The black sludge slammed into the ground with a menacing force. Ichigo could scarcely believe the chaos unfolding before him. First, he narrowly escaped death, then witnessed his zanpakuto splintered in two, and now this. Haschwalth was equally astounded. Never had he seen a sword implode into a viscous liquid. The sludge writhed violently, and Haschwalth, anticipating the worst, braced for an attack.
What happened next was beyond comprehension. A metal claw erupted from the seething black pool, and in the blink of an eye, Haschwalth was impaled, despite his readiness. The old man's eyes widened with disbelief. He had foreseen the threat to his right-hand man and was certain it could be easily deflected.
How could Jugram activate his 'blut vene' and still be pierced? What kind of monstrosity was this?
Ichigo stood speechless, lost in bewilderment. He knew the capabilities of his zanpakuto, and this was beyond anything he recognized. Zangetsu... no, that couldn't be Zangetsu; it couldn't transform into a clawed hand.
The sludge began to morph, taking on the size and shape of a human, hoisting the bloodied Jugram upward. As the tendrils receded, the figure revealed itself: the hooded man from the unknown dimension, the man—the monster—known as Alexander J. Mercer. In his dying breath, Jugram weakly warned the old man, "Your Majesty… run away… warn Wandereich… delay the attack."
Mercer launched Jugram into the air, retracting his lethal claw. With ruthless efficiency, he transformed his left hand into a blade, slicing upwards and cleaving Jugram from waist to shoulder. The remnants of Jugram Haschwalth crumpled at Mercer's feet. The sheer brutality of Jugram's end stunned Ichigo and the old man, but it was Mercer's next act that sent shivers down their spines.
Mercer knelt over Jugram's still-twitching form and impaled him with his transformed claw. Tendrils erupted from his right arm, enveloping Jugram as he howled in agony, his final moments consumed by excruciating pain. In an instant, the man known as Jugram Haschwalth vanished before their very eyes, leaving nothing behind.
A sudden surge of Jugram's memories crashed into him, igniting a maelstrom of doubt and inner turmoil. Though these recollections were as familiar to him as his own shadow— routinely experienced from his awakening until the very end—they now carried an unsettling weight. Yet, trapped in a reformative state within another dimension, he was confined by a cruel limitation: he could only preserve memories of his victims spanning from a year to the moment of their demise. Desperate to uncover clues about the nature of this bewildering new world, he deliberately discarded trivial recollections—those as fleeting as half a month—and filtered through more substantial fragments. One memory bank, dating from somewhere between half a year and the present, unexpectedly emerged. His rusty state only allowed him to catch snatches of dialogue from it:
"Your Majesty…I have news for you…Ichigo has reached Mugetsu and defeated Aizen… …What are your orders…Your Majesty?
…Royd Lloyd, you are to accompany me and fight off Captain Yamamoto… …His Majesty will have… word with… Aizen…"
He had just consumed Jugram's memories when a competing surge of power rippled within him, provoking a tempest of conflicting sensations. An invasive force, shimmering blue lights, began to snake through his system, gradually coalescing into a star-shaped emblem that branded itself upon his heart—a symbol that both beckoned and intimidated him. A brittle, distant voice, reminiscent of an aging sage, murmured:
Come to me, my child, join my ranks
In the consuming darkness, Mercer found himself striding along a solitary path illuminated by the eerie blue glow. His familiar jacket had been replaced by an unfamiliar white overcoat, a detail that stirred disquiet in him. The voice persisted, calling out,
"Come to me, my child,"
A summons that blurred the line between duty and doubt. With a turbulent curiosity, Mercer followed the luminous trail, unaware that each step eroded the path behind him as if erasing his past.
At the journey's end, he beheld a throne occupied by the mysterious old man—the very source of the beckoning voice. Again, the call echoed: "Come to me, my child." Caught between irresistible compulsion and bitter suspicion, Mercer advanced toward Yhwach, tentatively reaching out his hand. In that moment, a familiar interjection shattered his trance:
Mercer!!
The voice belonged to Dr. Ragland, its urgency mingling with a haunting familiarity. The chorus of names grew as Dana Mercer and then Elizabeth Greene—voices tethered to his identity—chanted his name repeatedly. Each utterance seared his consciousness until one final, all-consuming shout reverberated in his soul:
MERCER!!
As the sound faded, the final name felt achingly intimate—"Heller?"—a whisper from deep within. Abruptly, the shimmering blue path fractured like splintered glass, and its once-vivid hue faded into emptiness. Wrenching himself from the trance, Mercer glanced down at his own steps and was struck by a startling revelation: he was not in his own skin at all—he had been wearing Haschwalth's skin all along.
Realizing the magnitude of deceit, Mercer's inner conflict erupted into action. With a primal snarl, he lunged at the old man, toppling the throne with a violent impact. The old man muttered in disbelief, "You're not Haschwalth…" as the power dynamics shattered. In a torrent of rage and anguish, Mercer roared,
"I'M NOT HASCHWALTH, AND I'M NOT SOMEONE'S BITCH, EITHER!"
as he tore into the old man with the ferocity of a beast, his fury mingling with the torment of betrayal.
