The instant Nusjuro's transformation stabilized, the temperature across the reef plunged.
Frost raced through the black stone beneath his skeletal hooves, spreading in branching white patterns toward the island's edge.
Even the seawater crashing against the reef began to freeze wherever the spray drifted too close to him.
Glittering crystals hung briefly in the air before falling like shards of glass.
Zaraki's golden eyes narrowed.
From the waist down, Nusjuro had become an enormous skeletal horse, his upper body rising above it in a grotesque centaur-like form that no longer looked remotely human.
Dark, flame-like clouds curled around him, and the cold pouring from Shodai Kitetsu crystallized the surrounding moisture almost instantly.
"Bakotsu, huh?" Zaraki rested the released Nozarashi against his shoulder, a savage grin spreading across his face.
"Better than that scrawny old-man look."
"You have an irritating habit of mistaking ignorance for courage," Nusjuro replied, his expression cold.
His skeletal hooves shifted once before he vanished.
Zaraki's Future Sight flashed, showing him a white line cutting through his left shoulder, cold steel already passing through flesh.
He moved before the image could become reality.
Shodai Kitetsu struck Nozarashi with a deafening clang, driving Zaraki sideways across the reef.
Frost burst from the collision and spread over the chipped cleaver toward his hands, only to shatter as he surged Reiatsu through the weapon.
Nusjuro had already vanished again.
Another glimpse of the future showed an attack coming from behind at a lower angle, and Zaraki twisted to meet it.
Shodai Kitetsu passed across his side instead of through his spine, though the edge still carved deep into his flesh.
Cold followed the wound so quickly that his blood froze before it could spill, and his grin briefly disappeared.
'Fast.'
Mihawk's swordsmanship had been cleaner, with an almost surgical beauty to the way he controlled every angle and ounce of force behind Yoru.
Nusjuro's attacks had none of that beauty.
His swordsmanship seemed to have been stripped down over an absurd length of time until it served only to kill, every movement taking the shortest path toward something vital.
Combined with the speed of his Bakotsu form, that ruthless efficiency made him truly dangerous.
Zaraki liked it.
"Again."
"You will regret asking that." Nusjuro's eyes sharpened before he disappeared.
This time, the reef seemed to erupt around them as Zaraki drove forward to meet him instead of waiting.
Black stone shattered beneath his feet, and he brought Nozarashi down with both hands, dark-gold Reiatsu compressed tightly along its chipped edge.
Nusjuro met the attack head-on with a resounding clash that blasted a crater into the island's center.
The surrounding sea surged outward from the shock before crashing back against the reef in enormous waves.
Frost spread from Shodai Kitetsu while dark-gold pressure rolled from Nozarashi, the two forces grinding against each other until the air between the blades shrieked. Both swordsmen leaned into the clash, neither giving ground.
Then Nusjuro abruptly shifted his weight and swung a skeletal hind leg around from the side.
Future Sight showed Zaraki the kick, but he was a fraction too committed to the blade lock to avoid it completely.
The blow caught him across the ribs with a thunderous impact, launching him into a jagged section of reef.
He tore through several meters of black rock before stopping, pain flaring through his chest.
At least two ribs had cracked, possibly three.
Zaraki coughed, tasted blood, and laughed as he pushed himself out of the crater.
"Heh. Now we're getting somewhere."
Nusjuro stared at him with a mixture of irritation and disbelief. "You truly are a diseased."
"Probably." Zaraki rolled his shoulder until something cracked back into place, then raised Nozarashi.
"But you're the one who followed me out here, so quit complaining."
Dark-gold Reiatsu thickened around the cleaver as he launched himself from the crater.
He used neither Soru nor lightning; his legs simply drove him forward with enough raw force to explode the stone beneath him and close the distance.
Nusjuro's pupils contracted as Nozarashi swept horizontally toward him.
Shodai Kitetsu met it, and the impact threw them apart before they crashed together again, their clashes following one another without pause.
The reef began disappearing beneath their feet.
Neither swordsman bothered to protect their footing, and every collision carved away another section of black stone, scattering debris into the sea.
Waves rose around the island, freezing into jagged walls whenever they came too close to Nusjuro, then exploding into fragments as Zaraki's pressure reached them.
A dozen exchanges became dozens, and Zaraki's injuries accumulated: a shallow cut across his thigh, another through his shoulder, and a slash that opened his left forearm almost to the bone.
Each time, Creation Rebirth stirred instinctively beneath the diamond mark on his forehead, and each time he suppressed it.
'Not yet.'
The chakra stored in the Strength of a Hundred Seal was finite, wasting it on injuries he could still fight through would be idiotic.
"You are slowing down," Nusjuro said coldly, noticing the blood.
Zaraki looked at him.
