Chapter 36: The White Tiger's Trial
"I'm sorry!" Ichigo yelled, chasing after Katsumi as the man stormed off.
"This makes no fucking sense!" Katsumi cried out in frustration, literally throwing his hands up in the air. "Actually, no; you make no fucking sense!" he corrected himself, whirling around to point a trembling finger directly in between Ichigo's eyes. The wild, twitchy expression he wore made him look particularly unstable, Ichigo found, especially considering the fact that Katsumi had just had his eyebrows burned off yet again, after having spent the better part of the day before growing them back through careful application of Kaidō.
"How the hell can you be just barely, passably decent at Bakudō, yet have every single goddamn Hadō spell you attempt to cast blow up in your face?!" he demanded. "Or rather, in my face?!"
"I didn't mean to!" Ichigo shouted back. "I'm trying to apologize here, would you just listen to—dammit Grimmjow, stop laughing!" Ichigo sighed when Grimmjow did not, in fact, stop laughing, and Katsumi stomped over to where Renji was practicing by himself.
"I think you broke him," Yoruichi remarked, sounding oddly gleeful about it.
"I take it Kidō practice is over?" Urahara asked sardonically, failing entirely to hide his grin behind his paper fan.
"Looks that way," Ichigo muttered, wiping a hand over his face to get rid of the soot that clung to it. It could have been worse, Ichigo thought. At least he still had his eyebrows.
"Shall we begin then, Jaegerjaquez-san?"
Grimmjow finished up his pointing and laughing at Katsumi, then joined Urahara and Yoruichi by the Tenshintai doll they had set up. "So, what? I just have to stab this thing?" he asked, already getting his sword out.
"Simply put, yes," Urahara confirmed. "It is after that that the difficult part begins, however."
"Are you sure you're ready?" Ichigo asked. "I mean, it's not gonna be easy—this could actually kill you. You've also only got three days to do it, so-!" Ichigo found himself getting interrupted by the harsh, scraping sound of Grimmjow driving his sword through the doll, and he stared at it in disbelief. "You didn't even let me finish!" he complained, only for Grimmjow to shrug disinterestedly.
"Nothing you said was gonna make me change my mind, anyway."
"But you barely even know what you're getting into!"
Yoruichi coughed out something that sounded suspiciously like the word 'hypocrite', and Ichigo glared at her.
"Oh! It dragged me out as well?"
Before Ichigo could resume his argument, the sudden appearance of two felines that were each the size of a small horse rather urgently demanded everybody's attention.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Grimmjow gruffly demanded of the armored panther who had spoken.
"Why, I can't help it if this ridiculous Shinigami contraption happened to bring me along with Byakko," the white panther haughtily explained, pointing her nose skyward.
"She was bored and decided to come with," the black-and-white, fur-covered tiger next to her deadpanned, only to have to duck out from under the swipe of her claws.
"I assume you two will be taking it from here?" Yoruichi asked the two large cats, and Byakko's expression instantly sharpened. Ichigo could have sworn he saw his grey eyes flash silver for an instant.
"I shall be taking it from here," the tiger corrected Yoruichi, his heavy voice suddenly sounding so imposing that Ichigo half-expected the ground to start rumbling. "Are you prepared, my King?" Byakko asked of Grimmjow. "To attain Bankai is to force your Zanpakutou into submission. Should you prove unworthy of my power…" The tiger didn't finish his sentence, but the unspoken implications rang loud and clear.
"You'll kill me yourself, right?" Grimmjow inferred, sounding worryingly blasé about it. "That's about what I expected."
"You are determined, then. I am glad to hear it." Byakko pulled back his lips to reveal his pearly white canines, until his expression held the middle between a smile and a snarl. If Ichigo hadn't been sure that Byakko was a piece of Grimmjow's soul before, he certainly was now. That expression was Grimmjow all over.
