Ahead, Aizen strolled over.
Slightly raising his head to look down disdainfully at Ichigo, Aizen said disdainfully:
"Daring to lose focus while fighting me. Kurosaki Ichigo, I don't know whether to call you bold or ignorant!"
"Forget it. Although a brash youngster interrupted my mood, I gave him a lesson, so to speak."
Aizen looked to Ichigo's side. "Kuchiki Rukia, it's your turn!"
"!" Rukia's eyes trembled. Fear was born.
But at this moment, beside Rukia, Ichigo, who is immobile, on the verge of death, his remaining life force continuously draining, let out a faint voice.
"Rukia, don't be afraid!"
Hearing Ichigo's words, Aizen looked at him in surprise. "Oh? Still alive?"
"This is truly unbelievable vitality! It's just a pity that possessing vitality unmatched by strength can only be a pain!"
After commenting on Ichigo, Aizen continued towards Rukia!
This time, his pace gradually quickened.
Because he also knew time was somewhat lacking now.
But just like you don't know whether tomorrow or accident comes first, before Aizen could grasp tomorrow, an accident came again.
"Stop right there, Aizen!"
"Bankai: Hihio Zabimaru!"
Renji's Reiatsu soared into the sky!
Aizen turned his head in surprise, giving an astonished smile:
"It's Abarai-kun. I didn't expect you, from back then, to have also grown to the level of using Bankai."
"Seems I still underestimated you. That slash wasn't as deep as Kuchiki Byakuya's. But perhaps it wasn't that I didn't cut deep enough, it was that you avoided my blade."
"But, do you really think your immature Bankai can stop my advance?"
"Heh..." Renji, forcing Bankai with his gravely injured body, breathed heavily.
But hearing Aizen's words, the unwilling-to-lose stray dog still showed an arrogant smile. "That kind of thing... how would I know without trying?"
After speaking, abundant spiritual power gushed out from between the snake bone joints of the giant Hihio Zabimaru!
Coiling around Renji like a snake and raising its head, Hihio Zabimaru readied an attack posture!
Seeing Renji using Bankai to block Aizen, those worried about Ichigo sighed in relief.
But Ichigo knew that even if Renji used Bankai here, he would at most get two more scenes than in the original.
One scene for using Bankai, one scene for Bankai being destroyed.
Because without understanding his Zanpakuto's true name, Renji couldn't bring out Zabimaru's true power.
Zabimaru, which turned into a giant snake skeleton from a Shikai enlargement, had major limitations in attack methods… only charging and biting, and consumed massive Reiryoku.
If we ranked Bankai, Hihio Zabimaru would mostly be ranked near the bottom.
So Ichigo still had to save himself.
"Rukia!" Ichigo called.
"Ichigo, what is it?" Rukia withdrew her gaze, which had been drawn to Renji's Bankai.
"There's one thing I need you to do!" Ichigo said briefly. "Go, bring me my Tensa Zangetsu!"
Hearing this, even though her own Reiryoku was meager and she was oppressed by the other powerful Reiatsu users on this battlefield, making her body mostly unable to move, Rukia forced herself to move.
She couldn't walk, so she crawled to where Tensa Zangetsu had fallen not far from Ichigo, grasped it, and brought it back.
"Ichigo, what are you going to do?" Rukia asked.
Then, Ichigo smiled slightly and stated his original plan. "Stab Tensa Zangetsu into my chest, just like that night!"
"What!!?" Hearing Ichigo's words, Rukia was utterly dumbfounded.
"Ichigo, do you know what you're saying?"
"I know! Quickly, no time!"
"Don't worry, trust me!" Ichigo looked not far away.
During their brief conversation, Renji had already launched an attack with Hihio Zabimaru.
Hihio Zabimaru's giant snake head, accelerated by its snake bones, bit towards Aizen!
Facing Hihio Zabimaru, Aizen didn't even use his sword. He directly raised his palm towards it.
Indifferent words were uttered: "Hado #88, Hiryu Gekizoku Shinten Raiho!"
