FicWad

Staring up at the two figures, I was transfixed by the sight of them. Orange and blue, black and white. Polar opposites.
Something was different though. Something about the Espada. His left arm was missing. As I wondered as to the reasoning behind this, Grimmjoww spoke and destroyed my train of thought.
“Bankai, eh?!” he spat out, sneering. “Did you forget that your Bankai couldn’t stop me, last time?!”
“Did you forget that my Bankai attack gave you that scar!?” Ichigo retorted, pointing his sword towards his opponent’s torso.
Watching the two of them, I realised something odd was occurring. Grimmjoww had yet to draw his sword. He seemed confident. Ichigo, however. His demeanour was beyond confidence. He seemed to radiate a sense of self assurance that bore into my soul.
Continuing to stare, my gaze seemed to be inexplicably drawn to Ichigo’s left hand. His hand seemed to emanate an ominous feeling. It was the kind of feeling that assaulted me whenever I faced down a hollow. It frightened me.
My feeling proved to be correct. Rapidly raising his hand in front of his face, Ichigo’s entire body seemed to tense up. Ripping his arm out to the side, removing his hand from it’s obscuring position, his entire body was masked in a veil of midnight black spiritual energy.
When this veil had finally dissipated, Ichigo had changed. He was wearing a mask, vaguely reminiscent of a hollow. But that wasn’t right. Soul reapers don’t wear hollow masks.
Ichigo disappeared.
Instantly reappearing in front of the Espada, he swung his sword so fast that I completely lost sight of it. As Ichigo’s voice escaped the mask, it almost seemed to echo and gurgle. “GETSUGA TENSHO!!!”
After the crescent moon shaped blast escaped Ichigo Kurosaki’s blade, I lost sight of them both completely. They were moving so fast that my eyes had yet to even catch a glimpse of their position.
Within a few seconds, two more explosions tore through the air. Each of them consisting of black spirit energy. Their origins were unknown, but despite this, the force was considerable. The very buildings around me seemed to creak and sway from the shockwaves.
Then I heard it. Several dozen metres away from where they had previously been, I saw Grimmjoww plummeting through the air.
Rapidly thrusting his hand upwards, towards his orange haired enemy, he bared his teeth and screamed: “CERO!!!”
The instant he uttered this, a bright crimson blast of energy flew from his hand towards the masked Ichigo, who was currently rocketing towards him.
He wasn’t phased by this. In a mere fraction of the section, with a simple swing of his jet black zanpakuto, he sliced through the Cero with seemingly little effort.
Another half a second passed, and Grimmjoww appeared behind the orange haired soul reaper. They clashed swords.
Ichigo had it won. I knew that much. He could end this in a second. Now I could tell where his previous confidence was coming from.
Then it happened. The mask shattered.
Even from where I was standing, I could see it. As the shards of the bone-like substance fell around Ichigo they continued to break apart, encircling his face.
Letting out a stifled gasp, I looked on in horror as the blue haired Espada broke into a sadistic grin. Blood traced an arc through the air, plummeting to the ground and spattering the immediate area in a veil of crimson.
Ichigo was falling, a deep gash opened across the front of his tight fitting shihakusho. Landing on the concrete of the road, a few feet in front of me, he almost seemed to bounce.
Digging my feet into the ground, I staggered forward in a futile attempt to be of some assistance.
Needless to say, my movement was impeded.
Appearing suddenly, between me and the fallen substitute soul reaper, Grimmjoww’s crushing presence overwhelmed me. I found myself being driven to the floor. It was like a ten tonne weight hand been pressed against my shoulders. I never knew that being so close to such an awesome amount of power could affect me like this. Slamming against the ground, me face almost seemed to be driven into the solid surface. Pooling around my face, I felt the warm, sticky, sensation that indicated blood. Perhaps the force of my descent had opened a cut.
Attempting to lift my head, my entire body began to tremble. The difficulty of this simple action made it seem as if my neck were about to snap in half.
Peering through heavy eyelids, I could feel the vein in my temple bulge. Continuing to strain myself, me gaze fell on the back side of Grimmjoww.
Swinging a kick forwards, I heard a sickening crunch as the Espada’s foot collided with Ichigo’s face. Visible around the white of Grimmjoww’s clothes, I caught sight of the orange haired soul reaper enter a kind of semi-backflip as he was flung back by the force of the kick.
“You tried to summon that mask again,” Grimmjoww spat out, beginning to walk forwards, away from be. Along the ground, behind him, he left a thick trail of blood. The effects of Ichigo’s masked Getsuga Tensho were obviously far more severe than I had observed them to be.
Behind the trembling crunch of my bones, as I was crushed by the enormous power of those in front of me, a noise filled my ears. It was the sound of the substitute soul reaper rising to his feet.
As this occurred, a fleeting through of hope crossed my mind. Hope that the Espada could be felled by a strike of the midnight black sword. This small flame of hope, much like that of a candle, was soon snuffed.
“Maybe there’s an amount to how much you can use it, or maybe you’ve sustained too much damage…either way…” Grimmjoww thrust the blade of his sword downwards. “It’s GONE now!!!!”
“AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!” echoed a blood curdling scream. Reverberating through the city street, the cry of pain assaulted my ears.
Desperately trying to move, I found myself peering around the Espada’s imposing figure. The scene was grotesque. Blood spattered the floor and conversed into several separate pools. The source of this copious amount of blood was Ichigo’s arm. Sprouting from the flesh of his forearm, like some kind of perverse flower, was Grimmjoww’s sword. He had been completely run through, and pinned to the floor.
The stench of blood filled the area, sticking in my throat and filling my lungs. Averting my eyes, I resisted the urge to vomit.
“Don’t worry,” I heard the arrancar state. I didn’t look up. I just continued to stare down at the ground beneath my face. “A Cero from this range will blow your head off…painlessly…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. The bright red glow assaulted my vision. I could hear the Cero as it formed on the Espada’s palm.

*

“Tsugi No Mai… Hakuren!!”