"Characteristics of a fish on its body. There's no doubt about it. This comes from that fairy tale about a mermaid who turned into a human and sought love: Bubbles!"
"It's said that Bubbles can only fulfill the conditions for metamorphosis after obtaining true love from the person it is dating. Before that, it will continue hiding within human society."
"Ninny, what you saw wasn't a Disguiser Dragon at all. It was a Märchen with the same traits as a Disguiser Dragon: Bubbles!"
Without realizing it, Noel's explanation stabbed deep into the heart of a certain man who had been ready to devote everything to love. The beautiful memories of the past week shattered like bubbles.
"No wonder I kept smelling that bitchy stench. It really was some hussy going around seducing people!" Ninny spat.
Unbeknownst to her, in her effort to prove that she had been right all along, she had stabbed Ginjō hard once again.
Tsunayoshi's gaze noticed Ginjō's trembling hand clutching his chest.
He hoped this incident would not leave Ginjō with a fear of women. It would be too melodramatic if the courage he had mustered for a lifetime confession ended up buying him a lifetime of social withdrawal.
Noticing Tsunayoshi's somewhat pitying gaze, Ginjō forced himself to stay calm and coughed once.
"If I said I'm fine, would you believe me?"
"I believe you. Of course I believe you."
When facing a wounded heart, one could only go along with whatever he said.
Tsunayoshi's affirmation restored a bit of Ginjō's fighting spirit. He rested Cross of Scaffold on his shoulder and asked Noel, "Niihashi, I don't care whether it's some fairy-tale dragon or not. Right now, I want to cut it down. No problem, right?"
His words were phrased as a question, but his tone was full of certainty. Anger seemed to squeeze out from between Ginjō's teeth. Only by personally cutting down the dragon that had deceived his feelings could he vent the rage in his heart.
Sorry, Yūko-chan…
"The reason it's called Bubbles isn't only because of the fairy tale. It's also because, when Bubbles appears, the entire city will fall into dreamlike bubbles, sink within those bubbles, and die within those bubbles!" Noel said solemnly.
As Noel explained, bubbles radiating rainbow light emerged one after another from the scales of the Märchen, Bubbles. Immediately afterward, Bubbles flapped its wings. Driven by Reiatsu, countless bubbles scattered throughout Karakura Town.
"Don't touch those bubbles!"
Noel and Ninny blew their whistles at the same time. Under the vibration of their magic, all the bubbles flying toward them were pushed farther away.
Noel and the others were on guard, but they were not the only targets of Bubbles' attack. The bubbles were scattering across the entirety of Karakura Town.
"Mommy, look! Bubbles! They're so pretty!"
On the street, a little girl excitedly held her mother's hand and reached out with a finger to lightly touch the bubbles drifting through the sky.
However, the instant the girl's hand touched a bubble, her entire body lost consciousness and toppled downward. Her mother tried to grab her daughter's hand, only to be blocked by a layer of bubbles.
The bubble the little girl had touched had turned into a giant bubble that enveloped her completely. The little girl knew nothing. Even in unconsciousness, the corners of her lips lifted into a happy smile.
The same scene played out in every corner of Karakura Town. Whether adults or children, everyone was drawn to the dazzling bubbles. Their instinctive touch brought only imprisonment within the bubbles.
Even hiding inside buildings was useless. These bubbles could flow everywhere along the air. As long as ventilation ducts existed, the bubbles could smoothly find their targets.
These bubbles looked fragile, but in truth, they were incomparably sturdy. Ordinary people had no way to destroy them. Even bullets striking them would be deflected by their slippery surfaces. Humans who could not attack with Reiatsu could not erase the bubbles.
"Then we just wipe them all out. What's so troublesome about that?!"
Seeing Ninny and Noel blow the bubbles away, Ginjō spoke arrogantly.
The two girls were indeed not especially strong. Being able to defend in time was already good enough. Asking them to destroy the bubbles was making things too difficult for them.
But Ginjō was different. He had captain-class combat power. Burning with anger, he only wanted to tear apart everything blocking his path and give that dragon a vicious slash.
"No!"
Before Ninny could finish shouting for him to stop, Ginjō's attack rang out.
"Getsuga Tenshō!"
Cross of Scaffold swung out a blue crescent. Ginjō had put his full strength into this slash, vowing to sweep away everything in front of him. He himself followed right behind the Getsuga Tenshō.
The first strike was his!
In the next instant, Ginjō understood why Ninny had tried to stop him.
The Getsuga Tenshō did not travel far before it touched the floating bubbles. Just as Ginjō had expected, under the powerful impact of the Getsuga Tenshō, the bubbles shattered instantly.
But the shattering of the bubbles was not the end of the obstruction. It was the beginning of Ginjō being stopped in his tracks.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
A series of explosions rang out one after another. Ninny and Noel instinctively raised their hands to shield their faces. Neither of them was particularly good at defense.
Fortunately, Tsunayoshi and Tatsuki reacted quickly enough. Tsunayoshi stood in front of them, while Tatsuki grabbed one person with each hand and activated Shunkō, pulling Ninny and Noel far away.
