11th Captain Hitsugaya and 3rd Captain Ichimaru face off with spiritual energy burning off their bodies.

"C... Captain Ichimaru..." Vice-captain Izuru inches toward his leader hesitantly.

"Get back, Izuru," Ichimaru Gin glances over his shoulder as his white teeth flashes with his ever-present grin. "You don't want to die yet, yeah."

"...Don't talk nonsense," Hitsugaya interrupts, "It won't be enough for him to just back away." With his head bowed solemnly, the young captain extends his Zanpaku sword horizontally. "Go disappear, Kira. Go much farther than beyond my sight. I'm not confident if those within a three ri radius... will not be caught up in this and killed."

Hitsugaya grips the hilt with both hands and leaps high into the air, calling out his command, "Solidify the frozen skies!!"

Columns of ice spiral around Hitsugaya's arms and curl out into the air around him - forming the unmistakable shape of a giant dragon, "Hyourinmaru!!!" (1)

Izuru stares up at the sky dragon in shock as the creature's dark aura spreads out and swallows the heavens in darkness. The flood of spiritual energy is an ice and water dragon of his own creation. And he's even commanding the weather...! This is my first time seeing it, Izuru thinks, This is what Captain Hitsugaya carries... the strongest of ice and snow Zanpaku swords...! Hyourinmaru!!!

Hitsugaya plummets toward the two men and sends the monstrous Hyourinmaru right at Gin's smiling face. The dragon smashes into the ground, forcing the two men to leap away from the danger.

"Ugh...!" Izuru grunts, So much water...! Such speed...! I wasn't able to dodge... He looks down at his arm and realizes that it's being engulfed by the ice. He screams, "UH... UWAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"

Gin, on the other hand, makes it to the roof of the 3rd Division building safely. However, his grin is gone for once, as if things weren't going exactly as he had planned. Hitsugaya appears in front of Gin and swings an arc of ice at him.

Gin swings back, splitting the wall of ice in half. He expects to see Hitsugaya behind the wall, but he's gone - in fact, Hitsugaya's beside him with a chain reinforced with ice wrapped around Gin's left arm.

Hitsugaya pulls the chain taught with one hand and raises his sword at Gin with his other hand. "It's over. Ichimaru."

Gin turns his head slightly. His eyes crack open just enough to reveal their pale color, "Shoot him, Shinsou."

The tip of the blade rips through the inside of Gin's coat and nearly impales Hitsugaya through the eye. He manages to dodge at the last desperate moment and tries to deflect it with his sword. "Kuh!!" he winces as the blade's edge grazes across his forehead.

Gin's eyes are nearly closed again and he seems incredibly amused, "...Sure you wanna dodge it? That girl's gonna die."

Hitsugaya spins around to see Gin's blade extend into the distance - aiming at the unconcious girl. He screams, "...HINA-"

There's a flash of movement and, before the sword tip impales Hinamori Momo - Hitsugaya's Vice-Captain appears out of nowhere to block the attack with the flat of her blade.

Gin frowns. Izuru looks up from his half-frozen state. Hitsugaya gasps, "Matsumoto...!!"

"...My deepest apologies," Matsumoto Rangiku sweats and tries to keep Gin's attack at bay, even though it's nearly cracking her blade in two. "I was about to return to the office as you ordered me to... but I felt Hyourinmaru's spiritual pressure and came back..."

Gin stands on his perch on the roof with his left arm damaged and his right arm holding 'Shinsou'.

Matsumoto looks up at the man she knew in her youth. "...Please withdraw your blade... Captain Ichimaru," she says firmly. "If you do not withdraw - from here on, I shall be your opponent...!"

Gin grins.

~*~*~

"...Day breaks..." Yoruichi mutters to herself from where she sits on the cliff edge of the execution area, the place where the Dual Terminus stands. "...two days remaining..."

Ichigo is indeed developing at a tremendous speed... she thinks, Compared to normal Shinigami, his momentum is so sudden that it's hard to believe... However, that’s just speaking of his tenacious fighting technique... His spiritual strength in itself is not escalating that far...

Down in the secret cave below the Dual Teminus, Ichigo is wide awake and getting ready for the day ahead. He jumps up after finishing a set of sit-ups. "Alright! Finished my warm-ups!" He starts pulling on his black haori jacket and asks himself, "...So where did Yoruichi-san go? It's about time to get started..."

Meanwhile, Yoruichi is still outside, thinking to herself, In the shape he's in... I wonder if he really will make it to Bankai after 2 days. Should I extend the number of training days...? From the information I've gathered since entering Seireitei, it seems that the grace period for Rukia's execution has been shortened 5 days or so to make it 25 days... Namely, if I think about it normally, it goes like this:

(image)

By the time these three days are over, it would only be one more day until the sentence gets followed through, so most of the leeway time is gone... Yoruichi recalls the time they were nearly run over by the monster train - Koutotsu, But fortunately or not, we were followed by Koutotsu inside the Senkai Gate while we were coming here. She remembers shooting out of the gateway into Rukongai, Due to passing through limbo so violently, it seems that somehow dislocated the time axis in a good way as we fell into Soul Society....(2)

(image)

Namely, this means that even when this 3 day training ends, we can afford about 8 more days! she thinks, Taking time into consideration, there's enough of a possibility to extend the training!!! But, what should I do...?

Originally, that method of training was developed by Kisuke as his own experiment... He's the only one who has succeeded so far... not a single one who challanged it besides him has been able to achieve the Bankai that way... Yoruichi remembers a young Kisuke holding up the Zanpaku mannequin with a slight smirk on his lips. By "three days" I mean that this was the number of days it took Kisuke to reach Bankai with this method... And at that time, he himself had judged that any more than that would be dangerous.

An older Kisuke smiles and says, "It's alright~! Kurosaki-san's qualities are far greater than mine!"

I believed in his words and made Ichigo do this, but... there is no guarantee that Ichigo's soul can endure extending the number of training days...! Yoruichi finally comes to a decision, ...I'll keep an eye on the situation... for just one more day... If his spiritual power does not transform by then... I have no choice but to cut our losses...!

~*~*~

High in the White Tower, Rukia stands facing a group of shrouded officials. Six of them wear white shrouds, while the one in the center of the group wears a darker one.

"What... did you say...?" Rukia asks them, shocked and bewildered.

"Oh, my. Did you not hear me the first time?" the dark-shrouded one replies. "Alright then, I shall say it once more... The date of Lady Kuchiki Rukia's execution has been changed once again. The punishment will be carried out-" Rukia's eyes widen, "tomorrow."

(1)The name "Hyourin-maru" means "Ice ring" mostly. The "maru" part is usually just an addition to boy's names - though I don't believe it has been used much in the past century or so. (I could go into a tangent about game shows, aristocratic supersitions, and toilets... but I should just keep translating ^_^;;)
(2)Okay... what the @$#*(@!? What's with the time warp stuff!? Oh, nevermind... I swear KT likes to make things more complicated to torture readers like me... T_T

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