A New Beginning
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or Fairy Tail.
Hello everyone. I've decided to reboot my other story, Magic of the Soul, as this! I got pretty stuck on that one, and I didn't really like how that plotline was progressing, so I've decided to rewrite everything, with changes of course, so this story and that will be very different. The main character's still Toushiro. Without further ado, enjoy!
Chapter 1: Soul's Despair
Soul Society had fallen. They had lost the final battle. Kisuke Urahara's final attempt on sealing Sosuke Aizen's powers had gone for naught.
At first, it did seem as though it worked, when Kurosaki Ichigo used his final form of the Getsuga Tenshou to distract and weaken Aizen, following with Urahara's casting of the Kidou seal. The whitish, translucent spikes impaled within his body grew in size and length, prepared to abosrb his power, and to deactivate the Hougyoko inside Aizen's body.
But the Hougyoko, the substance which Aizen has worked on for a century to complete, his masterpiece, didn't fail him at that last moment. Reaching into the inner depths of Aizen's wishes, the Hougyoko managed to overwrite the seal, shattering it before it managed to drain out every ounce of Aizen's reiatsu.
With the power of regeneration, and with Ichigo's shinigami powers being completely removed due to him using the final Getsuga, Kisuke fell within seconds. If Kurosaki Isshin, Yoruichi Shihouin and himself were unable to defeat Aizen in a three-on-one fight just months before, what good could he do by himself then? He had used up everything he could've thought of.
But it wasn't enough.
Even with the effort of so many, all of the Gotei 13, the Visored and rebel Arrancar like Nelliel, not forgetting Ichimaru Gin's betrayal of Aizen at the climax of Aizen's evolution with the Hougyoko, they were still unable to stop him, now a being who has fully dissolved the boundaries between a Shinigami and a Hollow. A being that has powers which are unstoppable. A being which would newly rule over Soul Society, and overthrow the Soul King with time to come.
Tier Harribel became the leading Espada of Aizen's army, since she was the remaining Espada who was the strongest, and wasn't killed off during the bloody war in Karakura Town, despite her being cut down by Aizen himself halfway through her battle with the Shinigamis. He had given Harribel a chance to redeem herself as the strongest Espada alive, and she had no choice but to follow along. He was way too strong to oppose against, or she would risk her life by doing so.
After Aizen's victory, his actions taken were swift. Sending out the remaining Arrancar which were still alive, they ravaged through Seireitei. Within the city, houses were blown up, and important structures and buildings demolished. The base of the Gotei 13 was invaded as well, with all the shinigami there putting up a futile fight against the overwhelming numbers of the Arrancar. Some managed to escape, while most of the others were captured. A number of them were executed, others sent to prison to rot for eternity.
The Captain-Commander of the Gotei 13, Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto, was one of the victims who were put on death row almost immediately after his imprisonment, the execution being performed by Aizen himself understandably. Most of the other captains, vice-captains and shinigamis placed in higher seats of the thirteen divisions were sent to an isolated underground prison deep within Hueco Mundo, which was guarded by the immeasurable amounts of Arrancar, whose numbers only seemed to grow and grow as time passed.
Fortunately enough, Isshin managed to bust Kisuke, Yoruichi and Ichigo out, escaping through a hastily made Senkaimon, a gate which most Shinigami could make to travel between the human world and Soul Society. They are currently taking refuge in Karakura Town.
It wasn't the best place to hide, since Aizen would be returning there in the future to create the King's Key anyway, a key that can be used to allow passage to the dimension where the Soul King resides. That was Aizen's ultimate goal. But they were safe for now, since the prerequisite of sacrificing 100,000 souls to create the key was far from being accomplished.
Soul Society was about to begin a new age. One full of fear and death.
Pitch black. That was all he could see.
He was lying face flat on the ground with his hands over his ears, trying to shut out the endless whispering which haunted him from all directions. They've been chanting the same words over and over with increasing intensity for as long as he could remember.
"Die, Hitsugaya. Die, die, die."
Toushiro Hitsugaya finally gave up on attempting to block off the voices. Instead he got up, and began to walk.
He had no inkling of where he was headed to, and he wasn't concerned about it either. The only thing that he was conscious of was that he was still alive, and he focused solely on finding an exit from the abysmal setting.
He stopped. From the distance, he spotted two figures, screaming in fear as their bodies were being flailed around helplessly, apparently being puppeteered by an unknown force.
