Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.
Translator's note: "Yabei!" literally means "bad". As an expletive, it is best translated as "Oh crap!" Similarly, the word "Shimata" more or less means the same thing, although it is probably better translated as "Damn it" in the literal sense, i.e. 'curse this' (not to be confused with the expletive 'damnit' which is more devoid of meaning). I would say that 'Shimata' is a more arcane usage: for example, Ichigo typically says 'Yabei' whereas Rukia (with her samurai-era speech like 'kisama' instead of 'anata') tends to use 'Shimata'.
Author's note: I would like to lay tribute in this chapter to Neil Gaiman's exceptional read, The Graveyard Book. And for those of you who haven't read "Saved For You, Kuchiki", there are spoilers here.
"Silenced by a whisperkiss"
~ Kobayashi Miyagusima, in his poem 'Romancing the Phantom'
Zarina sniffled and wiped her eyes. The ache in her heart was strong. She was more or less an adult - a young one, but an adult still - but the burden placed on her shoulders was exceedingly heavy. She had known that this day was coming, but she was among the first of her friends to experience it. She supposed that Hisako, with her prideful arrogance that Zari found endearing for no explainable reason, was already prepared to accept the mantle of leadership. Hell, Hisako had been groomed for it; she would eventually become the first female Kuchiki Head of House.
Her blond-and-purple-haired friend, however, was less than eager. As the eldest, Zarina always knew that she would inherit the Head of House title. In theory, she could pass it on to one of her brothers, but that would be shameful. Still; it was weird: being of higher social status than your own father. Regardless, that was not what illed her now.
She gazed into the ether that hid the view beyond the gate. Few would know the truth. That was the Aristocratic Way. Zari would have to endure, somehow. It wasn't like her mother was gone forever - not really. Practically speaking, she was as good as dead, but Zari didn't want to look at that way.
"I'll miss her, too," her father said. Urahara Kisuke's hair still hung over his eyes, and Zari subconsciously felt like he was talking to stone. It was as if her ears were filled with concrete. Nothing entered; she was too bound in ache.
I love you, Kaasama. Keep an eye on me, okay? she thought. She already knew the answer - of course she would. Of course Shihoin Yoruichi would keep an eye on her daughter. They were close; Zari was very much her mother. Their personalities were so similar that if you were friends with one, you knew you would love the other.
Sighing a great deep sigh, Zari adjusted the lieutenant's badge on her arm. She wasn't ready to even think about bankai. That was Kanchi - the serious one; the one who had been trying to learn bankai since before she could even walk. Zari didn't even want to go there. Her heart just wasn't in it. Yet she knew that, as Head of House, she wouldn't be allowed to remain a vice captain forever. Eventually, she was going to have to grow up and walk the path to captainhood; just like all other Heads of Houses.
Kaasama, what am I going to do? I don't want this, she thought. I never wanted to grow up. I'm not ready for that. Why did you have to leave? Why did you have to do this?
I don't think I'll ever truly understand.
~ Reflections of Shihoin Zarina, after her mother Yoruichi "retired" from captain of the 2nd division to be inducted into the Royal Guard;
circa unavailable, as it is considered classified information by order of the Spirit King
"The path to Avalon is paved with the cobblestones from Hell's quarry."
~4th Legion Handoshi Colonel Arthur S. Tomaninyre
"Zombies! What the... ? !" Hana stammered. "-But - but -"
"He doesn't die," Isane explained, working carefully to repair Ichihime's collarbone, shoulder blade, and upper ribs. The damage inflicted by that minotaur's monstrous club had done obscene amounts of damage. It was amazing that Ichihime had stopped the blow at all. Isane was ramping up the juice, trying to push through as fast as she could. Hinamori was stable in Shiba's bosom, and the human - if she recalled correctly, his name was Morgan, or something like that - was more or less fine. "We have no idea how to kill him. He just keeps coming back to life. Hinamori-san turned his head into turtle soup with a point-blank hado, and three minutes later he was somewhere else, sending dinosaurs after us."
"D-d-dinosaurs?"
"Yeah," Ichihime moaned. Isane chastised her and told her not to talk, but Ichihime ignored her. "We have to defend ourselves - "
She was cut off by a thunderous stomping that shook the earth. It was such a terrifying, shaking roar that all six of them turned their heads. Eyes wide with fear, they gazed up at something just as equally as problematic as a horde of hungry zombies.
