Bleach: Awakened — Chapter 77 - Bankai!! Bankai!!

"Report!" A seated officer from Squad 12 stepped before the captains. "The Valley of Screams has been confirmed destroyed!"

"The distance between Soul Society and the World of the Living is still closing! Three minutes until full collision!"

"How can this be?!" Sajin Komamura's beast-eyes went wide, after the battle with Yasutora Sado, Komamura had stopped wearing the wooden barrel. "The Valley of Screams is gone. Why is this still happening?!"

"The Valley of Screams has indeed been destroyed. That much is correct." Mayuri Kurotsuchi's voice came through from the seated officer. "But the spatial disturbance it caused remains. If the Valley of Screams had consciously calmed the space, things could have returned to normal."

"Now, the only option is to destroy the entire vast stretch of space where the Valley of Screams existed."

"...You didn't mention that part in advance, Captain Kurotsuchi." Shunsui Kyoraku pressed down on the brim of a hat, both eyes as still and dead as stagnant water. "Surely this isn't the outcome you were most hoping to see."

"How could that be—that is our Special Operations Squad captain, after all?" Malice rolled off every word. Mayuri Kurotsuchi spoke slowly. "How could I just stand by and watch as he gets destroyed by the Kido Cannon inside the disrupted space?"

"All of this was his own choice. I said there were only two methods: one, the Shinenju calms the Valley of Screams and stabilizes the space; the other, the Kido Cannon destroys the Valley of Screams and the disrupted space surrounding it."

"...Aren't you afraid he'll come back?"

"Heh... I said, that was his own choice." Inside Squad 12, the corner of Mayuri Kurotsuchi's mouth curled into a mocking smile. "I simply forgot to explain the details."

"Whether the Shinenju calms the Valley of Screams or it gets destroyed outright—both are only the initial step. What matters more is calming the disrupted space."

"That's despicable." Jushiro Ukitake couldn't hold back. "A comrade fighting on our side!"

"Hehehehehehe..." The grating laughter wound around every captain's ears. Mayuri Kurotsuchi's voice dripped with undisguised malice. "Right now, yes, a comrade. But who can guarantee he'll always be our comrade?"

"His power is far too great, so great it has disrupted the balance of the Three Realms. And we are Soul Reapers. Soul Reapers who exist to maintain that balance."

No one spoke. Whatever each of them thought privately, not one captain had anything to say.

Because Mayuri Kurotsuchi was right. The duty of a Soul Reaper was to maintain the balance of the Three Realms, at any cost. The emergence of a Transcendent like Ichigo had already shaken that balance enormously.

No matter how much they approved of Ichigo in their hearts, if the day ever came when Ichigo, as a Transcendent, changed course and chose to do evil, it would be a catastrophe for the entire Three Realms.

"Let us wait for the result." Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto spoke with neither sorrow nor joy. "Nothing can be decided until the very last moment."

"Everyone go and charge the Kido Cannon. If we are going to do this, we do it to the absolute limit."

"Tch... so I've been played."

Within the cracks of space, nameless black shapes drifted all around, the structure of space itself utterly unstable.

That instability radiated a terrifying suction force, pulling the two nearest enormous celestial bodies ever closer together.

"Maintaining the balance of the Three Realms..." Ichigo murmured inside the chaos. "Did I break that balance... Hah... Sure enough, humans and Soul Reapers are completely different kinds of beings?"

"So then... I'd better start thinking about what to do when I get back."

By now, Ichigo had figured it out. The moment the Valley of Screams was destroyed, he had understood: obliterating even a small pocket of space was no easy feat for a Soul Reaper.

But Ichigo had personally felt the Bankai of the strongest Soul Reaper in a thousand years. Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto wielding Zanka no Tachi could destroy the Valley of Screams without breaking a sweat. If that was the case, why bother with a so-called Kido Cannon at all?

The answer was obvious now. What needed destroying wasn't just the Valley of Screams, it was all the space the Valley had destabilized. The tangible Valley of Screams was manageable. The intangible disrupted space surrounding it was another matter entirely.

"What a headache... destroying space itself... is just too hard!"

At this point Ichigo also came to understand just how much the Soul King, who had created the Three Realms, truly carried. Even in Trinity State, faced with this kind of intangible space, Ichigo found it difficult to know where to even begin.

"Is this really the only way..."

Murmuring, Ichigo tightened both hands on the twin blades. The spiritual pressure across Ichigo's body began to rise, slow and steady.

"At my current physical condition, I can probably only hold this for a few seconds..."

Both spiritual power and the spirit body grew stronger and more condensed with time. Physically speaking, sixteen-year-old adolescence might be when stamina peaked and growth ran fastest, but it was by no means the most mature state.

And the immaturity of the physical body greatly slowed the growth of the spirit body, keeping Ichigo's power from being fully drawn out. Otherwise, even with Negacion offsetting part of that strength, the Hogyoku would have been cleaved apart by Ichigo long before now.

By initial estimate, one or two years from now, if Ichigo survived several more life-and-death battles along the way to push latent potential further, both body and spirit body could reach full maturity and peak strength along with it.

Through half a month of training, the physical body had grown, if only a little. Right now, with extreme effort, Ichigo could just barely tap the power of the mature state.

Even after maturity, of course, the spirit body would continue to drive the physical body to grow stronger as time accumulated, but the pace would be far slower than before maturity.

...There was actually another method: separating the spirit body and the physical body to let each develop independently. That way the spirit body could grow freely, breaking loose from the physical body's constraints to some degree. But deep inside, a quiet voice told Ichigo not to go down that road.

"This should... be enough..."

Murmuring, Ichigo raised both blades high. The spiritual pressure within hit its limit, and kept climbing. In an instant, even if Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto himself had been standing right there, he would not have been able to sense Ichigo's spiritual pressure at all.

"Otherwise, I'm out of options."

Gold and black radiance blazed through the chaotic space. For just a moment, even the tremendous suction force dragging the two celestial bodies together shuddered to a stop.

"Bankai—"

Gold and black intertwined. The short blade and the long sword crossed into each other. The spiritual pressure inside kept climbing, as though it had no ceiling.

"Tensa Zangetsu!"

BOOM!

A thunderous roar tore through the chaotic space. A sharp, crackling hiss erupted from all around, and the sheer explosion of spiritual pressure alone was enough to warp space itself.

Fwsh,

The twin blades in Ichigo's hands vanished. In their place: a single greatsword, bound with a chain.

The greatsword, Tensa Zangetsu's appearance was essentially the same as the long sword that embodied the power of Hollow and Soul Reaper. Entirely white. The originally hollow sections filled in with black, making the whole thing look as though the short blade and the long sword had fused into one. No guard. At the end of the hilt, a black iron chain hung loose, connected to the tip of the blade.

"Getsuga..."

Golden light materialized at the tip of the blade. A terrifying wave of spiritual pressure swept outward, seeking to annihilate everything it touched, including the intangible space itself.

"Ten..."

Both hands locked around the hilt. Black light crisscrossed through the gold. They didn't blend, they mingled, each within the other, neither one separate.

"Sho!"

The blade swept through in a single arc. A Getsuga Tensho vast enough to blot out the sky and cover the earth materialized. Ichigo's body twisted. The greatest, most powerful Getsuga ever unleashed drove outward, in every direction at once.

➤ Next: The Flooding Blanks