Chapter 280 - Soul: Invading Seireitei. (2/2)

Then Ichigo woke up feeling fully rested, and absolutely refreshed. His dream of the past night surfacing on his mind. Butt this time there was something different... he could clearly feel that he was somewhat stronger? But that... It couldn't be, could it? Nah, it's impossible.

The poor boy is still in denial. Hehehehe, it only makes making fun of him way more entertaining than it should be.

Soon everyone was ready to be launched by the Shiba cannon. And much like in canon they were launched, collided with the barrier, and separated themselves.

Ichigo and his relative were able to create a huge sandpit before falling on something softer, Chad just punched the ground, and Ishida and Orihime used Orihime's ability to stop them on time.

Soon enough an effeminate Shinigami and Ikkaku the blady from the 11th division showed up. Their interactions were honestly funny, and from Ichigo's perspective, Ikkaku is someone incredibly weird.

The effeminate Shinigami quickly persecuted Ichigo's cousin, while Ikkaku stayed to fight Ichigo.

Ikkaku started the fight with a simple horizontal slash from his [Zanpakutou], Ichigo quickly brought up [zangetsu] to parry the slash. And before Ikkaku could even react, Ichigo counterattacked him with a surprising speed almost cutting off Ikkaku's head.

But Ikkaku wasn't a experienced Shinigami for nothing, with his instincts screaming he was able to avoid Ichigo slash albeit not without sustaining a simple injure on his face. seeing Ichigo still, mid-sawing Ikkaku slashed vertically towards Ichigo's head.

The Instincts of the substitute Shinigami quickly flared to life, and almost instinctually he brought his head back as fast as possible. Unfortunately, Ichigo wasn't able to evade the blow entirely, so Ikkaku was still able to cut hit lips vertically, it's pretty much like Ezio's scar.

Both combatants try to diagonally slash at each other again, only to end up locking swords. The blood of their minor wounds quickly starts to flow. Without further ado, they both use the strength of their clash to jump away from each other.

Ikkaku for some strange reason started talking with Ichigo, and Ichigo for some idiotic reason went along with it... Hmm, so the boy still has some bad habits that I have to curb.

Then there is the whole Ikka ointment scene, where he simply pics ointment and passes it on his wounds. Ichigo simply uses the sleep of his Shihakusho to clean the blood on his mouth away.

After some speech about something I am honestly not going to care about, Ikkaku quickly activates his [Shikai], now he was with a spear in his hands. Without missing a beat Ikkaku thrusts his spear forwards at a superior speed than previously, Ichigo quickly parry it with his gigantic khyber knife.

Ikkaku swiftly attacks again trying to swipe at Ichigo's feet with the spear, in an impressive show of instinct and reflexes Ichigo was able to jump back and evade the swipe completely. The moment Ichigo's feet touched the ground, he immediately jumped back at his enemy slashing with [Zangetsu] diagonally.

Ikkaku in a great show of skill was able to exit his very awkward position and parry Ichigo's slash. but this time instead of jumping back, Ikkaku just smiled, and his spear quickly broke into three segments becoming a three-piece nunchaku.

Quickly using the secret form of his spear Ikkaku was able to give a fairly good slash to Ichigo's whole right forearm, thankfully for our orange-haired teen the slash wasn't that deep, so it didn't impart his combat abilities very much.

Jumping back we have the typical shounen anime villain type of explaining your abilities to the protagonist. Ichigo thankfully breaking the norm, used the time Ikkaku gave him to bandage his arm using [Zangetsu] bandages. And I am honestly pretty proud of him seeing him finally, using the other aspects of his [Shikai], maybe the talk he had with me during his ”dream” helped him seeing his [Zanpakutou] differently.

Ichigo quickly jumps towards Ikkaku with a downwards slash, Ikkaku showing also a great deal of skill with his nunchaku was able to parry Ichigo's slash. Counterattacking Ikkaku tries to diagonally slash at Ichigo's torso, Ichigo was able to avoid the brunt of the attack but a shallow cut still showed across his torso.

Quickly showing an impressive use of his [SSS] Ichigo slashed downwards again. But this time Ikkaku felt that there was something wrong with this slash, and being Shinigami for years taught him to trust his instincts, and so he did. Ikkaku jumped to the side to avoid Ichigo's downwards slash.

Said slash connected to the wall absolutely obliterating it, creating a huge gauge that there was no place being made by the ”small” sword of Ichigo. the gouge is easily four meters wide, and completely destroyed the whole wall vertically.

Ikkaku's eyes almost bulged out of their socket when he saw something that... If the boy had such strength from the beginning, why didn't he use it? Maybe... Maybe he was also searching for a worthy opponent like me?

Ikkaku easily completely misunderstood Ichigo. Said orange-haired Idiot has no f.u.c.k.i.n.g idea how the heck he did it, and considering his piss poor [Reiatsu] control, I am not even surprised.

Ichigo really jumped at Ikkaku gain, brandishing his sword to slash downwards towards his bald foe. Ikkaku quickly brought up one of his nunchaku segments to defend, only to fail miserably when Ichigo simply cut through it like a hot knife through butter.

I huge diagonal slash wound appeared on Ikkakus torso, the bald Shinigami almost faltered, but was eventually able to hold himself from doing so. Soon Ikkaku starts spinning whatever rested of his [Shikai] for a final clash with Ichigo.

Ichigo readily accepts and again clashes with Ikkaku. Ichigo slash was powerful enough to make a huge slash wound in the entire stretched arm of Ikkaku. Ikkaku simply dropped to the ground passing out from his injuries.

At first, it looked like Ichigo didn't sustain any injuries from this final clash, but this was quickly proved wrong when I looked at his right arm. Another slash appeared on his forearm, much like the one he got previously.

The thing is that even after defeating his enemy, Ichigo simply picked up Ikkaku's ointment and passed it on his and his ex-opponent wounds. When Ikkaku woke up it created a funny scene of him asking why Ichigo was doing something, or whatever. They had a heart-to-heart talk, and Ikkaku informed the orange-haired Shinigami about his captain, how Zaraki loves to fight, and how dangerous he really is.

And considering canon Ichigo was able to survive Zaraki's encounter only because the hollow helped to defend a vital point of his with the hollow mask. I wonder what will happen this time when his Hollow side isn't as accentuated, I am definitely curious.