Chapter Thirty: Inner Flame
“Hoo...” Letting out a long breath of white mist, Rees felt much better.
“My, my, for a moment there, I really thought I was going to die...” Rees exaggeratedly rolled his shoulders, then fixed his gaze tightly on the figure of Shigekuni Yamamoto standing before him, appearing incomparably small.
“For a moment I thought my eyes deceived me—you seem to have grown... weak and small, Shigekuni Yamamoto.”
“Pointless words,” Yamamoto replied, not even raising his head, only glancing at Rees, whose size dwarfed his own by who knew how many times. Calmly, he said, “You think just because you’ve grown larger, you can defeat me?”
“Remarks like that won’t hold up for long, but...” Rees’s voice was thick with mockery. “Don’t you want to know why I’ve come seeking vengeance against you?”
“...”
“You destroyed everything I had, Shigekuni Yamamoto.”
“Once, I stood at the pinnacle of the Adjuchas, looking down on all, and soon, I could have become a Vasto Lorde.” Rees spoke of his past.
“I possessed strength that allowed me to act recklessly throughout Hueco Mundo, all the Hollows bowing at my feet!”
“But!” Rees’s eyes were ablaze with fury and hatred as he glared at Yamamoto.
“All of it... all of it was ruined by you!”
Decades ago—
Rees, still maintaining a humanoid Hollow form, faced off from afar against a middle-aged Soul Reaper.
‘Who are you?’
‘Rees Shunosutan.’
‘This is not a place you may tread. Go back to Hueco Mundo.’
‘Don’t stand in my way, Soul Reaper. In pursuit of greater power, I have no other choice.’
‘If that’s the case...’ Slowly, the blade was drawn. Without force, he would not yield.
‘Then you shall die here.’
...
‘Gah... gah... gah... Stop right there! Bastard!’ A terrifying crack ran across the mask, extending through the entire body.
Expressionless, Yamamoto sheathed his blade and turned to leave, pausing in place.
‘Why didn’t you kill me...’
He had failed.
Everything had been ended by this Soul Reaper.
As an Adjuchas wounded so severely, further evolution into a Vasto Lorde was impossible.
His existence had lost all meaning.
Perhaps perishing by the hand of a Soul Reaper was not such a bad fate after all.
‘There is no need to kill you. You have committed no evil here, only trespassed, so I am simply expelling you.’
‘No evil done, no need to take your life.’
...
“No evil done, no need to take your life?” Rees echoed.
“Do you have any idea what sort of world I’ve lived in these past decades because of that one sentence?”
“Unable to evolve, mocked in the shadows by all the Hollows. If it weren’t for my remaining strength, I’d probably be dead by now.”
“All of this... was caused by you! Shigekuni Yamamoto!”
“Even now, do you still hold to such laughable convictions?”
“In that case...”
Rees opened his massive mouth toward the sky and took a deep, shuddering breath.
“!!”
Having lived for who knows how long, Yamamoto had witnessed this action countless times, and he knew exactly what it meant.
“Hoo!” As Rees inhaled, numerous white pillars of light suddenly streaked through the air, all streaming into Rees’s mouth as if he were sucking them in.
‘Soul Drain! He’s actually using it in the Soul Society!’
Hollows regarded the souls of living humans as delicacies—the best prey.
But for a voracious Menos Grande, hunting humans one by one was a waste of time.
Thus, the technique of ‘Soul Drain’ was born.
It forcibly extracts human souls from a certain range and sucks them into the Hollow’s mouth. For humans in the living world, it was terrifying.
But in the Soul Society, which was composed entirely of souls, this was a hellish calamity.
Here, all were souls, with no means of resistance. Using Soul Drain here was nothing short of turning the Soul Society—
Into a land of death.
“Uoooohh!” In the distant seventy-eighth district, the souls had no chance to flee, one after another being absorbed by Rees’s Soul Drain. Even some low-level Soul Reapers could not escape.
“Ugh... What is this...” Jōjirō, standing aside, suddenly felt immense pressure, as if his entire being was being sucked away. If his spiritual pressure had been any weaker, he would have been drawn in already.
Even being in the seventy-ninth district, the souls of the seventy-eighth were still affected. Rees’s power had already far surpassed that of a typical Vasto Lorde; he might even be unrivaled in all of Hueco Mundo.
It was painfully clear that the souls of the seventy-eighth district were vanishing, and the range was expanding.
Back then, it was out of a moment’s mercy that Yamamoto had spared Rees’s life, but now the cost was the deaths of over a thousand souls and hundreds of Soul Reapers.
Mercy, yet not met with understanding from the enemy; what it brought instead was a hellish torment for his comrades.
Separation from family...
The disappearance of friends...
A land turned barren...
All because of ‘mercy’?
Then, the path was already chosen.
The road he must walk...
“Shh!”
“!”
No one knew when Yamamoto had appeared behind Rees. The sword in his hand had never left the sheath, resting quietly.
The only evidence Yamamoto had made a move was the cross-shaped wound on Rees’s chest.
“Huff... Do you think such a minor wound can stop me, Shigekuni Yamamoto...!”
“Hoo...” Rees couldn’t finish his sentence, for from the cross-shaped wound, flickers of flame began to spout.
“Ryūjin Jakka’s Hidden Blaze—Inferno Within.”
“Driving fire into the enemy’s body, burning from within, until my enemy...”
Cracks began to appear across Rees’s massive frame, flames pouring out incessantly, until at last, Rees was utterly shattered from within!
“...is reduced to ashes.”
“I should thank you as well, Rees.” Yamamoto watched as fragments of Rees’s body rained down from the sky and said quietly, “The lesson you taught me is one I shall never forget.”
...
At the same time, in an unknown location—
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
A broad-foreheaded man in a white uniform, a black eyepatch covering his eyes, ran in urgently.
He headed toward a man who sat unmoved in the deepest darkness.
“What is it, Sayedlitz?”
“Your Majesty, word from the front: the Hueco Mundo army led by Rees has been annihilated.”
Sayedlitz knelt on one knee, presenting a report to the man he addressed as ‘Your Majesty.’
“I see. Even with Rees’s power, it was not enough to force Shigekuni Yamamoto to reveal his Bankai?”
“Incomprehensible... As expected of Shigekuni Yamamoto.”
“...What do we do now, Your Majesty?” Sayedlitz looked up at the man, awaiting orders for their next move.
“We hold our ground.”
“Eh?”
“Even Rees possessed fighting power on par with our ‘Silver Cross Knights,’ yet he could not force Yamamoto to show his trump card. We are not yet ready for battle with them.”
“Then... do we abandon the plan?”
“We simply postpone it... Besides, this report is not a declaration of our ‘failure.’”
The paper in the man’s hand was gradually devoured by a blue spiritual flame, vanishing entirely.
“It merely marks out the boundary of our ‘success,’ nothing more.”