Pierced, my skin is

Crushed, my bones become

Squeezed, my muscles are

Blood, my veins drain of

Will I ever kill enough

To make the pain forgotten?

A Predator Among Us

The Hol(low)y War III

Blood Soaked Rage

Earlier, the Royal Palace

"What do you mean my power is fused?" Gantenbaine asked.

"I mean just that," Aaroniero said calmly while seated upon her throne. Seeing his confusion she gestured to him, pointing at his body. "I took the spiritual power and abilities in the Aspect I retained of Sado Yasutora and merged it into yours. His power has been useful to me, so it should be with you also."

"You mean, the scary human with Hollow arms?" He asked, raising up his left and right arms. They looked like his, yet they felt different. Stronger, harder. Even his skin felt more resilient than it has in the past.

"You can feel it? The raw power coursing in your skin. That is the truth behind his ability," She said, leaning back with a fist resting on a leaning cheek.

"Why didn't you bring him back to fight with us?"

"For the same reason I didn't restore the other Hollows or Vanguard I devoured. I don't care for their true personalities, and even as puppets, I don't care for them to exist," She explained away.

"What about them?" Gantenbaine asked with a glare.

A smile spread across Aaroniero's face, cross-shaped eyes twinkling as she spoke, "That's because behind the facade they've adopted, they can kill when necessary. I'll use them when I want. And that's why they're going to fight with you Espada, regardless of your feelings on the matter."

"So much for being a benevolent God," He muttered, turning to leave.

"One more thing," Aaroniero stopped him, his face turning to look over her shoulder. Leaning forward, hands on the armrests, she narrowed her eyes at the orange haired Arrancar, "I'm not restoring your life if you fail me. Of all the ones I brought back, you I find the most pitiful. I merged Sado Yasutora's power in you to give you a semblance of worth. Keep that in mind you decide to up and die against someone else."

"Noted, boss," Gantenbaine grunted.

The Present, the Varvhelt

Horizon Field

Gantenbaine Mosqueda remembered his last words spoken to Aaroniero as he caught the Quincy's attack. He could feel the enormity of its weight drive straight into his being. The Arm of the Giant absorbed the force of this attack, compounding it with his Hierro and natural muscles.

Even still, he felt strands of fiber tearing away across his forearm up his wrist from catching it the way he did.

Nnngh, this guy's strong! He thought, doing his best to keep his poker face as sweat dripped down his neck and arms. What does this guy eat? It feels like I just caught mountain in the form of a fist!

"Oh, you're not bad, new guy," Berci he awes with a purse and opening of his mouth, his dark eyes gleaming a pupiless blue. "You might get my blood pumping even more than this guy's army did!"

Hearing this brought up, Gantenbaine scoped out the land with his specialized Pesquisa, Globo de Consulted, as his eyes briefly glow yellow. He sweeped the land, seeing not a single pulse of living reiatsu signatures, just a field of corpses that went all the way into the fortress.

"Rudborrn, what the Hell happened?" Gantenbaine yelled out, looking over at Rudbornn's dazed visage, the cracked mask and look of resignation shown across his usually impassive face. "You were supposed to keep sending troops down so we could get inside without being stopped!"

"B-But…the man in front of you…will keep getting stronger!" The General exclaimed. "He feeds off the death he inflicts upon his enemies, growing stronger with every kill. If I bring the rest of my army through, no one can stop him!"

"What?" Gantenbaine stopped with a worried gasp.

"That's right!" Driscoll crowed out, pulling his fist back, releasing the tension in Gantenbaine's throbbing arm.

Whirling about to face his larger for, the afro Arrancar watched another fist thrown lower towards his gut.

Blocking with his right forearm, he felt a ripple of power shake against him. His hair wiggled over his head, the visor above his brow vibrating against his skin.

Gritting his teeth, he threw his left arm to counterstrike.

VVVRRRROOOOOOOAR!

Discharging a column of electric fiery reishi that blew out in front of him, overtaking Driscoll's massive frame. Carving a trench across field of white back to a barren beige, yellowing plain, a line of vapor rose up from the massive ten meters wide blast the Novena had made.

