Chapter 24: Divine Deception
Orihime hates herself for agreeing to this.
She hates how she was so desperate to get to Ichigo in time that she considered Grimmjow's heart stopping an acceptable risk to take.
Hates how she just stands there and watches as Grimmjow's body incurs the potentially lethal shock; as she sees every uncontrolled twitch his muscles make, the way his gauntlet overheats and sears his skin, the blood flowing freely from the gouges in his back, and each new injury is like another knife stabbed directly into her own heart.
Then both Grimmjow and two of Hyperion's limbs fall onto the sand, and the time for self-loathing is over.
Orihime's mind gets pulled in three different directions as she issues mental commands to all six of her fairies and activates Santen Kesshun: Shuriken, Souten Kisshun: Phase, and the standard Arrow version of Kouten Zanshun all at once.
Her view of the world fades into a bright orange haze as she partially rejects her own existence, kicking off against the sand just a mere instant before her physical form disappears completely, and then she's off.
She sails through the air as nothing but an invisible, incorporeal shade, reaching speeds far beyond anything she could have hoped to achieve while weighed down by her own body mass. It is a very high-risk technique, not only because she cannot change direction once she activates it, but also because a single misstep could cause her to dive right into the ground or some other physical barrier, and rematerializing while inside of something else... well, suffice to say the consequences would be unpleasant. And likely fatal.
The other drawback was her time limit. Rejecting your very existence was obviously not something you could do for an extended duration, at least not without running the risk of fading away completely. Two and a half seconds at a time was her absolute limit for now, and even in those short bursts she could clearly feel the chill of the Void eating away at her. Doing it too many times in one day, even if she stuck to her time limit, would erode her away entirely.
When the orange haze faded, she found herself at Grimmjow's side, having completely bypassed the screaming Hyperion. She didn't look back at the man, instead getting right to work on treating Grimmjow's injuries, and she definitely didn't look at the way her Santen Kesshun was turning Hyperion's severed arm into ground meat before he could reattach it once more.
She worked as quickly as she could while Tsubaki distracted their dismembered opponent, removing traces of Hyperion's lingering Reiatsu in Grimmjow's system, treating his burns – both electrical and heat-induced – and closing the wounds on his back, even mending the gaps in his armor while she was at it.
Restoring Acero – which was technically dead tissue – may not have been possible with regular Healing abilities, but then there was very little that could be considered 'regular' about her powers to begin with, and it technically wasn't 'Healing' either.
So far, she had only encountered one thing that could stop her powers from working properly. Speaking of which...
"...Hime?" Groaning from the effort, Grimmjow pushed himself back to his feet. "Guess we pulled it off, huh?" he asked, after glancing at the white-and-red, gory mess that had once been an arm lying underneath a lazily spinning, blood-covered Santen Kesshun.
"We did, but Grimmjow, wait! There's still traces of his Reiatsu in you!"
He had already been preparing to rejoin the fight, but those words gave him pause. "...Fuck. I let him touch me," Grimmjow realized. "He put a fucking Curse on me, didn't he?"
"...We never did find out what his Hollow form's fourth ability was," Orihime affirmed. "Now we know."
Grimmjow felt at his back, expecting to find lingering injuries there, but the area seemed to be intact as far as he could tell. He looked at Orihime for an explanation, but she just shook her head.
"I could heal the wound just fine, even though I couldn't extract the Reiatsu. His Curse must be a specialized one, like Lilith's. I can't tell what it does, though."
"...Well, we don't have time to figure it out," Grimmjow decided, already resuming his march toward Hyperion. He stretched his arm out to the side, retracting the long pike he had used to 'disarm' Hyperion back into his gauntlet. In its place, four smaller blades of that same razor-sharp, not-fully-solidified metal emerged from his fingertips (excepting his thumb), and turned into massive claws instead. "Let's just cut him to pieces before it becomes a problem."
Tsubaki finally ceased its harassment and flew back to Orihime's side once Grimmjow was capable of resuming the fight. Seeing his approach, Hyperion warily shifted his remaining wing so that it covered more of his front. Clearly, he wouldn't be underestimating either of them anymore.
The Visored's Plasma Shroud finally flickered out for good as his Reiatsu output noticeably dropped, and the splashes of white liquid dripping onto the sand by his feet were proof enough that he'd been forced to grow a brand-new arm this time around.
