Disclaimer: Clorox and Kubo, not CH, own Bleach!
Return of the Moonfang
XIV The wings
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"Zangetsu be my anchor,
I the vessel,
Shall return to port,
Ever connected to the sea,
I shall remain…
Lest I fail,
Return me home,
Clenching the treasure,
Return me to the sea…"
Ichigo's eyes glowed white in that instance as Reiatsu began to dance around him as he held Rukia's blade aloft, pointing forward. He began to scream as he gathered as much energy around him as possible. He never thought he'd be going back there, but there was one thing he had left undone.
"Art of supremacy: retrace the steps along the crumbling path"
"Yuzu, Karin, wait for me, I'm coming…"
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Kurosaki Karin stood atop a broken building; well aware of the fact she was the last shinigami alive in the universe.
Her senses, unlike her peach haired brother, were razor sharp.
Soul society was burning, but she didn't need her senses to obtain that jewel of information, she could see it. The dimensional middle distances had been destroyed; life death and limbo were exposed in a manner best described as disembowelment. Windows in the sky, separated from the air by only minute rippling disruptions, Hueco Mundo and Sereitei were all visible from the living world, and visa versa.
A short time ago, the menos had turned on their arrancar lords, when Aizen was destroyed. As if possessed, the walking skyscrapers fired cero after cero, eviscerating all traces of their leaders, themselves and their world. A few had crossed over to their side; any that were fool enough to approach them were dispatched without mercy. Everything was crimson, rather it be blood, fire or hollow flash.
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Without any care for the feelings of her brother or father, Karin had become a bloodthirsty warrior, much like her older brother. When Isshin died, the side of her that would show a partial smile that could still be kind and friendly passed on with her father.
During the days when Sereitei still existed, Karin had received special training, by Kyoraku-Taicho, due to the fact she had double zanpakuto just like he did. She was also strong enough to slap him around in case he got any perverted ideas, given the fact she had matured rather nicely in his opinion.
Her swords were a pair of scimitars, much like the released blades of her teacher, but her blades were not as elaborate. They were not much more than Nodaichi that had been curved upward like a question mark, but without the downward spiral. They appeared very much like the claws of a falcon.
Karin's blades were known as Sandaabaado: (legendary-thunderbird, a lightning based zanpakuto.)
Its released form gave Karin a pair of wings, whose feathers were each scimitar blades resembling the initial pair. They were held together by the will of the girl and her swords, giving her flight. Karin could fire blades from the wings in the form of bursts of wind, her reiatsu would then in turn rain lightning upon the places that the blades had cut. Its power was even more intense in a thunderstorm or where water was present. Karin's shikai resembled an Arrancar's zanpakuto release more than anything else, Kyoraku theorized it was Ichigo's Vizard power which may've conflicted with her own reiatsu, but it was really anyone's guess.
No one could take advantage of Kurosaki Karin, or try to harm Yuzu without having to rethink their career choices. Isshin had also formulated it could've been the presence of both himself and Ichigo under one roof that could've attributed to why Karin was so strong. Then again, Yuzu wasn't even affected by it. She could see shinigami and hollows, but that was about the extent of her abilities.
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"Karin-chan", Yuzu screamed as the building they were standing on began to fissure, breaking apart from its base.
"Sandaabaado" Karin screamed, in which her wings appeared, Yuzu instinctively grabbed on to her twin's waist as they ascended into the fractured sky.
'What in the hell had happened?' Karin thought as she watched the massacre unfolding before her eyes, it were as though the world was murdering itself, everything was breaking, rifts began appearing consuming matter veraciously.
Hollows spilled out of their homeland like a surge of crimson ants, feeding on the souls that remained, only to have them severed by the spatial rifts. Holding onto her sister tightly, the dark haired twin soared hoping to find a new perch, one not quite so unstable.
Wherever she attempted from then on crumbled before she could set down. Karin thought at one point she'd have to cross over to Soul society in order to find a building that wasn't ready to collapse. She kept her reiatsu burning as high as she could as a means of signaling out to her brother, in the hope he was searching for them. Even though she knew it was futile.
'Where on earth was Ichi-ni?' Karin worried. Orange head had told her he would come when Aizen had been defeated, but in all of existence, she couldn't sense his reiatsu anymore. They had felt the death of the architect, and then a blinding flash of light erupted from the same place, and Ichigo was gone. From that moment the world began to break.
What had become of their brother, and furthermore what would become of them in a world that was breaking into pieces minute by minute. Her eyes widened as she could see the horizon before her being broken down into spirit molecules, being smoldered away just like a dead hollow.
The sky, the clouds the earth below were burning itself into its final night.
