The last ice-crystal petal suspended in the sky silently dissolved into a spray in the biting gale.
Gerard's mountain-sized body took another half step forward.
The white stone paving throughout Wahrwelt collapsed wildly beneath his heavy tread, fissures dozens of feet wide spreading all the way to the edge of the ruins.
"Did you see that, Soul Reaper brat?!"
Gerard threw back his head and laughed wildly, sweeping his Holy Shield outward with a surging torrent of air.
"Those petals behind you have withered away completely! That proves your Bankai has reached its end!"
The savage wind pressure uprooted entire rows of stone pillars along the street, grinding the flying rubble into dust.
Byakuya Kuchiki held two fingers together and used Shunpo in rapid succession, leaving more than ten white afterimages in midair.
"Scatter, Senbonzakura."
Hundreds of millions of tiny cherry-blossom blades swiftly formed a shield in the gale, forcibly blocking the storm head-on.
Yet the broadsword called the Sword of Hope descended with mountain-shattering force, cutting straight through the torrent of blossoms.
Byakuya shot backward more than a hundred feet, his pure white Captain's Haori whipping wildly in the violent blast.
"Captain Hitsugaya, fall back."
Byakuya narrowed his eyes slightly, his expression stern as he warned the colleague beside him.
But Tōshirō Hitsugaya did not move.
He gripped Hyōrinmaru's hilt with both hands, his eyes lowered, while the air around him took on an extraordinarily eerie stillness.
"Fall back? There's no need for that anymore, Kuchiki."
Hitsugaya exhaled a cloud of white mist, his even voice spreading slowly through the wind and snow.
"Who exactly told you that the disappearance of all the ice-crystal petals behind me meant the end of my Bankai?"
Gerard's swinging sword paused slightly, a trace of confusion flashing through his enormous eyes.
Crack-
The