AN: This story follows canon as far as the fullbringers' arc. Then it diverges completely and chances are you won't read anything of what the manga describes after that. Enjoy.

Chapter 1

By the time the Gotei 13 attacked Karakura, Kurosaki Ichigo had gotten used to the green bolts. They had been around for the past few hours, scaring away most inhabitants and causing the huge miles-wide traffic jam the town was suffering at the moment. The red-head watched them slither through the air like serpents of destruction, lighting up everything they hit or even come close to. They all originated from the enormous rift in the dimensional barrier, tore open like a wide, hungry mouth and vomiting out ever-increasing green bolts into the night. The hole was now as tall as one of the sky-scrapers of the town and twice as large. It glowed sinisterly in the dark, fluorescent and shifting, and unapproachable now that it was so protected by the deadly electricity.

Ichigo watched it out of the corner of his eye as he shook his sword-arm to loosen it from Ukitake's numbing blow. Tensa Zangetsu swung gently as he did so, the black metal of its bankai form reflecting that unnatural lightning much like obsidian would. A trickle of sweat rolled down his cheek as he took in a deep breath.

In front of him, Kyoraku and Ukitake stood at the ready, their tattered uniforms still smoldering after his latest Getsuga Tensho. The 8th Division Captain was definitely the one worse off of the two, leaning heavily on his left leg while his broken right arm dangled uselessly from a dislocated socket. He had shifted his sword to his weak hand and, although still a threat, his fighting power had been reduced drastically. The 13th Division Captain, instead, was pretty much unscathed except for a shallow gash on his chest, but he was panting hard and with effort. His sickness had never gotten better in the fifteen plus years Ichigo had known him, and after such a strenuous battle and so much energy spent, he was twice as tired as his old-time friend.

A little pang of sympathy was ruthlessly crushed before it could grow dangerous and Ichigo found himself scowling at his opponents and at the whole damning situation.

"Get out of my way!" he shouted.

Kyoraku shook his head slowly.

"You know we can't do that."

The red-head saw the sadness in his eyes and, underneath it, unmovable resolution. Ukitake was no different, and Ichigo could only let out a frustrated sound, halfway between an angry shout and a pained groan.

Why did it have to end like this?

Thunder rumbled behind him and he took a moment to check the green lightning crackling around the dimensional rift.

That was why.

Jaw set in a mask of determination, he turned forward again and called for his inner hollow.

"I'm sorry," he said honestly, but he was sure the deranged smile of his rapidly forming mask looked eerie and jarring in comparison to the words.

Kyoraku smiled as well, grim like he had never seen him before.

"We know."

Reiatsu rising to a new incredible level, Ichigo lifted Tensa Zangetsu and lunged.

"Berry-tan!"

A blur of movement stopped him on his tracks and he barely had to wait the time of a blink before Mashiro and Kensei appeared in front of him to face the two shinigami.

"Ichigo, don't fool around back here!" said the former Captain of the 9th division. "We need you at the rift! They're all protecting Sui-Feng and we can't reach her! She's going to use it any time, now!"

"I know! I can feel it, too!" Ichigo replied quickly, gesturing with his blade at the "hindrance" that had stalled him. "I was on my way."

"We'll take care of these two, Berry-tan," Mashiro said confidently. Her voice sounded cheery and childish even in all this mess. "They only have half a beating left in them, anyway."

Already turning away, Ichigo smiled slightly.

"Thanks, guys."

He was about to shunpo away when Ukitake moved to block him, only to find his sword parried by Kensei's. Mashiro had engaged Kyoraku, too.

"Go," the vizard said.

Ichigo nodded and ran.

He reached the rift not two seconds later, traveling for miles and miles at such a speed that sound struggled to keep up. He stopped only when the battle was in front of him, chaos and death swirling together in a sea of reiatsu. Looming over everything, the hole in the world cackled madly with its unnatural green tongues of fire.

Ichigo glared at it hatefully, before scanning the crowd of shinigami and former shinigami, vizards and full-bringers, to search for the weapon sent to destroy Karakura.

"Ichigo! Over here!"

Yoruichi!

