosty breath, her bangs covered in ice as well as parts of her black dress. "You really aren't able to fight at my level it seems."

Walking away, she peered ahead at the floating obelisk, wondering if she could make the distance in a single leap.

SHKRLT!

Her eyes widened, feeling a sudden pain shoot up her feet. In the splash of blood coating her skirt, she didn't even waste a moment to leap backwards from the danger. Looking down, she saw a pair of needles in her soles running upwards - large enough to be daggers - having pierced up from the floor as if tearing through fabric.

What's going on? I didn't even sense that!

Ripping the needles out and landing on the floor a great distance away-

SHINK-SHINK!

"What?!" Aaroniero grasped out, finding her heels up her calves and then knees also stabbed by rising crisscrosses of spiked instruments. Again, they seemed to have ruptured from the ground fast and without warning. Worse, her Hierro and reiatsu barriers didn't even activate due to not sensing the danger.

But that's when she realized something.

Turning to look at Starrk, Gin and Lilynette, they all appeared to look shocked. To anyone who didn't know them, it would be accurate to convey an emotional reaction to something this surprising. But she expected this from Lilynette, maybe even Starrk; but Gin had yet to show a single sign of worry, yet had an almost horrified expression she's never seen him wear before.

Basing this on a hunch, she swung her blade around in a perfect circle around herself, casting a pure white moon of freezing reiatsu to shoot up from her spot into the sky. The blue canopy froze, tearing away in a shower of unraveling beautiful fabric, unveiling the whole vista of the Royal Palace surrounding her.

Everything seemed to have changed.

A sea of maroon, purple, red, striped and dotted cloth had encompassed the floor and spread outward. The singular hallway had become an arena of sorts, formed in a ring, with beautiful framed windows of tapestry showing the distant saucer suspended cities in the distance. The immense presence of the Soul King's throne, however, seemed to have vanished entirely.

"You must have been confused, thinking you could kill the Royal Guards and yet still be in danger," A voice ebbed into the chamber, soft yet deep and condescending. Aaroniero looked around, furrowing her brows as she tried looking for something. "Your companions are removed. They cannot help you. I'll deal with you myself."

The needles shot out of the transcendent's legs, white pus spilling out and encircling the wounds to instantly heal them. Black fabric restored as well, Aaroniero took the time to see beyond the deceptively woven expanse surrounding her that she could see the guard she was facing. The woman had a beautiful kimono overlapping a black Shihakushou with a Royal Guard Haori wrapped over her. Her arms concealed, with only golden mechanical arms creaking unnervingly behind her as she glided over a raised platform of stairs separating herself and the Arrancar. Her hair adorned in a bun with a golden crescent moon hair piece, she almost looked like a patron god or noblewoman depicted in older artwork of Soul Society past.

"Color me impressed and intrigued," Aaroniero said, cocked a smile as she lowered her sword to her side. "Your handiwork is sublime, especially to fool my Pesquisa. You must weave Kidō into your fabric, to mask and create such fanciful illusions."

"All art is an illusion," She spoke, turning to address Aaroniero with a ruby red smile and a thin long lashed glare. "Even your appearance hides the pathetic worm vying for power and recognition. I can see exactly what you are behind the trappings you bear."

Aaroniero narrowed her eyes in annoyance.

"Well aren't you just a treat?" She dryly replied. "Tell me, are all you guards narcissistic judges of character, or are you the only one that's this pretentious?"

"I speak truth and hide no words from whoever I speak," The Guard rebutted, tilting her head slightly while a puppet arm gestures at the Arrancar. "I am not here to make niceties. I am here to fulfill my purpose."

All at once, the fabric beneath Aaroniero's feet unraveled. Sheets of maroon gave way to eight black wrapped soldiers. Swords drawn they swung at her without a word spoken.

"Tsukishiro," Aaroniero retaliated, swinging her blade in an arc, releasing three meter by meter ring of rising freezing reiatsu. The snow swiftly trapped the eight in a pillar of ice; shattering, its reflection showing Aaroniero manifesting above above the guard. Swinging her blade down, she'd make contact with a katana, having swung out almost invisibly from concealed arms within the folds of her kimono and Haori.

