my test bok for fanfiction so i can use the tts

Ichigo lets the comforting weight of his swords ground him as he stalks slowly forward, combatants scattering out of his path as he comes, letting himself slip slowly sideways into a mindset he's always labeled "hunter." 

Across from him, Yamamoto is doing the same thing, closing in to the general panic of those around him. 

Ichigo allows himself one last overview of the battlefield-- Kisuke of course has things well in hand, Rose and Love have put down Kiganjo with extreme prejudice, the Shibas and Lisa and Tessai seem to be talking , Kensei is holding his own against the Kuchiki clan head with surprising finesse and unsurprising tenacity, and Unohana and Shinji appear to be completely absorbed in each other to the exclusion of all else, although Ichigo wouldn't bet on that being entirely true if it came down to it. It looks like Unohana has added offensive kido to the mix, but her movements are steadily speeding up as Shinji actually pushes her to keep up. Neither of them have called Shikai; Unohana's isn't particularly combat-oriented and Shinji's is pointless against someone with the master key to their own mind and senses. It seems unlikely that either will call Bankai, but he doesn't have any time to see where their escalation goes, because then he and the Soutaicho are within each other's range, and there's no time to think about anything else. 

Yamamoto doesn't try to say anything. He only lifts his walking stick and the wood dissolves away and Ryuujin Jakka is simply there , an elegant katana with a deep royal purple hilt. Ichigo-- and his spirits-- have to repress the urge to bow to her. This is a true queen; she has ruled over all zanpakuto in Soul Society for at least two thousand years; she is the oldest zanpakuto in living memory. Like Zangetsu, she bears no modified soul or standard asauchi as her base form; she was pulled directly from Yamamoto's soul. The old blade carries her own presence with her, even as she still slumbers. No matter how they feel about her wielder's actions, she deserves their utmost respect. 

Ichigo can feel the shiver that runs through the blades in his hands and the spirits in his soul. He allows himself a slow smile, raising his own twin katana in a warrior's salute, ignoring the way the temperature around them is rising drastically. 

There's a moment of absolute stillness that stretches for a miniature infinity. 

Then Yamamoto's eyes snap open fully, his presence snaps like a rippling flag, and they leap forward simultaneously, reiatsu and blades colliding in shockwaves of crimson and black fire. 

The world shakes around them as the two titans finally clash. 

Pretty much every other fight on the battlefield stops simultaneously. Instantly. Tessai actually breaks off mid-sentence in favor of spinning to throw up the highest bakudo he can cast without an incantation, shielding himself and Lisa and the Shibas. Kuchiki Ginrei and Kensei both freeze where they are, shuddering under the oppressive wash of reiatsu. Juushiro and Shunsui come to attention as the wave splashes against the outer edge of their delineated circle and goes around it ; Kisuke just grins and looks fonder than he has any right to. 

Shinji and Retsu just keep going, seemingly oblivious to anything except each other--although it's doubtful that they're as unaware as they seem.

At the heart of Seireitei, every noble and Shinigami present in the meeting chamber, the sealed meeting chamber, sans Yoruichi hit the ground at once. The Shihouin queen staggers only slightly, having been braced for this, and recovers quickly while everyone else is busy peeling their faces off the ground. Shock and awe ripples through the chamber, followed by a healthy dose of fear at the presence that is clearly standing against the Commander without issue. 

Yoruichi conceals an absolutely feral grin in favor of putting on her noble mask, blank and smooth and hiding more excitement than should be exhibited at the prospect of wrangling politicians, ever . If these imbeciles happen to think that her mask conceals fear instead, well all the better for her--she's notoriously fearless and anything that can scare her should be taken very, very seriously. Even though these imbeciles have no concept of the true scale of the danger they're in, they know enough to be thoroughly frightened and horrified. 

Good.

The first few strikes, a lightning-quick exchange, are only really intended to feel the other out. Much like Shinji and Unohana earlier, they're starting slowly before building up to more serious combat. Unfortunately for the countryside and Shinigami around them, however, even their more "casual" blows send waves of power crashing over the battlefield. No one on the field is anything below Captain-class, perhaps even senior Captain-class, but even so, withstanding the suddenly unbearable pressure feels like trying to force one's lungs to work underwater. Several Shinigami sway on their feet, and even the wide perimeter the Onmitsukido have taken does not prevent several of them from being driven directly into unconsciousness. 