He looked up and at the roof from where the voice had come, moving hastily towards it and getting rid of whoever stepped in his way as he went. Tensa Zangetsu hesitated only slightly before cutting down Hisagi and then Ise. Soon after climbing the building, he found the dark-skinned woman, zanpakuto clashing in a flurry of blows against Kenpachi's. Beside her fought the strongest of Karakura's defense, roughly in a circle around a momentarily safe patch of battleground.

In the middle of it all, Sui-Feng stood with her missile launcher pointed down at the town.

It felt like time stopped to Ichigo when he saw smoke start coming out of the cannon's mouth. Before he could even process the thought, he flash-stepped over dead and living alike until he appeared in front of the woman. With a swing of Tensa Zangetsu, he struck the missile launcher and redirected it upwards, much to the 2nd Division Captain's surprise. She could do nothing but brace herself as her bankai fired its destructive power to the sky. It flew up and slightly to the left, swirling around seemingly without control, leaving behind a trail of smoke and a painfully loud whistling sound.

Blades still crossed, Ichigo glared at Sui-Feng. She stared back at him.

"I never miss," she said.

Something in her tone gave him pause. She hadn't said that in a disbelieving manner, but like someone simply stating a fact. He looked up again and saw with heart-wrenching dread that the missile was quickly changing course and turning around and towards them. Others had noticed it too by now and those who had cheered before were now left speechless or distraught. Eyes widening impossibly, Ichigo forced himself to ignore them, and to breathe and think again, while the airborne bankai aimed back to its original target. He had only leaned back half an inch, ready to do something, anything, when the woman spoke up.

"Don't," she warned him as if she had just read his mind. As with Ukitake and Kyoraku, there seemed to be deep sadness hidden beneath her ruthless resolve. "It's over."

Pushing her away with Tensa Zangetsu, he ran desperately to the building's ledge while she stumbled under her heavy and inconvenient zanpakuto in bankai form. Stepping to the very limit of the roof, he jumped up in the air and used shunpo to gain as much altitude as possible. Once done, the missile was almost exactly above him, pummeling down fast and hard. Hoping against hope that his plan would work and that it wouldn't blast him to smithereens, he put his left hand in his pocket and fished for Kon.

As soon as he felt the stuffed animal against his palm and fingers, he pointed the sword up at Sui-Feng's attack. A small heart-shaped beam left the tip of his blade not unlike a Getsuga Tensho would, shooting upwards, aimed at the missile. He managed to hit despite its erratic movements but to an outside viewer it would have looked like nothing had happened. Hopefully, something had.

While the bankai wheezed past him and down towards Karakura, Ichigo flash-stepped up one last time and pulled Kon out of his pocket.

"I permit you!" he cried.

The effect was instantaneous as the smoking projectile slowed down first and stopped then, as if pulled back by invisible reins. Ichigo watched as the missile's image started to distort under his eyes like a blurred photograph, until its shape wasn't recognizable anymore. A heartbeat later, the missile had flowed not unlike an upwards stream to get inside the stuffed animal.

Then the whole thing exploded in his hand.

It was his full-bring armor that saved his life. If it hadn't been for that protective shell around his body, not even the high-speed regeneration of his inner hollow or his own immense reiatsu would have done a thing. As it was, the terrible explosion that destroyed Kon simply smashed against his powers with the impact of a demolition ball, only tossing him a hundred feet away instead of blowing him up. The noise was awful, though, stunning him to the point where it took him a while to regain his bearings.

After he had blinked to a finally stable and solid world, Ichigo looked down at himself and let out a relieved breath. Aside for the disintegrated full-bring armor and hollow mask and the half-destroyed shihakusho – which meant his reiatsu level had taken a pretty big hit – everything was fine. No body parts missing, luckily enough.

Mentally thanking Riruka's dying gift, the red-head cleared the rubble off himself and stood up, ignoring the building in ruins he was leaving behind. A part of him wouldn't stop wondering about what would have happened if the bankai hadn't been reduced in size and power by his borrowed full-bring ability. Another part of him started thinking about how Karakura wouldn't stand a chance, instead. Sui-Feng was probably readying another one of her missiles right that moment.

