Chapter 10: Countdown to Collapse
Ichigo continued to fight against the invisible restraints that held him in place. No matter what he did, no matter how much he struggled, not even a hair on his body would budge.
Come on! his mind screamed at him, desperation welling behind his deep brown eyes. Move! Move! MOVE!
Watching the helpless young man, Gillaume began to chuckle to himself. Every breath he took prompted more blood to leak from his abdomen, yet he did not care. The Ranso-Tengai was more than making up for his near-death state by controlling him like a human marionette.
"Struggle all you can, Ichigo Kurosaki," he said, weakly, yet with an air of amusement. "No matter what you do, you will not move unless I will it."
Gritting his teeth, Ichigo felt the blood pulse through his skull.
Think! Think! What can I do to get out of this?! All I need to do is break his concentration, like before; but how?!
"GETSUGA TENSHO!" he screamed, attempting to use the force of his attack to budge his body.
Locked into his blade by the incredible amount of friction, the black spirit energy detonated. Ichigo felt the bones crack in his right arm. He cried out in pain.
"You are embarrassing yourself," the Sternritter stated. "The more you struggle, he tighter you're held in place. Give up."
"Getsuga... TENSHO!" Ichio screamed, yet again. He felt a bone in his wrist break. His arm still did not move.
"The only way to overcome friction is with excessive force," Gillaume explained. "But by the time you've generated enough force to do so, your body will have torn itself apart."
"Getsuga..."
"I'm telling you it's useless!"
Blue lines appeared on Ichigo's exposed skin, luminescing through the half-light of the morning.
Impossible... Gillaume thought, eyes wide with shock. This is... Blut Vene!
"TENSHO!"
Black spirit energy exploded from the back edge of his sword, blasting in a black line across the horizon, like an inkblot on a canvas of red and orange. Carried forwards by the extreme force of the blast, the fabric of Ichigo's sleeve was ripped from his sword arm, revealing more blue markings extending up the skin of his arm.
Gillaume's eyes snapped to the side rapidly as the sword tore through the flesh of his chest. Blood jetted out and splashed against Ichigo's black robes.
As his concentration finally broke, Gillaume's wall of friction collapsed. In the brief moment before he regained his composure, Ichigo moved as fast as he could towards Urahara's Senkaimon.
"Urahara!" Ichigo shouted, blurring through the gate and calling over his shoulder. "No matter what you do, do not let that guy go to the Soul Society!"
"Oh don't worry, Kurosaki-Kun," Urahara mused, turning towards where the Quincy still hung from wires of reishi. "I still have some few tests I want to run on this fellow."
"You may have been the head of the Shinigami," Yhwach said, looking down at Yamamoto's severed torso. "But look at you now... Pathetic." He began to walk towards the corpse. "You really are a pitiful sight."
Stomping down on the Captain Commander's head, Yhwach let out a brief sigh. Around him, it had begun to rain, the downpour washing away the blood of the Head Captain.
"You are a fool, Shigekuni Yamamoto," he said. "Believing you could take me on and succeed. You probably don't even realise why I did not list you among the five War Potentials..." His red eyes narrowed discerningly. "Why did you not restore your left arm? If you had ordered Orihime Inoue to do it, she would have. Is it because you did not wish to rely on a human? That has always been your biggest fault; that you refused to rely on anyone else. Even now you attempted to shoulder the weight of both the Soul Society and World of the Living, and stood before me." He ground his foot down on Yamamoto's head. "But you have lost."
As the rain fell, wind whipped up and caught Yhwach's cloak, flaring it up around his shadowy form.
"You became weak." A smile plucked the corner of his mouth, beneath his wild mutton chops. "And now... The Soul Society will die along with you."
The Quincy king felt something on his ankle. Looking down, he found the body of Yamamoto, clasping him in a vice-like grip. Lifting his head, beneath Yhwach's boot, Yamamoto coughed up blood.
Fighting to even speak, the Captain Commander retched as he spoke. "Hado 96... Ittō Kasō!" Yamamoto's entire body turned black like brittle charcoal and began to crack with deep red fissures.
The spell of sacrifice... Yhwach thought, eyes open wide. To think that he still had the strength to use that!?
A gigantic pillar of crimson fire, in the shape of a sword, erupted from the ground beneath the duo. Flaring up into the sky, it punched through the rain clouds overhead. Everything in the surrounding area was vaporised.
Stumbling from the blast, Yhwach was burned up his right side. The clothing that had covered his right arm and leg were gone, revealing scorched flesh.
"Suicidal fool," he spat out, looking down at where the Captain Commander had previously lay. Nothing remained but a pile of charred black ash.
Placing his hand to his temple, Yhwach closed his eyes.
Lenora... his voice echoed in the minds of every Sternritter in the Soul Society. Summon the Soldat. It is time for the Sternritter to completely violate the Soul Society.
As His Majesty's voice resonated in her head, Lenora flung her long red cloak over her shoulder and crouched down on the ground. He palm flattened and shadow began to creep along the floor. Swinging her arm up to the side, the shadow extended up the wall next to her. Swarming from the shadow, hundreds of soldiers dressed in white combat gear spilled into the streets of the Seireitei.
Advancing through the streets, the Soldat began to decimate the Soul Reaper forces without discrimination. Screams and explosions filled the air; buildings collapsing and bloody corpses falling to the ground.
Yhwach observed the carnage, his face stoic and unmoving.
The Gotei Thirteen was all but annihilated. Shinigami fell before the Quincy army in droves.
Soon the Royal Guard would arrive and they would have to retreat. Yhwach had accounted for that much in his plans.
Preparing to return to the Shadow Territory, the Quincy king closed his eyes.
