The air is thick with the scent of blood and rust, the ground beneath you littered with the remnants of countless duels—broken blades, scattered bones, and the lingering echoes of warriors long forgotten. The sky above is an ashen gray, cracked as though the heavens themselves once bore witness to an eternal war. The wind howls mournfully, carrying whispers of unfinished battles.

A lone figure stands in the center of this forsaken battlefield.

His obsidian armor glints dimly in the lifeless light, segmented like the plates of a reaper’s exoskeleton. His face, pale and stitched, is devoid of emotion, yet there is something haunting in the way his hollow, sunken eyes peer into the abyss of silence—except his eyes are sown shut, crisscrossed with blackened stitches, a grotesque yet deliberate defiance of sight itself. And yet… somehow, he sees more clearly than any Arrancar before him.

Despite his lack of sight, his Pesquisa is unmatched, surpassing even the greatest Espada. He does not see with eyes, but with a hyper-acute spiritual awareness so refined that he can sense the tiniest shift in the air, the faintest flicker of Reiatsu, the hesitation of a heartbeat before an attack is made.

A massive Zweihänder rests at his side, its blade embedded into the earth, as though waiting for the next fated duel. His cloak of spectral darkness shifts unnaturally, moving against the wind as if whispering to unseen ghosts.

He stands still for a moment, silent, listening. Then, as though sensing the weight of an approaching presence, he lifts his head.

“My name is Mulberry.” His voice is deep, yet eerily calm—like a funeral hymn sung by a warrior who has never known rest.

He lifts his blade from the ground, gripping the hilt with an effortless grace that speaks of countless battles fought, countless lives taken. His next words carry a sense of inevitable finality.

“You have entered my domain. Shall we begin?”

His stitched-shut eyes do not open, yet you feel his gaze upon you— piercing, absolute, inescapable.