Disclaimer: Bleach isn't mine, but it sure is fun to write like it is.
Author's Notes:
This is my first multi-chapter fic. Reviews would be much appreciated.
This is a YoruSoi fic but progress will be slow so please be patient.
Manga spoilers until chapter 376. Mostly, but not completely, canon-compliant up to that point.
I'm looking for a beta for the next chapters. I just need opinions on whether people are too out of character or if there's a problem on the progress of the story. I would also like it if someone could check the consistency of my verb tenses. Let me know if you're interested.
Razeluxe7: Hope you like my second piece too. No sealing in this one either.
The Art of Transformation
by siyentista
Chapter 1: The Battle
When Kisuke opened the Garganta for the four captains to enter Hueco Mundo, they all knew that Aizen would take advantage of split in manpower and try to take Karakura ahead of schedule. Sending off those captains, two of them heavy hitters and the two others possessing unique abilities that would be valuable during a battle, was a gamble.
If Aizen waited until winter, the Hougyoku would be at full capacity and who knows how many more Vasto Lorde Arrancars he could make and how powerful they would be? With any luck, they would be as retarded as Wonderweiss. But that wouldn't change the fact that Aizen would be unstoppable, even with the entirety of the Gotei 13 and its allies before him.
On the other hand, if they split their forces now, the Hueco Mundo group could at least hope to retrieve Inoue and the initial rescue team while occupying some of Aizen's backup forces. The group defending Karakura would be at a severe disadvantage, but they could at least hope that reinforcements would come and that they could do enough to cripple, if not eliminate, Aizen's main force.
It was a little too much hoping for Yoruichi's taste, but she had agreed that that was the only choice they had.
During the strategic meeting, Yoruichi was assigned the task of accompanying the real Karakura to Soul Society. There she was to call upon her gift in shunpo and her familiarity with the town to quickly inspect the it and eliminate any of Aizen's hidden minions or inform Kisuke of problems pertaining to the his transfer technology. It was a task that could have been assigned to the hundreds of grunts comprising the Gotei 13, but Yoruichi could do it far more quickly and far more effectively, and theirs was a situation that would not tolerate delays or mistakes. Once Yoruichi had secured the town, the grunts would guard it under the command of the Ise-fukutaichou and Sasakibe-fukutaichou, and Yoruichi herself was to join the fake Karakura's meager defenses.
Yoruichi moved faster than she had ever gone and finished quickly. She made short work of two weak Fraccion that had been planted in the real world earlier, but didn't find faults in the transfer of Karakura until Madarame's pillar was damaged. That was a problem they had expected and they were prepared to deal with it. She was more worried about what it implied about the battle taking place in the living world.
When Yoruichi finally made it to the fake town, she took stock of her comrades. It seemed that they had been fighting a losing battle until the Vizards arrived and boy, was she relieved and thankful that they did. 'Maybe we weren't wrong to hope after all,' she had thought. Aizen, Gin, and Tousen looked ready to fight, but any Espada and Fraccion who had come with them had apparently been eliminated.
Yoruichi's heart clenched at seeing Soi Fong missing an arm, battered, and spent, but she took comfort in the fact that her reiatsu was steady, albeit weak. She had obviously pushed herself too far and was now down for the count, but to her credit, Yoruichi didn't see any sign of her opponent either. Yoruichi allowed herself a small smile despite the gravity of the situation. She had not expected any less from her protégé.
Pushing down the urge to tend to the woman she had once likened to a sister, Yoruichi made her way to where the Vizards had surrounded Aizen. They all understood that Aizen must have been extremely powerful to be able to subdue the fierce Espada, but they had hoped that their superior numbers would garner them victory. That might have worked in a fair fight… or in as fair a fight it would be with eight, no nine, people ganging up on Aizen. However, Kyouka Suigetsu was the embodiment of foul play. Aizen used his illusions to make each of them think that they were fighting him and he toyed with them. He could never get hurt because he was never where they thought he was. They, on the other hand, started getting wounds of inexplicable origin as Aizen made his rounds, slashing at his different opponents unseen.