Claws raked deep into a neck, and as tendrils of raw power burst forth from his arms, they entwined the disintegrating corpse, erasing every trace of its former self. All the while, the path he had so reluctantly followed crumbled behind him. The tendrils reached for the emblem branded upon his heart, embedding themselves deeper within him, and with this act, something potent and unsettling stirred within his soul.
Amid the chaos of conflicting memories, new images scrambled into view: a girl in a white uniform with black hair, her tendril-like strands forming spectral wings and scattering bio bombs in all directions; a man in jet-black, panther-shaped armor crafted from tendrils, dashing at Ichigo with a wild animal's ferocity; and lastly, a recollection of all three of them —himself, the girl, and the armored man—plunging into an all-consuming void. Each memory ignited a spark of internal strife, leaving Mercer torn between the remnants of his past and the brutal reality of his present.
Mercer leaped to his feet, spinning to face the ancient foe with eyes that burned like coals. "Yhwach… your name is Yhwach, isn't it?" he thundered, his voice slicing through the tension.
"Then the younger one I consumed back there must be you as well, right?" he spat, his tone laced with grim satisfaction as he finally recognized the subtle differences between this Yhwach and the phantom from another realm.
Mercer's relentless barrage of questions sent icy tendrils of dread down Ichigo's spine. The enemy before him bore an uncanny resemblance not only to Old Man Zangetsu—the very embodiment of his zanpakuto's legacy—but also to the twisted echo of his own spirit.
Ichigo's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword while a single phrase from Mercer's words replayed in his mind with horrifying clarity:
"So the younger one that I consumed back there must be you too, am I right?"
In that moment, the truth slashed through him like a frozen blade. His zanpakuto had been transmuted into a sinister sludge, morphing, reshaping into Mercer himself—an act that left him reeling with the realization:
This man had devoured Old Man Zangetsu.
Simultaneously, Yhwach's mind reeled at the thought that Mercer had dispatched his loyal lieutenant, Haschwalth, with unnerving ease. A dreadful possibility began to coalesce in his thoughts: Mercer had arrived in Zangetsu's dimension a heartbeat before Jugram could shatter the cursed sword, swallowed him whole, and emerged in a form that enabled his invasion of the Soul Society.
Regaining a cold composure, Yhwach's eyes burned with contempt as he spat back, "So what if I am?"
"Then you're next on the list, you bearded piece of filth," Mercer snarled, his grin widening into a predatory smirk.
In a brutal display of raw aggression, Mercer lunged, his massive leap shattering the ground beneath him.
"Heilig Pfeil!"
A hailstorm of arrows erupted from behind, desperate attempts to keep the onslaught at bay. "IT TAKES MORE THAN THAT TO FINISH ME OFF!"
Undaunted, Mercer barreled forward, ignoring the murderous projectiles as he closed the gap. As Yhwach braced himself within sword's reach, he glimpsed a horrific vision—twenty seconds into the future, Mercer tearing his left arm away. In a frantic bid to stave off his inevitable downfall, Yhwach unsheathed his blade, ready to counter. Mercer, reading his movement, slammed his foot into the earth to abruptly halt his momentum, sliding several meters toward his foe.
At that critical moment, Yhwach raised his sword high and swung down with devastating force, aiming to decimate Mercer's left flank. Bolstered by his grim foresight, he trusted his own prediction. But rather than evading the blow, Mercer embraced it, his defiant act leaving Yhwach staggered.
"It's no use; you're already dead before you can even reach me," Yhwach taunted with chilling arrogance.
"WHO DARES DECIDE THAT?"
Mercer roared, meeting his strike as the two forces collided in a symphony of chaos. Yhwach's slash, aimed expertly from the left flank, struck Mercer—and with it came a searing agony that flared as his left arm betrayed him. The grip on his sword loosened, and it clattered to the bloodstained ground.
Impossible...
Yhwach's mind reeled; every meticulous precaution he had taken crumbled before his eyes. Even as his blow had fatally wounded Mercer, the dread prophecy of the future still unfolded in brutal clarity.
Then, with wide, shocked eyes, Yhwach witnessed Mercer rise as if shrugging off the fatal impact. Fresh, gaping wounds marred his body, yet he dismissed them with an unsettling nonchalance.
And then the final, horrifying spectacle began: thin, sinewy tendrils oozed from the depths of his open wounds, twisting and weaving like threads mending a torn tapestry. They glowed with an intense red light, erasing the violent traces of blood and wound as if devouring them whole. Yhwach's heart pounded as long-buried emotions—a raw, primal terror—resurfaced, an emotion his enemies had once felt when facing his wrath.
In an explosion of predatory energy, Mercer vaulted out of the embracing shadows. Yhwach barely had time to react, his abilities frozen in awe. With lightning speed, Mercer transformed his left arm into a nightmarish appendage and hurled it forward like a monstrous blow. The arm, elongated into a venomous vine, reached impossibly toward Yhwach's shocked visage. The hand twisted into a lethal claw designed to snatch and rend.
