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Catastrophe Theory
A Bleach Fanfic
Chaos Theory AU
Chapter Twenty-Five: Deicide
Just how many Gillians and Arrancar did Aizen have?
Tōshirō couldn't deny that a very large part of him wanted nothing more that to ask him in person while tearing him into very small pieces, but Kurosaki had a point about his mental state right now. Not that he intended to admit that to her, of course.
Still—the horde just kept on coming, pouring out of that garganta like so many drops of rain from a cloud. They were just as hard to avoid as raindrops, too. Getting away from any single one was easy, but not getting hit at all was practically impossible. Gritting his teeth, Tōshirō swung Hyōrinmaru, casting half a dozen blades of sharpened ice off the edge of his sword. They flew true, burying themselves in the oblong mask of the nearest giant Hollow, cracking it in enough places and with enough force that it broke apart entirely, killing the creature it protected.
But turning aside one drop was almost laughable in a storm like this. They needed another method, and quickly.
Beside him, Kuchiki dropped his zanpakutō, summoning his bankai. Hundreds of glowing swords condensed from thousands of tiny blades; they melded into fewer weapons almost immediately after. The problem was that not only were these foes so numerous, but also strong. Five years ago, Tōshirō would have had trouble with more than two or three Gillians, and he was a captain.
Now, they had to be good enough to cope with scores of them.
"We should attempt to cut our way to the others," Kuchiki said, almost tonelessly. One of the swords hovering in the air in front him shot forward almost like an arrow, embedding itself in the forehead of another Gillian. The mask cracked, but did not break until a second sword joined the first.
Tōshirō flashed away from a massive red cero blast. At least these things were slow.
"Fine," he said. "I sense a few to the west." It was hard to get a read any further out, though—they'd just have to sweep the fake town the old-fashioned way if they didn't move within range of anyone else after that.
Kuchiki nodded; together, they set about the grim work of carving themselves a path to the west. Tōshirō was alarmed that he could no longer sense Momo; he hoped that was because she was using a concealing kidō, and not because the worst had happened. She'd been somewhere nearby when he first entered through the garganta, but…
They will do as scavengers always do—eat the weak and the dying first.
Momo wasn't weak.
But she might be dying.
Impatient, Tōshirō called up his bankai, moving higher into the air and throwing ice down onto the Gillians from above. With Kuchiki coming in from the front, it was about as close to a pincer maneuver as they were going to get with two people. Aizen's reiatsu flared some distance back; he felt a shift in at least a few others in response. Kurosaki-taichō was slowly building his up as well; his bankai required a lot of that before it could be released.
He wasn't actually too worried, though—he'd seen that release before. Whatever that Arrancar thought he had wasn't going to stand up to it. The issue was in how much would be left by the time those three would be able to add their support to this.
"Hitsugaya!"
The shout came from the same direction they were headed; a moment later, Suì-Fēng appeared. She was wearing some kind of gauntlet that he presumed was her zanpakutō; her other arm was missing almost entirely. The man who showed up a few seconds after had the same problem, but his was capped with a kidō that was apparently stopping him from bleeding. Tōshirō had no idea who he was or what he was doing there, but if Suì-Fēng wasn't concerned, then for now he wasn't, either.
"Is that Kuchiki down there?"
He nodded sharply. "We're trying to gather everyone to fight the Gillians and these extra Arrancar."
She pulled in a breath. Her face was wan, almost waxy—but she was still moving around pretty effectively. "Good. We'll help. Let's go, Hachi."
The man with her nodded; both of them flashed ninety degrees away and started hewing down Hollows from the side.
With the four of them working more or less in tandem, it didn't take too long to reach the first of the others—Ukitake and Kotetsu. There was blood flecked around Ukitake's chin and neck, and more smeared at the collar of his haori, but he didn't outwardly seem to be injured. Kotetsu looked like death slightly warmed over; her hands were shaking visibly. But she stood as soon as they got there.
"Hinamori and the others were south of here when I left them," she said. "They might be cornered—we should try that direction first."
"I may be of assistance with the healing," Ukitake put in mildly, "but I'm afraid I won't do too much good otherwise, at the moment."
Upon promotion to his captaincy, Tōshirō had been made aware of a few little-known pieces of information. Outside of the captains, a few of the fukutaichō, and the officers of the Fourth and Thirteenth, it wasn't commonly-known that Ukitake was ill. Even the captains probably only knew because of the possibility of situations like this one.
Despite his warning, though, Ukitake did pick up his zanpakutō, releasing it into shikai form.
Tōshirō was inclined to get going; he paused for a couple more seconds to make sure no one else had anything urgent to say, and then they were off again.
Wading through the Gillians was enough of a task on its own—mostly he and Kuchiki handled that, with Suì-Fēng and her friend keeping the smaller Arrancar away, flashing around the edges of the zone of immediate battle. Ukitake guarded the rear, and Kotetsu, apparently able to sense more than he could through all of this reiatsu, occasionally called out directions to reorient them.
It was ten straight minutes of constant slashing and shunpō later that they encountered the next group of survivors. Though Tōshirō supposed he was using that term lightly.
None of them were people he recognized, but the only conscious one was wielding a zanpakutō, hurling blasts of fire from the end of it at the Gillians that surrounded himself and two unconscious men. One of them had short silver hair and a build not unlike Kurosaki-taichō's. Oriented towards power and close-quarters fighting. The other was leaner, with what looked like a lot of blonde hair. He also had the third missing arm Tōshirō had encountered in the last half-hour, though it looked to be barely still attached, so technically it wasn't missing, as such.
None of them were the person he was looking for, but he knew what strategy demanded here.
Kotetsu and Ukitake set to work immediately; the rest of them formed a rough circle around the two of them and their patients, fending off Gillians on all sides. It was a massive press of Hollows, and each of them was large enough that it felt like buildings closing in on them—skyscrapers that got even bigger in his vision until basically all he could see was the black fabric of their cloaks. The jagged circle of sky above provided enough light to navigate, still, but it was disorienting nevertheless.
They were too exposed out here in the middle of a flat part of town. Taking the Gillians out one by one just wasn't feasible anymore.
Shifting back to shikai, he fell back on the most primitive and fundamental of Hyōrinmaru's abilities—Tensō Jūrin. Raising the zanpakutō, he pushed reiatsu up through the blade and out beyond it. Nearly immediately, the sky overhead began to darken, plunging their hemmed-in area into deep shadow, though not complete darkness. A harsh breeze stirred even the massive, heavy cloaks of the Gillians; thunder rumbled ominously in the distance.
The clouds broke open on command—drops of icy water fell thickly from the sky, slowly dampening the Gillians. Tōshirō ground his teeth—it wasn't happening fast enough. At this rate, they'd simply be overwhelmed by numbers until—
A massive bolt of lightning punched into the mask of the nearest Gillian, shattering it instantaneously. Five more followed, replacing the huge Hollows with electric bars, as though closing them in a cage. Tōshirō tightened his grip on Hyōrinmaru; if this was some new Arrancar…
"Glad you could make it," Ukitake said, apparently speaking to the newcomer. His tone imitated the usual lightness with which he spoke, but poorly. It sounded like he was… commiserating.
Tōshirō cast his eyes around; but who the hell was he commiserating with? And why was he unconcerned with the fact that they were trapped?
A Gillian reached forward towards them. Its hand struck one of the bolts of lightning, and it disintegrated on the spot.