Toushiro froze as he recognised their voices, echoing wildly into his eardrums. "Matsumoto?! Hinamori?! Is that you?!"
"SHIRO-CHAN?! HELP! PLEASE!"
He heard it. That was Hinamori's plea for help.
He dashed towards them. He didn't care about anything else. He only wanted them to be safe, nothing more. But as he ran towards them, the unknown force only pushed them further away from him.
As the distance between them widened, a sense of foreboding hit him. He knew wasn't going to make it to save them.
Then it happened.
Toushiro watched on from afar helplessly as Rangiku Matsumoto, his vice-captain of the tenth division, and Momo Hinamori, his childhood friend, were dragged away into the darkness, their mouths forming silent screams of terror. He was rooted to the ground by an unknown force and was unable to fight out of it.
Bit by bit, black slimy hands apparated out of nowhere, and they began to twist and turn, slithering around their bodies, to the point where only their eyes were left exposed. From Hitsugaya's view, he watched them close their eyes slowly, succumbing to their inevitable fates.
And then, nothing. They had disappeared.
"NOOOOOOO!"
"Hitsugaya? Hey. Rise and shine."
Toushiro jolted awake. His heart was racing, droplets of perspiration trickling down his face. His rasp breathing slowly relaxed as he realized that the scene panned out from before was nothing but a mere dream.
Something felt odd though. Something didn't feel right.
"Where... Am I?"
He could barely see anything. The room was dimly lit, with only a single flickering bulb to provide light. The air felt stale, devoid of proper ventilation, the stench of a rotting corpse hanging around in the suffocating atmosphere. He tried moving. Horrified, he felt tough metallic chains being bound tightly to him, with his hands and legs spread out, each limb being binded to the cracked concrete wall. Struggling in vain, the chains dug deeper into skin, causing him to yelp in pain. His Zanpakuto was gone. He couldn't sense it anywhere. He was trapped. How did he even end up in here?
"Over here. Bad dream you had, I suppose?" A soft voice reverberated throughout the small area. "You were causing such a ruckus."
Surprised, Toushiro's eyes travelled to the source of the voice. Craning his neck to the far corner of the room, he noticed a silhouette against the faint light, shaped like a person sitting on a rocking chair. The figure made no other sound, but instead started to swing back and forth on his chair gently, as how a mother rocking her newborn baby to sleep would.
"Who's that?" demanded Toushiro, forcing a feeble attempt at sounding tough.
"Dear me, Hitsugaya. Only a day has passed and you've already forgotten how my voice sounds like? Seems like the place is having more adverse effects on you than I thought." The other voice trailed off.
That voice did seem familiar somehow. But Toushiro just couldn't figure out its owner. Just who was it?
"I guess I'll just have to show you to make you remember, don't I?" The voice resounded with an amused tone. Standing up, the figure shuffled towards the center of the room, where most of the light could still travel to without dying out.
Toushiro gasped in shock.
Sousuke Aizen.
Gone were the mild features of his scholarly features with his soft, brown eyes. Instead, his glasses were now gone and he had apparently swept his hand through his hair, revealing menacing eyes, sporting a new hairstyle. His body however, was totally unrecognizable from any human or shinigami. It was encased in a material of pure white, and four holes gaped through his body, which was similar to a Hollow's single hole. Ironically, he was still wearing his standard shinigami's uniform, draped with a captain's haori. His Zanpakuto was resting in its sheath, and dangled loosely from his waist.
"You look worse for wear."
'Shut up," snarled Hitsugaya in reply, regaining his composure, fury beginning to develop within him.
"Oh no, this won't do. In case you haven't noticed, I'm in full control of you right now." He smirked in reply. "And shouldn't you be more respectful toward your elders, Hitsugaya-kun?"
"Damn you Aizen! I'm not a kid!" roared Toushiro, tugging at the chains again in his anger, which only resulting in more agony as the metal relentlessly pressed into his flesh.
"It's useless. These chains were made such that they prevent you from expelling your reiatsu out of your body in the form of Kidou, Shunpo, and etcetera. They also hamper the flow of reiatsu within your body. You won't be able to sense your Zanpakuto like this." Aizen knelt besides the thrashing Toushiro. "So, instead of struggling and giving yourself unnecessary pain, you should just resign yourself to your fate."
"You bastard."
"Besides, shouldn't you be more worried about your precious friends?"
