Warnings: General bad language. I write characters swearing fairly freely; the hollow in particular has a foul mouth. The T rating for this fic is what I considered appropriate for the level of violence and sexual references, but a reviewer pointed out that swearing should be taken into account as well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach

Thank you to everyone who reviewed/favorited/alerted the prologue!

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"So this is the Hogyoku-"

That was as far as he got before both he and the boy lying near his feet started screaming.

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There was a black pulse from the Hogyoku, and two streams of darkness connected from the stone to Aizen and Ichigo. The screams continued as the two men felt the horrible, searing pain of their souls being over-written as the Hogyoku slowly transferred their future selves into their current bodies. Aizen had dropped Rukia, who was unable to rise on her own because of his spiritual pressure and the rapidly-sealing hole in her chest.

Finally, the pain stopped. After a brief, horrible moment of silence, though, Rukia realized that a very familiar spiritual pressure had disappeared entirely.

"ICHIGO!"

Aizen was breathing hard, eyes wide as he adjusted to the sudden change in their positions and his return to a human form and a stable mental condition. At Rukia's scream, he looked over to the boy in black whom he had- just minutes ago, now- carved nearly in half.

"Kurosaki Ichigo…" he murmured. How interesting the boy had been. The offspring of a powerful shinigami and a human, born with a shinigami's spiritual ability and a human's limitless potential. The addition of hollow powers had just been an added bonus; if he hadn't already had them, Aizen likely would have arranged for Ichigo to acquire them just to see what would happen. It had been entertaining to push his development and see how many barriers the boy could smash through in his arrogant assumption that nothing was impossible.

Perhaps he had gone too far.

Aizen's eyes narrowed as the figure on the ground gripped his sword- a black daito with a crooked cross for a hilt and a long chain wrapped around the bare arm of its wielder.

'He retained his abilities and I did not? Why… ah.' Aizen had reached the limit of a shingami's potential long ago. His new powers had manifested from his fusion with the Hogyoku, which had not happened yet. Ichigo's new appearance and powers were intrinsic parts of his soul, and had transferred with the young man. Ichigo's body, however, had retained the injuries it had gained in this time, and was now no match for him.

"I told you once, Kurosaki," Aizen chided, "your backbone is the only thing holding you together. It is structurally impossible for you to move. If it makes you feel better, however, you may kneel while I kill you."

He strode towards Ichigo, who was indeed struggling to his knees, with one hand using his sword as a crutch and the other on his stomach, holding the gaping wound together. Aizen raised Kyoka Suigetsu and brought it down, intending to split the boy apart lengthwise.

His sword was stopped by the hand that had been on Ichigo's stomach. It cut slightly into the skin but did not do any further damage, and Aizen met Ichigo's eyes for the first time in this timeline. They were still confident.

And then Ichigo's sword came up, and Kyoka Suigetsu was cleaved into two pieces, and the smaller piece stayed in Ichigo's hand.

Ichigo was touching his sword, and had done so before Aizen released his Shikai. He had just lost any chance of putting Ichigo under hypnosis in this battle.

"Getsuga Tensho".

Aizen flash-stepped away as soon as he heard the beginning of the phrase, but wasn't quite fast enough to clear the range of the blast. He was left with a deep cut across his chest and sword arm, and hissed in pain from the other side of the battlefield before roughly sealing the cuts with a wave of healing kido.

"How did you know, boy?"

"I caught up with you just before Gin stabbed you. You couldn't sense me, and Dad's reiatsu was weak enough that you didn't notice him either. I heard your entire conversation. I know your sword's weakness. I won't lose to you!" Ichigo stood for the first time, using Tensa Zangetsu as a crutch to reach his feet, before standing on his own power, the hand with the sword fragment at his stomach, the other in a guard position. The blood loss had stopped, in the same way that his wounds in the fight with Zaraki (just a few days ago now, he realized) had once temporarily ceased to bleed, but the cut in the center of his body was still present and hampering his movements.

"Look at yourself, Kurosaki Ichigo. You can barely stand," Aizen said, a slight smile on his face, "and you believe you are capable of defeating me? Learn your place, ryoka boy!" And with that, he sped towards Ichigo far too quickly for Rukia to follow.

They clashed- once, twice, and again. The only evidence that they were exchanging blows was the sound of swords striking and the occasional flicker of black and white as a blow was blocked, rendering the swords momentarily motionless. Finally, they both halted, breathing heavily and bearing new collections of injuries. Ichigo was clearly the worse off, though. He was bleeding once more from the stomach and leaning on his sword simply to stand.

"You are slowing, Kurosaki. Your injuries have caught up to you at last, for even a transcendental being is bound by the laws of reality. You will die by my hand, and I will go on to surpass the level you have attained. No human will ever outdo me," Aizen stated. "I will end this, as you so arrogantly said, with one final blow." He readied his sword.

"Hold." The one quiet word was all the announcement the speaker needed, and Kuchiki Byakuya appeared between the two combatants, his back to Ichigo.

"Stand down, Kurosaki Ichigo. This is not your fight."

"Nii-sama!" Rukia, who had been watching the fight in horrified awe (how had Ichigo gotten so strong?) couldn't have been more relieved. Aizen just raised an eyebrow.

