Chapter 243: Pressure
'Who could be interfering with my plans...?' Aizen wondered to himself, seated atop a white, high-backed, throne-like chair at the head of a long table with rounded ends, leaning onto the knuckles of his right hand with a relaxed expression as he listened to reports from the ten white-dressed individuals gathered before him.
"It's strange..." expressed a slender, exceptionally pale man with messy, soot-black hair, melancholic features that included thick, drooping brows, dark-green, ostensibly lifeless eyes with cat-like pupils, bangs that parted his face down the center, and thin teal lines that ran from his eyes to his jawline, resembling permanent tears. Like everyone else present, he wore predominately bone-white clothing with soot-black trim and a soot-black interior, but his most conspicuous features were the segmented, horned, helmet-like mask adorning the left side of his head and the billiard-sized hole above his clavicle—an abyssal black void in his throat that appeared to swallow all light.
"My efforts to infiltrate the Seireitei without triggering their sensors were successful, but before I could set out in search of the one called Kuchiki Rukia, I found myself returned to Hueco Mundo, transported by means I could not perceive..." explained the pale man, Ulquiorra Cifer, also known as the Cuatro(4th) Espada.
"You sure you didn't just chicken out and turn tail...?" asked a tall, notably lanky man with long black hair, thin black eyes, one of which was covered by a white, black-trimmed eyepatch, and a toothy, distinctly inhuman grin that wouldn't look out of place on the face of Mayuri.
Instead of reacting to the grinning man, the Quinto(5th) Espada, Nnoitra Gilga, Ulquiorra closed his eyes and calmly appended, "In my sixty-three subsequent attempts to transgress the Soul Society, I consistently found myself back at my starting point. This leads me to conclude that someone or something is preventing us from leaving Hueco Mundo..."
'The capacity to redirect travel through the Garganta...it's not outside the Soul Society's capabilities, but if it were them, they wouldn't simply return him to us...' determined Aizen, his sharp, hazel-brown eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
"I suppose that's my cue," remarked a voice no one present recognized, accompanied by a basket-ball-sized crystal ball materializing, suspended in the air approximately one meter above the table's surface.
"Huh? And who the hell is this supposed to be...?" asked a man with spiky, pale blue hair, sharp, pale blue eyes accented by spiky green markings at the ends, and a bone-white mask resembling the right side of a predator's toothy maw. His attire consisted of bone white hakama, a black sash, and a ragged, open-front top with a black, flared collar, exposing his muscular body and the large, softball-sized hole in his abdomen.
"A pertinent question, Grimmjow..." hummed Aizen, maintaining his calm facade as he gazed at the crystal ball and attempted to probe it with his senses.
"My name is Vahn Mason, the Dragon God of Intertwining Fates," stated the voice emanating from the crystal ball. "As for why I'm here, it's to give you a choice."
"The Dragon God of Intertwining Fates...that's quite the title..." remarked Aizen, his deep, velvety voice exuding calm but his thoughts racing as he searched his memory for a person or entity bearing Vahn's name and title.