As for Natsuro coming to challenge Zaraki Kenpachi, the Shinigami leading him there didn't feel anything unusual about it.
After all, this was the 11th Division, the famed battle-division.
If someone came here, what else could it be for, if not to fight?
Soon, under the Shinigami's guidance, Natsuro saw Kenpachi, accompanied by Ikkaku Madarame and Yumichika Ayasegawa.
But his expression turned odd, because the scene before him looked… bizarre.
Ikkaku and Yumichika were actually coaching Zaraki, while Yachiru Kusajishi was standing at the side, laughing and cheering him on.
The whole sight looked completely upside down!
But then he noticed, Zaraki wasn't in his spiritual body, he was inside a gigai.
Ikkaku and Yumichika were coaching him on suppressing his reiatsu, so the gigai wouldn't break.
With Zaraki's spiritual pressure, if he released even a little too much, the gigai would collapse.
"Eh? Little Natsuro, you're here again!" Yachiru spotted him, happily waving her tiny hand.
"What exactly are they doing?" Natsuro asked, his eye twitching as he watched the clumsy Zaraki.
"Hehe, you said before that Kenny isn't good at controlling his strength, right? After he went to the Human World, he realized using a gigai seemed to help him practice that. So he had the 12th Division make him a special gigai to train in!" Yachiru explained gleefully.
"…Oh. And, could you not call me 'Little Natsuro'?" Natsuro finally realized Yachiru had given him a strange nickname.
"Eh? Why not? Isn't 'Little Natsuro' cute?" Yachiru blinked her big eyes, her tiny body and pink hair making her look adorable, especially now that she was deliberately acting spoiled.
"…Fine. Do as you like," Natsuro said at last.
"Hehe!" Yachiru grinned radiantly.
At that moment, Zaraki noticed Natsuro's arrival.
A feral grin split his face, then his gigai exploded with a bang.
Emerging in his spirit form, Zaraki brandished his rough, battered zanpakutō, pointed it at him, and shouted: "Natsuro! Fight me!"
Yumichika sighed, holding his forehead. "Great… another gigai shattered. Now I'll have to go beg the 12th Division for another. They've lectured me so many times already…"
"This can't be helped. That guy's here," Ikkaku said, unfazed, glancing at Natsuro.
"Easy for you to say, I'm the one who has to fetch the gigais! Those guys only chew me out!" Yumichika muttered bitterly, then turned to Zaraki. "Captain, if you fight here again, do you want to be punished with exile to the Human World again?"
"Hmph! If exile it is, exile it is! To sit by and watch a battle unfold without joining in, impossible!" Zaraki bellowed with wild laughter. Even if punished, he would fight!
"…Captain, have you really never considered going somewhere deserted to fight? Then you could go all-out without wrecking things, and not get punished at all," Yumichika deadpanned.
Zaraki froze. He really hadn't thought of that. But now that Yumichika mentioned it… it actually sounded pretty reasonable.
"No need to worry. This time, I have a battlefield ready," Natsuro interjected.
"That's perfect! Where is it? Let's go right now!" Zaraki's eyes lit up with excitement.
"Good. But only you can come with me," Natsuro said. After all, the deepest level of the underground prison, Muken, wasn't open to just anyone.
"Eh? Little Natsuro, I can't come either?" Yachiru pouted at him pitifully.
"No," Natsuro replied flatly.
"It's fine, Yachiru. Stay here. I'll fight him and be back soon!" Zaraki reassured her.
"…Okay then." Since Zaraki himself said so, Yachiru had no choice but to agree.
Ikkaku and Yumichika wanted to tag along, but since he had spoken, they didn't dare follow secretly.
"By the way, where's Renji?" Natsuro asked, not seeing him around.
"He's off training somewhere else. Ever since Byakuya became the 6th Division's captain, Renji's been working even harder," Ikkaku explained.
"I see," Natsuro nodded. He understood well enough.
Renji probably wanted to become a captain himself. That way, he could stand before Rukia again, with the status to match.
After all, captains were eligible to marry noble daughters. And Rukia wasn't even of noble blood…
"Come with me," Natsuro said, glancing at the eager Zaraki.
"Yeah!"
Together, the two headed toward the underground prison.
At first, he had felt some resentment toward Zaraki, because Unohana was willing to risk her life for him.
But seeing Zaraki's pure, untainted hunger for battle, with no hidden motives, he couldn't bring himself to dislike him.
In the end, it was fate's cruel joke.
Zaraki just wanted a fight to the death against an equal. How was that a crime?
Soon, he brought him into Muken.
"So this place… is this endless space really here all along?" Zaraki exclaimed in awe, gazing at the vast void.
"Yes. Another person brought me here when we fought," Natsuro replied.
"Hah? Another person? The old man, or… Captain Unohana?" Zaraki asked.
Natsuro studied him. He called Yamamoto "the old man," but still called Unohana "Captain Unohana."
Clearly, Zaraki held real respect for her, no doubt because of that fight.
Though Unohana regretted it later, there was no denying that in that battle, the victor had been her, not him.
So for Zaraki to respect her deeply afterward made sense.
In fact, with his nature, it was surprising he hadn't gone back to challenge her again. That restraint itself spoke of his respect.