Toushiro stopped moving. "Aizen, if anything happens to them, I swear-"
"No need to be so tense. They're alive and doing well. Relatively, I suppose. It really boils down on how you define "well". Anyway, you're not in any position to direct death threats, now are you?"
"They'd better be alright." He gritted his teeth, directing the pain into anger at Aizen. It was the only thing that he could do to keep himself sane. "And you still haven't explained yourself. Why are you doing this? Why sacrifice the lives and souls of so many? What have they ever done to you to deserve this?!"
"The thing is, it was never about them. It's about me." Aizen stood up, and spread his hands wide in triumph. "They're all weaklings. Every single one of them. Including all the Shinigamis in Soul Society. Which of course, includes you, Hitsugaya."
"You fucking monster."
"As I was saying," Aizen continued while ignoring Toushiro, "They're weak. Even with that many souls, I require 100,000 of them in order to create the King's Key. In which I'm currently eighty percent off from my goal. Had they been stronger, I wouldn't have needed that many souls. Maybe half of the amount would've sufficed. Maybe even less. See what I mean? It's their fault for not providing enough power for fuel."
"That's not the point," growled Toushiro. "You're still killing innocent lives, regardless of the number. You're still a murderer. Besides, you're gonna destroy both the human world and Soul Society before you even manage to take down the Soul King."
Aizen arched an eyebrow. "And why is that?"
"For both worlds to exist in peace, there must be a balance in the number of souls and their flow between the realms. I'm sure you already know this. If you're just going to continue to sacrifice souls from within Soul Society and Huedo Mundo for your cause, the balance will be broken. And you're going to kill yourself along with everyone else."
"How naive. Do you really think I haven't already considered all of this?" Aizen shook in head. "Of course, I will equally remove souls from both the human world and Soul Society. Specifically Karakura Town, since the level of Reishi there is so much higher than normal."
"You still haven't told me why you're doing all this."
"Don't you feel like you're the interrogator and I'm the suspect, even though the situation before us shows otherwise?" Aizen chuckled. "Oh well. There's no reason for you not to know anyway, since you aren't going to live to see tomorrow."
Toushiro could feel his heart skip a beat. "What d'you mean by that?"
"You will see for yourself in a bit," said Aizen. "But let's chat for now, while we can. I haven't managed to have a conversation with someone on your side ever since my... Overwhelming victory."
"So, let's start with your question. Why did I do it? Come to think of it, I've already told you Shinigamis about this, haven't I? I want to stand on top of the world, all worlds, from the heavens and take the place of the absent gods, something which no one else has ever done. The world as it is now, it's not right. It's not where it should be. Even the Soul King, he's not at the top. But all that will change. The unbearable vacancy of the throne in the sky is over. From now on... I will be sitting on it."
"Yeah," said Toushiro sarcastically. "And it still wouldn't remain right after you ascend to the top."
Aizen shrugged. "You'll never know until you try. It's such a shame though, that you won't be here to bear witness to the revolution which I will make."
"Like I would want to see it."
"Hmm. Whatever." He paused. "Anyway, I've only just remembered, but didn't I manage to hack off your left arm and leg during the last battle? How did you manage to get them back that quickly?"
Toushiro snorted. "You underestimate Retsu Unohana too much, Aizen."
"Ah. I guessed as much. But true, I didn't think that she would be capable of reattaching your limbs within such a short period of time. She's indeed a respectable healer."
The chains, meanwhile, were constricting his limbs and body, making it more difficult for Toushiro to breathe. Adjusting himself was no good either; The metal just cuts deeper with any slight movement. He started coughing, and spat out some blood in the process.
Aizen looked down at him, sighing. "I guess everybody reaches their limit eventually."
"Don't underestimate me." Toushiro forced a smile. "This is nothing compared to what I've faced in the past."
"Alright then. I suppose you want to know what happened since the battle at Karakura Town in which you... How should I put this. Impaled your dear friend."
Upon hearing that, Toushiro's face contorted to one of pure rage. Aizen raised up a hand, "Now, before you come spouting obscenities about me tricking you into stabbing her, do remember that your blinding rage after that was the cause of your defeat to me. I guess you would've lost either way, but still, you probably need to do something about that anger of yours. Just a friendly tip for you."