A sky-blue laser beam shot from Aizen's palm, then quickly expanded, finally turning into a huge five-meter-thick lightning pillar, charging with the momentum to destroy everything towards Hihio Zabimaru!
The 88th Hado clashing with a Bankai… the result was not unexpected.
Hiryu Gekizoku Shinten Raiho poured into Hihio Zabimaru's mouth and then, like Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, destroyed segment by segment the entire Hihio Zabimaru!
The immense power even shaved off three layers of the ground it passed over!
With Bankai mercilessly destroyed, Renji's outcome goes without saying.
"Rukia!" Ichigo's call came again!
"Dammit, Renji!"
Rukia turned her head, tears in her eyes. She grabbed Tensa Zangetsu and resolutely stabbed it heavily into Ichigo's chest!
And at this moment, Orihime and the others, who had been blocked at the foot of the hill, finally arrived.
They happened to see the scene of Ichigo being pierced through the chest by Rukia.
Orihime let out a scream: "Kurosaki-kun!!!"
She ran over quickly, pushed aside Rukia, and looked at Ichigo's 'corpse' silently shedding tears. "What on earth are you doing?"
Simultaneously, Aizen, who had just dealt with Renji, looked over.
"Hm?" This strange scene also left Aizen greatly puzzled.
But the most shocked were the live stream viewers. They went completely crazy.
"Holy ****, did Ichigo just die like that? Killed by Rukia!!!?"
"WTF, what the hell is going on now!!?"
Because the live stream had switched scenes, mainly showing battles like Aizen's, the viewers didn't follow Ichigo's perspective the entire time.
From their perspective, Aizen dealt with Renji, then turned around to see Ichigo being stabbed by Rukia.
"Could this be the crisis from the game coins pressed on him?"
"But Rukia, why!!?"
Everyone couldn't figure it out no matter how hard they thought.
Even Aizen couldn't understand Rukia's actions.
"Just now he was protecting you, and now a stab. What is the logic here?"
Aizen asked puzzledly: "Kuchiki Rukia, do you have a grudge with him?"
In the distance, watching this scene, Gin's smile faded, turning into a question mark. Renji, with one last breath, was shocked. Even Byakuya looked over.
As for Chad, Uryu, and the others beside Ichigo, they glared even more angrily.
Only Orihime had no time to think about this. She used Soten Kisshun, striving to treat Ichigo.
But leaving aside that the current Orihime's healing wasn't as strong as in the later parts of the original work.
Ichigo's fatal injury wasn't the chest stab at all. That was just the last straw that broke the camel's back. Ichigo's fatal injuries were the large and small wounds Aizen had inflicted and the massive blood loss.
Orihime's healing simply couldn't restore Ichigo.
Watching Ichigo's Reiatsu gradually weaken after her stab, even Rukia, who had obeyed Ichigo's words and given him the stab, lost confidence.
"No, no, no! Ichigo told me to stab him! Why is it like this!!?"
Then, suddenly thinking of something, Rukia looked at Aizen again and cried out brokenly:
"Captain Aizen, with your strength, killing is as easy as nodding. Why must you toy with us like this!?"
Hearing Rukia's words, everyone reacted.
That's right. This must be Aizen's fault!
Beating someone to the brink of death, then making the person he was protecting stab him.
What must Kurosaki Ichigo have been thinking then? How desperate and heartbroken must he have been? Everyone simply couldn't imagine!
"Aizen!"
Komamura, lying on the ground, let out a roar of anger, then actually stood up shakily!
In Bleach, each character has a keyword to display their main characteristic.
Kubo gave Komamura the character righteousness/loyalty. Komamura, with righteousness first, could stand the least such things!
…
"Aizen!" Byakuya also stood up with a roar of anger.
He automatically substituted Ichigo and Rukia with himself and his wife.
With someone like Hisana's personality, she felt guilty just asking him to find and take care of Rukia. If she had to hurt her beloved, how heartbroken would she be? Byakuya didn't dare imagine.
Chilling Reiatsu released from his body that was already gravely wounded, not yet recovered, and now injured again.