The more experienced Shinigami on the battlefield, the ones with experience honing their significant power, and who have experienced the overwhelming strength of the most powerful of enemies, know how to sharpen their own reiatsu into a bladed wedge, not competing with the pressure so much as directing it subtly around them with only the lightest of touches. Those who have not yet had to deal with such pressure in a serious capacity quickly mimic their seniors with more or less finesse. Kiganjo, the stubborn idiot--who is, in fact still conscious somehow despite the absolute battering he's been taking from Love and Rose--is trying to flare his own reiatsu to counter it, with very little success. The Shibas seem to have picked it up fine, although Isshin's technique is a little… wobbly. Kensei, despite not being a Kido type, has mimicked his opponent to great effect. Shinji and Unohana's redirections are both smooth enough that it's hardly noticeable, and they continue to be the only other pair on the battlefield actually fighting . 

Ichigo can tell, despite the "slow" start, that the Soutaichou is taking him seriously. Very seriously, and he doesn't really know the old man that well, hadn't spent the same time with him as with most of the rest of the upper-ranked Shinigami, but he remembers watching the most senior member of the Gotei 13 face off with Aizen, far back at the beginning of the Winter War. Certainly that had been nothing like this, despite the Soutaichou's stated willingness to burn the entire battlefield to ashes to neutralize his enemy. Now, the man's reiatsu pounds away at his own, the thrumming heartbeat of a volcano's molten core. The casual, powerful strikes that mark his usual style have given way to something tighter, no less powerful, but with fewer openings and less rest afforded to his opponent. Ichigo's arms would be aching from the first few strikes, if he were anyone but himself. Normally, he'd have simply evaded the blows entirely, but with allies and opposed combatants both on the field, everyone is in the line of fire should he miss a strike. The flames on Ryuujin Jakka are hot enough to be barely visible flickers of clear distortion. Each time Shiro or Ossan comes into contact with her blade, Ichigo has to feed them more reiatsu to keep them from being immediately damaged. His own reiatsu shroud--the one protecting him from the flames as well as the old man's reiatsu, not just the reserves he has blanketing the field--has been condensed into a dense layer merely inches from his skin, slowing and trapping incoming blows like a fly into honey. It's probably the only thing that's keeping his flesh from melting from his bones.

And to think, this is still "easy mode." That's probably the only reason the battlefield isn't a massive crater in every direction. 

Ichigo saw enough of that during the War. He really doesn't care to see it again. 

He feels a ripple of spiritual pressure and translates it on reflex into a premonition of movement, intercepting Ryuujin Jakka's next blow and pressing the Soutaicho into a blade lock, the two of them not straining with physical strength so much as simply tearing at each other with their reiatsu, lashing out in massive, dense blows falling like whip cracks. Ichigo has much less experience with this form of combat, given that Aizen mostly just disintegrated the physical and spiritual world around him, by the end. He is, however, skilled enough to catch and redirect the majority of the First Captain's strikes to minimize damage to the rest of the battlefield. The wild flaring of their reiatsu makes for the perfect cover, as Ichigo had theorized, and he presses the blade lock harder for just a moment, forcing the Soutaicho to focus every scrap of energy on not being simply overpowered. It's a simple trap, but an effective one. 

The man only notices Muramasa when they sink their clawed hand into his back, their own reiatsu completely blended with Ichigo's, indistinguishable from him. 

They're a part of his soul, after all. They are him. Of course their presence is nearly identical to Ichigo's. It wouldn't have worked on Unohana, and probably not anyone who knew Ichigo and his spirits very well, but this is the first time he and the Soutaicho have faced each other in combat. There's a lot that the elder Shinigami doesn't know about him. 

That he probably won't ever get the chance to know about him. Ichigo doesn't see their relationship becoming particularly close, not after this. Not that Ichigo would have trusted him that much in the first place. The Soutaicho has been party to too many atrocities and places himself too much under the rule of an authority too petty and self-centered to be acknowledged as legitimate in any way, in Ichigo's opinion. 

Muramasa reaches out toward him, and Ichigo reaches back, his soul pulling to rejoin itself, and then the world bends and destabilizes as Muramasa pulls all of them together into the Commander's inner world. 

The whole battlefield feels the sudden absence of reiatsu. It's like… a vacuum chamber suddenly opened to the air. Kisuke half expects his ears to pop, except that the pressure change isn't physical , as much as anything on this plane is physical. He looks over to see pretty much exactly what he expected-- the Soutaichou and Ichigo have both turned inward in something very much like an extremely rapid descent into meditation. They should be fine; it's much safer to let the two of them battle it out in Yamamoto's soul. There will certainly be less collateral damage. 

