An Unprecedented Threat

500 feet below the surface of the Seireitei, covered in over 80 seals from head to toe and his spirit energy and himself restrained to a chair lied the feared Sosuke Aizen. In the pitch black room, built with reinforced sekkiseki stone, which is an undestroyable material that also reduces the spirit energy in the vicinity, Aizen sat there in absolute silence. Within the room, there was no sound, no light, and no disturbances whatsoever. The doors to the prison were then slowly opened. Light began to shine into the dark room and the light blinded Aizen for an instant before he saw who was standing behind the doors.

"So you've made it this far...interesting." Aizen said with no shock whatsoever.

Mizukai, holding a dead prison officer in his hand replied, "Did you really think for a second that anyone in this Soul Society would hold a candle to me?" Mizukai walked closer to Aizen. Looking around the dark room as he walked closer he looked at Aizen, "So you've been in here all this time?"

"I've grown rather fond with this room throughout the years." Aizen replied to Mizukai. " So why did you come here Mizukai?" He asked.

Mizukai managed a sly smile, "Just came to say hi, that's all."

Aizen began to reciprocate that sly smile, "So should I assume that all the captains are dead?"

Mizukai took a look at his zanpakuto that he had been holding out of its sheath since he left the captains. "They're still fighting "me" as of now...because of my zanpakuto, as you know, it's base form holds the ability to put people under a perfect hypnosis where they see whatever I want them to see, smell whatever I want them to smell, taste whatever I want them to taste, and feel whatever I want them to feel. All I need to do to put them under my zanpakuto's perfect hypnosis is to have them see the gleam of my blade. That is my zanpakuto, Raikujo Shinoda's, base ability. It's base form is meant for hypnosis rather than striking, so it's blade is actually quite dull. I simply put enough force and spirit energy into a strike of mine to make it penetrate as if the blade were as sharp as any other." After completing his explanation, Mizukai turned around and began slowly walking back towards the doors he came in from. Before he walked out he took a glance back and told Aizen, "Next time I come, it'll be for you." With a devilish smile on his face, he walked away into the light as the doors slowly began to shut behind him.

Mizukai walked from Rukia's residence in the Soul Society to the Senkaimon portal with ease and went through to leave. He went through the portal and finally sheathed his zanpakuto once he was inside the Precipice World, which acts as a bridge between the Human World and the Soul Society. Back where the 12 captains were, the hypnosis on them finally passed. Once it went away, the captains realized they had been fighting themselves the whole time. Realizing that Mizukai had escaped now and the fight was done, Byakuya left the scene immediately and found Rukia on the floor near the entrance to the Seireitei. Byakuya picked her up and held her in his arms as he took her to the medical house as fast as he could, in hopes that she could be healed. Renji Abarai, the lieutenant of squad 6, Byakuya's squad, and husband of Rukia Kuchiki showed within minutes after Byakuya brought Rukia to the medics.

"What happened to her Byakuya?" Renji asked him in worry.

"The intruder...he took her on one on one...as you can see, the battle did not end in Rukia's favor." Byakuya said to Renji in a calm manner.

"Where is that son of a bitch! He's gonna pay for this!" Renji exclaimed with anger.

Before Renji could try and storm out the door and do anything else, Byakuya placed his hand on Renji's shoulder, " Renji, I understand how angry you may be, but you cannot let your anger lead you astray. This man, from what we have witnessed, knows everything about us while we know nothing of him. He is very similar to Sosuke Aizen in the way that just like Aizen, he plans for every possibility long before it occurs. Running in there on your own with your emotions running wild will only have you in the same situation as Rukia right now or even worse. Stay back for now Renji, we must plan, and learn more of this new enemy of ours to be able to have a better chance at stopping him."

Renji began to slowly calm down, after a little while, he finally responded, "I understand Captain Kuchiki...but we should at least inform Ichigo of this matter because who knows where the intruder could've gone after he was done here. Ichigo has a family now, he needs to know what's going on so he can protect them."

"Yes, I will make sure that Ichigo Kurosaki is informed of what has just occurred here in the Soul Society. I must go now, you keep watch over Rukia." Byakuya said to Renji as he disappeared.

"Yes captain Kuchiki..." Renji said in a faltered tone. "Damn whoever this guy is. I promise you Rukia, he will pay for what he's done to you." He whispered as he looked at Rukia laying in the bed.