"Whoa!" Gantenbaine wowed at the scale of his attack potency. "I almost forgotten…how terrifying that guy's strength is. Combined with my strong left hook, that guy must be-"

A stomp stopped his reflection, the carved trench ending at the point two feet had skidded to a halt. Twenty meters of stretched, distended earth, yet the Sternritter looked unfazed as he trudged heavily back towards his foe.

"Ow-ow-ow-ow!" Driscoll feigned out, his body upright and wafting sparks of blue with smoke curling over his head, arms and shoulders. A cheeky grin baring his teeth, his sleeves looking moderately singed but no sign of damage inflicted on any part of him. "That one almost hurt."

Shit, all I did was push him! Gantenbaine gaped with wide eyes.

"Surely that isn't the best you've got?" Driscoll asked, grinning with his Tekkō priming light in a stream behind himself with his slow approach. "I'm not even warmed up yet. Give me something that's going to make me hurt."

Another step, and Driscoll is suddenly in front of Gantenbaine, arm already swinging down in a hammer fist towards his Afro head.

"MAKE ME SCREAM!" He bellowed, his meaty hand crashing against a raised arm that formed a demonic faces shield. A blast of azure reiatsu billowed over Mosquesa, his legs quaking beneath him, his appendage spurting out blood and sweat drenching over his face.

Pushing back up against the monster's arm with a growling howl, Gantenbaine raised his right arm up, red and white markings overlapping his skin up to his shoulder with a crude spike jutting out of his puffy sleeve. Sparking spheres of reishi formed around all five digits, curled into the palm as he made a fist.

"Arm of the Devil," He sneered, Driscoll's eyes widened and smile shifted into an o of surprise. Throwing it forward in a straight right, lancing it in a twisting thrust at the burly man's chest, he shouted out loudly. "LA MUERTE!"

A crushing impact is felt against the Sternritter's torso, following a wailing howl roared out from his back. Shredding the hooded covering, cloth unraveling in a torrent of fiery reishi, the Quincy lurched with the force of the punch.

Gritting his teeth, Gantenbaine kept his fist in the diaphram of his adversary, seeing a scorch mark of a stretched skull with teeth and oval eyes engraved through the uniform as it dissolved in tatters. Flesh looked burnt, and his fist wedges into a purplish-black bruise at the middle of a muscular chest.

A large hand folded over his wrist, pulling it back with ease.

"Heh," Driscoll scoffed, looking down at the startled Arrancar, a thin dribble of blood leaking from the corner of his lips, his eyes looking down with a malicious grin. "Much better. That one I definitely felt!"

The Hell is this guy? Gantenbaine thought, feeling himself stopped still at the sight of how little dage he inflicted. I put my all into that…no, I can't make that excuse! I still have my-

Driscoll stepped forward, a blur of white throttled into the Arrancar's face in mid-thought, crashing his head by Tekkō wrapped knuckles.

KOOOM!

Everything turned black. Vision whirled into unconsciousness, and his body streaked in an arc of blue, zooming into the distant horizon, colliding into a massive wall of sedimentary earth many kilometers away. A distant eruption of smoke and blue fire manifested in a rising mushroom cloud, farther back than the overhead jaws of light reached.

"I think I might have put too much of my back into that one," The Sternritter sighed out, pulling back his arm and using the other to peer at the distant smoke cloud that presided upon his landing. "Is he dead? My reikaku isn't all that great. I could go over there, but I don't want to waste my time."

Rudborrn stood still.

He had remembered the power and skill Gantenbaine Mosqueda possessed in life, both as an original Espada of the Octava rank and even as a Privaron. Seeing him wield such power yet be completely overwhelmed shook the general to his core.

Wait, Rudborrn remembered something. I wonder if…yes, I can do that!

Booming away in a Sonído, The Overkill briefly looked over his way, raising a brow at his sudden disappearance.

"They're bound to come back," He sighed, walking away from the crater and line of carnage he created, striding to the front gate of the palace. Grasping a few bodies, he formed a chair of cadavers and rested upon it in a reclined posture.

Grinning to himself, he let out a breath of relief.

"Nothing feels better than killing hopeless fools," He mused.

