You are very strong, but my painting style is better than yours!

Saito abandoned her ladylike demeanor of the past two days and began to curse without restraint, while the others, though not as blunt, clearly showed their dissatisfaction.

Especially the members of the Sixth Division. Although the mainstream noble circles usually dislike Shiba, they will consciously stand on the side of the "Five Great Noble Families" when something really happens.

They didn't have time to request any orders at the moment, so they directly ordered the 12th Division to open the portal, with the four captains leading the two hundred most elite soldiers towards the Soul Society.

The process went very smoothly, and just when Iori thought she might be overthinking things, the unexpected happened as expected—

hold head high! ! !

A strange sound suddenly came from the depths of the barrier, like the whistle of a train, followed by a beam of light that attracted the attention of the task force, while the source of the light rushed over at an extremely fast speed.

"That is?!"

"coming!"

Iori narrowed her eyes: "They've finally arrived!"

"That is……"

Saito, who was neither old nor dead, stared blankly at the beam of light in the distance, then his expression suddenly changed.

"Could it be 'Kutsu'?!"

Upon hearing this, the Grim Reapers were all startled, and even the captains began to show troubled expressions.

The so-called "Kutsu" is a cleaner that appears once every seven days within the Dangai. It does not rely on spiritual pressure to survive and will destroy all matter that is in its way when it appears—just think of it as a garbage truck that keeps going around in circles.

The only difference is that it ruthlessly destroys obstacles, which makes it very similar to a train.

Regardless of the type of substance, whether it's a Shinigami, a Hollow, or a Quincy, and regardless of the level of spiritual pressure, it will be swallowed up and decomposed the moment it comes into contact with this thing.

This is a natural phenomenon that is beyond human control!

Fortunately, although Ju Tu is fast, it is not impossible to evade. As long as you sense its presence in time and act quickly, you can still escape its pursuit.

Therefore, there haven't been many examples of high-level Shinigami being swallowed by it before. Although even Bankai-level masters would be overwhelmed if they were touched, it's impossible to be sure what would happen.

However, one thing is certain:

To date, nothing has survived being hit by a trebuchet.

"Could this be a Quincy conspiracy?"

Kiryu Hikifune is the most incredible one; she is the leader of the 12th Division and is very familiar with the Kokutoku.

Normally, this thing appears once every seven days, but if there is a violent change in spiritual pressure inside the boundary and the space itself becomes unstable, the Kūtō will appear in advance to eliminate the substances that cause hidden dangers.

One of the many tasks of the Twelfth Division is to collect data on the activities of the Kōtoku (a type of martial arts technique), summarize the patterns, and then use this data to coordinate the use of the [Transcendental Gate].

In addition, instruments can be used to check the "garbage density" within the boundary, since cleaners are only needed when there is too much garbage.

But... that shouldn't be the case!

The passage was carefully measured before entering the boundary, and it was quite clean. This is definitely not the time for a sudden incident to occur!

"Impossible! How could a Quincy know about Koto's movements? It's a natural phenomenon without its own consciousness; it can't be controlled by anyone!"

Regardless of their official rank, everyone in the group began to flee, while Saito loudly refuted Hikifune Kiryu's conjecture. In her more than a thousand years of life, she had never heard of anyone being able to control a kujutsu.

In fact, there have been people in the history of Soul Society who have tried to control Kokutoku, but without exception they have all failed.

"Iori, what do you think of...Iori?"

Saito suddenly turned around and found that Iori had stopped in the same spot.

"What are you doing, Iori! Run!"

Upon hearing this, Iori turned around and looked at her with a smile, which made Saito turn back without thinking.

This guy... could it be that he got competitive at this moment?

"Idiot! That's a natural disaster! It's not something you can challenge! Hurry up!"

In an instant, the blinding light engulfed Iori, and Saito's anxious expression froze in that moment—

boom! ! !

The entire rift passage trembled slightly, and a spiritual pressure like a hurricane surged through it, before everything returned to calm after the blinding white light.

—The sudden attack vanished into nothingness, turning into countless fragments!

"..."

Saito stopped and watched the scene in silence, too shocked to know what expression to make.

"you?"

"Sorry, did I scare you?"

Iori withdrew her outstretched right hand, made a couple of loose clenching motions, and gave a sassy smile.

"After this battle, there were no more hidden dangers, so I thought I'd let loose a little."

“Iori…”

"Captain Aizen?"

"...What just happened?"

"Didn't you see?"

The Grim Reapers exchanged glances, including several captains; all of them seemed somewhat bewildered.

They weren't even sure if the [stun] they had just witnessed was an illusion; otherwise... how could they possibly fight against the laws of nature with human strength?

How is this possible!

Chapter 488: The Husband-Protecting Maniac

The atmosphere was different—a feeling inexplicably arose in everyone's hearts.

Before they could even be shocked by the destruction of [Kutoku], everyone's attention was focused on Iori.

The man's expression remained gentle; he was still the beloved Captain Aizen, but something seemed to have changed... something that no one had noticed.

Only Mayuri Kurotsuchi remained calm, showing no surprise whatsoever; instead, he slightly narrowed his eyes.

This was the Aizen Iori he knew, and Mayuri Kurotsuchi had always believed that Iori and he were not much different in essence; both were people who would stop at nothing to achieve their goals, only that Iori was relatively good at disguising himself.

Has it finally revealed its true nature?

"Don't be surprised, everyone. It seems this is just a smokescreen created by the Quincy."

Iori reassured everyone, "I felt something was wrong, so I tried it, and it turned out to be true."

"An illusion, is that how it works...?"

