Ichigo watched as the sword fell, entranced by it. The blade had taken on a transparent colour, like glass, and the handle had a larger, bronze metal ring on the end, almost like the blade and handle were the hand and base of a clock. He watched as the blade was still falling, yet for some reason-

"It feels like the blade has slowed down? You're not wrong." Ichigo looked stunned at the ex-captain, who glided down to where the sword was falling, now merely inches each second. Just before it reached the ground, he grasped the bronze handle, and spun the blade around, as if the hand on a clock was moving. "In basic terms, my bankai is a time-manipulation ability that allows me to slow everything within a certain distance to my sword. The details are more complex, however all you need to know is that with my current spiritual power, it has a limit of 10 hours, and a speed of 2% in comparison to outside this zone. In other words," he grinned at Ichigo, who now noticed the green glow around them which likely marked out the zone, "we have 500 hours to train you up for Aizen."

"Thats... incredible." Ichigo was lost for words. He'd seen many crazy abilities, having fought many of the 13 captains, but none of them had something on the level of time-manipulation. "So this is why you didn't want Aizen seeing your bankai."

"Now you understand. God knows what a madman like him would do with this ability." Shinji frowned. "Anyway, now it's time I explain the proper training."

8 hours later, fake Karakura town

Toshiro panted heavily, dodging multiple shift strikes aimed at his head before jumping back to gain a moments rest. Despite the freezing cold his wings emanated, sweat was dripping from his brow. He knew he was at his limit, unlike his enemy, who showed hardly any signs of tiredness. The no.3 espada glanced at him with disgust. "So this is all a captain is capable of? How disappointing."

He knew his bankai was incomplete, partially due to his remarkably young age for a captain, but despite this the words stung him. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw but a part of the havoc brought on the replica town.

Almost a third of the buildings were either damaged or rubble, trees were scattered and bent at strange angles, and electricity lines lay across the roads, the wire snapped and strewn across the landscape. Multiple craters lay were particularly vicious fights had been, including one almost 100 feet in diameter where one of the espada (Toshiro believed it was the first) had unleashed a huge cero, which had thankfully missed any of his allies.

"Do you really think its time to be looking away?" He jumped away, purely by instinct, and avoided a near-fatal slash from his opponent. "You should worry about yourself before your friends. I suppose it dosen't matter either way: You will all be dead soon."

Toshiro glared at her, knowing she was baiting him. Instead he tried to maintain his composure, and figure out a logical way of defeating her. I didn't want to use this on one of his minions, but it seems I have no choice.

Before he could prepare himself, Harribel was on his again in an absurd burst of speed, followed by another furious burst of slashes. Toshiro was a prodigy in swordsmanship himself, but her strange ambidextrous style, combined with her released form boosting all her abilities was proving to be incredibly troublesome. His eyes widened as she switched hands again, swinging the sword up with her right and barely missing his eye, before catching it in midair with her left and bringing down a ferocious swing, which Toshiro barely had time to block, the force of it sending him flying down into one of the buildings. Leaving nothing to chance, she immediately built up a huge amount of reiatsu into a cero nearly the size of herself, before sending it down to where the young captain lay, the golden yellow beam destroying all in it's path and producing a large debris cloud, obscuring the blast zone.

She was sure he would be dead after that. That had been her strongest cero, and while it may not compare to the higher ranked espada, it was easily enough to finish the likes of him. As the debris began to settle she could see what seemed like an arm, still grasping its sword, lying on the ground, separate to the body, which she could not see, but the result was obvious. Well I guess that's that. Around her, she started to see what looked like small snowflakes falling from the sky.

However, just before she turned away her eyes widened as she saw it turn into ice, then disintegrate. But he used his ice clone earlier!

"You made 2 serious mistakes this fight: You assumed I was telling the truth about having only one ice clone, and you underestimated the strength of a captain." She turned sharply, seeing Toshiro in the distance just beyond where the debris cloud had been. She noticed the snow was starting to get thicker. So he made the clone while the debris was around him after his inital collision with the ground, and hid away until the cero hit the ice clone, before moving behind the dust cloud until it settled. Why didn't he attempt a suprise attack while I was distracted by the cloud?

"You also made a mistake, not attacking me while I was preoccupied with searching for your body."

"Fool. Have you not noticed it yet?" Her eyes widened as it dawned on her the meaning of his words. She began to move, trying to escape the even thicker snow raining down upon her.

"It's too late. Hyoten Hyakkaso!" Toshiro yelled, and as the now giant snowflakes hit Harribel, they burst into flowers of pure ice, freezing her body and despite her futile efforts she became encased in many of these flower in a matter of seconds. As the 100th hit her body, she made her last movements and became entirely frozen in a grand statue of the beautiful but deadly flowers.