He performed his next shunpo with the knowledge that his life and that of everyone in his hometown depended on it. Moving faster than sound, he arrived right in the epicenter of the battle, on the roof where the strongest fighters were killing each other. He was glad to see that Sui-Feng was currently busy fending off Yoruichi's attacks, golden zanpakuto moving much more slowly than normal while in its huge bankai form. A number of lower seats fought alongside her, desperately trying to give their Captain the necessary time to blast off a second attack.

"Ichigo! Look out!"

Warning recognized as Renji's and instincts kicking in, Ichigo ducked and rolled out of the way as a chipped blade swished down to behead him, only cracking the roof instead. If it hadn't been for Sui-Feng equipping that same building to endure her bankai and especially for Hachi lying out his protective Kido, the power behind the blow would have leveled the place to the ground. He looked up at the owner of that worn down zanpakuto, who couldn't have been anyone but Kenpachi, now advancing towards him with two swords sticking out of his back and a mad grin on his face.

"Ichigo!" he called, both his eyes showing. "Nice of you to join the brawl! Let's die together in this hellhole, hm? What do you say?"

The red-head gritted his teeth in anger, but once again it was short-lived. Frustration replaced it almost immediately as the reality of the situation resurfaced to the forefront of his mind. He blocked the first blow and replied in kind, while green bolts of lightning flashed behind the mountain of a man.

"Dammit, Kenpachi! I don't have time for this!"

"Make some," was the immediate reply.

Sparks flew between them after every clash, but Ichigo was also hitting flesh, occasionally. The 11th Division Captain didn't seem to notice, though, only relenting in his attacks when Renji suddenly appeared next to them.

"What do you think you're doing?"

The newcomer didn't hesitate a moment in front of Kenpachi's threatening tone. Zabimaru's vertebras suddenly lifted in the air and began swirling around them, while their owner scowled harshly. He glanced at Ichigo.

"Put a stop to this madness."

Not wasting one second, Ichigo pushed Zaraki's sword away from his and rushed out of the circling segments of Renji's zanpakuto.

Once out, he ignored the angry calls behind his back as he scanned the crowd in search of Sui-Feng. He couldn't trust his sensing abilities in such a reiatsu-charged chaos, but his eyes didn't exactly have a much easier time. People were skewering each other everywhere he looked, killing opponents that until a few hours before had been veritable brothers, friends and allies. A mix of emotions tried to overcome him at that, but he ruthlessly pushed it back to a manageable level. In his fifteen years of struggle as a substitute shinigami, he had always been somewhat of an outsider in Soul Society, and yet he couldn't help but feel a horrible revulsion towards this war and what it was forcing him to do. He couldn't imagine what some of those people were experiencing.

He spotted Sui-Feng the exact moment she got rid of Yoruichi, passing her over to Ikkaku much like Ichigo had done with Kenpachi. Unlike his deranged Captain, though, the bald shinigami seemed to be affected by the mess. He wasn't sporting his usual grin, which was almost a first as far as the red-head could remember. He stopped watching when his three oversized weapons started raging against Yoruichi's.

He went after Sui-Feng, trying to gain on her surprise at seeing him alive. He realized that was her sentiment right as they crossed swords, when she stared at him as if he was a ghost first, and a damn persistent one after that. Tensa Zangetsu rang against her missile launcher as she pushed him backwards.

"You don't die easily, I'll give you that, Kurosaki," she said.

Ichigo struggled to hear her over the sound of battle all around.

"I'll never let you destroy Karakura," he replied just as quietly.

"This isn't about your hometown, and you know it."

He scowled at her.

"But it is. As much as it is about the Seireitei and the Rukongai. If I don't do anything, Karakura will disappear. If you don't do anything, they will. It's as simple as that."

"Is that what you tell yourself?" she asked, frost seeping into her voice. "To justify this selfish resistance? Saving Karakura is not the same as saving Soul Society… by any standard imaginable. Who will fight the hollows when shinigami will be no more or brutally reduced in number? Who will direct the lost souls you call Pluses? Who will defend your whole world if not us?"

"Defend from whom?" he snapped. "Look around! Hollows aren't destroying my home! Shinigami are!"