The pressure pushed the guard back, her clothes rustling as ice encroached about the fabric all around her. Gritting her teeth, Shutara had her four puppet arms snake out with needles in hand, but they were quickly shattered by invisible tethers of reiatsu.

Releasing her downward slash, Aaroniero twisted her blade to point with the blade pointed up and the tip aimed at the guard.

"Hakuren," She murmured out, causing Shutara's eyes to narrow. A howling gale of snow erupted, blasting her body with an immense amount of icy reishi, freezing everything beneath and behind her along the arena of garments.

As if expecting it, Aaroniero twisted around and swung a snow covered blade to connect with a rising blade; her icy sword shattering against its edge.

She backed away, unleashing a handful of psionic tethers towards the blade. Each one deflected, cut through as if simply air and left the swordsman unharmed as he stood up from his fabric hideaway.

How did he do that?! She thought with widened eyes of surprise. I didn't feel his reiatsu spoke in those blows. If anything he shouldn't be in one piece at all!

"I didn't take my time coming to fight you because of tardiness," Ouetsu said, presenting the Zanpakutō at an angle, the blade shimmering in the haze of cold in the arena. "This is my greatest failure, Sayafushi. The edge is too sharp, the tip too smooth. Blood falls off it just as it makes contact, and it can't be contained by anything less than a special gel I concocted.

"In other words, it fails to meet the basic requirements to being a sword," He finished, swishing it down as he began to walk towards his opponent. "But against an opponent like you? I'm going to rock your world."

Aaroniero stared with a stoic expression. This foe, just like the woman before, seemed far more prepared to face her than Kirinji. She knew she hadn't killed the weaver, so it seemed likely she would appear at any given moment in this realm of enchanted fabric.

Time to switch tactics, She declared inward.

Her icy blade of Sode no Shirayuki shifted in shape, regenerating the broken segments back in place. It then grew, swelling in length and then protruded a triage of forked blades with a tassel of blue fur hanging near the base of the three blades. Whirl of spiraling water came from a corkscrew pommel while a stream of waves burst from the top of the trident.

"Rankle the Seas and Heavens, Nejibana," Aaroniero intoned, her body swirling with a twister of water that flooded the room in its torrent. Despite the fabric being dunked, and battered, all the dyes and consistency seemed to resist her reiatsu. Twisting around Ouetsu, a funnel of bright light burst forth from him, causing the water and fabrics in the room to blow back by a mighty thuum of his reiryoku.

"This Reiatsu…!" Aaroniero declared, a smile spreading across her face. "You're strong! Stronger than anything I've faced yet! This is perfect," she intoned, hefting the trident up and around, poising it up to be level with her chest with her body sideways in a spearman's stance, "it's been too long since I've used this Zanpakutō seriously in battle. Let's see how it fairs against your Sayafushi, Royal Guard!"

"That Zanpakutō don't belong to you," Ouetsu replied evenly, walking through the water she manifested from her spear. "I've heard her cries, for over a hundred years. Now I'm going to put her to rest."

Aaroniero leaped forth in a bluish blur, a monsoon of torrential waves racing with her as she aimed to run Ouetsu through. With the full weight of her power coursing through her charge, she reaches the short man in less than a heartbeat.

He parried the blow aside, a crack of explosive sword pressure quaking the arena and blowing the water aside in a waft of steam, evaporating it. His spare hand stretched out, fingers glowing gold fired out prisms that lanced out to strike at Aaroniero. She deflected the bolts of reishi with a violet glare, snapping them out of existence; retaliating with a backwards spin of the trident to slash him with a rising cut of her drill shaped pommel.

He sidestepped, avoiding the strike, slashing his blade around in an arc towards her neck. Her neck gushed blood, her face agape in shock as she stumbled; a sonic boom of another Aaroniero appearing beside Ouetsu out of Sonido, lashing her spear out to impact his unarmed flank. He ducked, the top of his frayed curls slashed, he spun on the ball of his palm and kicked the spear up to offset her balance.

Lunging off his hand, he spun around like a wraith, a demonic shriek in his wake that nearly startled the Arrancar. Dodging his buzzing blade's aim through rapid backpedaling, she hefted her trident up and around, gathering another enormous slash of her watery bladed weapon. Connecting with the spinning revolution of his body and weapon, another sparking thuum reverberated the chamber, their reiatsu flaring outward with impressions that billowed the immaculate formed fabrics around them.