"Let us begin," Byakko announced, and blurred out of sight with a short burst of Shunpo, only to reappear in the center of a large, open area of the training room, where there were fewer rock formations to get in his way. He raised his front paw, and when he slammed it back down, the earth itself was ripped apart with a horrible cacophony of grinding metal as countless silvery stakes rose up to surround the tiger on all sides.
Urahara let out a strangled whine upon seeing even more of his basement get destroyed, and Yoruichi consolingly patted him on the back.
When the earth finally stopped trembling, Byakko had been completely hidden from view by the dense forest of steel he had created. The individual stakes all had wildly varying sizes, with the smallest only being around the size of a dagger, while the largest were colossal, conical pillars that dwarfed even fully-grown trees. Each of them reflected the light, to the point where Ichigo couldn't be sure just how much of what he was seeing was real, and what was mirror image.
Without another word, Grimmjow squared his shoulders and set off for the forest.
"Grimm!" Ichigo called out to his retreating back, and Grimmjow paused for a moment. He wanted to offer some encouragement, but wasn't sure how to go about it. After all, telling Grimmjow to be careful would only get him a raised middle finger in response, and simply wishing him good luck seemed like such a lame thing to do…
In a sudden flash of insight, Ichigo knew exactly what to say, and he smirked. "You know how you have three days to do this, right?" he asked, the smugness in his voice already making Grimmjow frown suspiciously at him. "I did it in two."
Grimmjow's eyes briefly widened when his words registered, then they swiftly narrowed again as he turned around fully in order to direct a proper glare at Ichigo. "Is that supposed to be a challenge, Kurosaki?" he growled out.
"Only if you want it to be," Ichigo replied, making his voice sound deceptively flippant. "I mean, it's not like it's gonna be easy—I totally get it if you're scared of losing." Behind him, both Yoruichi and Pantera started chuckling under their breath, and Ichigo didn't even need to turn around to know that Urahara was hiding a smile of his own behind his paper fan.
"Oh, I like this one," he heard Pantera comment, and Grimmjow quickly shot her a nasty look of betrayal.
"I'm gonna make you regret those words, Kurosaki," he threatened, making his patented Murder Face at Ichigo.
Ichigo's smirk only grew when he saw it, however. "Then you'd better get to it, huh?" he said, jutting his chin out toward the forest. "Clock's ticking."
Grimmjow scoffed, yet promptly started marching for the forest again with renewed determination. Ichigo was fairly confident he could hear him muttering something about 'cocky little shits' as he went, and considered it a job well done.
A little while later found Ichigo sitting cross-legged on the ground of training room, a comfortable distance away from the forest of blades. He could hear the occasional clash of steel or angry, bestial roar resounding from its depths, and the noises were making it rather difficult to concentrate on his own training.
Although it wasn't just the sounds of battle that were making it hard to focus.
"No offense," Ichigo grit out, doing his best to reign in his temper, "but you do realize your head is covered in solid bone armor, right? It's kinda hard to focus when my leg keeps falling asleep."
"Has no one ever taught you manners, boy?" Pantera asked him with a disapproving frown. With great reluctance, she lifted her massive head from his lap, and looked at Ichigo with eyes that were disturbingly similar to Grimmjow's, aside from their slightly darker hue. "One should never tell a lady that she is too heavy."
"You're a gigantic, armored panther," Ichigo scoffed, "in what way are you a la-?!" The sudden, overpowering sensation of bloodlust and fear of his own, imminent death had Ichigo wisely shutting up.
Pantera seemed to take great amusement in the expression he was currently making, and retracted the deadly claws she had extended moments before. "You are every bit as lamentably blunt as my wielder, yet at least it seems you possess more sense than he—Grimmjow would have finished that sentence."
Once Ichigo deemed that the threat of having his face sliced to ribbons had passed, he asked: "Seriously though; why are you still hanging around me? Shouldn't you be helping with Grimm's Bankai training?"
"No. This trial is between Byakko and Grimmjow alone. Even had my presence been welcomed, I would not be wasting what may well be my only time in the material world playing assistant to the Shinigami aspect."
"…So you're wasting your time with me, instead?"
