Hey-oh.

Don't expect this as a regular thing. My life's shaky right now.

Enjoy.

X-X-X

The Striking Snake

Ch29

Crescendo

X-X-X

"Get off me, you - !"

Soifon finally freed her right arm, and aimed an elbow strike at her masked captor. Said captor, however, managed to twist their head away at just the right angle, and Soifon ended up punching thin air.

Then the unidentified figure detached themselves, and they both landed sharply. They were in the forest immediately to the west of the base of the sokyōku hill.

"Ahh, Soifon..." The figure said, their voice laced with humor. "Looks like I can still catch you off guard. Though I admit it wasn't as easy as it used to be."
Soifon's eyes widened.

"I said we'd meet again in three days, didn't I?" Yoruichi said, pulling her hood back. "Well, here I am."

Soifon's eyes narrowed again, and he hands clenched.

"It's funny," she said at last. "After all this time, I thought I'd have more to say. But now, with you standing before me... I just can't think of any words at all."

Yoruichi tensed. She barely had time to dodge as Soifon's zanpakutō hissed through the air millimeters from where she had stood.

"I guess action will have to speak for me!" Soifon yelled at her former captain. "Sting my enemies to death, Suzumebachi!"

With a crackling surge of white reiatsu, Soifon's short tachi transformed, turning into an ornate golden wristband whose armor extended up the back of her hand. It connected to a claw-sheath around her middle finger, which terminated in a cruel eight inch spike.

Yoruichi took up a ready hakuda stance, her muscles easily recalling centuries of practice.

"Not going to draw your own?"

"I left her in the human world," Yoruichi said offhandedly. "I reasoned that if I met someone I had to draw her on, I'd have failed my mission anyway."
"How foolish of you. You used to teach us to be prepared for every eventuality."

"I am prepared for every eventuality, Soifon," Yoruichi replied calmly. "No matter how you intend to take it from here, there is no eventuality where I would be willing to draw my sword against you."

Soifon hissed, and charged.

X-X-X

The velvety hazel orbs, once so kind and warm, had not changed - and yet somehow the soul they purportedly windowed was suddenly lethally bladed and crystalline, more like broken glass than velvet.

"While I would be perfectly justified in simply eliminating the pertinent threat at this point," Aizen murmured, "I have decided to give you one more chance, Hitsugaya-san. Will you renounce your allegiance to the thirteen court guards and follow my banner instead?"

Tōshirō's eyes narrowed, and his grip on Hyōrinmaru did not shake. "Aizen Sōsuke, you are by your own admission a conspirator to murder and treason. Your actions are already beyond justification."

Aizen's smile faded, and with slow deliberation, he put his hands in the pockets of his haori.

"Does this change your mind?" He said, his voice still soft.

The shadows in the hall shifted, as if the gas lamps were leaping demons running across the walls. Light darkened and umbra gave way to new illumination, revealing -

And Tōshirō experienced a moment of intense deja vu.

"Hinamori?" He said, his grip tightening. "What... what are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry, Shiro-chan." Momo's voice had none of its usual waver. "My loyalties lie with captain Aizen."

Tōshirō clenched his teeth. Then he took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry too, Hinamori." He voice had no waver to it. "If you follow him, as a co-conspirator you are guilty of the same crimes. Once again, I'll say it: submit to arrest, both of you, or your safety cannot be guaranteed."

"You know the answer to that, Hitsugaya-san." Aizen's tiny smile returned.

"I guess I do."

Tōshirō exhaled, and the temperature in the chamber plummeted. The usually warm underground hall became bitterly cold, colder than the peaks of the highest mountains. A massive ring of white fire sprang up around Tōshirō, reaching a good two meters above the short captain's head.

"Ban Kai!"

Everything turned to grey as condensation filled the air. Chill winds whipped among the pillar-houses, raging hard enough to tear the cloth adornments and crack the walls. The floor for dozens of meters around was suddenly slicked with ice.

Then the mist cleared.

"Reign over the frozen sky, Daigūren Hyōrinmaru!"

Tōshirō no longer looked like a child in a haori. Huge wings of ice had sprung from his back, spanning over four meters from tip to tip. His sandals had become encased in ice formed into the shape of lethal talons, and a serpent head of similar ice had grown down the flesh of his right arm, his hand becoming the mouth of the dragon and clamping Hyōrinmaru in its teeth. Three gleaming four-petaled flowers of ultramarine ice hovered just behind his wings.

"Aizen." Tōshirō raised the blade of his sword, its tsuba 'star' now sporting eight points instead of four. "I've heard enough. I've said enough. Now... I am going to kill you."