Bending back, Nimaiya blurred forth, darting down by Aaroniero's right side in an instant. The transcendent speared the back of her weapon at him, beholding his impression being dispelled as a watery blast struck where he had crouched. On instinct she pulled her pole handle back, and swung it around in a perfect circle to where Ouetsu's rising frame is.

Witnessing him vault over in a forward flip, his fingers touching the handle of his trident, grasping hold of it.

SHINK!

And performed a straight cut through her neck.

She had a look of disbelief cross her gaze. At first, she didn't feel a thing. A nagging itch crossed her throat, her breathing becomes harder to get as if constricted. This followed by a rising fire, nerves undone and then a sudden overwhelming spasm of pain.

Then her vision spun with her head, a geyser of blood spouting from her trailing skull and the stump left behind. The trident lowered to the ground, the body swayed, and then fell to the floor with a wet slump beside the head, whose eyes were still fixed in a shocked expression.

"Divine or not, monster or not, Sayafushi makes no distinction," Ouetsu proclaimed, coolly looking down at the beheaded body of Aaroniero Arrururerie. "It's not simply sharp, it cuts through to the absolute vital point of the body. You being a Hollow in a Shinigami body is your undoing, as your core weakness is a beheading. Even Menos with high regeneration can't survive without their head."

He stopped, smirking as he bent down and looked at Aaroniero's face with his sword pointed at her face.

"I don't know what you thought the Hōgyoku could do for you, but I can assure you, there wasn't a chance in Hell you could have reached the Soul King. Not while Ouetsu Nimaiya, the God of the Sword, stands against you," He proclaimed with pride.

"Are you done talking to a corpse?" Shutara's voice permeated the air in dry query.

"Heh, just wanted to get some things off my chest," Ouetsu replied in good cheer, rising up to his feet, resting the back of his sword on his shoulder - the only safe way to brace it without fear of self mutilation. "But I like admiring my work. It's been too long since I've busted out such a weapon, and even longer since I've cut loose."

"Regardless, it seems I can relay to Kirio she's not needed to return. Such a trouble that Kirinji is dead…"

"Hey, relax! So long as one of us remains and the palace is intact, we can always return," He blasted with a thumb pointed at his face. "We're chosen to guard here, and we'll always come out on top."

"Is that right?" A voice rasped out behind Nimaiya.

The dark skinned man paled, a bead of sweat coldly running down his brow at hearing it. He turned his head slowly, his eye visible past the rim of his shades, staring in horror at a headless body rising upward with trident in hand. There, sprouting from the neck, is a blood soaked branch that formed nerves, flesh and bone. When a mask of flesh came over the skull, a full mane of black hair unfurling down her back past her spine in a smooth curtain of black. Twisting her neck back and forth, audible crunches of it twisting back in socket, Aaroniero grinned at the Shinigami.

"You might be confused, as to why your finisher didn't quite cut it," Aaroniero mused with an amused expression at Ouetsu's stunned silence. "Quite presumptuous of you to think that a Hollow needs a head to survive. It's the mask and the hole that's required; both of which I no longer possess. My body has transcended the need for needing all my parts attached in order to keep being alive. Especially thanks to Arbol; I can grow any organic substance, including heads and organs, should I need to. I delayed the reaction if only so that I could see what I could learn with your guards down.

"That being said," Aaroniero said, her smile traded with a snin lipped sneer. "So long as one of you remains, you can always come back. Explain what does that entail, less I have to piece it together after I devour you."

Ouetsu turned on his heels, grasping the blade with both hands. Wordlessly he leaped in a blur, swinging his sword in an overhead chop towards her newly grown head. A single hand snaked out, catching the blade between a thumb and forefinger, halting it before it could make contact.

"Wrong answer," She snarled, snapping the blade in half with a twist of her wrist.

"Sayafushi!" Nimaiya croaked out, watching the top half of his blade clatter to the fabric woven floor below.

"Your greatest failure couldn't stand up to superior reiatsu forever!" Aaroniero jeered with a barking laugh.

With his attention distracted, she thrust her left palm out towards his sweating visage that shrank in horror; especially at the sight of a mouth stretching along her palm with rows of teeth aiming to sink into his flesh.

