Chapter 1294 Collapse part 2

Ichibei turned into a blur and reappeared in front of Kisuke while brandishing his glaive.

Sadly for him, his impatience made it very easy for Kisuke to respond. While blocking the glaive with his dagger, Kisuke lifted his foot that was on Ichibei's blindspot and kicked him on his flank, sending the whitened monk like a meteor to the depths of the Dimensional Gap.

Kisuke stared at the direction he disappeared for a few moments and concluded that he wouldn't be attacking any further until he understood the situation more, 'The problem is this...' Kisuke thought while glancing at his cane. He unsheathed her for a bit and saw that the former silvery blade was now pitch black, 'I can't talk to her at all. What happened?'

While repeatedly attempting to contact Benihime, Kisuke turned around to greet everyone, "Yo, Issei. I didn't think you'd come here."

"I also didn't think I'd be responding to a call like this for a second time. Couldn't you settle things peacefully?" Issei sighed in relief and began healing his wounds with TouKi.

Kisuke then glanced at the rest, stopping for a bit on Yamamoto, Aizen, and Yhwach before moving towards Serafall who was still dumbfoundedly staring at him. He smiled wryly at her and said, "You're a mess, but thank you for the hard work. It isn't settled yet but you can rest now. I'll see you later."

Kisuke then turned around and like a flash, he disappeared in the depths of the pseudo-Dimensional Gap.

"...W-wait!" Serafall tried calling out with her hoarse voice, but she couldn't even extend any of her remaining limbs due to the strain of aborting her self-destruction earlier. She doesn't know if it's the injury she received or the relief of knowing that Kisuke is still alive, her vision blurred and soon darkness has claimed her consciousness.

Since the restriction keeping her in place had disappeared, she started falling and Kunou hurriedly caught her. Upon closer inspection, she found out that Serafall's condition was not any better than those on their deathbed, "T-Tanis! Come over here, please!"

Unfortunately, Tanis is still in her Outrage mode so it'll take a while for her to return to her normal self.

[Bring her here.] Kunou suddenly received a Telepathic message through Magic while thinking about what she should do next. She hurriedly turned around the source of the message and found that Mayuri was looking at her at a distance, [You don't want her condition to worsen any further, do you? Thankfully, my facility is still intact and most of the damage she received was directly inflicted on her soul.]

Kunou gritted her teeth and flew straight toward Mayuri.

Mayuri, on the other hand, turned around and started walking away from the group.

"Wait. Where are you going?" Kyouraku asked him when he noticed his movements.

"We're done here. All there's needed to do is to resume the migration and clean up." Mayuri replied before turning towards Retsu, "Unohana, please follow me. I might need your help."

Retsu nodded but instead of immediately following, she turned to Isane, the current Captain of the 4th Division, and said, "Isane, please look for Kirinji-san. He should be in Hifune-san's room along with the other members of the Zero Division. Please tell him to follow us."

Mayuri furrowed his brows at her and said, "There's a reason why they haven't shown themselves."

"And that reason was kicked to the side. Give a little bit of faith that Urahara will finally put an end to this." Retsu replied, "Besides, I think we should give it our best effort to restore her to full health. Maybe we'll be able to use that for the incoming negotiations."

Mayuri stared at her for a while before sighing and disappearing with Flash Step, "Do what you want."

Retsu also disappeared following him and Isane first looked at Kyouraku for confirmation before also leaving to fetch Tenjirou.

Kyouraku was glad that Retsu suggested that to Mayuri since it wouldn't just allow them to get additional negotiation chips, it'll also prevent Mayuri from doing anything suspicious. Kyouraku is confident of Mayuri's loyalty to their organization, but that same loyalty allows him to unhesitantly cross dangerous lines.

Kyouraku looked around and his attention landed on the group of foreigners, 'Back to politics again... I really hate this job.'

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Because there was no resistance, Ichibei flew uncontrollably through the twisting space and this allowed him to travel unreasonably farther than normal. But since Kisuke already knew how to track someone within the Dimensional Gap, he didn't leave his senses even for a bit.

Kisuke took his time to catch up to him to check the overall condition of his body, 'Aside from being unable to talk to Benihime, everything seems to be fine? I'm surprised I didn't sustain any serious injury from that transformation.'

[Well, you essentially transformed your body's composition infinitely close to Prima Materia.] Tiamat's voice resounded in Kisuke's head.

"Oh, is it the same as Sirzechs and Serafall's Super Devil form?"

[While it's similar to those incorporeal transformations, it's also something else entirely different. It's even debatable if you're truly someone 'alive' at that point.]

"Huh? Isn't that the same body you have in your prime?"

[It looks like mine and even functionally the same, but I was not able to wield Prima Materia as well as you. I have no way of reconstructing my body like that.]

"Reconstructing? I did something like that?"

Tiamat paused for a moment and with an obviously bothered tone, she asked, [You don't remember?]

"Nope. Everything is too blurry. I was too busy holding on to my will.", answered Kisuke after thinking about it for a moment, "By the way, can you contact Benihime from your side?"

In Kisuke's inner world, Tanis is standing on a black flood, and in front of her is a pitch-black Japanese castle, [No, but I can tell you that she's in here.]

Kisuke tried using his [Shadow] but nothing happened when he tried summoning it, "I also can't feel whatever she took from Hyousube-san. Is she actually digesting that? Oi, Benihime, if you can hear me, don't just eat whatever you got. It'll be bad for your stomach."

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Ichibei's mind was running at full throttle, trying to understand what had just happened. Although he's still trying to find out the cause, Ichibei is able to figure out that his power didn't disappear but was scattered everywhere. He could still feel his innate connection with them and he's certain that he just needs to gather them back together, 'But something is missing... What is it!?'

But before he could answer that question, Kisuke's figure appeared in front of him, barring him from further action. Ichibei wanted to snatch some of those scattered powers right this moment, however, he didn't have a choice but to face the detestable man who dragged him down back to something insignificant.

"You'll pay for this."

In any case, this is also a good chance to find some answers to what Kisuke truly did back then and the black substance he caught that isn't part of his authority over [Black].