"Kuchiki-taicho. I must say, this is a much less dramatic rescue than last time. Do you think you can save the boy?"

"We can," Yoruichi announced, suddenly appearing with a dagger at Aizen's stomach. "Don't move…"

"…or you'll lose your head," Soi Fon finished, her sword at his throat. Aizen simply smiled.

Suddenly, Yoruichi screamed. Then, in an instant, she was lying on the ground with a huge spray of blood shooting from her throat. In less than a second, it stopped, leaving a gaping wound where her jugular used to be, while Soi Fon and Byakuya stared in disbelief.

Shihoin Yoruichi was dead.

"Yoruichi-sama!" Soi Fon screamed. She froze for an instant (inexcusable, for the Onmitsukido commander, but it had been so sudden), then struck.

"Nigeki Kessatsu!" Her blade was swift and on target, the first blow directly to Aizen's pulse. She had only a second to realize it had not penetrated his skin before darkness descended.

"Bankai, Senbonzakura Kageyoshi." Byakuya's voice did not waver as he watched Soi Fon fly away with her own spurt of blood, but his distress over the deaths of his childhood friend and his colleague was evident in the extreme haste with which he pushed the sakura petals at Aizen with both hands, barely even allowing them to form before they were sent on. Before they reached him, however, the Fifth Division Captain disappeared.

'Illusion,' Byakuya thought, alarmed, as he began to turn to meet the blow from the flicker that had suddenly appeared at the corner of his eye, 'no one is that fast-' before he met the same fate as Yoruichi and Soi Fon.

The remaining Captains and Assistant Captains of Soul Society arrived as he fell and saw three of their finest lying in pools of their own blood. Gin and Tosen had been captured almost without notice, with Matsumoto holding a sword to Gin's throat and Hisagi at the throat of his captain. In the background, Jidanbo and Kukaku had arrived and were fighting the remaining three gatekeepers, trying to keep them from coming to Aizen's aid, while the two oldest friends in Soul Society moved in simultaneously to take down the rogue captain as he began flashing towards the boy in black, who sensibly retreated to allow the reinforcements room to work.

"Irooni: white!" Kyoraku called out grimly, while above him Ukitake began the incantation for Hado 63: Raikoho. After so many centuries there was no need for them to coordinate strategy beforehand. Irooni was a color-based game. Shunsui could call out any color, and then could only hit that color on his opponent. The catch was, the attack wouldn't do anything unless Kyoraku was also at risk; to inflict maximum damage both he and his opponent had to have a great deal of that color on their bodies.

It was the nature of Kyoraku's shikai that Ukitake couldn't join in the game while it was being played, but he could fire shots from afar. Kyoraku and Aizen were both wearing full-body white haoris; if the kido left an opening, even the slightest blow to Aizen's torso would be debilitating. 'Of course,' Kyoraku thought dryly, 'the reverse is also true'.

"Sprinkled on the bones of the beast! Sharp tower, red crystal, steel ring. Move and become the wind, stop and become the calm. The sound of warring spears fills the empty castle!" A massive wave of yellow energy came from Jushiro's hand and rocketed towards Aizen, who simply raised his arm to protect his face. Instantly, Shunsui attacked with both swords. His first, second, and third strikes were blocked, but the fourth slipped through, hitting a glancing blow on his upraised arm where it was covered by Aizen's long-sleeved captain's haori.

The hit had no effect.

'Impossible,' Kyoraku thought, as Aizen's gentle return blow hit him in the torso with the force of a hundred zanpakuto, 'he's covered in white, why didn't it-'

"Shunsui!" Ukitake called out, seeing his oldest friend fall with his torso nearly caved in, while, off to the side of the battle, Ise Nanao screamed in horror. His eyes widened as, just like Byakuya, his only warning of the coming attack was a flicker at the corner of his vision before the word went dark.

"Withdraw! Everyone withdraw from the hill!" the Soutaicho commanded. He had released his sword during Shunsui's attack, and the assistant captains close to him, including his own, had already moved to avoid being suffocated by his massive reiatsu. Now, obediently, they all flashed away, taking Rukia, Renji, and Komamura with them. Only Yamamoto, Aizen, Gin, Tosen, and Ichigo were left standing on Sokyoku Hill. Yoruichi, Soi Fon, and Byakuya all lay sprawled in various positions across the plateau, and Ukitake was crumpled on top of Kyoraku at Aizen's feet. Around the captain commander, flames smoldered, the heat scorching the earth and erasing the clouds from the sky.

"Do you need a hand, Aizen-taicho?" Ichimaru Gin, now free again, called out cheerfully.

"No, thank you, Gin. The situation is quite under control," Aizen said calmly, wiping a bit of dust off of his glasses, while giant walls of flame surrounded the area, separating the traitor captains from each other and leaving Yamamoto and Aizen standing on opposite sides of the largest flaming circle. Yamamoto, his chest bare and his beard waving in his heat waves, stood protectively in front of the smaller flame circle surrounding Aizen's target. The barely-conscious boy leaned on his sword, his hair the only part of him clearly visible over the wall and barely distinguishable from the flames surrounding him.

"Under control, is it now? Arrogant puppy! Do not think I will be defeated as easily as my foolish students!"