Right at that moment, a sudden surge of fabric swept up and around the transcendent being. Reds, blacks and golds bound her in place, embedding dozens of spiking needles into her body. It gave Ouetsu enough time to dart back, avoiding a raking hand that tore at the quilts and shredded them off her bleeding body.

"You can't escape me!" She yelled out, leaping in a boom of swift movement. Fabrics rose up like water, swirling and conforming in a maelstrom of dyed quilts and silks. They all became harder than steel and shooting out hundreds of needles while opening a path for Nimaiya to escape.

Thrusting Nejibana, an eruption of snow and lightning overlapped the sea of rushing water she shot forth. Blasting through layer after layer, she could see the Zanpakutō Creator rushing out of this domain for his life. Clenching her teeth, she sent out a slurry of freshly grown tendrils from her outstretched left hand, lined with teeth and poised to lasso around his body.

"Propagate, Mugen!"

A sudden whirring blur of a spinning circle of blades cut through her extending tendrils, making her hiss out in pained frustration. Seeing a black threaded dome of darkness seal behind Nimaiya, she whirled around to follow the ringed weapon humming in the air.

Caught by a kimono sleeved hand, Senjumaru Shutara stood within the topmost level of the fabric realm she woven. The hole that had been carved out in her path of destruction remained a dim light in this amphitheater of bleak intent. The only shred of light seemed to be faint red woven torches, fanning a light barely able to be seen.

Being a creature of darkness, she found this area to be more comforting than oppressive.

She analyzed the weapon in Shutara's hands. It appeared to be different than the needles, and the substitute puppet soldiers' swords they used. This seemed to be her Zanpakutō, and an elegant one at that.

A ring of three meters in the inner space with a single golden handle embroidered by red threaded tassels going to either end of the interior. Its exterior held an array of fanning katana blades, moving in a circular array in a disc shaped sheathe. The weapon seemed to be as large if not moreso than her delicate looking woman, implying on appearances that it took a great deal of strength to move it.

But to Aaroniero, these Royal Guards seemed to be cut from a different cloth than typical Shinigami. They don't seem to tire, their reiatsu capable of adjusting to even a superior force and their tactics lethal against conventional foes. Apart from their first member's introduction, they were proving to be quite more capable than the rabble of Shinigami she contended with back in the Fake Karakura Town.

Except for Ichigo Kurosaki, that is…

She admitted, there is something peculiar about him. A Substitute Shinigami that, as far as she remembered, hasn't happened in awhile and only ever once before. A young human whose power had dramatically increased in a short period of time, increasing the more times he came close to death and recovered.

What limits exist for him, she didn't know. But in the state she left him, he was no longer a threat. Her evolution surpassed his, and she simply exceeded the threshold of Shinigami and Hollow.

Smiling, she hefted her Zanpakutō up and pointed the forked blades at Shutara, "You're quite the nuisance, what with all of your fabric parlor tricks. But I see you're deciding to take things seriously for you to use a weapon like that."

"Mugen will be enough to gauge how much force is required to kill you," Shutara intoned stoically. Tossing it up into the air, distinct ringing sound coming from the spinning blades that thrummed in the air of the dim dome.

"Busō Teiji!" She cried out, causing the disc to discharge a slew of katana blades. Devoid of hilts, they rained metal in a guided thrust towards her, their numbers seeming to double, then triple, becoming a storm of sharp metal hailing at Aaroniero's position.

The transcendent being glared, a bright flash coming from her eyes, the light instantly filling the dome's air. In that flicker came the shattering of all the blades shattered, sparkling fragments of katana trickling down in flakes of dust.

"Tsumugu Kakumei!" Shutara invoked next.

The disc spun down at her, another set of teeth coming out in a rapid revolution that growled out akin to a chainsaw. The blade moved swiftly, but Aaroniero matched it with a thrust of her spear, colliding with a monstrous pressure of reiatsu bursting water. A large swathe of fabric behind her formed into a massive fist, ramming towards her back-

VMMMMMMMMM!

-only to be blasted apart by a spare hand's finger, firing a massive Cero of black, erasing it with ease while exploding against the wall. An enormous quake shook the dome, fire spreading around the woven threads of black till it cast a ring of ominous fiery reishi around them.