He looked up at the sky, peering into the jaws of light. It vaguely reminded him of a time before; back when he fought under the banner of a human lord, long ago.

Jaws of darkness opened then, too. Coming from them were monstrous Hollows, spilling out like a black death. Cutting them down by the dozens, it didn't matter how many he slew. The injuries he sustained added overtime and his strength began to leave him.

Then, the Shinigami came.

There had to be a hundred, sent too late to deal with the Hollows he already fought. When they realized who he is, and what he is, it didn't take long for it all to devolve into a fight.

Having no rest to recover his strength, it all came through sheer stubbornness and spite. He cut them down, beating them to a pulp, yet every bite of a blade, every burn of Kidō and every kick to tje gut added up.

When the commanding officer came, he could barely see straight. Yet, he could remember the words.

"Refusal to die is just an excuse for the weak," He had said, drawing his sword and readying it to cut him down. "If you're clinging to life so desperately, you should have been strong enough to die with dignity."

And he thought death did claim him. Yet, he awoke in darkness, this very land he found himself in now. The Almighty had intervened and saw virtue in his power and sought to give him strength in the temerity he employed in warfare that was wasted in his old life.

Since then he trained, grew stronger and felt himself elevated to the ranks of the powerful. Obtaining the Schrift gave him what he lacked in the days he nearly died being overwhelmed. Numbers no longer mattered, they now give him fuel to press on and fight even harder than before.

So long as he never endures that painful memory again, he'll always keep killing.

VMMMMMMMM!

A distant rumbling wave of reiatsu blew his way. In the wind that energy he could feel reminded him of the foe he just destroyed.

Standing upright, he walked over the bodies, seeing a distant silhouette walking out of the cloud of dust. Emerging from it came Gantenbaine Mosqueda, though he looked different.

Restored.

Empowered.

Clenching his fists, the Arrancar had an arching band of segmented plating akin to an armadillo sloped over his back and shoulders, blackish red colored the left past his skin and the right had white-red markings. His face is smothered by a viscous third skin, like tightly wound fabric, black-red-white swirled around like smoke over the mouth while the eyes are covered by a blue star emblazoned visor.

The reiatsu ebbing off him grew stronger as he kept walking confidently back towards the Quincy, an aura of a draconic being forming upwards in a ghostly shadow over him; emblematic of the bestial gauntlets now wrapped around his fists.

Driscoll grinned wildly.

"Now that's more like it!" The Sternritter howled out, his voice echoing the vast distance between them. Clanging his two Tekkō together, massive swirling five pointed cross formed beneath his feet; rising up in a column of holy light, christened with a pentacle at the top.

Shattering like glass, it dispersed into a violent wind around the man. Large gauntlets of bluish white formed around his fists up to his arms, similar to the large greaves of snow hue leading to a pair of boots, his chest covered by a white breastplate with a blue pentacle over the front. His head adorned in a helmet, a guard wrapped over his nose while his mouth large eyes were visible, the five pointed halo hovering above his head.

Two bright bluish-white wings, feathered by segmented blades with hooks up near the ends, he looked armored in every regard right down to his extra limbs.

"Now we fight for real!" He roared out, exploding off from the entrance; sending bodies, earth and debris scattered in a bright blast, his body streaking in blue straight towards his foe.

Likewise, Gantenbaine dashed forth in an explosive burst, detonating the air and ground from his sudden swift movement.

Both pulled back arms as they dove towards each other. Gantenbaine's draconic fist infused with his left arm jettisoning plumes of fiery reishi behind him. Driscoll hauling his massive armored fist swirling with streaks of bluish-white he carved up from the ground and air in mid-leap.

Meeting at the center, under the jaws of light, their fists made impact. An enormous eruption of light came forth, roaring up and shrouding the vast battleground in fiery smoke.

BOOM!

BA-BA-BA-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

A crescendo of repeated impacts forced the fog of war aside, clearing the ground and air to show the pair of warriors striking each other above the ground. Streaks of emerald carved across the feet of Gantenbaine, his draconic fists a blur of movement that defied his bulk, crashing repeatedly against the armor of the powerful yet slower Sternritter.

