A/N: Long long absence, I know. I got busy and then kinda forgot about my little project here. Hopefully the next couple chapters will make up for some of that time, but they're basically tying up what began at the end of the first one. I just couldn't bring myself to make that situation concise. Oh well. Hope you enjoy.

Rukia watched helplessly from her perch on the observation deck, hands still clutching the armrests of her seat while the torrent of power raged around Ichigo. All thoughts, save one, had vacated her head by now. She only prayed for Ichigo to be safe. It was an odd thing for her to see the orange-haired shinigami engulfed in power that was not his own. Instead of piercing blue or midnight black tinged with blood red, all that she could see was incandescent red. In fact, Rukia could not remember a time when an opponent had overwhelmed the eerily powerful man with an attack so similar to a Getsuga Tenshou. Always, their foes had used superior strategy or cunning to win, never sheer strength. Regardless, Rukia had seen the current events unfold before her round, violet eyes, and she was nearly in shock.

Suddenly, a burst of neon blue forced the red energy apart and threw up a cloud of dust from the explosion. Rukia felt Kanaye's reiatsu retract from the battlefield as he released his concentration on his attack, and the pressure on her lungs became much lighter. As her breath returned to her, she found herself relaxing. She knew exactly what that blast of blue meant: Ichigo was alive and well. Thanking the powers that be and returning her attention to the battle at hand, the small shinigami smiled.

OoOoO

Kanaye grinned a happy grin when a small pulse of reiatsu dissipated the dust surrounding the battlefield. He knew that his initial attack would never destroy the famed 3rd Division Captain. And he was proven correct when the legendary black katana poked out of the remaining dust, its broken chain tinkling lightly when the wielder of the sword pointed it squarely at the younger shinigami. "Tensa Zangetsu."

A matching grin graced Ichigo's face, his body largely unscathed except for a few shallow wounds on his neck and forehead. "Nice attack. Never seen a shikai quite like that before," Ichigo said, falling back into a guarded position. He exuded an air of confidence, but inside he was still trying to gauge the black-haired shinigami's power. That shikai had been formless, just a mass of spiritual energy directed by Kanaye's own reiatsu. There was no possible way that a 6th Seat had hidden away that much strength for so long without notice. Compressing reiatsu was a difficult business, especially when one had an excess of it. Which would mean that this man had been holding back enough to avoid detection by even the upper echelons of Soul Society. Confused but ready to fight, Ichigo took a step forward, fully intending to unleash Tensa Zangetsu's speed and crush the Ronin boy before he could lift a finger.

But Kanaye, still grinning, lifted his blade in his right hand, leveling the sharp edge with Ichigo's front. Something in that tiny movement compelled Ichigo to stop, as if a predator had just tightened its focus on killing its prey. The Captain didn't know how he knew, but he knew that this young shinigami was dangerous beyond compare in a way that he hadn't seen since Grimmjow Jeagerjacques.

"You comin'?" the younger of the two questioned, head cocked to the side. His tone was almost taunting, goading Ichigo onward to clash black steel with silver. Ichigo smirked and gripped Zangetsu with both hands, well aware of the danger he was about to throw himself into.

"You bet."

Both combatants blurred out of existence, appearing milliseconds later in the space that had existed between them. Their blades crashed together in a flurry of sparks over and over, creating what must have looked like a fireworks display to the viewers above. Gleaming silver and inky black ignited the atmosphere with their speed and accuracy, each strike potentially more deadly than the last. The two expert fighters flashed away again, this time clashing and separating in an impressive show of quickness and dexterity. The next time they reappeared, Ichigo swung an energy-fueled Zangetsu at Kanaye, effectively forcing the younger man to retreat several feet. However, the speed of Ichigo's bankai far outmatched Kanaye's natural talent for shunpo, and Kanaye sensed the orange-haired shinigami a moment too late.

The fanged zanpakuto dropped to the ground, tip buried in the loose dirt, while its wielder bounced along the ground for several yards before grinding his heels into the earth and skidding to a halt. Blood leaked from a deep wound in his back as water would from a faucet, and Ichigo sighed heavily. The Captain knew that without his zanpakuto, Kanaye would be minimally threatening: he fought like a berserker, meaning he had little to no knowledge of kido, let alone any that could not be dodged. And with damage like that, there was no chance of a hand to hand fight. He was finished, and Ichigo hoped that he wouldn't have to deal a finishing blow.

"Kanaye Ronin, do you concede?" Yamamoto boomed from the observation deck. The other Captains looked put out for the most part, save Kenpachi who looked as though he wanted to leap onto the battlefield and have his own go at the young 6th Seat. Orihime clutched her hands at her chest, worried for the safety of both parties involved in the battle, and Rukia sat stoically in her seat. Captain Ukitake seemed proud that a member of his division had fought so valiantly against the powerhouse that was Ichigo Kurosaki.

Ichigo glanced at the bowed head of his opponent. The dark-haired man had not moved since he had taken the slash to his back, and his crouched position shadowed his face and made his thoughts unreadable. The Captain of the 3rd Division could only assume that he was either in pain or weighing his options, none of which were pleasant. Why not go while the going was good?

