Feeling Amamiya Miyako's spiritual pressure plummet, Aizen allowed himself a satisfied smile. Yet, his vigilance never wavered. He continued the delicate, dual-layered task of maintaining Kyōka Suigetsu's subtle hypnosis on Ichimaru Gin while focusing his primary consciousness on the imminent fusion with the Hōgyoku.
He raised the pulsating orb and pressed it against his chest, over his spiritual core. The moment of transcendence was at hand.
"Let the Hōgyoku become one!" A whisper, charged with a century of ambition. Inevitably, a surge of excitement shifted his focus more intently inward, toward the artifact beginning to sink into his being.
"Let me ascend… to godhood…?"
The thought was interrupted by a sudden, sharp prick of pain. A small, almost negligible wound had appeared on his chest. He looked down, then slowly raised his gaze.
Ichimaru Gin had turned around. The extended blade of Kamishini no Yari was retracting with a soft shink back into its wakizashi form. Gin's eyes were fully open, their pale blue irises fixed on Aizen with an unnerving calm.
"It was you… Gin." Aizen's voice was flat, not questioning, but stating a newly confirmed fact.
He had always harbored suspicions about Gin's loyalty, which was why he had never ceased layering hypnosis upon him, warping his perception of space and location to prevent any accurate strike. Even Gin's 'life-saving' intervention moments ago had not fully dispelled that caution.
Yet, the attack had landed. The impossible had occurred. A genuine flicker of incomprehension crossed Aizen's mind.
"You seem surprised, Aizen-sama? Wondering how I avoided Kyōka Suigetsu without ever touching its blade prior to release?"
"?!" A genuine reaction—a minute widening of the eyes. That secret, the sole condition for breaking the hypnosis… how?
"It took me over a hundred years to learn that answer. My original plan was to bide my time, wait for an opening, touch the blade, shatter the illusion, and then kill you. A tedious wait. Fortunately… a more elegant method presented itself."
"A… better method?" Aizen's analytical mind raced. Gin had never been close enough to touch Kyōka Suigetsu's blade. The variables did not compute.
"Someone provided a more convenient path. That person's ability… it really does seem like the natural counter to yours, Aizen-sama." Gin's tone was almost conversational.
"Amamiya… Miyako." The name left Aizen's lips as the only logical conclusion. The only anomaly, the only one whose perception remained utterly untouched by his power. The one who could 'seal' a Zanpakutō's function.
"I see. His Bankai… it can grant others immunity. And you did not use it on the Captains. You conspired with him instead." The pieces clicked into place with cold, horrifying clarity. Aizen recalled every encounter between Gin and Miyako—each ending in Gin's 'victory,' each showcasing Miyako's 'fear' of Shinsō. A long con, crafted to make Aizen himself deliver his own weakness into the hands of a conspirator.
Sent to deal with the nuisance, Gin had instead forged an alliance. Tricked. For the second time, Amamiya Miyako had orchestrated a betrayal from within Aizen's own ranks. A cold, unfamiliar anger began to simmer beneath his placid facade.
"However, Gin… do you believe this pinprick can kill me?" Aizen glanced dismissively at the minor wound, a smirk returning to his lips.
"Ah, of course not. I never intended a heart strike. For my Bankai… a wound near the heart is more than sufficient." Gin's voice held a deadly patience.
"And what of it? This is nothing."
"Aizen-sama, I once explained my Bankai's ability to you, did I not? My apologies. All of that was a lie."
Gin raised the short blade of Kamishini no Yari, allowing Aizen to see it clearly.
"It does not extend that far. It is not that fast. Its true ability is much simpler: the blade turns to dust upon extension and contraction. And within that dust… is a poison. A poison that dissolves spirit particles, that breaks down the very composition of a soul."
He pointed with a finger to a barely perceptible seam on the blade. "You'll understand when you see this gap, Aizen-sama. I left a piece of it… inside you."
