At this moment,
just as all the viewers
were still immersed in the shock brought by that jet-black Zangetsu—
on the video screen,
Hollow Ichigo's provocation was still continuing:
"Ichigo…"
"What's wrong with that look on your face…?"
"You look all gloomy—so you've noticed something, haven't you? Hahaha!!!"
The corners of his mouth curled up.
Hollow Ichigo's smile was mocking and playful, clearly teasing on purpose.
"Where's Old Man Zangetsu?"
Ichigo frowned.
His eyes rolled, scanning left and right all around him.
But no matter how he looked,
he could not see the familiar figure of Old Man Zangetsu anywhere nearby.
He couldn't help but shout angrily:
"What did you do to him?!"
And these words,
once they were played out through the video
and transmitted into the real world,
especially
after they were heard by the pure-blood Quincy of the Wandenreich—
immediately
they caused a wave of panic throughout the entirety of Silbern!
The elite Sternritter
all changed expression; everyone's mood suddenly became extremely uneasy!
"No way…"
Valkyrie furrowed his brows, unable to believe it. "His Majesty's fragment was actually beaten back?"
"He represents the very embodiment of pure-blood Quincy power!!!"
As the Heart of the Soul King,
after personally witnessing Yhwach later become the Dark Soul King,
Valkyrie had become even more fanatical—
his worship of Yhwach had only grown more extreme.
In his mind,
the king of the pure-blood Quincy was invincible.
There was absolutely no way
he could be defeated by any outsider, no matter how strong!!!
Yet now,
this scene before their eyes—
here stood a manifestation of Hollow power,
and at the same time, this Hollow Ichigo was the spirit of the Zanpakutō "Zangetsu,"
the embodiment of Ichigo's Shinigami power—
and he seemed to have…
possibly devoured
the fragment of Yhwach that had been masquerading as Old Man Zangetsu.
This possibility
was not something only Valkyrie found hard to swallow.
The Sternritter captain, Lille Barro, was just as unable to accept it.
His expression grew grim as he said:
"Tch…"
"This damned countdown video is deliberately digging a pit for us!"
"This is basically openly telling the audience…"
"That our pure-blood Quincy are inferior to Hollows, and then get suppressed by Shinigami on top of that?"
"This is way too humiliating!!!"
Lille Barro was furious, unable to accept it.
Even though,
the clips being shown right now
came from this round's entry where,
after Ichigo's rampage through Soul Society, he enters the new arc involving the Arrancar—
logically speaking,
it shouldn't have anything to do with the Quincy.
The Wandenreich and the Sternritter shouldn't have any screen time here at all.
But…
as a viewer,
Lille Barro still felt that he had been deeply insulted.
It felt like Hollow Ichigo had just mocked them all to their faces,
calling all pure-blood Quincy trash!!!
"Mm…"
"Everyone, calm down…"
"The clip has only just started. There's no need for us to get this sensitive yet…"
It still had to be Haschwalth—
as the ever-present right hand of His Majesty, his personality was the most composed.
Even though his blue eyes were also tinted with displeasure,
he didn't start making wild guesses,
and he simply ignored Hollow Ichigo's electronic, taunting voice.
Haschwalth continued soothing everyone:
"In any case…"
"I don't believe His Majesty's fragment would be taken out that easily!"
"Hollow Ichigo's bluster is just hollow bravado!"
"Until the story plays all the way to the end, none of us can say for sure who is going to be the one that gets absorbed!!!"
In Haschwalth's view,
since Ichigo's body contained the power of every lineage at once,
then,
without a doubt,
when it came to the composition of this god-tier Zanpakutō—Zangetsu—
whether it was Hollow Ichigo, His Majesty, or His Majesty's fragment,
the end result was very likely that all of them would ultimately fuse together.
So,
a question of who was stronger or weaker between them
didn't really exist.
What mattered was that, when that time came, "Zangetsu" would reach its absolute peak!
Just imagining this,
even someone as strong as Haschwalth
had his expression change drastically.
The terror of Soul King-level power
forced him to immediately cut off that line of thought!!!
——
Meanwhile.
On the video screen—
facing Ichigo's angry questioning, Hollow Ichigo didn't care in the slightest.
His tone remained frivolous as he went on with his electronic-sounding mockery:
"Tch…"
"What an idiot…"
"Even now, you still haven't figured it out?"
Annoyed,
Hollow Ichigo unwrapped all the black cloth bands,
and after revealing the blade, he swung the Zanpakutō straight at Ichigo!
At the same time,
with a sharp screeching sound,
Hollow Ichigo shouted loudly:
"Listen up… I am Zangetsu!!!"
——
"Heh…"
"Why do I feel like Hollow Ichigo's move here is basically a confession?"