"Tell me, Captain-commander. What would it take to force you to release your bankai?" Aizen asked, looking at the bodies at his feet. "Not the total defeat of your forces, I know. Nor even the imminent destruction of everything that you have worked for your entire life. Something more personal, perhaps? The men you loved as your own sons?"

With two flicks his blade, still broken off at three-quarters of its length, sliced through the necks of Kyoraku Shunsui and Ukitake Jushiro. A second later, he kicked their heads into the center of the battlefield. Ukitake's blood stained his long white hair, and Kyoraku's head was still in his hat.

There was a long moment of silence while Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni, Soutaicho of the Gotei 13, stared at the decapitated corpses of his two finest students.

"Ban-kai. Yōyū Uchigami*."

It had been a very long time since the captain-commander had had a reason to release his bankai, and the only currently serving shinigami who had ever seen it were the two men lying headless at Aizen's feet and the woman trying to keep Hitsugaya Toushiro and Hinamori Momo alive. Speculation on its form had generally agreed that the most powerful fire-type zanpakuto would be similar to Daiguren Hyōrinmaru, the bankai of Hitsugaya-taicho and the most powerful of the ice-type zanpakutos. Most shinigami expected a giant dragon made of flame, roaring fire and reducing all of creation to ashes.

They were partially correct. It did take the form of a dragon, but not a dragon of fire.

The earth cracked open in between the combatants, and from the depths of the world rose the Soutaicho's bankai.

It was an eastern dragon made entirely of black obsidian, the solidified form of lava. Molten magma rolled off of its back and caused scattered fires where droplets hit the surface of the Execution Hill. Red cracks in the black surface of its skin mirrored the many glowing scars on Yamamoto's body, and its eyes were the same simmering crimson as the pool of lava it had climbed out of. When fully emerged, Yōyū Uchigami raised its head and roared.

Yamamoto himself had become even more fearsome. His spiritual pressure had increased enormously; if anyone not of the captain-class had been on the battlefield, they would have been crushed. As it was, Gin, Tosen, and Ichigo were all kneeling on the ground, struggling to breathe. Only Aizen was able to stand tall, though his movements and breathing seemed stilted and jerky. Yamamoto looked at him calmly.

"In one thousand years, no shinigami has been born who was able to stand against the full force of my spiritual pressure. You were not an exception, boy. What have you done to yourself?" he asked.

"Nothing, yet," Aizen answered. They might have been chatting over tea, for all the emotion in their voices. "In time I shall destroy the barriers in myself that hold me back, and become a transcendental being. For me to succeed, however, the boy behind you must die. If I must first kill you to reach him, so be it."

"Don't be so cocky, infant." He did not bother with an attack phrase. He and his zanpakuto had been together for thousands of years, and they knew each other well. The black dragon shot a stream of lava at Aizen.

Just before it hit him, Aizen's reiatsu flared. Yamamoto's eyes widened and he staggered as he felt the outer edges of a force he was barely able to comprehend, one completely different from the familiar reiatsu of his fifth division captain that was literally blanketing the battlefield. Underneath the stream of lava, a dome roughly the size of a tent was formed, just tall enough to shelter a standing man and wide enough to accommodate a stretched-out body. The lava cooled instantly on the surface formed by Aizen's reiatsu, and the man was covered by an overturned bowl of black obsidian.

From inside of the bowl, the spiritual pressure disappeared. Yamamoto readied his sword and his bankai.

With a single swing, the bowl was cleaved in half, and Aizen stood unharmed over the headless bodies of his fellow captains. From overhead, a loud buzzing noise began.

"This ends now, Captain-commander," Aizen stated, taking a traditional kendo stance. In an instant, he was moving. Unlike Byakuya and Ukitake, though, Yamamoto was both far enough away and skilled enough in flash step that he was able to see Aizen's actions and respond. The black dragon interspersed itself between the two white-clad men faster than thought, but Aizen passed through the dragon without even slowing down, leaving it in two pieces of rock and flowing magma behind him. Yamamoto's own kendo stance brought his sword up to meet Aizen's, and their blades met with a scream and a flash of sparks. With a single twist of incredible strength, Aizen brought both of their swords up and out from between their bodies with one hand, leaving Yamamoto open to attack, and with his free hand-

- with his free hand, he shoved Yamamoto back ten paces, just before a perfectly executed Hado 90: Black Coffin came down upon the spot where they had been standing.

"Unfortunately," said a familiar voice from the flame-wall directly behind the soutaicho, "I cannot prevent the Negacion from being cast any longer." As he spoke, three beams of golden light came down from cracks in the sky and descended onto the three kneeling figures. Behind the openings ripped into the sky, dozens of Menos Grand were visible. As the golden beam hit the black-clad ryoka, his form changed to reveal Aizen, his white haori dirty and covered with blood, his glasses missing, his hair mussed, and with a deep cut in his left torso that halfway mirrored the one that he had faked having when pretending to be the young invader.

The hypnosis ended.

