Chapter Four
The Reality of Death's Own Nature

Bleach is not mine, s'all part of the Kubo Tite Empire, just like Zombie Powder
But, we're all forgetting that Zombie Powder ever happened, aren't we?

"Just put me down Renji, take me back!" she cried from his arms, body limp from weeks spent locked behind Pressence dulling stone, muscles even unable to handle the strain of the energy holding the Seireitei together. "Just take me back... please."

"Take you back? Yeah sure, maybe I should just kill you myself, I'm sure that would just be much easier on you." Renji replied, almost scathingly.

"Renji..."

"Tch, honestly. Stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about those who care about you." He bit back, still running, not breaking his stride. "What do you think it would do to Captain Ukitake if his Lieutenant elect was to die so ignobly?"

Eyes widened, her head shot up with wide eyes. "Bu... But I'm not even seated, why would he do that?"

"Because you idiot, your unseated nature is a technically, one pushed foward by Captain Kuchiki. He sees your skill and, after him, you're the strongest Shinigami in Squad 13."

Rukia's eyes widened. "Strongest...? but I'm not even a seated officer..." She stammered weakly, but she knew that was just a technicality, her brother having held her back from advancing in the past, ashamed of having an adopted Kuchki rise through the ranks quicker than many of those who had been part of the household their entire lives.

"Idiot." He laughed not unkindly. "Stop doubting yourself and just let me save you already." Curling softly into his grasp she did exactly that.

-/-

Aizen sighed looking down at the extraordinary human splayed out on the ground paying no mind of the wailing scream. "Oh well. Time to work I suppose."

-/-

They ran for a little while longer, never stopping the few officers, seated or otherwise, didn't stop them, Renji's ranking freezing them in confusion, even if he was carrying a convicted criminal.

"Hey Renji?" Rukia asked quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Did you really mean what you said, that I was Lieutenant Level?"

"There is no 'was' about it Rukia. Of course you couldn't hope to stand against me..." He trailed off with a smirk.

"Excuse me?" Rukia snarled icily.

"Well now that I've acheived Bankai, I don't really think its anything of a contest really."

"Oh please, as if your Bankai would be anything more than a glorified club."

"What was that? I don't think I heard you over all of the rescuing!"

"As if I needed rescuing! I just didn't want it!" She screamed punching him hard in the arm, elliciting a yelp of pain from the red haired man. Unfortunately for her, this also resulted in her being dropped as the momentary pain slipped Renji's grip.

"Now, you see what you went and did?" He smirked as she pushed herself out of the dirt, an indignant expression spreading across her face.

"What I did? You were the one who dropped me!"

"And it was your fault wasn't it?" He returned with a strained smile, hand splayed across her head.

"I will murder you!" She yelled, batting his hand away before she broke out laughing, the sound eliciting a resounding laugh from Renji as well. "Look at us, yelling at each other while everyone else fights just to get me away."

"Like old times right?"

"Little bit."

"Heartwarming." A third voice interrupted, drawing their attention around. "But I'm afraid I must ask you to hand Miss Kuchki over to me, Abari." Captain Kaname Tousen requested, Captain's Haori now where in sight, Zanpakuto in hand.

-/-

"Neh, what took you so long Tousen?" Gin cackled over at the man who stood beside a distraught Rukia, her eyes locked on Ichigo's bloodied and mutilated body, silent tears streaking down her face. "You can't honestly say that Abarai of all people gave you trouble?" He continued, gesturing to the broken form that lay next to her.

-/-

"Captain Tousen..." Rukia muttered, her stance tensing. "Renji, we can't match him, we aren't suited to fighting a Captain of his skills."

"I know." He replied, hand tensing around Zabimaru's hilt. "Can you fight?"

Swallowing a hitch in her throat, she reached into herself, touching the familiar well of power that was her Zanpakuto. 'It took you long enough.' Her Zanpakuto's voice echoed within her mind and, in a swirling of snow, a blade made of ice formed itself in her hands. "I can."

Smiling warmly, Renji stared towards Tousen with a stone expression. "Let's do this then." In a flash of speed he'd been cultivating for years in order to challenge the skills of his own Captain, he burst forth. "Howl, Zaimaru!"

The slender steel instantly morphed into a wide wedge of steal, wicked looking steel teeth trailing the blades edge. With a heave of his arm and a cry of challenge, he whipped it around, the wedged sword loosening and extended as it revealed its true nature as more of a flail than blade. It streaked forward, faster than Rukia remembered. 'Much faster, was he really just boasting or has Renji actually acheived Bankai?'

