Bleach: Awakened — Chapter 46 - The Cold and Noble One

BOOM!

The moment their blades clashed, Kenpachi Zaraki, who had come charging in like a cannonball, went flying back like one too. The first was his own doing. The second was not.

"Plenty of power, but still not enough," Ichigo said. "Spiritual pressure is solid too, but it only barely clears the standard captain-level threshold. I'll give you a mid-tier rating."

The more Ichigo learned about the Soul Reaper captains, the clearer his personal scale for them had become, a simple low, mid, and high. Anyone whose spiritual pressure crossed the standard captain-level mark counted as low-tier.

Take Renji, just now, after Bankai, low-tier. But captains varied in how deeply they had mastered their Bankai, and that depth determined how much of a boost they actually got from it. A basic grasp only ever got you to the bottom rung.

Kenpachi Zaraki and Byakuya Kuchiki were different. Their spiritual pressure at full output far exceeded the ordinary captain benchmark, which put both of them squarely at mid-tier.

And that two-sword duo from yesterday had already matched these two in Shikai alone. After Bankai, they'd be high-tier without question.

Whether there was anything above that, Ichigo wouldn't know until he'd seen for himself the one universally recognized as the strongest Soul Reaper: Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto.

"Cough!"

Kenpachi landed back in the rubble and couldn't stop himself from coughing up blood. He swayed, then hauled himself back upright. No external wounds, but the sheer force of the impact had jarred his organs out of place.

"That's incredible!"

No fear. Only hunger. Kenpachi Zaraki was certain he'd found him, the opponent he could hack at forever and never kill!

"...You've undone the seal?" Ichigo said, surprised. "What is that, undone but not completely? What a strange guy."

"Gokei!"

A hundred million blades erupted into existence around Ichigo all at once. They surged inward and closed over him, forming one massive sphere, countless edges whirling without pause inside.

"Hey! Kuchiki! He's mine—"

"Shut up, Zaraki." Byakuya cut him off, voice flat. "I have no desire to work with you either. But our opponent's strength far exceeds anything I anticipated. If you don't want to die, give everything you have."

"...Tsk!"

He clicked his tongue, deeply disgusted. The thing Kenpachi Zaraki hated most was teaming up on an enemy, it stripped away the pleasure of the fight. For someone who had spent his whole life suppressing his own strength just to find a worthy opponent, it was worse than that. It was humiliating.

But right now there was nothing to be done. His predator's instincts were screaming at him: the orange-haired figure standing in that wreckage was simply a monster. Even when facing the strongest Soul Reaper, he had never felt anything like this.

"Just this once! You bastard!"

He tightened his grip and charged again. Each step landed heavy with suppressed fury, yet his speed was tremendous, in an instant he was right in front of that sphere of a hundred million blades.

"Playing tag-team, are we."

The sphere dissolved, revealing the unscathed figure inside. A hundred million blades looked terrifying enough, but against a prepared Ichigo, the attack barely registered.

"Ha!"

Both hands on the sword. In that brief instant Kenpachi remembered something, a blade held in two hands hits harder than one. Simple fact.

BOOM!

The black long blade met the sword riddled with tiny notches, and there was no metallic clang of steel on steel. Instead, two massive surges of spiritual pressure collided head-on and sent a thunderous shockwave rolling outward, the surrounding air visibly warping under the strain.

"Now that's decent force!" Ichigo's eyes lit up. "But—still not enough!"

He swung the short blade in his left hand down toward Kenpachi's chest. He had a feeling this one wasn't going to fall easily.

SWISH,

A torrential flood of cherry blossoms, formed from a hundred million blades, swept in and deflected the short blade away from Kenpachi. Not far away, Byakuya's eyes narrowed. His spiritual pressure surged, and the hundred million blades rebounded off the short blade and came screaming straight at Ichigo.

"Not bad!"

Ichigo took a large step back. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Byakuya waving both arms for some reason, and the speed of the cherry blossom flood spiked instantly, it was in front of him before he could blink.

BOOM!

The hundred million blades swallowed him whole. Countless fragments slashed across his body without stopping, and moments later the blades completed their pass and streamed back to Byakuya's side, floating in the air around him.

"Not even a trace of damage..." Byakuya's expression went grave as he looked at Ichigo, who was nearly untouched. "Those markings... what kind of power is that..."

"My face got cut," Ichigo said, pointing to the shallow wound on his cheek that had already stopped bleeding. "That's actually impressive, an attack scattered like that still managed to reach me."

The moment the blades made contact, Blut Vene had already activated, but by a fraction of a second, not quite fast enough. The blades had nicked his face before it could kick in.

"What a monster!"

The two captains stood side by side. Neither wanted it. But that brief exchange had settled the question: their instincts had been right. One on one, each of them would likely already be down.

"I'll go first—find your opening!"

Kenpachi shouldered his sword and charged, swinging in a relentless rhythm, his blade trading blow after blow against Ichigo's long blade and short blade.

"Too weak!"

It only took a few exchanges. Ichigo found the gap, drove a kick into Kenpachi's stomach, and sent him flying, but the instant he did, a flood of blades came howling toward him.

"You think I've got nothing left?!"

His gaze hardened. Golden spiritual pressure bloomed along the length of the long blade, then pulled inward, converging toward the tip. Under the disbelieving stares of both captains, the radiance at the tip built and built, brighter by the second.

"Getsuga Tensho!"

A golden crescent slash tore free from the blade's tip. The massive release swallowed the hundred million blades and ripped straight up toward the sky.

"This..."

The hundred million blades rained down across the ground. Their nature as tiny fragments meant they weren't completely destroyed, but they would need spiritual pressure reinvested before they could fly again.

"Don't just stand there, you bastard!"

Kenpachi hit the ground running, charging right back in, sword never stopping. No special ability. No trick. Just this, relentless, grinding assault, the only attack he had.

"Fearsome power."

Byakuya considered for a moment, then held nothing back. He executed Shunpo and closed in beside the two locked in combat. Spiritual pressure flooded back into the blades, and the hundred million edges rose into the air once more.

"Senkei! Senbonzakura Kageyoshi!"

But the hundred million blades did not attack. Instead they transformed, a thousand white swords materializing and hanging in the air, encircling the entire battlefield where the three of them stood. No one was getting out. No one was getting in.

"Whoa!" Ichigo drove Kenpachi back with one strike and swept his gaze around at the ring of swords that had closed around him. "That's stunning. My Zangetsu doesn't have anything this flashy."

"Senkei transforms the blades into the form of swords, causing their killing power to rise dramatically," Byakuya said, even-voiced. "Against someone with your defensive capability, it's the only approach I have."

➤ Next: Be Proud of Yourself, Byakuya Kuchiki