A blast of hot, wet, humid steamy breath - tainted with the smell of raw meat and blood - rushed over their bodies. Above them was a two-hundred ton scaled dragon towering nearly a hundred feet over them. Its legs were thick and covered in sharp, prickly scales; its feet ended in talons the size of a small car. The dark green hide was spiky and plated; and its teeth were the size of stalactites. The claws gored a trench in the earth so deep that it could have fisted boulder-chunked blocks of earthen clay in a single pull.
"Ohs goddess, we's gonna die," Morgan gasped.
-:-
Rukia came to; wondering whatever happened. She was badly drained; whatever kido she had just cast had sapped over half of her juice. Not even her bankai took that much anymore. She had plenty of energy left, but it been a long while since she had been so spent in battle. To her left, she saw a glowing box, with Nanao hovering over. Scrambling to her feet, she could see bodies digging their way out of the sand. Rukia didn't stop to study them, she was at Nanao's side only a few moments later.
Nanao was an absolute wreck. Her tear-stained face was covered in dirt and grime; one side of her face was red; puffy and swollen. Her hair, usually impeccably clipped up neatly, had been pulled loose. Nanao's glasses were even bent out of shape. Rukia couldn't recall a time she had ever seen Nanao so beat up. Nanao was the kind of shinigami that even the most vicious hollow ran away from - she didn't tend to come through battles with very many injuries, especially since most of her attacks were so long range. Whatever happened must have hit Nanao hard - and not just physically. Rukia could remember only one other time that Nanao had ever been so emotional - when she gave Rukia the Four Posts for her wedding - and even then she had been far more closed.
Inside the box, Hisagi and Kotetsu were recovering. If Rukia thought Nanao was a wreck, the two of them were a radioactive fallout. "Nanao-san, I - "
She couldn't even respond. Nanao's lips were quivering; something inside her was broken. As reanimating corpses began to burrow out of the ground all around them - hundreds of them, moaning and groaning a scratchy, whispy wretching sound - Rukia was disturbed by the fact that Nanao didn't seem to notice. With a fierce shove, Rukia pushed Nanao away from the containment box. "Nanao-san!" Rukia shouted at her. "I got this!"
Nanao came to; snapping out of whatever dark place she had been. With a look that bore a faint glimmer of hope, she looked to Rukia for salvation.
Rukia had none to offer, but she gave Nanao a good verbal slap instead. "I'm better at medical kido than you are," she insisted, taking over the task of repairing the reishi threads. Nanao was excellent in all areas of kido, but Rukia's medical skills were far more refined than Nanao's were, and Nanao knew it. "You have anything else to pull out? Some hado/bakudo fusion?"
"Maybe... a... bankai... I... could... finally... see...?" Hisagi groaned, a half smile forming. A gentle smile tore through Nanao's darkened mask of sorrow as the relief flooded her temples and cheekbones.
The joy in Nanao's eyes put Rukia slightly more at ease, and she allowed herself to snicker. "Or are you still going to keep that useless secret of yours?"
Nanao shook her head. "I swear, you two and your damn promises," she chuckled bitterly with a morbid smile.
"Get a move on, Neesan," Rukia ordered. "I've had enough of a day without having to worry about zombies," Rukia muttered. Zombies? I mean, really, zombies? This Q fella was just asking for it.
Nanao straightened to her feet, tall and proud. Rukia looked up to her, knowing that as an equally prideful woman, there was something about having to own up to who you were; to what your bankai was. It was an interesting subconscious observation - Rukia never did know how Nanao had ever achieved bankai. Perhaps Nanao would never have achieved it until now: when it came time to put pride against self-truth, and discover that self-truth could win.
A sly smile came to Rukia's face as Nanao's gaze hardened into her confident aura of authority. Rukia knew what was coming next:
One-hundred-percent pure badass.
Nanao pulled her mysterious golden tanto from her sleeve. This time, the bloodlust was personal. "Sing, Saya: Convocare il nono cerchio dell'inferno - Bankai."
-:-
"Bakudo #92: Radial Blockade!"
Kuukaku's spell locked its glass-panels into a half-dome just in time to shield the party from the blazing torch of fire that streamed down on them. The intensity of the searing jetstream nearly popped their eyes; the furnace of heat causing beads of sweat to form at the base of every strand of hair on their brow. Every single one of them thought that they were going to die.
And if that wasn't bad enough, shuffling corpses started to advance on them, each one a pyre of shambling fire unconcerned that that they were set ablaze. There must have been hundreds of them, converging upon them with dead, lifeless eye sockets as their fetid aroma carried on the wind towards the shinigami.