Not trapped. Protected.
"Ukitake-san." The new voice was one Tōshirō recognized, an instant before the speaker appeared in front of them. Sasakibe.
"I can't keep this up for too long, with the state I'm in," he warned.
Much of him was covered in heavy burns; whatever had hit him had singed the entire left half of his shihakushō off and blistered and blackened the skin underneath, from around his waist to his jaw or so.
Kotetsu's eyes went wide; she was still working on the unconscious men, but looked unsure for a moment of what she should do. Tōshirō honestly didn't know any more than she did about that—not right now. Not when all he could think about was the people they still hadn't found. And the fact that Momo was one of them.
He turned back to the battle, only half paying attention as Ukitake issued orders. Sasakibe's bankai was strengthening the thunderstorm Hyōrinmaru had summoned; Tōshirō took advantage of it, flash-freezing several more Gillians. Pinkish blades slid easily in and out of the electric bars of the cage, methodically slicing down even more. The man with the club aimed his fire more carefully, and managed to do the same.
They were safe until Sasakibe ran out of reiatsu, and they had no ay of knowing when that would be. Hopefully enough time for Kotetsu and Ukitake to do what they needed to, and hopefully not so much that the shinigami still out there were overwhelmed.
Pulling in a deep breath, Tōshirō closed off the train of thought as well as he could. The more Gillians and Arrancar he could freeze, the better chance they had.
All of them.
"Bankai: Keizen Hisaku!"
Karin released her zanpakutō, backing away from the old man in the process. Her fire couldn't burn her, but she wasn't great about making its damage selective yet, either; if someone else got in the way, she could hurt them.
But there was no way they were taking this creepy guy down at anything less than full juice, and that was pretty obvious. She was shaking, even; she remembered the way he'd nearly gutted her the first time they'd done this. She wasn't scared all that often—it was actually kind of weird to deal with. The cold sweat starting to slick her arms and her back, the way her shihakushō stuck to her so she could feel every little irritating rub of the fabric on her damp skin.
The way her heartbeat was loud in her ears like a drum.
"Karin." The old man glanced at her from the corner of an eye.
She shook her head slightly, tightening her grip on the tessen and katana in her hands.
"Yeah. I'm here."
Here. Now.
The rest could come later.
He led the way in, releasing a blast from the end of Engetsu. She'd never actually seen him in a fight before—it was hard to get over how serious he looked. Her dad mostly only made stupid, exaggerated faces: big grins, over-the-top pouts, pretend-frowns. He was usually behind her, nudging her forward in his obnoxious, pushy dad-way. Sometimes she forgot he'd been a captain first, and a dad only after that.
Captains led from the front.
The Espada and fake-Yuzu both got out of the way of the Getsuga Tenshō, splitting up and moving to flank from different directions. Since it looked like the old man was going for the Arrancar, she got in the clone's way, flinging half a dozen spears of reiatsu from the wing-shaped blobs of it behind her.
The clone swept them away with a sweep of her version of Hasuhime; it looked exactly the same as far as Karin could tell, but she hadn't used any kidō with it. If this copy was anything like the real Yuzu, though, pressuring her up close would be the best idea. So Karin flashed forward, throwing her tessen directly for the staff.
It caught with a series of clinks, the chain attached to the end entangling the clone's weapon. Karin took a firmer grip on it and yanked forward. Unexpectedly, the clone abandoned her hold on it and moved in instead.
Karin just barely ducked in time—this fake didn't really fight like Yuzu did at all. Her hakuda strikes were all hard arts, aggressive and powerful, not yielding and clever like the soft arts the real Yuzu preferred.
Shaking Hisaku free of the dropped stave, Karin just barely blocked an incoming punch with the tessen's spine. The hit vibrated through the metal, jarring her arm. The clone recovered just a bit faster, seizing the front of Karin's red haori and pulling her closer.
"I already know you," she hissed in Yuzu's voice. "I know what you cannot cut."
"What are you talking about?" Karin growled, shoving back against her with both hands. She didn't have enough room to use Hisaku, or she would have. This thing was creeping her out.
"Karin!"
That was Yuzu's voice, too, but it was coming from behind the clone. Karin pushed harder, freeing herself from the clone's grip. She was just in time—the spear-point of the real Hasuhime punched through the clone's chest a second later. It disappeared; Yuzu had withdrawn it to move back for another strike. Karin was about to follow suit when the clone abruptly disappeared.
Both of them whipped their heads around, tracking the reiatsu back to where the Espada and the old man were.
The clone materialized at his side, bloody but apparently entirely unconcerned. Maybe she couldn't be hurt like the real thing could? If she was some kind of release or something, Karin figured she might not play by the same rules as an actual person.
She and Yuzu followed, jumping to flank the old man. He didn't look hurt—not physically anyway. But the look on his face—Karin knew that look. It was from a point in their lives before the buffoon-faces were the norm.
This was the way he looked after mom died.
"Dad… what the fuck is going on here?"
He swallowed so thickly she could hear it.
"This… this is the Hollow that killed your mother and brother, Karin. This is Grand Fisher."
Aizen caught Kyōraku's blades—both of them—and hurled the captain into the nearest building. Urahara threw several red reiatsu blasts at him from the left. Those, he let hit him, apparently unconcerned that they left marks in… whatever casing was protecting his body. Yoruichi, nearly out of armor to protect her limbs, sacrificed the leg protection she had left to deliver a roundhouse to the side of his head.
Uryū took the opportunity presented by the revolving door of distractions to set himself up very carefully. He fed a steady stream of reishi into the Seele Schneider, until it vibrated at the highest frequency he felt comfortable with. Too much, and the particles would lose their cohesion. Not enough, and they wouldn't be able to cut through reiatsu as dense as Aizen's carapace.
They might not anyway, but he had to try.
There were no second chances—this battle was it.
Either Aizen was leaving it alive, or they were. Not both.
Firing a few normal arrows from his bow, Uryū curved them around to the right, letting them fly in from the side as Kyōraku and Urahara stepped back in to continue the fight at melee range. Aizen didn't have to do much work to avoid them—just lean to the side or put up a shield. But he was avoiding them.
Why do that if they weren't a threat? He took the blows the others delivered without seeming the least bit concerned.
But even if he didn't dodge, he could. Making sure the Schneider hit was going to be the key here.
And so is doing this while your allies are still alive to distract him, Lucia warned him, her mental tone edged with reproach.
Uryū's mouth pulled into a scowl; he narrowed his eyes and picked a spot to aim for. Drawing the reishi string back to his cheek, he assumed the most basic of all archery stances: a stationary one. It was basic for a reason: the less movement he had to account for, the more likely he'd be to hit where he aimed.
Over Aizen's shoulder, Yoruichi spotted him.
"Bakudō #61: Rikujōkōrō!"
Uryū released on an exhale, the same moment the first of the bars of light from her spell slammed into Aizen's midsection. It wouldn't hold him for long—but the arrow didn't need long.
The Seele Schneider hit full-force right at the back of Aizen's neck. There was a burst and a flash of light; Uryū was forced to shield his eyes. The cracking sound was unmistakable, but…
Blinking as his vision adjusted, Uryū grit his teeth. This couldn't be good.
Aizen stood where he'd been hit—but the shell that had protected him was gone completely. In its place was—well, he looked vaguely like a moth. The wing-shaped protrusions in his back looked to be made of the same stuff as the shell had been.
