Intro: Yeah... sorta rushed to finish this, coz I just wanted to finish it and stuff, so it might seem a bit.. incoherent, and not make a lot of sense sometimes, which isn't all that different from normal I suppose... Oh yeah... and I can't really write fight scenes to save my life, so some of this may seem... even stranger than my other strange works.
Oh, and thanks for telling me that anon. reviews was disabled, anGeL Hinaningyou, I had absolutely no idea...
Disclaimer: Don't own any of Bleach.
"This is my Bankai, Seigyokuden Raibikaritatsu." Kumatsurou crouched down, preparing to begin the real fight, the ultimate battle of speed. Toushirou's eyes widened as the two both disappeared from view. They're both so fast! I can barely keep up… Very little could be seen of the battle. While the head of the dragon, attached to Kumatsurou's arm, moved with the same lightning speed that he did, the remainder of his body didn't move quite so quickly, and could be seen twisting around in mid air.
"Getsu Gatenshou!" Ichigo swung his sword down, and a black crescent of energy was released, slicing through the ground as it sped across the land. Kumatsurou thrust his sword forward, and the dragon behind him shot forward, consuming his arm, his sword, to meet the black wave of energy head on. When the smoke cleared, the blue creature had returned to its comfortable nestling place on the shoulder of the captain. "No… way…" He managed to block that attack so easily? His Raibikaritatsu isn't even damaged! Ichigo leapt back onto a rock, taking some time to rethink his next course of action.
"You'll need more than that to short circuit Seigyokuden Raibikaritatsu." Kumatsurou stared at his opponent. So far, neither of them had really been able to hit each other. They had matched each other move for move, and their lightning fast movements had been almost impossible to discern. "Ready to stop playing around and go all out, Ichigo?"
Toushirou couldn't believe his ears. Faster? Their normal movements have already surpassed the speed of a reasonably high levelled Flash Step. They're almost at the stage where they move faster than light… But Kumatsurou can't surpass that speed, I've seen him train, and even with the incredible speed boost his Bankai gives him, there is no way he could break the speed of light. He turned around to look at the orange haired Shinigami. Ichigo, however, I've never seen him fight, would it be possible for him to raise his speed that much?
"Thought you'd never ask, Kumatsurou." Both the fighters glowed with a powerful aura as they prepared to use their Bankai's full speed. Both Shinigami disappeared from sight once again, and they seemed quite evenly matched, again. However, as the rocks around him were destroyed, Toushirou noticed one fact. As a rock shattered, he saw blood drop on the debris a split second after one of the combatants' swords had destroyed the boulder. Someone's been hit…
As he whizzed around the training room, blocking hits from his opponent, Kumatsurou bit his lip as the blood flowed from his right arm. Good thing that's not my sword arm, but still… Zangetsu's way too fast, even Raibikaritatsu can't match it now. There's only one thing left… With one powerful flick, he pushed Ichigo over to the other side of the battlefield. "Raikyuutai!" The dozen or so metal orbs that had been floating around began moving towards Ichigo, shooting out electrical bolts as they did. The orange haired Shinigami dodged a few of them, but a dozen lightning bolts at once was too much, he was finally struck by one. Expecting to feel a numbing pain, Ichigo was surprised. It doesn't hurt, not at all… What sort of an attack is that? He charged forward once more, ignoring the continuous lightning bolts for now, they weren't hurting him, so there was no point in trying to dodge them, he could focus all his energy into attacking. As he closed in on Kumatsurou, he grinned, this was going to be an easy hit, there was no way he could miss at this range, and Zangetsu was faster than Raibikaritatsu anyway.
Kumatsurou sidestepped the mighty swing easily, and grinned at the orange haired Shinigami's look of surprise. Ichigo didn't give up. After all, Kuchiki Byakuya himself had said. "Miracles only happen once." There was no way the same thing could happen again. But it did. Again, the powerful swing of the small black katana was avoided by an increasingly agile Kumatsurou. As Ichigo stopped to take a breath, he noticed that the lightning orbs had stopped their assault as well. Drawing a breath, he asked the question he had on his mind, calmly and quietly. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!"
Kumatsurou was only too happy to explain. "You might not have noticed it, but Toushirou would have. You are the one who's been getting slower, Ichigo."
Ichigo froze. "No way. That can't be possible, I can't be anywhere near my limit yet, I don't even feel tired! Oi, Hitsugaya! Tell him he's mad!"
"It's true."
"No… way… How the hell did that happen?"