Pantera chuckled as she put her head back down on his thigh, and the heavy, low-pitched sound sent vibrations thrumming throughout Ichigo's whole body. "What can I say? You are rather interesting to me, child. You have grown to be quite dear to my wielder. As one of his Spirits, it is only natural that I share his wants, to a degree."
"…Are you saying Grimmjow wants to put his head in my lap?" Ichigo asked half-seriously, and smiled when Pantera laughed loudly in response.
"That is a rather literal way to interpret my words, but who knows? Closely tied we may be, but I still cannot read my wielder's mind." She purred when Ichigo, on a complete whim, started petting the top of her head. He startled a little, because wow, that felt eerily similar to petting a fleshless skull, but absently carried on nevertheless.
"Now just what areyou trying to accomplish here, boy?" she demanded. "Your Reiatsu has been fluctuating madly this whole time. It is incredibly distracting, I must say, so I do hope there is a purpose behind it."
Ichigo swallowed back a retort about just who was distracting who here, and explained what he was attempting to do.
"I see," Pantera murmured softly. "Rather than having a separate Aspect for your Hollow and Shinigami sides, this 'Shiro' holds dominion over both, in your case, while the elder half of your Zangetsu represents your Quincy heritage," she summarized once he was finished.
"Yeah. According to Shiro, I finally started using my powers the right way while I was fighting Lilith, so now I'm trying to do… whatever it was I apparently did back then."
Pantera let out a thoughtful hum, and tilted her head to look up at him. "I can understand that much, yet I must ask: why are you still treating your Shinigami and Hollow abilities as two separate things? They originate from the same Spirit, do they not?"
Ichigo blinked in astonishment. It was true that both sets of powers came from Shiro, but to say that they were the same thing altogether? "None of the other Visored ever mentioned anything like that," he brought in with a frown, and Pantera tutted.
"Ah, but you are no Visored, are you now?" she remarked. "Certainly no Arrancar either, but rather… something in between. A true, balanced hybrid between Hollow and Shinigami."
He… wasn't a Visored? Certainly, he could do things that Hirako and his group couldn't, but was he that fundamentally different from them? Was he really, as Grimmjow so aptly put it, such a freak of nature that he didn't even fit in with the outcasts?
Before Ichigo could respond, or even properly parse Pantera's words, one final, ear-grating scrape of metal resounded throughout the basement. Both he and Pantera looked up to see several of the tallest stakes that made up the forest slowly tip over and crash to the ground, causing a large plume of dust to be kicked up before raining back down across a large section of the basement.
"Alas, it appears our time together has run out," Pantera sighed. She got back to her feet and took her time stretching, clearly none too worried about what could have happened between Grimmjow and Byakko. "It was truly a pleasure to meet you, Ichigo."
With that, she leisurely wandered off toward the now worryingly-silent forest of stakes, only to have her place taken by Chad almost immediately after.
"Chad!" Ichigo called out in surprise when he spotted his friend walking over to him. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you still be resting?" He probably deserved the Look Chad sent his way, Ichigo realized, but wasn't about to let a bit of hypocrisy stop him. "I'm serious! You were just held prisoner for a whole week! Why the hell are you already training again?!" he demanded, gesturing towards Chad's transformed arms.
"I've had an entire day to rest, and Orihime already handled my injuries. You're the one who should be resting, Ichigo," He pointed out, as unflappable as always.
And also, just as shockingly observant. From the way Chad's eyes wandered down to his legs, Ichigo knew right away that his friend had managed to see right through him. "…How'd you know?" Ichigo asked, somewhat sheepishly. "None of the others noticed."
"Because I know you," Chad deadpanned. "How bad is it?"
"I barely even notice it when I'm in Resurrección," Ichigo answered honestly. "But outside of it… well, I'm not gonna be running any marathons any time soon."
"Will it heal?"
"…I don't think it's gonna get any better than it is now." Ichigo admitted with a sigh, and brushed a hand over the skin of his upper leg. His sense of touch there had returned for the most part, and he could move his legs just fine, but he did tire a lot faster, and his reaction times had slowed quite a bit. "As long as Kali's alive, her Curse isn't gonna go away."
