'What now?' Kisuke retreated from Szayelaporro while also observing his surroundings. What he and Serafall noticed was that it wasn't just Szayelaporro but also the other [Chained] who started screaming in pain as the chains around them started moving around and strangling the life out of them.
"Ki-tan! What's going on!?" Serafall shouted towards Kisuke.
"I don't know, but forget about them. I'll leave the girls' safety in your hand!" Kisuke made several hand gestures to activate the modules he prepared for Claire, Tanis, and Kunou's safety as Serafall made her way towards them.
At the same time, the contracting chains suddenly shot out, but not towards him, but towards the other [Chained], connecting despite the distance between them.
'A trap?' Kisuke initially thought as he saw the chains span out, 'Are they going to catch the others too? If that's the case, it'll be extremely dangerous.'
Kisuke swung Tiamat horizontally and the blade released a very sharp wind, cutting multiple chains on the way out. However, the black chains only wriggled for a bit before liquifying and connecting back to their disconnected parts.
Kisuke didn't give up and used Tiamat to cut one of the chains once again and before they repaired itself, Kisuke grabbed one of its ends with his hand and blocked it. It almost slipped out of his hand when it turned liquid but Kisuke was faster and enclosed his hand and the chains with Ice Magic.
The chains wriggled for a few seconds before dropping motionless. The next instant, more chains sprung up from the upper stream of the link, connecting back to the other end, 'It was a good try, I guess?' Kisuke calmly watches this unfold while letting go of the 'lifeless' chains in his hand. He was already expecting like this to happen considering how malleable these things were . What he really was after was to know their inner workings and what exactly are they trying to accomplish, 'Tiamat, any clue?'
[...One thing is clear. It has no intention of hurting you or those around you. And that one Shinigami doesn't seem to be affected.]
'Well, isn't that annoying?' Kisuke turned to the Shinigami that Tiamat was talking about while wishing that these chains were trying to hurt him. But now that wasn't the case, their intention became even more cloudy from Kisuke's perspective. Without knowing their goal, Kisuke was stuck waiting for something to happen and reacted, 'It looks like Katori-san's Heartless Isolation is effective. Probably on the same level as Dimension Lost's isolation capabilities.'
As the screams get louder and louder, Kisuke wonders what these former Arrancars are experiencing because he's sure that they are not the type of people to destroy their lungs and throat just from unimaginable pain.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Kisuke would see the reason just a few seconds later.
As the chains dug into their flesh, small mouths with human teeth and tongues suddenly opened on the chains and started taking a bite out of their flesh, further digging into their very being.
"!?"
This scene immediately reminded Kisuke of the [Chain of Fate] that appears when a Human dies with regrets or is separated from their Physical Body. It's the same scene when these chains were shortened enough that they started eating themselves in a frenzy and slowly turned into a Hollow. But instead of self-cannibalism, they are eating their host.
"I don't think this is just some sort of self-defense mechanism that suddenly activated when one of them died," Kisuke muttered to himself and observed the other Arrancars and the [Chained] Shinigamis from the distance who are suffering the same fate.
[Regroup for now.] Kisuke sent a short message to everyone while he himself started attacking Szayelaporro and activating the technique he prepared to forcefully remove the chains to render their immortality useless.
Kisuke was able to separate them for a bit but only temporarily as it went back to gnawing Szayelaporro.
Kisuke tried it again and even strengthened his grip on the chains, but the result was the same. He naturally wasn't doing this to save Szayelaporro but to study its reaction and gleam into its mysteriousness, 'This thing is really familiar... Could it be...'
While Kisuke was deep in thought, he heard Szayelaporro mouthing in between his screams, "W-why!!? Why... is... this... happening!!!?"
It was his last words when he suddenly stopped struggling and stayed unmoving. A pathetic end for someone who boasted his power and couldn't use it until the end.
What's worse than that, however, was the fact that the only person watching his end couldn't care less about it and his entire attention was just on fulfilling his curiosity.
Even for Szayelaporro, knowing that this was already truly the end for him, it was a disrespect that he'll never be able to forget.
'The properties of these chains... Not exactly metallic... But ink?' As this thought went through Kisuke's head a realization immediately dawned on him and he immediately sent an emergency message to Serafall, Kunou, and Tanis, [Be careful of a surprise attack!]
But instead of acknowledgement, he only heard Serafall's panicked voice back, [Ki-tan! Behind you! Watch out!]
"!?"
There was only a slight fluctuation in the air but Kisuke hurriedly tried to turn around while brandishing Tiamat. However, he was too slow as he felt something cutting through his back, slashing through his passive defenses, and almost cutting his body in half, "...Guhh!!!"
.
.
.
Just a minute or two earlier, in a scorching field that's akin to the mouth of a volcano, both Yamamoto, with the burning body, and Baraggan who is now a skeleton with 2 pairs of tusks on his head and various golden accessories attached to his body, are looking towards the direction where the golden light appeared and disappeared.
"Hooh... Looks like your comrade just met his end." Yamamoto muttered while stroking his beard.
"..." Baraggan only remained silent for a few seconds before he stepped back and intended to leave.
Of course, Yamamoto wouldn't allow that and directly burned him with a swing of his Zanpakuto.
Baraggan immediately crumbled under the immense heat but immediately started standing up when the flames were done turning him into ashes.
Seeing this, Yamamoto never felt as useless as he is now. Although Baraggan's miasma couldn't approach him due to the intense heat that he's naturally releasing, he also couldn't keep Baraggan from reviving.
While waiting for Baraggan to reform, Yamamoto saw the other Arrancars reach the little girl whom Kisuke and Serafall were already defending and thought, 'I have to punish those idiots later for letting them go.'
Yamamoto reduced Baraggan once again to ashes to keep him in place and was about to do it again for the third time after his attempt to escape when the chains suddenly came alive and started consuming its host.
Yamamoto was shocked and bothered. Regardless, he's an expert at one thing and that's the only thing he needs to do now so he burned the writhing Baraggan.
This time, however, Baraggan wasn't reduced to ashes and the chains around him kept eating his bones.
"..." Yamamoto didn't know what's going on but he soon received a message from Kisuke to regroup.
He thought it was a good idea and decided to leave Baraggan. Because he could feel the movement of others through their Reiatsu, they were able to silently communicate where they would go and soon they found the appropriate spot and that's where Batsu'unsai and Saizou were still locked in battle, seemingly unaffected by all the chaos.
Yamamoto and the others successively arrived at the vicinity of Heartless Isolation. But when he was just about to give everyone a short lecture, from the corner of his eyes, he saw a very familiar figure, creeping behind Kisuke and was about to slash down his glaive that strangely looked like a calligraphy brush if one didn't look at it carefully.