I can't see, the Despair
Just hands clutching my hair
I can't hear, the Lies
That cover up corpse's dyes
I can't feel, the Pain
Of living in vain
Oh God, why do I live?
I got nothing more to give
A Predator Among Us
The Hol(low)y War XI
The One Who Will Take Everything
Destiny.
This is a word that has defined the Sternritter Commander, Jugram Haschwalth, for nearly all of his life. Even when he didn't think it was his place, in some way, life guided him to his true purpose; becoming the other half of the forefather of al Quincy, Yhwach.
Jugram had to face a number of obstacles in the past thousand years of service. The absence of innocence since childhood, thanks to the early demise of his parents, leaving him forsaken to an uncle he sorely despised. His friendship with Bazz-Bee had been the only light in his life, until the day he met Yhwach face to face.
Elevated, he found peace of mind in service to his liege. When he had been granted the Almighty during the period of "sleep" his majesty required, he saw him go into battle virtually helpless against the Shinigami. Swearing to never allow it again, he sealed the eyes of God, awaiting the day for Yhwach to reclaim them for when his prophesied return to power is to happen.
Though destiny seemed thwarted, the advancement of Yhwach never wavered. Even as his brethren fell in battle, more and more strength is reclaimed that had been lost. And through this battle, the young man could see firsthand.
Yhwach's power is nearly whole.
Tendrils of light erupted from the floor, jaggedly sprouting like facsimiles of trees, launching barbs of reishi to hail at the pair of Quincy. Spinning his broadsword around in a flurry of steel, Haschwalth deflected the discharge, shielding himself and his majesty. Yhwach used this opportunity to hurl a number of powerful Heilig Pfeil the size of ballista bolts at the seated Aaroniero.
Intercepted by more spontaneous growth of reishi, spearing them through and shattering them like glass. The Reio smiled with amusement at the attempt.
Haschwalth narrowed his eyes with contempt at the creature. For all of the splendor and power she brandished, it is still a Hollow playing at God.
Kneeling down, the blonde Quincy wrapped his sword wielding arm around up his side, curled up nearly into a ball.
Dashing in a blur of white.
A network of blue flashes across the air, casting a web interlaced in patterns of blue and white between the seated deity. Silver tore into the branches, shattering them, lancing through the space with a shower of reishi trickling to the floor like glass.
An arc of gleaming steel rushed under and up towards the neck-
Crack!
-scratching across the jugular in a slew of sparks, as if shredding over a layer of diamonds.
A sudden force wrapped around the man, throttling him straight up into the ceiling with a loud snap. Gasping for air, the blonde man feels his grip from the sword loosen, letting it fall to impale into the floor below as he's completely immobilized overhead.
"Is that it?" Aaroniero asked, looking up with an air of disappointment. "I was expecting more from you."
"I'm not the one," Jugram strained out to speak, stoically glaring down at the Hollow-turned-God, "You should be looking at."
A brief tap of the floor brought Aaroniero's gaze back to the floor in front of the throne. The sword unmoved as a black cloaked man swung an equally dark sword, Saubern, straight across her neck.
Trees of reishi spring out from the glass environment, lashing out at the attacker; only for them to be dispelled by a wave of the hand, cracking into brittle, dispersing sparks of light.
Yet, unlike with Jugram's attempt, the blade sank into her flesh and slid through the other side in a smooth, gruesome stroke. Blood spurted out like a geyser, splashing across the immaculate translucent floor, the throne and over Yhwach's face.
Wasting no time, thrusting a palm out to grasp Aaroniero's face in a vice grip, veins spread from the palm and dug into the face of the Reio.
"I'm taking that power of yours," The Father of Quincy spoke assuredly.
"Can you?"
Two words later, and Yhwach's body suddenly felt a wellspring of power like none other shot up from his hand. Pulling his arm away - blood spouting from bursting vessels tearing at the seams of his flesh - Yhwach attempts to leap back.
THUUM!
"My Lord!"
Haschwalth's voice tears out from his spot in the ceiling. He beheld Yhwach throttled across the room, engulfed in ignited reiatsu that torched his black cloak down his white suit. Smashing into the wall with a deafening crash, his silhouette fading out of view from the distance he's sent hurtling away.
Seconds later, Yhwach manifests back into the throne room, sporting burns across his face and across his marred uniform. Reishi stitched his left hand closed, his right hand still clutching Saubern in a loose grip.