Chad remained thoughtfully quiet, and Ichigo decided to take that opportunity to change the subject. "Speaking of Curses, what the hell did you do?!" he demanded, angrily whacking Chad on the shoulder. "Did you seriously put one on yourself? On purpose?! Are you out of your mind?!"
"…I want the same thing you do, Ichigo," Chad answered calmly, not even reacting to the hit in any way. "I want to protect the people I care about, and this power lets me do that."
Ichigo was about to retort, already having a reply on his lips about how Chad shouldn't be using a power that leeches away at his own life to do so, when his friend cut him off again.
"It also let me protect the person you care about, when we were being rescued," Chad said with a certain twinkle in his dark eyes that filled Ichigo with dread.
"…What's that look for?" he muttered, suddenly feeling too nervous to even scowl properly.
"You know what it's for, Ichigo."
Ichigo considered playing dumb for all of five seconds before he realized the futility of the endeavor. "…Is it that obvious?"
"Yes," Chad deadpanned without a second's hesitation, and Ichigo sighed.
"Who else…?"
"Literally everyone."
He was not going to get embarrassed over this, Ichigo decided. He was going to handle this like a responsible, mature person, and the fact that his face was probably red enough to clash horribly with his orange spikes was completely unrelated to the subject at hand.
"I honestly feel like the two of you are the only ones who haven't realized that you're practically a couple already," Chad went on, only driving the nail in deeper.
The worst part was that Ichigo couldn't even get mad at him, since he knew that unlike Rukia, Chad was genuinely trying to help solely out of the goodness of his heart, without enjoying any of the schadenfreude that came with it. "It's just... it's just stupid," he muttered. "I never really cared about dating, or any of that stuff. I just figured I'd hit it off with some girl, and that'd be that, you know?" he asked Chad, who hummed noncommittally. "So why did it have to be that blue jackass?" he groaned out, to Chad's obvious amusement. Ichigo shot him a somewhat bashful, crooked grin as he chuckled.
"You can't help who you like, Ichigo," Chad eventually offered, and Ichigo just about threw his hands up in frustration.
"But that's just it!" he cried out, "half the time, I don't even like him! Every single day, he does at least three separate things that make me want to kill him!"
"Speaking of killing," Chad cut in with raised eyebrows, and Ichigo turned around to look at what had him so surprised.
"Um," Ichigo said, intelligently, when he laid eyes on Pantera. She had just emerged from the forest of stakes and was carrying something vaguely humanoid on her back—something that was blue, white and red all over. Ichigo could still sense some Spiritual Pressure emanating from the human chew-toy Grimmjow had been turned into, so at least that was proof he had survived his first day of Bankai training. "Is he… alright?" Ichigo asked Pantera, when she and her baggage passed by himself and Chad.
Pantera was about to answer, but Grimmjow—still conscious, surprisingly enough—beat her to it. "What does it look like?" he grit out irritably, managing to squint one eye open to peek out from between two streams of blood leaking from a gash on his forehead. "I'm fucking peachy, Kurosaki."
"Oh really?" Ichigo shot back, distinctly unimpressed. "Because to me, it looks like you just got mauled by a tiger." He turned to Pantera again. "That sound about right?"
"It does."
"You stay out of it," Grimmjow grumbled weakly, and Ichigo sighed again when he watched the pair head for the Arrancar camp; presumably to have Grimmjow looked at by a healer.
"I should probably…" Ichigo started, and Chad nodded in understanding.
"Yeah. Go check on him."
"Thanks." Ichigo set off at a brisk pace to catch up to Grimmjow and Pantera, completely missing the fond, knowing smile Chad saw him off with.
The following day brought even more excitement to Urahara's basement than the one preceding it, if possible.