Meanwhile, all the other captains had quickly attended to their wounds. Now, everyone was on high alert, the gates were guarded by an entire army of soul reapers, inside those gates there was another army of soul reapers with lieutenants among them, within the Seireitei, the Stealth Force ( Squad 2) patrolled the area in disguise. All the captains were on standby at the moment dealing with their own individual duties. Within the squad 1 barracks sat Shunsui Kyouraku, the head captain.

"What was this kid's goal in coming here in the first place?" Kyouraku asked himself. "He broke into the Seireitei, slaughtered Rukia, was surrounded by us, but yet somehow managed to fool us to think we were fighting him..." "He managed to fool us to fool us to think we were fighting him..." Kyouraku repeated to himself. "He...fooled us...with his zanpakuto!" Finally coming to a conclusion, Kyouraku began to piece things together. "He began the fight with us by unsheathing his blade, which was after he had said he didn't have time for us...The only other soul reaper with an ability of hypnosis like that is...Sosuke Aizen's Kyoka Suigetsu!"

Right after Kyouraku came to this realization he made a direct bee-line to the prison Aizen was being held in. He quickly got the permission of the guards to enter and walked straight up to Aizen within the prison.

"So he was with you wasn't he Sosuke Aizen?" Kyouraku asked, already knowing the answer.

"It took no longer than I expected it would for you to figure it out head captain Kyouraku." Aizen replied.

"Answer me Aizen. What did he come here for and why and how is he working with you?" Kyouraku asked Aizen.

"I'll tell you the truth, head captain Kyouraku, because honestly, even if you all do learn everything about him, none of you will ever be strong enough to stop him." Aizen said. " His name is Mizukai, and yes, he is my son. I've trained him to become as smart as I and even stronger than I. His zanpakuto wields an ability similar to mine which is perfect hypnosis, except even I'll admit that his zanpakuto is much stronger than mine. Just like he told me, he literally only came here to say hello to me and to tell me that he'd be back to set me free from this binding. I told him long before I initiated the battle with all you captains that he was my trump card and that if things went south, he would be the one to finish my plan. So I would have to assume, Mizukai is here now...to finish things."

Captain Kyouraku took a moment to let all this information sink in. "Aizen, why would you say that his zanpakuto is much more powerful than yours?" He asked first.

"You all will soon find out." Aizen responded.

Annoyed by Aizen's response to his question, Kyouraku continued to analyze the situation they have at hand, "So if Mizukai really has come to finish things and he's your son...he would also want revenge...Mizukai didn't kill Rukia because she was the first to encounter him, he killed her because she had a part to play in your demise! This means Ichigo Kurosaki, Renji, and everyone else who helped out to beat you in the end is in danger!" Kyouraku finally concluded from this conversation.

"Ichika, Ichika!?" Renji called for their daughter as he entered their house. " Ichika where are you? You need to come with me, your mom's in the hospital!"

"Hey dad! Mom's in the hospital!?" Ichika suddenly appeared.

"Yes. We need to go and stay by her side." Renji responded.

Ichika ran out the door in worry for her mother, Rukia. Renji was on his way out until he sensed a form of spirit energy resonating within the house. He began looking around like a dog trying to find where he was sensing it from. He found the spot where the energy was at its highest, but at that point he realized, and was too late to realize, someone had placed a bomb formed off spirit energy. Before he could move away from it exploded. The entire house was blown to bits and the explosion was large enough to be seen for miles. Ichika, a good distance away from the house, already looked back and saw that her home was up in flames. "Dad!" Ichika cried.

Out of the shroom of smoke and flames came out Renji in a pink, fur coat covering him with what seemed like the skeleton of a giant snake or dragon of some sort connected to his right arm. He landed in front of Ichika and took a knee as the snake-dragon skeleton curled around him as a kind of protective shell.

"Dad? Are you ok?" Ichika asked, worried if her father was still even conscious.

Renji turned around and looked at Ichika with a deadly serious face. " It's ok Ichika, I'm fine. And don't worry...this is my bankai." Renji reassured Ichika.

Ichika was at a loss of words. This was the first time she had ever seen her dad's bankai.

"I will make sure that your blood is on my hands you bastard!" Renji thought with rage.

Back where Head Captain Kyouraku was, a messenger came running in. "Head Captain Kyouraku! The Kuchiki-Abarai residence was just blown to bits!"

Kyouraku heard this news with shock. He knew now that his hypothesis was correct.

"Well it seems your theory was correct Head Captain Kyouraku." Aizen said. " Since your theory was correct Head Captain...you know where Mizukai has headed off to next don't you?"

Kyouraku knew instantly where Mizukai was headed now. The World of the Living.