The previously tall, lanky, and pale man with visibly sunken skin on his face and chest had changed drastically.
Turning around, Chika is now facing a 4-meter tall bulky man with dark purple skin sporting six pairs of arms, "Let's get this over with." Said the giant man with a now deep voice contrary to his husky voice from earlier.
Chika didn't immediately answer and instead watched his opponent more closely and the first thing he noticed was that one pair of the three pairs of arms were just bare jet-black bones emitting a dangerous aura. This was Nobutsuna's Bankai and its ability is to fuse and transform its owner into a hulking piece of meat that's capable of destroying everything in its path with just sheer strength. And along with this strength was the tough skin that no normal weapon could possibly pierce through.
It's a simple and effective ability, however, it has its own drawbacks. First of all, the longer it's used, the more it destroys the owner's body which could even lead to death, 'Welp... I can't expect anything from that now, can I?'
The second is that the user is now barred from using any Kidou spells which may be disadvantageous for him in certain situations like a long-range battle, 'But if he can't be killed no matter what, then there's no point in fighting closely or from afar.'
Naturally, Chika still has few choices since Nobutsuna's Bankai was also weak against illusion due to being a pure physical ability.
While he was contemplating the next steps he should take, the giant man standing in front of him suddenly disappeared. Chika's eyes widened and used Flash Step to get away. The next split second, there was an explosion where he was just standing, and saw a large crater that was made by a simple stomp, 'His movement is a lot better than I remember. I see that he stopped exclusively training his fist techniques.'
The giant man disappeared once again, but Chika was still faster than him and was able to dodge.
This type of exchange continued for some time and Chika immediately found himself in a disadvantageous position. While Chika could dodge his attacks, he could hardly do damage to Nobutsuna. And even if he could give some fatal strikes, it didn't impede his movements as much as he'd like. Even the shockwave bombs that Chika was continuously deploying on Nobutsuna had become largely ineffective with the latter just ignoring most of it.
Meanwhile, on Nobutsuna's side, he only needed one of his strikes to connect properly and it would immediately turn the tides of the battle vastly in his favor. And although he's acting like a lunatic ignoring most of Chika's attack, he was calmly analyzing the movements of his opponent, waiting for the chance of him making a mistake, 'Though he would probably use that before he makes a mistake. At that point, it'll be another stalemate.'
'But seriously, what are they trying to achieve by attacking us? They're not stupid so they won't needlessly risk their safety if not for something important.' Nobutsuna tried baiting and cornering Chika but that didn't work and only ended up being attacked by invisible bombs.
'These bombs... I'm certain that they're using Hell's Blessing? How is he doing this? I thought that these guys were forsaken by Hell.' Nobutsuna asked himself while regenerating the wound that the bombs inflicted on him, 'And they're familiar? Where have I seen it?'
Nobutsuna and Chika went through a few more exchanges when the former finally remembered where he had seen it and it was from a report from Baraggan about the strange man and the technique he used to decimate the Beasts of Hell under their control.
He immediately took some distance away from Chika which made the latter confused.
"You... You are connected to that man." Nobutsuna asked while furrowing his brows.
Chika also stopped moving, "You really don't have any idea or clue about him? That bastard is such an annoying man to deal with. He always wanted to know about all sorts of things that it's actually tiring." He tried throwing Nobutsuna off with his reply.
And just like Chika expected, Nobutsuna immediately formed a certain impression of the 'strange man' by just those few words, 'So that's the case. He and his group are the only variables that we can't quantify and qualify. Is he a researcher? Was it with their cooperation that the old man and Unohana managed to get off their chains? Are they moving according to his will? Just what sort of deal have they managed to reach? And what is he after by pushing this fruitless operation?'
Thanks to Chika acting like he doesn't know much about Kisuke, it gave an impression that they're not very close and only follow certain instructions from him. If by any chance that they're actually aiming to permanently kill them, Chika guessed for certain that Nobutsuna would escape with just a slight precursor to that idea, 'Although there's no way in hell that he'll guess our intentions, I still have to make it look like we're just doing a recon mission just to be safe.'
Sadly for him, his efforts were for naught when a black butterfly suddenly flew over to Nobutsuna's side, 'A Hell's Butterfly? If I'm not wrong, that is used by the [Chained] Shinigami to communicate with each other... Why do I have a bad feeling about this?' Chika thought to himself.
The next second, both Nobutsuna and Chika heard Chigiri Shijima's voice from it, [Nobutsuna... I'm not sure what to make out of it, but this crazy bitch just said that they're here to finally kill us off.]
"..."
"..."
Both of them were silent and stared at each other. And while Chika is doing his best to not show any outward reactions, he's internally cursing, 'Goddammit, Furoufushi! You and your loud mouth!' Although he's not sure who went after Chigiri, he's sure that there's only one who won't be able to keep herself from bragging and taunting the enemy.
Chika continuously stared at Nobutsuna and saw a drop of sweat on his forehead, 'This coward won't instantly believe that right? Shijima sounds like he's mocking his opponent.'
Yet again, he was betrayed by his expectations when Nobutsuna suddenly disappeared along with his Reiatsu gaining some distance, "Fuck!" Chika muttered loudly.
But Chika immediately gathered his bearings and sighed loudly while closing his eyes, 'This is the third time I've seen Shigyou act like this. What did I hope for?'
Opening his eyes back up, a flash of light went through them and his Reiatsu suddenly increased by tenfold as he muttered, "Bankai..."
"Fleeting Memoir: Song of a Thousand Days."