Dawn of the End

"So what exactly is the plan? or is there not one..." Toshiro enquired as he and the three royal guard members stood atop the barrier.

"Well... the plan is just to stall I guess." Ichibe responded, oddly looking around him and walking to random spots.

"I wouldn't stress too much about it captain Hitsugaya, just do your best to stop Aizen from destroying the seireitei, because even these thick barriers won't do much if he goes all out against them." Kuroi chimed in, patting the apprehensive captain on his shoulder.

"Ah, here!" Ichibe shouted.

"What's there?" Toshiro replied.

"Right above me is where Aizen will come, just a matter of minutes at this point." Ichibe responded excitedly. "Alright, time for you to use your shun- uh, bankai."

"But you guy's are too close, I'll freeze you lot as well if I lose control for even a split second." Toshiro responded, alarmed.

"Don't worry about us, we can withstand the cold too." Ichibe responded with a grin on his face.

"What he means to say is that Senjumaru already fitted us with the ability to withstand your bankai's freezing temperatures, there's no reason to worry about using it around us, and the cold won't pierce through the barriers either." Tenjiro explained.

"I see... Alright." Captain Hitsugaya replied before using his bankai Kōtta Sekai Hyōrinmaru, freezing the top side of the barrier completely.

"So that's how his bankai looks, no wander its forbidden within the seireitei, that kind of range is crazy." Iba noted, as he and the other captains looked from the side lines in awe.

"Heh, feels like it's getting colder in here as well. What a dangerous bankai, eh?" Shinji rhetorically remarked, his breath starting to become visible due to the low temperatures that extended beyond the bankai's range.

"Here he comes!" Ichibe shouted as a being flash-stepped above them, directly above the spot Ichibe had called before. The captain was left in shock as he looked upwards and saw the drastic change that Aizen's appearance had undergone again. Aizen's right eye had changed from normal, now being black with a white pupil that took the shape of a diamond, his hair extended in length to fall past his shoulders, and a vibrant pair of white crystal wings floated on either side behind his back. Toshiro could no longer recognize the old captain's essence within the being he was looking at now, and fear began to rise up his spine as he realized this being was far beyond his power, or any sort of power he had ever witnessed before; transcendent in nature.

"Alright, you're up ice boy!" Tenjiro exclaimed as he and Kuroi flash-stepped to distant positions.

Toshiro sighed before raising his blade to the divine entity before them, composing himself as he looked upon to Aizen with a stern face.

"Dammit... just as I thought, I can't freeze him directly, even trying to freeze him from the outside inwards doesn't seem to work." Toshiro exclaimed, dumbfounded at what he was supposed to do.

"Alright, distract him for me!" Ichibe shouted, as he flash-stepped away as well, leaving the captain confused as he clearly stood no chance alone, barely able to survive any incoming attacks, let alone to serve as a distraction.

"If I can't freeze him, I suppose it should still be possible to freeze the area around him." Toshiro uttered to himself, before focusing and forming dense ice structures around Aizen Reiō's position that expanded and connected to one another to form a sturdy ice ball that encapsulated him entirely. However, this failed to hold as a small concentrated beam of light burst through the ball, striking Toshiro's chest in an instant, shocking the captain as he could only fall after taking such a lethal hit.

"What the!?" Toshiro exclaimed. "To pierce through those layers of ice with such ease and land such a direct hit without it being frozen beforehand. What the hell am I facing?" He exhaustedly asked, blood leaking out of his body.

As the ice shattered all around, Ichibe bolted through the air to attempt to deliver an unexpected blow to the entity's back. But just as the brush, its blade form exposed, was about to connect, the entity turned around, surprising Ichibe with it's reaction time as he grabbed on to the brush, stopping it before it connected.

"Did you think you could pull off the same stunt again, Ichibe?" It asked, it's voice vastly different from Aizen's.

"Well well well... To think I'd hear your voice again like this. Perhaps it was my own foolish desire that made me believe that without the almighty's abilities, you wouldn't still be as fast to react but I guess I underestimated you." Ichibe replied, a smirk on his face as he distanced himself. The monk swung his brush in the open, spluttering black paint into the air around him before commanding it to converge in on the soul king, but it stopped just before reaching, seemingly being stopped by a force field that surrounded him; leaving Ichibe aghast. By expelling just a little of his reiatsu, Reiō could disrupt the very flow of objects within his vicinity, preventing Ichibe's ink from him reaching entirely.

"You're not still upset about us-" Ichibe began to ask as he was interrupted when Reiō raised his hand in Ichibe's direction, sending him flying as though he was using Senri Tsūtenshō but with even more power and force. Both Senjumaru and Kirio were alarmed as Ichibe went flying through the barriers at great speed, incapable of being cushioned at all by the barriers, crash landing into the ground. Just as the two began to run towards the monk, and the barrier repaired itself momentarily after, Reiō raised his hand again to launch another attack in Ichibe's direction. As a beam of energy outpoured and a wide beam rushed down as though a cero but beyond what any arrancar could produce, Toshiro tried to extend the ice above the barrier to slow or potentially even freeze the attack in it's tracks erecting a multi-layer pillar but it was a futile attempt as it crushed the ice without mercy and pulsed through to Ichibe's location, eradicating the ground by him, entirely overpowering him. The two guards within the seireitei picked up pace to get to him to try and help him but they could tell the situation was far more dire than they could imagine as Ichibe was already unconscious and barely hanging on for life after a single attack. Although he wasn't dead, this was a far worse result as Reiō had clearly taken into account the immortality Ichibe had, and didn't intend to kill him but leave him unable to fight.

Things began to feel like they were already failing as Toshiro began to struggle to stay awake due to the blood loss, and it seemed that Reiō had turned his attention to him, ready to get rid of him too. As he gathered reiatsu into his finger to launch an attack to the captain, and launched the beam of reiatsu towards him, the attack was caught and absorbed just before it could kill the captain using a time-space barrier that resembled that of Hachigen's.

"Don't worry. We didn't bring you here to die." Kuroi exclaimed with a stern voice after flash-stepping in, aware of how serious the situation was. Encapsulating all the power of the attack within the barrier, he moved his right hand before snapping it to destroy the barrier and the power within it subsequently. Soon after, a beam of water erupted beneath Toshiro as he lay on the ground, shocking him as he thought it was an attack from Reiō only for him to realize he was beginning to feel better.

"That idiot wasn't supposed to go and get himself almost killed already!" Tenjiro shouted angrily, flash-stepping in as well. "Are you fine?" he asked before lifting the captain back to his feet as the stream of water stopped and the hole that was once there was gone, his body back intact.

"I guess bringing you here wasn't the best idea, hold on brat!" Tenjiro stated as he put the captain over his shoulder and evacuated him back to the area the other captains were at.

"Huh!? Wait what.. How?" Toshiro asked as Tenjiro put him down, seemingly travelling from the battlefield to the evacuation area in just a couple seconds, shocking the other captains as well.

"What do you mean how? Don't you know I'm the fastest shinigami in existence?" Tenjiro asked, his left eye twitching as he tilted his head in annoyance at the captain's ignorance. "Anyways... Stay here, we'll deal with the rest." Tenjiro exclaimed as he turned back and left just as suddenly as he came.

"Well now it's just us... I guess I can finally test the limits against a God..." Kuroi exclaimed, grinning and brimming with excitement to face someone as great as the original soul king, even if he didn't have all his powers restored yet.