Every hit Driscoll felt rattled past his shell of reishi, shaking his teeth in his jaw and vibrating his bones. It cracked, but didn't disperse so easily. With all of the strikes being thrown, gave the Sternritter more than enough openings to slam his fists against his head, chest and gut.

The exchange left nothing to evasion. A test of endurance is what is presented before the two. Blow for blow, the two seemed equalized, their force producing shockwaves that undulated the earth like volatile thunderclaps and sent tendrils of reishi sparking off them like lightning.

After hundreds of blows, their reiatsu began to give away to the offensive each other threw. Pauldrons shattered off Berci, segmented plating peeled off Mosqueda, blood spurted from nostrils, spit flew out of lips. More and more they tore at each other, unwilling to give an inch despite the damage being inflicted.

A pair of simultaneous strikes land, hitting both fighters in the face at once. Chips of the guard over the nose and plating overhead flitted off Driscoll, and half Gantenbaine's mask fragment shattered off to bits. Each of them backed up a step, threw another set of punches against one another's faces, producing another tandem of powerful shockwaves amidst the blood and snot flying out of their orifices.

Hitting their faces till both were bruised and bloodied, Gantenbaine stumbled back from the Sternritter on the last hit exchanged. He gasped for air, his vision swimming, heading pounding and everything in his body hurt something fierce.

"You giving up already?" Driscoll asked, grinning past the blood soaking his teeth and the purplish bruising covering his large rounded face. "I'm still here! Keep swinging already!"

Gantenbaine Mosqueda felt himself pushed onward. Rudborrn had restored the damage thanks to Arbol, but he had to win this fight. To prove to everyone, he isn't disposable, nor weak.

"Don't rush me," He spat, swinging his right arm at the armored chest of Driscoll - feeling it crack on impact in a flash of golden light. "I haven't forgotten!"

A knee thrust up his chin, causing the Arrancar to see stars. Another swipe from a gauntlet crashed against his jaw, feeling it break along with a host of teeth. Twisting on his heels he swung a backhand with the momentum, shattering the helmet of reishi over Driscoll's head.

A battering ram of an arm pummeled into Gantenbaine's face, his nose crushed, his goggle mask fragment reduced to powder and parts of his skull cracked. Blood spouted out from his face, horrid gagging sounds retching out of him.

Another blow mightily throttled into his chest, quaking ribs and bludgeoning organs. Then another, and another.

Again and again.

The salvo of blows continued to pound upwards, forcing bile of red to shoot out of the Arrancar's mouth. The bits of armor over skin and pieces of chitin blew apart under the ruthless series of uppercuts that furthered the brutality he endured.

"Aaaaaaaand here's the finisher," Driscoll proclaimed in dramatic fashion, hoisting his mostly armored limb back, cocking the white plated fist.

Ah damn…Gantenbaine thought as he saw white erase his vision. I lost again…

White replaced with red, a shower of blood flowing back across the air into the ground. The head exploded, leaving the crumpled mess of a body to fall to the earth limply.

Only Sternritter O, Driscoll Berci, remained standing.

"Ha! That was a good fight," He said, casting a long look at the Arrancar's remains. "I don't think you can hear me in that wretched state of yours, but just know you have my respect. You fought without flinching nor cowering or pleading. I've never met a more true warrior than one who meets their end to their last breath."

Turning around, he raised his gauntlet above his head, yelling aloud in cheer, "DRISCOLL BERCI REMAINS UNDEFEATED, HAHAHAHA!"

"What's with the shouting?"

A voice spoke behind Berci, cutting his laughter short. Turning around, he eyed around his shoulder, he saw a muscular set of abs right above his peripheral gaze. Trunk sized legs wrapped by a hakama skirt over large pants fastened down to a pair of black socked sandaled feet. Looking up, he beheld a massive chest and hole right between the pectorals. A white long sleeved jacket remained unbuttoned, with a triage of bumps over the head, a black ponytail flowing behind his near complete bald scalp with red paint stripes beneath his concave eyes.

"Damn, you're bigger than I am," Driscoll commented, unafraid at this sudden arrival. "You want to fight me too?"