Yamamoto turned, eyes wide, to survey the battlefield. His bankai was swiftly recovering from the attack, as the molten lava that served as the dragon's blood connected the two halves and hardened to form a new layer of obsidian, leaving the dragon unharmed and even longer than before. Ukitake and Shunsui were whole; Ukitake was even conscious and struggling to sit up. Yoruichi's throat was uncut, and she had also regained consciousness and had made it to her knees, staggering and cradling one hand. Byakuya and Soi Fon were still out cold, but were clearly alive; the only blood was on Byakuya's haori and was long-dried. Everyone was struggling to breath under the pressure of Yamamoto's reiatsu, and with a thought he dropped out of bankai and re-sealed his sword. The dragon sank back into the pool of lava in the center of Execution Hill. In time it would cool to a perfectly circular segment of black obsidian.

'Illusion- all of it? Then how did he knock them- no. The man behind the blows was real. He just had the wrong face.'

As he turned back to confront the traitors, the duration of the kido ran out and the Black Coffin was dispelled, leaving the orange-haired ryoka that Yamamoto had believed he was protecting to fall flat on his face. Yamamoto walked over to stand by the young warrior while the assistant captains of soul society, accompanied by a now-conscious Komamura, flashed back onto the battlefield and, where applicable, separated to join their respective captains. Ise Nanao promptly began a healing kido on Kyoraku's chest. Next to the captain-commander, the ryoka groaned and coughed up a mouthful of blood, muttering "Shit…"

"Still alive, Kurosaki? Tell me, what does it take to kill you? It is becoming quite annoying," Aizen said genially as he straightened his hair. Beneath him, the ground cracked and the segment Aizen was standing on rose up into the air.

"Bastard…" the boy muttered, rising to his knees. Yamamoto's eyes lingered on the gaping wound in the boy's stomach, clearly visible under the remains of his coat, which only had the left arm and a bit of fabric left. He wasn't sure how the boy was still alive, much less still moving. The wound was not bleeding, but that might have been simply because there was no more blood to be lost; the boy's face was incredibly pale, making his vibrant orange hair seem even more shocking.

"Lie down, boy. The fourth division will be here soon, and you'll be treated. That beam of light is called 'Negacion'. The Menos use it to rescue their comrades. Once that light is cast, the area inside the light becomes a completely separate dimension and impenetrable from the outside. From the moment that light came down, Aizen had gone out of our reach."

"Just from the outside?"

"Do you really think that the fourth division will be able to treat him, Yamamoto?" Aizen asked, almost idly, from his position slightly above head-level. Off to the side, the ground beneath Gin's and Tosen's feet cracked and also began to rise. Ignored by almost everyone in favor of the main action, a heated exchange between two lovers began, culminating in an apology from the man leaving the woman for reasons she could not understand.

"After all," Aizen continued, smiling down at Ichigo, who glared up at him from his knees, "to treat a shinigami, the healer has to be able to sense the patient's reiatsu. You have no one capable of treating him, or even of touching him. The essence of being transcendental, Kurosaki, is of standing alone.

"Good-by, Kurosaki Ichigo. Die peacefully. I have won."

Next to Yamamoto, the boy cursed.

"Jii-san, help me stand."

"I said stay down, child. Conserve your strength. He is correct- if I cannot sense your reiatsu, it is unlikely that our healers will be able to. You will need to stay alive until we can find a way to treat you." The captain commander was startled at the familiar name from someone he had met five minutes ago from the wrong side of a sword, but ignored it to deliver the gruff reprimand.

"Help me up or you'll lose them all!" Yamamoto blinked, but reached out to the Ichigo's arm to help haul him to his feet.

"-and don't touch my-" but the boy was too late, as Yamamoto jerked his hand away with a hiss, his fingers burnt nearly to the bone from simply curling around his arm.

"Sorry," he muttered, as he reached out to Yamamoto's shoulder with his covered arm and used it as a crutch, being careful to avoid any contact between bare skin.

"Gin!" he called as loud as he could, standing with one arm over his stomach where his wound was once again beginning to bleed, "I don't know how much of the last fifteen minutes you understood or what you heard, but if you go with him you'll be lucky if he just kills you."

Gin's face was turned towards him, obviously surprised at being addressed under the circumstances by someone who did not know him.

"He's from the future, Gin," Ichigo continued. He abruptly had the undivided attention of everyone on the battlefield, as a number of questions were suddenly answered. "We both are. The Hogyoku brought us back from the moment he died to the moment he first picked it up.

"Your plan worked, Gin. You touched his sword before he could hypnotize you. You stabbed Shinsou through his heart. Your bankai turned into dust," and Gin's eyes went wide, as Ichigo revealed knowledge of his sword that he could not know, "and left a sliver in his heart, and your poison dissolved him from the inside out.

"It didn't kill him. He used the Hogyoku to regenerate, and then he stabbed you where you stood," and Ichigo was running out of words, looking for anything he could say to convince the man to avoid his coming death… "and Matsumoto had come after you even though she was badly wounded. You were dead when we left, and she was dying.

"It was a good plan, but it has no chance now that Aizen knows its coming. The Third Division never recovered from losing you, Gin, and she never stopped loving you. Get out of there!" And with that, Ichigo's strength finally ran out. He fell to his knees, blood suddenly gushing from where he had been carved up as the reserves of energy drawn from deep in his soul ran out. Almost absently, Yamamoto picked up the haori of the first division captain from where it had been blown off when he released his sword, and knelt down to press it to Ichigo's stomach to try to keep his blood (what little the boy had left) inside his body. Most of his attention, and the attention of everyone else on Sokyoku Hill, was focused on the silver-haired man risen halfway to the hole in the sky.