Grimmjow's grin was positively maniacal. " Oh? Did that hurt? Better get used to it." Grimmjow charged, readying the White Tiger's Claws to gouge those infuriating purple eyes right out of Hyperion's skull.
"'Cause I'm gonna keep cutting pieces off 'till they stop growing back!"
It shouldn't have been possible.
That was what Ichigo's common sense was telling him, at least, but his eyes didn't seem to agree.
The giantess of a woman who awaited them, somehow emitting a Reiatsu signature that was an exact duplicate of Lilith's, slowly stood up once they arrived.
Even when she was seated, she had already cut quite an imposing figure. When she stood upright however, Ichigo realized she wasn't just tall, but very, very tall. At least eight feet, tall.
She was also pitch black from head to toe, and not black as in 'dark-skinned' either, but a shiny, reflective sort of black, as if she had been dunked into a barrel of oil and then sat in it until it had soaked into her skin. That wasn't to say black was the only color on her, however.
On the contrary, the pale white skull shape in the center of her otherwise obsidian mask, coupled with the outline of a rib cage sprawling across her chest in white definitely served to 'lighten up' her overall image.
Why? Why, of all people, was she here? The woman who had single-handedly defeated Byakuya and Kenpachi both, the one enemy Ichigo absolutely had not wanted to face.
"Kurosaki Ichigo," the giantess spoke, her heavy voice easily reaching his ears even from about two dunes over. "Samael told me of you. I am Kali," she introduced herself, bringing up a hand that was easily as massive as Hyperion's – but actually proportionate to the rest of her - to brush against a symbol drawn on her breast in blood. "The Goddess of War." She dragged her nails over the symbol, and scratched it out.
Instantly her Reiatsu changed, and the sand around her was pressed down and compacted as if gravity had suddenly increased tenfold.
For the first time, Ichigo understood what it was like to be crushed by Reiatsu.
"It's not real!" Rukia hissed into his ear, struggling to remain standing under the force. "Renji told me about this; it's her Reishuken ability! Everything she does, everything she is, it all seems greater, more pronounced somehow! She's definitely strong, but not this strong!"
Well, knowing that did make the situation seem slightly less hopeless at least, but it did nothing to stop the sweat running down his brow from the exertion of weathering the absurd force.
"Thank god," Rukia muttered to herself. She was clutching one of her leather braces, rubbing the white gem set into it with her thumb. "Thank god I finished these in time..."
"Ichigo, Rukia!" Nel bit out, already panting harshly. "We have to release our swords!"
"Right!" Starting off with both Bankai and his Mask would be his best bet, Ichigo decided. The Mask no longer seemed to have a time limit now that he had gotten more comfortable with using his Hollow Powers, and it was probably best to keep Resurrección in reserve, so that he could use it to heal any injuries he might sustain as the battle progressed.
Provided, of course, that her Curse didn't stop his Regeneration from working altogether.
He swallowed thickly as he drew his blade and let the cloth around it unwind. He could certainly see now why Soul Society had so much trouble freeing Yamamoto. He actually considered running away, but he very much doubted Kali was inclined to let them leave.
Static was the only sound that came from his earpiece when Ichigo attempted to contact Urahara. Hopefully, the man would realize what was happening and alert the Shinigami forces by the Seal. If Kali was here, then Lilith had probably taken her place there. The last thing any of them needed was to lose any more allies to the witch's Mind Control.
… Some backup would be nice, too.
"Bankai!" he called out, swirling black Reiatsu wrapping around him and solidifying into his familiar black coat. It felt good to wear it again, even if he wished his first real battle since regaining his powers wouldn't have been quite this stressful. "Tensa Zangetsu!"
The flood of power at his back told him that Sode No Shirayuki and Gamuza had been released as well. Nel, a good deal taller than him now that she was in her Centaur form, and Rukia, chilling their surroundings like a humanoid heat-sink, flanked him on both sides, staring down the most powerful member of the Five as one.
Kali grinned, her bald head only appearing more skull-like once her teeth were exposed. "Good. You are wise enough to come at me with your full power. I have gone up against many Bankai, but only once before have I faced a Compression Type." From the knee-length piece of cloth wrapped around her waist, which Ichigo could only describe as a battle skirt – or kilt perhaps - she produced a weapon that looked rather like an absurdly short, bone white jousting lance with a blunt tip. Spiraling grooves ran from the weapon's tip all the way to its flared base.