As if on clue, a man he vaguely recognized as a lower seat of the 8th Division charged at him from the right. Ichigo dodged his initial thrust and impaled him before he could attack again. He turned around immediately, fearing that Sui-Feng had run away to give her bankai another go, but he found her upon him, instead, missile launcher swinging like a club. With his sword still stuck inside the shinigami's stomach, the red-head hurried through a low-level Kido and managed to deflect the blow to harmlessly hit the ground, with the knowledge that, if Suzumebachi had been in its stinger or even wakizashi form, he wouldn't have had nearly long enough to save his life. By the time she moved to strike again, he had already extracted Tensa Zangetsu and parried.

"Really an impractical bankai…" he commented, letting his blade graze against the huge weapon. "Go back to shikai if you don't want to die."

He met her eyes once again but had to will himself not to flinch back when he realized what hid in them. Anger, frustration and pain. He imagined he would see the same if he looked inside a mirror.

"Stop this, Kurosaki," she all but whispered. "If Soul Society dies… if we die, millions… no, billions between mortals and souls will be destroyed with us! Life as we know it will disappear in the chaos and violence that will follow! Karakura itself won't survive it!"

He stepped away from her but couldn't bring himself to avert her gaze.

"Should I give up, then?" he said quietly. "Sacrifice my town… my family and friends so as to let you, or even the world, survive?" His own voice cracked under the pressure as a wave of emotions flooded his throat. "I can't. I just can't"

"There's no other way," Sui-Feng said. "We tried everything, too! Do you think Urahara was the only one to look for a different solution? Do you think this is what we wanted? If we had discovered sooner… if only we weren't so pressed for time…"

She swallowed, sentence left incomplete and eyes moving almost on their own volition towards the gargantuan rift in the dimensional barrier. By now, the hole between worlds was getting bigger before their eyes, glowing ever so brightly in its own storm of lightning. It was only a matter of minutes before the energy-leak going from Soul Society to Karakura would decree the end of the former. And who knew what would happen to the latter…

"I'm sorry," Ichigo finally said, interrupting their silence. All around them, swords continued clashing and people kept on dying. He peeled his eyes off the growing rift and looked at her. "I can't stand down. The price is too high."

She breathed in deeply and exhaled even more slowly. "That goes both ways."

He smiled sadly, bringing his free hand up to his face in order to lower down his hollow mask.

"I'm going to stop you," he said, but Sui-Feng shook her head at that.

"Karakura is going to fall," she said with finality and a green bolt of lightning came crashing down exactly between them, almost drowning out her voice, "one way or another."

For the second time that night, her own words gave her away. As soon as she had uttered them, Ichigo reeled back as if slapped, his sword lowering an inch, burdened by sudden panic.

"You're stalling me…" he all but whispered.

And then he felt him, in the other side of town, his reiatsu a barely perceivable pressure at the back of his senses.

Mayuri.

He attacked at once, dread rising up his throat like a retch, and he didn't even notice when Tensa Zangetsu clashed against Sui-Feng's zanpakuto. He used everything he had in the next few seconds, reinforcing his Getsuga Tensho with what remained of his fullbring and firing Balas and Ceros rapidly from his mask's horns. When he was done, the woman's right arm had blackened like a charred log and her weapon had reversed to its wakizashi form. She was panting harshly, back pressed against the half-destroyed ledge of the building as she stared at him.

He didn't look back. A sonido and then a shunpo brought him away from both the building and the rift and into the air above. Sui-Feng wasn't in any state to use her bankai again, while Mayuri was acting unopposed in the other side of Karakura right that moment. He needed to reach him before it was too late. Desperately trying not to think about what devious way the mad scientist had conceived to destroy his home, Ichigo ignored the few shinigami who tried to keep up with him and continued on his way.

He had to fling himself to a side a few instants later, no easy feat to accomplish while floating in the air. Sui-Feng appeared beside him, deadly stinger extended to reach him. She had miraculously managed shikai even under those conditions, switching her Suzumebachi to the left hand, while it wasn't so impossible to believe that she had caught up with him. She was unparalleled in speed among the Gotei 13, after all.

But she was speeding towards death.

