Hulking Adjuchas lumbered out of a room after having fully constructed a new palace. Not just any palace, but another laboratory—this one grander than Szayelaporro's.
Silas filled the room with salvaged equipment from that scientist's old lab. Gleaming beakers and bubbling concoctions were meticulously arranged on metal tables. In the center stood a towering device, cobbled together from leftover technology.
Silas was alone with his thoughts in the makeshift laboratory.
He circled the central device, his fingers trailing along its cold metal frame. It was the culmination of weeks of tireless research and experimentation—a new device that would be valuable for his next plans.
Silas envisioned returning to the Soul Society. But not as Ichigo Kurosaki. The device he was crafting would be a prototype that he called "Chameleon Cloak." With this cloak, he could achieve the goal of masquerading in the Soul Society.
Something in Bleach that once piqued his curiosity was how Retsu Unohana could look so young despite being roughly around the same age as Yammato—both of whom were roughly one thousand years old. The trick was simple: spiritual pressure manipulation.
If she could alter her wrinkles, why couldn't Silas, who possessed the Hōgyoku, alter his entire appearance? He couldn't stop there with the cloak. It would not only change his physical appearance but also change his spiritual pressure, giving him a completely new signature.
The former was simple, but the latter would require a lot of resources—something Las Noches carried in abundance. Kisuke's cloak, which Silas still had with him, was one of the materials needed.
It would be worthwhile to create more than one for the Arrancars, but it would have to be designed using their genetic makeup, something Silas wasn't interested in modifying.
A satisfied smirk played on his lips.
As he carefully began to weave the device into creations, he recalled the recent missions that were given to the Espada. Most of their mission dealt with gathering valuable intel.
For Halibel, she was assigned to infiltrate Karakura Town. While there, she had to discreetly search specific households to determine their whereabouts.
Nel was also sent to Karakura Town to search for traces of the Kurosaki family. There was a chance she would link Ichigo to Silas. And if there was any Hollow that he'd permit to know about him, it might be her.
Next was a scouting mission assigned to Grimmjow and Yammy. Usually, it was Ulquiorra who was paired with Yammy. Now that Ulquiorra was Espada number one, it was a requirement that he stay put in Last Noches.
Silas would be spending time in his laboratory. That meant the next strongest person needed to oversee everyone else's duties. That was Ulquiorra's mission.
Espada numbers seven and three, along with Cirucci and Sol, were sent to the Soul Society. Yet their task was different from hers. They had to watch the Rukon District's outskirts. Under no circumstances were they to be spotted.
Grimmjow, knowing how eager he was to battle someone, was specifically informed not to engage.
Sol himself was tasked with returning to Kisuke's laboratory. The last time Silas was there, he couldn't salvage what he could due to his past self-fighting with Aizen. There was a strong chance that the thirteen court guard squads would seek to investigate that area until they found evidence.
Assuming there were traps or surveillance, Sol's goal was to report them either way. And if there was nothing, he had to bring back every item, note, and device, no matter how worn or unfinished they looked.
Cirucci's assignment was undoubtedly the hardest one of them all. While the other Espadas weren't given any missions outside of Hueco Mundo, she had to directly enter the Seireitei. More specifically, she had to come into direct contact with a captain.
Whether she failed or not, it wouldn't matter to Silas in the slightest. Cirucci was one of his weaker pawns, which low-level fighters could dwarf. And if that happened, everyone in Las Noches would understand that rank zero was nothing more than an expendable rank.
Silas approached the central device with reverence. He traced a pulsating green energy core on the table. His experience at culminating in this world's science had nestled with experience. And with the Hōgyoku constantly resonating with his insatiable ambition, everything was elementary.
With practiced ease, Silas drew upon that potent synergy. He reached for a vial filled with a cerulean liquid—spirit particles that Szayelaporro had painstakingly refined for years. Silas then hastened the refinement to a specific density until it was fully purified.
As he poured it into the device's intricate network of channels, he mixed in some of the Hōgyoku's stored spiritual pressure to help amplify the properties, imbuing it with a spectral luminescence. It was so bright that it cast an otherworldly glow across the laboratory.
Next came the intricate latticework of Las Noches' technology.
Silas had already deciphered their secrets, meticulously reverse-engineering them to serve his own purposes. He effectively positioned each component, his gloved fingers weaving new pieces together.
Gears whirred loudly, their rhythmic hum filling the laboratory. Spiritual particles were then etched onto metallic plates by his own hand, feeding them into the intricate networks of the stiches.
Anyone who personally witnessed this would be amazed. Silas was like a symphony conductor, maneuvering machinery in his imagination.
Hours turned into days as Silas worked tirelessly. Unlike before, where he was stressed for time, he had enough time to relax and ensure the creation wouldn't fail. Sleep was by no means a rare commodity.
He refueled himself when needed and continued to work to ensure its perfection. His body, an immortal one, felt no aches or pain like the others in this world. Their exhaustion was not the same as his, either.
With a practiced hand, he wove strands of captured spirit particles from Hollows, each color representing a distinct aspect of their latent abilities.
Sky blue swirled for invisibility. Inky black pulsed for illusion. And finally, crimson blood for the transfiguration of his own spiritual signature, a key element.
Truthfully, however, he couldn't change the signature of his own spiritual pressure due to how vast it was. If wanted, it would take years to accomplish, even with the Hōgyoku. What he instead did was create a false layer over his own, allowing others to identify something more akin to that of a Soul Reaper.
These strands continued to swirl together until they created a red spirit ribbon—the same ribbon that Soul Reapers had!