Crows x Souls

"How could the Gotei 13 allow someone like you to be a captain?! It's completely ridiculous! A captain of the Gotei 13 is supposed to protect those under him, but who have you ever protected?! When you fight, just who is it for?! How do you justify your insane lust for blood?!" — Ichinose Maki. 

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[POV: With Itachi] 

After dispatching those two Bounts, Itachi decided to go to the 12th Division and try to find out why the Bounts were targeting it… or maybe just ask their Captain. 

"I can see you, Mayuri." 

An irritated click of the tongue came from a nearby wall that suddenly started flaking to reveal Mayuri Kurotsuchi who had somehow merged with the structure. 

"Mind telling me why you were hiding?"

Mayuri snorted. "To observe how you'll kill them of course." His tone was dry of humor, as if not understanding why Itachi would ask such a thing in the first place. 

"I would have preferred if you actually kept one of the samples alive but… tch." Angered at the lack of materials and new information, from the Bounts and Itachi respectively, Mayuri sauntered off to his lab. 

"What are they after?" Itachi asked. 

Mayuri shrugged. "How would I know? You should have kept one of them alive if you really wanted to know."

"Mayuri." Itachi said calmly, which surprisingly made Mayuri stop and slowly turned his head to glare threateningly at Itachi. 

"… Are you trying to threaten me?" His Reiatsu took on a sharp edge as he waited for Itachi to reply.

"If you know something then share it." Itachi said unperturbed, ignoring the threat accusation. 

"Hmph." He turned around and walked away, not bothering to deign Itachi's questions with a reply but made sure to leave his own behind. 

"Just kill them all, then you'll get your answer."

He didn't have a concrete answer to the number of Bounts present, only the six he saw at the underground hideout, but he doubted just the six of them were confident to challenge the Shinigami with just that level of strength. The two he killed were hardly impressive – while strong enough to fight most Lieutenants, even beat them, they were still quite a ways off from being able to kill a Captain. 

He felt Kyōraku's Reiatsu a moment ago so he knew he didn't have to go to the northern gate. Captain Komamura would have his squad mates with him if they came across any Bount. 

"Who's remaining?"

A familiar sensation of something trying to cut a thousand cuts into his body came over Itachi and he didn't have to be reminded whose Reiatsu that was. 

He also couldn't feel sorry for whoever was facing the brunt of that Reiatsu. It was just their luck. 

... 

[POV: With Kenpachi] 

The towering man was no in a good mood today, not that his stellar moods had much to do with anything positive. 

The Seireitei had gotten quickly boring for him ever since Itachi stopped fighting with him, and since none of the newer Captains were considerate enough to accept him for a light 'spar', he started visiting the Rukongai to get his mind off things. He was lucky enough to kill one or two Hollows on special occasions but even that still felt lacking to him. 

And finally, after so long, someone challenged him to a fight. 

The young woman talked a big game, blabbing about Shinigami this and whatnot that, but Kenpachi couldn't bring himself to care. The only thing on his mind then was:

"Where's your sword?"

The woman laughed so hard for some reason he couldn't tell and after a short session of blabbing, she finally drew her blade. 

He remembered the smile that threatened his face when she started absorbing Reishi greedily and he could feel her energy getting ridiculously high. 

"Finally! Don't make this boring!" Maybe he shouldn't have jinxed it. 

In his excitement, or maybe because of the impression her climbing Reiatsu levels gave him, or maybe because he was used to fighting Itachi, he took one big step and brought his Zanpakutō down with the intensity he had dearly missed. 

Oh she blocked it. That should have been a good thing except that the once arrogant smile on her face had disappeared and she was now looking at him with wary eyes that gleamed with a bit of fear. 

What a fool he had been. He had gotten deceived by her energy levels, or maybe he was just that desperate for any passable fight, that he forgot that he never felt any tingle from her. 

Clearly her absurdly high Reiatsu was useless since all she did was use it to buff herself and brute force her Zanpakutō. 

Now that he thought about it, had she been trying to copy him? Meh, it didn't matter. She had died so quickly that it brought him down from his high.

"What do you want, squirt? Need directions or something?" He was lazily lounging and hoping that any of these new intruders would make their way to him, but so far none of them came. Where was Yachiru when you needed her? 

"Are you still here? I'm not in a good mood so get lost." He waved dismissively at the Shinigami standing a few meters from him. Hmm? Why was he drawing his Zanpakutō? 

"Kenpachi Zaraki." The boy called him by his full name. "My name is Maki Ichinose. I have come to avenge the wrongful death of my Captain, Kenpachi Kiganjō."