Suddenly, Kanaye's shoulders twitched and his head perked up a bit. He began to straighten his back, then his legs, finally rising to stand fully straight and peering through his bangs at Ichigo. What Ichigo saw shocked him to his core. The eyes that gazed out from beneath the shade of hair shone silver, gleaming with power. The wounded man's right hand stretched forward and Ichigo instantly went on the defensive in case he had been wrong about his opponent's kido abilities. He needn't have worried.

"…Ankoku," Kanaye said softly. Ichigo gazed wide-eyed as the zanpakuto that he just recently knocked from Kanaye's hand rocked in its earthy prison before tearing out of the dirt and flying directly into the grip of its owner.

"I do not concede."

OoOoO

Rukia could not believe what she was seeing. Scant minutes ago, a 6th Seat had taken a direct hit from one of the most famed zanpakuto in all of Soul Society, and now he was acting as if the gash on his back was nothing but a scratch. What was even more perplexing was the manner in which the young shinigami summoned his sword; never had the petite woman seen a shinigami retrieve a zanpakuto without physical contact.

Now the 3rd Division Captain and the 6th Seat of 13th Division were engaged in heated combat. Ichigo had taken to utilizing Zangetsu's speed to confuse his opponent and inflict damage while Kanaye was easily blocking most of those attacks. Although he could not match speed for speed, he appeared to have a knack for sensing an attack just before it connected, and that knack saved him countless times.

All in all, the unknown challenger was holding his own, blocking and striking when he could. Which is what disturbed Rukia to no end. How could this relatively green shinigami be holding his own on any level with a Captain, and one who was using bankai no less. It was infuriating, and she had no stomach for it. Beside her, her previous Captain was grinning profusely at his subordinate's performance, but the raven-haired noblewoman wanted no part of this.

It simply was not natural.

OoOoO

The two titans finally stopped moving. Ichigo was getting frustrated with this battle. He was pushing Zangetsu to its limits, but Ankoku was meeting a great deal of his attacks with a solid block. He decided that it was time to end this little skirmish with his most powerful attack, regardless of the damage it would cause. If worse came to worse, the stronger Captains could contain the energy surge with their reiatsu. The slim black sword rose up and over Ichigo's left shoulder, pulsing with black fire and screaming with the intent to kill.

"Getsuga…TENSHOU!"

Dense reiatsu tore out of Zangetsu's blade and enveloped Kanaye. The young shinigami was blown backward with enough force to destroy a building and crashed into the ground roughly a hundred yards from where he had been standing. Deep gashes covered his body, the blood from them dripping over several reiatsu burns. To his credit, he stumbled to his feet but Ichigo was sure that his efforts were driven by sheer willpower. Still, Ichigo was surprised that the man hadn't even tried to defend himself against the Getsuga Tenshou.

"Hey, Kanye, why didn't you use your attack to counter mine?" Ichigo shouted to his opponent.

Kanaye swayed on his feet and ground out a low chuckle.

"That attack is meant to kill," the young shinigami rasped. "Using it to protect is about as useful as protecting myself from water with a knife."

Kurosaki frowned at that. It hadn't been the answer he was expecting; he thought that the answer would be something like "I'm too strong to take a hit like that and die." Instead the boy implies something entirely different; what, he wasn't sure, but it was certainly something foreboding. However, strange as it was, Ichigo could not let his guard down and raised Tensa Zangetsu up to attack again.

Suddenly, the orange-haired shinigami whirled just in time to catch the tip of a large, sharpened metal dart on the flat of his blade. Both combatants looked in surprise as two odd men stepped out of a shimmering oval doorway in the sky. One – he who had attacked Ichigo – was running the edge of his tongue along a six-inch-long dart exactly like the one he had thrown seconds before. His red hair was short and spiked, just as manic as his grin and his short, pointy nose. A short black jacket, open at the neck, and tight black leather pants over military-style boots covered a bulky, well-muscled physique. While that one was grinning maniacally and doing his best not to cackle out loud, the other was stoic and conserved. His stark appearance was plain: shoulder length white hair pulled into a tight tail, black oxford shirt on top of black slacks and patent-leather shoes, and an indifferent, forgettable face. If Ichigo had to guess, the calm one was more dangerous.

"Shinigami," the stoic man boomed, "you have lived long and well. Your reign over the dead has been largely unchallenged for millennia.

"However, your time is over, as is your civilization."

The Captains had risen as soon as the doorway was spotted and all but Yamamoto had drawn their zanpakuto. They held themselves back quite admirably, although it was clear that Zaraki at the very least wanted to cleave the two strangers in half.

The Commander spoke. "Who are you to claim such nonsense in Soul Society?" His voice, strong and consistent, bellowed across the exhibition grounds, drowning out the sound of the Soul Society's alarm.

This time, the bulky intruder roared with laughter and his partner flung a hand out as if to summon something. Thousands of dark portals rippled into existence and Ichigo fought back a tremor of disgust when what appeared to be half-eaten Hollows fell sluggishly into the Seireitei. "We are Death."