Hiroki waved his hand as though brushing away a wisp of smoke. "That issue isn't worth your concern." His tone was casual, yet carried absolute certainty. "Maintaining 'balance' is the Spirit King's will, and the cornerstone on which the three realms turn."
As long as you don't go mad and start massacring Humans, Shinigami, and Hollows in some genocidal spectacle, you won't trip the 'fuse' the Spirit King left behind, and the gaze of those above won't turn to cleansing you."
He paused, studying Aizen's thoughtful expression. "Note the word 'mass'. Small losses are digested by the cycle itself."
Aizen inclined his head, committing the warning—light in tone yet heavy in consequence—to memory. "Understood."
"Next," Hiroki's voice snapped cold, like stepping from a sunlit garden into a snowstorm, "comes the greatest danger you face right now."
Aizen's brows flicked almost imperceptibly. A threat greater than the Wandenreich, Squad Zero, and the twin Kenpachi?
Hiroki met his eyes and spoke the name clearly: "The Tsunayashiro Clan—one of the Four Great Noble Clans."
"Tsunayashiro…" Aizen's pupils contracted.
The most reclusive and enigmatic of the noble houses, said to hold the lifeline of Soul Society. He knew the rumors, yet having Hiroki single them out as the "greatest danger" gave the claim chilling weight.
"Yes." Hiroki nodded, voice low. "They hide the deepest, and are the most dangerous, because they control Soul Society's true core: the nexus of history and intelligence for all three realms."
He leaned forward, as if unveiling a forbidden vault: "The place is called the Great Spirit Book Gallery. It's no mere library. It's connected to Soul Society's 'will', automatically recording every verifiable event since the birth of the three realms. Nearly every Shinigami secret, public or hidden, leaves a trace there."
Hiroki's fingertip stabbed the air toward Aizen. "That includes the true power of your Zanpakutō, Kyōka Suigetsu. Perhaps not a full dissection, but the essence—manipulation of the five senses—and your Hollowfication experiments in Hueco Mundo, all those operations you thought known only to heaven, earth, you, and me, may already be catalogued and filed away. The Tsunayashiro Clan holds the master key."
Aizen's heart sank. This was worse than a mighty foe—an enemy who already knew every card he held. Complete informational supremacy could shatter any stratagem.
"There's more." Hiroki's tone carried a grudging awe. "They possess a forbidden blade: 'Enraku Kyōten'. Its terror isn't raw destruction but mimicry. It can read and perfectly reproduce any Shikai or Bankai that has ever been observed or recorded, and—"
His voice dropped, freezing the air. "—it can stack those copied abilities. In theory, every Zanpakutō power on record can be mixed, matched, and wielded at will."
Using it demands a steep price—continuous erosion of the soul's lifespan—but at the critical moment it can scramble every plan and birth unforeseeable chaos.
"Still," Hiroki continued, almost soothingly, "you needn't fear their raw combat strength. Over the centuries the Tsunayashiro have fixated on history and intelligence, relying on Enraku Kyōten's shortcuts; their direct fighters are hardly formidable."
Compared to the Shihōin Clan's razor edge or the Kuchiki Clan's deep resources, Tsunayashiro prefer to dance in the shadows of intrigue and balance.
He smiled coldly, eyes locked on Aizen. "And in that arena, your own forte, you'd be facing equals on a chessboard."
He offered this "carrot" of rivalry, steering Aizen's attention—and inevitable clash—toward Tsunayashiro, letting them grind each other down while Shihōin watched from safety.
"Understood." Aizen's reply was brief, yet in his gaze the Tsunayashiro had already claimed a front-row seat among future priorities.
"Oh, one last thing." Hiroki spoke as if remarking on the weather, then lobbed an even heavier bombshell: "Sparse intel suggests the Tsunayashiro have been running a blasphemous experiment—creating an artificial Spirit King."
"Artificial Spirit King?" The words detonated in Aizen's mind; even his composure cracked.
"Indeed." Hiroki gave a small, cryptic nod, offering no confirmation, only suspense: "No telling whether it's barely begun or near fruition."
He shrugged, driving the point home. "That's why they're your greatest threat. They know your abilities, can copy and counter them, and—most importantly—your fledgling Hōgyoku is precisely the core component their artificial king lacks. What better 'heart' for a being meant to govern reishi than an artifact that can bend reishi itself?"
Aizen's inner world convulsed. The notion of a man-made Spirit King—and his Hōgyoku viewed as its missing heart—catapulted the Tsunayashiro to an unprecedented level of peril.