Yammy squinted his eyes down at the Sternritter, looking at him for awhile. Then he turned, looking down at Gantenbaine's corpse.

"Oh, yeah, I just killed him," He said with a jeer, "I don't know how you Hollows feel about losing comrades or whatever, but he went down swinging. The other guy turned tail and ran after I nearly offed him too. Hope you prove more of a challenge than-"

Crunch!

"...they did?" Berci murmured out, eyes widened at seeing a gargantuan foot crushing the body of Mosqueda.

"BUUHAAAHAAAHAAA!" The large bodies Arrancar bellowed out in laughter, his foot smashing each body part repeatedly, each one crushed in gory pulp with every thunderous stomp. His laughter continued on, unsettling Driscoll enough to stare on with confusion at this bizarre act of disrespect.

"Served ya right, fucking piss-ant!" He spat, grinning down at the cratered remains of the Arrancar beneath his stained hakama. "Thought you were tough shit, comin' down here ahead of me. Privaron trash! You're now worm food!"

THUUM!

The brutish Arrancar's bellowing ceases as a fist wedges into his back. His enormous bulk rockets forward, flying away like a bullet and crashing face first along the wasteland floor in a dragging screech.

"I asked you a question, Arrancar," The Sternritter said with a glare, his fist ebbing reishi in vapor off the gauntlet still clad around it. "You're a fool to turn your back on me."

"Tch-tch-tch-tch-tch," The Arrancar stood up, placing his broad hand over the steaming reiatsu ebbing off his back. "That freakin' hurt."

He's getting back up, after a blow like that? Driscoll thought, his eyes widening at the sight of the behemoth shrugging off his Vollstandig empowered punch.

"Yer getting cocky, after killing a piss-ant, aren't you?" He said, walking back to where he had been standing originally. "Let me tell you how screwed you are. The Arrancar you just took down, are the weakest of our little band, the Royal Espada. His rank is #9, Novena. Mine, is #0, the Cero," he stopped in front of Driscoll, fist raised with a gleeful expression of malice frames over his ogre looking face, "I'm the strongest Arrancar, Yammy Llargo!"

"The Strongest?" Driscoll questioned, pointing at him with an off hand. "But, shouldn't #1 be the stronger number?"

"That's what everyone else thinks, but secretly, the ranks go from 9 to 0!" He exclaimed.

"Secret? Does all your comrades use that terminology and the underlings don't know?" Berci asked.

"Only I use this ranking!" Yammy said proudly.

"...then that means you're actually not the strongest," Driscoll trailed off with a sigh.

"Oi! Don't insult my rank or I'll do more than wipe the floor with you!" Yammy shouted with a jab of his finger.

"Forgive me, Arrancar, but your abrupt arrival and rude talk doesn't inspire confidence," Driscoll dismissed with a raise of his gauntlet. "Rank and file works differently in the Wandenreich. The Regulars are the average Quincy, armed with basic reishi weapons like Heilig Bogen. The Soldat are the mass bulk that handle melee to close range encounters. And past all the petty to middle ranked officers of our legions, you get to the Sternritter."

"Getting bored," The Cero Espada graveled out, yawning afterwards. "If you prattle on much longer, I'm gonna take a nap."

"Bottom line, I'm one of twenty eight members of an elite force. We all like to think we're the strongest, even have claims to such. But with how many kills I've acquired up till now using my Schrift O, the Overkill, I'm damned certain I'm the strongest one here," He boasted.

As if to emphasize this he swept his arms out, his halo widened in partitions near the pointed ends. Reishi from the corpses, the ground and the air all swathed over his Vollstandig, restoring armor plating, giving him a gleaming white armored visage once more.

"My Vollstandig, Azrael, not only protects me from harm but gives me an additional ability," Driscoll Berci says, grinning behind the plating of his helmet. "I'll let you figure it out yourself."

"All this talking," Yammy sneered, raising his fist and then throwing it out at the Sternritter's own rising fist, colliding in another massive wave of reiatsu quaking the land and shaking the illuminated sky above their heads. "IS REALLY PISSIN' ME OFF!"