The ring repelled in a swing of her weapon, Shutara Flash Stepped into the air and caught it by both handles. With a twist, the pole separated at the center, the disc halves becoming brandishes as crescent shaped axes in each hand.

"Danzai Bun!" She yelled out, swinging both axes down at Aaroniero's spear with ferocious flurry power. Her body emitting a fantastic array of colors for her reiatsu, the violet mass of her foe's reiatsu that collided against hers felt swollen and growing before he eyes. In her hands the weapons vibrates intensely, howling out in resistance against her foe's dominating power.

Aaroniero pulled back, letting the two crescent axes slam into the black threaded ground with a mighty shockwave. Thrusting in afterwards, Shutara deftly parried and spun around the pole of her weapon, swinging her ax to cleave the Arrancar in half. The pommel blocked the blow in a vertical spin, a clawed free hand stretched out to slash at her face.

KRAK!

Vanishing in a bout of Shunpo, Shutara left behind her moon themed hair piece, now smashed to the ground with trickles blood painting it. The transcendent being turned, spinning her trident around and building up a torrent of power in her liquid made reiatsu. Detecting Shutara above with both axes swinging down, she deftly leaped back while swinging her trident upwards.

The upward draft of water and force of her spear's slash knocking back the Royal Guard, sending her careening across the immense space of the black threaded dome. She skidded to a stop, her reiatsu dousing the ring of fire she passed by, her eyes widened, seeing the trident flung straight at her.

Leaning to the right, she felt the trident cut her cheek and crash powerfully behind her. The burst of water knocked her in a forward stumble, her face falling into a suddenly appearing knee rising into her face. She leaned back, narrowly avoiding the melee blow, only to have her chest slammed by a flat palm that sent her back against the wall.

Barely able to take a gasp, her throat is grasped as her body is lifted off her feet. She winced past the tight vice around her neck, seeing Aaroniero's eyes coldly stare at her. Grasping her trident, she yanked it back, silently pointing it at the guard's head.

Just as she made a thrust, the whole of the black threaded wall surged out in a mass of fiberish onyx, producing dozens of sword sized needles that rammed into her body. Freeing her opponent, her body sparked with contact, her Hierro emboldened by her reiatsu as she felt shoved across the massive dome field of blackness.

A swing of her trident, and a cutting rift of water tore it down the middle, slashing a massive rift where Shutara had been standing. Looking around, she saw Shutara standing distantly by a dimly lit fire that had yet to be smothered at the opposite end of where she had been nearly strangled at.

Walking to the right, her body seemed to leave an echo. Each reflection moving in tandem with each other as a row of duplicate images behind her. It differed from Gemelos Sonído, and she had yet to see Shunpo used in this way. As far as she could tell by her Pesquisa, each one is her, but likely strung out by a line of reiatsu compacted with Kidō.

I won't give you a chance to recuperate. Next time, I'll break your neck! Aaroniero thought decisively, her reiatsu billowing out, a bright flare of violet shaking the threaded dome of black. Bending forward, she zoomed out, leaving a trail of reishi borne fire as she sliced the air and thrust into the middle of the trailing images.

The whiplash of water dispelled the rest, leaving her alone with no body. Recoiling back as soon as her Pesquisa could detect something, a rising blade erupted from the floor at her feet; her back slashed by the other coming from behind. Gritting her teeth, she slammed her trident into the ground and ripping it upwards with a tidal wave of slashing water that produced Shutara within its clutches. Flipping with the flow of water, she leaped back to her, blood trailing from her stabbed shoulder marring her coat and kimono.

Parrying the pair of thrusting axes, amidst the sparks she still felt her own shoulders split open past as ribbons of energy released from the weapons she halted with her spear. Kicking her back, Shutara stomped a foot and rebounded with another thrust and slash. The weapons clanged loudly, sparks and shockwaves flaring in the air as the two continued to exchange blows with one another.

A slash across the side by a thrust, a gash across the thigh from a narrow sidestep, and a cut across the shin for the Shinigami as she vaulted above her quarry. An instant as those wounds are afflicted, tendrils of thread lassoed out and caught each of her limbs, coiling taut in an instant. Aaroniero tried to produce her tethers of reiatsu but found they couldn't escape her body.