Consequently, in the short span of time it took him to get back, the Reio's slashed neck and all of the blood that covered her had been completely erased.
"I see stealing from the authentic article will be no trifle," Yhwach said with a smile. "Despite having been Reio for only a few days, you're quite adept at using his power. I'm impressed."
"Your ability to steal powers is quite superior to Glotoneria's, back when I was a lowly Arrancar," Aaroniero replied with a smile, cross-shaped eyes gleaming with focus at Yhwach. "But I've long since evolved past that limitation."
"It won't be long since I grow past my own limits as well," Yhwach boasted with a glare. "Where you may think killing my men increases your chances of victory, it only ensures your downfall."
"Because their souls migrate to yours?"
For the moment, the Quincy paused. He already had a feeling the Reio knew more than she let on about what she understood of him and the Wandenreich. Yet, he could feel the diminished reiatsu of her own forces as much as his. Did she plan all of that, knowing what she just did about him?
"Don't look so surprised," Aaroniero mocked with a jeering smirk. "Did you think you're the only one who has divine sight? I also possess eyes that do more than see."
"It can't be!" Haschwalth gasped from his place in the ceiling. "You've been using the Almighty!"
"Not now," She refuted with a dismissive wave of her hand. "But when I devoured the Reio, combining his essence into my own, I saw everything. How else would I have found out where you were and to plan the moment of your arrival?"
Leaning against the throne, she returned her gaze to the hard stare she received from her for ,"I do possess that power. For it is the source of your king's boundless strength and hunger for souls. After all, he is the lost son of the Reio, left to die by his would-be Shinigami murderers."
Haschwalth felt his entire stomach turn. He had this omen ever since he awoke from the nightmare he shared with his Majesty. Having it confirmed by word of mouth made him feel dread for the first time in ages.
She planned everything. She knows how Yhwach came to be, his abilities and how he intends to defeat her. Without the Almighty, how can He win?
"I see," Yhwach replied, his eyes narrowed and his stance relaxed. "Cunning like yours didn't exist a millennia ago. But the fact you aren't using those eyes of yours means either you've been holding back up till now, or you cannot control it."
"Who knows?" Aaroniero says with a sly grin. "Either way, you're going to die, Yhwach."
Closing his eyes, Yhwach could feel the rush of souls enter his body lessen. Three of his Schutstaffel have been slain, a feat which should be near impossible. Many more Quincy die in the Varvhelt with only a fraction of the Wandenreich's forces left.
The Quincy are on the cusp of defeat.
His strength, however, has only been enhanced.
"Die? I cannot die," Yhwach his eyes reopening. "Even if you kill everyone else I will remain. Your defeat was assured the moment you kept your eyes shut. Why? Because…"
Unveiling a triad of orbiting red irises within his sclera.
"...I am the One who will take everything from you."
A massive roar of reiatsu erupted from Yhwach the moment those eyes were awakened. The very foundation of the glass palace shook, vibrating violently before being overtaken by an enormous wellspring of bluish energy that tore it all apart. Miles high, the crystal fortress Aaroniero had manufactured disintegrated in a hail of twinkling fragments.
Askin Nak Levarr, far away, could feel his spine tingle at the alarming elevation of power he could sense in his Majesty. He could see, even from the golden road, small specks that represent the three individuals that are currently standing high in the sky.
I'm glad I'm not in the middle of that right now, otherwise I might be joining my three comrades in the Afterlife…
Jugram, free of his bindings, dropped to stand atop the air. His eyes adjusted, seeing a near invisible barrier formed from his Majesty to be walked upon.
Looking over at his King, he could see an unusual expression over his face.
It looked like…fear?
"Every future I see," Yhwach says with perspiring anxiousness. "Leads to the same conclusion I dreamed of."
"Of course," Aaroniero said, rising up from her throne with hands gesturing from her sides. "Even with my eyes shut, you can't defeat me. Your defeat is certain."
Taking a step forward, Yhwach took a step back. His eyes palpably broad as his mouth went slack. Every vein within grew cold and his stomach twisted in place.
His Almighty saw a myriad of lines like a labyrinth of sands. Sifting through them all even in a metaphysical sense his gaze could see an inevitable truth at the end of every path.
A flaming cross of white, plunging straight between his eyes while he lay among the dead of his own kind.
Yhwach sneered.
Swinging an arm out, a flash of light erupted from the Reio's body, as if torn by an instantaneous outside force. Blood and reishi gushed out of what used to be a body.
