Kisuke dived back into Hell, and the former normal landscape full of greens had been utterly destroyed with giant maggots continuously gnawing on anything they could put their mouths into. The purple sky, on the other hand, was full of holes that revealed the iridescent glow made from the Dragons' Dimensional Gap.
Upon his arrival, the first thing that Kisuke did was find a relatively 'clean' place and set up a temporary station that would connect to the scanners that he gave to Furoufushi's group, 'It has been some time. They probably scattered enough of them already.'
And as he expected, he immediately received a ping from the scanners and started receiving the data that they had been gathering.
"This is... much worse than I expected." Kisuke muttered to himself while the corner of his mouth twitched uncomfortably, "There are at least a hundred million of those in that small area? There's no way we'll be able to clean all of this up even if I somehow break their connection to the hivemind or take care of the broodmother. Not in a short time, at least..." And time was not on his side right now. Kisuke has a feeling that the situation has already devolved on the other side, and he can't wait to return.
Kisuke operated his terminal more to figure out Furoufushi and the others' location by tracking the cubes he gave them earlier and found out that they are several thousand kilometers away from him right now. He could teleport to their side right now to help them, but that's only going to be a temporary solution to their current plight and would do nothing to solve the problem.
'The maggots are moving to their spot... They can gather most of the attention for now.'
Kisuke then opened another isolated terminal to plug in the data module that Kurotsuchi gave him before he left. And once he uploaded the content, a map showing the 'trail' of the hivemind was displayed on the screen, 'It's beyond the edge of Hell.'
After finding out his destination, he cleaned up his station and tore a small hole in the space. Within that hole, a cane came rushing out, and he immediately caught it, "Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed your time."
[If I knew you'd go on this suicide mission, I would have done more to enjoy myself.] Benihime replied, but there's a slight tone of amusement in her voice.
[You defeated Chaos and you're nervous about this?] Tiamat chimed in.
"Correction. I barely and luckily set it up for you to take care of him. And that's after careful planning and making things more convenient for me. Not to mention I have a lot of people I could lean back on at that time."
[This time, this idiot will be going in essentially blind, desperate to end all of this to save some time.]
"After what Gabriel-san said? There's no way I could take it slow."
When Kisuke said this, Tiamat finally realized the gravity of his actions despite him acting confident, [No wonder Serafall acted that way.]
[Oh? What did I miss?]
[A new lover.]
As his two Zanpakuto gossip like old nosy aunts in the neighborhood, Kisuke ignored them and proceeded to move deeper into the corner of the world.
Since he didn't want to attract any unnecessary attention, he moved slower than he previously did while hiding his breath from all the passing maggots both in the sky and under the ground.
A few days later, Kisuke reached the precipice of the world where he could now see numerous giant flies in addition to the maggots. He wanted to fight, catch, and experiment on these flies, but the risk of them all rushing towards him stopped him from doing so. There's no point in getting tired before he even reaches his target.
Kisuke crouched down and sharpened his senses in an attempt to detect anything from the cliff that never seems to end. He didn't want to do any active reconnaissance in any intensity in case they're capable of picking up a minute amount of disturbance in the surroundings.
But despite spending a few hours going around and trying to get as much information as possible, he couldn't get anything useful aside from the trail of Reiatsu that Ichibei left some time ago.
[Looks like you really don't have a choice but to go in, huh? These things probably already invaded the three worlds.] Benihime's voice resounded in his head.
'As much as I hate it, I think I'd really have to go with that route.' Kisuke replied in his head with a deeply concerned smile plastered on his face.
[But it's not like you have zero plans, right? I refuse to believe that you have nothing prepared.] Tiamat asked once again, [You wouldn't have embarked on this mission if that's not the case. Does it have something to do with the ink on your back? When you used my [Aspect of Life], you already rendered its effects ineffective yet you choose to keep this shadow without any substance. What for?]
'Without substance, huh? If you can't see it, then it's probably safe to say that he also won't be able to anticipate it.'
[...] Tiamat became quiet before asking, [There's something else in there?]
However, Kisuke didn't answer her and just took a deep breath before jumping off the cliff where Ichibei's residual aura was the strongest before finally suppressing any aura leaking from his body. This, in turn, severely limited his senses to his normal sight, touch, smell, and hearing.
With almost no air to slow him down, Kisuke speedily descended as he was slowly engulfed by the darkness of the abyss he jumped into. He doesn't know if the gravity is operating normally around these parts, but he's certain that there's something else that's more massive than Hell itself down here since he kept falling.
Eventually, the purple sky of Hell that provided light stopped reaching him after a few hours of falling. Kisuke thought that this should be impossible, but he figured that there's something in the atmosphere that's destroying the flow of energies.
On the way down, he also inevitably crashed into some maggots and even some flies. However, he had a genius solution to dealing with that, and that is by not reacting to anything that happens.
Because he sealed everything, the maggots and flies thought that he's just a random rock that had fallen from the cliff and ignored him entirely.
And finally, after a total of 10 hours, a blue light appeared in his sights before he entered a crack of unknown material and arrived at a well-lit gigantic cavern that's full of maggots, flies, and eggs. In the middle of this vast expanse was an indescribable, pulsing being of flesh and on top of it was Ichibei, whose appearance barely resembled his previous ambiance, peacefully sleeping.
But instead of fearing the aura that's coming from the pulsing flesh that's on par with Aizen, Kisuke smiled and thought 'How convenient.'
Editors:
28th00: Well, that was a thing. Caught them sleeping too, kek.
Redemperor D
Ichibei still had his Shinigami garb, but strangely enough, he didn't have his brush. He had a pair of fly wings sticking out of his back, and there was black paint covering the majority of his body and face.
