Chapter 86 : Opportunist.

After I cut his chest, the Hougyoku returned to the place it belonged, in my chest. He extended his hand in a foolish attempt of grabbing it, but I grabbed his arm and ripped it off. Before I stabbed his chest, the same way I did to Īsan.

"Evolution requires fear. The fear that, in your current state, you could die and disappear at any moment. Thank you, Gin. Thanks to you, I have finally become a being that transcends both Shinigami and Hollows. But your poison was truly revolutionary. Even with all the resistence I got after fighting Īsan, you still could hurt me to such a degree." I said before throwing his body towards a building, this destroyed it and made the debris fell on him.

The building falling, opened a path toward Ichigo's friends, but all of them fell on the ground by the pressure my Reiatsu emitted. Then I went in their direction to kill them. Suddenly, Ichigo appeared in front of me.

He was different, his hair, height and Zanpakutou were different, also I couldn't feel his Reiatsu at all. His hair was longer, he was taller his Zanpakutou was thinner, had a chain encircling his right arm amd was combined with his arm. He was carrying his dad.

*Thud*

He placed his dad on the ground.

"Thank you... Dad... Good, Yuzu and Karin seem to be okay." He after turning to me and closing his eyes for a moment. "Tatsuki, Keigo, Mizuiro, Honshou... Imoyama." He didn't knew the name of the afro Shinigami.

"Who?! Kurumadani... Zennosuke Kurumadani! If you can't remember, at least be honest about it! Don't name people based on your perceptions!" Kurudamani screamed at him.

"Everyone, stay where you are. Stand still, on where you are." He said to his friends.

Then they began to complain about why and many things.

"Ichigo Kurosaki... Are you really, Ichigo Kurosaki?" I asked him.

"What do you mean?" This time, he asked.

"If you really are Ichigo Kurosaki... Then you're a disappointment. I don't feel any Reiatsu from you now. Even if you're suppressing your Reiatsu, there is no way that I wouldn't notice it at all. You failed to evolve. You let the final chance that I gave you slip away. It's unfortunate, Kurosaki-."

"Aizen. Let's do it elsewhere. I don't want to fight here." He suggested.

"A meaningless suggestion. Those are words only someone who has the power to give me a challenge has the right to say. There's no need to worry. There will be no need to destroy Karakura Town. You will-." All of a sudden he dashed, grabbed my face and flew away from there.

'What?!" I asked myself as he brought me to the outskirts of the town ans smashed me on the ground.

"Impossible! There is no way he could force me like this." I said while I was crouched and holding my face right my left hand.

Then he descended to the ground a few meters away from me.

"Let's do this, Aizen." He said before I got up. "I'll end this in an instant." He was overconfident.

"End this in an instant?... I see. I understand now, Ichigo Kurosaki. Why you lost your Reiatsu. You didn't lose your Reiatsu. You discarded it. I don't know how you did it, but you converted all your Reiatsu into your body's physical strength. Arm strength, leg strength, grip, throwing, running... In exchange of improving every one of your physical abilities, yoy discaded your Reiatsu. All because you gave up fighting me, Reiatsu versus Reiatsu. But... Do despair. I will teach you... That the physical strength you were counting on is incomparable to my own power." After I said that, the Hougyoki glowed and my wings opened.

"What's that?" Ichigo asked.

Then I teleported to his back and attacked him.

*Cling*

He parried it but my sheer strength dislocated the air and cut the mountain that was near us in half.

"You parried that well. How shocked you must be though. The landscape changes with a single swing of my sword. That is how powerful I am now. To be honest, I didn't think my abilities had improved to this extent. I'm happy Ichigo Kurosaki. Thanks to you, I can test these powers that transcend those of Hollows and Shinigami to my heart's content." I said before dashing at him and slashing.

With each one of my movements, giant boulders and mountains were destroyed or cut by my strength. But unfortunately, Ichigo always blocked them. After a few attacks, I said.

"I'm not done yet, Ichigo Kurosaki." Before attacking him but he disappeared.

"Did you really think I couldn't follow your moves?" I said after lunging in the air and descending on where Ichigo appeared.