Not shell. Cocoon.
He turned, a strange silver eye with a purple sclera fixing on Uryū.
"That was quite the arrow. I was hoping you'd be able to muster it. I must thank you—adaptive pressure is important to evolution, after all."
Grand Fisher.
It had been a while since anyone had called him by that name. It was correct, in a way—he had once been the being with that name. Those intentions.
But he was more now.
Beneath his mask, Anzparrejar felt his facial features shifting slightly, adjusting to the new data he gained from the blood on his claws and the images before his eyes. He did not have the capacity to take on the form of a child, but he could call up that piece of himself—nearly amorphous now, but with its memory vaguely intact—and conform it a little more to the way the man looked.
And why wouldn't he? For so long, he had waited for this.
"Segunda Etapa: Piraña Voraz."
The horns growing from the mask fragment atop his head thickened, extending further forward; his estigma drew red lines over the left half of his forehead and the cheekbone beneath it. Anzparrejar felt his vision sharpen and his claws extend into hooks; the sword in his hand compressed and darkened. A soft clink sounded as a thin chain extended from the end of it. At the other end of the chain was a barbed hook, dense enough to be heavy even to him.
Piraña shifted forms, too, losing the appearance of the girl… but only to an extent. She grew several inches taller, her hair lengthening and curling, the color dimming by several shades. Her shape changed, the leanness of active youth replaced with something fuller; her features lost the vestigial traces of childhood. It was too bad, really—they tasted best when they were still just a little bit innocent. A little bit juvenile.
But he would dine on two who stood right on the knife-edge soon; that was enough.
The man looked as though he'd physically been struck, harder than Anzparrejar had yet managed to do. Everyone was weak to something. He had often found that those who stood most easily under the pressure of his reiatsu, weathered his heavy blows with least breakage—those were the ones who buckled at the knees to see someone they loved standing before them, pointing an arrow directly for their heart.
Isshin Kurosaki was no exception.
Anzparrejar dropped his mask.
The dark-haired twin—Karin, his fragmented memories supplied for him—stared with wide eyes.
"I-Ichigo? Is that… you?"
So the contortion was plausible, then. She could believe that she was looking at her dead brother, long years after she'd seen him.
Good.
Heartbreak had the richest taste of all.
Yuzu felt horror rising within her like a tide; the battlefield alone had thrown her waist-deep, but this… this was…
She didn't think there were words for what this was.
Somehow, though, it all fit together. The unease she'd felt around Anzparrejar; the fact that he always seemed to lurk nearby. Every shinigami knew Hollows tended to go for loved ones. Just like everyone knew that Hollows gained power by consuming souls—souls that sometimes retained their unique identities even after consumption. Speaking with Grimmjow had made it clear that occasionally even Arrancar could still be aware of the other former souls within themselves, even if they degenerated until they were largely without individual personalities.
Was it really a great leap to believe that Ichigo—that their mother—was still recognizably in there somewhere? What if… what if he'd somehow become the dominant persona?
Fighting a false replica of someone you loved was one thing. It would be difficult. But… fighting what might actually be all that was left of them in the world…
Could she do that? Could they?
Because that was surely what they faced down now. Their mother—or the image of her—wielded what looked for all intents and purposes like a Quincy bow. Not that different from Uryū's. The glowing arrow fitted to the string was aimed right for Dad's heart. Ichigo—or not-Ichigo, she couldn't say—still wielded a sword. This one was thinner, more like a traditional katana. But the blade was entirely black, and near the front of it, serrated. Tiny gaps in it promised a vicious cut. The hook on the end was a cruel device; she only had to look at it to know that. His eyes had turned yellow, with black sclera.
It was so strange. He looked right and wrong at the same time. She recognized him on a fundamental level… but he was also utterly alien to her.
And her mother…
A zanpakutō spirit was a living thing. Starrk had taught her that in this, a resurrección release was no different. Could it really be that the spirit in this one was some piece of mom?
"Karin. Yuzu." Her father's voice was hard, steady.
She wasn't sure she'd ever heard that tone from him.
"This isn't your mother. It isn't Ichigo. Whatever parts of them are still in there… aren't the family you knew." He pulled in a breath big enough to visibly expand his chest. "You're shinigami. You know what has to be done here."
Yuzu swallowed. There were so many facets of this she hadn't considered. So many implications she knew she needed to look at more carefully, understand more thoroughly. But there wasn't time.
Her allies were in danger. Some of them were probably dying. And whoever this was, whoever he had been, Anzperrejar was threatening the friends and family she had left. No one she would recognize as her mother, no one she would recognize as her nii-chan, would ever do that. Her hands tightened; Hasuhime was cool and firm under her grip. Just like she needed to be right now.
"Bakudō #42: Midoriami!"
The net shot towards Ichi—Anzparrejar. It stretched wide, and then—
An arrow shot it out of the sky, dissolving both in a burst of reiatsu. It didn't feel anything like Uryū's arrows did, but… it looked exactly the same. It was the same kind of wrong and right at the same time as everything else about this.
Yuzu wished this was a nightmare.
She wished she could wake up.
But it wasn't—none of this was. This was all the real, ugly, messy reality of the situation, and she had to face that. Small and weak as she felt against it. Fragile as her resolve felt when the faces she looked into were those of people she loved.
She'd already looked into the faces of her enemies and seen the allies they could be. Now she had to do the opposite.
It was much, much harder.
Yuzu threw another kidō at the creature that wore the face of his first child. This time, the arrow Masaki's doppelganger fired only managed to put out part of it; the rest of the shakkahō made it to the Espada, though he turned it aside with his own zanpakutō.
She shouldn't have to fight alone. He believed everything he said—these people were not Masaki and Ichigo grown. For the sake of his wife and son, he had to kill this Arrancar, so that their souls could find their way to Soul Society to be reborn. That was the bottom line here.
And he wasn't going to be able to do that if he kept fighting at half-steam. Their opponent had some formidable reiatsu. Isshin had to bring his to bear again, too.
Ready?
I am always ready. You're the one that hesitates.
"Ain't that the truth?" he muttered.
He couldn't hesitate now, though: Isshin knew he'd lose his resolve if he did. So, like flipping a switch, he made the decision, and allowed no pause before he went through with it.
"Bankai: Engetsu Naien!"
Isshin's reiatsu reversed direction; what he'd been exuding returned towards his body, sinking into his muscle fibers, nerve endings, and bones. It had never been a painless process, but considering how long it had been since he'd used the release… It didn't surprise him that his vision nearly whited out. It felt like all his parts were being broken down, then sewn back together, though nothing outward changed.
Still, the feeling of being in his own body was different. Thoughts became actions almost faster than he could keep up with; what before would have been a simple tap now had enough force to throw someone three times his size half a block. Fortunately, the Engetsu still in his grip was stronger, too—enough to withstand the force with which he could swing him, anyway.
Isshin surged forwards, avoiding the construct that looked like Masaki. The other was stronger—and he needed to keep him away from his daughters. He swung Engetsu in a controlled arc; it clanged off the Espada's blade with a screeching bang. The sound set his teeth on edge, but Isshin bore downward all the same, testing his strength against the Arrancar's.
It was his foe that had to break the lock; he jumped away and threw a blast of reiatsu from the end of his sword. It was similar to Getsuga Tenshō; that more than anything confirmed to him that Ichigo must be in there, somewhere, in some form. He'd recognize the technique's feel anywhere.
