บท 1279: Chapter 1279 Unknown Future

Moving back the hands of time for a bit, Ichibei opened his eyes and he never felt better than before.

More importantly, he's now seeing the world differently than before. Right now, he's being bombarded with various sights that he's not used to, "Incredible..." Ichibei muttered while trying to make out what he was seeing.

"Past, present, and the branching future... So this is what he's seeing." Ichibei marveled and tried to move around. It was then he found out that he could move at will at any of these sights. He was now able to escape the shackles of time even if it was just inside his consciousness.

Even though he's deep within the earth, he feels extremely liberated. However, this feeling of liberation didn't last long as he also noticed a weakness in his 'vision'.

All he could see were those in his vicinity and he couldn't see anything specific about himself. It was at this moment he realized how 'he' in his previous life died and how Yhwach was defeated, 'All I could see is the waves that I caused and not how I caused those waves.'

Then again, another question popped out. If Yhwach was defeated by a part of himself, how did 'he' die specifically? Did 'he' die of a natural cause that 'he' couldn't see? Or did 'he' kill himself for one reason or another?

Although Ichibei considers himself as the being that died and became the foundation and land for Hell, he has no way of recovering 'his' previous memories.

Ichibei also understood that while he could never expand his 'vision' inwardly, he could still do something outwardly, 'I guess this is the limit of being incomplete... It doesn't matter. I'll eventually take everything back and the past will reveal itself.'

His sights then turned towards Kisuke and the women he summoned to fend off his legion. And now that Ichibei discovered how he was fueling his form, he didn't need to watch him any longer. And even after seeing how Kisuke summoned the part of his legion that his black sea devoured, it didn't bother Ichibei in the slightest because he knew exactly a future that would render everything he was doing right now useless.

He also knew what would happen to Kisuke once he proceeded, but not long after that, he'd decay into ashes without anything supporting him.

And that's when he, Ichibei Hyousube, became blinded by his own far-reaching eyes and this was precisely what Kisuke would call a 'chance'.

Kisuke knew that Ichibei may acquire abilities similar or the same as the Soul King so with that in mind, he devised a plan that would present an apparent weakness that Ichibei would take advantage of and that weakness must include him 'dying' in his vision which would make the chances of Ichibei being reeled in higher.

So when Ichibei went ahead and absorbed all the 'black', Kisuke completed the stage for his defeat.

Ichibei raised the sake cup into the sky and let all the 'black' in Hell gather to him and this included the [Shadow] that Kisuke was using to siphon Reiryoku from him.

If someone were to ask why he represents 'black' right now, he would be able to answer honestly and it's simply because "The Soul King is 'white'."

It was a nonsensical reason but this is where the Soul Society stemmed from which he helped create. If the Soul King represented 'life', he represented 'death' and created a cycle in which he slowly gathered everything on his side.

As the cup was filled to the brim, the rest of his body rose from the earth and drank its contents.

While Kisuke was transforming himself, Ichibei's pure, jet-black body also started expanding and more eyes appeared on his body. Consequently, Ichibei could now see beyond Hell and was able to see what was going on with the three worlds.

He first intended to finish off Kisuke because even though he'll soon lose what's little left of his Reiatsu, Magic, and Ki, it's not a reason to prolong eliminating a potential threat.

Unfortunately, Ichibei had to discard this notion when he saw what was happening in the Soul Society.

If Kisuke could still think, he would smirk at this and say, 'If there's a fly that has been bothering you or there's a cat trying to snatch your food, which one will you deal with first I wonder?'

The answer was obvious.

Ichibei immediately ignored Kisuke and tore the space, enough that someone as large as him could easily go through.

Thanks to him clearly seeing his destination, traversing the Dimensional Gap was easy, and was able to arrive at his destination instantaneously.

Although he was moving in haste, Ichibei was still not worried. After all, he could see what was happening and could see several futures where he was able to stop the migration of the souls. He also knew that it was a migration of the souls because he also saw the future and he didn't stop it from happening.

Since all the souls in this dimension are essentially his food for his completion, he couldn't allow any of them to escape.

Ichibei tore open the fabric of space for one more time which revealed the Soul Society and since the aura he was releasing right now was very foreign to its inhabitants it took them long to notice his existence. He reached out his hand and was already expecting someone blocking his way. Nevertheless, it's something he could break before they complete their 'ritual' so he continued forward.

Naturally, his sights also never left Kisuke who now became a monster that's half of his size and was aiming for his neck. He continued to ignore him because he didn't see any immediate threat from him and prioritized annihilating whoever was trying to connect this dimension to another.

That was Ichibei's second mistake.

Ichibei might have discovered the real reason why Yhwach was defeated through the use of his newly acquired ability, however, that was also the same for Kisuke, just in his case, he asked the man directly.

The moment Kisuke's fangs landed on his neck, he stole back some of the 'Chaos' element that Ichibei got from his Sea of Life which also dragged some of the latter's essence, making him technically part of him.

As a result, the monster, Kisuke Urahara, suddenly disappeared from all of his sights. A future that Ichibei couldn't see due to the technicality of his own eyes.