A ring of steel on steel rang out as Zabimaru struck against the Captain's now drawn Zanpakuto. "Pathetic." Parrying Renji's sword and throwing of his stance, the Captain ran forward into Renji's guard to strike him while the Lieutenant was off balance.

But there was a reason Renji was not only a Lieutenant but hailed as the Strongest of the 13 of them.

With a smirk, Zabimaru's form shimmered and shattered, the Red haired man's sealed Zanpakuto coming back into existence and with some of that new found speed of his, he deadlocked the Captain's strike. "Pathetic Captain?" Renji laughed with a smirk, lifting one hand of his sword and snaring the Captain's face in his grasp, red light burning bright in his palm. "Well, maybe a little bit. Shakkaho."

In a burst of fire and smoke, the area around the two erupted in Pressence. 'Damnit Renji.' Rukia thought with frustration. 'You suck at Kido, what was the point of that?'

The point became readily apparent as Tousen leapt out of the smoke, running towards her with a single mindedness that scared her a little, his visor cracked and his face bloodied and burnt from Renji's attack. 'Maybe the idiot knew what he was doing after all.' Side stepping a clumsy grasp, she smiled as a white glowing circle sprang into life beneath the attacking Captain. "First Dance, Tsukishiro." Although the stand-in blade of ice she had crafted lacked the sheer strength that her actual Zanpauto could offer, she could still use the powers of her blade, even if they were somewhat diminished.

Tousen only had a second to realise his mistake and register his surprise before he was ensnared in a solid pillar of ice.

"You think you could make a sign that would make it anymore apparent that you are right here?" Renji's voice came from behind her, the smoke disapating and his form coming into focus, Kimono's torso burnt away on the left, his hand hanging limply and burnt at his side. "Seriously, who else can do that?"

Rukia blushed. "Captan Hitsugaya could."

"Not that elegantly, sure he's tough and everything, but his ice is far less fancy than yours." Renji laughed quickly, before shifting into a more serious expression. "There is no way that should have been that easy."

"Can't you just enjoy a stroke of luck?" Rukia asked frustrated, but feeling exactly the same sense of dread.

"That tear in his chest, it looks deep." Renji commented, studying the frozen man, only just noticing the bloodied scar across his torso. "Hmm, why does it seem familiar."

With a burst of presence, a burst of purple flame burst from the ice striking Renji straight on and splaying him on his back with explosive force. "The reason you recognize it, is because I had a run in with your Barbarian of a former Captain Abarai." Tousen sneered, ice shattering around him. "Really, I survived Kenpachi and you, a student on his style of fighting think you can best me?"

"Next Dance, Hakuren!" Rukia shouted out from behind the man.

"Haien." the man muttered distractedly, purple light exploding against the flood of snow, melting it in a flurry of fire. "Honestly, just stop fighting." He muttered tiredly. "This is a fight you cannot win, Justice demands my victory."

And in a burst of bandages they disappeared.

-/-

"Cool story Tousen." Gin smirked, waving his arm flippantly. "But admit it, they gave you trouble."

Tousen went to answer, only to be knocked back by a blurred kick, Rukia's eyes widening as a torrent of pink swirled around her in a comforting spiral. "Lord Byakuya..." She muttered, eyes wide in disbelief. Was he... was he actually protecting her?

"I... should apologise Rukia..." he struggled out, looking quite uncomfortable, as if the words were new to him and, in a way, they were. "Let me handle this as... as a brother should." He spoke, eyes darting over to Ichigo's prone form as he spoke the words. "Abarai, stand up. You aren't done yet."

Rukia's eyes widened as Renji pushed himself up off of the ground. "Ah Captain, I was playing dead. Why did you have to go and spoil it?"

"Personally, I have had my fill of people playing dead." He said through grit teeth, Renji's eyes widening at the, till then, silent Aizen.

"Well, that is surprising." Renji had to admit with a quirked brow. "Captain Aizen, you wanna explain?"

"I could Renji." Aizen supposed with a tilt of his head. "I do not, however, believe you could understand it, not as you are."

"Heh, that's a nice way of calling me stupid."

"One should not forget manners Renji, even when talking with their enemies." Aizen postulated, Ichimaru and Tousen taking up honour guard in front of their Captain, both had their swords drawn.

"Rukia." Byakuya began. "You can cast Tenteikūra, correct?"

"Yes... I, I don't know if I can after being locked away for so long." She said unsure.