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A yellow light averted their attention from the vaporizing horizon. A soul had just crossed over from Sereitei and was coming towards them. It was a familiar presence, not one of the most welcome in their opinion, but he was better than having no one left to talk to, even if they were about to die in a short time.
A tall man with long black hair appeared before them, he wore a tattered shinigami uniform, whose white haori had all but been destroyed, it remained not much more than a strand of white here and there, glued into his body on a few open wounds. His pirate styled eye patch was gone, just like the days when he felt the need to hold back.
His hair no longer was pointed, nor had his signature bells. He wore it was down, much like the day he had first met his third seat.
His voice was darker than the growing end of the world. His gravel road tones had sharpened to the sound of stepping on broken glass, due to the fact his throat was almost to the point of him choking on his own blood. He had taken so much damage in the final battles of Sereitei it was a wonder he could still even move around.
"So its you two, where's Ichigo?"
"He's no longer alive Ken-san!"
Zaraki looked stunned, like one of the girls had just punched him in the stomach and he was out of breath.
"Damn, it, if he were here I could get one last fight before the world ends."
"So the world is ending?" Yuzu asked as her voice quaked a little.
Zaraki got a little choked up as he spoke, the sensation of it was difficult due to the extremity his body was in, and he had lost the person he was about to speak of.
"Yachiru said she thought all the reiatsu in the world was being destroyed, she could feel everything slipping away."
Karin and Yuzu noticed the absence of the roseate girl who was normally always affixed to his shoulder. Kenpachi noticed their stares at his Yachiru-free shoulder, and spoke before they could question her absence.
"She was caught by all those damn menos as they started going berserk."
Yuzu started to cry as she had lost yet another close friend. Karin no longer had the ability to cry, so she just hugged her sister until she stopped weeping.
She then noticed the other irregularity; his zanpakuto had assumed a strange shape.
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The lord of Zaraki held an unfamiliar sword, one that was neither his Shikai nor the Bankai he had shown versus his first duel with Grimmjow. When Kenpachi joined the paladin he requested one thing, almost constant duels with Ichigo. Kurosaki would have none of it, but when Ichigo got the former number six to join, he bartered a deal with the hollow that likewise sought out a decent fight.
Number six was quite emaciated in the fact that no matter what he tried, he could not kill Zaraki Kenpachi. Not that Ichigo really wanted Zaraki dead, it was the cost of having him around though, if he happened to die, then there was nothing he could do about it.
His Bankai appeared, by its own will, not from Zaraki's control, his blade was tired of being used by the pointy-headed fool without respect, so she gave him something to respect. It became a foot-long column of a hilt, from which a circular disk held a zanbatou. It wasn't a claw or even a fang in shape, it was a giant kite that was stretched vertically, so that the half, which bore the shortest sides, struck into the hilt while the longer side acted as the cutting surfaces. Everyone was astonished when they saw it, but not as much as Zaraki, the blade had taken the form of the cross guard of his shikai, but stretched from the diamond into the kite shape. The release also contained two arm bound shields.
The shields assumed the same form as the released blade, twin stretched kites, offering him an enormous amount of cutting surface. He could cut with his arms, and then finish with the blade. Oddly enough the shields seemed to act much like the energy absorption ability of his fifth seat's zanpakuto. Nevertheless, it wasn't a reiatsu-based zanpakuto. For every wounding strike inflicted upon its user, his Bankai would give half the energy to Zaraki so that no matter how hard you cut him he would only get stronger. Instinctively, the shields prevented him from loosing limbs by channeling all the obtained power into a barrier protecting an area vulnerable to being severed.
This of course is the only weakness of the Bankai; it does it on its own without his command. So if he wants to be severed in a place in order to gain a holding on a quicker opponent, he has to shift strategies.
The kite blade was not the form in front of the eyes of Karin; it was a long thin knightly blade, a claymore.
Did he steal another zanpakuto? Was his old one destroyed? Given the end of the world was upon them, she should've been thinking about something else, but it was nice to focus not on the fact you were about to be eviscerated.
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"Ken-san", she spoke grabbing his attention away from the fact Yachiru wasn't around.
"What sword is that, its not your huge Bankai so what could it be?"
"This bitch just loves to surprise me," he laughed for a moment, as Karin should've been appalled at his use of language in front of two innocent girls, or at least one innocent girl. If it were Isshin, he would've been knocked across the room by then, missing a few teeth.
"Zakkuri-taikou-saiki" (Cutting empress of restoration) "is the final release of my zanpakuto, and when Yachiru died I kind of lost control and took a vast amount of damage, more than I've ever taken in one sitting. It seems when the empress here yields more energy than I can safely hold onto: it changes shape. I was restricted by having to use that huge sword when so many menos were upon me, so it altered itself in a final form, which is this thin blade. Much like my shikai, this blade allows me to use the full power the Bankai gives me, in addition it increases my speed much like the sword of orange boy."