"It's just a pity that Ichigo's expression is totally blank—he clearly hasn't understood what those words really mean yet…"
In the Urahara Shop, Kisuke picked up his teacup,
took a sip, and commented lazily.
"Yeah…"
Isshin Kurosaki also relaxed.
He didn't look worried at all—in fact he seemed a little proud of his son as he said,
"I can see it clear as day. Shinji Hirako's method is basically to pull someone into their inner world…"
"Let the Hollow that has already formed inside their soul run wild in there and fight it out!"
"Whoever wins gets to take control of the personality, and in turn gains the right to command the body and its power!"
"Of course, that's a dangerous thing to do. If you're unlucky, your original personality might vanish from this world entirely!"
"But…"
"Ichigo is different!!!"
At this point,
Isshin deliberately paused,
his gaze falling on Hollow Ichigo as his smile nearly spread from ear to ear:
"Because of Hollow Ichigo's existence—Hollow and Shinigami powers united as one!"
"That's basically abusing a bug in the system!"
"I even think… compared to me as his old man, Hollow Ichigo is the one who cares about Ichigo the most!"
"After all, if anything happens to Ichigo, it drags the Zanpakutō down with him. And as the sword spirit, Hollow Ichigo's condition would get thrown into even worse chaos…"
"With that violent personality of his, there's no way he'd ever tolerate that!!!"
In Isshin's eyes,
this so-called battle for the throne of "king"
was, frankly speaking, a welfare match—
difficulty level: zero.
Maybe
for Shinji and the other Visored,
they would need to spend decades
before the Hollow within them would completely submit,
allowing them to freely use Hollowfication.
But…
if you applied the same thing to Ichigo—
forget decades, if it took more than a few dozen minutes, Isshin would call it a loss.
The protagonist's halo
always compressed the time and process of any training Ichigo did to the limit,
turning any difficulty setting into "easy mode"!!!
——
What followed
was the two figures clashing again,
a series of fierce sword fights with sparks flying everywhere.
Only,
as the fight went on,
Hollow Ichigo gradually lost his patience.
He had been hammering the point home again and again that he was Zangetsu—
yet Ichigo
still acted like he was deaf,
endlessly asking where Hollow Ichigo had hidden Old Man Zangetsu!
In the end,
with no other choice,
Hollow Ichigo was so mad he could spit. Taking advantage of the moment when Ichigo was preparing to unleash his Bankai,
he turned toward the "camera" of the video,
and copied Ichigo's stance, posing in exactly the same way!
From the looks of it,
he was about to… use Bankai as well!!!
The instant this scene appeared on screen,
because it was so unbelievable,
it naturally triggered an enormous uproar!!!
"Holy crap…"
"So it's real! Hollow Ichigo can use Bankai too!"
"Twenty years ago he was still just an artificial Hollow… a special product of Aizen's Hollowfication experiments!"
"A Hollow using a Zanpakutō's Bankai—this kind of thing… has literally never happened before!!!"
It was horrifying.
It was bizarre.
It made your eyes light up,
and it was packed with freshness and adrenaline!
The Shinigami of the Gotei 13, in particular, all stared at each other in disbelief.
You had to remember—
across the entire Gotei 13,
there were that many Zanpakutō,
but only a tiny fraction of Shinigami—just those few captains—had mastered Bankai!
And now,
on the screen, a single Hollow had done it with ease.
Even if you ignored his identity as a sword spirit,
Hollow Ichigo's appearance, his aura, and the core of his spiritual pressure
were the real deal—
a Vasto Lorde-class Menos.
In fact, he was the very top of that class—
a Hollow King-level existence!!!
So,
the visual impact that this scene brought with it
shook the entire Gotei 13 to the core!
And at that moment,
amidst the atmosphere of shock,
on the screen—
on the left and right sides stood black and white,
two Zangetsu with opposite colors,
held respectively in Ichigo's hand and Hollow Ichigo's.
Blades pointed forward,
spiritual pressure swirling around them.
The instant the black and white cloth bands
wrapped around their arms,
Hollow Ichigo
and Ichigo Kurosaki,
spoke the Bankai release phrase in unison:
"Bankai——!!!"
Terrifying power
erupted from the two "Zangetsu,"
like a storm blowing apart this inner world.
As the blast flooded everything in blinding light,
Ichigo and Hollow Ichigo's figures were quickly swallowed up,
vanishing into the shockwave.
The video footage had no choice
but to pause here for the moment!!!
"Tut-tut-tut…"
"Captain Aizen, after watching this, you must feel even more accomplished, right?"
"A Vasto Lorde who can use Bankai—this is without a doubt the most outstanding and perfect Hollowfication experiment…"
At the foot of the throne,
Gin Ichimaru showed his fox-like smile and deliberately brought it up.