"No doubt you noticed these?" Kumatsurou pointed to one of the metal orbs, which was hovering above his head. Ichigo nodded dumbly "Raikyuutai activates these orbs, and they start shooting out lightning with incredible accuracy. You did well do avoid so many of them, but one got you eventually, and that was the beginning of the chain reaction. Even though those lightning strikes barely hurt you, each hit decreased your speed. You were idiotic enough to disregard them as nothing, so many more hit you, and as a result, you've lost over half of your speed. That is the special ability of my Bankai."
Ichigo was struck dumb. Without his speed advantage, he was in trouble. Toushirou was also surprised. He had never seen Kumatsurou use the technique before, it must have been relatively new. What a strategy! Raibikaritatsu increases his own speed but that Raikyuutai technique also makes the opponent incredibly slow. It'd be hard to beat.
"Now, you should be too slow to dodge this…" Kumatsurou charged forward, and Ichigo tried to dodge the oncoming slash, but a large wound appeared on his side and blood gushed out. "It's over, Ichigo."
"No… it's not, Kumatsurou," Ichigo was breathing heavily now, "I may be slow, but that's only my body, I can still… do… this!" With a swing, he shot another wave of dark energy at the blue haired captain. Jumping, Kumatsurou scolded himself for his carelessness. While Raikyuutai slowed the opponent's movements, it had no effect on the actual soul cutter and its abilities. That only left one more thing to do.
"Then I'll make sure it's over." Kumatsurou's body sizzled with the electricity that surrounded Raibikaritatsu. The ground began to shake as the static energy from the power-up shattered the rocks around him. Ichigo stared in horror. This had to be some sort of gigantic blast of energy, and in his slowed state, there would be no way he could dodge it, but to block it? Would that even be possible? "Nothing can protect you from the entirety of this blast. Now, the fight ends… here!" As he spoke the last word, he thrust his sword forward, and the dragon that was behind him flew forward, roaring and rearing as it went.
Ichigo held up Zangetsu, ready to block the terrifying power that was heading for him. "It's no use, have you forgotten, Ichigo? Your sword conducts electricity, you can't deflect the entire attack. Ultimately, the result will be the same!" Kumatsurou's words were quite true. Zangetsu fought off the leviathan as it tried to attack, but after 10 seconds or so, it overwhelmed him, and Ichigo was caught in the blast. When the smoke cleared, Ichigo was lying on the ground, in a pool of blood.
"Come on Kumatsurou, let's get the orange haired idiot to the 4th Division, and you too."
"Aww… Nii-san, I don't really need that much help, it's fine! It was only a shallow cut."
"Baka. When you charged up for that last attack, all the extra energy opened the wound up even more. Both you and Ichigo need medical attention, quick." The two were still arguing when they reached the 4th Division, carrying Ichigo between them, which was quite a task in itself, since the orange haired teen was considerably taller than the Hitsugaya twins. "Oi, Isane, get some help for these two!"
"Right away, Hitsugaya-taichou!" The reply was immediate, and Toushirou watched as members of the 4th Division attended to the two wounded Shinigami.
Toushirou watched as Ichigo complained about being injured. Smirking, he couldn't help remarking to the fussy boy. "Look on the bright side you dolt, at least you have an excuse not to fight Zaraki now." Ichigo had no answer.
-
"Kumatsu-kun, you're all beat up! Did taichou really thrash you that bad?"
"No… Nii-san isn't that much stronger than me Matsumoto…"
"Then how come he doesn't have a scratch on him? And you're lying here with tubes sticking into you and nice soft bandages wrapped around your body?" She squeezed them, squealing as she did so. "Oooh! They're squishy! They'd make you so much more huggable Kumatsu-kun!" Matsumoto ignored Kumatsurou's cries of protest and descended upon him, wrapping him in a fierce embrace.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" The scream could be heard throughout almost all of Seireitei. "MATSUMOTO! STOP THAT! YOUR BOOBS! THEY'RE SQUASHING ME!" When he was finally released, Kumatsurou rubbed himself tenderly. "That really hurt… you must have reopened just about every wound I had, pressing that hard with your… things." He stopped when he saw Matsumoto turn a bright pink. " Matsu…moto?" She pointed behind him, and he turned around to see a small crowd of dumbstruck 4th Division members, having been attracted by the captain's scream, and they had all seen what had just happened. "Uh… that was… not what you thought it was…"
-
"Baka Kumatsurou. Screaming out about Matsumoto's assets like that. No one else would do that, I wouldn't, I bet even Kyouraku wouldn't."
Kumatsurou could not help retorting. "Kyouraku wouldn't scream… he'd enjoy every moment of it, and you're so short your mouth would be buried in the valley, so no one would hear you anyway." Toushirou glared at his brother, who merely chuckled and ran off while Toushirou chased after him, yelling something about 'not being short'.