When Toushiro did nothing other than to continue glaring at Aizen, he resumed, "You see, most of the Espada, my strongest Arrancar, were defeated by you lot during that battle, which was to be expected. But of course, I prevailed in the very end. The likes of Ichigo Kurosaki and Kisuke Urahara are way below my level to stop me. After you were defeated, you were moved to the base of the Gotei 13 to recuperate. But we raided the place just days after that battle. So we took everyone there as prisoner. Killed a few people. You were still unconscious when we took you, so naturally you wouldn't know anything."
"So where are we?"
"Hueco Mundo. The deepest part of it. Of course, to ensure than none of you escape." Aizen glanced out of the only tiny window in the room. "Oh dear, time does fly when you're having fun. We should start soon."
"Wait a minute."
"Alright... One last question then. What is it?"
"Where's Hyourinmaru?" demanded Toushiro.
"Your Zanpakuto? You're still worrying about stuff like this at this point of time?"
"Just answer the goddamn question. What did you do to him?"
Aizen laughed. "Let's just say that I'm doing some tests on him, shall we?"
"You-"
"Enough. I've exceeded my time limit that I can spend with you. Let's get right down to business."
He reached for his waist and drew his Zanpakuto. "I don't actually need this anymore to use my powers, but for this ritual, I guess it's necessary. And for old time's sake." He flipped it over several times, inspecting it closely before resting its tip against Toushiro's chest. "I suppose you would think that I'm simply going to run this sword through you, ending your life, right?"
"Just do it," said Toushiro scornfully. "I'm not afraid of death."
"I know that very well. Instead, let's try something different."
Aizen withdrew his sword. Instead, he stepped back and slashed the air just next to him. A large door opened up out of nothingness where he had swung his Zanpakuto, which widened up to reveal a void of purple within.
"I assume you know what the Garganta is?"
"It's similar to the Senkaimon," muttered Toushiro. "But the Senkaimon is used to travel between the human world and Soul Society. I would assume that the Garganta is the method used to traverse between Hueco Mundo and the human world."
"Yes, exactly. However, I'm not planning to send you to the human world."
Toushiro's eyes narrowed. "What in the world are you planning this time?"
"I'm going to send you into the Dangai. A one way trip. I need to know if the Koutotsu is still alive, after I attacked it a while back. I might have killed it by accident, you see."
The Koutotsu. The Dangai's equivalent of a street sweeper. Every seven days, it makes an appearance, killing off anything and everything that makes contact with it, to ensure that nobody can stay for extended periods of time and to abuse the time distortion that it posseses. Since the Dangai has such a large density of time, when a single minute has passed in the outside worlds, two thousand minutes would have passed in the Dangai.
There was also the Kouryuu. A current which constantly flows in the Dangai, the reason for its existence being similar to the Koutotsu in the way that it prevents anyone from staying for too long. Getting a single part of your body to be caught in the current spells trouble, as it traps the victim inside forever. Shinigamis however, are able to block the flow of the Kouryuu for a limited amount of time using reiatsu.
"Wait," Toushiro interrupted. "I thought that it was impossible for us Shinigami to even harm the Koutotsu."
"You seem to forget that I'm no longer just a Shinigami. I'm part Hollow as well. I've surpassed the two, in fact. Does that satisfy your query?"
"So you're just going to leave me to die in the Dangai after you confirm the Koutotsu's status."
Aizen nodded. "That's basically it, yes. Quite anti-climaxal if I do say so myself, but it is what it is."
"Are you going to do the same for the rest of the Shinigamis as well?"
"No. They will prove to be more useful as time passes. When their assistance is essential to my future plans."
"You really are the worst," Toushiro let out a humourless laugh. "Always taking the opportunities when they present themselves, even if it means harming another."
"That was my personality from the start, Hitsugaya. The Sousuke Aizen you knew never existed to begin with."
He slashed with his Zanpakuto again, this time at the chains which bounded Toushiro to the wall. With a clang, the metal gave way, and he dropped to the ground on his limbs, enervated and exhausted. The metal cuffs remained on him to continue to hinder the flow of his reiatsu.
"Ready to experience your last journey?"
Without waiting for a reply, he kicked effortlessly. Toushiro's light body was sent flying into the purplish abyss known as the Dangai.
"Goodbye, Toushiro Hitsugaya."
The difference from this and in canon was that Kisuke succeeded in sealing Aizen's powers away in the manga, but here, I made it such that the sealing failed, leading to Aizen's victory. And the Fairy Tail part will appear soon. What do you guys think of it?
Do leave a review or any constructive criticisms, and as always, thanks for reading.