It should have been the birthright of his son.
Should have been something Isshin taught him.
But it wasn't.
He braced to meet the attack with one of his own, but before he could, red closed in all around him, a curtain of reiatsu that blotted his view of the rest of the town. He turned, glancing over his shoulder and down. Karin stood in the sphere with him, Yuzu at her side.
"Bakudō #81: Dankū."
The kidō shield reinforced Karin's wing-sphere just in time: they all felt the impact as the black Getsuga Tenshō collided with their outer layer.
"Drop the shield as soon as it's over," he said. His eyes flickered between them.
Karin still looked uneasy; her expression wavered. Yuzu, on the other hand, seemed more resolute, and nodded firmly.
"Remember what you're fighting for, girls," Isshin continued quietly. "This is the only way to free them."
The red sphere finally broke under the pressure; the attack slammed into the dankū as well. But it had lost enough power that though the second barrier cracked, it did not break. The moment the way cleared in front of them, Yuzu dropped the kidō. Isshin lunged.
"Shit."
Karin dove to the side, narrowly avoiding the arrow her mother fired.
No. Not mom. She had to remember that.
But it was really hard—this… resurrección or whatever it was looked exactly like the memories she had left of her mother's face. She'd only been eight years old when she lost her, but… even after all her other memories from the living world had faded or disappeared, those ones were still pretty clear.
And they looked like this.
"Karin!" Yuzu flinched, taking several steps to the side.
Dammit. The longer she stayed in bankai like this, the harder the fire got to keep hold of. It was like… well… trying to keep hold of fire.
"Sorry, Yuzu. Just… try and stay clear. I dunno how much longer I can—"
Two more arrows incoming. Karin swung Hisaku's fan, throwing an arc of flames out to meet them. Though they should have incinerated in the air, it seemed she didn't apply enough power, because they were still heading towards her.
Yuzu intervened, striking them directly out of the air with a swing of Hasuhime. The staff's rings jingled with the force of the hit; the sound was way too… pleasant, for a battle. Not like that racket dad was making.
"Karin, Yuzu…"
Karin's eyes went wide. It was the first time she'd heard Mo—the illusion speak.
She sounded just like her, too. That same patient gentleness.
She lowered her bow, relaxing the draw partway and regarding them with soft, dark eyes. "Please… don't do this. My girls—I don't want to hurt you."
Karin heard the strangled choking sound that came after the words—but it took her several seconds to realize that she was the one who'd made it.
No.
No, this wasn't fair.
Hadn't they suffered enough? Hadn't she suffered enough? This was something she'd dealt with. Badly, and then better when Hisaku forced her to at the academy. It still hurt, sure, but it was old pain. It wasn't supposed to ever be a fresh wound again. It wasn't supposed to be like this.
"Shut up! You're not my mom!" Karin felt the fire slipping away from her, passing through her control like it would burn through dry underbrush. Reiatsu poured outwards, from the vents in her wrists, from the damn pores in her skin. Too much of it, feeding the fire that surged around her, leaping up towards the sky.
"Karin, no!"
She thought she heard a distant voice, but it was too soft over the roaring of the fire. It fed on her pain, spread outwards from the center point of her body and ate and burned and it hurt.
But Karin didn't care. She howled her fury and jumped forward, dead-set on destroying this thing that was wearing her mom's face.
Yuzu watched her go with a mixture of trepidation and outright fear. Karin's fire was only spreading—that was a potential danger to other people in the area. But just as much of a problem was that it wasn't as focused as it needed to be. The chance of it doing more good than bad was slim.
And Karin didn't quite seem to be able to see that.
She glanced left—Dad was still locked in combat with Anzparrejar himself. They looked to be really evenly-matched; she couldn't risk distracting him or it could all be over. That meant if anyone was going to be able to contain this fire, it had to be her.
But how?
Karin's fire was kidō-like; Yuzu knew that. That meant it should interact with other kidō in the ways she'd learned about already. She had that going for her, anyway. The flames were wild and poorly-controlled, and Karin just seemed to be letting her reiatsu pour into them without much caution. It was something Yuzu could understand, but not exactly what they needed right now.
So it came down to finding a way to make the bad situation into a better one. To contain and concentrate the fire, and direct it where they needed it to go.
She didn't think too much about where that was, exactly; having the puzzle to solve was doing wonders for her own clarity. She couldn't afford to lose that.
Containment. Control.
"Bakudō #81: Dankū." A translucent, pink-tinged barrier spread outwards from Yuzu's fingertips, extending towards Karin and Piraña, or the reiatsu construct that Piraña's release had made. It was hard to differentiate, and not important right now.
Normally, dankū were used as barriers, walls between oneself and hostile kidō. Yuzu bent hers so that it started to dome over Karin's fire, cutting off its ascent. Her sister had said Hisaku never burned her. Yuzu had no choice but to believe it was so.
Containing the fire proved difficult; Karin was putting a lot of reiatsu into it. Yuzu was forced to use more than she was comfortable with reinforcing the kidō, but she managed. Shaping it outwards, she brought the ceiling of it down, then formed funnels with it as well, keeping the spell moving with Karin. It wasn't much danger to anyone else now, but trying to direct it specifically with tubes made of kidō was a struggle. Both Karin and the being who looked like their mother were fast, and moving around a lot.
But she did have some success.
A surge of fire from Karin fed smoothly into one of Yuzu's kidō funnels, and she aimed it just in time to blast an incoming Piraña as she tried to flank. She probably would have just hit the dankū at that angle, but Yuzu didn't want to risk it breaking. Piraña's clothing caught fire; she shrieked and fired several more arrows at Karin.
Karin knocked two out of the sky with her zanpakutō, but the third one had curved. It was coming in from below—and Yuzu wasn't shielding that angle. Expanding the kidō would take too long, and she was running out of reiatsu. Karin wasn't in any shape to take heed of a warning.
Yuzu acted.
"Karin, move!"
She wasn't sure she'd ever flash-stepped as fast as she did right then. She still almost didn't make it—she had to bend at the waist to reach Karin, shoving her sister out of the way as hard as she could. It occurred to her that the burning she smelled was due to her own skin and clothes—that was the last thought she had before the arrow slammed into her gut.
She fell.
"Yuzu!"
But Yuzu was falling.
She tensed her muscles to follow, but she got in the way, firing another volley of arrows all at once.
Karin lost whatever hold she had left on the fire; it climbed into the sky and fizzled out. The loss left her only with her sword and her tessen, and whatever fight she had left in her.
She knocked half the dozen away with Hisaku's blade, flashing out of the way of the others. This had to end—now. Not eventually, not soon. Not whenever she could muster the power, or a strategy. Just. Now.
She flew forward as fast as she could push herself. Her muscles strained under the force of the shunpō steps; her knees clicked hard as she landed out of the jump, swinging her katana. The fake version of her mom blocked with the bow she carried; Karin threw the tessen, trying to get it around her neck. She caught the chain midway with a hand; it wrapped around her arm instead. Karin yanked, pulling her forward and down and driving her knee upwards at the same time.
There was no mistaking the wet crunch of a nose breaking, nor the warm blood seeping into her hakama. With her other hand, she brought the tsuka of her sword down on the back of the woman's head. She was past seeing her mother in this thing now. All she could see was someone who'd tried to kill her sister.
And Karin couldn't forgive that.