Lilia ventured further away from the trail of carnage left in her wake to the dense reiatsu she felt dwelling in the heart of this fortress. Like a black hole, it kept getting deeper and deeper the closer she drew towards it. This ominous feeling gave her an impression of something akin to how she felt Aaroniero feel, yet, somehow worse.

Like she could feel herself be swallowed whole if she let it.

Shaking her head, she tried to shake off the feeling. So far the enemy forces she encountered were not much of a threat. Apart from Loyd, they all went down if she hit them hard or fast enough.

Veronica and BG-9 were killed, Cang Du - as she found out his name from Loyd - may still be alive, and the copycat is assuredly eliminated. There had been others she came across but had destroyed with little effort.

Jerome Guizbatt had turned into an enormous ape and howled. But she had just avoided the sonic wave and snapped his neck with ease.

Bernice Gabrielli tried to talk to her but was discarded with a simple Bala to the face, destroying her head instantly.

Leaving the dead where they fell, Lilia began wondering just how many of these 'Sternritter' there were? The sheer level of power difference seemed drastic, as some were barely at the low end of Espada class, and some were easily on par with herself. Some seemed to rely on their innate 'Schrift', this special power these Sternritter all possess.

I wonder if the boss is as strong as Aaroniero? She mused.

A sudden step of a boot crossed her path up ahead, a flowing black cloak flowing about a tall dark haired man. Reiatsu that ebbed off him drew a curtain of darkness around the illuminated corridor, the white dimming from the flooring and walls as he approached. For the first time since arriving, Lilia stopped and felt a bead of sweat crawl down her neck.

"Who the Hell…are you?" She asked.

He smirked, sparking reishi appearing in his palm as he kept his stride. Tossing it forth, a blur of blue carved the space of the hall, zooming straight at Lilia.

Lurching to the right, avoiding it by a hair, she saw a second projectile, seeing the make-up of a javelin of sorts inches away from her eye.

Ducking into a roll, she withdrew her pistol in a flourish of blue, pulling the trigger to unleash a Cero-

THWOK!

-only for it to be batted aside, carving through the wall and several others through it in a gout of flames.

A flicker of motion, an arm surged out to grasp at Lilia's face. She turned out of the way, finding a blue veined fist swinging into her gaze.

"SHI-!"

KOOM!

Blood flourished into the air, a spray painting the wall and ceiling along with a loud sparking sound. The Primera reels back, her heels carving trails of metal along the floor to steady her backwards momentum.

Whipping her head back, Lilia Starrk mouth and nose had crimson smearing along her bruised cheek.

Raising her pistol, she primed it with an audible whir, an orb of white light coming from the end of the barrel.

Likewise, the mysterious man raised up a finger, sparking blue reishi off the tip.

A cacophony of blasts filled the corridor, the walls chipped and cracked under the pressure of the colliding energy impacts. Filling up nearly the full field of view, Lilia relied on Pesquisa to sense where each of the shots were coming from as the flashes intensified.

Suddenly, she felt a presence behind her. Whirling around, she changed her pistol into a blade, swinging around to cut down the figure. Catching her by the wrist, the other palm grasped her head, yanking her off balance and pinned her to the ground in a single motion.

"So this is the Primera who's been giving my Sternritter so much trouble?" The stranger with a derisive laugh. "What makes you so special?"

"Why don't you get off me and find out?" Lilia asked with a red eyed glared poised up at him.

"How about instead," He proposed, a whirlpool of reishi forming over Lilia's head, the pressure of which alarmed the Primera. "I destroy this head of yours?"

It didn't occur to the Arrancar how her utilizing the basis of manipulating the vast amount of reiryoku she possessed that she could alter the very structure of the soul. In the past, she has done so to create Coyote Starrk and Lilynette Gingerbuck, to ensure they were never alone. When in their Resurreccion, they could manipulate their soul in various shapes and ways.

Now a singular being, she didn't know there was a considerable growth of power since encountering both Orihime Inoue and Aaroniero Arrururerie. Whether it was because they took were anomalies of their own unique design or they took channeled power based on their emotions, it was never clear.

But in that very moment, to avoid potential damage, even death, Lilia Starrk performed the unthinkable.