"You need to do it regardless." He said, Senbonzakura's Bankai springing to life around them, crowning the execution grounds in a wreath of blades. "We need the Commander and every other mobile Captain... bring your human friends as well."

"I don't know Lord Byakuya... I don't think I'm strong enough."

"You have to be or else we die here. Abarai."

"Ah, ready Captain."

Nodding Byakuya leveled his hand towards Aizen and his men, Hakuteitan springing around him anew. "And Rukia, for what it is worth. I am sorry."

As both Renji and Byakuya, bloodied and torn, sped towards the traitors, Rukia focused on her Reiatsu eyes closed. 'I can do this...' She assured herself before she began muttering. "Black and white net. Twenty-two bridges, sixty-six crowns and belts. Footprints, distant thunder, sharp peak, engulfing land, hidden in the night, sea of clouds, blue line. Form a circle and fly though the heavens." With steel eyes snapping open, a web of ice frosted onto her arms and she completed the spell. "Bakudō 77. Tenteikūra." Instantly she felt her Presence spread out over the entirety of the Seireitei, each thread snapping into place with 8 Captains, 10 Lieutenants, 1 Exile and 3 Human Trespassers.

"This is Rukia Kuchiki..." She began, her faithlessness in herself disappearing as she watched Renji and Byakuya trade steel with Ichimaru and Tousen with vicious intent. "I know that in my position this is hard to accept but I am contacting you on the authority of Captain Byakuya Kuchiki. Sosuke Aizen is alive and he, alongside Captains Ichimaru and Tousen are currently battling Captain Kuchiki and Lieutenant Abarai and have already struck..." a hitch in her throat. "Struck down Ichigo Kurosaki."

"Tenteikūra Rukia?"a voice came from behind her, causing her head to spin as Aizen stood behind her, arm tinted green and lined with black crevices. "I don't remember you being able to cast this, but... that's fine, bring all the reinforcements you want, it is already to late." And his arm snapped forward, plunging through her chest and squeezing down on her soul itself.

And she screamed.

-/-

Kyoraku Shunsui did not like his current position in life, dodging torrent after torrent of volcano level flame was, after all, not a fun way to spend one's time, even if one had chosen this position of his own free will.

The fact that the man on the other end of the screaming flurry of hellfire was his Teacher and Military Leader did not make his position any more enviable.

Dodging a fresh torrent of flame, he spared a glance towards his friend and fellow student, Jushiro Ukitake, the burning sky being absorbed into one of his blades and then redirecting it with the other, Ukitake had a naive optimism splashed across his face, as if they could actually win. Kyoraku envied him that, they had a chance, sure. But the second that Yammamoto decided to unleash his trump card, and by god there would be a point where he would, and soon if this dragged on any longer, and at the mercy of the 13 Court Guard Commander's Bankai they would be able to do nothing but burn.

And then, through the despair hope came.

"You hear that Old Man, we've been betrayed and Rukia remains loyal even in..." And then her scream cut through the air, Ukitake's eyes went wide as his squad favourite's voice let out in fear and pain and he uttered a single word.

"Bankai."

And in a flash of power he was off, heading back towards the Execution Grounds, his Teacher's flames trailing behind him.

"You wanna take a time out and deal with this Old Man?" Kyoraku asked with a tentative smile.

The scarred man let out a laugh. "Your luck knows no end does it Shunsui?"

Bowing his head, he allowed himself a more genuine smile.

"Do not think you are off the hook for your actions boy, I will deal with you and Jushiro later."

Not off the hook? He considered not having to stare down Shuuryuobi no Kamirixyu well off the hook. "Thanks Kuchiki." He smiled at his teacher's quickly disappearing back, before leaping into line with his him and his fellow student.

-/-

At her scream, Renji and Byakuya's attentions were drawn behind them, the image of Aizen that had stood back and watched gone, faded into nothingness and the real Aizen elbow deep inside a hole through Rukia's chest. "Ah..." Aizen smiled happily. "There you are."

With a roar, Renji broke off from Tousen, Bankai racing towards Byakuya. "Captain, get on!" With a nod, Byakuya launched into the air with an eerie grace, landing softly on the bowed skeletal head of Hihio Zabimaru. With feral speed the large bone and stone flail charged Aizen, petals of pink spiraling around it.