Gin's eyes were still wide. He blinked once.

"Well… shit." He drew his sword. "Guess that's that, then. Shoot to kill, Shinsou!"

His sword released and he flared his spiritual energy until he was almost painful to look at, and stepped off the rock onto thin air. He stabbed at the barrier of light, funneling all of the energy surrounding him into his sword, until the circle of silver light grew, and pushed, and forced the gold away from the inside. When it was large enough, Gin dove through, and went hurtling through the air while the portal closed after him, leaving only a bare rock in an empty beam of golden light for the Menos to carry.

He landed lightly on the ground. In a single flash-step, Matsumoto Rangiku was in his arms. Two more, and the swords of Hisagi Shuuhei and Tetsuzaemon Iba were at the veins of his throat. He ignored them, and murmured quietly to the woman in his embrace,

"Sorry, Rangiku."

"Idiot." She shook her head, face pressed against his shoulder and tears in her eyes. "You idiot."

"Guess we'll get to play prisoner after all, eh?" He looked up to where Aizen and Tosen still rode their rocks into the sky. "Later, 'Taicho'."

"You would have been the perfect subordinate, Gin, if you were not a treacherous snake," Aizen said dismissively from the top of the sky. He was almost at the rip in the sky when his attention was drawn to three specific figures from a group running up the staircase of the hill, figures panicked from the recent, abrupt disappearance of their friend's reiatsu.

"Kurosaki-kun!" "Ichigo!" "Kurosaki!" They sped up and raced to Ichigo's side, displacing the Soutaicho without noticing or caring about his rank. Aizen smiled to hear Orihime's frantic cry that she could not heal him.

"Sado Yasutora," he said, drawing everyone's attention back to him as he paused at the entrance of the garganta, "Ishida Uryuu. Inoue Orihime."

"Who's he?" the Quincy asked.

"You told me earlier," Aizen said, "that you knew my weakness, and that you would not lose to me. Should you survive, Kurosaki Ichigo, remember: you also have weaknesses. You gather them around you and hold them close. And I know all of their names."

With that, he and Tosen turned and entered into the Garganta, leaving Soul Society for good and stepping into a brave new world.

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Time stopped for Ichigo as he processed Aizen's threat. That… that was new. He would be targeting people just for their association with Ichigo, and…

Aizen had said once that he had been watching him since before he was born. Presumably, Aizen had known that his father was a shinigami and because of that had kept track of Isshin and his family.

His family.

His sisters.

"Chad!" He could feel himself fading fast, and knew that he had pushed himself too far, that he should have fallen long ago, and that he had nothing left; and Chad had always been at his back, had sworn to always protect what Ichigo wanted to protect-

"I'm here, Ichigo."

"Chad- tell my father- my sisters…" and his voice was weak, and his vision was blacking out, and his tongue was fumbling over the words-

"Tell them yourself, Ichigo. You're going to be fine. Don't talk," and now they thought he was pulling a dramatic deathbed speech, and fuck that, and he found the strength-

"My father is a shinigami! Tell him what happened, tell him Aizen will go after them! Tell him to get my sisters to safety!" and his hand, somehow, was grabbing- not Chad, because he knew even then that he could not- but the coin on a string that had fallen out of the borrowed shihakusho.

"Please," he whispered. 'Please, Chad, remember our promise, keep it like you always did, I will never want to protect anything more than I want to protect them-'

"I will, Ichigo."

And he heard the promise, and knew Chad understood what he did not have the strength to say, and finally let go.

His hand dropped. His vision went black.

"Kurosaki-kun!"

"ICHIGO!"

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Byakuya and Soi Fon had been revived easily by the fourth division while Aizen and Tosen were still rising into the sky, leaving Kyoraku and Ichigo the only wounded, and Ichigo the only one critically so. Unohana, arriving on her manta-shaped shikai, was informed by her third seat that the first healer to touch the ryoka had had their fingers burned to the bone trying to take his pulse, and she was able to feel for herself that he had no trace of reiatsu. There was nothing she could do.

She stood at a respectful distance with the rest of the shinigami, including the Soutaicho and all of the captains and assistant captains on the battlefield, while the young man made his goodbyes. His last revelation made everyone's eyes widen.

"He's- the son of an exile?" she asked Ukitake, standing next to her.

"A deserter, probably. Shiba Isshin. It has to be. The resemblance to his cousin is uncanny." He paused, then said, "I woke up when Yamamoto-dono's bankai was attacking us. He was protecting us with his body. For a moment, I thought he was Kaien."

Nearby, Yoruichi bowed her head, holding Kukaku's shoulder as she and Ganju watched silently.

"Let me through!" Rukia said as she shoved her way through the crowd, having run up the staircase to the hill after the assistant captains had flashed-stepped back. She paused next to her brother at the front of the assembled shinigami, staring at the scene.

"No…"

Ichigo's hand fell.

"ICHIGO!" she cried, running to his side, next to the girl who had also screamed his name.

"Dammit, Ichigo, don't do this! Don't you dare die trying to save me!" she yelled, pounding on his bare chest before pulling away with a yelp. She searched for something, anything she could think of to make him cling to life-

Something he would shove a sword into his heart for.