Uryu, despite protests from his friends and several concerned adults alike, had returned to the shop with another box full of old Quincy texts that had belonged to his grandfather, and was now working on what appeared to be five different projects simultaneously. He fluttered back and forth between Urahara, Tessai, and Katsumi, engaging each of them in seemingly unrelated discussions about various topics all while working towards some greater, unknown goal with an almost manic intensity.
When asked just what he was up to, all he would say was that he was fulfilling a promise.
As for Ichigo, he had taken Pantera's advice from the day before, and was doing his best to think of his Hollow and Shinigami Reiatsu as being essentially the same thing. In practice, this led to him attempting to intermingle the two, and the results so far were… turbulent. Quite literally, at that.
Whenever he tried, he would emit a billowing, circling torrent of blue and red Reiatsu, and the gale-force winds that picked up as an unintentional side-effect had soon taught most people to give his corner of the training room a wide berth.
Chad had taken to further mastering the two new abilities he had acquired with Nelliel and Harribel's help. The Curse of invulnerability he had placed upon his shield may have saved him and his allies from Samael's flames, but he would need to refine it further still, if he wished to be able to block more attacks of that nature without running the risk of expending a lethal amount of his own life force.
As for his left arm, he would have no choice but to ask the two women for help once more, as much as it pained him to do. The ability contained withing the Brazo del Diablo became more effective the more souls an individual Hollow had consumed, making it ideally suited for use against Menos-class Hollows and Arrancar. He would not be able to hone it further by training with random, lesser Hollows, and soon he would need its power more than ever. After all, the ability to manipulate souls that all Fullbringers possessed was what had gotten Samael so interested in him in the first place. Chad had just gone on to apply that ability in a more practical, supremely devastating manner.
Even Orihime had shown up, despite there being no mortal injuries for her to treat, for a change. Her four wayward fairies had returned to her at last, and she had resumed her training with Hacchi the very moment they had.
Today however, her teacher along with several of the other Visored had gone to the Seireitei as per Head Captain Kyoraku's invitation, leaving her to train on her own. The last time she had tried to develop new techniques by herself, it had led to the creation of Shiten Kyoken which, in spite of the ability's massive, debilitating drawback, had ended up saving several lives, both directly and indirectly.
A little more experimentation couldn't hurt, right?
And finally, as for Grimmjow…
"Are you hunter or prey, my King?" Byakko asked as he took slow, measured steps, his silver eyes taking in every single detail of his surroundings. Carefully peering out from behind the shaft of one of the larger, metal stakes, Grimmjow observed as his Zanpakutou spirit attempted to track him down.
"Will you strike from behind like a cowardly assassin, or charge in like a hapless barbarian?" Byakko went on, his heavy voice causing the metal Grimmjow was leaning against to vibrate in resonance. "Neither shall gain you the victory you seek."
Grimmjow already knew that much. He had tried both approaches already (only stooping to striking from behind after the frontal assault had already failed countless times over) and his only reward had been the sensation of Byakko's claws tearing through his flesh.
Contrary to what most people thought of him at first glance, Grimmjow was in fact perfectly capable of fighting strategically. He simply chose not to, most of the time. A fight was something to be enjoyed, to be savored, to Grimmjow. There was nothing quite like the rush of fighting to the death, of giving in to his base instincts and giving all he had to tear his opponent apart.
But now, things were different. When the stakes were this high, when he had something to fight for… Grimmjow wouldn't allow anything to stand in his way—not even his own pride.
He rushed out from his hiding place, a dozen identical reflections of himself instantly appearing all around him as the surfaces of countless stakes acted like mirrors. Byakko whirled around in blur of white, kicking up a cloud of dust as his claws tore open the earth in his haste, and he lunged for Grimmjow, but Grimmjow was already safe behind yet another thick trunk of steel by the time Byakko got to him.
It was already maddening enough for Grimmjow himself, seeing the countless mirror images popping in and out of view as he moved around at breakneck speeds. He could only imagine how disorienting it had to be for Byakko. And indeed, it wasn't long before Byakko's patience ran out. The tiger roared in frustration, and Grimmjow skidded to a halt. As soon as he stood still, Byakko lunged directly for him, all sharp teeth and claws, and he tore straight through his target.
