Chapter 352: Mazuru vs. Azashiro
As the man who bears the title of Kenpachi, Kenpachi Azashiro carried a deep-rooted pride. Even though Mazuru had risen to become the new King of Hueco Mundo by succeeding Aizen, Azashiro refused to blindly acknowledge his power. To him, strength wasn’t something inherited or flaunted—it was something tested in the crucible of battle.
Of course, Mazuru’s effortless destruction of Szayelaporro’s clone had already demonstrated a terrifying level of power, but that was merely from a bystander’s point of view. If he wanted to understand Mazuru’s true strength, he needed to test it with his own hands.
"Hadō #90 — Kurohitsugi!"
True to his background as one who had been imprisoned in Muken, Kenpachi Azashiro’s combat style shared similarities with Aizen. Without hesitation, he invoked one of Aizen’s signature techniques right at the start.
A massive black cuboid erupted from the ground and immediately engulfed Mazuru. Shadows twisted within the cube, promising to rend whatever was trapped inside.
But before the dark blades of shadow could even stab forward, Mazuru released a sliver of his spiritual pressure. Instantly, the Kurohitsugi fractured and crumbled as if the spell itself had lost the will to continue.
*Crack!*
Kenpachi Azashiro remained unfazed. Calmly, he began chanting again—and more Kurohitsugis appeared.
Even though abandoning the chant typically weakened Hadō spells by two-thirds, exceptions always existed. In Aizen’s hands, even a chantless Kurohitsugi could suppress most captains. Likewise, the Kurohitsugis conjured by Kenpachi Azashiro defied the standard.
In rapid succession, fifty Kurohitsugis rose and layered themselves atop each other. The effect was like a cascading matryoshka—darkness folding within darkness, each one more suffocating than the last.
They fell like a barrage upon Mazuru, attempting to drown him in an ever-deepening tomb of shadows.
*Boom!Crack! Boom!*