"And a fellow lance-wielder as well," she continued, referring to Nel's double-sided weapon. The black veins crisscrossing the surface of Kali's short lance glowed midnight blue as she fed her Reiatsu into the weapon. In response, it started to expand, growing longer and larger until it was well over half her own body length.
Rukia and Nel giggled at the imagery.
Ichigo sighed.
A Shinigami ten times his age, and a tall, buxom Arrancar who between the two of them had all the maturity of Nel's child form. These two were his only backup against the strongest member of the Five, he lamented. Grimmjow's statement from yesterday continued to be painfully accurate; his friends really were all insane.
Having now reached the point where Grimmjow was a voice of reason, Ichigo couldn't help but fear they were all doomed.
"I must warn you, boy," Kali continued, heedless of the plummeting level of maturity, "The last Compression Type I faced belonged to the Seireitei's greatest warrior. I will not suffer you to tarnish my memory of that battle - my memory of her – with a subpar performance!" She swung her now-massive lance to the side, the air pressure from the swing alone enough to blow away the nearby dune. The girls very quickly stopped laughing as the atmosphere grew deadly serious once more.
"Don't worry," Ichigo assured her, bringing one hand up to his own face. "I'll give you a fight you won't forget." Raking his fingers downward, he materialized his Hollow Mask in a flare of black and red energy, the additional power boost enough to forcibly push back Kali's Reiatsu with his own.
"A Shinigami wielding the powers of a Hollow... I see why Samael has taken such an interest in you. Come then, Kurosaki Ichigo!" she bellowed, breaking into a full-frontal charge. To Ichigo, it felt rather like standing in the path of an oncoming freight train.
"Let us revel in the glory of combat!"
"Scatter!" Ichigo commanded, and Nel and Rukia didn't hesitate to do so, jumping to the side while Ichigo held his ground, producing what may have just been the single most powerful Getsuga he had ever attempted and hurling it straight at the approaching Goddess.
Seeing the inky black crescent cleaving through the desert sands didn't discourage her from approaching. On the contrary, she laughed. "Such power, boy!" she cheered, midnight blue eyes sparkling with childlike amusement. "An opening move like that deserves an answer in kind!"
Her lance started spinning rapidly like a drill, a whirlwind of dark blue Reiatsu with specks of black speckled throughout quickly picking up along the weapon's outer rim. She made a wild, sweeping motion with the lance, and a gale of lethal, Reiatsu-infused winds burst forth from the weapon. The blue-tinged wall of force collided with the Getsuga, seeming to mingle with it for just an instant before the two techniques ripped each other apart, creating a massive explosion of blue, black and red.
Ichigo brought up his blade to defend himself out of sheer instinct, and it was a good thing he had: the Goddess emerged from the very center of the minor cataclysm, having continued running straight ahead despite the danger, and brought her still-spinning weapon down, forcing Ichigo to use both hands to block it overhead with Tensa Zangetsu, nearly sinking to his knees from the sheer power behind the strike.
Grinning widely, Kali loomed over him, giving Ichigo a close-up view of the pitch-black armor covering every inch of her massive body, the shape of the carapace hinting at the heavy musculature that lay underneath. It was like fighting a taller, female version of Kenpachi, Ichigo realized, barely suppressing a shudder at the mental image.
Her weapon continued spinning, producing a horrible grating noise against his Zanpakuto and sending streams of blue energy rushing down his arms that shredded his sleeves and tore up the skin of his arms.
Ichigo had never been more grateful for all those hours spent working on his Hierro with Grimmjow. If he hadn't learned to reinforce his skin, those razor winds would have already torn the flesh right off his bones.
It still hurt like hell, but the pain was well worth it when he saw Nel – faster than ever now that she was on four legs – throw her own, double-sided lance at Kali's back as hard as she could, crying out: "Lanzador Verde!"
Kali abruptly backed off, dancing out of the way of the attack, then jumping back once more when the sand at her feet turned into a pillar of ice.
