Ichigo opened out his arms and legs in a free-fall position that he had seen in movies. Rukia caught up to him, and he took her hand. As they neared the bottom of the forest, Ichigo kicked his feet forward so that he was falling feet-first. He moved Rukia around until he cradled her in his arms, then began to use his reiatsu to walk on air and slow them down. He didn't really walk, but slid. He made it a steep descent, then gradually made it shallower until they were stopped on flat ground. They floated that last couple feet to the real ground, and Ichigo set Rukia down on her feet gently.

"Rukia, about what I did earlier," he started to say. She stopped him by laying a finger on his lips.

"What's done is done," she said. "Besides, you were in a situation that was desparate and you probably just had an emotional outburst."

"Don't say that. Do you think that I don't care for you, Rukia?" he asked. She just looked away. "I thought that I just had a crush on you, but now I know that I am wrong, and I was never so happy to be wrong." He moved towards her and tenderly took her hand. "Listen to me, Rukia. What I say now is no lie, never was a lie and never will be a lie. I love you."

Rukia could feel her cheeks burning. She was flushing madly and could barely stand to make eye contact with Ichigo, but she did anyway. She laid her free hand on his sculpted chest. The chest that she had watched rise and fall while he was sleeping, and the one that had all the scars on it from protecting her. The chest that beated with a heart that was yearning for her. She found the moment rediculous and a little overwhelming, so she averted her eyes and turned her head.

"Ichigo... I never knew that you had such strong feelings for me," was all she could manage to say. Ichigo gently gripped her chin and turned her face to meet his.

"Do you?" he asked.

"Do I what?" she asked back, but she knew very well what.

"Love me?"

They let go of each other as the rest of the raiding party landed nearby. They all stopped themselves in a similar was to Ichigo, except for Chad who did not know how. Ichigo quickly got under him and caught him. He knew that it was a mistake to try and catch him by himself, as he was forced to squat down and fall forwards onto the wide-eyed Chad that he had just dropped. Ichigo popped back up on his feet and brushed off the dust that had accumulated on his Haori from falling down. Now that everyone was here, Ichigo took stock of his surroundings. The Forest of the Menos was as he remembered it; huge trees were scattered around about every seventy yards, and the ground was gray like the sand above. It was dark, and not much could be seen, but they could feel the trail of reiatsu that Aizen had left behind.

They started to follow it as fast as they could, everyone using shunpo as quickly as possible. The ran through several groups of Gillians and defeated them quickly before following the trail again. Aizen was close now- about a half-mile away. They ran and ran through the darkness before finally they came up upon Aizen. He was standing next to the giant pillar of Sekki stone that he had made, and was watching as his last three Vasto Lordes hacked away at the stone to reach the Hougyoku inside. Aizen either didn't sense their reiatsu, which was unlikely, or he didn't care, because he did not move when everyone unsheathed their zanpakuto and released them. Byakuya, Renji, and Ichigo all released their bankai. Aizen suprised everyone by finally saying, "It looks like we have a little bit of interference to deal with."

The Vasto Lordes made a sound that could be described as a screeching and wheezing laugh, then stopped hacking away at the Sekki stone tower. They turned to the group of invaders and started charging at them. Ichigo used his exteme speed to try and bypass them and get straight to Aizen, but the Vasto Lordes were fast enough to pevent that from happening. Rukia started blasting ice from Sode no Shirayuki in an attempt to stop the Vasto Lordes long enough for Ichigo to get a whack at Aizen, but her attacks were too slow and cumbersome to hit them. Renji and Byakuya started setting up the "SenbonZabimaru" that they had used on the last Vasto Lorde. Chad was too slow to attack the Vasto Lordes, so all he could do was go with Ichigo when he tried to break through the Lordes.

When they had finally held the Lordes back long enough for Ichigo and Chad to get through, Ichigo got straight in front of Aizen, who was facing away from him, and he let loose a black Getsuga Tenshou straight at him. Apparently Aizen had predicted this and used shunpo to get out of the way. The Sekki stone tower absorbed the brunt of the attack, but it cracked where the Getsuga Tenshou had hit it. Chad followed up Ichigo's attack. Aizen stepped in front of the crack, and when Chad was inches away from him, disappeared. Chad hit the crack with the full destructive force of his club-like zanpakuto and the cracks widened. Aizen materialized to Ichigo's right, a few feet away from the cracks. Aizen turned around and looked at them while he drew his own zanpakuto and struck the center of the cracks. The Sekki stone fell away in the area where the cracks had formed to reveal the Hougyoku.Ichigo gripped Tensa Zangetsu a little tighter.

"Chad..." he said.

"I know," he replied. Chad stepped out of the way as Ichigo put on his hollow mask. He struck out with Tensa Zangesu, slashing the air where Aizen used to be. Aizen had moved to the top of the Sekki stone tower, and jumped down all thirty feet from the top, pulling the Hougyoku from its groove while falling. He landed on the grey ground and gripped the Hougyoku in his left hand, his zanpakuto in his right. He looked down at it for a while, then he allowed himself a smile. He moved his left hand out in front of him and raised the Hougyoku onto his fingertips. Tendrils of reiatsu began protruding from them and into the Hougyoku. There was a bright, light blue glow. When it stopped, Aizen let his arm and the Hougyoku drop. He smiled brightly at Ichigo.

