“…Ikomikidomoe…”
Hikone murmured that expressionlessly as Kenpachi brought down his sword on the child.
“You think this is the time to worry about someone other than yourself?”
“Oh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to!”
Apologizing and dodging by a paper-thin margin, Hikone waited just a moment before saying to Kenpachi, “Will you please give me just a little bit of time?”
“Hunh? What’re you getting up to?”
Kenpachi was dubious, but Hikone smiled innocently and answered, “Why, of course, I’m getting ready to kill you! Yes, indeed!”
“…Interesting. Are you going to use a bankai or somethin’?”
A standard strategy would be to kill the opponents before they could use their trump card. However, those kinds of tactics held no interest for Kenpachi. And since only Madarame and Yumichika were beside him, no one was around to scold him for it. Had Kyoraku been there, he would have used that opening to at least try to stab Hikone from behind, but the Soul Reaper was on the ground and fighting Tokinada.
“A bankai… Yes, that might be what it is, but I’m not sure.”
“Hunh?”
“Since it’s Ikomikidomoe, it might need to be called a Resurrección.”
Before even finishing their sentence, Hikone nosedived recklessly to the ground.
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✦ ✦ ✦
“Impossible… How could I be defeated by urchins such as you?”
“You’re still kickin’? You sure are a stubborn dirt bag,” Grimmjow said in exasperation as he moved forward to serve the finishing blow.
Ikomikidomoe’s gigantic form was at last mostly destroyed and had turned into a statue that could only groan his resentments.
“Curse you! If I just had my name! If I could just get back my true name, what I could do to you…!”
“Hunh? I don’t know what you’re grumbling about, but you really want those to be your last words?”
Grimmjow used his own fangs to cut his fingertip and started to accumulate spiritual pressure in his hand mixed with his blood to shoot a Gran Rey Cero. However, before he could release the Cero, a voice addressed Ikomikidomoe from above their heads.
“You already have a name, don’t you?”
“Huh?”
At Hikone’s voice, everyone turned their eyes to the child.
“Ikomikidomoe, you’re my zanpaku-to!”
Almost as though he were frightened of that innocent smile, Ikomikidomoe’s voice quivered.
“No…not that name…do not call me by that name…”
Ignoring these pleas, Hikone said to those nearby, “Thank you very much! Thank you for weakening Ikomikidomoe to this point!”
“Hunh…?”
Grimmjow knitted his eyebrows, not understanding what that meant.
Hikone simply held their hand out toward Ikomikidomoe and called that last name.
“Ikomikidomoe, Eight Views of the Fall of the Phoenix.”
“------~~~~~……”
The monstrosity’s gigantic body glimmered, and right as it seemed to crumble away, it turned into a yin and yang wind of black and white that wrapped around Hikone.
In the next moment, Hikone’s body transformed into a form like an Arrancar wearing a shihakusho, like a fusion of Hollow and Soul Reaper. The shadow of Hollowlike reishi seemed to crawl and wriggle under the child’s skin.
The once-transformed monster Ikomikidomoe had returned to the form of a Japanese sword. Within the pure white of that sword, a blotchy pattern intermixed in the zanpaku-to grasped in Hikone’s hand.
It was not only the child’s form that had changed.
It was almost as though all the missing pieces had perfectly snapped into place, evolving Hikone’s spiritual pressure into something on an entirely different level. Ikomikidomoe’s spiritual pressure hadn’t simply been set over the top of the child’s. As though that ancient Hollow’s spiritual pressure had become a key, it seemed to be unlocking limiters that had been in Hikone all along.
Just by being in proximity to the child, a stinging despair seemed to penetrate the skin of everyone around. Those who felt the peculiar spiritual pressure, which was different even from Aizen’s, recognized not with words but through instinct… that the child in front of their eyes did undoubtedly have the qualities to become the Soul King.
“Well then…I’ll take care of you all afterward!”
Though the child had obtained such expansive powers, their character had not changed a bit from earlier. That consistency made everyone around the child feel an ominous sense of intimidation, and as a result the group hesitated a moment too long.
Using that small opening, Hikone once again leapt high up into the sky.
Hikone reached a height that a normal Soul Reaper could not reach in one breath with nearly the same force as a cannonball. Then, after simply solidifying the midair reishi, they ran through the Kyogoku's sky with the swiftness of a god.
They ran to the man waiting in the sky who was their greatest opponent in that place.
They ran in order to sever the life of the one who bore the title of the strongest Soul Reaper, Kenpachi Zaraki.
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✦ ✦ ✦
“What is this spiritual pressure…?”
As Hisagi ran to the exit of the vast, multistory building, he sensed the robust spiritual pressure coming from below and reflexively stopped. His whole body oozing cold sweat, Hisagi realized that a spiritual pressure he had encountered earlier was mixed within that vast spiritual pressure.
“Is that…Hikone?”
≡