"Ichigo! Are you alright?" Rukia asked as she returned to his side, one hand already glowing green to treat his arms. Nel's lance lodged itself in the sand behind them, missing the pair by a safe margin. With a flick of Nel's wrist, the weapon tore itself free again and returned to her hand.
"I'm fine," he insisted, in spite of the rivulets of blood trailing down his arms. Still, he didn't refuse her help. "Good thing my Bankai blade got a bit bigger since I got my powers back. Would have been a lot harder to block that otherwise."
Both his Zanpakuto's Shikai and Bankai forms had received some minor alterations upon regaining his powers. His coat had remained virtually identical, but Tensa Zangetsu now had notably more weight to it, and was slightly broader to boot. His dexterity with the blade may have taken a bit of a hit because of that, but he was still more than capable of moving at blinding speeds and every blow he managed to land would hurt a lot more now. He'd been counting on that extra power to cut through Lilith's armor, but he doubted it would be quite as effective on her big sister...
Rukia worked as quickly as she could, managing to shrink the wounds quite a bit, but failing to close them entirely. "Damn," she swore softly. "Her Curse works faster than I thought. That wasn't even from direct contact." Once she had done all she could with Kaido, she started channeling Reiatsu into the white crystal attached to her palm, instead. A blue, frosty haze replaced the green glow, and Ichigo's eyebrows rose to his hairline when he saw tendrils of ice beginning to crawl up his arms, filling in the remaining gashes.
"It's not exactly healing," Rukia explained as she worked, "but it will numb the pain and keep your blood inside your body. It's really just a stopgap measure, but it's the best I can do for now."
Once she was finished, Ichigo tried making a fist, surprised to find that the 'ice' actually stretched along with his skin, not limiting his movements in any way. The cold didn't spread out beyond the injured areas either. He was impressed to say the least, but this was hardly the time to ask Rukia about the details of how it worked.
"Oh?" Apparently, he wasn't the only one who was impressed. "You worked out a way to counter my Curse, girl? Your martial prowess may be lacking, compared with your companions, but that is no minor feat. I have no doubt you shall grow into a great warrior one day."
She pointed her lance directly at her and Ichigo. "Survive this battle, and I shall gladly accept your challenge when that day comes!" A high-pitched sound rung out as the lance spun ever faster, and the vortex of blue Reishi swirling around it gathered into a blinding light at its blunt tip.
Ichigo didn't think, he moved. Before Rukia could do more than widen her eyes as she saw the attack coming, he put his Bankai's absurd speed to good use by kicking her in the stomach as hard as he could and sent her flying out of the danger zone. She'd no doubt be furious at him for it later, but at least she'd be alive.
He twisted his body around and used his other foot to kick off against the sand, and felt searing heat and sheer agony all over his back a mere instant before he disappeared with a flicker of Shunpo.
He reappeared by Nel's side, falling to his hands and knees from the pain – and felt his breath catch at the sight of the devastation he had left behind him.
There was still a lingering afterimage of Kali's attack: a faint blue haze that traveled in a straight line from the tip of her lance to where Ichigo and Rukia had been not five seconds earlier, and just kept going from there.
Everywhere the blue light had touched, there was no longer sand, but red-hot, molten glass. An entire slice of desert, turned into a landscape you'd expect to find near an active volcano in an instant.
With a single, effortless attack.
"Ichigo, your back!" The panic in Nel's voice was telling of just how bad his wound must have been. If the state of the landscape was anything to go by however, then he'd gotten lucky. The beam had barely grazed him before he Flash Stepped away; a direct hit probably would have...
He swallowed nervously when he realized how close to death he had just come. A direct hit would have turned him to charcoal, if not outright dust.
With a rush of displaced air, Rukia appeared. Her eyes were wide, and spittle dribbled down her chin. Ichigo instantly felt bad. He had kicked her in the stomach, and pretty damn hard to boot. "Rukia... I'm sor-"
"Don't you dare!" she cut him off. "Don't you dare apologize, you reckless idiot!" Her voice nearly cracked, there. She sheathed her sword, and got to work on his back with both hands while Nel charged Kali by herself, engaging her directly.
The 'blinding agony' quickly faded to a much more tolerable 'throbbing pain'. "I'm the one who should apologize. You only got hit because of me." The blood flowing down to his chest soon trickled to a stop when he felt the cold emitted by Rukia's Crystals closing up his injuries. "The wounds aren't that deep, but they're all over your back," Rukia informed him regretfully. "And with her Reishuken 'amplifying' the pain, I can't even imagine how much this must have hurt. I'm so sorry, Ichigo."