She knew that, Ichigo realized it with but a look at her face. There was no way she could stop him so wounded, but apparently, slowing him down was good enough for her.

She made no sound when he cut her down with Tensa Zangetsu.

Ichigo watched her die for a precious long second, her fierce eyes and expression burning in his mind like a hot brand. Then he looked ahead and flash-stepped forward.

He finally saw Mayuri when he reached the southern outskirts of Karakura, but it was impossible not to see his creation first. Unlike Big J, as Ichigo had started to call the man's bankai, the huge creature hovering beside the scientist had nothing even remotely resembling a human. The red-head only had the time to catch the similarities with an octopus as he launched himself against its master, who was conveniently giving him his back while tinkering with his device.

He realized too late that he was charging head-first into a trap.

He noticed Nemu first, standing a few feet to her father's left, reiatsu almost perfectly erased even from this short distance. Old man Yamamoto's was completely untraceable, instead, and the first sign of his presence he saw was the gleaming light reflected by his sword.

Tensa Zangetsu lifting just in time to parry, Ichigo was thrown with tremendous force towards Nemu who, meanwhile, had opened a path to the Dangai via a little device in her hands. The red-head flew through it, skidding to a stop just shy of a time current whose touch would have meant his death. As he regained his balance, he could only stare helplessly as Nemu closed the opening behind her back, positively cutting him off the human world.

And leaving him at the mercy of the Captain Commander of the Gotei 13, who was now standing in front of him with no emotion on his face.

Koryu swirled all around them, streaming up and down and left and right, like countless walls of impenetrable water. The place wasn't acting like normal, since there didn't seem to be any attempt to attack him by the usually hostile currents, but that didn't help his situation all that much. There was no escape. His inner hollow gave him powers over the Precipice World only when the Koryu were stopped by the Kaikyo Kotei… it was impossible to create a way to Hueco Mundo otherwise.

Old man Yamamoto had planned it all. Ukitake and Kyoraku had been the first line of defense, Sui-Feng the distraction and Mayuri the bait. And now the Commander himself was going to be the executioner. Even if by some kind of miracle Ichigo was able to survive or escape the fight, he was positively trapped inside the Dangai with no way out. In the meantime, whatever they had been readying out there was going to destroy Karakura and no one would be able to stop it.

He had been played for sucker; that was the reality of things.

At that realization, a big chunk of Ichigo's brain wanted nothing else than to freak out. The situation was beyond desperate and no real solution managed to come out on top of the raging storm involving his thoughts. Despite that, something inside of him simply refused to give up, now or ever.

Gripping Tensa Zangetsu more tightly, Ichigo glared at his opponent.

"Let me out."

He drew every ounce of energy he could to himself, reiatsu rising to unimaginable levels. His Shihakusho had been restored almost in its entirety after the high-speed regeneration from his inner hollow had done its job, and his full-bring reserves had slowly returned with it. Barely noticing it when Yamamoto increased his own spiritual pressure, the red-head raised his zanpakuto.

"I said," and he punctuated his words with another flare of energy, "let me out."

It wasn't the first time he acted so disrespectfully with the Captain Commander but it was the first time the old man didn't reprimand him for it. Yamamoto remained quiet, stony expression not allowing anything of what he internally felt to transpire. Ryujin Jakka rested at his side, inscrutable like its master while in its dormant shikai form, not letting out even a glimpse of its fiery power and heat.

Despite the evident lack of threat in the Commander's outside appearance, Ichigo had to calm his own heart-rate down before he started hyperventilating. He knew, on both a conscious and an instinctive level, that if he moved to attack, odds were highly stacked against him surviving, and that was positive thinking too. He also knew that diving into one of the Koryu was not an option, unless he wanted to be dragged a thousand years into the future and die of old age sometime during the trip.

But what else could he do?

He charged with all the speed he could master, firing a Getsuga Tensho as he went. Yamamoto used shunpo to dodge the crescent-shaped attack and met him mid-air, zanpakuto finally lighting up as its steel met Tensa Zangetsu's. Flames rose to lick at Ichigo's Shihakusho but the high-density reiatsu he was wielding snuffed them away as if they were mere candles. Still, the power behind the blow itself gave the red-head pause and the instant it made him waste was enough to let the old man gain the initiative.

