Chapter 4: Can’t Fear Your Own World
4.1 Hikone
Hikone is an artificial soul crafted as an amalgamation of all the important races within Bleach. They were created by Tokinada in order to replace the position of Soul King with someone Tokinada could easily manipulate. Throughout the events of Can’t Fear Your Own World (CFYOW), Hikone grows immensely in strength from someone who could barely fend off the three remaining Espada and surviving Sternritter (Grimmjow, Neliel, Halibel, Liltotto, Giselle, and Zombie Bambietta) to someone so powerful they were a match for the strongest of the verse. This section will detail a large variety of scaling Hikone has that puts them as one of the strongest characters in the entire series.
The first argument is that a
weaker base Hikone scales to Ikomikidomoe.
Ikomikidomoe is the same Hollow that in the past was able to defeat Yamamoto (prior to Yamamoto getting his Zanpakuto). This is quite impressive considering that
base Yamamoto is capable of taking the full force of his amplified Shikai flames without falling unconscious, and as mentioned in prior sections, Yamamoto scales above the likes of SAFWY Kenpachi Zaraki. There is a caveat to mention, Ikomikidomoe had his name sealed by Ichibe and is implied to have been weakened by that. However, later Hikone would fuse their and Ikomikidomoe’s power and reach heights greater than the sum of their individual powers prior, and Hikone is even stronger in base by the end of the story than when they claim to be relative to Ikomikidomoe. All this means that they should be in that same realm of power regardless.
The second argument is much more obvious and blatant than the first. The second Hikone activates their Resurreccion, everyone participating at the climactic battle (which include people who have bore witness to the Soul King in one form or another) instinctively knew
Hikone possessed all the qualities to become the Soul King. This is a very peculiar statement, being that
the same statement was given to Ichigo Kurosaki. As is common knowledge at this point, all the Soul King is is a lynchpin who prevents the collapse of the realms through raw spiritual energy, and both Ichigo and Hikone are brute force fighters. All they have is a large amount of power at their disposal and a reiatsu mix of all the races, and as Tokinada states,
someone with the power of the races and the qualities of the Soul King can destroy the world as they please. Hikone’s full power reaching Reio levels of output is not far fetched considering what the narrator and certain characters claim about their power level.
When the narrator is listing off characters who can defeat and/or fight Hikone at their peak power, they make mention that
Muken Aizen could only defeat Hikone if he were serious. To put that into a scaling chain would net the following: casual Muken Aizen < Full Power Hikone < serious Muken Aizen ~ Soul King Yhwach ~ True Bankai Ichigo > True Shikai Hollow Ichigo’s strongest attack > True Shikai Hollow Ichigo > True Shikai Ichigo > Final Getsuga Tenshou Ichigo > post-Dangai training Ichigo > God Aizen > fourth Hogyoku fusion Aizen = Reio’s husk ~ planetary. The difference between True Shikai Ichigo and True Bankai Ichigo in terms of attack potency is a hundred times, and as proposed in section 2.1, the difference between Final Getsuga Tenshou Ichigo and God Aizen is a thousand times. This would put the Reio’s corpse’s spiritual power a hundred thousand times beneath a serious Muken Aizen, meanwhile Hikone’s full power is so great it would require Aizen to be serious to win. Muken Aizen needing to get serious to defeat Hikone at their peak would indicate that Hikone is somewhat relative to Muken Aizen, and it is important to understand that you can be relative to someone and still lose to them.
Furthermore, Liltotto makes a statement that adds further consistency to Hikone being above the likes of casual god tiers in the verse. When Hikone is charging up a cero,
Liltotto claimed it was an extraordinary amount of reiatsu unlike any she felt before.
Liltotto having fought and lost to a casual Soul King Yhwach, should have a decent awareness of Yhwach’s casual power output. This is actually significant, as Yhwach as the new Soul King is passively keeping the planets from entirely annihilating themselves. So again, this can produce two scaling chains, both placing Hikone above Reio’s husk: planetary ~ Reio’s husk ~< casual Soul King Yhwach < base Hikone’s amped Cero < Soul King Yhwach ~ True Bankai Ichigo > True Shikai Hollow Ichigo’s strongest attack > True Shikai Hollow Ichigo > True Shikai Ichigo > Final Getsuga Tenshou Ichigo > post-Dangai training Ichigo > God Aizen > fourth Hogyoku fusion Aizen = Reio’s husk ~ planetary. As said in the previous paragraph, the difference between the god tiers and Reio’s enshrined body is a hundred thousand times. Meanwhile, Hikone is able to surpass said god tiers at their casual power.