She didn't escape unscathed—a heavy blast of reiatsu caught her in the abdomen. A kidō? One more thing her real mom wouldn't have been able to do, then. And the Quincy bow wasn't right either. And how had she even for a moment been fooled by this?
Backing off, Karin put a hand to the burn wound on her side and hissed at the pain it caused. Her vision was a little fuzzy. Either the pain or her drained reiatsu was doing that—maybe both. She'd wasted too much of it feeding her fire—she saw that now.
But it wasn't too late. Not yet. She could still pull through here.
For Yuzu's sake, she had to.
Dad appeared beside her, bleeding from a cut in his eyebrow and a deeper slash wound across his chest. He was sucking air in like a bellows, but he was still using bankai, too, apparently.
"What happened to Yuzu?" he asked, tone urgent.
Karin shook her head. It was her fault—but if she was going to have a chance at fixing it, she had to swallow the guilt for now. It'd come back up later like something rotten she'd eaten, but that was fine. As long as it stayed down for now.
"She's alive, but…" She was probably unconscious. Karin hoped it wouldn't get any worse than that.
From the corner of an eye, she saw his expression shift for a second; he let out something that sounded like a relieved sigh.
"He's got her."
Karin wasn't sure which he—she couldn't sense it—but she figured dad's relief was good enough.
Yuzu was going to be okay. She had to be.
"I'm ready, Dad," Karin said, tightening her grip on Hisaku.
"Good," he replied. "With me."
As one, they surged forward, swapping targets at the last second. Grand Fisher or whatever, the Espada, had been expecting a heavy, hard blow from Engetsu, not a swift, low stroke from Hisaku. It landed; Karin felt her mouth curl when his hamstring snapped audibly. There was no time to be satisfied, though: high-speed regeneration was a bitch to deal with, and she was willing to bet his was impressive.
She felt her dad coming in behind her; Karin delayed her flash step until the last moment to disguise his approach, then dove away, bringing her blade up to cut down two arrows flying for his back. They disintegrated in a cloud of smoke.
All the reiatsu Karin had left went into Hisaku's blade itself, until the air around it started to shimmer from the heat. She remembered her fight with the spirit for bankai. Remembered what it had taken to get in close enough to an opponent who was nearly untouchable. And she found that thing again, opening her guard just enough to be noticed.
The puppet with Mom's face saw it and went for it, stepping in closer to fire point-blank. That close, there was no way Karin could close the gap in her defense fast enough—but she didn't even try, lunging forward instead.
The arrow thudded into her shoulder; she'd already switched hands with Hisaku, dropping the tessen and thrusting forwards with the blade.
It pierced the puppet's chest, meeting resistance when it scraped one of her ribs before bursting out the other side. The hissing sound could only be the blade boiling the blood and offal on itself. Karin turned up the heat.
The puppet shrieked as she was incinerated from the inside. It cut off abruptly as she burst apart. The sudden loss of support threw Karin forward a bit.
And suddenly, the Espada was there.
A clawed hand closed over her shoulder, stabbing her with what felt like steel needles and yanking her forward. His teeth closed over the spot her neck met her shoulder, and it was Karin's turn to scream.
As quickly as he'd appeared, he was torn away; his claws left bloody furrows in her shoulder, but that was nothing compared to the pain of the bite. Karin's vision whited out.
The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was her dad running the Espada through.
The expression on his face was murderous.
"Yoruichi."
Kisuke reached inside his loose shirt, producing a capped needle and syringe from an inside pocket. He tossed it to her with a flick of his wrist.
She grimaced—clearly, she didn't want to leave the fight, dangerous as it was. But Kisuke was thinking beyond the fight, and there was a chance that Karin Kurosaki needed what was inside that syringe. Very much.
"You sure it should be me?" Her glance slid to Uryū for half a second, attacking Aizen in tandem with Kyōraku.
She wanted to spare him the danger. Kisuke could understand that. Better than he thought he'd be able to, actually. He felt the same.
But right now, it was what he knew that mattered. Not what he felt.
"Yes."
She required no further confirmation. Trust filled in the gaps in his words, the way it had for a very long time now. She flashed away to where the second Kurosaki had fallen.
Kisuke returned his attention to Aizen. Leaving aside the fact that evolution wasn't exactly the right word for this—evolving was something a species did, not an individual—the change in his constitution, the makeup of his spirit-body, was formidable. Kisuke thought it fitting to describe it as a mutation—the slight pejorative flavor to that word sat nicely with him.
Less nice was the corner he'd effectively backed them all into. Kisuke could tell that anxiety and even fear weighed heavily on the other two—perhaps on everyone else on the field, if they had the time to spare for it. He was less concerned, but it was also vital that he did not tip his hand now. There were still ways this could go wrong. The crucial thing to do was to push Aizen to dig even deeper, to tap further and further into the energy he was trying to integrate with his body.
Any organism could only grow so fast. Any rubber band could only stretch so far.
It was their job to make sure that Aizen in his arrogance pushed too far, pulled too tight, grew too fast—
And snapped.
Now seemed like a good time to call in a favor, then.
"Jigoku no Ken." Kisuke shifted his reiatsu, drawing it back over himself like a cloak. The familiar feeling of it was interrupted somewhat when it took on a faint tinge of what he'd picked up in Hell—but that was the very point of the technique.
Benihime's revulsion was obvious; he could feel it rebounding through his inner world as the sky over her castle grew dark and her air gained the distinct scent of sulfur.
But Kisuke chose to ignore that, solidifying the mixed energy and feeling it settle around him as a spiritual object. The coat was, if anything, a jinbaori. But of course he had no great lineage, to have come by such a thing in the usual way. Instead, it was emblazoned with the heraldry of hell itself—a solitary, withered tree enclosed in a white circle made up the mon. The rest of it was ordinary enough in appearance. Red, gold, and black silk, mostly. It sat like any haori did, though the weight was much heavier. Unsurprising, given the density of the reiatsu involved.
The abrupt change caught Aizen's attention, naturally, and he appeared in front of Kisuke, firing a blast of raw energy point-blank.
Kisuke brought up Benihime to form a shield. As expected, it didn't hold up under the pressure, and most of the blast hit him head-on. He shifted upwards on his geta, his feet dragging along the air-surface he'd made for himself. But it only pushed him back several meters instead of several hundred, and the impact itself dispersed over the armor.
"What's this?" Aizen tilted his head, regarding Kisuke with a curled upper lip.
He considered that fortunate—Aizen's first response had been to strike with power and no finesse, and already he was looking for a way to underestimate the development. Kisuke could only suppose the Hogyōku itself was influencing his strategy. The Aizen he'd once known prided himself on knowing before acting, and most often knowing more than anyone else.
It was why he, and not someone like Yamamoto, had fallen into the role of opponent. Aizen, not Kisuke, had chosen how this war was framed. Kisuke had only decided to play the role he was assigned.
"I see your time in Hell was well-spent."
"Do you?" Kisuke drawled. "I'm not sure you see anything anymore. It's almost disappointing."
Aizen's brows descended over his eyes. "On the contrary, I am the one who is disappointed. Five years to prepare, and your strategy comes down to this? This is your final maneuver—the last obstacle to stand before me?" He shook his head faintly.
They were interrupted by the heavy whistle of a Heilig Pfiel.
"I wonder," Kisuke replied, intentionally coy.
Aizen dodged the arrow; it skimmed his sleeve and left a ragged tear, but did not draw blood. Kisuke lunged while he was still off-balance, feinting with Benihime. When Aizen moved to block, he twisted away, thrusting out with a hand.