Ryujin Jakka came swishing down on him with speed and grace, and it was with great effort that Ichigo managed to stop it from slipping under his guard in the following thrust. He pushed it away immediately after that and let out a short-distance moon fang that forced the Commander to sidestep. He followed it up with a rapid volley of Balas, shooting them from every body-part that wasn't currently busy firing off more Getsuga Tensho. He threw in a few low-level Hado as well, deciding to mix it up a little in the off-chance to surprise the old man.

Yamamoto came out unscathed. He dodged what he could and parried what he couldn't. Blasts of hollow-power and shinigami spells died out against his Kido with barely a fizzle, while the flames of his zanpakuto rose impossibly high to make bearable whatever else passed through. Fire started to roar loudly then, as Taimatsu was thrown at Ichigo like a rushing inferno.

When the red-head moved the hell out of the way, he found himself face-to-face with his opponent. The next exchange was more dictated by instincts than any actual decision-making process from the brain, at least for Ichigo. Tensa Zangetsu seemed to drop almost on its own volition to intercept Ryujin Jakka and then lift again to strike on the offensive.

The bout went on for the next few seconds, until one of the Commander's feints finally put Ichigo in a too difficult position to defend. The old man's sword flashed towards his chest and only a near one-eighty saved his heart. Instead, the blade went on to pierce his left arm, almost severing it right above the elbow.

The red-head jumped away with a hiss of pain, tossing a Getsuga Tensho to cover his retreat. Yamamoto moved to avoid it like any other attack and only his own wound stopped Ichigo from grinning. Blocking out of his mind the sharp twinge coming from his arm, the substitute shinigami struggled to control his full-bring and extend it towards the opponent. A black tongue of power seemed to rise from the speeding moon fang, then, stretching in multiple directions and sharpening like a blade. It caught the Commander off guard, its jump putting him directly in the path of a number of those ramifications. Still, his next Bakudo came up in record time, but not even that could block everything. After the Getsuga Tensho had passed and the barrier dropped, the old man sported two shallow cuts on his sword-arm and side and a deeper one on his right shoulder.

Ichigo swore under his breath as he urged his inner hollow to take care of his wound, while both his full-bring kneepads crumbled down, reduced to dust after his attack. He had admittedly hoped for more with it, maybe a death blow or a crippling one, and with anyone else he would have gotten his wish, but Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto wasn't the leader of all shinigami for nothing. He didn't even inspect his gashes, though the one on the shoulder was oozing a respectable amount of blood, opting to call for his untapped reserves of reiatsu, instead.

"Bankai," he said, the first word he had uttered that night.

And it was terrifying.

His next attack came in the form of the pressure itself, an almost physical wall of heat and kinetic energy that smashed against Ichigo with the power of a burning freight train. The red-head was forced to close his eyes as he braced against it with everything he had, human, shinigami and hollow powers alike.

He barely managed to stay on his feet.

Thankfully, that startling initial discharge of reiatsu waned a lot before settling to a more bearable level. It was by no means reasonable, such vast energy was simply too much, but at least it left Ichigo able to move. He opened his eyes carefully and pointed them at the new old man now standing in front of him. As far as he knew, no one had ever seen his bankai and lived to tell the tale.

Captain Commander Yamamoto was literally glowing, his body red-hot while his shinigami uniform and haori quickly burned down to ashes. Steam rose from his skin and flesh where it met the fresh air, creating a thick cloud of vapor floating upwards and away from him. The transformation must have not included his hair, because his long grey beard and eyebrows had disappeared entirely, most likely singed away by the overheated flesh.

After a couple of seconds he was bare naked and the wounds that had been opened by the last attack had cauterized until they were hardly distinguishable from the countless others marking his body.

Ichigo looked at him, at his unchanged emotionless expression, and then at Ryujin Jakka, now fused to his arm from the tsuka, glowing as well. A part of him understood immediately how his destiny had changed, now.

He was a dead man.