As Kisuke was falling, Ichibei suddenly opened his eyes, which were pure black sclera with pure white pupils, and looked in his direction.
In the next instant, Kisuke also released the aura that he had been repressing and opened all of his senses to gather as much information as possible. He was discovered, so there was no point in holding back and keeping things quiet. First of all, he had to secure his path of retreat. After taking note of all the routes he could possibly take, he went and started observing the pulsing flesh and Ichibei, who was sitting on top of it.
Against his expectations, the worms and flies present didn't even react to him and continued to mind their own business of taking care of the eggs attached to the walls of the cavern.
Kisuke adjusted his fall and landed on a relatively flat surface on his feet. His eyes were on Ichibei, who was also looking at him, but his attention was on the overall situation. 'No response, huh? This should not be the case if it's just those insects. Does that mean he's in full control of these things? Another question was the gravitational pull. Are there more things under us, or is it just space warping in a strange way?'
[I was expecting you.] All of a sudden, Ichibei's voice resounded inside Kisuke's mind, which immediately alarmed him. 'Benihime, Tiamat.'
[We got it.] Benihime's voice immediately replied, and the presence of Ichibei from Kisuke's mind entirely disappeared.
"Hooh... Impressive. Most people wouldn't be able to defend their minds like that." This time around, Ichibei's voice echoed throughout the entire cavern. "You've learned various techniques that are supposed to be impossible due to how the world itself was arranged. Did you come from the outside?"
Kisuke was quiet and didn't immediately reply. Ichibei, on the other hand, was still calm and just let Kisuke probe everything around and patiently waited for him.
'Hmmm... Pissing him off won't yield any results, I guess?' Thanks to the time that Ichibei has graciously given him, Kisuke was able to fully scan his immediate surroundings. So he replied, "I wonder? Wouldn't slipping into Hell without your awareness and studying how to make use of the strange new energy be a more feasible thought?"
"I would have... If not for that black being who can transform into anything helping you out."
Kisuke immediately flashed a grin, "Must be frustrating, isn't it? You could have never expected someone to just completely disregard your naming ability by shapeshifting back to what she originally is."
This time, it was Ichibei's turn to be quiet. Kisuke tried to detect anything from him but failed to do so. Soon enough, Ichibei spoke again, "But I don't see that friend of yours now. Have you come here to die?"
At that point, Kisuke was already certain that Ichibei has no ability to see through everything due to the fact that he doesn't know about Flanna's existence. 'His eyes are probably limited to what these insects could see.'
"And I'm surprised you haven't gotten rid of that paint. I was certain that you wouldn't be able to defeat Kirio with that on," Ichibei added.
Kisuke just shrugged his shoulders and said, "It was due to those assumptions of yours that you've been cornered this much. But well, it's really hard to remove. It's still weighing me down right now, and I was hoping that getting rid of you will finally free me from this."
While he spoke casually, Kisuke was really glad deep down. 'So he can't see it too? Good.'
Ichibei, seemingly done with him, raised his hand. Almost instantaneously, thousands of giant flies gathered and formed a hand in midair before slamming down on Kisuke.
Kisuke used Flash Step and dodged the overly simplistic attack, but the moment he stepped out of the technique, he found hundreds more hands reaching out for him.
He furrowed his brows and continued using his Flash Step to close the distance between him and Ichibei while dodging the hands made out of insects.
Kisuke was wondering what the use of these useless attacks was, and he soon reached within striking distance of Ichibei, thinking that all of this was just an elaborate trap.
Even then, Kisuke didn't hold back and brandished Benihime and directly aimed at Ichibei's neck. While watching out for any strange occurrences, Benihime reached Ichibei's neck and went through it, cleanly detaching his head from his body.
Kisuke knew that something was wrong and immediately retreated while checking Benihime's state. Once he was sure that nothing foreign got into her, he saw that Ichibei's head became suspended mid-air and slowly floated above his body before reattaching itself.
"...Hahaha..." Kisuke let out a wry laugh, "Looks like I'm in for a long run here. I hope this doesn't take all week."
Kisuke clutched Benihime hard and thought, 'I only have one chance. Just one opening.'
.
.
.
Two days later, the evacuation efforts were 99.9% done, and various defensive lines were put up, including those in Soul Society and Hueco Mundo.
During the past two days, a few worms had been making their way to all the worlds, and they didn't really pose any significant risk as they were dealt with rather easily. However, the true horror was about to arrive when the "main body" of the corpse-eating insects started showing itself.
Ichigo, Uryu, and Chad stationed themselves on top of a tall building in Karakura Town, feeling the mounting pressure of the silence in the normally bustling town.
"I thought we were done after the Quincy's Invasion... But to think we'd have something worse than that..." Chad muttered to himself while watching the sky full of iridescent holes.
Uryu pulled his bow and generated a blue arrow before releasing it in a certain direction. The next second, they heard the gruesome cry of a worm, "On top of that, we still don't know what exactly is going on despite the world on the verge of ending. What a shitty situation."
More time passed, and Uryu shot a dozen more worms that found their way into the Human World, and it was also at that point that they noticed that Ichigo had been quiet, "Are you worried about Inoue and Kazui?" asked Chad.
"I am..." Ichigo answered without turning around, "But I was thinking of something else."
"About what?" asked Uryu.
"If we don't know the situation, let's ask someone who knows." Ichigo pointed to his side while turning his head towards them, "That young girl that we met in Urahara Shop is not far from here."
"How did you know?"
"I've been learning this Magic thing, and I'm getting the hang of detecting presences using it."
Editors:
28th00: Ichigo “I’m everything+1” Kurosaki is learning magic now too! Kisuke is in for an absolute slog of a fight though.
Redemperor D