Before the bearded, dark cloaked man, her head dispersed into ghostly energy along with her arm he had hold over. Twisting about in a swirl of blue and white, a hand stretched out of the ghostly fire, catching him off balance.

Choking out, another grasped his wrist, a leg slipped out-

POW!

-kicking man with full force, throttling him across the way he walked and into the wall out the other side.

Fully reformed, Lilia exhaled steam, eyes aglow a pupiless crimson glare. She dropped the stranger's white sleeved arm with a meaty crunch to the floor, walking to the hole she thrown him through.

"Impressive, for the Primera to perform so well against me," She heard his voice, once again from behind. She turned, seeing him bend down and grasp the arm she yanked out of place. Blue veins stretched out from the stump, reattaching the limb, sewing the flesh and nerves back together along with the threads of the white immaculate uniform he wore.

"You're fast," Lilia intoned seriously, glaring at his cloaked back. "What Sternritter are you?"

"Ah, you're ignorant," He said, turning to face her with a clenching hand, smile spreading with a thin layer of black covering his angular visage. "Allow me to introduce myself to you properly."

Turning fully about, he placed a hand over his white collared coat, announcing himself with pleased gravitas with a hefty wave of reiatsu flowing from his flowing cloak of black.

"I am the Father of Quincies, Yhwach," His hands burst alight with reishi, the walls disassembling in their most basic components and becoming a pair of cross-shaped broadswords in either of his hands. "Leader of the Wandenreich, whom you've trespasses against. Prepare to die, Arrancar."

"Hold that thought," Lilia raised a hand, her eyes staring dryly at him. "If you're the boss, then why do I feel an even stronger reiatsu further inside?"

The Quincy smirked, "Do you doubt what you see before you?"

"I already met a copycat who introduced himself oddly, as the L of the Yourself," Starrk intoned, raising a brow while scratching her chin. "Call me curious, but most of the others didn't have that weird added distinction. So either he had a few screws, or you're not the actual boss, and just another copycat."

"You have quite the keen mind," The man replied, walking forward with reishi blades in hand. "If there is truth in what you believe, then what? Will you turn away and run? Or will you stand and fight?"

"I think," She smiled, withdrawing a crystal with a white cross emblazoned upon it. "That I reached a good enough spot to do this."

"Hm?" The Quincy stopped in mid-stride, eyeing the device with intrigue.

"Low servant of the Almighty, I beseech thee, carry the current of Heaven to the darkest of pits, so that a bridge of eternity and damnation is held firmly. Be not purgatory, yet truth. Be not deception, yet inception of fact. Sprinkle the air with condemnation from up high so the barrier shall never be broken," Lilia chanted, the crystal thrumming to life, changing its shape to a dagger with an eight figure stellar formation.

Stabbing it into the floor beneath herself.

"Seireidou; Gate of Light!"

A bright, whirring light burst forth, forcing the Quincy to shield his eyes with an arm. Unseen to all but the outside, the Jaws of Light extruded a beam, straight into the shadows of the Palace, flowing through stone and metal, bleeding away shadow before becoming a pillar within the hallway.

Shadowy figures emerged, coming forth in their own cloaks much more elaborate design than that of Lilia's.

Tier Harribel came first, her hooded cloak fatigued in patterns akin to waves of blue over a black backdrop, swirling into a maelstrom at the center with jaws formed at the hem of her hood. A veil of purple is wrapped around her face, obscuring everything below her nose, showing her fierce blue eyes with majestic crimson and purple trimmed hakama over a blue under-shirt, with a hakama over sleek black leggings to a pair of white heels.

Grimmjow Jeaguerjaques emerged second, having his traditional white over black layers of striped linen with short sleeves and a kama skirt to reveal the ankle length black pants he possessed over open toe sandals. His cloak is a traditional stark white, with claw shaped blue trim along the edges at the bottom and along the shoulders a pair of blue shoulder pads.

The last to come out is a man draped in a black poncho with no accents. With the hood drawn over his head, his stoic covered by an additional layer of black cloth and piercing bright eyes shrouded by the darkness of his cowl. As the newly anointed Quinto Espada emerged with a pair of leather booted steps out next to Grimmjow.