Yet, as quickly as it was seen, Aaroniero simply took another step forward, emerging with no sign of damage.
"No!" Yhwach shouted as he threw out a hand, unleashing a barrage of attacks with the Almighty. Rifts tore through the body of Aaroniero, tearing her apart. Eyes blew out of her skull, flesh torn from her bones, fabric igniting and whole limbs eradicated in swift strikes lying outside of time itself.
And each time he damaged her, she coalesced back into being, restored to the point it looked as if she reversed time itself.
"How are you doing this?!" Yhwach cried out, his face stricken with horror at what he was seeing. "The Almighty is absolute, all abilities become my ally. Even your strength should be irrelevant, without an Almighty to combat it I should be able to-"
Aaroniero raised her left hand, revealing a sparkling jewel embedded within the back of her palm. Seeing it, Yhwach couldn't fathom it, yet it reminded him of the Reio. The orb pulsed, releasing a powerful wave of force that caused Yhwach to fall to his knees, the sensation beyond reiatsu itself.
I can't…move!
"The Hōgyoku is the reason I won against my foes. From Genryūsai Yamamoto, Orihime In our to Ichibei Hyosube. Each time I was dealt an impossible wall to climb, the Hōgyoku made my desires tangible," Aaroniero spoke calmly, her jeering smirk unwavering. "I never needed the Almighty because I already have a power superior to it in every way."
Yhwach's eyes narrowed at the gem.
His hatred boiled up, the fear twisted into a cauldron of stress that had been suppressed for the past century of cognitive awareness.
Veins of a deep violet appeared across his body, his red eyes dilated as he forced himself to stand up and look down at the shorter deity. Three sets of pupils glared down at her perpetual white crosses.
"If you believe that gem of yours will prevent my destiny from being realized, Aaroniero Arrurerie, then you are a fool," He sneered, raising his black blade up above his head.
Causing a mass of bright white light.
Far away, deep within the annals of Seireitei, particles rose up in streaks of light straight into the heavens. The myriad of barriers, the space between the two realms and even the space of shadows that lies between all funneled a massive rain of rising stars of spirit particles.
All of it funneled into a pillar of energy that cemented into the ground of the Reio's city, and the highest of highs, bearing a six pointed pentacle. The sheer wall of light cracked, then scattered about, revealing the Father of Quincies had transformed himself.
Gone is the age wrought on his body, his physique slender and shorter, face bare with red triage of irises in each socket staring ahead. A crown of light circled over his black wavy hair, a five pointed pentacle over it in a spiral with a black set of wings of reishi with a set of floating luminous rings behind his back in a semi-circle, seven in total. His black blade clad in fiery bluish energy, his cloak enamored in a robe of bluish-white, the Quincy emanated a reiatsu unlike have seen in history.
"Morgen Stern," Yhwach said, his rough voice now smooth and cold, pupils spinning in place. "I'll use the power I've been storing from those Quincy who have been taken inside of my soul, and use their power to take away your own destiny."
Aaroniero coolly stared at Yhwach. She could tell he is strong, stronger than anyone she has seen. The amplified powers of those he took from the dead Sternritter could have made him a force beyond any creature in creation.
"Come," Aaroniero beckoned.
Yhwach rippled, disappearing from sight.
In the next instant, Aaroniero swung an arm and parried a slash of light.
A cacophony of piercing orbs thrust into her chest, head and legs, stemming from a space emerging Quincy. Narrowed red eyes beheld the body shifting into shadows, spreading out and around the Quincy to form a massive hand.
Crunch!
Clenching into a tight fist that pulverized all the light and body within. Veins sprouted out, unraveling the hand and goring it into a gruesome puddle beneath the winged figure.
"Dance," Aaroniero spoke out, causing Yhwach to twist about to fire a salvo of beams from the rings floating behind him. Each shot froze in place, Aaroniero covered in frost with all of the space locked in suspended animation. With a pearly katana in hand, Aaroniero's cosmic bodied form drifted across the air.
SHIIIIING!
"Sode no Shirayuki," Aaroniero sighed, leaving Yhwach frozen behind herself.
Splrt!
"GAULK!" Aaroniero vomited blood, her chest tearing open with a bluish blade thrusting through her chest from her back.
"You should have known better than to use any ability in front of my Almighty," Yhwach said, his body free of the ice as if he had never been frozen. "All powers and abilities become my allies. If you had used it yourself, even once, that would have been all you needed to realize tactics are futile against me."