The abomination closed in, its claw latching onto Yhwach's left eye, burrowing with savage intent. Yhwach's scream split the air in a torrent of fury and agony as the claw gripped his eye. With a brutal yank, Mercer tore the eye clean from its socket. The sound of ripping flesh was drowned out only by Yhwach's ensuing wails as he clutched the bleeding void where his eye had been. In that macabre moment, visions surged unbidden—towering skyscrapers, desolate train stations, secret laboratories... and the figure of Alex Mercer looming ominously.
"Alex Mercer… is that your name?" an otherworldly voice seemed to echo through the carnage.
Mercer's voice regained its eccentric cadence from a long-forgotten world as he replied, "Now we're just beginning to get acquainted."
"DAMN YOU, YOU MONSTER!" Yhwach howled, staggering backward into the deepening shadows that gradually swallowed him whole.
A wicked, satisfied smile twisted on Mercer's lips as he clutched the viciously torn eye—a grim, rare trophy. With a deliberate motion, he consumed the alien eye, and in that act, his mind was flooded with a kaleidoscope of disturbing, surreal visions that promised even darker fates.
Visions danced through the void, unraveling like tattered scrolls of history before his eyes. A younger version of himself, adorned in regal garments, stood defiantly against thirteen warriors cloaked in black, their blades gleaming with an unrelenting will to cut down his ambition. Their forms flickered—some wielding immense spiritual pressure, others striking with blinding speed or unshakable resolve.
Then, a shift. He found himself seated across from a rotund, bald monk, whose very presence felt like the weight of eternity pressing against his chest. The man bore a knowing smirk, mirroring his own power, his words laced with cryptic wisdom. It was not a clash of swords but a battle of minds, each syllable exchanged carrying the weight of a thousand lifetimes.
Smoke coiled into the sky, thick and suffocating. A village lay in ruin, its people screaming as flames devoured their homes. Amidst the chaos, a boy with a striking Mohawk stood frozen on a hilltop, eyes wide in horror as his world was reduced to embers.
The scent of iron filled the air as he poured a small, crimson offering into a delicate saucer. He extended it toward those he deemed worthy, his chosen few. They took it without hesitation, eyes glimmering with reverence, knowing that to drink was to bind their fate to his.
A kingdom, long abandoned, stood in solemn silence before the storm. His army advanced like an unrelenting tide, banners fluttering against the howling wind. The battle commenced, steel clashing against steel, the air thick with the scent of sweat and blood as his forces claimed dominion over the forsaken land.
From the past surged another duel—a clash against one of the thirteen warriors he had faced a millennium ago. Time had not dulled their ferocity; every strike carried the weight of the ages, their battle a tapestry of raw power and unyielding will.
Then, a towering fortress came into view, suspended above the world like an ominous omen. Its foundations were not rooted in stone or soil but in something far more arcane, an eternal monolith gazing down upon existence itself.
Within its depths, a figure stood frozen in crystal, their body unyielding, their mind trapped in an endless abyss. A silent prisoner of time, bound by an unfathomable fate.
But then—darkness.
The visions twisted, black and red tendrils slithering through them like creeping corruption, devouring the past and replacing it with something new. He saw the memories that had surfaced when he consumed another's power, but now, they were laced with fresh encounters, new alliances forged in shadow, and battles that shook the heavens.
A woman, tall and commanding, her icy gaze colder than the glacial monstrosity she conjured. A sphere of frost, vast as a continent, loomed in the sky, its presence an unspoken promise of devastation.
Another figure, swift as death itself, her black hair whipping through the air as she struck with lethal precision. A crimson glow trailed her blade, each slash carrying a silent finality, as
if existence itself bowed before her will.
A half-clothed woman, her movements both elegant and monstrous. The sentient, writhing sash at her waist lashed out like a beast with a mind of its own, ensnaring, devouring, dancing with an insatiable hunger.
Then, a man cloaked in darkness, his form a shadow against the fabric of reality. His presence was an enigma, his steps soundless, yet the weight of his power was undeniable.
The visions blurred, merging into one another, an ever-expanding tapestry of past and future, conquest and destruction. And at the center of it all, he stood—watching, waiting, shaping fate with his own hand.
At last, the answer he had been seeking began to take shape, unraveling from the chaos of visions like a thread pulled taut from a tangled weave. His mind throbbed, drowning in the weight of revelation. A war—a millennium-old conflict between two opposing forces. Soul Reapers. Quincies. A clash of ideologies, of power, of destruction stretching across time itself.
And somehow, he had appeared right in the middle of it all.
He exhaled sharply, feeling the pressure in his skull intensify as fragmented memories surged forward, each one clawing for dominance in his mind. A deep, aching pulse ran through his head, forcing him to clutch it with one trembling hand. It was too much. The flood of information pressed against the limits of his consciousness, demanding to be processed, to be understood.
The visions from before—the ones that bore no connection to this world—lingered at the edges of his awareness, whispering like ghosts in the dark. Powerful figures, unfamiliar battles, landscapes beyond anything he had known. But they were not his priority. Not yet.
For now, he had to focus. In this world. On the war that had already reshaped its history once before.
On the role he was meant to play within it.