Dear Kubo, this is what happens when you threaten to lose my favorite character(s).
And I'll Be Here Standing
It will all be clear when you understand the technique.
Ichigo's hands instinctively closed around the hilt in front of him, and around the smaller, stronger hands that held it. He felt that he had never understood less in his life, and there were still so many questions. Whether the final Getsuga Tensho would really be potent enough to destroy the monster threatening his world. Why his zanpakutou's wretched, desolate eyes cut him more keenly than the black blade ever had. Why the sword through his gut felt so familiar.
Why the buildings around him were warped and tilted at even more surreal angles than they'd been a moment ago.
..Oh.
Inexplicably free of the blade that had pierced him, Ichigo twisted aside just in time. Another bloodstained, battered sword missed him by a hair, thundering through the wall at his back and raining splinters of stone and glass across the sky of a different world.
In the chaos that had followed his triumphant ascension to Vaizard status, he'd completely forgotten the mad apparition that had whipped his fighting spirit back into play the last time his zanpakutou had run him through. Once again Kenpachi Zaraki loomed above him, looking even meaner than he had the last time they'd met in this even-more-surreal corner of Ichigo's soul.
This time Ichigo stood his ground. His wound was gone, his sword in hand, and there was no time for this. It had been bad enough clashing with Tensa Zangetsu, bad enough realizing the strength of the two sides of his power, bad enough seeing them cry. He was done with running blind.
The battered blade moved again and Ichigo moved with it, locking its hilt with his own in a grating deflection that brought a grunt of surprised approval from his foe. Kenpachi's shoulders bunched, his sheer appalling strength forcing Ichigo to disengage.
"Don't tell me," rumbled Kenpachi, running a thumb over his hilt where Ichigo had scarred it, "you're finally interested in finishin' our fight?"
"Go away, Kenpachi," said Ichigo levelly. "I'll deal with you after I learn the final Getsuga Tensho."
The giant shook his head, apparently not wrongfooted at all.
"Who," he grinned, "are ya callin' Kenpachi?"
Ichigo blinked. Come to think of it, this had happened last time he was here too.
He suddenly had a horrible feeling he knew where this was going.
Kenpachi - or not - shook a roll of dirty gray bandage out of his sleeve, looped the end around the wrist of his sword hand, and tested its strength with a few snapping tugs.
"You should recognize me by now," he said, smiling his shark's smile as Ichigo fought an urge to gulp, and the distorted world around them suddenly began to feel much too small for the both of them together. "The name's Mugetsu. And I thought you were here to learn something."
_