An explosion of spiritual energy shot into the sky, from the top of Sokyoku Hill. The shockwave rippled through the destroyed buildings and slammed into Yhwach's back.
Turning slowly, Yhwach's deep crimson eyes twisted in confusion. "What on earth is that?"
Ichigo Kurosaki gritted his teeth as he sprinted through the Dangai. The ache of his broken wrist was all but forgotten; his attention pinpointed on the rapidly disappearing Reiatsus ahead of him.
He could see the exit ahead of him. Through the dimensional gateway, he could just about make out the narrow columns of the Sokyoku execution platform.
Reaching the end of the pathway, Ichigo stepped out onto the flat earth of the hill. Surrounding him were no less than thirty men, clad in white combat attire.
"In the name of His Majesty, you will go no further!" one of the masked men said, stepping forwards.
Ichigo didn't even bother to acknowledge him with a verbal response. Swinging his Zanpakuto in a wide arc, he let loose a massive burst of black spirit energy, sending the men flying. An explosion shot skyward, evaporating the rain that fell upon the Seireitei.
Walking slowly to the edge of the hill, Ichigo looked down over the battlefield.
Rukia… Renji… Byakuya… Toshiro
He began to shake. Anger coursed through his veins.
"Ichigo Kurosaki…" Yhwach said, breaking into a wide smile. "So you've finally arrived."
Ichigo's Reiatsu vanished. Yhwach frantically attempted to place exactly where the boy was.
A jet black sword fell from the sky and planted itself in the ground in front of the Quincy King, like a deformed flower. Landing in front of the blade and drawing it from the floor, Ichigo Kurosaki glared at Yhwach.
"Was it you?" he asked, speaking every word deliberately slow and intense.
"Was what me?" Yhwach replied, smiling.
"Are you the enemy leader?" Ichigo said, his broken wrist trembling. The chain attached to the hilt of his sword jangled as it shook.
"Enemy, huh…" Yhwach chuckled under his breath. Placing his hands on his hips, he bowed his head and continued to laugh. "I suppose you could say that I am… But at the same time I'm not."
"Don't fuck with me…" Ichigo hissed, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes. "I'm asking if you're the one that made such a mess of the Soul Society!" Rage gripped his features like a vice, a shockwave of spiritual pressure blasting from his body.
Yhwach swung his arms to his sides and splayed his fingers. "I am."
The Substitute Soul Reaper lunged at the Quincy King. Slamming his blade into Yhwach's forearm, he felt his wrist give way beneath the weight of the strike. Screaming in pain, he leaped back and changed his sword to his left hand before attacking again.
"Getsuga-!"
Yhwach grabbed the blade of the boy's sword and wrenched him into the path of a left-handed strike. Slamming his fist into the side of Ichigo's face, he floored the Shinigami and stomped down on his left wrist, trapping him.
"I was tempted to let you live, but it seems that there is no other way." Yhwach summoned a blade from a broach that he wore beneath his cloak and held it over his head. "I'm going to destroy you."
Stabbing the boy in the throat, the Quincy King felt an abnormal amount of resistance.
That was when he noticed it. Covering Ichigo's body were a series of glowing blue lines.
Impossible… he thought. Blut Vene? How?!
Ichigo wrenched his wrist from beneath Yhwach's boot and fired a torrent of black spirit energy up at his enemy. The resulting explosion rocked the area, shaking the ground. The leader of the Sternritter was burned up his already charred limbs.
Leaping back, Yhwach stared down the boy.
There is no way that could have been Blut… but…
Yhwach swung his sword at Ichigo again. Grating across the skin of his throat, sparks shot into the air in a fierce flurry. Again the blue lines appeared atop Ichigo's skin.
"I knew that it was a mistake to send a pure-blooded Quincy to detain you," Yhwach mused, stepping back again. "I should have just sent a legion of disposable Arrancar."
"What are you talking about?" Ichigo asked, tightening his left hand's grip on his Zanpakuto.
"Fighting a pure blooded Quincy has caused the memories inside your Reiatsu to awaken…" He blocked an attack from Ichigo and stepped back. "Didn't you wonder how you were able to escape from Gillaume's Wall without tearing your body apart?" Yhwach pointed his blade at the markings on Ichigo's exposed arm. "Blut Vene; the heart of a Quincy's defence."
"Memories of Reiatsu? Quincys?" Ichigo shouted, lunging at the man again. The blade of his Bankai clashed against Yhwach's arm. "What the hell are you talking about?!"
"Ah, that's right…" the Quincy King laughed, blocking the strike. "You know nothing about yourself… Not the circumstances of your birth; nor your own mother."
"What are you-?"
"But alas, I have spoken too much. I am leaving, Ichigo Kurosaki." He turned away from the boy and dispersed his blade.
"I said: What the fuck are you saying!?" Ichigo screamed, lunging at Yhwach one final time.
Yhwach rounded on the boy, grasping his sword in one hand and reforming his own blade. Striking downward, he severed Ichigo's left arm at the wrist. Blood fountained across the floor, stark vermillion against grey rubble.
Dropping Tensa Zangetsu, Yhwach looked down at the Substitute Soul Reaper, kneeling and screaming; unable to even grasp the bloody stump due to his broken wrist.
"One day soon, I will return for you, Ichigo Kurosaki." He stomped down on the blade of the sword. Metal shattered and black shards littered the floor. "Heal your wounds and wait for my return…"
Black shadow rose from the floor and lapped at Yhwach's form. As it engulfed him, the Quincy King began to retreat.
"For, once we return, everything you hold dear will crumble." He vanished, leaving only his voice. "My son, born in the darkness."