"Kenpachi? Oh you mean the guy who owned this?" He pointed at his haori, his casual bore greatly infuriating his potential-attacker. "So what do you want to do?"

"I will kill you." Ichinose righteously declared and unsheathed his Zanpakutō. "You are the embodiment of everything wrong with the Soul Society. The core of the very blight Master Kariya wishes to destroy."

"Ehh?" indifferent eyes and the dull attempt at a reply was all Ichinose got from Kenpachi. 

Ichinose's Reiatsu surged, clearly done with entertaining Kenpachi. "Before I kill you, answer me this: you were the one who killed Yoshi, weren't you? I felt your Reiatsu where hers disappeared."

Now that piqued Kenpachi's interest. So he knew that girl. "The one with the sword and the fan? Sadly yeah." His mood further deflated with a regretful sigh, surprising Ichinose. 

"What do you mean 'sadly'?"

"What's it with you, eh?" His irritation was growing with all the numbing questions. "If I knew she would die that quickly then I wouldn't have gotten excited for nothing."

Kenpachi ignored Ichinose's stunned look and grumbled to himself, not caring for the explosion of Reiatsu a few meters from him. 

A world of yellow bright lights covered Kenpachi, taking away everything from view, even the building he was sitting on. 

"What's this? A light show?" He snorted derisively, utterly unimpressed. Lazily grabbing his sword, he swung it in a random direction without looking. 

Ichinose, who had been invisible, was startled at how easily Kenpachi anticipated his attack but didn't dwell on it. Killing a Captain wasn't going to be easy. 

"What's the point of going invisible when I can see you." Kenpachi said, now staring at where the invisible Ichinose stood. "That said, better stop this now since I'm not in a good mood and I might forget to hold back."

Ichinose snorted. How he hated this man. "How arrogant and conceited of you, Zaraki."

Light covered his Zanpakutō and his form duplicated, attacking Kenpachi from ten fronts. 

Still sitting, Kenpachi's eyes followed a particular duplicate, opening his mouth and speaking with all humor lost on him. 

"Oi brat, didn't I say to knock it off?" Unforgiving, he swung his sword. Uncaring, his blade blew out all the illusions and struck Ichinose who had put up a hasty block. The boy's eyes widened as Kenpachi's monstrous strength engulfed his blade and blew him out and away from the dome of yellow light, which was also blown away by Kenpachi's Reiatsu that travelled with his blade. 

"Sorry to burst your bubble, kid, but you're not strong enough." He towered over the downed form of Ichinose, making the boy freeze as dread started creeping up his body. 

Ichinose bit his lips to keep his mind focused and pushed himself off the ground and away from Kenpachi, struggling as he did. The force of that strike was just unbelievable. 

"I'm not done yet-" 

"Because I haven't decided to cut you in half." Kenpachi had cut off whatever drivel he wanted to say with a brutal fact. 

It seems like Ichinose was hardwired to react negatively to any word that came out of Kenpachi's mouth. Kenpachi was perplexed and also fed up with the ignorant youth in front of him that was advertising his killing intent. 

"Saigyoku Nijigasumi!" 

Following his shout, twinkling white lights surrounded Kenpachi and rapidly multiplied to a few dozen meters with the intensity of each speck increasing exponentially with each twinkle. 

And then came the pressure. 

After the dome of light expanded to its limits, its size started decreasing which conversely increased the pressure and intensity of the light for those trapped in its confines. 

At its completion, everything inside the light would have turned to dust, compressed by the increasing gravity and complexity eviscerated by the millions of piercing rays. 

"A truly splendid technique, Ichinose!"

Kenpachi smiled. A bloodthirsty genuine smile. 

Lacking in strength the boy might have been, but his intent to kill and the resolve of his technique impressed him. At least more than that nameless girl. 

"Unfortunately, it's not… ENOUGH!" A golden yellow Reiatsu burst open from Kenpachi's body like a dam and easily overwhelmed everything. 

… And just like the first two times, all it took was a swing of a broken blade. 

Ichinose could have never reacted fast enough from watching anticipatorily for his honed technique to rid the world of injustice personified, to seeing everything being blown away – his Reiatsu, his technique, his resolve, his pride – all with a swing of a blade. 

Kenpachi nonchalantly walked past him, the previous smile gone from his face. He had stayed his hand from dissecting the boy with that slash. 

"I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. A hundred years. Two hundred. Five hundred. I will hold the title of Kenpachi for however long you need to kill me, Ichinose… that or you just give up."

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