"Within minutes there were no more menos to speak of in soul society. Nor was there a soul society to speak of."
"That reminds me Kurosaki-Karin, we've never fought before, I've heard you're quite strong for a little girl, want to give it a go before we die?"
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Karin looked over to Yuzu, who sighed real warily, but not before motioning with her hands for her sister to go on with it.
Karin smiled as she cracked her knuckles.
"Old man, you may have Bankai, but you've also got a foot in the grave, and I'm at full power", she roared as her wings rose and expanded to show their true anarchy.
Zaraki watched in awe as twin wings of waves and waves of blade like feathers were exposed to him, he salivated at the thought of being cut by them. Karin appeared to him like a winged goddess of death.
"Had you only been a few years older, Karin-chan we could've gotten along quite nicely,"
"Don't flatter yourself, I only go for real men!" She trumpeted as she pulled back her wings, which pushed a dozen cutlasses like missiles out of their formations.
She watched in utter surprise as Kenpachi stood there as she unleashed a volley of sabers. He danced around the blades that would've struck critical areas but allowed him to be stabbed in the legs, shoulders and one of his arms. In this form, his sword didn't have the shielding ability; it was all-offensive.
"Hiraishin!" (Lightning rods) Karin's high pitched voice echoed into the distance as her winged blades spread as the reiatsu supporting them channeled into numerous lightning bolts. The bolts struck Kenpachi on each of the lightning rods attached to him, burning him alive.
In all of the excitement, he started to laugh maniacally. A sound, which chilled Karin to her bones, it was demonic, as if he had enjoyed the process of being fried by her lightning.
Due to Ichigo's presence, Karin had never faced a captain level warrior before, but even one as nearly destroyed as Kenpachi shouldn't have survived that.
"Was that it? I've never been hit by lightning before; of all the elements I've never felt I was hoping that would've been the one to finish me. Oh well, I guess its my turn little lady", Zaraki grumbled as he shifted in and out of sight.
'Where the hell did he go?' Karin thought as she instinctively shifted her wings inward to protect her.
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The orange haired fool grew more and more nervous the longer and longer his journey lasted, until he was a wreck. His mind was incapable of ascertaining the exact moment he had left, but it was clear the world he had departed from wouldn't be partially stable for much longer.
The remnants of his old reality were melting away quickly out of spite having sensed his return. Time appeared as a tunnel of flashes of light, moments having passed by, ages long gone, everything just a mass of images. Ichigo could see the smoldering horizon as he approached the last stop of the subway of future events.
The light column transporting him ceased into the world he had left behind, more than half of it had been vaporized, had he waited much longer there might not have been a here to return to.
He locked on to Karin's reiatsu, which had spiked for some reason; another massive power was nearby…she was fighting someone!
Worry and despair melted away as Ichigo regained his drive. Thrusting Sode forward, he dove into the heart of her battle, appearing right before Karin, white blade raised in a defensive stance.
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Kenpachi didn't even see the white blade appear, nor did he feel the presence, he too had just dived forward executing a direct cut. His claymore was stopped by a pure white katana. Then he saw it, the orange hair.
Karin and Yuzu saw the orange hair before they even felt his presence; it was so subdued that they didn't even notice his approach.
"Ichi-ni, Oni-chan!" the twins spoke as the younger started to cry again, this time out of happiness. Karin's eyes grew moistened, she hadn't cried since her mother died, yet in that moment with him there, she couldn't hold back.
"Ichi-ni", she screamed as she leapt unto his back, weeping into his clothes. Her loss of control phased her zanpakuto back to its normal pair of twin blades.
Yuzu couldn't believe the sight that lay out before her, Karin never cried, so what was this? She dried her eyes and hugged her twin sister, returning the favor she was never able to give.
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"Ichigo?" Kenpachi started laughing again in that his final wish had been granted, his former commander had come back from the death for one last hurrah".
"Kenpachi, if you care to explain yourself, I might take you back to the past with me, or I could just leave you here." His brazenness had returned, or rather he forced it to, the soft Kurosaki Ichigo of the past couldn't speak to Ken without enduring some wrath.
Karin released herself from his duly tear soaked back while she wiped her eyes, hoping to hear those words again.
Without exposing his rear to the only captain remaining, Ichigo spoke to his sisters.
"Yuzu, Karin, words cannot explain how sorry I am for having left you, the king offered me the chance to go back and rewrite everything. I should've remembered you were still here; I didn't until just a moment ago. If you want to come back, you'll merge with your younger selves, but you'll retain full knowledge and abilities."