And, finally, Aizen's hand went to his belt, closing around the silken green hilt of Kyōka Suigetsu. "As you say, Hitsugaya-san." He drew his zanpakutō with a form that would make an Ieideo master weep. "But I do not think I will be the one denied satisfaction today. I have planned this for a very... very long time. And I will not be stopped by any of you now."

Tōshirō's eyes narrowed.

Then, he charged.

X-X-X

"Ugh."

Trees lay shattered and uprooted for dozens of meters around. Several unconscious Onmitsukidō officers lay among the wreckage and green wood.

Yoruichi straightened and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She carefully examined the small nicks on her torso and arms, and the black butterfly markings around them.

"You truly have gotten better, Soifon," she said, her breath heavy. "Why, you don't even seem as tired as I am. You may outrun me today, if you keep this up."

Soifon snarled. "I would hope so, after a hundred years!" She yelled.

Yoruichi almost laughed, but her smile was genuine. "I hope so too, Soifon," she said. "I hope so too."

Soifon's eyes narrowed.

"It is time for this to end."

Yoruichi straightened, still grinning. "No argument there."

Soifon growled, but kept her cool. She straightened, and concentrated.

Crackling white reiatsu flares appeared around her body, dancing like lightning and earthing themselves all around her. Each bolt left charred wood or scorched grass where it had struck. Unrestrained, the power would have been enough to tear buildings down.

"I've been working on this a long time!" Soifon yelled. "This is how much I've grown without you, Yoruichi-sama! I perfected this technique so recently it doesn't even have a name!"

Yoruichi, however, did not visibly react.

"No wonder you were appointed captain of the Kidō corps after Tessai left," she murmured, almost to herself. "Reconstructing that, in under a century, alone... it took me a hundred and fifty years to perfect it, and I had Tessai, Kisuke and half of division 12 working with me."

"What?" Soifon raised her arms in a defensive stance. "What do you mean?"

Yoruichi took a battle stance, and her own golden reiatsu flickered over her skin.

"That technique has a name. It's called shunkō." Similar lighting bolts began to form around the ex-captain's body. "It was the last technique I developed before I became a fugitive. A perfect blend of Kidō and hakuda. I always wished I'd had time to teach you, but you've exceeded my expectations once again."

"No!" Soifon yelled. "That can't be! I came up with this myself! There's no record of anything like it!"

"No, there isn't. I didn't have time to write any formal documentation. But would you like proof?" Yoruichi put her hands together in front of her chest. "Ask yourself why the updated uniform of the Onmitsukidō commander omits any covering of the shoulders or upper arms."

There was a bright flash of golden light, and Soifon staggered from the reiatsu surge.

Then her eyes widened, as Yoruichi's scarf and orange jacket burst into flames and dissolved into thin air in under a second. Her remaining clothing perfectly mirrored Soifon, who had shed her bulky haori as soon as the chase had begun.

"The power of shunkō is so concentrated, that close to the skin, that it destroys anything as fragile as cloth." Yoruichi's expression didn't change. "And I wasn't enthused by the thought of ordering a new uniform after every intense mission."

Soifon let out a wordless cry, hurling an earthshaking punch towards Yoruichi's head. And Yoruichi raised her hand.

X-X-X

"Stop! Stop." Jūshiro spasmed, coughed, and doubled over as he exited his last flash-step. "I can't... too much, too fast..."

Shunsui adjusted his hat as he waited for his infirm companion to regain his breath. "It's all right, Jūshiro," he said lazily. "This is northwest Inizuru - nothing here but ghost towns. I'd have preferred to get beyond Zaraki, but this will do fine."

Jūshiro wiped a streak of blood from his lower lip. "Think we outran him?" He asked, his tone laced with worry.

Shunsui's smile vanished. "It's possible," he said, his voice low. "But I wouldn't bet my blades on it."

"A wise precaution, boy!"

Another hiss sounded. "Taichō! I came as fast as I - "

"Stay back, Nanao." Shunsui didn't smile. "This dispute is not for you to partake of."

Nanao looked across the dirt road, and her eyes widened. She inadvertently swallowed.

The captains of the thirteen court guard squads were loosely and informally divided into two groups. There were the 'standing captains' - Captains Feng, Kurosaki, Aizen, Kuchiki, Tōsen, Komamura, Hitsugaya, Zaraki and Kurotsuchi; each a veritable god on earth and deserving of every inch of the gravitas of the rank. Then there were the 'elder' captains: Kyōraku, Ukitake, Unohana and Yamamoto. They simply defied measurement. Though they might look like any other captain, and wear a haori, they were titans beyond every legend out of myth. None had served less than a millennium, and each only grew stronger and more cunning with age.