"Gin… you snake!" Aizen's composure shattered. Fury and a sliver of primal fear ignited within him. Without the completed Hōgyoku's full power, he was not invincible. He lunged forward, Kyōka Suigetsu gleaming with murderous intent.
"It's useless, Aizen-sama. The poison is already at work in the wound. Speak your final words, if you have any." Gin watched the charge impassively.
"Zan-" Aizen began the command to extend his own blade, but the action was cut short. The small wound on his chest convulsed. Then, in a horrifying, silent eruption, the flesh and spirit matter around it simply vanished, dissolving into nothingness. A gaping, cavernous hole was torn open in Aizen's chest, centered where his heart and spiritual core should have been.
"You'll die with a hole through your core. Isn't that what you've always secretly yearned for? A flaw in your perfection." Gin's eyes narrowed back into their familiar slits, his voice colder than ice.
"GIN! YOU TRAITOROUS WRETCH!" Aizen screamed, his body faltering, his perfect world crumbling into agony and rage.
Ichimaru Gin prepared to witness the final, pathetic spasm of his century-long target.
But then, he saw it. From within the void of Aizen's chest cavity, not blood or spirit ribbons, but a deep, pulsating blue-black light began to emanate. The light coalesced around a small, familiar orb nestled within the devastation.
Gin's eyes shot wide open. "Impossible… The Hōgyoku… it had already begun fusion?!"
Aizen, strength bleeding away, could only watch as his desperate slash missed Gin entirely. His mind, even in death-throes, calculated. 'No… if I fuse the second one now, in this state, the Hōgyoku will…' With his last ounce of will, he tried to bring the Hōgyoku still clutched in his hand toward the one glowing within his chest, to force the completion.
His other arm, holding that key to transcendence, was severed cleanly at the elbow.
"AMAMIYA… MIYAKO!" The roar was a guttural explosion of hatred and disbelief. Aizen's furious gaze locked onto the figure who had flashed in, twin blades shimmering. He saw the understanding in their eyes, the coordinated trap. "To dare… to conspire… to deceive me to this extent…!"
His body finally surrendered, collapsing to the scorched earth. The Hōgyoku that had been embedded in his chest rolled free, retrieved by Ichimaru Gin's swift hand. The one from his severed grasp was caught by Amamiya Miyako.
Watching Aizen's form go still, his immense spiritual pressure dissipating like mist, Miyako let out a shuddering breath, his own hand pressed against the bleeding wound in his side—a parting 'gift' from Gin's Shinsō.
"That was excessively harsh, Ichimaru-taichō," Miyako grimaced, the pain sharp. The blade had pierced clean through; had Gin left even a fragment of his poisonous dust within, Miyako would have shared Aizen's gruesome fate.
"Necessary theatrics. It was the only way Aizen-sama would not suspect the arrow's true purpose was to shield me, not kill him." Gin shrugged, but the perpetual tension in his shoulders seemed to have eased. The cold, serpentine aura around him softened imperceptibly.
"Still… we both miscalculated one critical fact," Gin said, his voice low as he examined the Hōgyoku in his palm. "He had already fused with one. The process had begun long ago."
A chill ran down Miyako's spine. They had been operating on the assumption Aizen was carrying an unfused orb. If he had been allowed to merge the second…
"He was trying to save time," Miyako concluded, holding his own orb. "Complete the second, then immediately absorb it for the final transformation. A terrifying efficiency."
"But a half-formed Hōgyoku cannot reverse true death," Miyako added, the relief in his voice palpable. He knew the limits of his own fragment.
"Then… it is finally over." Ichimaru Gin let out a long, slow exhale, a century of buried tension escaping with it. The deepest undercover mission in Soul Society's history had reached its end. The only image that sustained him through those long, lonely years flashed in his mind—the young Matsumoto Rangiku, and what Aizen had stolen from her.
'The long night is over, Rangiku. I kept my promise.'