A fiery pain of her arms being severed, pulled aside and entombed by black threads into the floor happened in her moment of hesitation. Seeing her arms sealed within layers of fabric, she knew if she allowed dismemberment, she really will lose this time.

Pray, Santa Teresa

The cleaving axes pulled down and swung around by the Shinigami towards her head, connecting with a sudden crescent halberd. Pushed back, Shutara narrowly avoided three other crescent halberds in mighty spear pressure waves that cut across the floor and air of their surroundings.

Backing up, a visage of a damning crescent moon appeared before her gaze as the silhouette of Aaroniero emerged from a haze of smoke and steam, now having a crescent moon pair of horns arched from one temple and finished it's upward arch on other side. A squelch of regeneration came her normally black wrapped arms, and above or below each dominant pair of arms were four armored, clawed limbs in equally dark fatigues with clawed digits. Holding four crescent shaped massive halberds, she produced an additional pair from her wrists, giving herself a total of six massive weapons to wield.

"I have to admit, you're becoming more troubling than I had thought," Aaroniero admitted, walking forward with predatory intent with a twisted grin on her face. "It's been too long since I've fought someone who's made me fight like I meant it. Perhaps if that 'Lightning Kirinji', or that 'God of Swords' had your temerity, they wouldn't have been folded so easily."

Shutara narrowed her eyes at Aaroniero's form. She forgone her tactics as a Shinigami and now produced a form more likened to Arrancars she's faced. In fact, she swore she's seen this form, nearly a hundred years ago. A teal haired Arrancar had stepped in, forcing her to retreat as her mission had already concluded.

Yet, this Resurreccion's appearance unnerved her. It reeked of despair, and showed an immense malice on activation. Worse still, all injuries she dealt to the transcendent being had regenerated.

"You like to talk, don't you?" Shutara spoke quietly, her own body glowing along her various wounds. Threads sealed up the injuries, sewing them on their own and leaving naught but nearly invisible scars behind.

The display of adept automatic Kaido impressed Aaroniero, but she didn't feel threatened. It became obvious she couldn't do so quickly, and she herself doesn't have healing capabilities akin to that of the best healers of Soul Society.

She's no Arrancar, so she can't possibly keep that up as long as I can, Aaroniero thought with a smirk, eyeing over to where her severed arm is. I can't feel where it is, but I feel the Hōgyoku is still there along with Nejibana. Perhaps she thought she could separate my weapons to give her an advantage?

"It's obvious that the only solution to putting you down for good is to destroy every last part of you," Shutara said suddenly, regaining Aaroniero's attention. The handles of her weapons seemed to melt, the gold flowing down hands till they covered the axes.

Then, a vibrant flash of reiatsu brightened the room as she said a single word.

"Baaaaankaaaaaai," She hissed out, serpentine threads of glimmering grey coiled up her arms beneath her sleeves. Flowing up her collar and arching over her head, a hood is made with threaded metal, akin to a Cobra. Raising her hands up, metal conformed around her hands with long thin nails of gold protruding from her nails, giving her a venomous appearance in complement to her beautiful cloaked visage.

"Mugen no Gōmon-Sha," Shutara smoothly spoke, calmly fanning her blades fingers up in brandished presentation. "No more games, Hollow. Your death is now certain."

"No more certain than yours," Aaroniero retorted, bending her knees and lunging towards her foe. Swinging her right arms, three sets of massive slashing geysers of reiatsu erupted in virulent purple waves.

Appearing at her left, the transcendent being turned to swing her left arms. A sudden slash across her top and bottom arm is made.

SPLRT!

Causing both limbs to explode in a shower of fiery gore.

"What?!" Aaroniero gawked, her middle left arm whiffing as Shutara Flash Stepped away in a flicker, appearing at her back. Using Sonido to dodge a sudden clawed thrust she twisted her other three arms to carve at a vanishing silhouette. Gritting her teeth she saw the same echoing line of replicating images, causing her Pesquisa to be confused.

Snarling, she squelched out another pair of arms - instantly exploding in a blaze of fiery reishi, staggering the Arrancar. Blinking wildly, she felt a painful searing burn coursing in her veins. Her arms shook in place, and sweat beaded off her ordinarily unshaken visage.

