Bleak: Retell

Chapter 16: Battle on Sokyoku Hill (Ichigo V Byakuya)

The amounts of reiatsu coming from Sokyoku Hill was rather large in amount. It could bring a low ranked soul reaper to their knees with ease. The battle between Ichigo and Byakuya was just beginning. I could feel that Ichigo's spirtual pressure was just as strong as Byakuya's, if not
stronger.
I was about to try and jump in when I heard Byakuya's voice: "Scatter, Senbonzakura."
The blade of his zanpoktou dissipated into thousands of tiny cherry blossom-like blades. They would move in the direction that Byakuya pointed them to go. They could practically cut someone's body into over a thousand pieces if he had wished to do so. However, that was not Byakuya's way to fight, necessarily. Ichigo dodged a couple of Byakuya's attacks. This surprised him a lot. Ichigo was about ready to attack when Byakuya saw an opening, letting him force Zangetsu aside from Ichigo's grip. His eyes went wide in shock as this happened. From there, a blow was landed directly onto Ichigo. He used Shunpo, to just evade the attack, walking away with a small scratch. Byakuya himself had seemed rather perplexed, wondering how Ichigo had seemed to pick up shunpō (flash step) so quickly.
"You seem to have mastered flash step very well." He drew in a breath. "I wonder how someone like you was able to even get the mastery so quickly?"
Ichigo glanced toward Byakuya, eyes filled with a fiery determination. "You shouldn't be letting yourself be so calm and cool about this. You think that you can just walk on in and beat me with your shikai. You really haven't even laid a scratch on me yet either. You really want to kill me because I'm an enemy, I get that. But I want you to show me your bankai."
Byakuya was a little surprised.
"You also promised that if I died, that you were going to kill your sister, Rukia."
"Why is this even relevant? I do not understand."
He glared down at Ichigo.
"You make me sick.. I'm going to hit you with everything I got! I will crush you, right here and right now, Byakuya Kuchiki! I'm not going to let you kill Rukia! I will never let you say it in front of her again!"
"You arrogant fool, you're just giving me a cheap provocation. No matter what you say, it won't change my mind. You're a thousand years too early to even die by my bankai."
Byakuya then releases his shikai once more at Ichigo. However, before anything could even get near Ichigo...

"GETSUGA... TENSHÔ!!" A large blast of spirit energy was sent flying at Byakuya. It causes Senbonzakura to dissipate and make a big trench into Sokyoku Hill itself.
"How were you able to throw out so much power like that?" Byakuya said with a shocked expression. "To be quite honest, it's something I didn't really know how to control, nor really do on my own when I first got my own powers. I couldn't call a attack without any incantations. Even now im barely just getting it. However, thanks to Zangetsu, I know where I stand now.
With that being said.. Byakuya Kuchiki, use your bankai. I will defeat you!"
"Even as ridiculous as your request sounds, fine, I will activate my bankai.."
Byakuya shifts his zanpoktou down so that the blade is facing the ground. He gently drops it, saying the incantation of his bankai: "Scatter, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi." Following, as I watched his zanpoktou blade disappear into the ground. The battlefield where the two were had turned into something that even I could not see. Thousands of cherry blossom-like blade petals scattered around and headed towards Ichigo.
"I will crush you with everything, Ichigo Kurosaki!"
Ichigo got hit slightly by a wave of one. However, Ichigo stood, grinning. "Give up while you still can, boy. You have no chance of defeating me."
"I also have bankai, Byakuya."
His eyes went wide. "Impossible! It takes thousands of years to even reach that level of mastery. How can you simply have learned it in three days?!"
"Take a look.. this is.. my bankai.."
Ichigo's spirtual pressure instantly increased 10 fold. A blast of blue was around him. "BAN...KAI!"
Instantly, Ichigo's spirtual pressure increased a lot. Then, he was surrounded by what looked like to be black and red colored reishî. When it disappeared, he wore a long, yet rugged black and red cape-looking object over his soul reaper uniform. Zangetsu went from being an oversized blade to a normal sized blade that was the color black. Most of his bankai was black in color, with the exception of the hilt.
——
The battled between Byakuya and Ichigo raged on. I continued to watch from a distance. I was hopeful that maybe this battle would be a turning point for Ichigo. I'm hoping that he'd come out victorious.
———
"Why do you want to kill Rukia so badly when she's your sister?" Ichigo clashed with Byakuya. As Byakuya stepped back, he looked dead ahead at Ichigo. "Because I could not decide between upholding my honor and pride, or that of my family. I promised my family I'd uphold our legacy and not let something destroy my own pride. I also made a promise to someone else about protecting Rukia. I didn't know which one to follow, and I was so conflicted with myself. Additionally, Hisana over there... she was suppose to be my wife. I had not paid her any attention since I had brought her back to the soul society."
While I was watching the battle between them, Captain Gin Ichimaru appeared behind me.
"You're Miss Kusonarii, aren't cha? Come with me. There's something I want to show you."