At the valley of the end two fighters clashed against each other for their own ideal one wanted nothing more then to save his teammate and best friend from his path of self destruction while the other simply wanted nothing more then to avenge his fa...
Zaraki was in the squad 4 barracks being treated after his fight against the Ryoka, Ichigo Kurosaki. His body was bandaged, showing how much damage his own body had received from Ichigo Kurosaki. The Ryoka boy was truly formidable, he remembered being quite disappointed at the beginning when the boy had done nothing but run away and when the boy couldn't even pierce his skin with his large cleaver sword. He thought that Ikkaku had lost to a loser and was planning on punishing his subordinate for slacking off so much.
He thought it was the end when he broke Ichigo's Zanpakutō and pierced his chest effectively killing Ichigo since his pulse has stopped but the boy had somehow revived himself and had gotten a major power up being able to finally pierce his skin and have his own blood flying in the air. The rest of the fight was about attrition, about who could last longer than the other.
Despite being the last one standing, his own Zanpakutō had shattered like glass and he fell unconscious admitting defeat. Kenpachi Zaraki had never known defeat, there were only ever two people who had ever bested him in a fight and the first one had left the battlefield while the second one was a person who had too many responsibilities to ever entertain a battle.
Naruto Namikaze was one of the few people in the Gotei 13 that Zaraki had shown respect. He remembers that day when Naruto stood towering over him, bloodied with his blade pointing at him and a very uncharacteristic bloodthirsty grin that you don't see on the face of the young captain of squad 2. It was a grin that made his blood boil in excitement at seeing a hidden beast inside someone so young.
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Still, Naruto had practically admonished him for not knowing the name of his own Zanpakutō. He remembers feeling annoyed but what Naruto told him that day made him start to think differently about his own Zanpakutō. He was just like his Zanpakutō, a nameless person who watched in envy as others are called by their own name yet he didn't have a name in which people can call him by. It was very frustrating and he hated that feeling more than anything and then he realized how his Zanpakutō must have felt when it tried to talk to him while he treated it as a weapon to take life.
He remembers giving his own lieutenant Yachiru Kusajishi at the time a name by naming her after the first person that had given him the thrill of battle. The person he looked up to as an idol and wanted to surpass. Which is why when Ichigo had told him the very same thing that Naruto had done, he resolved to try even harder to learn the name of his Zanpakutō, if only to just grow even more stronger.
