The Double Edged Sword

17

Recap:

Time seemed to slow around them as Ishida stared on trying to identify the strange look she carried; as this moment proceeded, the beast had let out his beam attack which was headed straight for Ichigo. When the beam of light connected with Ichigo's sword, the metal seemed to reflect it; the sheer force of the connection pushed Ishida back a few steps while Izumi took the bulk of it. In that moment, Izumi mouthed two very important words.

"Brace yourself."

With a swift hand movement from her, an partly unknown power began flooding the area; it was rapidly increasing; air burned Ishida's lungs as he tried to find the source of such a strong resonance. After searching the scape for a mere moment, his eyes locked onto the orange haired boy who seemed to be struggling less and less to repel the monster's attack. Sure enough, the boy's spiritual pressure was seven times stronger than it had been before, and it was continuing to increase; the Quincy couldn't believe what he was seeing. His mind drifted off to the strange predicament Ichigo was in with his own power; how he 'never controls it'. He thought about the basic laws of spiritual pressure, about how no matter how high one's pressure is, if you are constantly giving full power, then eventually that power would dry up.

Ishida then thought about a sink to help him better picture his own thought process; if you turn a water tap and a large quantity of water comes out, then most people will instinctually close that tap. Then he thought about how Ichigo didn't control his own energy. He compared the boy to the tap and thought about his regular amount of spiritual pressure that normally came out, which was already high to begin with; then that was him at his lowest point. The dark haired boy then turned to Izumi who was standing perfectly still while watching the orange haired boy intently.

"You're the tap." he mumbled while seeing a completely different side of the girl he had watched for months. She was now scarily silent, and her eyes were void of any emotion; she seemed like a completely different girl. She seemed older, wiser, and way stronger than he ever thought possible.

What he didn't know, was with Ichigo's seal broken, over half of her power was rushing back into her body at once; she was almost back to her whole self and was struggling to hold it back in and keep any from surfacing. It had been years since she was at one hundred percent, and with all the power traveling inside of her she knew that sooner or later she would snap; power was addicting after not having it for awhile. Keeping her eyes trained on the boy she had spent many years protecting, Izumi watched on as Ichigo easily cut down the Menos Grande; she was proud, but also scared since her seal was now broken.

....

She had been suppressing that power for literal years, Izumi had no idea how Ichigo's body would take to it after not knowing it for that long; it could reject it for all she knew. After making such a large cut on the beast, it let out a piercing scream that pushed out a huge gust of wind; so much so that it had many of the on lookers pushed back a few steps. Rukia found that she was finally able to stand, since Ichigo had done exactly what Urahara had wanted; there was nothing she could interfere with now. He had finally gotten to see a glimpse of the boy's power; more than Izumi would've ever let anyone see willingly.

"How, is this possible? Ichigo just cut it in half?!" Rukia screamed while the wind whipped around her. She couldn't believe what she was seeing or feeling; she didn't think that the power spike had actually came out of the boy she had been teaching their ways. Much to everyone's surprise however, the Menos Grande began retreating back into the giant crack in the sky before it pulled it shut like a curtain. Ichigo took that as a sign of his win and did his 'victory' screech which made Izumi chuckle a little bit breaking the hard expression she was wearing. Ishida looked between the two teenagers with vacant eyes. He watched as Izumi walked carelessly towards her friend and felt sweat begin to cover almost every inch of his body. All this time, his rival had enough power to kill off a huge beast like that, and on top of that, the girl in front of him had enough spiritual pressure to overpower the boy and control his flow; these people were monsters. 

"So scary, he scared that monster away. He's too scary." Ishida's body began to tremble as he clenched his fists and looked towards the ground away from the two in front of him. 

....

On a roof top over looking the whole thing stood Tessai stood observing the boy while nodding his head. "Boss really found the right person." he muttered while watching the interaction between Izumi and the boy; he knew that it was about time that she learned of his Boss's plans for her friend, but he also knew that it wasn't his place to mention anything to her. He was just glad that they had finally found her after her disappearance.  

"What is that guy doing, he didn't even try! Is he really that strong? Hey? Tessai?" Jinta exclaimed from beside him, dragging the older man from his thoughts. A somber feeling filled the air as the older man nodded his head; he knew that there was a long road ahead for Izumi's orange haired friend. 

"That's true, but he will learn to control it sooner or later." Tessai commented before closing his eyes briefly. 

....

Izumi stood alongside Ichigo watching him closely while he began talking to Ishida. She knew that something was off, there was no way his body would just accept all that power all at once without it being used to it. Her body was different than his; Ichigo was raised a human, he wasn't meant for this life; her body was conditioned with the power it holds. Whether she spends it on one thing all at once or not, there aren't many life threatening repercussions for her, as there were for him. 

"I helped you out here, you should thank me." those simple words were the start to something she wasn't expecting; suddenly her best friend dropped to the ground without another sound. Izumi let out a startled noise before she dropped down with him, at first she thought maybe he had just exhausted himself; but she was wrong. Very wrong. 

"What are you doing!? This is not funny!" Ishida shouted out before he was silenced by a fierce glare from Izumi. Afterwards a worried expression took over, making him realize that the boy was not playing around. 

"What the hell, Zumi I can't move my body." before she could say anything in return small electric looking power surges came from the arm that held his Zanpakuto; the sword was suddenly up in the air and was giving off heavy spiritual pressure. Ichigo let out a scream and looked towards his friend who held a look of fear and concern. He had no idea what was happening but he wanted it to stop.