Tsunayoshi casually dispersed the aftershock of the explosions, revealing Ginjō's rather battered figure. At the critical moment, Ginjō had activated Bankai. Cross-shaped wounds appeared across his face, and his body had gained many Hollow-like features.
"Damn it. That really was underhanded!"
Ginjō wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. He had almost truly died for love just now.
"This is what makes Bubbles so troublesome. When the bubbles burst, they trigger violent explosions. Bubbles doesn't even need to attack personally. Just the power of the bubbles alone is enough to filter out a huge number of challengers," Ninny quickly explained.
"In the historical records of Reverse London, the last time Bubbles appeared, an entire squad had to be sacrificed before it was eliminated," Noel added, supplementing the history.
"So all we have to do is blow these bubbles away, right?!"
Ginjō refused to believe otherwise. Holding his greatsword, he swung rapidly. Sword pressure formed from Reiatsu quickly swept the surrounding bubbles aside.
"Heh. Isn't that easy?"
The moment Ginjō finished speaking, more bubbles drifted over. He gritted his teeth and swung out another wave of sword pressure. If this continued, things would not be good. Before he could even approach Bubbles, he might exhaust himself first.
"Damn it. If only Kensei were here. His Zanpakutō is wind-type!"
Ginjō thought of that white-haired lawn-head. The name Muguruma really could be useful at times.
"Forget it. Kensei puts all his energy into the sharpness and cutting power of Tachikaze. If he came here, he'd only cause an even bigger explosion than you did."
Tsunayoshi immediately rejected Ginjō's suggestion. Unlike Ginjō, he had trained with Kensei the most, so he knew very clearly what Kensei was good at.
"Then what do we do? If I can't get close, it'll be hard to attack." Looking at the bubbles floating around them, Ginjō felt completely restrained.
"You don't need to take the initiative. Isn't your lover coming to find you right now?"
Hearing Tsunayoshi's words, Ginjō froze, then immediately looked in Bubbles' direction.
It turned out that Ginjō's Getsuga Tenshō had detonated the bubbles and attracted Bubbles' attention. Under Tsunayoshi's reminder, Ginjō and Bubbles' gazes met at that moment.
A single glance felt like ten thousand years.
What Ginjō saw in Bubbles' eyes was obsession with love. A wave of revulsion surged into his heart. Ginjō clutched his throat and dry-heaved again and again. If he did not forget that gaze, he feared he would be single for the rest of his life.
The disgust in Ginjō's eyes was fully taken in by Bubbles.
Its mood sank slightly for a moment, but driven by the sincere love in its heart, it immediately pulled itself together again.
They had agreed to love each other for a lifetime. It did not matter if Ginjō refused to recognize it. She would capture him, bring him back, lock him up, and sooner or later, Ginjō would accept his fate.
With that thought, Bubbles flapped its wings.
This time, it was not to scatter bubbles.
She wanted to take the initiative and break the curse of love. She wanted to stay together forever with the one she loved.
Gulp.
Seeing Bubbles move, Ginjō did not know why, but he suddenly did not feel so eager to get close to it anymore. In Bubbles' somewhat deranged gaze, he felt the urge to run away for the first time.
"What's wrong? Your lover is coming to pick you up. Why aren't you hurrying to greet her?" Tsunayoshi snickered.
"Damn it, Tsunayoshi! I don't want to date a non-human!"
Ginjō was practically losing his mind. He clearly wanted to run, yet he no longer had any way out. As the being most capable of making Ginjō happy, Bubbles saw through his desire to escape at a glance. It had long since controlled the bubbles to surround Ginjō from all sides.
The current Ginjō was nothing more than a turtle in Bubbles' jar.
"Darling, I've come to pick you up!"
Bubbles' voice was ethereal and beautiful. The most fatal part was that she had no intention of hiding herself at all. If this continued, before long, Ginjō's bubble romance would echo throughout the entire human world.
"Don't talk nonsense! I don't even know you!"
Ginjō roared, lifted Cross of Scaffold, and charged forward. He did not forget to call for backup.
"Tsunayoshi, attack with me!"
Ginjō received no response at all, because Tsunayoshi was busy making phone calls.
Bubbles' move had caught him completely off guard. As more and more people fell asleep because of the bubbles, the supernatural incident in Karakura Town would no longer remain a secret.
Tsunayoshi did not respond to Ginjō's call for backup because he himself was calling for backup.
Except for Squad One, all members of the Gotei Thirteen were to mobilize. The Senkaimon would be set up at the Urahara Shop. After receiving memory-erasing devices, all squads would go to the streets they were responsible for and erase the memories of humans.
Inside the Urahara Shop, Kisuke Urahara had already activated Bankai.
Not even in his dreams had he imagined that one day he would use Bankai to manufacture small tools like memory-erasing devices.
There was no helping it. This kind of rarely used tool simply did not have enough stock. Kisuke Urahara could only make them on the spot.
While Ginjō carefully dodged the bubbles and used various execution-style attacks to battle Bubbles, a race between a supernatural incident and humanity's memories had quietly begun.
Afterward, no one in Karakura Town remembered what had happened that night.
People only knew that the night had passed very happily. Their whole bodies had felt light and airy, as if they had been in a dream.
Later on, people would call that night, which vanished as easily as a bubble, the Night of Bubbles.
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