"Your family needs you, Ichigo! Your sisters need you to protect them! Dammit, Ichigo, wake up!"

Somehow, that got a response. His eyes opened, and they were strange, a mixture of black and amber and a gold that Rukia couldn't recognize, but that Byakuya might have if he had been close enough to see it.

"Protect-"

"Yes! Karin and Yuzu, Ichigo, they need you to protect them, you need to stay alive, don't you dare close your eyes again!"

"Protect them…"

He turned his face towards Orihime, kneeling by his side. He raised his left hand towards her face, almost caressing it but not quite touching, not quite burning. His index finger touched the six-pointed blue star in her hair.

"Kurosaki-kun…"

"I… reject."

Orihime convulsed, a golden glowing aura forming around her and flowing from her hairpin down Ichigo's arm and to his body.

When he was completely covered in a golden skin, his hand dropped, and Orihime collapsed at his side, unconscious.

Ichigo screamed. He continued screaming while the glow ran down to his sword, funneling into the chain that was still wrapped around his right arm. As the rejection continued down the chain, the links disappeared behind it, until the golden light was completely encased within the sword still tightly gripped in his right hand.

Suddenly, there were two voices screaming, and the sword was growing, twisting and changing, until it formed into a kneeling young man, head thrown back, one hand held tightly within Ichigo's. He had white hair and a black horn rising from a shattered mask on his head, wearing white robes trimmed in black fur. The screaming stopped, and Ichigo was still and silent once again. The newcomer looked down at him, mismatched eyes wide.

"No. NO!" He turned his head, taking in the entire situation at a glance: Orihime unconscious; Rukia, Chad, and Ishida mere feet away and useless, a group of Shinigami watching from farther away-

In an instant he was next to Unohana, gripping her arm. In the next, they were both beside Ichigo, and as Ichigo screamed he pulled Unohana down next to them both and grabbed Ichigo's hand once more.

"HELP HIM!"

"I can't- can't feel his reiatsu-"

"YES YOU CAN!"

She realized he was right; it was there now, where it hadn't been before, but low, so low that there was almost no difference. He was mostly dead.

But mostly dead was slightly alive, and she was the finest healer Soul Society had ever seen.

She got to work, calling out orders to the fourth-division members still in the area and starting a flurry of activity around her, while Ishida carried Orihime over to be checked on by Hanataro. After watching silently for a few minutes, Chad and Rukia went to where Yoruichi stood with Kukaku, Ganju, and the gathered captains.

"Yoruichi-san. I need to go home."

"I heard. I'll be with you; Kisuke can keep his family safe. Captain-commander, can we use-"

She paused as the young man still holding Ichigo's hand screamed once more, and divided into two teenagers. One was a dark-haired young man who, except for the hair color, eye color, robe, and mask, was the double of the original boy. The other looked as though someone had taken an old-fashioned photograph of Ichigo, and then animated the negative film; he was pure white except for the inside of his robe, his lips, and his eyes. His white hair, though, was far longer than Ichigo's own shoulder-length mane. Both teenagers were wearing flared robes, one of black, one of white, and both were carrying daitos. In mirror image, they gasped while clutching their chests, sunk to their knees, and grabbed Ichigo's hands- the dark boy on the right, and the light on the left.

"What did that boy do to himself?" She walked over to where they lay, followed by Soi Fon and Chad. Unohana had just sat back, wiping her brow after her third major healing of the day.

"How is he doing, Unohana-san?"

The healer looked up at her. "He is stabilized enough to be moved. There is a room being prepped for surgery in the fourth division as we speak. We can repair him physically, and we can restore his reiatsu, but when the body is this damaged nothing is certain. However, so long as he himself does not give up on living, I believe he may recover."

"If what we saw today was typical," Yamamoto said, walking up from behind them, "I don't believe we need to be concerned."

"Bastard's too stubborn to die," the albino said, speaking in eerie, echoing tones. "He'd better wake up soon, or I'm going to kill him myself."

"And who are you, boy?" asked Byakuya, as he, Rukia, Ukitake, and the Shibas joined the group surrounding the body.

"I told you already," and the boy looked up, showing eyes of Hollow yellow, "I don't have a name."

Byakuya's eyes narrowed. "You are the creature who took over Kurosaki Ichigo's body when we were fighting."

"He was losing. It was pathetic. I was kicking your ass before he butted in."

"Should you need something to call him, use Tensa Zangetsu," the boy on Ichigo's other side said, also looking up at the people surrounding them.

"And you, young man? What is your name?" Ukitake asked, eyeing him. The boy smiled.

"Tensa Zangetsu."

Suddenly, he shivered, and rapidly aged to an older version of himself, with sunglasses and a tattered cloak. His companion's garb changed to a white version of the shinigami's shihakusho, and his hair shortened to match Ichigo's ragged cut. Both of their swords changed to giant cleavers, one black and one white. On Ichigo's body, the scrap of his bankai coat disappeared.

"Or Zangetsu, as the case may be. Yoruichi," and he nodded to the woman who had seen him just this morning in the underground cavern, "it is good to see you again."

"What has he done to himself, old man?"

"What he needed to, to protect the ones he loves. Unohana-san, where can we take him?"

