Bleach: Awakened — Chapter 111 - All Creation Annihilation!

"What is this..."

Blue-gold flames blanketed the entirety of Seireitei. Shunsui Kyoraku stared at the materialized Zanpakuto hovering before them, reached out a hand, started to say something, and then the spirit transformed into white light and vanished back into Kyoraku's body.

"Saved, are we."

Kyoraku let out a slow breath and collapsed limply to the ground. Kyoraku had always known that the Zanpakuto was dangerous. Just not dangerous to that degree.

"The spiritual pressure shifted a little, but this is Ichigo Kurosaki's doing, isn't it."

Sensing carefully outward, Kyoraku pieced together a rough picture of Seireitei's condition. The battle that had been teetering on the edge of total collapse had ended in an instant.

"So he came back. That Mayuri... shouldn't have been cut down, right..."

A brief flicker of concern for a colleague. Kyoraku reached down, picked up the hat that had fallen off during the fighting, and pulled it down over the face.

"Truly lacking in discipline... nearly dying at the hands of my own Zanpakuto... The old man Yamamoto is going to have plenty to say about this."

"Is this... Ichigo's power?"

Sode no Shirayuki returned to the inner world. Rukia Kuchiki was gravely wounded, injuries that had come close to killing her, yet she only stared at the blade in her hand, standing there in silence, unable to find any words.

"That guy has gotten stronger again."

Nearby, Renji Abarai was in much the same shape. Carrying even more wounds than Rukia, actually. Renji murmured under the breath, staring at Zabimaru, not saying anything for a long moment.

"Renji." Rukia tightened her grip on the hilt. "We're still too weak." The frustration in her voice was impossible to miss. "So weak that we couldn't even draw out the true power of our own Zanpakuto."

"Our training is still not enough."

This day was destined to be a disaster.

Within Seireitei, from Captains and Vice-Captains down to the lowest-ranked seated officers, even the nobles, every Soul Reaper capable of achieving Shikai had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of their own Zanpakuto.

The Captains and Vice-Captains who had been the very first struck down by their own Bankai bore the deepest shame of all.

When a seated officer of Squad One finally awakened the Captain-Commander Yamamoto, whose mind had been sealed away, and read through the reports line by line, that thousand-year veteran, the strongest Soul Reaper alive, could not help but voice the question aloud.

If Ichigo Kurosaki had not slain the enemy's leader, if the situation had simply been left to run its course, would Seireitei have just been destroyed like that.

The answer was no.

What the Soul Reapers did not know was this: despite the enhancement from Hollowfication, Muramasa's power had not reached heaven-defying levels. Empowering the Zanpakuto, allowing them to unleash Bankai and sustaining that effect for thirty minutes, was already the absolute limit.

And once the Hollowfication-boosted Bankai had been used, Muramasa itself could not withstand that force. It would soon dissolve into spirit particles and drift freely within Soul Society, unable to reconstitute for several centuries at the earliest.

As long as the Soul Reapers held on, victory would eventually have been theirs.

How many Soul Reapers, how many Captains, would have died in the process was an entirely separate matter.

"Wow!"

On a street in Karakura Town, Senna looked Ichigo up and down, taking in the all-black outfit that was nothing like the Shihakusho, clicking her tongue in open admiration.

"Didn't expect you to have decent taste, Ichigo." Senna tilted her head approvingly. "This looks way better than a Soul Reaper's Shihakusho!"

"Ah, well, borrowed the look from someone else, really." Ichigo scratched the back of his head. "How is everyone? No injuries?"

"Ishida and I are both fine." Senna pointed over at Yasutora Sado. "Just a little cold for a bit, but that passed quickly."

"The main one to worry about is Sado, that thunder guy blasted Sado pretty charred."

"Soten Kisshun, I reject!" Orihime Inoue had only just remembered, and rushed forward. "Sorry, sorry, Sado, I completely forgot!"

"...It's fine." Yasutora Sado's expression didn't change, as though the injured party was someone else entirely. "Just a minor wound."

"Ohh! What a tough guy!"

"Setting that aside." Uryu Ishida pushed up the glasses, lenses catching the light in a way that somehow looked exactly like wisdom. "Ichigo, what you used just now was the power of a Quincy, wasn't it."

"How did you suddenly awaken something like that?"

"...Oh?" Ichigo blinked. "Why does it sound like you already knew Quincy could have abilities like this?"

"Of course." Uryu spread both hands. "Because I can feel some inexplicable power inside me as well."

"It shares the same origin as Quincy power, but I have no idea how to activate or use it."

"I see." Ichigo considered that for a moment. "Honestly, before I awakened this power, I hadn't noticed it myself either."

"It's just that something happened inside the Valley of Screams—an accident—and my purely human spiritual power got a massive boost out of it. When I came back to myself, this ability had already awakened. The rest of my Quincy powers are still growing, too. I just need time to adjust to all of it."

"Is that so?" Uryu's frown deepened. "I think I understand now. Quincy are essentially humans who have the power to manipulate spiritual power. Ryuken and I walked into a misconception, we kept focusing on strengthening our Quincy abilities."

"And completely overlooked our fundamental nature. The power we hold as humans, at our origin."

"You can't frame it that way." Ichigo shook his head. "Human power is genuinely hard to cultivate. I've always overlooked that side of myself too, the human body side of things."

"The truth is, even now, I don't know how to make human power grow stronger. If not for that one accident, my human body would still be just as frail as ever."

"Then why is that." Uryu rubbed the chin, frown deepening further. "Of the currently known four... no, five types of power—Quincy, Soul Reaper, Hollow, and then the special powers like Sado and Inoue have, those four can all be strengthened through training."

"Why is it that human power can't... and come to think of it, what exactly is human power supposed to be in the first place..."

With that, everyone fell quiet.

Everyone except Senna, who couldn't even be counted as human to begin with. Everyone else present was someone in whom humanity and some other kind of power coexisted.

The question was a sharp one. One nobody had ever thought to ask. Whether it was unconventional ability-users like Yasutora Sado, or traditional ability-users like the Quincy, none of them had ever stopped to consider: beyond their abilities, as human beings, what was the right way to grow stronger.

"Let's set this aside for now." Uryu shook the head. "Best to bring this question to Ryuken and Urahara and the others and research it together."

"By the way, Ichigo, what is this ability called? And what does it actually do?"

"Ah, well..." Ichigo said slowly. "It's actually pretty simple. My spiritual pressure has always had a strong adhesive quality, anyone I cut can't easily dispel or treat the wound unless I actively release it myself."

"After the enhancement, that adhesive quality is even stronger. Those cut by it can't recover to their original state. And anything connected to the spiritual pressure of someone killed by my ability, all of it gets killed too."

"I call it, [All Creation Annihilation]."

➤ Next: The Serpent's Fang