"You're beginning to feel it," Shutara said, causing Aaroniero to lash out, striking more effigies as she carved gashes across the black threaded dome. Her voice echoed the air just as her body replicated images of herself with Shunpo. "The venom of Mugen no Gōmon-Sha is a self propagating virus. Whenever a wound has been afflicted, it immediately reproduces, destroying every cell in a given radius and detonates it from the inside out. Once I've infected an enemy, no healing or regeneration can rid you of its curse. In minutes you'll die, or less should you try to undo its course."

Aaroniero lashed out, swinging a crescent halberd in a circle, sending out streaks of violet across the darkened space. Shutara leaped up above, slashing her claws down, deflected by a pole handle of another halberd. Grinding against the cylindrical hilt, the Royal Guard forward flipped over several other swinging pole weapons.

Twisting on her heels, Aaroniero met Shutara's Zanpakutō with hers, clashing mightily with a blast of majestic multi-colored reiatsu and violet pressuring against one another. The threaded floor undulated, rippling out like water to rock the canopy's walls. Separating from each other, they began to move across the room in bursts of sprints and fast-movement shunts, rapidly approaching one another while nearly connecting each blow with each other.

The deadly dance continues, Aaroniero's face paling as veins pulsed with darkening lines over her exposed flesh. The virus ate away at her vital areas in her Shinigami body, poisoning her reishi network and crawled closer to her core. Even in her transcendent state, evolved as she is, could only push it back with her reiatsu so much.

Another arm got slashed, exploding violently against her. As she retaliated, her other arm also got cut, detonating in fiery gore and pushing her back from the force of it. Bangs hung heavy over her sickly visage, chalk white with black veins throbbing over her brow down her neck. Saliva and blood oozed out of her mouth, her eyes looking stubbornly over at Shutara.

"Your struggles end here," The Guard proclaimed, raising a clawed hand in readiness. Aaroniero stumbled forward, her weapons slumping to the ground and her body about to fall to her knees. In a bout of Shunpo, she shunted her clawed blades into her chest.

BZZZT!

Eviscerating a Sonído Clone as it faded in front of her. Arching her claw around without looking, she blocked a clawed hand formed out of Grimmjow's Aspect; a crimson tendril made from Metastacia's Aspect protruding from the wrist shot out to lasso around her arm.

Pricking it with her other set of claws, the tendril exploded, painting herself in blood and making Aaroniero shriek in pain. Stepping forward, she spun on the ball of her foot, slashing at Aaroniero, seeing Sado Yasutora's Arm of the Giant block the strike.

The scratch, however, had been deep enough to explode Aaroniero's right arm, throwing her to the ground in a somersaulting tumble. Clenching at her stump, the Arrancar began to writhe in agony, howling as the pain multiplied even further across her very being.

"Your tenacity yields nothing but pain, Hollow," Shutara condescendingly spoke, her eyes glaring in contempt at the foe that rolled on the ground in bloodied ruin. "Just accept your fate."

Aaroniero began to laugh, hacking up blood and bile as she punched the ground. The threaded floor quakes, Shutara stoically staring ahead with both hands at her sides. The transcendent being began to rise, her cackle ending with rasping breaths, bangs obscuring one eye as the other glared forward with a crooked grin armed on her paled, sweaty and black veined face.

"Fate? Don't make me laugh!" She snapped. "You Shinigami have dictation over the laws of reality since the beginning. I have the memories of Yamamoto, I know you're hiding something and have concealed your society an awful truth. And as a master of deception, I know a con when I see one."

"You know nothing," Shutara rebuked, flickering out and into view, now in front of Aaroniero with both claws thrusting forward as she sneered out, "And it will stay that way!"

This time, she did run Aaroniero through. The blades sank deep into the possessed Shinigami, spearing out the other side. Yet, in that split instant, a massive white tree shot out of her back above the point of injuries, with a white flower budded at its significant length. Unfurling, a fountain of fluid emerged with a black hand catching the floor and hauling out a fully intact form of Aaroniero.

Shutara blinked, seeing the light fade from the body's as the shell explode into gore; its lethal effects following the branch protruding from the back, withering to dust shortly afterwards.

The form of Aaroniero rose up, turning with a brazen smile on her face, addressing the Royal Guard with smug jeer.