"Rangiku-san, is it normal for Taichou and Shirou-chan to always fight like that?" Hinamori looked surprised as Toushirou caught up to Kumatsurou and gave him a noogie.
"Naw… not really, they're brothers, brothers are just like that. It's pretty strange actually." Kumatsurou had stepped lightly out of the way, causing Toushirou to crash into a nearby wall. Laughing, the blue haired boy ran away from the wrath of the white haired one. "They don't get much of a chance to have fun anyway, so we might as well let them."
"But… only Taichou seems to be having fun, Shirou-chan looks really angry."
Matsumoto was unconcerned. "They'll live, Taichou's always upset about something anyway, I wouldn't worry about it."
-
"Ah, you two young boys, training to help young Kumatsurou I presume?" Kumatsurou couldn't hide his surprise, but Toushirou replied in an even voice.
"Yamamoto-dono. What are you doing here?"
"I was feeling a bit bored, and decided… to come help you train."
Kumatsurou couldn't keep his silence any longer. "Train… me? Yamamoto-dono! I couldn't fight you! I'm not strong enough."
Yamamoto chuckled, in that strange old man way of his. "Of course not. What I propose is both of you fight me, and I'll go easy on you. A battle between the elements. Water, ice and lightning against the power of fire. Do you think you can handle it?"
Toushirou looked at his brother. This was his call. It had been a month already since he had fought Ichigo, but still Kumatsurou had insisted on more practice, so they had come here to train together. How Yamamoto had discovered where they were was a complete mystery. "…alright then. We'll do it!" Yamamoto smiled, a rare occurrence indeed.
"Very well. We will commence." Brandishing his staff, he uttered the magic words which caused it to morph. "Disintegrate all existence… Ryuujinjakka!" A flurry of flames appeared from the ground, and engulfed the old man. Even though he could feel that it wasn't at full power, Kumatsurou and Toushirou could not help but feel awed. The oldest and most powerful fire type soul cutter. Its legendary power was frightening, even though they knew he was holding back.
"Soar in the frozen sky, Hyourinmaru!"
"Surge through the storm, Raibikaritatsu!" The two dragons erupted from each sword, and coiled around their masters. Toushirou was first, swinging his sword in one motion to send his dragon of water and ice at the raging ball of flames. Kumatsurou wondered if Hyourinmaru would even reach Yamamoto. There was a small flare, and the flames rose slightly, Hyourinmaru melted away. The resulting water had little effect in dampening the fire. "My turn then!" Kumatsurou directed his dragon at the raging ball of flames also, and the leviathan of thunder shot at the old man. However, a simple movement on Yamamoto's part intercepted the attack, and blocked it.
Both Toushirou and Kumatsurou looked at each other. This was an impossible battle. Ryuujinjakka possessed an incredible power, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. "That is quite disappointing. For a pair of geniuses, I expected more… Still, if that is all you have to give, I'll end this. Now!" With one sweep, the flames raced across the ground. Both boys leapt up, but could feel the scorching heat as it burned them. A few of the boulders melted. The heat was so intense that the boys felt like sitting in a freezer for a few days.
"There's nothing we can do, Nii-san." Kumatsurou was in despair.
"Yes there is. There is, that one thing."
"You sure? We… still haven't tried it fully yet, we don't even know if it could work!"
"Then this will have to be the first field test."
"If you really think so then…" Yamamoto looked at the two in interest. Whatever strategy they were discussing, it would be spectacular, he hoped. "Let's go, Nii-san."
The two held up their swords, so the blades were touching, and an icy blue aura formed around them. Hyourinmaru and Raibikaritatsu, the two great dragons of ice and lightning, shattered and disappeared.
"Surge…"
"… Through the frozen sky."
"Hyoubikaritatsu!" The two of them screamed this last word in unison. Yamamoto watched in surprise as the two swords converged, forming a large bladed sword. A shape began to emerge from it. It was a dragon, made of a surprisingly blue ice, while a trail of lightning spiralled around its body. The united form of the two dragon elemental soul cutters, Hyoubikaritatsu.
"Intriguing. This fusion has only ever been a myth. However, it must be very difficult to obtain. Both the soul cutters and the Shinigami would have to have a close bond, such as in this case. Both swords and wielders are brothers, hence the success of the fusion. The powers it possesses must be great…" Yamamoto had never seen anything like it before in his life, and he wasn't likely to see it again anytime soon.
The twins stood in a battle stance, holding the sword between them. Together, they swung it, and directed the dragon to attack. The gigantic creature roared, and shot forward, Yamamoto braced himself for the attack, but it never came. Before it had reached halfway, the dragon had disappeared. The brothers collapsed, completely exhausted, and lay on top of each other, resting peacefully.
Stuff: Well, there we have it. Review please!