He held out his hand, and his light blue reiatsu swirled around it. Parts of it solidified and became white, then flowed into his hand. Ichigo's eyes grew ever wider as he saw what Aizen held out in his hand. He winced as Aizen put it on his face and his reiatsu changed. Through the dark eyes of his hollow mask, he watched in horror as Aizen's hollow mask smiled back at him. Slits were the eyeholes of his mask, and there were holes in the cheek of the hollow mask that resembled a cat's scratch. They were long and thin, and they started just below his ears and flowed all the way down to his mouth, which was fixed with ivory teeth that were curled into a wicked smile. It has three small bumps on the forehead that resembled a fawn's developing antlers.

In any other situation, Ichigo might have wondered why he could just put on his hollow mask without an inner struggle, or keep it on for more than ten seconds the first time he had it on, but he couldn't give two shits about it at the moment. All he knew was that Aizen had to be defeated here. Kenpachi's bell could be heard by the others at Ichigo charged madly at the hollowfied Aizen. To his surprise, Aizen did not dodge it, but block it.

"Captain Kurosaki, now I can fight you on equal ground," he said. His voice had become gravelly and screeching at the same time, and reminded Ichigo of insects and filth.

Ichigo struggled against Aizen's incredible strength, trying to break past it and get a hit on the torso. He broke through it after a couple seconds, but he could feel the air move beside him as Aizen moved past him. Ichigo turned around while sending a black Getsuga Tenshou in the direction that he felt Aizen move. Aizen opened up his arms, exposed his chest, and took the Getsuga Tenshou full in the torso. It seemed that the powerful attack was absorbed by hollow Aizen like a cool breeze. Ichigo was stunned at the act. Then he came to his senses and used his extreme speed to fly past Aizen and take a strike at his back. Aizen lifted his zanpakuto and quickly moved it over his shoulder and across his back, blocking Ichigo's lightning strike without looking. He reached behind him with his left hand and grabbed Ichigo by the throat. He threw him over his back and into the forest of the Menos with such incredible force that he broke through three trees.

Ichigo could faintly hear the cries of his comrades that were worried for him almost a hundred yards away, and getting farther. He thought of Rukia, and her pending response to his question. He didn't think anything after that because his head smashed into one of the tremendous trees that grew under the sands of Hueco Mundo. His momentum was transferred into the huge plant, which shook violently from the impact, then broke in two. Ichigo couldn't feel anything but the pain when he hit the second tree, and he almost blacked out when he hit the last one. He hit the ground and rolled to a stop about three hundred yards from the Sekki stone tower and the rest of his group, and he could feel the awesome reiatsu that was Aizen's approaching rapidly.

Ichigo struggled to his feet and felt his hollow mask. He felt a thin crack right below his right eye, flowing from the outside corner of his eye to the bottom of his nose. He stuck Tensa Zangetsu in the ground to use as a kind of cane to support his weak leg muscles. He saw Aizen coming towards him, sprinting like a prisoner escaped out of Hell, with a grey cloud of dust expanding out behind him. Ichigo pulled out Zangetsu and braced himself for the coming attack. Aizen stopped right in front of him, with no hint of being out of breath, and pointed his zanpakuto straight at Ichigo's heart.

"It is a pity that you didn't learn how to use your inner hollow to his full potential, then it would have been an even fight. Ah, well, I don't have need of someone that cannot even reach their full power," he said to the panting Ichigo.

Then he lunged out and stabbed him straight in the heart up to the hilt. Ichigo screamed in agony as he felt the metal enter his heart. Time slowed down for him as Aizen pulled out the blade and began to walk away. It seemed to take a century before Ichigo hit the ground. In his last moments, his vision sharpened and his hearing became acute. Strange, he thought, that he would have sharpened senses before he awaited his death. He knew why in a moment.

"ICHIGO!" Rukia screamed as she ran towards the bleeding shinigami. He didn't speak, but turned his head towards her. As she came up near to him, she could see that his big, brown eyes were losing their twinkle as he neared death. Rukai dropped to her knees and clasped his hand in both of hers. Her heart was pounding, and tears were forming in her eyes.

"I do." she said to him.

The last motion he could muster up was to lift his arm up. She let go of his hand as he moved it, and he carefully caressed her wet face with the back of his fingers.

He dropped his arm and said to her, "Of course you do." then he closed his eyes and his body shuddered. Then he lay still.

Rukia's tears covered Ichigo's face and her own. She whispered to him, "I love you."

The tears flowed from her face uncontrollably as she laid her head on his chest and lamented his death.

Ichigo found himself in his inner world with Zangetsu. He was standing on the side of a skyscraper, as his world was, but the sky was not blue, but of many colors. Sunset was coming.

"Zangetsu?" he said. His zanpakuto glided over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Ichigo, there is a way that you can live," he said to him. "I can save you."

"Zangetsu, you have no healing powers. My heart is punctured, and my brain cells are already beginning to die. How do you propose to save me?"

"I shall explain it to you then, but I have no idea where to start."

"How about from the beginning?" Ichigo suggested.

"Ah, yes. That sounds like a good plan. Very well then. No one has ever achieved Bankai."