Kiryuki hesitated for a moment: she hadn't sensed anything unusual about [Kutsu]. If Iori were to act on her intuition alone, it would be too reckless.

"However, if it's a smokescreen, it explains why it appeared at this particular time... Now is not the time to dwell on that!"

Kiryuu led the 12th Division forward toward the exit of the dankai. Kuchiki Sojun nodded to Iori and turned to follow without hesitation. Only Saito Immortal gave Iori a deep look.

"You're not hiding something from me, are you?"

"There are only about one or two hundred pieces."

"..."

Saito's eyes twitched: "I'm asking you very seriously! Never mind... we can talk about it after this is over."

“I answered very seriously.”

Iori pursed her lips, then immediately revealed a warm smile that Saito recognized.

"However, I can assure you that although I often pretend, but..."

"But what?"

Ignoring the main group that was already getting further and further away, Saito focused all his attention on Iori and quickly pressed her for answers.

Iori suddenly moved in a flash and whispered in her ear, "What I said when I hugged you was absolutely true."

Saito suddenly felt a weakness in his waist, but quickly realized what was happening and glared fiercely at Iori.

"You...it seems you really have a lot of secrets!"

However, she did not hate Iori because of this. She just felt in her heart that "he must have his own reasons for doing this." Before Iori could explain, she had already forgiven him in general.

She didn't know what Iori had done, what she was hiding, or Iori's specific thoughts, but there was one thing she was certain of:

She probably wouldn't be able to refuse the man in front of her no matter what.

Even a ruthless demon king would foolishly choose to believe his lies, and then die without regret.

But there's nothing we can do about it... because even if she's at odds with the world, she'll still be immersed in happiness.

Of course, she didn't believe that Iori would do anything too outrageous. At most, he would secretly organize a private army or conduct some forbidden experiments, and the scale shouldn't be too large.

"Hurry up, the Seireitei is waiting for us to go back and save the world."

Iori took Saito Immortal's hand, and the two masters of Instant Step flashed and caught up with the main group in an instant.

……

"...What's going on? Why is the Transcendental Gate set up in Rukongai?"

Emerging from the rift, the Shinigami were astonished to find the surrounding terrain and landscape clearly not belonging to the Seireitei.

"Is this also a Quincy conspiracy?"

"No, it seems more like a simple coordinate error. Is it a problem with [Constraint]?"

"If it really is a Quincy..."

Mayuri Kurotsuchi's gaze swept across the desolate Rukongai, recognizing it at a glance as a remote district numbered after sixty.

"The Bount, the Dangai, the Chukaimon... all three are overseen by the 12th Division. The whole incident started with the Quincy attacking the Bount, which led to Captain Hikifune and the others—how interesting."

"Nie, are you saying this isn't a coincidence?"

Kuchiki Sojun understood Mayuri Kurotsuchi's implication and frowned, saying, "Did the Quincy hunt the Bount just to lure us out, deliberately creating an opening?"

"Besides the news of 'Yhwach', what else could keep four captains in the present world?"

The Quincy lurking in the mortal realm are almost all hybrids, with very few pure-blooded individuals. Furthermore, the [Kujutsu] is unlikely to catch the captains. Therefore, their objective isn't to kill us, but rather to delay us as much as possible, preventing our return to Seireitei.

Mayuri Kurotsuchi's tone suddenly rose, as if he had been inspired, and the heavy responsibility was practically a lightbulb going off above his head!

"Perhaps by the time we get back, Seireitei will already be a ruin."

"nirvana!"

Cang Chun's tone became more serious and slightly impatient: "We've already contacted Seireitei, and with the Captain-Commander in charge, things won't go wrong so quickly."

"That's not necessarily true—if it's just a Quincy, then there's really nothing to worry about."

Mayuri Kurotsuchi touched the strange decoration on his head and laughed in an extremely unsettling voice: "Queens rely on the ability to pass on their 'bloodline'. Yhwach's blood flows in the body of every Quincy, and he is naturally the only king among the Quincy, just as the queen ant can control the worker ants."

Conversely, without the queen ant, the colony cannot continue to expand and will only gradually decline.

Even if Yhwach has been resurrected, the power of a Quincy from a thousand years ago cannot possibly be restored to its peak, making a full-scale attack on Seireitei beyond his capabilities.

Hearing this, Iori glanced over:

This reasoning is reasonable and would indeed be true under normal circumstances... but the Quincy don't actually need to attack Seireitei—they were already inside Seireitei.

In the original story, if it had been a straightforward head-on clash, the Shinigami side would never have suffered such a crushing defeat. A large part of the reason Yamamoto was outmaneuvered by Yhwach was because he was led astray and lost his right-hand man right from the start.

At this point in time, it is absolutely a case of "the enemy is in the dark and we are in the light." The Quincy know all the Shinigami captains, while the Shinigami know nothing about them... not even that "the other side knows about us"!

"But what if they have an accomplice, and that accomplice is inside Team Thirteen...?"

Mayuri Kurotsuchi's eyes darted around, fixing their gaze on Kirio Hikifune.

The mature captain raised her eyebrows, about to erupt in anger, when she suddenly understood Mayuri Kurotsuchi's meaning: "You're saying there's a traitor in the 12th Division?"

Mayuri Kurotsuchi said quietly, "Only members of the 12th Division can simultaneously access information on 'Dangai,' 'Senkaimon,' and 'Bavent.'"

Captain Yizhou has been monitoring Saint Oran Island, right? But what if someone has been monitoring you too?

"impossible!"

Out of confidence, Kiryuu Yukifune denied it without even thinking: "I'm not that stupid!"

"Hehe, you're still the same..."