"What?!" Byakko gasped when his claws didn't shred Grimmjow, but merely a reflection of him, instead. Byakko was forced to jump back when the pillar of steel he had just cut apart started to tilt in his direction, and he whirled around in confusion. "Where are-Ah!"
Byakko froze in place, slowly turning his head to see where Grimmjow had just driven his sword deep into his side and pierced straight through his heart. Then he looked down to find the tip sticking out of his breast. When he saw the mortal wound, Byakko merely chuckled softly. "Well played, my King…" he gasped, and smiled at Grimmjow. "I knew… you were worthy."
Byakko's legs gave out, and the tiger collapsed on the ground with a heavy thud. Almost immediately, the thousands of stakes surrounding Grimmjow on all sides began to break down into glowing, blue motes of Reishi, leaving Grimmjow alone with his Spirit's unmoving body. It too soon dissolved into a blue haze, which was absorbed by the sword that had remained behind and gotten embedded in the earth when Byakko fell.
"Idiot," Grimmjow muttered under his breath, as he stared at the place where his Spirit had disappeared.
"…The hell were you looking so damn proud for?"
As soon as the forest of steel began to break down, everyone present in the basement automatically congregated around Pantera, who sat back on her haunches and gazed intently ahead, waiting for her wielder to return.
Ichigo was by her side before anyone else, and together with her, saw an uncharacteristically thoughtful-looking Grimmjow emerge from the crumbling forest. Motes of blue light trailed down all around him like snowflakes as he approached, and Ichigo couldn't help but take note of how different his Reiatsu already felt from before.
That could only mean one thing.
"You did it," Ichigo said, and Grimmjow finally looked up at him when he did. He had clearly been lost in thought, if the bewilderment in his eyes was anything to go by, but it didn't take Grimmjow long at all to plaster on a more neutral expression.
"Yeah. I… Byakko said I was worthy," he gruffly muttered out, before averting his gaze again.
Whatever had happened in the forest must have affected Grimmjow quite a bit to have him acting like this, Ichigo thought, but he wasn't insensitive enough to go pressing for details.
"As I knew he would," Pantera spoke, smiling up at her wielder. "This marks one more trial you have overcome, Grimmjow. Words cannot express how proud I am."
A conflicted expression passed over Grimmjow's features when she said that, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come, hidden underneath a familiar, gruff exterior.
The rest of the group had arrived by now, and Pantera turned around to regard them. "The trial is over," she announced, "and now, I must take my leave." She swept her gaze over everyone present, letting it linger just a little longer on Ichigo than it had on any of the others.
"I am truly glad to have had the chance to meet you all. My wielder's manners may leave much to be desired, but he considers each and every one of you to be valued companions. Please," she asked, bowing her head, "continue to watch over him."
Grimmjow looked about ready to tear into her over her choice of parting words, but Pantera vanished in a flash of blue light before he could, leaving only the blank Tenshintai doll behind, which clattered noisily to the ground.
"I am glad to see you were successful, Jaegerjaquez-san," Urahara spoke up. "Congratulations: you are the first Arrancar to have attained Bankai. That is no minor feat."
"In only two days, too," Yoruichi joined in. "You didn't beat Ichigo's record though," she teased good-naturedly, and Grimmjow scoffed at her.
"Might we ask for a demonstration?" Urahara had not been able to keep the eager curiosity out of his voice, and the rest of the group too was staring at Grimmjow with hopeful looks on their faces.
"Come on, man," Ichigo encouraged him with an eager grin of his own, "You've got to be dying to try it—show us!"
Grimmjow looked like he wanted to protest, but clearly his own impatience ended up winning out. "Fucking fine already!" he snapped, and backed up a few steps. He ripped his sword out of its sheath, and flipped the blade around in his hand, so that it was held parallel to his arm. "Bankai!" he barked out, "Gouzen Byakko [Roaring White Tiger]!"