"I know that," Aaroniero said from behind him, a sly grin on her face opposed to Yhwach's stunned expression. "This is a battle of the eyes, for us."
The body in front of Yhwach dismantled into starlight of reishi, dissipated into sparks before his gaze. Leaping up into the air, he unleashed a barrage of fiery prisms of light, spearing through the floor of the city and fired far below into the distant countryside of the Soul Society.
Burrowing holes of enormous depth within the wild lands.
Rising up into the air, unscathed, is the Reio. Grinning wildly she spread her arms out with a boastful taunt.
"Is that all? You've yet to even make me try, Yhwach!" She cackled.
Zipping past in a blur, the hand imbued with the Hōgyoku is torn out in a shot of light. Aiming with all of his power, he poised to break the gem in any future he could find it in.
Yet…something went wrong.
Instead of seeing into a vast array of winding futures, the object itself didn't seem to exist within time. The orb itself couldn't be touched by the Almighty.
But, I have power comparable to the Reio! I should be able to-!
A sudden, painful eruption from his own eyes took place. He howled as fire burst from his own face, melting his sockets as it teared red down his cheeks.
A vicious slam of force sends him hurtling into the center of what was the base for the glass palace. His wings flickers weakly, the rings behind disappeared as his form vanished along with the rest of his enormous wellspring of power.
"You still don't get it," Aaroniero rebuked, landing apart as his age returned within seconds of the Vollstandig dissipating from him. "The Hōgyoku has a will of its own. It is and always will be a sentience beyond that of your understanding. That is why your Almighty can work on me, or it. We are one, and as long as that keeps being the case, you are always going to lose."
Yhwach let out a horrible cry. The pain, compounded with blindness and sudden weakness overcoming him gave into a bout of panic.
In his fear, the inability to see and affect the future, the Quincy felt himself lost to his own emotions.
Without even hesitation, his hands lit up with a rising light. His authority over all Quincy, every living thing that has his blood within them, bound to a single call.
Auswhalen.
Yhwach's chest felt an ache, his throat clenched and his mouth dried. Where his eyes once were are now empty pits, bloodied and widened with confusion.
"Why…am I not getting more power?"
"I cast a barrier around the Soul Palace, well before you entered," Aaroniero answered, looming in front of the kneeling man. Her cross-shaped eyes gleamed down at him, her smile aglow with mockery as she revealed. "It prevents your Auswhalen ability, completely canceling any attempts you have to kill the rest of your followers in a bid to tip the tides."
"But, Kidō should have no effect-"
"I never said it was Kidō," Aaroniero countered with a tut, wagging her Hōgyoku adjacent finger chidingly. "There are ways to negate any ability. That is the basis of the Almighty, right? I just did it a bit smarter than you."
Clenching his teeth, Yhwach thrust a hand out towards Aaroniero, grasping her neck in an iron grip. He squeezed, trying to force his veins inside to pull her powers out of her once more.
"Please stop that," She hissed, placing a hand on his wrist.
RRRRRIIIIIIIiiiiiip!
"You're embarrassing yourself," Aaroniero rebuked, tearing off his arm from his shoulder in a gruesome pull.
Yhwach howled in pain, clutching his bloody stump while still gripping Saubern in hand. Tears of blood fell from his eyes, veins throbbed and saliva ebbed out of a rasping mouth.
"Pathetic," Aaroniero spat derisively at Yhwach. "How can a man be so strong and end up looking so weak?"
"Haschwalth!" Yhwach shouted, turning to angrily look around for his right hand man. "Why have you forsaken me?! Lend me your power, now!"
But what he Yhwach couldn't see was different from the man he had sired over a millennium ago. The boy who forsook everything to be joined as his other half, bound together as a successor and commander of his war against the cruel world of Shinigami. The loyalty had been unshakable, even with the nightmare that they both shared as holders of the Almighty.
Yet, whether it was his incredible sense of reishi, or finding a means to see without eyes, Ywhach was finally able to make out Haschwalth's face.
Instead of a stoic visage of steadfast alliance, a twisted glare of vindictive anger has transformed the demeanor of Jugram Haschwalth.
"Why," Yhwach whispered hoarsely, "are you looking at me like that?"
"You just tried to use Auswhalen on us," Jugram said, his glare a bright viridescent pair of stars shining brightly with fury. "Not to fulfill our hopes and wishes, but to save yourself."
The Father of Quincy felt his face grow pale. Realization hit him like a tower of bricks. A contradiction in his own ideals shattered the stalwart trust he had built between him and the man standing apart from him.