"Hadō #73: Sōren Sōkatsui." The twin flame ropes snapped outwards; one of them wrapped around Aizen's left forearm.
He looked down at it dismissively, blasting the spell apart by exerting his reiatsu.
"Hadō #78: Zangerin." Kyōraku's attack was next; he aimed the blast low.
Rather than move high, Aizen blocked it with more reiatsu, forcing the spell to disperse. Kyōraku was breathing heavily—Kisuke was honestly surprised he was still able to use a kidō that high in the ordering. Then again, that generation did have some pretty scary reiatsu themselves, didn't they?
That was good. The more they had to throw at him, the more Aizen would use to thwart them.
And if they could last long enough… that would be his undoing.
When Yuzu fell, Coyote caught her.
It only seemed fair, considering everything that had happened.
The bolt of reiatsu was still embedded in her belly; he left that alone for now. It was probably preventing her from bleeding out, and he was no healer. Hooking one of his arms under her knees and the other around her back, he tried to avoid jostling the injury too much, though that was not a nonissue, considering the surroundings.
He could sense the Gillians looming over him without seeing them or even their long shadows. Whatever natural instinct they had to avoid his power wasn't working at the moment. Perhaps they couldn't even properly sense him. He'd have preferred that they stay away, but since they were intent on eating him—or more likely, Yuzu—he fired several ceros from a standstill, blasting each one in the mask.
He thought he could detect a reiatsu he'd sensed once before, just now entering the area. The woman—the one who'd been there when he retrieved Yuzu on Aizen's orders. If he recalled correctly, Yuzu's division comprised healers, and that woman was the captain. If so, it was obvious what he had to do.
Getting there, however, would be a chore. While Coyote supposed he might repel at least some of the Gillians simply in virtue of being what he was, the opposite was true of the Arrancar. Perhaps they supposed that killing the Primera would earn them the spot, should Aizen emerge victorious.
They could have it.
But of course, there was no reasoning through things—not now. They didn't have the inclination, and he didn't have the time.
So Coyote turned his power upon those who had once been his allies. Again.
He passed by a cluster of fallen and fighting shinigami. Several wore badges on their arms, like a few of the intruders. He assumed they were officers of some kind. A small girl with short, dark hair hurled a ball of fire at a Gillian; beside her, a man with a tattooed face threw a peculiar blade on the end of a chain. Coyote could sense more shinigami approaching. They would be fine. Yuzu might not.
He stepped into sonído, letting it carry him further towards Yuzu's captain.
Uryū wasn't sure how much further he could push his body before it gave out.
Mentally, he was still fully in the fight. It was discouraging how little anything seemed to harm Aizen, but he, Urahara, and Kyōraku were holding their own well enough for now. If he was reading Urahara right, they were waiting for something to happen. What that something was, he had no idea—but he hoped it happened before he passed out from sheer exhaustion.
His reiatsu had been restored and his injuries healed from his fight with Ulquiorra, but it wasn't the same thing as a good night's sleep, something to eat, and a week off from work. That was certain.
He jerked backwards just in time to avoid a full-force kidō blast from Aizen. His tactics had shifted; whatever armor Urahara was wearing prevented him from taking too much damage at the moment, and so Uryū and Kyōraku were taking the majority of the hits.
In the smoky wake of the raikōhō, Aizen appeared directly in front of him. Uryū shortened his step, taking a hard half-stride back onto his left leg to try and use hirenkyaku faster and get out of range—but it wasn't quick enough. Not quite.
Aizen's hand closed over his zeichen, ripping the chain free of his wrist and crushing it.
Damn.
The reishi Uryū had already collected in the object had nowhere to go; without anyone controlling its flow, it backed up and burst apart, throwing Aizen several feet away and enabling Uryū to scramble elsewhere.
This wasn't good. Without his zeichen, he couldn't summon his bow. Couldn't properly direct reishi. His Quincy powers were as good as done for, at least for the duration of this battle.
You're being dramatic.
Lucia didn't seem impressed by his logic. Any answer he could have given was delayed by the need to get out of Aizen's range, though. Uryū unhooked Yorugen from his belt, readjusting his grip on both blades.
I'm being realistic, unless you know of some other zeichen just laying around somewhere.
She sniffed at him. It was still occasionally bizarre, being able to know that sort of thing without actually entering the Inner World. More difficult, quite distracting—but possible.
Does not having your zanpakutō make it impossible to use kidō? A zeichen is a focus, but it is only an object. You are a Quincy—no piece of metal makes it so.
A crash sounded across the field; Aizen had apparently moved on to other targets. A plume of light grey smoke billowed from the side of a building; it would appear he'd put either Urahara or the captain through it.
He believes you're no longer a threat. But he isn't thinking much anymore, only destroying.
He supposed she might be right about that. Pursing his lips, Uryū attempted to gather reishi from the air surrounding him. If he could re-form his bow without his cross, he may yet be able to help the others resolve this.
It fizzled out, dispersing back into the environment.
I need a focus.
So use what you have. That, surprisingly, came from Yorugen.
What he had? But right now, all he had was…
Exactly.
Though ordinarily he'd have questioned them both on this until he was satisfied of the soundness of the suggestion, there really wasn't time for that just now. The other two were still up, but Kyōraku had a brand-new massive gash across his chest. It was bleeding at an alarming rate. If they were taken from three to two, there was no telling how the balance of the fight would shift, exactly. He might find himself under too much pressure to try anything.
Recalling something he'd once done in a practice match against Urahara, years ago now, Uryū tried again to gather the energy he wanted. This time, he focused it on Yorugen, swathing the blades in reishi in a similar way to building a Seele Schneider, only over something else. It stuck surprisingly well—it wasn't hard to vibrate the particles in the usual way, sharpening the edges of the zanpakutō.
The downside here was that he no longer had range. If he wanted to do anything useful, he had to get in close.
When Uryū's reiatsu changed, Kisuke knew it was only a matter of time.
He could sense the instability in the Hōgyoku. Aizen, now nearly fully integrated with it, clearly could not. There was nothing better for breaking apart spiritual energy bonds than a Quincy.
The math was plain as day.
But contact would be required; Uryū's first pass missed. Aizen ducked to the side and blasted him with reiatsu. The air thickened with it, pressing down on all three of them.
"I grow weary of this charade."
The pressure spiked again; he had to be drawing that directly from the orb. Moving became a lot harder; though Kisuke's armor blunted the worst of it, Kyōraku was not so lucky. He lunged for Aizen, only for his shunpō to fall abruptly short of where he'd intended; he crashed facefirst into the ground. Unlike every time before, he did not rise.
Kisuke stepped in, blocking Aizen's attempted deathblow with Benihime. His Hell-tainted reiatsu gave him a little bit of breathing room here; he'd trained under oppressive pressure like this on purpose. But he was still slower than he'd like to be; Aizen's other hand drove for his abdomen in a kidō-infused strike much heavier than anything Yoruichi had ever hit him with.
He dug in, grunting and weathering the blow instead of letting himself be flung away. Uryū needed time. He was almost there—almost where Kisuke believed he could go. If this spiritual pressure didn't push him to it, then he could not be pushed. But Kisuke believed he could.
And he was hanging his plan on that belief.