Once she was finished, he got back to his feet and instantly flicked her in the forehead. "Don't apologize. We're both alive, that's all that matters." Looking down at himself, it quickly became apparent that there wasn't much left of his coat. He tugged at the remaining scraps of fabric, and let them fall onto the sand.
A hum of Sonido heralded Nel's return. Her lance had noticeable scratches on it, and her hands as well as her left foreleg were bleeding, but she seemed fine otherwise. "She's too strong," Nel admitted, looking more than a little distraught. "She's been toying with us this whole time. I see no way for us to win."
Ichigo exhaled through his nose. The Goddess was once again marching toward them. "We don't have to win," he said, trying to make his voice firm and encouraging. "We just have to stay alive, and keep her busy until Urahara sends reinforcements. It can't be much longer now."
He hoped.
"Is that all, Kurosaki Ichigo?" Kali wasn't smiling anymore. Ichigo found that rather disconcerting, considering the joyous expression on her face hadn't diminished even when Nel had tried to gore her from behind.
"It does not happen often that my brother is mistaken. He saw something in you, something that could threaten his machinations." She looked at him as if she was trying to see right through him, trying to find that 'something' Samael had apparently seen. "Perhaps even something that scared him. That was why I agreed to play along with this little deception of his. But as usual, his plans have worked out too well."
The lance stopped spinning. "Either he overestimated you, or whatever potential he saw in you has not yet had time to develop. Either way, I suppose I shall never find out."
She lowered the lance, and bared the open palm of her other hand at them instead. "Disappointing." Her Reiatsu spiked, and energy accumulated within her palm: more, and more, and more still, an ever-growing sphere of deepest darkness, ringed with just a hint of blue, that stood out to even Ichigo's underdeveloped Reiatsu Sense like a miniature sun and blotted out everything else.
Ichigo knew it had to be a Cero. Yet at the same time it didn't feel like one. It felt like something more; something ancient and deadly, and entirely beyond his comprehension.
"W- what is that?" Rukia asked, voice barely loud enough to be a whisper. "I can't... I can't sense it."
"Neither can I," Nel added, equally quiet.
Ichigo could. Not well enough to understand it, but well enough to know that if that... thing, was unleashed, it wouldn't simply kill them, but utterly erase them, and leave a scar upon Hueco Mundo itself that would likely never heal.
He had to stop it. And he had only one way of doing so: by breaking the one restriction Shiro had ever placed upon him, and invoking his incomplete, unstable Resurrección while simultaneously keeping Bankai active. It would grant him power far beyond the mere sum of the two, but that power would come at a price.
Soul Suicide.
That was what would await him if he let the imbalance between his Hollow and Shinigami aspects get too out of control. Even so, probable death for himself still beat out guaranteed death for all three of them by a rather large margin. In Ichigo's mind, it wasn't even a choice.
He could hear both his Zanpakuto Spirits freaking out (one remaining more dignified than the other) once he started to dredge up more Hollow Reiatsu from his core, but refused to heed them with Nel and Rukia's lives on the line. His skin paled, his Mask grew heavier, and a hole started to form in the center of his chest.
He had to grind his teeth at what felt like hairline fractures spreading throughout the very foundation of his being as he pushed himself past his limits. There was no time to waste.
Before the transformation was even complete, Ichigo was already rushing forward with a Getsuga coating his blade, moving faster than he ever had before. The distance between him and Kali melted away in an instant, and her eyes widened dramatically as he approached.
But her surprise wasn't because of him.
"Hado number 88," a voice spoke. A familiar, female voice. Ichigo looked to the side, let out a panicked 'Oh, shit!', and quickly changed course before he became caught in the fallout.
"Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō."
Kali could do nothing but watch as the bolt of crackling lightning and searing hot plasma came at her. The technique she had invoked, the Cero Sagrado that had been granted to her by her master, was powerful enough to kill even her should she lose control of it.
So she did the only thing she could, and allowed the blast to hit her head-on.