Twitching at the eyes, Yhwach let out a shout, "Of course I have to survive! Without me, none of you would be where you are now! I am going to rid this world of death, and cease this cycle of horrible rebirth made by Shinigami! Is that not worth the price of your very lives?!"
Taking a step forward, Jugram appeared at Yhwach's side. Looking up at him, the Father of Quincy gaped at the contemptuous glare poised down at him.
"Bazz was right about you," Haschwalth sneered.
"Haschwal-"
A sudden flash of silver arched across Yhwach's neck, causing his vision to spin. Twirling across air he beheld his own body slumping forward, blood spraying from a clean cut where Haschwalth's sword struck.
Then it stopped, facing up at Aaroniero from the floor of air.
"This can't be…" Yhwach gasped, eyes dazed and whirling in place, "how could I…have lost?"
"You hedged all of your bets on destiny granting you what you wanted, instead of seizing it yourself," Aaroniero rebuked, pointing her left hand towards the decapitated head, sneering down with a thin glare. "You had it backwards, Yhwach. I am the One Who Will Take Everything From You."
That moment, in over a thousand years of existing and defying the order of the world, fighting and clawing his way back from the brink of an ultimate end Yhwach felt something he didn't think he would.
He felt nothing.
Nothing but the cold darkness.
Aaroniero coolly turned away from a scorched spot where Yhwach's head once lay, her gait calm and assured. Passing by Haschwalth she gave him an approving look as she strode towards the headless body of the Quincy King.
"Are you going to eat his body?" Jugram asked.
"I considered it," Aaroniero said mirthfully, looking down at the corpse cynically. "Given he has a knack for defying death even without the Almighty, it might be safer to eat him. However, I already know it has no value," she paused, looking over at the blonde man, "isn't that right, Jugram?"
The man, normally stoic, allowed himself a smile as he closed his eyes.
"So, you knew," Jugram said, opening his blue irises to stare into Aaroniero's cross-shaped eyes. "About my connection to Yhwach."
"I saw the connection between you and assumed based on where Yhwach gets his strength from he'd place a geist on himself so that his powers didn't vanish; by consequence, neither does he."
"You presume correctly," He answered, his smile replaced with a cold twist of his lips. "But I have only one thing to ask. Did you mean what you said, about uniting the realms?"
"Absolutely," She answered.
"It wasn't just a ruse to rouse up Yhwach's anger?"
"Let me be clear," Aaroniero said, raising a hand for emphasis. "I never had the ability to predict what Yhwach was going to do in the future."
Jugram balked.
"The Reio has the Almighty bestowed upon me, but I never had the chance to affect him even at range. I never would have started this war if I could," She explained with a frown, gesticulating her own train of thoughts as she digressed. "But I presume one who has the Almighty cannot see or affect the other with the Almighty. Yhwach is an enigma to me because he's both human and not, a fragment of the Reio but also independent from him."
"That's why you are doubtful about eating him," Jugram speculated.
"In truth, there is a small chance he could somehow affect my mind or at worst, take over my body completely," She said with a shrug. "It's not something I want to leave to chance."
"I see," The Quincy said with a furrowed brow.
"But why I did what I did wasn't ever intended for Yhwach," Aaroniero confessed, smiling genuinely at the youthful Quincy. "I did it for you."
"Me?"
"I know this may come as a shock but I never wanted an all-out war with your kind," She said, glancing over at Yhwach's headless body. "I needed him gone. Everything he stood for would destroy my plans of a unified realm where Hollows can coexist with others, and the cycle of death isn't undermined by Shinigami manipulations."
"But you still plan to leave them be," Jugram said with a frown.
"Oh, they're going to try to make one last desperate attack to regain the status quo," She smiled with a nod. "But I intend to wipe the slate clean, forge a new generation of Shinigami that are compliant and docile. This way Hollows can exist in their new life without fear from Quincy or Shinigami."
"You want both sides to exist, but not opposed to you?" The Quincy questioned.
"I'm removing the unnecessary realms to make all of this work, including those who are resistant to change," She affirmed.
"Where does that leave the Wandenreich?"
"You can operate here in the Palace until I tidy up the realms," She spoke, gesturing to the remains of her fractured citadel. "Of course I'll have to fix it up after I finish getting a ceasefire between our two sides."
"What about casualties to both sides?" Jugram asked.
