Sorry about the Huge Delay... It was finals week, so I was immensely busy.


XXXIX.

The Road to Hell

Dated: Gotei Thirteen Era Five

- - - - -

Time freezes for Karite Ichigo. Byakuya slowly lifted his Zanpank-to again. This time, though, Ichigo is not afraid of Senbonzakura. He has not a single qualm against killing Byakuya instantly. He had not figured Rukia into his plans, however.

- - - - -

What do I do?

Ichigo could feel Zangetsu sigh within his mind. "Now, you must make a choice. This is where the path branches... Where the road to Heaven meets the Road to Hell. I can't tell you what to do here, Kurosaki. You must do this yourself."

Ichigo took a slow, steady breath.

A moment later, a gash of blood fell to the ground, accompanied by a white robe. In that instant, Ichigo was gone. Rukia fell to her knees in tears.

- - - - -

Ikatsue started up the path, leaving behind him his wife.

Things have changed… He had muttered. I must do this myself. That was his last muttering before he started his ascent. He remembered back to so many years before… the last time he took this long, slow walk.

"This is the path to hell, Karite Ikatsue. You can never turn back now." Amerikahyou had told him. The man was his greatest friend… once.

Ikatsue continued up the rocky path to the place he had once died, as his mind wandered.

"He cannot defeat me." Ikatsue had muttered.

As the rocks crunched beneath his feet, Ikatsue paused. "I was wrong…"

"There are worse fates than death."

"No. To be no more than any other man, to die and have all your life's works washed away. That is the worst fate."

Ikatsue glanced around with his single eye. What was this feeling… the dull, sickening touch of some unknown threat to his power? Without thinking about it, he charged up the hill.

"It is better to die than to live for nothing."

"Do not think you can teach me, Amerikahyou. Yamamoto is just a wall on my path."

Ikatsue slid his hand to his waist, seizing Urakata. He could hear them… in the shadows. They were coming for him.

"Sometimes it is better to simply go around a wall than to try and scale it."

"What?"

"To fall and lose everything simply because you are too stubborn to yield… that is a terrible weakness."

His blade flew out of its sheath, and he slid his legs into a basic combat stance.

"Then I will shatter the wall into a thousand pieces."

"Even you are just a man, Ikatsue."

"No… no… I am no puny man! They will never get me." His hands shook on his blade as he struggled to hold it steady.

"No. I am far more than just a man. Men die, but I am immortal."

Burning pain shot up his arms, along the blackened scars left so long before by the fires of Hell itself. Then his mind suddenly sharpened. That feeling was fear.

"Do not place so much faith in your own ability to endure."

"The last time I came here, Yamamoto… your fiery blade locked me into hell for a thousand years." You were clever. "I won't make that same mistake twice."

- - - - -

Ichigo, too, traveled toward the mountain, and the tall white tower on the horizon guided him. He walked calmly down the center of the street, his blade slung over his shoulder. Behind him, the corpses of seventeen Shinigami slumped against the walls or lay spread across the flagstones of the street in various states of bloody dismemberment. Ichigo didn't care. His footsteps stopped for a different reason entirely.

"Zaraki Kenpachi…."

"Kurosaki."

"What do you want? I don't care about fighting you again."

"Kill me."

Ichigo lifted an eyebrow.

"I'm dying, Kurosaki. I don't want to die to some damn magic spell. Fight me. Please."

Ichigo turned slowly on his heels. "I have no quarrel with you."

Kenpachi smiled, ripping off his eye patch. A moment later, Ichigo caught his sword with an open palm. Blood trickled down his wrist.

"Now you do."

Ichigo turned to face his foe, slowly and carefully.

"Why did you attack him?"

Kenpachi smiled. "Because I never turn down a fight."

Ichigo's eyes narrowed. "You idiot! I could have used your help, but instead you insist on throwing away your life and going it alone. Fine… I'll kill you. You deserve that much, at least."

Ichigo jumped forward, swinging Zangetsu down in a wide arc that Kenpachi dodged easily. Kenpachi did not smile or show glee for his final battle.

"Tekika Chishio, Oroisoshaku."

Ichigo blocked his swing easily, and the battle truly began.

- - - - -

Ikatsue swing Zantetsuken around him madly. One by one, his memories fell away from him, and all his training failed, leaving him to fight only by the madness in his own mind.

"They won't take me!" He screamed. He failed to notice the crunch of sandals on the rocky pathway.

"Ikatsue!" Ran' Tao screamed, upon seeing Ikatsue. His hair flew madly in the wind, and a few drops of his own blood slid along the blade of his sword as he struggled to defend himself from the foes within his mind.

"Ran? Help me, Ran!"

No. Don't ask for her help!

"Ikatsue! What's wrong?"

She led them to you. They never could have found you without her.

"Rande Tao! How could you?" Ikatsue turned toward her, his red robes billowing. In his hand, Zantetsuken became a scythe.

"No… Ikatsue, it's me."

Don't listen to her! She betrayed you!

"You betrayed me!"

Ran' jumped backward, dodging a mighty swing.

"Ikatsue? What's wrong with you? What's gotten into you?"

"You turned me over to them!" He screamed.

Now! Kill her! End this!

"What?"

"He found me! The Keepers of Hell are good at tallying their slaves. I escaped. I am the only man who has escaped before his time. Now he hunts me! He won't get me, damn it! I won't go back!"

"I would never want you to go back there…" Ran' pleaded, tears beginning to leak from her eyes.

She still lies to you!

"I love you, Ikatsue."

Ikatsue shook his head, letting the bloodlust fall from his aching arms.

"I… I… what have I done?"