She pointed to the manta ray descending from where it had been floating above the field, and the man and the boy picked up Ichigo and carried him into its open maw. Before joining them, she turned to Yamamoto.

"Soutaicho, I have never seen that young man before he destroyed the Sokyoku stand this afternoon. I would have bet my life on it," Unohana said, "until I healed him. It is not the first time. From the traces of my reiatsu, it was perhaps ten weeks ago; certainly not more than three months."

Yamamoto nodded, looking after the trio contemplatively. "It is good to have independent confirmation of his words. The boy claims to be from the future."

Chad's eyes widened. 'Ichigo…'

"We fought earlier today, Captain-commander," Byakuya stated, "and he did not show anywhere near the power that he did just now."

Soi Fon bowed her head, her bangs shadowing her eyes. "How many years must it have been, then, for him to grow so much? For how long will this new war extend?"

"Let's ask!" Yoruichi said cheerfully. She yelled at the manta where it rested on the ground awaiting its mistress. "HEY ZANGETSU! THE KID SAID HE WAS FROM THE FUTURE! HOW FAR?"

"NOVEMBER!"

Soi Fon and Byakuya choked.

"I love that boy!" Yoruichi laughed. She looked at the captain of the sixth division. "Don't look so surprised, Byakuya-bo! You took Rukia's powers away from him. Last month he got his own powers and achieved Shikai. This morning, bankai! Extrapolate the growth curve!" She ruffled his hair while walking past.

"Hey, Unohana, can you heal my hand?" Unohana touched the burn, with Ichigo's handprint easily recognizable, and the finger-marks that no one had been able to see her acquiring faded and disappeared. Without a word, Yamamoto and Rukia extended their hands for the same treatment. Yoruichi turned to Chad, still grinning.

"Come on, kid. Ichigo'll be fine. Unohana's the best there is. Yamamoto-soutaicho, can we use the main senkaimon gate?"

"Pardon me, Yoruichi-san, but I would like to accompany you," Ukitake said, coming to join them. "It will be good to see Isshin again."

"You know him, taicho-san?" Chad asked in bemusement, still a little startled that the goofy doctor who had patched him up several times was a shinigami.

"He was the captain of the seventh division for a few decades, until he was promoted to the royal guard about fifty years ago. Twenty years ago, we received word that he'd deserted during a mission to the human world."

"He met someone he considered worth it just for the chance, and came to Kisuke for a power-draining gigai the very first day," Yoruichi said, smiling sadly. "They took her name when they married. Kurosaki Masaki was an amazing woman. She would have been so proud of Ichigo."

"Mind if we tag along with you?" a voice asked from behind them. Ukitake turned, a smile on his face.

"Shunsui! Should you be up?"

"My Nanao-chan fixed me right up! It's a good thing the kid wasn't wearing any white at all, isn't it?" Behind him, Ise pushed her glasses up and muttered that the fourth division had done most of the work, a slight blush on her face.

"And that the color you called out wasn't black," Ukitake agreed.

Kyoraku looked past Ukitake to Chad, tipping his hat back. "So that's the guy?"

Chad recalled the first time they had met, when he had told Kyoraku that he was risking his life for Rukia because Ichigo was trying to save her. He nodded silently.

Kyoraku gave him a searching gaze, one that made Chad remember just how very dangerous the laid-back man could be. Finally, he gave Chad a nod in return and tipped his hat forward again so that it hid his eyes.

"Looks like he's worth it. I'm glad. Shall we go?"

"I'm coming too, Yoruichi-sama." Soi Fon had seen her mentor's throat ripped out mere minutes after they reconciled, and was still not quite willing to let her out of her sight.

Yoruichi nodded and the six walked away. Chad would be escorted to the living world with an honor guard of a lieutenant and four captain-class shinigami, and Ichigo's family would soon be safe. As Unohana jumped onto the top of her manta-ray, Yamamoto approached the abortive traitor.

Gin and Matsumoto were standing together, his arm around her shoulder and hers around his waist, as they and their guards watched the various dramas playing out before them. Hisagi and Tetsuzaemon had eventually started feeling stupid holding their swords at Gin's neck when he was doing nothing more threatening than grope his girlfriend, and now merely stood at his back with their swords unsheathed. They all straightened to attention as the Captain-Commander approached.

"Gin."

"Yamamoto-soutaicho." His smile was back, and his eyes were once again only slits underneath his eyelids.

"You will be held in the detention block of the first division. You had better have a damn good explanation for this, young'un. Give us the truth of your background and your intentions. If you hold anything back, we will know when we compare your story with the ryoka's. Cooperate, and your punishment will be lessened."

Gin merely continued to smile at him. "I want him dead, Yama-jii. I'll do what I can so ya can kill him." He paused. "Or rather, so tha' the kid can kill him. Kinda scary, isn't he? He's just a teenager, if I'm remembering right. What must the future have been like, ta make him?"

"I hope we never know," murmured Matsumoto, stepping away from him while the other two vice-captains came close and gripped Gin's arms. He smiled over his shoulder at Hisagi.

"Race you to the first division!" and in a blur he was gone, leaving Shuuhei and Iba cursing and flashing after him. After a short pause, Matsumoto dared to question her ultimate superior.

"What will happen to him, Yamamoto-soutaicho?"