Knowing that, Kisuke dug into his own reiatsu reserves, launching a barrage of high-level Hadō to keep Aizen occupied and moving. Whether he dodged, blocked, or snuffed them out with more reiatsu really didn't matter. All of them would consume his resources, and that was the only thing that mattered.
On the heels of a raikōhō, Kisuke flashed in; Benihime sliced across Aizen's chest, skittering over the Hōgyoku still embedded there. As if rejecting the contact, the orb itself repelled her, forcing his guard open and leaving him vulnerable to a counterstroke.
Even under the armor, Kisuke felt his ribs snap when it landed. Losing his traction, he stabbed Benihime into the ground to prevent being launched too far. Even maintaining his hold on her sent jarring bolts of pain through his torso. Cold sweat broke out almost spontaneously on his face and neck—but the strain alone did not loosen his grip. His zanpakutō dragged through concrete, but brought him to a stop fifty feet or so from Aizen.
He hardly landed gracefully, but at least he kept his feet. Pulling in as much air as he could, Kisuke lifted her, resetting his feet and preparing another kidō.
Uryū had stepped in; the blades of his zanpakutō were wreathed in a pale blue light—it was one that Kisuke recognized. Slashing low, he grimaced when Aizen twisted away from the blow. The hand that grabbed for his neck passed through him as though he were air.
Like a volcano, the force of Aizen's reiatsu continued to build.
But Uryū's power was building, too. The more difficult it became to stand beneath the force of Aizen's spiritual pressure, the more his Quincy abilities fed on that same energy, breaking it down and converting it into pure reishi. It gathered, silver-white, near of all places the crown of his head. Kisuke could sense its instability even now—the light wavered at the edges, as though it desired solidity but could not achieve it.
Both of them threatened to erupt, to burst apart and lose their vital coherence. The balance was delicate.
What tipped the scales was not something either of them did.
It was not something Kisuke had done—not directly.
It was something that must have occurred before the battle had even begun.
Aizen's eyes went wide. In his chest, the Hōgyoku ruptured, then burst apart, separating into tiny purple and blue pieces that faded into nothing.
For a strange moment, everything was still, balanced on a knife-edge of silence.
Kisuke released the last piece of reiatsu he needed to trigger his trap.
"Bakudō #100: Jigokujō."
The seal took effect, harnessing the energy of the disruption to reinforce itself. Luminous red chains pinned Aizen in place, staking him to the sigil that appeared on the ground. He struggled against it, but the reiatsu he used to do that simply fed into the chains themselves. A rather insidious little thing—a spell that got stronger the more effort the target used to free themselves.
Aizen's eyes snapped to Kisuke. "This is your doing."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes," Kisuke confirmed. "In part." He glanced beyond Aizen; Uryū's exertions, temporary as they might have been, had drained him; that much was easy to see. He'd collapsed; Kisuke could see the steady rise and fall of his chest, but his eyes were closed.
"Before you achieved complete transfiguration, I fired that kidō into your body on the back of another kidō."
"Then…?"
Kisuke sheathed Benihime at his waist and let the Jigoku no Ken disperse. "I thought that if you managed to fully fuse with the Hōgyoku, you would become all but impossible to kill, so I devised this seal, modified from one I invented in Hell. It relied upon you using too much of the Hōgyoku's power, enough to exhaust you and it."
No power source was limitless. Both of the orbs were made with highly-compressed energy; but the amount in each was still finite, as was the amount that Aizen himself contributed. There was no such thing as power without boundary—his mistake had been assuming that such an amount of it would be close enough to limitless that he didn't need to worry about managing it.
Well… one of his mistakes, anyway.
"I'd intended to destabilize it somehow as well, of course—Uryū was quite helpful in that way. But it looks like someone already did some of my work for me, right?"
It seemed to occur to Aizen only then. Kisuke huffed softly from his nose.
"I guess even you can be fooled by an illusion, if you aren't expecting it. Mice bite, you know."
Aizen's lips pulled back from his teeth in something like a snarl. "I despise you. You possess such a great intellect, and yet you do not act. How are you able to let yourself be ruled by a thing like that? Surely you see all the ways in which something else would be better. Surely you see all the flaws in how things are."
Kisuke blinked. "A thing like that? You mean the Soul King, right? I guess you've seen him." He sighed, glancing around for a moment at the wreckage the fake town had become. "Without the Soul King's existence, Soul Society would be rent asunder. Things as they are would cease to exist. That's just the way it is."
"Those are the words of the vanquished," Aizen spat, all trace of polite civility gone. Defeat could do that to a person, perhaps. "Victors must always speak of the way the world should be, not how it is!"
Kisuke stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head. "There's no easy path to 'should be,' Sōsuke-san. Take it from someone who's looked."
Rukia raised a hand to knock on the door in front of her, shifting the bundle under her other arm to rest on her hip. She smiled for a moment when the voice on the other side told her to enter, but smoothed it away from her face before she actually did.
"Hey," she said. "Feeling better?"
Ishida's lips thinned into a line; she felt her smile returning. Someone had finally found him another pair of glasses at least. Maybe Nanao—because it looked like they'd come with a small stack of paperwork.
He caught her looking at the pile and sighed audibly. "Mission reports," he said dully. "I don't think I realized how much we actually just did until I had to write it all down."
She could sympathize. Crossing the room, Rukia set the bundle down in front of him. "Lunch," she declared, taking a seat at one of the chairs near his bed. "I asked Isane; she said it was okay for you to eat this instead of the hospital food."
"Who made it?" he asked, a faint note of suspicion entering his voice.
She resisted the urge to scowl at him. "Not me, okay? It was Yuzu. I tried to help, but she mostly ended up doing everything anyway." She'd tried to make lunch for the both of them once. It hadn't really worked out the way she'd intended.
Ishida untied the knot at the top of the bundle, separating the parts of the bento box out in his usual meticulous fashion. She wished she could say she wasn't accustomed to seeing him in a medical facility, but they had been here before. At least it was less awkward this time.
He proffered one of the box's tiers to her; she recognized a peace offering when she saw it, and accepted. He always gave her the good part of his lunch—or let her take it, whichever. She didn't decline; it was a kindness that neither of them acknowledged as such, which was why it continued.
"How…" he seemed unsure how to finish the question, picking up his utensils with his left hand and furrowing his brow. "Is there a polite way to ask who made it?"
It had been three days, but for some the recovery was only beginning. Others still lingered between life and death—it wasn't certain which of them would make it and which would not. She wasn't surprised he hadn't heard yet.
"I asked nii-sama this morning for an update," she said quietly. "I'm sure they've told you that Karin-chan and Yuzu-chan are stable. They took a lot of damage, but they'll be okay."
He nodded, indicating that he'd heard.
"The rest of the Hueco Mundo group is fine—you already know about Zaraki. Yachiru is… no one seems to be sure where she is, exactly, but she'll probably show up again soon. I think she just needs some time. Kurosaki-san's doing okay—he'll probably be by to visit you in a bit, considering how much time he spends here."
Rukia sighed, beginning to tick names off on her fingers. "Kyōraku-taichō is under the direct care of Unohana-taichō right now, but he'll be all right. He's already awake and talking, so there isn't much more to worry about. Urahara and Yoruichi are already back in the real Karakura Town. We lost Komamura-taichō. Hinamori-san and Hisagi-san are awake; Izuru-san is… they're not sure about him. A couple of those strange fighters with the masks are still critical; Iemura-san is treating them in the living world since they refused to come here."
