Interlude: For Want Of A Secret

One thousand years ago the Quincies led by Yhwach, his lord and other half, attacked the Shinigami led by Genryusai Yamamoto.

One thousand years ago, during the final battle between human and reaper, the Quincy's retreated.

One thousand years ago, the Quincy's defeat was all but guaranteed.

It was a misconception, really.

The Shinigami, at the time, had thought them lost and scattered, when in reality, they'd simply settled for plan B.

Their first attempt had truly been a gamble. A war that could've ended either way.

The Shinigami's victorious and his people dead. Or vice versa.

Only, the Shinigami had failed to understand there was a third option.

To retreat, and bide their time.

A thousand years ago, in the midst of the battle of millennium, his lord had seen it.

The Perfect Victory.

The Almighty allowed himself to peak into the future. And, no matter his own status, he would never dare believe himself an equal to his lord.

And with every year that passed, more and more perfect victories popped up, some he'd seen himself. More and more reassurances piled on to them. More and more reasons to wait, not that they'd ever really had a choice in the matter given the limits placed on his lord.

Eventually, the number of perfect victories had eclipsed everything else. By then, it was only a matter of waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

And than, in the span of a single hour... Everything had changed.

...

Jugram had been taking a stroll through their hidden empire, taking in every being he could see, keeping an eye on the populous so to speak. A routine walk if anything else.

He'd been the first to notice the shift. The surge of reishi that had erupted from his lords private chambers. The surge of reishi that had filled him with despair.

The surge of reishi that had signified Yhwach fully awakening his eyes before their time.

Time had seemed to stand still at that very moment as his mind had run circles around itself wondering why?

After over 900 years of waiting... Why break it now..? Less then a decade shy no less...

And as he'd taken a look around him, taken in the few obviously confused Sternritters, he'd realised, with growing horror, that not a single Sternritter in his sight had been affected.

Not a single Sterntitter in sight had lost their powers. A near impossible miracle in itself truly...

And before he'd been given any time to process that, rather ominous, fact, his eyes whirled around him the moment he'd felt far more reishi than he'd likely ever seen fill the air. Its sheer volume covered the majority of their empire as if it were in a rush to encompass as much as it could.

Violent, unstable reishi rocked the hidden society. Breaking and killing anything stupid or unfortunate enough to get in it's way.

That had been the moment a few Sternritter's started dying.

And though it was their own fault for trying to fight against their lord, he could not help the pain that filled him as he watched them be put down.

But even in the midst of carnage, he waited.

For his lord always had a reason for everything he did.

And this was no exception.

For that night he'd learned why.

It, generally, took him hours of using the Almighty, though he'd never dare abuse it in such a way, before seeing a future that threatened them in anyway. The majority of which generally at the hands of the Shinigami's Captain-commander.

That night however, it hadn't been Yamamoto, it had been at the hands of someone else.

But what had frightened him the most hadn't been the different captain. Nor the potential loss...

No, it was the sheer quantity, for every future he'd seen had been of a devastating defeat.

And, as it were, it was this very reason that had truly doomed them all.

For in his haste, he'd done the one thing he'd never dared to before.

In his haste, he'd sent in a Sternritter to deal with it without his lords approval.

In his haste he'd set in stone the worst possible future imaginable.

The one future that, in the past 200 years, had only showed up once.

The one future his lord had never dared to bring up ever again.

A future that his lord had personally saw to preventing.

In his haste he'd unwittingly brought it back.

Worse yet... It was the only future he could now see.

Soul Societ- No. For all that it was truly worth to him, at the very least it wouldn't be their victory...

In his haste he'd given Aizen Sosuke his Perfect Victory.

And perhaps the worst part. The one that most hurt. Is that no one else knew. And following Gremmy's breakdown and subsequent fumbling of reality.

Given his body's current state, no one else likely ever would.

For just like his fellow Sternritter, he'd been demoted to that of nothing more then a spectator.

A spectator to a broken world.

....

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