Though he frowned slightly at her temerity, the day had been long enough that Yamamoto let it pass.

"We will review his actions to this point. At the very least, he has aided and abetted treason. Kurosaki's testimony, if it bears out, will weigh in his favor, but it is still the word of a ryoka about an event that has never come to pass. The Central-" no, they were dead, and he wouldn't have to worry about them for some time, would he? They were under martial law at the moment. He was in charge. It had been a very long day, for him to have forgotten that.

But his people were alive. They were all alive, even though he had seen five of his finest dead before his eyes.

He felt every one of his years weighing him down at that moment.

"…never mind. If he has not actually killed anyone, if he did not actively participate in the murder of the Central 46, and if he gives us the information we need, then I can be lenient. There are ways of viewing memories, if the person with the memory has a strong enough reiatsu. Both of them qualify. If what the boy said is true, it sounds as though we will need Gin with the Third soon enough."

"…thank you, Captain-commander."

On the other side of the plateau, Rukia bowed, her brother waiting a few paces away. A number of important explanations had been made in the past few minutes.

"I SAID IT'S ALL RIGHT!" Kukaku said, slamming Rukia on the head. The younger woman stared up at her, wide-eyed.

"Ukitake told me everything," she said, turning around and walking a few paces away. "It wasn't your fault. But you've been torturing yourself this entire time. So, I decided long ago that if you ever apologized, I'd forgive you."

Then the one-armed woman looked over her shoulder at Rukia, and said "Besides, it sounds like, if it weren't for you, my younger cousins would have died. If it makes you feel better, consider the debt repaid."

Rukia smiled, tears in her eyes. "Thank you, Kukaku-dono."

"AND DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

And they would all walk into the future together.

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*Translation: "Ban-kai. Yōyū Uchigami (溶融土神)." = "Full release. Melting Earth God."

The name for Yamamoto's bankai was changed from the Google-translator derived Yōyū Chikyū Akuma (Molten Earth Demon) at the suggestion of the reviewer Reikson on Jan. 31, 2011. Thanks for the translation!

HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM_HeM

Long Author's Notes (feel free to skip to the question and teaser at the end):

Goddamn this chapter was fun to write. When coming up with Yamamoto's bankai, I had to ask myself the question 'how can I make the Badass Grandpa even more badass?' The answer was clearly 'give him a giant indestructible lava dragon'.

If you were wondering why Tosen didn't get a speaking part, don't. There was a lot going on that only Ichigo, Aizen, and Tosen could see and hear. You'll be getting Ichigo's view of the battle in a few chapters. I will try not to make Ichigo as all-knowing about the Bleachverse as the author, but there are two bits of information I have given him that he probably didn't have in canon. The first you've already seen- the entire scene where Gin stabbed Aizen, which I explained by saying that Ichigo was there for longer than Kubo showed. It was kind of critical to the plot of this chapter. The other will be general information about the fights with the 7th and 9th Espada in Hueco Mundo, which I have decided is worth fudging on because of the backstory I gave Isshin in this chapter. Besides those pieces of info, if I seem like I'm giving Ichigo too much knowledge, please let me know and I'll do some edits.

It'll be coming up more in later chapters, but I first brought in this one so I thought I'd mention it: in this story I won't be following the fanfiction convention of referring to Ichigo's hollow as 'Hichigo' or 'Shiro'. It'll either be 'the hollow' or a physical descriptor. When speaking, people may refer to Ichigo's sword as Zangetsu, but in the out-of-speech descriptions he'll either be Zangetsu-no-ossan or, again, a physical descriptor. My reasoning is that, in canon, the only name the hollow has claimed is Zangetsu (i.e., the "I AM ZANGETSU!" in the fight for Ichigo's soul) and he has otherwise seemed uninterested in having one. For this fic I'm taking the view that there are two parts to Ichigo's power, and that power is named Zangetsu.

I would deeply appreciate any comments or critiques you have. However, even if you don't feel like writing a full review, you can easily help answer a question for me. I obviously knew when writing the fight scene that everything I was describing was an illusion, and I feel like I left lots of hints, but I *really* want to know when the readers figured it out. To make it as easy as possible, some choices are listed below. Click the review button, type your answer, click submit, and you're done! Feel free to copy and paste. If you prefer, there is also a poll on my profile. Percentages will be provided in the next chapter, and I'm enough of a geek that I'll probably keep an ongoing bar chart of the answers.

Multiple choice question of the week: When did you figure out that the guy the Captains were fighting was Ichigo?

A) It was obvious. It's Aizen. Of course he had everyone hypnotized.

B) No one would kill off Yoruichi.

C) When Byakuya went down.

D) When Ichigo was described as 'sensible'.

E) When Shunsui's shikai had no effect.

F) When 'Aizen' was talking to Yamamoto.

G) When the lava-dragon attacked.

H) When the hypnosis ended.

I) What? They weren't fighting Aizen?

J) Other; please elaborate.

Next chapter: Ichigo has to figure out what to do next. Here's the teaser, as the reward for getting this far:

"You're getting way ahead of yourself, King. Looking forward is all well and good, and it's always nice to have a plan, but you've still got to pull yourself together. And," the hollow said, as he stood up and placed the tip of the white sword over Ichigo's heart, "all this talk is useless if I kill you now."

See you next week!