Ichigo skidded along the sand for nearly a hundred meters before he could put a stop to his own momentum. By then, Kali had already been engulfed in a massive, fiery explosion. Even a Kido that powerful could not block out the otherworldly power of that Cero however.
Before it could backfire on her, Kali released it, and all Ichigo could think of was how absolutely and utterly fucked they all were.
Color inverted.
All sound was muted.
The world became like a freeze-frame image taken through a negative-color filter as a massive beam of pure white light erased a part of Hueco Mundo for good, in absolute silence.
The beam shrunk, inverting back to black just before it fizzled out completely, and left a massive ravine behind that went straight down into the Forest of Menos. Ichigo only realized he could hear again when he picked up the heavy rushing sound of massive quantities of sand pouring down into the Forest through the newly-created wound in the world.
He sunk to one knee, panting as he let up on channeling his Hollow Reiatsu, aborting his transformation before he did any more damage to himself. The Hole in his chest neatly closed back up and his skin, except for his arms, regained its normal coloration.
He hadn't even fully invoked the forbidden power, yet already he was overcome by bone-weary exhaustion and aches all over his body.
"King?" Shiro spoke up from within his Inner World, "Usually I'd be all for chargin' in guns blazing, but that right there? That was fucking stupid."
The Old Man didn't weigh in with a verbal reprimand of his own, but he didn't need to: Ichigo could feel his reproval and disappointment.
"That was reckless, Kurosaki-san," a third person chimed in. It was a woman, a rather tall woman at that, with silver hair and a Lieutenant's badge attached to her upper arm. "Don't worry," she said with a kind smile. "Urahara-san called for us. We're here to help."
"You!" With another swing of her lance, Kali blew away the lingering smoke of the explosion. Her armor was damaged in several places and still smoking, but if the sheer, boundless joy in her expression was any indication, she didn't seem to mind. "At last we meet again, Unohana Yachiru!"
Captain Unohana smiled back. It wasn't a nice smile. She lowered her hand, still sparking with residual electricity, and let it rest on the pommel of her sword. "Kali," she returned the greeting, with a voice that sent shivers down Ichigo's spine.
Her long, dark hair wasn't in her usual braid, hanging limply down her back instead. There was a scar at the base of her neck, right between her collarbones that Ichigo had never noticed before. The scrape of a blade being drawn rang through the air.
"It has been over a thousand years since we met on the field of battle," Unohana continued, still speaking in that low, disturbing tone, "and in all that time, I have faced but one man who brought me joy as you did." She held her unusually long Zanpakuto horizontally in front of her, grabbing the tip of the blade with her other hand. "Let us continue where we left off, so long ago."
"Bankai."
Her blade turned to liquid. She stretched it out between her fingers as pitch-black, boiling tar leaked out of the sword, staining the sand at her feet like ink on paper. Her Reiatsu, usually so tightly contained, was fully unleashed, and the black tar rushed back upward from the sand in response, curling around her like a shroud of liquid shadow.
Her long black hair whipped about in the dark current, every strand seeming to have a mind of its own as they snapped at the air like a nest of vipers. Intimidating as all that was, it paled in comparison to the look on her face.
Ichigo had always thought of Squad 4's Captain as 'motherly'. Right now, all he could think when he looked at her, was 'Monster'.
The First Kenpachi, Unohana Yachiru, smiled.
"Minazuki [All Things' End]."
A/N: I'd just like to state for the record that Unohana showing up here was completely unplanned and I have no control over this story anymore whatsoever. Also, the questionable lines and innuendo surrounding Kali's lance? I swear that started purely by accident, but once I noticed the theme, I may have, sort of, doubled down. If you want a better idea of what it looks like, look up Selvaria's lance from Valkyria Chronicles.
Speaking of inappropriate humor, I recently uploaded another fic for My Hero Academia over on AO3. I think I've already proven with Haven that I'm incapable of writing serious scenes without injecting some lighthearted humor at some point, but even so, I've actually had to restrain myself quite a bit.
I don't restrain myself whatsoever in Switch. If you laughed with my attempts at being funny in this story, are a fan of BNHA, or both, then by all means, go check it out! I'm Dante_Morgan over on AO3, and the fic is called Switch.
Still working on the next chapter for Haven, so I'm hesitant to give an exact date for when the next update will be, but let's hope I can stick to updating every other week. 'Till then!