Kyoraku whistled as he saw the statue of flowers bloom over from where he stood "Phew, Toshiro-kun really went all out there didn't he?" Secretly he allowed himself a moment of relief. He had been worried about the boy-captain, as he knew more than many his potential, but giving such responsibility to a young one would be too much for most. He seemed to handle that fight with a lot of maturity though, more than he would have even hoped from the prodigy.

He had fared better than many of the others at least. He frowned, looking over at where Kira and Rukia were struggling to keep alive many of the injured shinigami until Orihime and Unohana could reach them, while Chad guarded them incase of any surprise attacks. Those that were still alive at least. Thankfully all that remained now was Aizen and Starrk, but they had paid heavily.

Soifon had been the first casualty, having been caught by no.2's death miasma, which there was no escaping from, even with her remarkable shunpo. In her dying moments however, she provided a crucial distraction with her bankai, which the visored Hachi and Lisa had taken full advantage of, with Hachi sealing his body from limbs with his cubes and Lisa severing them completely, leaving his head and body to rot, rather ironically.

The various fraccion had proved to be relatively simple to handle, with many of the stronger lieutenants handling them by themselves (although the majority were exhausted or injured as a result of these fights). The exception was one of no.2's fraccion, who brought Ikkaku to the point of death, and seriously wounded Komamura before he was finally defeated with the help of the captains who had arrived from Hueco Mundo.

Of course there had been Wonderweiss, that abomination Aizen had created. It had taken the rest of the visored, with the exception of Shinji obviously, to defeat that thing, and it had cost Mashiro and Love their lives, while Hiyori was still in critical condition.

Kyoraku didn't know how they could've handled Tousen and Gin without the help of their reinforcements. Tousen had proved a huge problem with his bankai, sealing Komumura within it and nearly finishing him before the surprise appearance of Kenpachi, who with his natural fighting style had been able to fight Tousen even in the sense-numbing environment, injuring the deserter enough to force him to release his bankai. Renji had managed to finish the job with his bankai, faking death and at the last minute causing zambimarus fragments to explode around Tousen, who had been unaware of the ability despite knowing Renji's others. Both Renji and Kenpachi were now being tended to by Unohana and Orihime along with the others.

The true monster however had been Gin. Initially Ukitake had been the only one fighting him, and Kyoraku would've put Ukitake at his level, were it not for his illness. But, Gin being the snake he was, took advantage of this weakness, and while they had a brief and furious exchange where Gin managed to hold his own against one of the strongest and most experienced captains, he caught Ukitake by surprise as he started to have one of his fits, cutting off the white-haired shinigami's right hand in a brutal display of mercilessness. Before he could finish the job, Byakuya and Kurostuchi intervened, and with their combined powers they were, just barely able to defeat Gin.

Coming out of his thoughts, he glanced over at his opponent, who was still looking at the statue of ice. "That boy is something isn't he?" He smirked at Starrk, who apathetically stared at the captain as if he had only just noticed his presence. "I s'pose."

"You really aren't much of a talker are you?"

"Not really."

Kyoraku sighed. Despite his easygoing attitude, he was more perceptive than he let on, and he knew this guy, like him probably hated this kind of bloody warfare. Not that this took away from the destructive powers this guy possessed, as proved by the giant crater below the both of them.

He felt the wind shift, and in a split second Starrk was on him, shooting multiple cero bullets at him, all a range of shapes and sizes. As he dodged between each, he noticed the bullet shapes weren't just for show, as some would curve off at weird angles, as if they predicted the very path he was following to dodge. This made finding a route to dodge them all near to impossible. A few caught the edge of his robe, and although he otherwise came on unscathed, his flower kimono was no so fortunate.

"Aren't you a sly one? You pretend you don't care about this fight, then go and try pulling one on me with those weird ceros." Kyoraku said, throwing the remains of his robe down to Ukitake, who was currently resting on the roof of a building nearby. I can't imagine the thousands of calculations you would need to go through to shape those ceros and predict those trajectories. If it was anyone but me or Yamamoto, they would not come out of that unharmed. He may not act like it, but he is truly the no.1. "Can I persuade you to withdraw?"

"Hmm, as much as I'd like it I did agree to fight for Aizen, and I don't back down from my word."

"Interesting, you have quite a strong sense of loyalty for one you know has betrayed previous comrades."

"There are... circumstances behind my loyalty to him."

"A pity." They both knew the time for words was over, as they finally came to regard the other properly, before both disappearing in a flash, before appearing up in the sky, the collison of their swords sending sparks and a huge wave of energy back from them.

Thats it for this chapter, thanks a lot for reading! I have brushed over quite briefly the detail concerning these fights, but I wanted to save the detail for the big ones. If enough people ask I may throw in a couple flashbacks showing these fights in more detail. Next chapter should be out tomorrow :)

Thanks again, and feel free to favourite, follow and review