The heat became physically crushing as soon as the Commander attacked, sword slashing down against his and eliciting a high-pitched clang and squeal from the steel. The red-head had never heard his zanpakuto make such a sound, although it vaguely reminded him of the time he broke dozens of Zangetsu while training to achieve bankai. He hurriedly fell back with his throat on fire and watering eyes, the scorching air threatening to overcome his defenses and senses alike. Yamamoto remained hot on his heels, cloud of steam trailing behind as he went, and every swish of his arm felt like a volcano coughing on him.

Ichigo struggled with all his might, used every trick he knew and some he came up with on the fly, trying to hurt him, bind him, tire him and throw him into a time current, but he was starting to think he was fighting the exact definition of a losing battle. Toshiro, in his bankai form, would have been hard pressed to resist, much less actually affect the Commander. His heat-converted reiatsu wore off Balas and Getsuga Tensho before they could even reach its owner, with Mugetsu, although admittedly a weakened version of it, being the only move to power through. But at that point, the old man only had to use a quick low-level Bakudo and what remained of the original attack barely nicked his chest.

Ichigo's full-bring armor had fallen apart at some point of the last exchange and only the lower half of his Shihakusho survived. While his left arm had completely healed and his hollow mask was still in place, the red-head knew it was only a matter of time.

He was going to fail them all.

Latching onto his desperation was all he could do not to drop Tensa Zangetsu and let Yamamoto finish him. He jerked his sword-arm up to parry the next swing of Ryujin Jakka but he couldn't do much to stop the Commander's left fist as it slammed onto his side with the power of a cannon ball.

The pain was unlike anything he had ever endured, searing, piercing and numbing all at the same time. It spread throughout the rest of his body as he flew away, not even noticing it when he hit the ground and rolled along for several hundred feet. When, surely years later, he regained enough willpower to bear the world of pain and look down at himself, he finally saw that the old man's Ikkotsu had blown chunks of his hip into nothingness. A voice from within whispered that their powers would heal that too, but that would have just meant delaying the inevitable.

He sat up, zanpakuto gripped tightly in his hand. By some kind of miracle, he had managed not to fly into any time current, but he had no idea how far he had gone down the Dangai. Now, even if he got out of there immediately, who knew where and when he would reappear…

Preceding a cloud of steam, Captain Commander Yamamoto landed in front of him with grace defying his old age. Everything about him defied old age.

"I guess," Ichigo began, struggling to form comprehensible words, "I guess I should… feel honored… to have pushed you into bankai. It must… have been a long time… considering the length of your beard."

He started wheezing out something distantly resembling laughter, more a result of raging nerves and emotions than real amusement, and he had to clutch his side in pain when the wound seemed to explode at every coughing sound. The hysterical cackle turned to sobs and hiccups soon enough and he pulled at his own hair, sticking out of the Hollow mask.

"Damn it, Gramps!" he wailed. "Why… why does it have to be like this?"

He looked up at him and this time sadness and regret were twisting Yamamoto's features into a pained grimace. The Commander wouldn't stop, though, Ichigo didn't kid himself even for a moment. The old man could have felt sorrow, even shame, for what he had decided to do, but he knew it was the best and maybe the only solution to save Soul Society and probably the world.

Deep down, a part of Ichigo agreed with him.

That was why it had been such a difficult war to fight, a war where the enemy was a friend and his motives were justifiable, even reasonable in some way. It was hard to let anger fuel your spirit at that point, although the need for survival was enough more often than not.

And that was what kicked in right there and then, while Ichigo lay on the floor of the Dangai with a healing hip and tears streaming down his cheeks. He wasn't going to die. He had to keep moving, keep fighting.

Keep hoping.

Horse, Zangetsu… give me everything you've got left.

Both his inner hollow and his zanpakuto reacted immediately at the command, the former hissing in laughter that was so unlike his usual cackle that it could have been nothing other than fake. Reiatsu started leaking into him, slowly at first but increasing in amount each second. There would be repercussions for this foolish and rash act, but Ichigo didn't care at the moment. He tried to keep it in check, hidden to his enemy, but something must have slipped out, either in his spiritual pressure or in his expression, because Yamamoto blinked and then was immediately upon him.