"…It was Unohana," Natsuro confirmed.
"So you beat her, huh?" Zaraki grinned wider.
"Yes. I did," Natsuro nodded.
Zaraki grew even more excited. To him, Unohana was the opponent he revered most, because she had once beaten him fairly.
And Natsuro had also beaten her head-on. That was why Zaraki had actually listened when he told him to work on control training.
Otherwise, why would a loser obey anyone's advice?
Soon, Natsuro stood opposite him, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of Meikyō Shisui.
"Then let's begin," he said.
Zaraki burst into roaring laughter, and ripped the eyepatch from his face.
To still hold back in a fight against him would be utter foolishness. From the start, he had resolved to go all out!
His monstrous spiritual pressure exploded through Muken.
Natsuro nodded slightly. But now, he no longer needed to unleash his own pressure to counter it.
After compressing his reiatsu nearly to the limit, his spiritual energy was already greater than Zaraki's. Facing him, he was calmer than ever.
"…Hoh?"
Seeing Natsuro so unfazed, Zaraki's eyes widened for a moment. Then his grin returned, showing gleaming teeth.
He could feel Natsuro had grown even stronger. But fear? That word had no meaning to Zaraki Kenpachi.
The stronger the foe, the more thrilled he became.
At that moment, Zaraki Kenpachi gripped his sword with both hands and swung it straight toward Natsuro.
Immediately, a massive golden wave of sword pressure, formed from his overwhelming reiatsu, came crashing toward Natsuro.
Facing the slash that could split mountains and rend the earth, he simply lifted Meikyō Shisui as if lightly, and from nowhere, a pure white sword pressure was born, colliding head-on with the golden wave.
In an instant, all of Muken was engulfed in gold and white light.
When the brilliance finally faded, Natsuro and Kenpachi were already at the very center, clashing directly, blades striking again and again, it was impossible to count how many times they had already crossed swords.
The last time, Natsuro's goal had been victory, so he hadn't savored the fight, he had crushed Kenpachi with the Fourth Form directly.
But this time, he didn't use any of his forms at all, he was simply trading the most basic of swings with Kenpachi.
Yet even a simple swing has its own techniques.
For Kenpachi to try to overwhelm he with raw power alone was no easy task.
"Hahahaha! This is great! Natsuro, why aren't you using that Futen (Burning Heaven)
technique?" Zaraki bellowed as he hacked away, exhilarated.
For the first time, he was slashing with true freedom, no restraints, no suppression, just pure release.
"This battle's goal," Natsuro said evenly, feeling his hands grow numb from the constant bone-shaking collisions, "is for you to force me into using even a single sword form."
He cursed inwardly again, what a monster.
Natsuro had already cut Zaraki several times, but the man seemed utterly unfazed. Before his eyes, the wounds knit themselves back together almost immediately…
Even so, victory was still far out of Zaraki's reach.
"Then it's settled!"
Zaraki wasn't angry. Natsuro had beaten him before, he had the right to say such things.
The law of the strong devouring the weak was the only creed Zaraki had ever lived by.
In fact, when Natsuro had once been punished by Central 46, if he had declared war on them, Zaraki would've happily joined him.
He didn't care about reasons. All he wanted was battle, and now, having finally found someone who could make him feel alive, how could he ever let go?
So the two of them hacked at each other like primal men.
But these weren't primitive sticks they were swinging. Their blades brimmed with monstrous reiatsu, and their own raw strength made the simplest strikes devastating.
Even a plain clash of blades sent shockwaves booming across Muken, detonations splitting the void apart.
Each time their swords met, the collision unleashed a violent wave of energy, shredding everything nearby.
No one knew how long they fought. Maybe hours. Maybe days.
In this place without sun or sound, where time itself felt frozen, there was no way to tell.
The only certainty was that the battle had not stopped.
Neither of them seemed to know exhaustion. Both still fought at their absolute peak but their appearances had become far less dignified.
Kenpachi's shihakushō (uniform) and captain's haori had long since been torn into rags, his skin stained red, whether from blood or simply from his own nature, it was impossible to say.
Natsuro looked better by comparison, though his clothes were shredded with several cuts. As for his skin beneath, it had already healed. After being cut by Kenpachi a few times, he had realized something startling... his regeneration wasn't far behind Zaraki's.
And in this endless duel, he noticed something else. Kenpachi's blade was growing sharper. By the end, not even he could completely avoid every strike and so he had been cut a few times.
But only a few. Zaraki, on the other hand, had taken hundreds, thousands of blows.
The fact that he was still standing, still fighting, was terrifying.
Just what kind of body did Zaraki Kenpachi have? Natsuro almost wanted to study him, he was clearly far from ordinary.
"More!" Zaraki roared, arms wide, his face split with a grin that had never faded once.
Natsuro drew in a deep breath, then smiled as well. He had to admit, this fight was thrilling.
Abandoning the obsession with victory, returning to pure, primal swordplay… it stirred something in his heart. Excitement. Passion. A hunger for more.
"Come!" Natsuro shouted back.
But this time, no answer came.
Zaraki still stood there, but his body began to sway.
And then, at last, he collapsed with a heavy crash, slamming into the ground.
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Currently on Chapter 490 - Bankai: Zanka no Tachi!