"You must be confused, how I escaped your Bankai's curse," She intoned, gesturing with emphasis in the most casual manner. "You must remember how I used Arbol, a power to grow anything I want back, to bring me back once before? I simply used it to create a replacement body untainted by your reiatsu that had infected my failing being. I never had to slip my core into such a form before, as I mainly used it to create puppet soldiers before, but it seems to be a success. A testament to how far I've come in my evolution from a simple ability I've only continued to improve upon.

"I do want to give credit to my colleague, Szayelapporo Granz, for giving me the idea for rebirth," Aaroniero admitted, shrugging with a smirk. "He was always a hard one to kill, even back when he had been the original Cero Espada. I take inspiration where I can and improve over where possible."

Shutara had regained her composure after hearing Aaroniero prattle on. It happened so quickly, the switch between bodies. She lacked the knowledge that Aaroniero's original body had long since expired when Rukia became a host. Now it seems she can generate replacement parts down to an identical body, abandoning the other as a lifeless husk in the process.

But my Bankai does work. I just need to strike the chest or head before she can switch between bodies again, She determined, her aura springing to life as she stepped forward to reengage.

A sudden shadow manifest behind her, following a hand bursting through her chest from the back. Her eyes wide with alarm looked down, shaking visibly at the abhorrent wound. Craning her neck to look behind, she saw a confusing sight.

Another Aaroniero, smirking back, holding onto a trident with a jewel between her fingers. Tossing it over to the reborn Arrancar, she caught it, the jewel embedding into her left-hand like before.

"You shouldn't have left my head so intact," The transcendent being proclaimed, walking slowly over to Shutara with spear in hand. "Thanks to you being so distracted on me, it was easy to grow it to size and quietly retrieve my things. But now that I have you here, let me first counter what you said earlier."

Stopping in front of the guard, she stared at the pair of glaring eyes stoically, "You see all truths based on how they appear. But people dress themselves in ways to appeal to others, and in doing so, hide the truth with lies. All lies are the foundation of an accepted truth to the point no one can even recognize fact from fiction. The lie everyone believes becomes truth, something Shinigami are accustomed to peddling.

"Which leads me to say that behind all of your glamor and beauty is an ugly killer that eliminates all who oppose the lie you guard have," She finishes, raising her left hand up to Shutara's grim expression. "Time to accept my lie as truth."

An arc of gold swept around Aaroniero's vision, her body deftly leaning back, avoiding a set of claws taking the air. As that happened, her other set stabbed the impaling arm wedged out of her chest.

Causing the arm to explode out backwards. The copy of Aaroniero recoiled in shock, leaving an opening for two more slashes across her chest and head. Gore detonated along with the remains, letting Shutara Shunpo away from a massive crash of water slamming into the threaded floor where she once stood.

Landing away at the far end of the arena, she haggardly breathed as Aaroniero appeared in front of her a moment later. Stabbing at her in a harry of thrusts, she deflected with clawed hands and weaved about the storm of blows, being cut and slashed as she did.

"You're stubborn to resist now," She sneered, her eyes glaring in a glow of white; suddenly crashing Shutara with pure reiatsu that pummeled her into the far black threaded dome wall.

Blood spewed out of her throat, her wounded frame sliding down-

KRAAAK!

-pinned to the wall by a trident in a sudden throw, blasting water that furthered the hole in her torso. Eyes widened, mouth opened agape, soon grasped by a tendril that splurted out of Aaroniero's hand.

In this light deprived space, no one could hear Senjumaru Shutara scream.

A/N: So falls the second Royal Guard. I toyed with some alternative endings to this conflict, but seeing as I never thought that Shutara was much of a Kidō expert compared to Ichibei or even Ouetsu and Kirinji. So I gave her adept fabric manipulation that had Kidō in it, and a kickass Zanpakutō.

As far as Nimaiya's Zanpakutō breaking, I never viewed a one note gimmick sword like Sayafushi surviving intense reiatsu discharge. And since Aaroniero has such transcendent power enough to destroy the Cleaner, I don't see why she can't just physically snap it in pieces; only the edge and tip are supernaturally sharp, not the base flat itself.

I still have plans for Kirio and Nimaiya, so look forward what they do next. And for all those who'll see this chapter up, Happy New Year's!