Bleach: Awakened — Chapter 28 - The Lucky Fox

"Ha... is that so. Then that's fine."

The conversation ended there. Gin Ichimaru braced himself, his spiritual pressure rising slowly within him, bit by bit, reaching its limit, then surpassing it. His biological instincts were clear: if he couldn't take that slash, he would die.

"Ha... make sure you catch this one!"

Ichigo drew the long blade from his back. Golden spiritual pressure poured steadily into it, and his own spiritual pressure climbed in kind. He wasn't joking. Whether the person in front of him lived or died came down to this single strike. If Gin died, that just meant Gin was too weak. If Gin didn't die, Ichigo had no particular intention of pursuing him.

The two locked eyes. Both expressions were grave, one because his life was on the line, the other because he wanted to see exactly what his own full, completely unrestrained strike could do.

WHOOSH!

Gin struck first. Nothing said he could only stand there and take it. His Zanpakuto flashed out like lightning, shooting straight at Ichigo's face!

"Not slow." Ichigo tilted his head slightly and smiled. "But not fast either."

An extension speed several times the speed of sound, and that was all it earned. The blade tip shrieked past and grazed the side of Ichigo's head without cutting off so much as a single strand of hair.

"I can't figure out why you don't have a Bankai."

Gin's pale blue pupils snapped tight. His eyes went wide, because Ichigo was already right in front of him, and at that moment his Zanpakuto, Shinso, had not yet retracted. Which meant Ichigo's speed had outpaced several times the speed of sound.

"Or maybe your Bankai would be completely useless right now?"

The long blade rose high and didn't come down. Ichigo seemed to be waiting for something, pausing there for just that briefest instant.

"Damn it!"

The next instant, Shinso snapped back to its original length. Gin knew perfectly well that if Ichigo had brought the blade down a moment ago, he truly would have died. Shock and fury hit him at the same time.

The shock: no matter how generously he had rated Ichigo, he had still underestimated him. He genuinely had not imagined anyone could dodge Shinso the instant it shot out and simultaneously counter-attack. That was something he had simply never heard of.

The fury: although he didn't much care about such things, Gin Ichimaru had been called a once-in-a-century genius in his youth. Even now, among Captains where the strong gathered in droves, he considered himself capable of ranking in the upper tier. Yet here, facing a child barely fifteen or sixteen years old, he had needed the other party to show mercy. That was nothing short of humiliation.

"Next time. Or perhaps never again."

Before Gin could react further, the long blade in Ichigo's hand came crashing down. In Gin's eyes, that black blade grew larger and larger, filling his vision.

BOOM!

In the instant before it landed, Gin had just barely managed to bring Shinso across in front of him. To call it a slash would be inaccurate, it was more like a sledgehammer blow. The spine of Shinso drove directly into Gin's chest, and he was sent flying, completely out of control.

"Hmm... not bad."

Like a cannonball, Gin's body hurtled backward, crashing through building after building in a continuous chain. Only after his figure disappeared entirely from sight did Ichigo let out that quiet remark.

"Alright, the small fry are going to show up." Ichigo turned to Orihime. "Let's get moving. Small fry aren't much of a problem, but if our location keeps getting exposed it's going to get annoying."

"Oh, okay..."

Behind Ichigo was a scene of absolute devastation. The buildings Gin had crashed through came thundering down, and more striking still, some of the surrounding structures, ones that hadn't even been hit, were swaying on the verge of collapse. The collision of powerful spiritual pressures had shaken the very foundations of the buildings around them.

Honestly, in Orihime's heart, this looked nothing like the aftermath of a single exchange of blows. Even if Orihime had been allowed to run wild with destruction, pulling this off would have been a stretch. In that moment, Orihime became even more firmly resolved to focus solely on healing and defense.

"Orihime?" Ichigo called out softly. "Something wrong?"

"N, no." Orihime snapped back to attention, stopped looking at the wreckage, and smiled brightly. "Then let's go!"

"Sure!"

Squad 4 barracks.

As the division within the Gotei 13 that specialized in Kaido, healing, the Soul Reapers here carried far less aggression than most. They were, if anything, sometimes the ones who got pushed around. Specializing in Kaido implied a deficiency in raw combat ability, and as a community where individuals naturally prized personal strength, Soul Reapers instinctively looked up to the powerful. Weaklings like those in Squad 4 were often looked down upon.

But Squad 4 was also indispensable. Whether dealing with incidents within Soul Society itself or incursions from Hueco Mundo, without Soul Reapers proficient in Kaido at the front, casualties would expand without limit. So while Squad 4's standing might not be especially high in the eyes of lower-ranked Soul Reapers, among the middle and upper tiers its position was something else entirely.

Most of the time, Squad 4 had the look of peaceful, undisturbed days. No large-scale battles, no unreasonable patients causing trouble, just everyone quietly enjoying the calm.

BOOM!

But peaceful days don't last forever. A terrifying surge of spiritual pressure erupted at the edge of Seireitei, and before the Soul Reapers of Squad 4 could even react, a thunderous crash rang out. The gates of their barracks were smashed open by something that had come from who knew where.

"C, Captain!"

The Soul Reaper on gate duty came tumbling and scrambling into the Captain's office. Lucky, whatever had blown through the gate had passed right by without injuring the guard, though being pelted all over with fragments of the shattered gate was unavoidable.

As today's sentry, this Soul Reaper had worked up the nerve to look and see just what person or thing had dared to crash into Squad 4 like this. One look was all it took. Once the sentry saw clearly what it actually was, two drops of something warm ran down a leg.

"What on earth is going on, to be in such a panic?"

The normally gentle and serene Captain of Squad 4, Retsu Unohana, was nothing like her usual self, brow furrowed as she asked. She had served as Captain for over a thousand years. What storms hadn't she weathered? For Squad 4's gates to be violated like this was, in truth, a first.

"It's, it's Captain Gin Ichimaru!"

"Hmm?" Retsu Unohana went still and asked in disbelief: "Captain Ichimaru? Why would he come here? Shouldn't he be heading to the main gate to provide support?"

Squad 3, where Gin Ichimaru served, was a support division. As the name implied, wherever something went wrong, no matter the location, no matter the situation, Squad 3 was to arrive and provide support at the earliest possible moment.

And the most indispensable element of any support effort was healing. So many Soul Reapers in Squad 3 had originally come from Squad 4. Retsu Unohana still recalled that the current vice-captain of Squad 3, Izuru Kira, had once been a seated officer right here in Squad 4.

"N, no!" The Soul Reaper's face was white with terror. "Captain Gin Ichimaru—something cut him—we don't know what—and the force of it sent him flying all the way here to Squad 4! He's already on the verge of death!"

"Wh, what?!"

➤ Next: The Meeting Once More