"All right," Hiroki said, seeing the storm in Aizen's eyes and knowing the moment was ripe. He lifted his teacup again in clear dismissal. "You've heard enough; your thoughts must need sorting. Go home and digest it slowly—Hueco Mundo, the Human World, or the depths of Seireitei… the road is still long."
He let just a hint of the "consideration" a senior ought to show.
"Yes." Aizen quelled the turmoil inside, regained his calm façade, rose and bowed.
"Izumi, see our guest out." Hiroki's voice carried a faint, almost imperceptible note of relief.
"Yes, my lord." Uchiha Izumi materialised without a sound at the doorway and motioned Aizen to proceed.
Only when Izumi had led that unfathomable Captain of the 5th Division beyond the threshold and gently closed the study door did Hiroki's taut shoulders sag.
Like a balloon stabbed clean through, he slumped back into the chair and loosed a long, exhausted breath.
"Whew… finally talked him into it…" Rubbing his brow, he felt more drained than when he'd once swung that sword in Hueco Mundo. "This job isn't for humans. A full-immersion 'cosmic blockbuster'—a hundred-point memory projection—plus a dump of Soul Society's choicest secrets… and only then did he bite. Damn."
He muttered the rant to himself.
He couldn't tell how much Aizen truly believed or how much was mere expedient compliance, but for the moment at least the man's attention should be partly tied up by the Tsunayashiro Clan as a shiny new target.
"Still—success!" Hiroki rallied, eyes reigniting. "Talked him round, and the goal's in the bag: the ten-million-point Hollowfication Technique is finally mine!" He snatched the silver metallic cube that pulsed with frigid energy from the desk-centre as though cradling a priceless jewel.
Yet when he cautiously fed in a thread of reiatsu and, following Aizen's instructions, peeled away layer after layer of seals, the box revealed not some neat finished device or potion. Instead there lay a dark crystal shot with intricate circuits and odd embedded gems—plus an instruction scroll?!
Hiroki: "???"
Face blank, he lifted the scroll and struggled to make sense of the glyphs and diagrams.
"What the hell is this?!"
On instinct—and from the after-taste of Aizen's side experiments in Hueco Mundo—he could tell the thing did relate to Hollow power, but how to use it?
Reading on, he caught one killer line: the technique was hungry—very, very hungry. It needed an ultra-pure, ultra-potent "high-energy soul crystal" as constant fuel.
And the best fuel—no contest—was the Hōgyoku, that conglomeration of mighty Shinigami souls in Aizen's hand.
Aizen, of course, wasn't about to gift-wrap the Hōgyoku.
So the scroll offered an emergency substitute: bag at least a Menos Grande of Adjuchas level, carve out its core and use that as the drive unit.
One use, one sacrifice. Every time you wanted to fire up the posh Hollowfication rig, you had to go hunting in Hueco Mundo for an Adjuchas to serve as a battery.
Hiroki's face collapsed.
"…You've got to be kidding me!!!"
After all that song-and-dance, he owned the tech but still had to catch his own fuel. Talk about selling the licence and the energy bill separately!
Feeling hollow, he slumped in the chair and screamed silently at the ever-present System: 'O omnipotent System-daddy, save your kid!'
"System," he demanded in his mind, half-sobbing, "tell me—how many points to buy a Hōgyoku?" He already dreaded the answer.
The System's voice was as cold and precise as an icicle through the heart: "Hōgyoku, shop price: 9.9 million points."
"…" Every muscle froze; he might as well have been turned to stone.
Time seemed to stop for several beats.
Then a surge of rage and injustice erupted in his skull: "So you're saying," he ground out, each word a dying beast's snarl, "that after all the hoops I jumped through to con Aizen, this Hollowfication set-up is worth only 100 k in the shop?! And the freaking 9.9-million-point Hōgyoku is the real deal?"
The System's reply was maddeningly terse: "Correct."
"You—!" Veins bulged on his forehead; he nearly blacked out. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?!?!" He felt like the chump who'd emptied his life-savings for a model-car key, only to learn the actual car cost a king's ransom.
The System's logic stayed ice-cold: "You never asked."
"…" Words failed him. All that fury and grievance melted into one long, blood-and-tears sigh: "What the hell have I even been doing this past year!!!"
One use of Tai Xu Sword Qi—100 k points! A hundred-point 'cosmic movie' for Aizen (just to bait him)! Spilling Soul Society's top-secret intel as bargaining chips… and the net gain? A Hollowfication Technique worth 100 k. Outlay: 100 000 (sword qi) + 100 (movie) = 100 100 points, plus a free bonus bundle of classified intel.
"…I'm a hundred points in the red!!!"
Despairing, he buried his face in his palms and felt the world's sheer malice.