Karin teary-eyed once again hauled off and hit Ichigo in the back, sending him spiraling forward. Ken-chan stepped aside as he went flying into and through a tattered skyscraper. Even though the girl's attacks had done almost nothing to him, he had a newfound respect for the strongest girl of his clan.
"Now that you've been punished for your grievous actions, we can go, but just one thing, why do you have Rukia's zanpakuto?"
"Yeah, Kurosaki, that is a rather girly sword!"
"Shut up you all, there isn't time for this!"
They grew tightlipped as Ichigo grabbed on to Karin's hand and motioned Yuzu to hold on to his shoulders.
Kenpachi was feeling a little left out when Ichigo regarded him, with a question.
"Do you promise not to get into any fights until I return to Sereitei, Ken-chan?"
The ground beneath their feet began to shift and shudder, it was almost over, the burning horizon was less than a mile away, and everything around them was being disturbed by the absences of the grounds nearby.
Kenpachi realized the gravity of the situation and as he latched his free hand onto Ichi's shoulder he muttered "yeah sure…"
Ichigo's legs burned as he leapt with so much weight as the ground collapsed. They began to fall down towards the emptiness of a world destroyed as Karin asked him if they needed he needed her wings, but he shrugged it off by screaming for the old man,
"Zangetsu:
Anchor recall,
The vessel,
To the sea...
Return to the restarted existence!"
The four of them ceased to be physical in a world that was no longer such. Like the proverbial tomb raider, the four of them dashed out of sight while a boulder the size of an exploding world was right on their coattails. The column of light enveloped all of them as they returned to the stream and back to the sea…
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Kaien watched as the storm of reiatsu that cascaded around Ichigo enveloped the orange haired boy in a solid white column of energy, which narrowed to a fine point at its tip. A dimensional ripple appeared at the tip of the cone, sending waves of barely visible energy out from its point. It were as though someone turned on a vacuum as the light was siphoned into the dimensional portal like a liquid, materializing Ichigo into itself as it was lifted out of this world.
In not much more than the span of time absent from a blink of his eyes, the light returned this time like a wave crashing upon the shore in its exhaustion. Four figures were left behind in its wake.
The older forms of his sisters looked once more at their brother before dissolving into the occupation of their younger selves. It wasn't like a possession; it was like waking up from a coma for both of the girls as they initially complained about being so young again. Instinctively they leapt onto Isshin, uncaring about the knowledge he had for some reason been incarcerated.
Karin noticed the other dark haired Ichigo and speaking more like her older self didn't hold back on the language, "Who the hell are you?"
Kaien laughed as he sighed "ah, this again!"
Kenpachi was the last to return to his earlier form, in which Ichigo turned before he dissolved, looking him straight in the eye…
"You promised Zaraki, hold back until I get there, and by no means are you to go after the three, you may be twice as strong in this time, but things must proceed carefully. Perhaps seeing Yachiru again will remind you to remain hidden for the time being!"
The eleventh captain muttered he understood and would abide by the rules of the paladin commander. "If you don't hurry up and come, I don't know how long I'll be able to hold it in!" he snickered as he vanished from sight.
"Oh no," Ichigo thought, "I might've made a horrible mistake."
His legs had grown rather wobbly at this point, making him realize he had understandably reached his limit, and didn't go without a parting word "Now if you all don't mind, I'm taking this elevator to the basement…" his legs collapsed out from under him and he fell forward striking the ground.
Karin ran over to him, only to notice he was out cold asleep. When she realized it, Karin kicked him, which yielded no response.
"Baka, that was for making us wait, and worry. It's good to be home though, thank you Ichi-ni!"
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Zaraki Kenpachi stopped cold in the middle of a clear day in Soul society. The merging with his old self had gone rather painless, and an all-encompassing shit-eating grin had come across his lips. Once again he started laughing maniacally, in a sinister manner that would make Mayuuri green with envy.
'My full power is with me, and what's this, I can sense reiatsu too, interesting, interesting, alright Ichigo, I'll hold out, but I cannot guarantee how long…"
Laughter could be heard for miles, but it sounded just like an ill wind…
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A/N: I officially reclaim my title as king of update speed! I wrote this and the latter half of thirteen in one day! I wasn't expecting to write this or I would've left the two connected.
I realize my mistake about Zaraki's Shikai, so what did you think of his Bankai? And what of the Zanpakuto of Karin. I'm unsure if she'll be apart of the new paladin at this point, she may remain behind as a guard only to pop up later on.
I'm not a real good artist, so I'd be honored if someone could draw me a picture of zakkuri for my profile page. If you need further hints I can give them!