21 Fight

"Reign from above, Ryurai"

"Shred to pieces, Byakko"

Blue and grey reiatsu covered Itsuki as the sword's Shikai was released. The wind died down and all you could hear was the crackling of lightning. Gin was just there on the ground smiling at his friend's success as he slowly lost conscious with relief. Continuously fighting a hoard of hollows and meeting with this anomaly took quite a toll both physically and mentally.

The hollow could no longer be bothered with Gin as it stared directly at Itsuki. What shocked Itsuki was that the hollow started to take out a sword as its reiatsu also spiked up. The burst of reiatsu slowly died down around with Itsuki's form finally coming into view. He was still wearing the same tattered and destroyed clothes, but a pair of blue and grey gauntlets appeared covering the back of his hand and reaching to his elbows.

The sword behind him, now known as Byakko, was still a katana but had lost its blade and the only things that was left was a grey tsuba that had tiger's roaring head as its handguard. The tiger looked really lifelike with the occasional gleam crossing its eyes. Where the blade was, you could see faint grey lines flashing here and there. Itsuki knew that the blade was still there but it was now made out of wind. Keeping the sword behind him in a backhand grip, he now inspected the sword in front of him. Ryurai looked normal but had lighting constantly streaking across its blade. Its handguard was a blue coiling dragon while its tsuba was also blue.

Itsuki activated his eyes as the two opponents continued there stare down. The sun was slowly setting behind them and once it retreated fully, they both moved. Pushing his mental abilities to the limit, he realised that they had upgraded a fold. He had now got his fifth partition and could accelerate his thoughts three-fold. Only taking a second to think of the possibilities, Itsuki immediately crouched slightly as he put his left foot behind him bringing Ryurai level to his head. Bending his arm, he bought the sword close to his face with the tip of the sword pointing at the hollow and immediately charged up reiatsu. He did a one handed 'Te ura gasumi no kamae' sword stance.

Unleashing it, Itsuki extended his arm and felt a surge of reiatsu before immediately turning into lightning and being propelled forward. The hollow also moved at this moment and they both disappeared, appearing behind each other. The hollow's sword was cut in half before it slowly started disintegrating. Itsuki had cut through the sword's line of death. Before it could full disintegrate, the hollow turned around and unleashed a blade of reishi towards Itsuki. Bringing Byakko up Itsuki defended against the strike by placing the sword in the path of reishi. Upon contact, the blade of reishi immediately disappeared leaving no trace of it ever being unleashed.

These were the sword abilities that Itsuki could currently use. Ryurai could use lightning to pierce an enemy at lightning fast speeds reaching up to 1 km, depending on how much reiatsu is used. Byakko's wind was unique as it had the ability to nullify reiatsu/reishi while also being able to create wind blades. Ryurai was a pure attacking elemental zanpakuto, having barely any defensive properties apart from it physically being there so he can defend physical attacks. Byakko was purely defensive in nature but only to attacks made of reiatsu and reishi while having little attacking capabilities. As the blade was made of wind, there was little to no physical defence. Both however increased his speed to unnatural lengths as he got the lightning property of instantly moving and the versatility of wind.

After nullifying the reishi blade, Itsuki once again got into a stance as he looked at the now point of deaths on the Hollow. Awakening his Shikai and an upgrade to his mental capabilities wasn't the only benefit he got, somehow his eyes had evolved, and he was now able to see points of death. He doesn't know if this is forever or just in his Shikai form, but it seems like seeing death in front of him has evolved his eyes.

Itsuki saw the points of death and knew the perfect technique. He wanted to try it out on the hollow and see if he could get at least one point. Bringing his sword in front of him, Itsuki unleashed his move,

"Hiten mitsurugi-ryu, Kuzuryusen"

The hollow launched itself onto Itsuki but only came across the illusion of nine separate blades attacking nine different places on his body. Knowing that he couldn't let even one hit, it tried dodging but immediately failed and was stabbed through. Thinking of counterattacking was the last thing the hollow thought off before collapsing. It never disappeared like the other hollows but stayed there. Knowing that at least one point of death was stabbed through, Itsuki was sure of the hollow's death.

Sighing in relief Itsuki looked around, seeing the destruction caused by the fight with the hoard of hollows another sigh escaped his mouth. Suddenly there was a flash of light above him and a pair of shoji doors appeared, similar to the ones used for waiting rooms. Realising that soul society must've acted, he fell unconscious once he realised that it was safe.

- A few day later -

Opening his eyes, a white ceiling entered his view while a certain heaviness was felt on his left arm. Moving his right arm to rub his eyes he surveyed his surroundings. It seemed that he was in some sort of recovery room with all the other students who took part in the demi-hollow training. It was around night time and everyone was asleep around him.

He then noticed Rangiku sleeping on a chair next to him while leaning over his arm. Dark circles could be seen under her eyes indicating that she didn't have much sleep.

Perceiving that it's still dark outside, Itsuki decided to see his Zanpakuto spirits and get to know them more.

Closing his eyes to meditate, Itsuki's consciousness was slowly pulled into his inner world.

Opening his eyes, he was back at the same place he was before, on top of the mountain and the same two monstrosities could be seen. They looked calmly backed at him as they continued their staring contest for a few short breaths. The tiger and dragon slowly moved forwards and morphed into a more humanoid body.

Byakko became a short petite girl with white cat ears and tail. She wore a white kimono with the symbol of wind patterned across it. She had blue cat eyes and silver hair cascading down her back. She wore no slippers and kept walking barefooted while her kimono sleeves hid her hands.

Ryurai became a well-endowed woman wearing a black kimono with the symbol of lightning streaking across. She had black hair, purple reptilian eyes, elf like ears and two horns jutting out on either side of her head pointing to the heavens taking the shape of a crown. Both had an apathetic look on their face as they never spoke.

Suddenly two swords appeared in Itsuki's hand as he got into stance while a sword appeared on each of the zanpakuto's hand. No words were needed to be said. Being part of Itsuki's soul, they both had an idea of what was going on in his head.

A stone appeared out of near and landed, starting the fight

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