Chapter 73: CHAPTER 73: A GAME
"If the hero always arrives late enough to save the day…"
"Then what about somebody who arrives even later than the hero…?" Houryu said as he stood in the air blocking the transformed soukyoku with his sword.
"...Huh… Who is that?" Soi fon asked nobody in particular as she looked in shock after seeing the soukyoku blocked a second time.
"... Houryu…! What are you doing here…" Ichigo also asked as he saw Houryu holding away the soukyoku from attacking them.
"...How could a gathering of all types of bigshots not include me, kid…" Houryu answered back as if his appearance there was totally natural.
"... Stop wasting time already and get back to rescuing your princess…!" Houryu quickly told Ichigo before turning back to face the transformed soukyoku.
"... Now what do I do with this cheap rip-off of a phoenix…" Houryu said as he looked at the firebird.
"You don't have to waste some of the little kitty's family artifacts… let me take care of this and you can focus on taking care of other matters." Houryu suddenly looked at Ukitake and said in his direction.
"It's been a while since I've done this…" Houryu suddenly whispered to himself as suddenly his hair suddenly burst into reddish-orange-colored flames and then a couple of seconds later the flames spread to other areas of his body before he was suddenly engulfed in the flames.
This scene shocked everyone who watched, except for the soukyoku who had withdrawn to strike once again with all its power as it felt extremely furious that it had been prevented from incinerating its target twice already.
The flames surrounding Houryu's body started to enlarge and also began to shine brighter and brighter until nobody could open their eyes and had to shut them for a while.
When their eyes finally opened, they saw another gigantic bird hovering in the skies. Its body gleamed like sunlight with beautiful peacock-like feathers made from tangible flames that looked extremely glamorous to behold.
The newly transformed phoenix slowly opened its eyes to look at the world around him before opening its beak as well and letting out a soft but extremely loud cawing cry.
*CAW* Houryu cried out in his phoenix form, his cry sounding like a song of nature rather an animal noise.
"...Beautiful…" Rukia whispered as she looked at the transformed Houryu letting out his soft cry.
The soukyoku who was already charging towards Houryu came to a halt quickly as soon as it saw the change in situations, but it was already noticed by Houryu as Houryu looked at the knock with disdain apparent in his eyes.
Houryu simply flapped his wings, sending a wave of glowing red flame at the soukyoku. The flames went towards the soukyoku and surrounded it, wrapping around it like an eggshell. A second later the flames slowly died and faded away, leaving nothing behind of the soukyoku.
"...! The soukyoku was burnt…!?" Isane who was among those who saw what happened exclaimed.
"...Flames so strong they can burn even other flames…" Unohana who was also looking at this scene with widened eyes said.
The rest of the onlookers just stared with various types of shocked looks on their faces, but Houryu paid no mind to this as he flapped his wings again and then turned towards Ichigo who still stood in front of Rukia, but he also had a shocked look on his face.
"...Houryu… You're… a bird…!?" Ichigo suddenly asked.
Houryu on hearing this question, face palmed in his mind as he barely resisted the urge to teach this idiot a lesson, right here, right now.
[Don't focus on what I am and focus more on what you're here to do…] Houryu spoke directly into his mind as he hovered in front of him.
"How are you speaking in my head…!?" Ichigo quickly and loudly asked, shocked at the fact that Ichigo could literally speak to him telepathically.
[First of all… lower your damn voice…!] Houryu responded, annoyed.
[Second… unlike you think… there are a lot of things you can do with spiritual energy apart from using it for battle. Now stop acting surprised and go save your friend…] Houryu answered again, using his spiritual energy to surround Ichigo and then pushing him towards Rukia.
Ichigo landed on the stand that Rukia was also on and started spinning his zanpakutou, but then Rukia asked,
"Who is he?"
"He is Houryu and he followed us here because he also had something to do in soul society… I think…" Ichigo answered back while still spinning his zanpakutou with the piece of cloth wrapped around its hilt.
"... Had something to do in soul society…? what was it and what are you doing?" Rukia asked again as she finally noticed him spinning his zanpakutou.
"... Isn't it obvious? … I'm going to destroy this rack…" Ichigo replied, spinning Zangetsu even faster.
On hearing his response, Rukia went into a bunch of excuses of how it was impossible, but Ichigo quickly shut her off.
"Just shut your mouth and watch…" Ichigo said as he grabbed Zangetsu's hilt and stabbed downward into the soukyoku's execution stand, creating a loud booming force that went through the stand and through the floor of the cliff, shocking all the onlookers once again.
While all the vice-captains were literally losing it and the captains watched the situation stunned, Renji arrived on the cliff. Just like in canon Ichigo threw Rukia at Renji who quickly ran at her flying figure and caught her before turning around to leave, but not before hurling a few curses Ichigo's way for actually throwing Rukia at him.
But how could soul society just allow such things to happen, and soon Soi fon shouted at the vice-captains sending them to chase Renji, but before they could catch up with Renji, Ichigo appeared before them, stabbed Zangetsu into the ground and unarmedly defeated the three vice-captains who came in pursuit of Renji.
While all this was happening Byakuya was taking steps in the direction of Houryu's hovering body.
[Don't even think of drawing your sword against me, Kuchiki. I don't have time for your antics again today.] Houryu telepathically informed Byakuya as his pupils moved towards his direction, bringing him into his line of sight.
"So, it wasn't an illusion, and we actually did fight… Now tell me... What did you do to Hisana?" Byakuya said as he drew his sword.
[That's classified… tell you what, let's do this… Let's play a game…]
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Sphire1707
Sphire1707 Creation is hard, cheer me up!
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