At this point, it should be abundantly obvious that Hikone is a “Soul King” level fighter. Not only are they outright stated to possess the qualities of the Soul King, but they also are so powerful that the god tiers would have to take them seriously in a fight to be capable of winning. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as later in section 4.5 you’ll learn how the entire point of Hikone’s character was to get this strong.
4.2 Kenpachi Zaraki
Kenpachi doesn’t have much new scaling outside of
fighting and matching Resurreccion Hikone in his base without his eyepatch. Which is quite impressive in and of itself after what was brought to light above. Additionally, Zaraki finally becomes a Kenpachi fitting of his title, as
he is finally the strongest Shinigami as confirmed by the author. However, the most interesting feat comes from when Zaraki fights Ikomikidomoe.
After Hikone’s defeat, Ikomikidomoe can finally burst forth and
he consumes fragments of the Reio to break Ichibe’s seal by gaining a vast amount of power. However, this is all for naught as
Kenpachi releases Nozarashi and obliterates Ikomikidomoe. This is sneakily impressive thanks to a fight that occurs between Ichibe and Yhwach in the manga.
Yhwach steals Yamamoto’s Bankai within his medallion before killing Yamamoto in the first invasion. Then during the second invasion,
Ichibe is able to seal Yamamoto’s Bankai and prevent Yhwach from making use of it. Because Ikomikidomoe was able to break free from Ichibe’s seal with raw power, but Yamamoto’s Bankai could be sealed by Ichibe just fine, that would prove that Ikomikidomoe in that instant surpassed Yamamoto’s Bankai. Then Kenpachi one shot that Ikomikidomoe. Zaraki surpassing an opponent who surpassed Zanka no Tachi is quite the impressive feat.
4.3 Ginjo
Ginjo is a very interesting and underrated character within the events of CFYOW. Particularly a statement that has drawn quite the controversy is of interest here, and we shall explain why it’s actually rather consistent.
Ginjo’s Getsuga Tenshou rivaled Ichigo’s strongest Getsuga as stated by the narrator. Now let’s break this down.
First thing to draw attention to is Ginjo’s state in this scene. Ginjo when he fires this attack is in his Bankai and it is outright stated that this attack was amplified by the intense emotions he was feeling at the time. Ginjo’s Bankai is a tad bit different from your average Bankai, if you pay close attention to its appearance you’ll notice
it is very Hollow-like. This isn’t surprising because Ginjo stole Ichigo’s powers (containing reiatsu from all races), as indicated by the characteristic black eyes and tattoo markings even Ichigo would later adorn in the final arc with his Hollow powers. Ginjo can even fire a Cero (or Cero-like) attack in Bankai. The point here being that Ginjo is receiving Bankai and Hollow amps in this state. Furthermore, we know
your emotions and state of mind can enhance your power as stated by Yoruichi, and with how Ichigo’s emotions vastly affect his power level. Ginjo was even stated to be
able to possibly combat Hikone had he not been preoccupied. So, we have an emotion amped, Bankai-Hollow form that’s fused with the reiatsu of all races, Soul King candidate who can put up a fight against Resurreccion Hikone, Ginjo’s strongest Getsuga rivaling Ichigo’s strongest Getsuga (as seen in the story this would refer to
this attack). Emotion amped Bankai Ginjo being able to reach a fatigued True Bankai Ichigo’s power is not only outright stated, but also backed up by other statements within CFYOW.