In the meantime, though, their bodies are left unguarded, vulnerable-- for a given definition of vulnerable, given the heat- wave rippling of intense reiatsu he can see emanating from both figures. Either way, Kisuke isn't about to leave them relatively unshielded. Obviously he's going to protect Ichigo, but they really don't want to have to kill the Soutaichou and ruin any chance of reconciliation with the Gotei 13, much less the Central 46.

So protecting them both it is. The majority of the battlefield is still staring in horrified confusion, which leaves Kisuke plenty of time to act. He digs a tiny red bead out of one of his many pockets, calling it to his fingers with a trace of reiatsu and activating it with a quick twist. The pre-programmed barrier kido inside is one of Kisuke's own creations, a multifaceted crystalline shield that's impenetrable from the outside except by the creator, but will dissolve relatively easily if the right strings are tugged from the inside. He flicks it towards the two on an invisible little reiatsu string, nudging it until it's resting innocuously by Ichigo's foot. The moment he withdraws his string, the bead expands, no longer held by his spiritual power, and snaps into its original form. 

There's enough reiatsu poured into that pre-formed barrier that nothing is getting past that unless Kisuke himself, or one of the two protected, takes it down. 

He presses down a frisson of natural uneasiness. Ichigo is strong. He's definitely got the Commander well in hand, after all the practice he'd had being wildly outclassed with Aizen. It's just that Kisuke is possessive, and protective, and anything that's out of his reach, that he's unable to affect or influence, makes him…uncomfortable. It's not a matter of trust so much as the lingering need to be the one pulling the strings. 

It's fine, though. It's Ichigo. Kisuke would be willing to trust his partner with far more than just this. Has trusted Ichigo with more, with the safety of the world, of all the worlds. With Kisuke's own vulnerability, at a time when he knew that all he deserved was his apology-- too little, too late-- thrown back in his face. Ichigo had reached out, lifted him off his knees, handed him his hat back. He'd scowled reassuringly in a way only Ichigo could manage, still clasping the forearm he'd used to help Kisuke up, and looked him directly in the eyes. 

"It's okay, Kisuke. I understand why you did it. I don't blame you."

The absolution was far more than he deserved, and it had only cemented his conviction to stand by Ichigo's side, even if the entire rest of the world deserted him. 

He's never regretted that decision, not once. 

Now he merely has to trust Ichigo, once more. 

Yamamoto's inner world…is Hell. The traditional, fire-and-brimstone version, not the version actually adjacent to Soul Society. Ichigo finds his footing on a crag of black rock jutting out of a sea of fire, and stares out across a landscape pulled straight out of Revelations. "Lake of Fire" might actually be understating the breadth and depth of the boiling, liquid flames. The sheer temperature makes breathing difficult, like being slapped in the face with a wall of heat. The air itself ripples with the heat, occasional wisps of flame igniting amidst the superheated air and dissipating just as quickly. 

Wonderful. 

Ichigo's inner world is an infinite cityscape of gravity-defying skyscrapers and sky, overgrown by and interspersed with wild forest that has taken over the industrial area to create a very interesting aesthetic. Not quite dystopian, too well-maintained and hopeful for that, but something two steps sideways, where natural reclamation turned into harmony. 

There is no harmony here. Only a state of neverending chaos, a blank continuity of wrath. 

Despite the violent nature of this world, it, much like Yamamoto itself, is somehow stagnant in its fury. 

Well, that's what Ichigo is here to fix, hopefully. He tugs at the threads in his mind, and Shiro and Ossan and Muramasa materialize next to him, each of his blades carrying the extensions of themselves. 

It's only just in time, too. A terrible cry of rage, not anything human, or even Hollow, animalistic and primal in its wrath. 

Yamamoto stands to their left, on a large slab of the same stone they're standing on, and behind him is Ryuujin Jakka in all her glory. 

She's a dragon , an honest, true-to-fantasy dragon, with diamond-hard scales and fire in her throat and breast and wings.

Oh, Ichigo would never trade his spirits, his soul, for anything in the world, but in that moment, all four of them are caught up in a moment of jealousy. 

And awe . 

And then she speaks. 

"Little intruders, you overstep yourself. Know your place."

Her voice thunders through the air around them, shaking them to their bones. 

Oh, this is going to be one hell of a fight.