The Elder had not escaped untouched either; several exchanges earlier, Nozarashi had broken through his guard and left a long diagonal wound across his skeletal torso.
Now, before Zaraki's narrowing eyes, that wound was closing far too quickly to be ordinary healing.
Bone pulled itself together, torn flesh reformed around it, and within moments the injury had disappeared as though the strike had never landed.
'What?' Before he could study it further, Nusjuro attacked, bringing Shodai Kitetsu down on him.
Zaraki blocked, but the distraction cost him.
The Elder abruptly changed direction and slashed across his abdomen, spraying blood over the frozen reef.
Zaraki retreated three steps and pressed a hand over the deep wound.
"Surprised?" Nusjuro watched him as Zaraki looked back at the place he had wounded. Not even a scar remained.
"You believed cutting me once would be enough?" the Elder asked with the faintest hint of contempt.
"No." Zaraki's mouth slowly curved upward, and his grip on Nozarashi tightened. "But now I'm curious how many times it takes."
For the first time in several minutes, Nusjuro looked genuinely displeased.
Zaraki moved, bringing Nozarashi crashing down, then immediately changing angles as the Elder blocked.
The chipped cleaver swept upward through his guard and tore into his torso with a cut that would have split an ordinary man from hip to shoulder.
Nusjuro staggered, but Zaraki kept attacking.
A second strike severed one skeletal foreleg, and a third carved through his ribs, sending his enormous transformed body crashing sideways across the reef.
Zaraki landed several meters away and watched bone begin to grow.
The severed limb rebuilt itself, the wound across Nusjuro's torso sealed, and within moments the Elder was standing again.
Zaraki stared, then burst into laughter, his shoulders shaking with genuine amusement.
"HAHAHAHA! So that's the trick."
"There is nothing amusing about your position," Nusjuro said, his eyes growing colder.
"You're kidding. This is great." Zaraki dragged Nozarashi's edge across the stone before pointing it toward him.
"I finally get someone I don't have to worry about breaking too quickly."
"Arrogant fool." Nusjuro's murderous aura surged as his skeletal body vanished, and Zaraki charged to meet him.
The second half of the battle began far more violently than the first.
...
The sun had sunk lower by the time they separated again.
Much of the reef was gone, leaving what looked less like an island than a few broken black teeth protruding from a furious sea.
Zaraki stood on the largest surviving section, blood running from half a dozen wounds into the cracks beneath his feet.
His breathing had grown heavier, and the released Nozarashi continued drinking Reiatsu with every passing second.
Across from him, Nusjuro's transformed body bore extensive damage that was already healing.
A missing section of ribs was regrowing, the deep split through one shoulder had nearly closed, and even the enormous cut Zaraki had driven through his neck ten seconds earlier was disappearing.
Zaraki clicked his tongue.
'Annoying.
Regeneration was one thing; regeneration that showed no sign of slowing down was another.
"You have remarkable strength," Nusjuro said as he straightened, making the admission sound almost insulting.
"But strength without the means to finish an immortal opponent amounts to nothing."
Zaraki's smile faded. The old bastard was willing to call himself immortal, which explained his confidence even after Zaraki had started landing clean hits.
It also explained why he had no real fear of being cut.
His swordsmanship remained precise, but whenever trading injuries gave him an advantage, he accepted the damage without hesitation, knowing it would simply disappear afterward.
That made him dangerous, but it also made him careless.
Zaraki's golden eyes sharpened.
'Got you.'
Nusjuro accelerated, bringing Shodai Kitetsu toward Zaraki's throat.
Future Sight showed him the first slash, the recovery, and the thrust that would immediately follow, along with the opening Nusjuro no longer bothered to protect because every wound there had regenerated.
Zaraki stepped into the attack, ignoring the pain that exploded down his arm as Shodai Kitetsu cut across his shoulder.
Nozarashi slammed into the Elder's ribs, and Nusjuro's eyes widened as Zaraki twisted the cleaver and ripped upward, splitting his transformed torso with a crack.
Before it could regenerate, Zaraki drove his knee into Nusjuro's center mass and launched him backward.
The Elder struck the remaining reef hard enough to crater it, and Zaraki followed with Nozarashi raised.
"You think this changes anything?!" Nusjuro swept Shodai Kitetsu forward as frost erupted from the blade, sending a white wave of freezing pressure across the broken island.
Zaraki cut through it, scattering ice around him.
Nusjuro's pupils contracted as Nozarashi descended, and the impact obliterated the reef beneath them with a deafening boom, throwing seawater hundreds of meters into the air.
As the spray began to fall, Zaraki stood inside an enormous crater where the island's center had been.
Nusjuro lay beneath Nozarashi, his body almost severed in half and already repairing itself.
"Yeah," Zaraki said, looking down at him as his grin returned. "This is going to take a while."