4.4 Scaling
There are a few scaling chains introduced within CFYOW, some of which you’ve been introduced to above. We’ll run down a simplified list of the chains. Hikone’s first scaling chain: casual Muken Aizen < Full Power Hikone < serious Muken Aizen ~ Soul King Yhwach ~ True Bankai Ichigo > True Shikai Hollow Ichigo’s strongest attack > True Shikai Hollow Ichigo > True Shikai Ichigo > Final Getsuga Tenshou Ichigo > post-Dangai training Ichigo > God Aizen > fourth Hogyoku fusion Aizen = Reio’s husk. Hikone’s second scaling chain: Reio’s husk ~< casual Soul King Yhwach < base Hikone’s amped Cero < Soul King Yhwach ~ True Bankai Ichigo > True Shikai Hollow Ichigo’s strongest attack > True Shikai Hollow Ichigo > True Shikai Ichigo > Final Getsuga Tenshou Ichigo > post-Dangai training Ichigo > God Aizen > fourth Hogyoku fusion Aizen = Reio’s husk. Kenpachi’s first scaling chain: Full Power Hikone ~ base eyepatchless Zaraki < Shikai Kenpachi < Bankai Kenpachi. Kenpachi’s second scaling chain: Bankai Yamamoto < Reio fragments consumed Ikomikidomoe < Shikai Kenpachi < Bankai Kenpachi. Ginjo’s scaling chain: Full Power Hikone likely ~ Bankai Ginjo < emotion amped Bankai Ginjo ~ fatigued True Bankai Ichigo.
Kenpachi Zaraki and Bankai Ginjo both scale relative to Hikone who far outscales the Reio’s husk. As you are well aware at this point, Reio’s husk scales to planetary levels of power. Additionally, Hikone should downscale only slightly from a serious Muken Aizen, scaling Zaraki, Ginjo, and Hikone into large planetary. Kenpachi adding further support by scaling above Zanka no Tachi.
4.5 Narrative Consistency
The upper echelon of the CFYOW cast posing threats to the entire world is rather consistent. As noted in section 4.1, Hikone’s sole purpose was to usurp the current Soul King (Yhwach’s remaining spiritual energy that was enshrined), where
very early in the novels they are stated to possess the potential to become a Yhwach level threat. Hikone’s Zanpakuto being hailed as a
world destroying force and a
world ending threat all before they even reach the pinnacle of their power. The reason Hikone was sent on several battles throughout the entire story of the novels was to steadily increase their power level until they could become a suitable replacement for the Soul King. With this coming to fruition as Hikone by the third novel had obtained all the qualities of the Soul King, just as Ichigo had before him. Hikone at his maximum power was so strong that it would require the likes of Muken Aizen to fight seriously to win. Hikone’s character arc even revolves around them learning to think for themselves and realize the wrong in Tokinada’s manipulating them into becoming the next Soul King.
Ginjo being able to reach this “Soul King” tier with his strongest form and attacks while amped by emotions is believable as well. He can scrap with the likes of Hikone at their strongest, and even
believes that he can contest with the power of Zangetsu. Furthermore, like Hikone and Ichigo, Ginjo is a mixing pot of all the races (Shinigami, Hollow, Quincy, and Fullbringer). Such hybrid characters are consistently far stronger than their peers, as they are genetically similar to the Reio, they are candidates for becoming the Soul King. To top it off, Ginjo is repetitively
placed on a pedestal in
comparison to his peers in combat. Ginjo possesses no anti-feats throughout the novel and is stated multiple times to be on the same plane of power as the god tiers of the verse.
Finally, it should be no shock to anyone that Kenpachi Zaraki reached this level of power. Not only has he far surpassed the power of the Sokyoku even before the war with the Quincies, he even
reached a level of transcendence during the war. Kenpachi is a monster and has always been portrayed as a beast. The fact he is placed on the same stand as Ichigo and Aizen in characters who can defeat Hikone speaks volumes. Similar to the likes of Ginjo and Hikone, whenever he is on the battlefield he is touted as one of if not the strongest there. The battle hungry Zaraki having surpassed all pure Shinigami of and not of his era is truly worthy of his title of Kenpachi.
Stepping back and looking at all the “Soul King” power characters you’ll understand how reasonable it actually is. Kenpachi Zaraki at the height of his power as we’ve seen him in the story and the only character to reach levels of transcendence without being special in some way (no mixed race, no Hogyoku, no son of Reio, etc). Ginjo Kugo, Hikone Ubuginu, and Ichigo Kurosaki all containing the reiatsu of Shinigami, Hollow, Quincy, and Fullbringer, all Soul King candidates. Sosuke Aizen having stepped far beyond the realm of god after fusing with the Hogyoku and evolving over and over again. Yhwach, the son of Reio or power stripped directly from Reio, the current Soul King of the Bleach universe. All these characters are connected to the Reio directly or through their genetic makeup, and/or have reached levels of transcendence, these characters represent the absolute heights of combat power in Bleach.