Ichigo rolled backwards and out of reach long enough to stand up again and put some distance between him and Ryujin Jakka. He stopped trying to erase his new reiatsu, and Shihakusho and full-bring armor restored themselves to completion. His side wound closed at once, healing completely in a matter of instants, and the terrible heat coming from the pursuing Commander finally stopped against his renewed powers. He used sonido and shunpo one after another, buying himself as much time as possible while he waited for his inner hollow and Zangetsu to pass all their energy over to him. One of the old man's Hado almost pushed him down a time current, but he was able to avoid it at the last possible moment with a Kido of his own.

Oddly enough, the walls of flames from Yamamoto's shikai would have worked much better in this situation. The massive offensive and defensive power granted to him by Ryujin Jakka's bankai weren't as effective when chasing after an elusive opponent. Of course, the fighters with enough reiatsu to resist that spiritual pressure could have been counted on the fingers of one hand, but when in top condition, Ichigo was probably at the top of that short list.

He was just about ready to turn on his heel and make his last stand, when a loud whistling sound pierced the deep silence of the Dangai. It stopped a second later, only to repeat over and over for the next minute, the time it took for a yellow light to appear down the tunnel. As it moved closer, Ichigo could eventually make out a train-shaped Koryu rolling onward and towards them.

Kototsu!

A plan immediately forming in his mind, Ichigo came to a halt and turned around to face his enemy.

The glowing Commander slammed against him with his whole body behind the blow, Ryujin Jakka clashing against Tensa Zangetsu like a hot-red hammer. The red-head had to use both his hands to keep the old man at bay, while his strongest Cero to date began forming between his mask's horns. Yamamoto's Kido was faster, the triangle of light he drew in the air with his free hand shooting at him and enlarging to wrap his body, but his full-bring armor mostly took care of it. As the Kototsu approached, he ignored the slow tightening of the Commander's Bakudo and released his hollow blast.

The large red beam impacted against Yamamoto's glowing skin with an impressive explosion that both deafened and blinded him, something Ichigo didn't even try to resist. The red-head let his body be flung away, backwards and in the moving Koryu's direction, but he struggled to regain at least some modicum of balance to twist in mid-air and target the thing. Focusing on his human ability more than his shinigami's, he fired out a massive Getsuga Tensho aiming for the ground in front of the rushing time current and willing the tendrils of his full-bring powers to rise from it. When they latched onto the incoming Kototsu, they delved deeply into its whirling energy as he pulled.

The freight train could only whistle angrily as it was lifted high above and over the falling Ichigo. Its momentum brought him down to the ground a second later but the red-head was safely out of reach. He had managed to time it perfectly and now the moving Koryu was going straight for Captain Commander Yamamoto.

Even skidding down the floor as awkwardly as he was, Ichigo couldn't shift his eyes off the scene. The Cero-induced explosion had winded down enough to let him see through, and he wasn't all that surprised that the old man looked almost unscratched even after such a powerful point-blank attack. A new indentation had appeared on his chin but that was it.

The red-head grinned.

Against the Kototsu it would be a whole different story. No matter how powerful, any zanpakuto that came in contact with the moving time-current froze still, together with its user.

He had done it.

But in the time it took him to simply think that thought, his exultance crashed and burned under the power of Ryujin Jakka.

As the rushing Koryu closed on him, Yamamoto's sword-arm swished down to the ground. The old man's scream drowned out every other noise as power unlike anything Ichigo had ever felt generated from the zanpakuto and hit the Kototsu, stopping its advance an inch before it was too late and hurling it back at the red-head. An incredible wave of reiatsu and heat slammed against him a split of a second before the freight train did, making moving out of the way an impossible feat. Eyes widening in panic, he did the first thing that came to mind, reacting automatically to the threat by pushing at it with everything he had. Hollow, shinigami and full-bringer powers all came out of him, an explosion of energy and sound that would have saved his life if he had had enough time.

But when the Kototsu touched him, everything became futile. Surrounded by his own power, Yamamoto's and the moving time-current's, Kurosaki Ichigo was frozen into stillness, crushed and carried away by the redirected Koryu.

His terrified gaze met Yamamoto's sad one for the briefest of seconds before he was flung at the walls of the Dangai and everything went black.