It was a blessing in disguise that Soi Fong was taken out of the battle before Aizen joined in. When Aizen released Kyoka Suigetsu and cast his illusion, he had completely disregarded her, along with the other shinigami who were already engaged in their own battles. The slowly recovering Soi Fong watched, utterly horrified, as Yoruichi and the Vizards started fighting the air in front of them and Aizen picked them off one by one. Had he been an ally, Soi Fong would have thought of how useful Kyouka Suigetsu would be for the Onmitsukidou. But the leader of the Seireitei's assassins looked on disgustedly. He wasn't going for instant kills. The sadist was dealing deep wounds that would kill them, but only after prolonged excruciating pain.
As Aizen began to make his way to Yoruichi, Soi Fong went into a panic, and she screamed in her head, 'NOOOO!'
She wouldn't be able to pull out Jakuho Raikoben anytime soon, and Suzumebachi seemed unfit for task. She would have to go with her shunko, unpolished as it was. Her body shot straight towards Aizen's back at a breakneck speed and she put a lifetime of devotion and all of the reiatsu she could muster behind the attack. Aizen felt the spike in reiatsu and turned around in time to counter the worst of the attack, but Soi Fong had succeeded in lopping off Aizen's sword arm. As the crackling energy faded from her hand, the illusion broke and Yoruichi suddenly realized that she was staring at stunned and injured Aizen's back.
'An illusion!' she realized. She had seen the Vizards getting wounded one by one, but it didn't fit with how the fights were progressing. Now, it made sense.
Someone had managed to break the illusion, and she wouldn't waste their efforts. "Shunko!" she cried, as a large sizzling rod erupted from her hand, lit the skies, and pierced Aizen's heart through his back. Yoruichi was an assassin, and she would not play around needlessly. Aizen died instantly.
Yoruichi's triumphantly gleaming eyes lowered to follow Aizen's plummeting figure and in doing so, Yoruichi realized with much horror that it had been Soi Fong who broke the illusion. Horror, because Soi Fong had Kyouka Suigetsu sticking out of her torso, with Aizen's severed hand still gripping its hilt in rigor mortis. She realized grimly that the injury and reiatsu depletion must have rendered the girl unconscious from where they were fighting, half a mile above ground, and must have fallen the whole way while she killed Aizen. Omaeda must have intercepted at the last minute for he was currently embedded at the base of a tiny crater in the rubble of a building, frantically screaming, "TAICHOU! TAICHOU!" with Soi Fong caught in an unnatural position in his arms.
Suddenly forgetting about everything and everyone else, she flash stepped a few feet away from the Second's top brass and was greeted with the sight of an impaled Soi Fong, her blood drenching her apparently useful lieutenant, and her leg twisted sideways. Yoruichi herself was a picture of perfect health, but she trembled. Oh, how she trembled. She couldn't breathe. Her blood was rushing to her head and beating against her skull.
Dimly, she realized that the way the Vizards had been wounded, she would have been next. The timing with which the illusion had been shattered… 'Soi Fong protected me!'
Soi Fong often said that she would. "I will serve you with my mind, body, and soul," she said when she first became her personal guard. "I will stay by your side, protecting you," she said that night in the sakura grove. And of course Yoruichi knew that Soi Fong was sincere. She was a loyal and devoted subordinate. Furthermore, because of her lineage, Soi Fong was honor-bound to protect the Shihouin princess with her life. But no matter how many times Soi Fong said it, Yoruichi wasn't prepared when it finally happened.
"Soi Fong…" she whispered desperately, as she reached out for the woman's only hand, willing the woman to blush, to flinch, to show any sign at all that she was well.
It barely registered when Tousen, distracted by Aizen's death, was finally killed by Komamura, or when Gin, outnumbered by the wounded but able defenders, died.