"So now what?" Ichigo glanced around at the large building remains where him and Shinji stood in.

"Now we are going to fight. Draw your sword." The other man said, unsheathing his katana, shining against the moons reflection.

"Kinda boring, expected something a bit more original really. Ah well." Ichigo removed the bandages from his blade with a flourish, revealing the huge sword. He had barely finished this as Shinji leaped forward, his blade raised. They clashed with a jarring collision.

Shit, I forgot how strong he was! Ichigo thought as he struggled to hold his ground against the blondes surprising power. Appearances can be deceiving, and despite Shinjis build, he could easily match any of squad 11 in strength feats, with the exception of maybe Kenpachi.

"You'd better try harder, or your gonna die." Ichigo felt a chill as Shinjis reiatsu spiked, and he sent a dizzying set of strikes at Ichigo, who barely deflected each of the slashes before being blown back.

"Dammit! Bankai!" Ichigo yelled as his blade compressed and shrank, forming the thin, black blade that was tensa zangetsu. For a moment neither of them moved, staring the other down as the dust settled. Suddenly they both flashed away, and appeared in the middle, swords colliding with each other and sending back a wave of debris. Ichigo then jumped away again, and started circling Shinji in a blur. From a normal spectators eyes it was as if multiple orange-haired shinigami circled the one target in the middle, who despite his predicament still had that smirk on his face. His grin faltered for a moment as he sensed motion in his blind spot, and turned to block a vertical strike from Ichigo, swinging his blade in a swift horizontal motion to deflect to would-be fatal blow. These surprise strike continued for a while as Ichigo switched between quick but vicious strikes, and circling his opponent for a weakness, giving him no moment to rest, or even counter him.

"Better." The grin was back, and as Ichigo ducked back into circling Shinji, he raised his hand. "I suppose it's time I got a little serious..." Ichigo jumped back as Shinji's brought his hand across his face, and the unmistakable hollow mask materialised where his face had been. Instantly the air felt heavy, and the ground around Shinji shook, as if his very presence was causing the tectonic plates to tremble and shift. Then he simply disappeared.

Ichigo's eye widened, looking for where he had dissappeared to. Where is he?! That overwhelming presence had vanished into thin air, no trace of his abnormally large reiatsu. There was no warning, he simply felt the kick to the solar plexus and was sent flying into one of the buildings.

What was that... Ichigo thought, panting and struggling to get out of the rubble, which was the remains of the building he had collided with. Before he could raise his sword, Shinji was on him, hitting him with the base of his sword, before delivering a left hook into Ichigo's face, causing him to spit blood and spinning his body around from the sheer momentum.

"Was that it? You may as well let your hollow do your fights from now on." Ichigo knew Shinji was taunting him, but the boredom in his voice pushed him over the edge.

"Screw you!" Ichigo shouted, and brought a hand to his face. I'll show him whos in control.

He's got a point you know. Ichigo ignored the hollow voice in his head, and brought the mask to his face, feeling his strength growing as his face was replaced with the mask. However there was something different about his mask, rather than the normal streaks of red down the left side there was 2 vertical streaks, one on each side.

Indeed, even his mask has changed. It seems it has been awoken. Shinji stared impassively at Ichigo, the Pharaoh-like mask giving away no emotions.

"Getsuga tenshou!" He was snapped out of his thoughts as Ichigo built up a particularly large amount of of reiatsu at the tip of his blade, before releasing it as a curved wave. This was different to his old getsugas, with sparks of red sizzling inside it. Shinji raised his blade to block it, and with his blade parted the wave, splitting it in two, each half crashing into the ground nearby, destroying even more of the surrounding buildings. It seems his attacks have his reiatsu in them too. Guess it's time to start the proper training. I would fight him with my shikai, but theres no point now he's reached this stage.

"Ichigo." The ginger was preparing another moon-fang, but stopped to look at Shinji, who had appeared above him in the blink of an eye. "Did I ever tell you that Aizen was my lieutenant over 100 years ago?" Ichigo shook his head. "Everyone seemed to trust him back then, but I always felt something was a little off about him. It was the way he looked at people, his face said he was talking to an ally, but his eyes looked at everyone and anything as if it was trash. Good thing I had my suspicions I guess."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm about to show you an ability only 3 other people have ever seen: Urahara-san, Kyoraku, and old man Yamamoto himself. Needless to say you cannot tell another soul about this ability." He then brought his arms stretched out either side, forming a cross shape, his zanpaktou still in his right hand. He then dropped his sword. "Bankai. Gensoku no sekai (slowing world)."

Thanks for all reading up to this point! I should be posting new chapters pretty much everyday, so feel free to follow this story if it interests you. This is where it gets interesting. *grins evilly* I've got a lot more ideas, but they are in development right now. Oh and if you have any feedback, or just wanna chat feel free to review this story as well. Until the next chapter!