"Gin, what do you think?"
Aizen replied without the slightest hesitation,
"Hollow Ichigo is almost on the same level as the future me."
"Because of his existence, there's no way 'Zangetsu' could ever be a weak Zanpakutō!"
"Add in the fragment of Yhwach… that pure-blood Quincy power, and so 'Zangetsu's' ranking…"
"Is without question that of the strongest Zanpakutō!!!"
Aizen held back none of his praise,
giving both Hollow Ichigo and "Zangetsu" the highest evaluation.
He even—
for his own Zanpakutō, Kyōka Suigetsu—
was willing to place it second, beneath "Zangetsu." On that point, Aizen had no complaints.
There was nothing else to say—
this Zanpakutō really was that strong.
It was just that, up until now, the audience hadn't understood "Zangetsu" well enough.
Now,
with the countdown video continuing to expose more,
playing back Ichigo Kurosaki's journey of growth,
and as "Zangetsu" gained recognition from Aizen and the rest of the viewers,
it was only a matter of time.
Many viewers even felt
that the very existence of "Zangetsu" was a miracle in itself.
Because Ichigo Kurosaki was the protagonist,
this Zanpakutō had been born out of a series of coincidences and accidents!!
——
Back in the video—
once the explosive shockwave finally dispersed,
Hollow Ichigo's brand-new appearance after Bankai
once again stunned the entire world!
A white tailcoat that flared like phoenix feathers, light and elegant,
fit closely to his frame.
With every movement he made, the hem swayed,
his presence turned up to the max!
"This looks way too good…"
"Hollow Ichigo… White Ichigo's looks are on par with the real deal! This is just too pleasing to the eye!!"
"A different flavor of Ichigo Kurosaki—he's practically celestial!!"
At this moment,
quite a few female viewers
were utterly captivated by Hollow Ichigo's cool design,
their hearts fluttering all over again.
They once more experienced that feeling of falling in love at first sight.
The Zanpakutō "Zangetsu" had stepped onto a path toward unparalleled perfection!!!
After that,
beneath the stunned gazes of all the viewers,
another fierce battle erupted.
Only this time, Ichigo was not just beaten badly—
even the black Tensa Zangetsu in his hand
was affected once Hollow Ichigo touched it.
It suffered a disastrous fate and completely came apart,
shattering into white fragments scattering in all directions!
Ichigo was left empty-handed,
standing there stunned.
And just then—
the camera suddenly zoomed in,
giving a tight close-up of Hollow Ichigo's face!
In that instant,
his expression filled the screen, wide-eyed and intense.
Then,
before everyone's eyes,
Hollow Ichigo flicked his finger,
effortlessly spinning the Zanpakutō around in his hand.
Once he finished this signature move,
the classic, iconic scene finally played out!
"Ichigo, let me ask you!"
"What's the difference between us?"
"And I don't mean some stupid guessing game like: a centaur is four legs and a human is two legs…"
Through the video playback,
Hollow Ichigo's gaze,
word by word,
was transmitted clearly.
"No matter if it's our forms, our abilities, or our power…"
"Could there really be two beings that are exactly the same as me?"
"One side fights on the front lines, and the other becomes a mount to boost his strength!"
"You don't really understand… what the difference between us is, do you?"
The more Hollow Ichigo spoke, the more fired up he became, his voice booming.
It didn't just fill the entire inner world—
it echoed all the way into the World of the Living as well.
At this moment,
almost the entire Bleach world—
every corner—was ringing with Hollow Ichigo's voice!!!
"There's only one answer."
"And that is… I am you!!!"
Hollow Ichigo's single sentence
resounded across time and space.
All the viewers were startled, their eardrums stinging,
but in the next breath,
they also felt
like they had just attended a master-class, leaping straight to the top and learning something profound!
"Thanks to this countdown video…"
"'Hollow Ichigo' actually isn't an independent existence at all!"
"He and Kurosaki Ichigo are one and the same—two sides of the same whole!"
"This is the true, strongest form of 'Zangetsu'!"
"That guy…"
"So that's how it is!"
"No wonder we outsiders never had a chance to experience it ourselves!"
"To learn this kind of lofty, high-level battle theory from beginning to end!!!"
These words
won everyone's agreement.
Some viewers even couldn't help starting to daydream—
if Ichigo Kurosaki became their ally,
and if they could eventually interact and trade places with him…
could they perhaps…?
It'd be like ascending straight to heaven!
They'd let Hollow Ichigo keep lecturing them,
learning more and more from his brand-new combat "scripture"!
The Visored captains,
for their part, loved it.
"Ahhhh!!!"
(End of Chapter)
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