"I gave strict orders to not kill your friend, Bazz-Bee was it?" Aaroniero asked, getting an affirmed nod. "But any casualty I suffer is inconsequential. I can literally grow more subordinates if I need to."
Jugram grew quiet as he thought about everything. Yhwach had been a man he trusted, resolutely followed and killed for. When he died, he did everything a man of his station could do, rebuilding a fractured empire and stood by his side once he regained his mind and powers.
Aaroniero ripped the destiny they had planned for, stripping him of his men and even tearing away the illusion of control by destroying his Almighty.
Yet, instead of feeling anger towards her, he felt rage at what Yhwach chose to do in order to not help persist in the most dire of situations but save himself.
Which drove him to do what he never thought he ever would, and aided in ending his life.
Aaroniero raised her hand up, smiling gently at Haschwalth.
Only a few more moments of deliberation and he clasped her hand with his own.
I will do what Yhwach couldn't and end the cycle of Shinigami oppression, so that all of our people can achieve our dreams…even if I have to side with this new 'Reio'.
"Now then," Aaroniero sighed with satisfaction, turning from the man and carving out intricate lines of light in the air. "Let's speed this ceasefire up, shall we?"
Bazz-Bee awoke in darkness.
The bleak canopy of the twilight world he had been trapped within for over a thousand years lay above his gaze. Pain assaulted his nerves, worse only by a margin with the frustration he had at blacking out a second time in the same day.
"I'm going to really get you, Arrancar bitch!" He hissed out, pulling himself out of the trench with strain. Blood crusted over his arms and chest, his thighs partially exposed as his uniform is in tatters. He knew, had he used his Schrift in tandem with Sklavrei and Blut, he likely would have died from the Arrancar's devastating attack.
Yet, as he stretches his senses out, he realizes something.
Everything is quiet.
No sound of battle, no massive fluctuating reiatsu nor bright flashes of light. He is alone, and no sign of the enemy.
"Ah, so you're alive."
At least, he thought so.
Bazz looked over to his left, seeing a scuffed but largely unharmed slender sprite Sternritter, Liltotto Lamperd. Seeing her made the Mohawk adorned man grimace with disgust.
"Nice to see you too," Liltotto dryly said, noting Bazz's displeasure of seeing her.
"Excuse me if a pig isn't the first one I want to see," Bazz snarked at her. "Where's the rest or your gang? They finally up and die, or they just ditch you?"
"They're not dead, though some of us came close," She said with a shrug. "Candice almost kicked it, but Gigi kept her alive once she got back up. Bambi is just pissed how things played out and Meninas is the least damaged."
"Thanks for the status update," Bazz sarcastically said with a roll of his eyes.
"That's part of it," Liltotto sighed. "The other is my task of updating those who are still alive in the Wandenreich. Something happened that stopped the fighting while you were unconscious."
Bazz-Bee turned to look at her quizzically. What could have happened other than they won?
"Yhwach is dead," She said. "Jugram's in charge, and he signed a ceasefire with the Reio. We're allies now."
Bazz-Bee stood still, too stunned to speak. His lifelong aspiration was to get close enough to Yhwach to get the chance to kill him, an impossible task to be sure, but one he never gave up on no matter how much time has passed.
Yet, he could only give a singular word of answer.
"Huh?"
A/N: The War is finally over. Can't believe I managed to wrap up such an inclusion. I didn't even plan it on even being closely timed to the reveal of the Almighty in the current running Anime as of this Chapter. Yet, here we are. Funny how things work, right?
Timing aside, I had to think real hard how I wanted this fight to go down. It's been rewritten and drafted a few times but the core of the plot happens because of the ultimate truth: the Hōgyoku is stronger than the Almighty.
Now, you can feel free to disagree with me as this is just my own personal view but we never see the Almighty actually kill Aizen or by extension turn off his immortality via being bonded to the Hōgyoku. But because Aizen was sealed, we never see how strong he was comparatively to Yhwach himself nor if he had the power of the Reio bolstering the Hōgyoku. The results are what you've seen.
I also don't think it's a stretch to say that since Yhwach wasn't able to use the Almighty on/against the Soul King, then it's fair to assume that Almighty users can't use it on each other. This is why Aaroniero did not use it cause she realized she couldn't.
I'll be writing the 40th Chapter in about a week or so from now so I'm looking forward to that milestone! Once it's up, you'll see what is next for our God King and his entourage of followers next; and hopefully end on a more satisfying note than Kubo's original work.