Ichigo didn't even have the time to properly appreciate how weird it felt to hear Grimmjow say the word 'Bankai' like that before his sword transmuted into quicksilver, and the mass of liquid metal abruptly lunged for his arm, like an amorphous, living thing.
Like a surging tide, the glob of mercury rapidly covered every inch of bare flesh, until the entirety of Grimmjow's arm was covered in thick, silvery-gray armor, marked with some blue accents here and there. Ichigo would have thought of it as a logical next step to Grimmjow's Shikai, which only reached up to his forearm, if it hadn't been for the massive, massive gun barrel that was mounted atop of it.
Grimmjow stared at his new weapon with wide eyes, as the barrel, which was almost twice as long as his entire arm, slowly dipped down until the muzzle rested on the ground. Apparently it was so heavy Grimmjow could barely even hold it up.
"Ha… hahaha… aaaahahAHAHAHAHA!"
Grimmjow's cackling echoed ominously throughout the training room, and the soul-deep sensation of dread it inspired in Ichigo was enough to shake him out of his stupor. "That's… That is…" he stuttered, seeing Yoruichi look at Grimmjow with what may have just been a hint of genuine fear.
"That almost looks like... like Soi Fon's Bankai," she gasped, and Urahara turned to her with a hollow look in his eyes. With a voice full of despair, he pleaded: "Hold me, Yoruichi-san." She obliged immediately, and gathered Urahara up in her arms, pressing his head down into her bosom.
"Ishida-kun, I'm scared," Orihime whispered, a distinct tremble in her voice. Without looking away from Grimmjow, and with all the grace of a convicted criminal about to face his own firing squad, Uryu answered: "We all are, Orihime. We all are."
"That… IS SUCH CRAP!" Ichigo finally finished his sentence, and Grimmjow's head instantly snapped back up to look at him. His lips were twisted into a massive, feral smile, while his eyes held an almost childlike glee. Ichigo probably would have thought it nice to see him with an expression like that, if only he hadn't been wearing it for the worst possible reasons. "MY SWORD JUST TURNS INTO A SMALLER SWORD, BUT YOU GET A GODDAMN CANNON?! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!" Ichigo roared, feeling the large vein in his neck pulse angrily.
"Oh, that's not a cannon."
Despite himself, Ichigo turned to the side to face Katsumi.
"Judging from the way it's interfering with my electric field, that entire thing actually seems to be a giant, superpowered magnet," Katsumi explained dreamily. Going by how far-off his voice sounded, coupled with the fact that his eyes didn't appear to be focusing on anything in particular, Ichigo could only assume that Katsumi had retreated to his Happy Place.
"…A magnet?" Ichigo questioned. "Why would a magnet look like a-?" Realization struck, and Ichigo suddenly found himself having to fight the urge to curl up into a ball and pretend this was all just a bad dream, much like Katsumi was currently doing.
It certainly didn't help matters any when Grimmjow started laughing again, and he eagerly trained his brand-new weapon on the wall that was on the far side of the training room.
It wasn't a cannon - it was actually a giant gun, Ichigo realized, right around the same time his eardrums nearly ruptured from the thunderous roar that accompanied Grimmjow's first shot. But it wasn't just any kind of gun…
The Kidō wards didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of stopping a four hundred caliber bullet fired at hypersonic speed, and came apart in a fantastic shower of sparks. Grimmjow's renewed cackling rang throughout the room, and Urahara passed out on his feet with his head still wedged in between Yoruichi's breasts after taking one quick look at the resulting damage.
Ichigo had half a mind to follow his example. Feeling distinctly faint, he listened to the low humming sound of Grimmjow reloading and recharging his weapon as he lined up his second shot. The humming turned distinctly high-pitched, and not a moment later the second projectile was launched at an equally absurd speed as the first, piercing straight through all the rock formations in its path before ripping another hole in the wards. The entire room trembled as a second, massive impact crater was created to join its younger twin.
No, Grimmjow's Bankai wasn't just a gun.
It was a railgun.