"Soto, where's Rana?" Lilia asked, pointing out the lack of one more.

"She has changed her placement," The Quinto replied coolly, his voice muffled by the mask wrapped around his face. "Aaroniero agreed to it ahead of time."

"Whatever I guess," The Primera sighed.

"Hey," Grimmjow said, his eyes narrowing at the dark bearded man up ahead of them. "Is that guy the boss?"

"He claims to be-"

"Good enough for me!" Grimmjow shouted.

Leaping forth in a blur, his fist thrown forward in an arc of cobalt blue reishi, the Quincy King swung a Broadsword around to parry the blow.

VMMMMMMMMMMM!

A massive release of reiatsu billowed out from both sides. The fist pressured against the sword of light, the ground, ceiling and walls buckling under the intense colliding forces from both sides.

Seeing him occupied, he let up on one blade, letting the Arrancar slip forward, swinging his opposite hand to cut down-

Snatch!

To the surprise of the Quincy, he caught the reishi weapon with his bare hand. Sparks grinded against it but produced no injury, his Hierro proving too resilient to bypass.

"Anyone who thinks they're the strongest," Grimmjow countered with a feral grin at the surprised Quincy, "I'll prove them dead wrong!"

A boot planted into the man's chest, eyes widened and mouth agape. Propelled back with sudden velocity, he'd feel his back tearing through a series of walls of varying material, slowing him down only by a small margin. Ending in a storage chamber of various tanks that pumped reishi around him, he grinned at his fortune.

Regaining his footing, he saw Grimmjow lunging with an outstretched fist. He leaned back dexterously, throwing his own foot up to kick the Arrancar into the ceiling. Grinning with the impact, he rebounded in a blur, swinging both fists down at a backpedaling Quincy, avoiding a series of swift blows before using his arms to parry the punches and kicks sent his way.

"Come on! Show me what you got!" The Tres Espada said with malicious glee.

Catching a fist, he pointed a hand to his right, firing a beam of reishi into a tank. Causing a chain reaction of explosive reishi, Yhwach backed away from the destruction, his body forming a string of veins that shot out of his body to form a resilient barrier.

"Blut Vene Anhaben!" He intoned out, the roar of dense spirit energy in liquid form volatile enough it proved necessary to use such a a formidable technique. Though not his the strongest defense, it is resilient enough that most forms of energy proved difficult to even do damage against the barrier.

That is, if you even survive such a blaze of pure reishi, He presumed with a smirk.

"Hey, Old Man."

Yhwach's eyes opened wide, seeing a hand press against the bubble surrounding it. Fingers dug into the shell, cracking like glass even as the veins attempted to pierce his skin unsuccessfully.

"You gotta try harder than this," Grimmjow said, his face appearing out of the bluish sparking smoke with a wild smile on his face, devoid of his hooded cloak and now just in his standard white-black short sleeved top.

"To kill me!" He howled, throwing a haymaker that shot through the Blut Vene Anhaben; connecting with Yhwach's face in a brutal crunch.

Thrown backwards, blood spraying from his mouth and nostrils, the Tres Espada jeered with laughter. Revving up a crimson light around a clenched fist, the blue haired Arrancar took aim at the Quincy and let loose the destructive force of blood red light towards him.

SHIIIIIIIING!

Only to have it severed in a clean cut, the Cero bursting through the walls behind the Quincy King at either angle. Raising the black edges saber with silver winged guards, Yhwach stoically stared back at Grimmjow with a return to a tall posture.

"So, you finally drew a real weapon," He said, reaching over to his left hip, grasping his rectangular guard katana, drawing it out in a smooth motion with a dark smile on his face. "Good! Now we can fight for real! From one King to another, I'll show you the gap that's between us!"

"Poor Arrancar," Yhwach said, smiling sinisterly back. "You have no idea whom you're dealing with."

"Then show me-!"

KRAK-VMMMMMMM!

"-Quincy!" Grimmjow crowed out, his blade colliding with Yhwach's, the pair's reiatsu crushing and expanding the chamber all around in an upsurge of immense volatile power

The battle of kings has just begun!

A/N: Doooooone!