To see three elders come to battle made Nanao's blood run cold. Standing there in the deserted district was enough power, totalled, to level all the seireitei and the enormity of Rukon around it to no more than blasted ruins.

"I'm sorry we had to mess up the ceremony like that, Yama-jii," Shunsui said, his voice level. "We can explain, if you'll let us."

Captain-commander Yamamoto leaned on his staff, his eyes opening wider than their usual lazy slits.

"The time for words is over," he said, shortly. "Only actions will speak now."

The frail-looking old man straightened, and his shoulders flexed. Suddenly it became sharply obvious that age had not softened him in the slightest - it had only made him hard, harder than seasoned ironwood.

The captain-commander was often seen as innocuous, but as he stood - drawn to his full height, actually well over six feet - it was easy to see why he had stood unchallenged as supreme commander of the thirteen court guards for over fifteen hundred years. His eyes opened, and his reiatsu skyrocketed. Jūshiro and Shunsui staggered; Nanao, even several meters back, fell to her knees.

Yamamoto hefted the staff in one hand, and the wood of it split and unraveled, revealing a notched and scratched tachi scabbard - sword and all. His other hand went to the sword hilt, and pulled it from the scabbard with a sharp jerk.

"Reduce all creation to ash, Ryūjin Jakka!"

The reiatsu shockwave seemed to press the very oxygen out of the atmosphere. The old man's sword flickered and blazed, flaring to an incandescence that could set a light to the very stones of the earth.

A minute later, the air caught fire. The wreath of searing flame spread outwards, disintegrating all traces of plants and derelict buildings in its wake and leaving no more than scorched dust. Shunsui and Jūshiro did not stagger or flinch in any way as the inferno rolled over them.

X-X-X

Aizen did not react at all as the nōdachi stabbed straight through his chest and his body flash-froze around the lethal zanpakutō. He did not even blink as his eyes became hazy with frost, and his faint smile never faltered.

Tōshirō pulled Hyōrinmaru back from the jagged block of ice, his eyes still narrow. That had been altogether too easy for him to simply accept -

The 'frozen' Aizen moved. He mouthed two words.

"Behind you."

Tōshirō whirled, swinging blindly. Hyōrinmaru sliced through thin air.

Tōshirō felt a searing pain in his right shoulder as flesh and bone were abruptly and effortlessly cloven. He watched, surreally detached from the situation, as his severed arm fell to the floor with his zanpakutō still in its grip.

As he fell to his knees, his vision dimly registered Aizen standing on the other edge of the platform with his back turned and his sword loosely dangling from his hand. The blade of Kyōka Suigetsu was coated in blood. Tōshirō's blood.

"Ahh... it is so lovely to see frost out of season," Aizen remarked, as he cleaned his blade with a sharp flick of his wrist. "Momo. Ichigo. Come - we have work to do."

The three traitors moved to the door - but stopped, as two sets of footsteps echoed down the hallway.

The second-oldest being in the Seireitei narrowed her eyes as she entered the residence hall, observing the ice and wreckage and the kneeling form of the incapacitated captain. Behind her, Isane stood ready - albeit with a splinted left elbow - to assist her.

"Aizen." Unohana's voice was soft as ever, but her tone was cold. "I knew something was wrong with the body you left behind, but it took me until yesterday to identify it as a corpse doll. I should have known you'd come down here to hide."

"Known?" Aizen smirked back. "Don't feel bad. Better shinigami than you have looked me in the eye and seen no wrong."

"Be careful, child," Unohana replied, her voice returning to neutral. "Do not presume that you are the only officer to harbor a host of secrets."

"Oh, I know I'm far from that. But mine are the secrets that are about to come to light." Aizen adjusted his glasses. "You were almost correct. But two points you missed. Firstly, I came here not to hide, but to spring the final step of my plan. And secondly - "

Something in his stance had given them to look to his left. And yet as he raised his right hand, he held - as if pulled from nowhere - a limp duplicate of himself, suspended by the collar of the cadaver's haori.

"This is no mere corpse doll."

Unohana stiffened, and her lieutenant gasped. "Where - "

"Where did this come from?" Aizen's smile was like diamond. "I've held it all along, of course. But you, of course, did not see it this way."

Unohana's jaw clenched, and her hand went to the hilt of Minazuki. "You've held it all along, you say?" She hissed. "In your right hand?"

Aizen's smile did not waver. "Just as you say, Yonbantai-taichō."

Isane's brow furrowed. "I don't understand. Where was it?"

"Watch closely," Aizen said softly, "lest you miss it."

He lifted the cadaver, bringing it around in front of him. Its slack, dead features were a grotesque parody of their living counterpart.

And the real Aizen grinned.