Apparently, they were still technically fugitives, and until that status was changed, it was probably smart of them not to want to be here. She was sure Urahara and his friends were helping, too, which was probably the next best thing to having Unohana or Isane working on them.
"The Sōtaichō is gone." That more than anything was incredibly difficult for Rukia to believe. And yet… she'd seen it from the command room, with Nanao and Renji and a few of the others. "Sasakibe-san has… his burns are really bad, but they won't kill him. Everyone else is somewhere between okay and dead, I guess."
He frowned at that, but made no attempt to refute it. "And Aizen?" He raised another bite to his mouth; only then did Rukia realize she'd been neglecting to do the same.
"Awaiting trial. The new Central 46 is still being assembled, but as soon as they are, they'll be hearing his case." He could rot in the Mūken for all Rukia cared.
Ishida bobbed his head slowly. "Are you all right?"
She snorted. "You're the one in the hospital bed, Ishida."
"Perhaps, but I only fought my enemies."
Someone must have told him about Aaroniero. Rukia swallowed, but found it surprisingly easy to let the feelings pass. What they left behind was a quiet certainty she'd only rarely felt before.
"And so did I."
The corner of his mouth twitched into an almost-smile. "Fair enough." He paused. "This isn't going to end here. So much has happened… things are going to change."
He wasn't wrong. Power in the Gotei 13 was concentrated into the hands of the captains, especially the Sōtaichō. After everything, six of them, including the Sōtaichō, were dead. Iba was gone, and it was hard to say whether Izuru would survive or not. Any way they looked at it, things had been shaken. How they would even begin to recover wasn't something Rukia was sure she knew. She didn't envy the decisions the next Sōtaichō would have to make.
"Yeah," she said. "They are."
Term Dictionary:
Tensō Jūrin – 天相従臨 – "Subjugation of the Heavens." One of Hyōrinmaru's basic powers, as well as its strongest, it allows Hitsugaya to control the weather in the immediate vicinity, or more specifically, control the water in the surrounding atmosphere. The ability is usable in both shikai and bankai.
Anzparrejar – From emparejar, which means "to duplicate" or "to twin" and el anzuelo, which is the word for a lure in the sense of fishing lure. Since all the Arrancar have names with a doubled letter, I added the extra r. In case anyone was wondering whether or not I just pulled that name out of the ether at random. The Nula Espada, who was at one time the Hollow known as Grand Fisher. He killed and ate both Masaki and Ichigo Kurosaki, and in doing so, also ate what was left over of the experimental Hollow, White. White and the Grand Fisher were the dominant components of Anzparrejar, who Aizen turned into an Arrancar with the Hōgyoku. It wasn't really Masaki or Ichigo in the important sense, but their spirits were technically in there, as were some of their memories and such, which allowed Anzparrejar to take on their appearances and act somewhat convincingly as them.
Piraña Voraz –白切歯肉食魚 真捕食 – The kanji are "White-Toothed Carnivorous Fish, True Predation." The Spanish is "Ravenous Piranha." Anzparrejar's Segunda Etapa. It looks a fair bit like Ichigo's bankai, for the obvious reason that Ichigo's reiatsu is a large chunk of Anz's power, but there are influences from the other sources in there too: White and Grand Fisher being the big ones. Masaki, of course, provides the shape of the big ball of reiatsu that was the initial resurrección, which remains active.
Engetsu Naien –剡月内炎 – "Scathing Moon, Inner Flame." Isshin's bankai. Never shown, but sometimes referred to in canon. It's described as being difficult to use, and to require a "fixing" of reiatsu that isn't possible if Isshin is already heavily-injured. Extrapolating from those qualities, I decided that it likely made some kind of alteration to his body itself. So in headcanon and here, the bankai focuses Isshin's considerable reiatsu inwards, rather than using it to create more external effects. It acts as a really powerful self-buff, which seems also to fit with Isshin's freakish (even by canon standards) physical strength (see: finger-flicking Aizen through at least two successive buildings). The bankai takes the trait up to eleven by enhancing all of Isshin's physical capacities and making him much more resistant to damage. It lacks any new techniques, but makes most of the physical ones he already uses much more dangerous.
Jigoku no Ken – 地獄の堅 – "Hell's Armor," basically. It's a technique that Kisuke can use to blend his reiatsu with residual tainted energy from hell, and then solidify that into armor. It's something of a unique technique—not really a kidō as such, certainly not a zanpakutō technique or a Fullbring. The coat itself is very protective, but the more important property of engaging the technique is that it changes the composition of Kisuke's reiatsu to include Hell energy, which if you've read The Uncertainty Principle you know has some pretty interesting properties. One of them is that it doesn't fully interact with kidō the way most energy does—hence why shinigami cannot break chains made of Hell-tainted energy.
Jinbaori – 陣羽織 – Roughly "Battle array feather weave." It's an outer coat traditionally worn with samurai armor. Samurai would display mon, their house crests, on the jinbaori, usually prominently on the back between the shoulderblades and then sometimes on the lapels on the front. Of course, your house had to be fancy enough to have a mon, hence Kisuke's reference here to not being of a sufficiently-distinguished pedigree himself. The mon on the Jigoku no Ken are representative of Amari, and by extension Hell itself.
Zangerin – 斬華輪 – "Cutting Flower Ring." Hadō #78. The practitioner generates a large amount of energy from their zanpakutō before blasting it outward with enough power to level a building.
Jigokujō – 地獄錠 – "Hell Shackles." This kidō made its initial appearance in the last chapter of The Uncertainty Principle, for those of you who read that one. A new bakudō seal Urahara and Amari invented for the purposes of sealing Shuren, since killing him would just result in his eventual reappearance. The spell in its initial form is a sphere of red light, which is then extended and shot as twin bolts into the Saketsu (鎖結) "binding chain," and Hakusui (魄睡) "soul sleep," the important points of spiritual power in any being. Rather than simply destroying them (something which typically robs the soul of its spiritual powers in its current incarnation), this kidō actually uses the reiryoku generated by them to continually reinforce itself: the harder the subject of the seal struggles to use its power to overcome it, the stronger the seal becomes. Which makes it basically perfect for use against Aizen, who has enough reiatsu to vaporize people. Kisuke gave it the number Bakudō #100, to indicate both its relative power requirement and its standing outside the kidō canon (which only goes from 1-99).
*collapses*
I do apologize that this chapter took so long; I hope its length and content go some way towards making up for that. To be honest, I struggled a lot with writing it—not because I didn't know what I wanted to do, but because getting there was at times a bit of a slog for me. I'm pretty much wiped on fight scenes for a while, I think. Plus it's a bad time in the semester, and a crazy time in the world for various reasons, and so on. Much as I sometimes wish I existed in a vacuum, free of worldly concern, I sadly do not.
In any case, that finishes Catastrophe Theory. It does not, of course, finish the Chaos Theory AU. I will probably not be able to write much for the next month or month and a half, just because the end of term is here and I have essays to do, but you can rest assured that I have no intentions of abandoning the series. There's a lot of work still to do on it, and a lot of improving I need to be trying for as a writer.
At times like these, when pretty much everyone is upset for one reason or another, I think it can be prudent to occasionally take a break and remind myself of things I'm grateful for and things that are going right. So, please know that I'm grateful to you, reader, for indulging me in this little lark of mine, and that whoever or wherever you are, you have my honest appreciation and my thanks.
Reviews very much appreciated.