"Bankai · Senbonzakura Kageyoshi!"
As Kuchiki Byakuya's solemn and icy voice rang out, heaven and earth seemed to change color.
Rumble!
Dozens of gigantic blades of light, like towering mountain peaks growing out from the depths of the earth, erupted straight up along the streets of Karakura Town.
They lingered in midair for only an instant before shattering completely with a deafening crash.
Countless cherry blossom petals, like a pink blizzard flowing against the current, instantly swallowed the entire battlefield.
If the number of cherry blossoms during Kuchiki Byakuya's shikai was one thousand, then now, this sea of flowers had reached tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands.
The overwhelming advantage in sheer numbers was simply incomparable, turning the night into a pink mythical world.
And this was not merely an increase in quantity.
After releasing bankai, Kuchiki Byakuya's spiritual pressure surged to a full five times that of his shikai.
That extreme power pushed his strength into an entirely new realm, a realm capable of completely crushing a shikai state.
As Kuchiki Byakuya extended his palm forward, under his absolute control, the vast ocean of cherry blossoms surged forth with the killing intent of a Shinigami, charging toward Kurosaki Ichigo in an unstoppable tide.
The flight speed of each individual cherry blossom petal was already approaching the upper limit of Kurosaki Ichigo's speed in his shikai state.
Feeling that sea of death made of countless blades rushing straight at him, even Kurosaki Ichigo could not help but have his brows twitch, a heavy sense of danger rising in his heart.
Bankai… this was the true ultimate power of a Shinigami.
Although he had already brushed against the threshold of bankai during his training with Aizen, just one step away from mastering it, at this moment, he still had not fully grasped it.
Without fully mastering Quincy power and Hollow power, his current shikai state was already his final combat strength.
However, even so, even knowing he might lose, there was not the slightest trace of discouragement in Kurosaki Ichigo's wild eyes.
In shikai, he was enough to crush a non-bankai Kuchiki Byakuya.
Even if the other party had now released bankai, that did not mean he, Kurosaki Ichigo, was weak.
Win or lose, he would only know after giving it everything he had and seeing it through.
"Hah! Getsuga Tensho!"
Kurosaki Ichigo roared, pouring every last bit of spiritual pressure in his body into the Zanpakuto in his hands without holding anything back.
The long and short twin blades in his hands burst forth with unprecedented brilliance.
A massive, exaggerated, and violently deep-blue cross-shaped spiritual slash, nearly ten meters tall, surged upstream with unstoppable force, charging straight toward the majestic sea of cherry blossoms.
"Stop it! Please stop fighting!"
Seeing this, Rukia, who had been deliberately or inadvertently protected by the Shinigami in a corner, went pale. She screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice filled with helplessness and despair.
No matter how the collision between these two mountain-destroying forces ended, the shockwaves produced by a captain-level bankai clash alone would be enough to flatten all buildings within several hundred meters.
And this was a residential area of Karakura Town.
Even if the sleeping, ignorant ordinary residents could not hear or see their battle, how could the spatially tearing, all-consuming spiritual pressure aftershock not affect them?
The previous battles, though fierce, had all been small-scale clashes, leaving even the ground relatively intact.
But now, these two had clearly fought in real earnest, completely disregarding the innocent lives around them.
Yet Rukia's pale, powerless cries seemed so small, so insignificant in the face of these two forces accumulating toward their absolute peak, utterly unable to stop them.
Because at this moment, both of them understood.
If either side dared to stop, the other's fully charged strike would instantly crush them completely.
Neither of them dared to gamble.
Just as the destruction-laden blue spiritual slash and the pink sea of cherry blossoms that threatened to swallow the world were about to collide head-on, as the entirety of Karakura Town seemed frozen on the brink of apocalypse—
A figure suddenly appeared.
Abruptly, yet as if he had been there from the very beginning, he appeared out of thin air directly in front of the two ultimate attacks.
It was a man wearing a captain's haori, tall and slender.
The wind gently brushed through his hair, revealing a face so perfect it bordered on the unreal.
Seeing this person suddenly appear, everyone present could not help but have their expressions change drastically.
"Danger!"
Kurosaki Ichigo's pupils shrank violently as he let out an anxious roar.
He did not recognize the man, but he did not want to see anyone die senselessly under the attack, even if the other party was likely also a Soul Society captain.
However, the Getsuga Tensho he had poured all his spiritual pressure into was already an arrow loosed from the bow. Once released, it was no longer under his control, carrying the will of destruction as it continued to howl toward that man.
Kuchiki Byakuya's brows also furrowed slightly. His outstretched palm tightened just a little, and the surging tide of cherry blossoms correspondingly slowed its advance.
Buzz!
The two attacks, each capable of destroying everything within several hundred meters, struck almost simultaneously, without any restraint, against the suddenly appeared man's casually extended hands.
He did not even draw his Zanpakuto. He simply pushed forward with both palms, as if making a casual shove.
Yet those seemingly ordinary hands were like the most indestructible bedrock in the world, or like an abyss that devoured all things.
The deep-blue crescent capable of vaporizing everything, and the endless sea of pink blades capable of cutting through anything, the instant they touched his hands, seemed to crash into an invisible barrier.
All impact, all explosive spiritual pressure, was completely intercepted and neutralized by him in a manner bordering on a miracle.
There was no earth-shattering explosion, no destructive flash of light, not even the slightest bit of aftershock scattering outward.
All power was folded in, erased before his palms, and finally returned to nothingness.
When everything settled, the two attacks that moments ago could have destroyed heaven and earth seemed as if they had never existed at all.
The night breeze continued to blow gently. The streetlights along the road were still lit. The surrounding buildings, even the ground beneath their feet, were completely intact, without even a single piece of rubble.
That man stood there calmly, effortlessly, at the very center of where those two ultimate forces had erupted, completely unharmed.
His figure looked incomparably tall under the moonlight, yet carried an unfathomable sense of ease.
"Who are you?"
Seeing how easily the man had taken those two attacks, Kurosaki Ichigo, whose spiritual pressure had been mostly depleted, asked in a focused voice.
That outfit, a captain's haori worn over a shihakusho, clearly marked him as an enemy rather than a friend.
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