"You thought that… the keeper of Hell was after you?"

"What?" He asked as though it were the most idiotic thought in the world.

"I don't know… but you almost killed me."

Ikatsue panted slightly, walking forward.

Ran' rushed up to him, wrapping her arms around him tightly.

"Do we have to do this?" She whispered, her eyes searching for an answer in the single inky ball, set in that dark, misty skull.

"What?" He asked, struggling to free himself from her grip.

"These wars are so… so wrong. Its one thing to purify hollows… but we shouldn't do this. You always used to say that the reason you made the Gotei Thirteen was to stop the wars between Shinigami. Please, Ikatsue. Don't kill Yamamoto." She closed here eyes, letting her face fall against his chest.

"So… you've been waiting all this time to tell me that. You think that I should spare Yamamoto… Let me tell you something, Ran'." He reached up to his face, pulling away the sunglasses that sat halfway down his nose.

Ran' looked up at his face again. "Please, Ikatsue. I'm begging you."

Ikatsue smiled.

"You were always so naïve, Ran'. You believed that bull-shit about the wars… You believed my stories about why I took souls… You believed in everything…"

"What do you mean?"

A smile broke across his face as he laughed, not the friendly laugh that she knew, but the callous, hateful laugh he used just after he revealed his full power… just before taking another soul.

"Idiot woman. I mean that you don't know even the tiniest thing about you. You believed in the stupid morals of your stupid book…" He put his hands together slowly, before pulling off the sparkling band on his ring finger.

"No…"

His hand clamped down on the ring, grinding it to dust. He threw the remains of his wedding ring to the wind.

"… You even believed that I loved you. And every single time, you were wrong. Of all the Taichou I taught and commanded, you were the greatest failure. At least, I can be proud of Yamamoto. Even bound his stupid morals, he still gained power, but you…"

"Ikatsue…" She sobbed.

"Rande Tao, I have never loved you. I never once meant a single word that muttered to you. I hated your damn book. A Shinigami's Honor? What a fool you were…"

"Ikatsue…" She murmured, trying to step away from him

He set a cold hand down on her shoulder, clamping onto it with all his might. She felt her bones snap in his grip.

"There is no such thing as honor. Morals are a concept made up by the weak to try and limit the powerful. Good and evil are just illusions…"

She stared up at him silently, as tears trickled down her face.

"…As is love. Farewell… my love."

- - - - -

Ran's world instantly turned black and white. She could see the blade as it slipped perfectly between her ribs, sliding directly into her heart, but she felt nothing. He had stripped away from her all feeling… all love and all care. He was everything to her…

She had loved him immediately, even when she first set eyes on him. Then, she was but a lonely sergeant amongst the armies of Lord Kyoraku. She first met him in battle.

- - - - -

Ikatsue smiled as his fingers smashed through her ribcage, and he ripped out her heart with relative ease. The splatter of gore stained his clothes lightly, but did not bother him in the least.

He remembered when he had first seen her. He was amazed at her skill with a blade. For a lowly sergeant, she was an amazing warrior. Their paths had crossed, and he was left with a scar across his palm for his actions. She, on the other hand, had a gaping hole in her leg and a large bruise on her forehead where he had finally defeated her by knocking her unconscious with a kick. The duel had lasted an hour and a half.

He remembered her when he killed Kuchiki Seryi, and made her the very first Taichou of Twelfth Squad.

Then he had seen another opportunity. While he was quite capable of ruling with an iron fist, he favored to rule Seireitei by manipulation. He saw how she could influence her peers. He also saw how she was madly in love with him.

They were married, but only one held love for the other. He was her true love. She was his newest secret weapon.

Car

- - - - -

"Uryu." Ryukken Ishida held out an arm to stop his son from continuing forward.

"I sense it too." Ishida muttered, letting his bow form in his hand.

"Well, well… what do we have here? Two more intruders into Seireitei?"

"Kurotsuchi Mayuri…" Uryu Ishida muttered under his breath.

"You know him?"

"He was the one who killed grandfather."

In barely a half-second, Ryukken's bow was up and firing. Mayuri smiled as arrow after arrow tore through his body. He only moved to dodge a single arrow directed at his head.

"You will notice, boy, that I have improved my body since the last time we met. Now, I need only a few seconds to regenerate."

True to his word, the bloody holes in his body closed up.

"How do we kill him?" Ryukken asked.

"His head. Destroy his brain."

Ryukken nodded slowly.

- - - - -

Sado Yasutora ran with all his speed after Yoruichi. She purposely moved by foot rather than her traditional Shunpo, solely to allow the boy to follow her.

"Yoruichi-sama." Spat a cold voice from overhead.

Yoruichi sidestepped the blow from above. Soifon's tiny dagger slid through the empty air, putting yard-wide cracks into the flagstones around her.

Instantly, the two were entangled in battle.

"Sado… run! You can't help me here."

Although unwilling to obey, he saw that he could never hit his foe at her speed. Quickly, he dashed around a corner, beginning his travel through the maze-like streets of Seireitei.

"Ah… Sado-kun. Perhaps you'll take up my offer of a drink this time."

Chad's arms formed into their black and red forms.

"Intriguing… your abilities have improved, I see." Kyoraku Shunsui muttered. His pink robes fluttered in the wind as he slowly pulled them off. "I suppose this means you aren't thirsty."

"Where is Yamamoto?"

"Why? Do you think you could kill him?"

"No… but Ichigo will be where Yamamoto is."

"So you've already chosen your side. Too bad." The rasping of steel echoed over the empty alleyway as Kyoraku Shunsui prepared for battle.