"Amusing." Aizen smiled, wrenching his arm free of Rukia and tossing her to the side with a disinterested flick of his wrist. "Definitely one of the more forceful attempts on my life in the last few hours. Definitely the one that would have the best chance of working." A casual swing of his sword deflected a Hakuteitan fueled swipe from Byakuya before a bored gesture sent a white streak of Lightning crashing through Hihio Zabimaru's skull, the force of pressure contained within the bolt blasting the construct apart. "Gin, Kaname, remove him."

They burst towards him, Renji making a useless gesture at guarding, Shinso tearing through his gut and Susumushi, Tousen's Zanpakuto, slicing him from hip to shoulder. "Shit."

As he collapsed, Byakuya made one final attempt, desperate as it was, at Aizen's unprotected back. "Ichigo Kurosaki couldn't surprise me like this Kuchiki." He smiled, fading in a haze of nothing. "Did you honestly think you could, under the influence of my Zanpakuto as you are?" In a fountain of blood, the noble Captain impacted the ground in a bloody mess.

Just as reinforcements arrived.

-/-

Ichigo had only been to the horizontally positioned world of azure and skyscrapers that was the representation of his being twice. The first time it was slowly falling apart, glass shattering and concrete slowly collapsing as he came closer to closer to losing his mind and soul to the urges and destruction of a Hollow that always sat in the recesses of his Soul as a possibility of being upon the event of his death.

Something that had come scarily close to happening, if not for an off hand comment made by Uryu Ishida.

The second down, he had been cut down by a bloodthirsty Kenpachi Zaraki, a Captain of the 13 Court Guards, who had only really wanted to fight to the death. The world hadn't been crumbling that time, in fact it hadn't even shook. There he had been confronted by a disgruntled Zangetsu, apparently feeling somewhat ignored as even in the 10 days of downtime between his learning of his Zanpakuto's name and the day that he and his friends had stormed the world of the high and dead in a bid to save Rukia from an unfair fate.
There, Zangetsu had taken away Ichigo's right of claim over his sword, leaving him with only a lifeless, no, soulless blade in his place. Handing his massive clever like blade off to a pitch white doppleganger with insane black and yellow eyes.

This, the third time, resembled the first time he had visited, broken and ruined, but paused, falling stone frozen in midair. Shards of broken glass sparkling in place, 100 feet in the air.

And in front of him, not with Zangetsu on his back but a white washed and inverted version of the massive blade, the doppleganger sat cross legged and leaning back, eyes locked on a falling building above them. "You know what I am Ichigo?"

"I have a guess." Ichigo admitted, a little disconcerted at the conclusion he had drawn. "You getting ready to break out?"

"Can't can I?" The whitewash chuckled bitterly, dragging himself to his feet like a puppet on strings. "Not anymore."

"Why not? That's what happens when someone dies violently like that isn't it? Their inner darkness comes forth as a vengeful beast of rage and chaos?"

"My, my. What a brush I've been tarred with." Shaking his head, the whitewashed copy sighed. "This ain't right Ichigo, I was so ready and willing... and then what do you go and do? You fucking die!" He screamed hysterically.

"It isn't like I planned it."

"Maybe not, but it was goddamn avoidable!" The copy yelled.

"So what?" Ichigo replied with a snarl. "I should have just let them kill me without even trying? Without even attempting to save myself?"

"Save yourself?" Disbelief thick in his voice. "You call that saving yourself? No. Saving yourself would have been retreating to regroup with all of your powerful friends at your back. What you did wasn't saving yourself Kurosaki." He spat Ichigo's last name like something foul, vanishing in a boom of sound reappearing, his Zangetsu clone swinging down. "Charging him without so much as a plan, it was fucking suicide!" Steel clashed on steel as Ichigo parried the Clone's strike, only to feel his eyes widen as a ball of orange started charging on a pointed finger. "You disgust me."

And with a resounding snap of rushing air and pressure, a Cero streaked through the air, Ichigo's Hollow letting out a resounding howl of anger as time restarted.

Ruin tearing through the world of Azure and Skyscrapers.

-/-

Haha! Am I the king of fucking with cannon or what?

I had planned for this to be the last chapter of familiar ground, but it ended up just being too long so, with any luck, the Soul Society Arc should be wrapped up all nicely by next chapter.

And no, I will not be doing the Bounts. Boring arc.

Remember, drop comments, I prefer to hear your feedback over favouriting and Alerting... although feel free to do those to.

Till Next update, Jordan Out

New Section
Terms I Introduce to the Lore

Shuuryuobi no Kamiriyu - End of Days Days Dragon God (Apparently)

Anything else you can find on the Bleach Wikia.