*BOOOOMMMM*

My strength destroyed many boulders and other things in an straight line. Then I went to attack him again.

*Cling*

But he blocked it.

"By some odd coincidence, we seems to have arrived at a similar evolved form where our right arms are combined with our Zanpakutou. Perhaps this is the true form of the Zanpakutou." I said before chuckling

"What's funny?" He asked.

"I realized it during our clash just now. As I suspected, your evolution and mine are on different levels. If I so wish, I can shatter your Zanpakutou with a single swing! "I said as I swinged my Zanpakutou.

But before it hit him, he extended his arm and grabbed my blade with his fingers.

*BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM*

Everything on his back was destroyed by the strength of my attack, but he remained unmoving.

'Impossible! He grabbed it?!' Dodging it, I could understand. Though he shouldn't even be able to dodge at that speed to begin with. Even so, dodging it, I could understand. But... He caught it?! He caught my blow?' I was really surprised.

"Why so surprised? Is it so unbelievable that I caught your sword?" He asked.

"What?"

"Does it scare you? That something you can't comprehend happened right in before your eyes?" He made many questions, to which I only chuckled.

"Huh?"

"Interesting, Ichigo Kurosaki..." I took my sword out of his hand and jumped back. "Something I can't comprehend, you say? Don't talk as though you've won. It was simply a case of your physical strength momentarily exceeding mine. Miracles like that happen from time to time. But I am a being who surpasses even that. In that case, I will see to it that miracles like that never happen again by crushing you to pieces with Kidou!" I lifted my left hand."Seeping crest of turbidity. Arrogant vessel of lunacy! Boil forth and deny! Grow numb and flicker! Disrupt sleep! Crawling queen of iron! Eternally self-destructing doll of mud! Unite! Repulse! Fill with soil and know your own powerlessness! {Hadou #90 Kurohitsugi}!" Then the purple energy that was coming out of me began to make walls around him.

"Now that I transcend both Hollow and Shinigami, this is Kurohitsugi with a full incantation! It unleashes enough gravity to warp time and space! The likes of you could never comprehend it, Ichigo Kurosaki!" He stood there, looking at me. Then a full black box was made, it had many crosses at the top.

I smiled, knowing that he died inside of it. But suddenly...

*Glass shattering noises*

He destroyed it... With what seems to be a swing of his left hand. This made me surprised.

"You don't seem to realize, do you? My power is greater than the power you have right now..." He began to walk towards me. "The force that erased that mountain... Was my sword." He made my eyes widen. "Here I come, Aizen." He said before dashing and slashing my shoulder.

This made a deep wound on it and my blood flew. I teleported from there to a safe distance.

"What an odd feeling. When I backed away from you in our last battle, you asked me why. But now, you're doing the exact same thing. So let me ask you the same question. Why did you back away just now?" He asked after looking straight at me.

"I see. You're pleased that you stopped my sword? Are you pleased that you overcame my Kidou? Are you pleased that you put a scar on my body?" I asked while my shoulder regenerated. "Don't be so full of yourself, Human!" When I screamed that, the diamond-shaped thing on my forehead cracked and opened.

Then it began to bleed, my eyes lost focus, my neck cracked and my Reiatsu exploded in a massive beacon, way bigger than the previous one.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" I screamed.

Then the Reiatsu beacon solidifyed. It cracked and broke, from inside, a river of blood came. I was at my final form.

The diamond shaped point that were broken before, opened, revealing a vertical black third eye upon the center of my forehead, and the skin on my face splitted open revealing a blackened, demon-like skull. I developed three holes running vertically down my chest, the Hōgyoku standing at the center of the top hole. My feet became single claws, and my hands became blackened. My butterfly-like wings changed into a set of six sheet-like wings, with eyes set upon the center, adorned with Hollow-like skulls, and trailing into tendrils. I do not longer had any semblance of clothing in this form and my musculature became more defined.

"Yes... This is inexcusable, isn't it, Hougyoku? That I, let a human get the better of me." The one of the Hollo-like skull of one of my wings opened it's mouth, made a spear of Reiatsu and sent it at Ichigo.

*BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM*

When the spear hit the ground, it made something similar to a nuclear explosion, with a big mushroom of smoke. Then there was a tower of flames in the middle. There was Ichigo, with his entire left arm charred.

"I understand. You took my attack and suffered so little damages. However, that left arm of yours is no longer usable." I dashed and flew at him.

I grabbed his neck and stopped above the fire, then I surrounded Ichigo with my wings and used the Hollow-like skulls atop my wings to generate a circle of bluish-purple spiritual energy around him. After it was created, the ring reverberated with power and solidifyed, while forming three more larger solid rings in a concentric formation.

"Can you hear me, Ichigo Kurosaki? Indeed, for a moment, you broke the boundary between Hollows and Shinigami to become a transcendent being. But that power is no more! Not a trace of it remains! You're not even wortht trying to understand any more. I, a true transcendent being, will kill you. By killing you, I will completely break free from both insignificant Shinigami and Hollows alike. It's over! Ichigo Kurosaki!" I said.

"Over, you said. Is this all you've got?" He said before he swung his sword, broke the rings and sent me flying back. "Let's end this already, Aizen. I've grown sick... Of your arguments. I'll show you..." He pointed his sword at me and grabbed his right arm with the left one. "This is the Final..." He looked at my eyes. "Getsuga Tenshou!" Then a massive explosion of blue and black Reiatsu came from him.

"What is... That form?!"

After many seconds of this, everything cleared, and there he was. Ichigo's hair became so long that it reached his waist and turned black. Light bluish-gray bandages formed around his body, tightly wrapped around his torso, right arm, and face, ending just beneath his eyes. Black flame-like markings spread across his chest and wrap around his left arm, and the remains of a tattered black cloak cover his lower body. Ichigo's body was constantly emiting smoky black Reiatsu, most of which was focused around his right arm.

"The |Final Getsuga Tenshou| is... Me... Becoming Getsuga itself." He said before looking at me. "The |Final Getsuga Tenshou|... If I use this technique, I will lose all of my Shinigami powers. That's what 'Final' means." He calmly said.

'I still can't sense his power. I have evolved into a being far beyond that of a Shinigami. Just as two-dimensional beings can never interact with three-dimensional beings, no Shinigami or human could detect my Reiatsu unless I deliberately brought down my powers to their levels of awareness. Could it... Possibly be that he... Is at an even higher level than myself?' I got irritated.

"Absurd! That couldn't possibly be! A mere human cannot surpass me! That can't be!" He extended his right hand to the side and a black blade appeared on it.

Then he lifted it up."{Mugetsu}." He brought it down. His {Mugetsu} got me.

The entire sky got grey... I could not hear any sound... His {Mugetsu}... Hit me vertically... Exactly in half... My body disappeared... I reappeared a few hundreds of meters away.

My body was cleaved in half, but it still regenerated. Ichigo then appeared right in front of me. It was hard for me to get up, as my body hurt a lot. But I managed to get up, my skin was deathly pale. When I got up, Ichigo fell down as his hair turned orange and any shred of his Shinigami powers abandoned him.

"Ichigo Kurosaki... You lose. Observe." I showed him my Zanpakutou. "My Zanpakutou is fading away. You should know what that means. The Hougyoku has determined that I have no need for a Zanpakutou! Like you, I have become one with the Zanpakutou and its powers. In fact, you no longer have that power, while I will reach a level far beyond that of yours! Its over! Ichigo Kurosa-." I was interrupted. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" I screamed as the strongest pain I ever felt suddenly hit me.

Looking at what was causing this pain, I saw that it was a blue beam... Following the beam, I saw the Lieutenant of the 12th Division. Nemu Kurotsuchi. She was holding a black box.

"It is just like Father said. He told me that you would eventually drop your guard." She said.

'T-The Hougyoku is not responding to my commands anymore... No. No. No! No! NO! NO!' I was enraged.

"I CAN'T LOSE!!!" I screamed as the Hougyoku refused me as its Master.