"Shatter, Kyōka Suigetsu."

As if it were a mirror struck by a thrown brick - complete with the horrible smashing ring of breaking glass - the corpse fractured into a thousand glittering shards, each giving a bright glint before disappearing entirely.

And in Aizen's hand, all that remained was a polished wooden handle, wrapped in green silk. Just below his hand, an extended hexagonal tsuba served as a handguard.

Unohana and Isane did not move as Aizen let go of his sword, letting it fall and dig point-first into the icy floor as if it were merely a toy to him.

"Kyōka Suigetsu, my Kyōka Suigetsu..." Aizen mused, almost to himself. "Her name made it so easy for me to pass her off as a water-type. It seems the ranking officers of the court guards have not kept up with their knowledge of Chinese folklore."

Unohana inhaled. "Had I a little less dignity, I'd slap myself," she muttered.

"Quite." Aizen's grin didn't falter. "Kyōka Suigetsu is the spirit of perception. She is the flower in the mirror; she is the moon in still water. She can be seen, but never held. In her hand is your eye, your ear, your tongue and nose and skin, hers and mine to command as I see fit. She makes the June bug look as if a dragon; she makes the treacherous swamp seem like flat grass. All those who lay eyes on her shattering blade - no matter how mighty they may be - fall under my thrall."

Unohana met Aizen's crystalline eyes with her own hard expression. "All who lay eyes upon it?" She said, half to herself. "I wonder, is that a literal requirement?"

Aizen let out a single, slow laugh. "Ah, I'd expect no less from the fearsome fourth captain. You have spotted the loophole. Yes, the esteemed Tōsen-taichō has - of course - never seen my blade shatter; how could he?" Aizen made no move to retrieve his sword. "But do not think that I am one to leave unknown quantities. No, Kaname is no deceived thrall of mine - rather, he is a trusted agent of my cause, second only to Ichigo among my closest confidants and a member of my inner circle since the beginning of all my plans."

Unohana exhaled, and in a single motion, drew the legendary Minazuki from her sheath. "So be it," she said flatly. "Aizen, it has been a very, very long time since I was a warrior. But right here, right now, I will make an exception for the sake of stopping you."

Aizen leaned down, sweeping up Kyōka Suigetsu in his grip -

Ichigo cleared his throat, making himself known at last. "Not that I'm one to break up a good fight, captain, but... I don't think we really have time for this."
Aizen's eyes narrowed for a second, but then he cocked his head, his gaze darting to the ceiling.

"I forget myself. How observant of you, Ichigo. Time has gotten away from me." He re-sheathed Kyōka Suigetsu. "Forgive us, Unohana-san. We have an appointment to keep."

Isane put her hand on Itegumo's hilt. "You're not escaping without going through us first!" She cried.

"Che." Ichigo stepped forward. "Sorry and all that, but yeah, we are. You really think captain Aizen wouldn't be prepared to make shortcuts?"

The wild-haired captain – ex-captain – put his hand into his sleeve and withdrew a strip of white cloth. Before their eyes, the strip flashed and grew, extending to dozens of meters in length. It began swirling around the pair of traitors in a glowing cloth vortex.

"Indeed, I apologize, Unohana-taichō," Aizen said calmly, his grin returning. "This fight will have to wait for another day."

And then, in a flash of light, they were gone.

X-X-X

Renji's eyes widened, and he skidded to a halt. "Tōsen-taichō!" He hurriedly blurted. "I, uh, I can explain - "

"Your disloyalty to the thirteen court guards is no longer of any interest to me." Tōsen's face was completely neutral. "I need your charge for another matter. Please do not resist."

"Resist?" Renji furrowed his brow. "wait, whose side are you on again?"

Tōsen did not answer. Instead, he reached into his sleeve and produced a white ribbon.

X-X-X

"Reduce all creation to ash, Ryūjin Jakka!"

The two ancient captains braced as their commander's shockwave of flame rolled over them.

"Flower wind rage, and flower god roar! Heaven wind rage, and heaven demon sneer!"

"Waves, rise, and become my shield! Lightning, strike and become my sword!"

Two plumes of fire – one red, one blue – rose around Shunsui and Jūshiro to repel Yamamoto's flame.

"Katen Kyōkotsu!"

"Sōgyo no Kotowari!"

The ancient commander of the Gotei 13 stared down his two brightest students, his expression hard.

"Justice will now be served," he said, his voice like iron.

As he raised his blazing sword, however, he paused, as did both of the other captains. A wave of foreign reiatsu washed over them, originating from the center of the Seireitei.

The three captains looked at each other, their battle suddenly forgotten.

"Aizen."

And then there was the hiss of flash step.

X-X-X