As soon as the scorching dragon's breath ceased, Hana Tsubaki was at it in a flicker. She omnislashed it however she could, at the very least trying to distract it. Kuukaku knew that the beast would only have to bring a giant taloned paw down on the shield, and it would crack like an eggshell underneath a sledgehammer.
Tsubaki was aiming for the eyes, and eventually she landed a hit on the left side across the dragon's cornea. It was an expert's strike, cold and precise. Enraged, the dracosaurus flailed in a thundering earthquake of stomping.
"We have to deal with that dragon!" Isane shouted over the din. She regretted it instantly - she felt something pop inside. It hurt like a bitch getting bitten by another bitch.
"How's we's gonna do that?" Morgan shouted back, wincing at a pain in his side. "I's don't thinks he's gonna givvuss upp fer summa catnip, Ma'am!"
Ichihime groaned. "Get me on my feet," she gasped in pain to Isane. I need to do something. I can't just lie down here like a wuss-wrapped pussy. "I can help," she forced out. The pain in her torso was so bad that it brought tears to her eyes.
"You're insane!" Isane shouted back down to her. "You can't move!"
"Get me to my fucking feet, Kotetsu," Ichihime ordered through spine-crunching pain. "I can do this."
"Stay down!" Isane ordered. "That's a medical order!"
Ichihime tried to get up. She searched deep inside her well of reishi for an answer, searched her soul for some hidden power. But it wasn't coming. She was just going to lay there and die, whether she wanted to or not.
-:-
Rukia watched in awe as a billowing cloud of smoke burst forth from behind Nanao. The huge iron doors of purgatory - Hell's Gate - loomed over her shinigami friend. The vision was chilling: imposing, frightful, casket doors of doom staring down at them like they were nothing but specks of soul grime. The chains holding the gates stretched and strained as the massive doors began to fold outwards, creaking and groaning like mismatched cogs in a rotting clock tower. With a clankety twanging snap, the chains broke as the heavy doors burst open, smacking corpses left and right without so much as a care.
From the red miasma, Rukia saw something that she had never seen before. She had stood before the Gates of Hell on numerous occasions - enough to know that these were authentic - but she had never seen anyone ever stand on its doorstep. Behind Nanao, a massive army emerged from the swirling, glowing lines of eerie red beyond the gate. An army of beings that were clothed in sad, gray tatterered sackcloth tunic-like uniforms, every soul bearing creepy orange irises and apparitional bleach-white hair. They walked tall and proud, confident and determined, strong and fearless - but surprisingly congenial. Friendly. Engaged. As though they were kindhearted and soft-spoken comrades from a time since forgotten. Some held swords; others held hammers or daggers or spears or any other manner of weapons. One was even holding a pitchfork. Not a devil's trident - an honest-to-goodness farmer's pitchfork.
One figure - a hauntingly beautiful woman; slender, sleek, and graceful - bore a red diamond on the front of her tattered shawl-like uniform. She advanced alongside a tall, lanky, thin man with effeminate features that oddly made him look attractively masculine. As they came closer to where Nanao had been standing, Rukia saw a katana at the woman's side and a giant medieval shield across the man's back.
The silent awe of the moment was broken by that ghostly woman's voice. "Kuchiki-san?"
Startled, Rukia looked again at her; intently and deliberately. Nanao's head was turned, her eyes not visible. Rukia wondered if she knew why. "...Huh?"
"It's me," the woman said tenderly, a cheerful smile spreading broadly. "I - "
"Enough time for pleasantries later," Nanao interrupted; her voice the stern, harsh coldness of a battlefield commander. "I want this place under control first. Find Q and drag him back to the hellspawn pit of lava he belongs to."
"As you wish," the man answered, and just as realization dawned on Rukia's mind, she was off.
Was... was that Miyako-dono?
-:-
A sudden stampede of handoshi tore through the razed meadow, bashing zombie's heads in with clubs or splitting their skulls open with battle axes. Blades went through eye sockets of the living dead, and the tide began to turn.
Isane was suddenly tapped on the shoulder. Turning her face up, she was staring into nerve-twitchingly scary orange eyes underneath a wild mane of white hair. "Huh - who are you?"
The handoshi said nothing. It just nodded with a polite, friendly smile, and Isane began to witness a ring of handoshi form a defensive stance around them. The friendly one snapped a finger, and then the carnage began - the handoshi forces marched outward from their little medical ring, tearing apart the zombie horde with a methodical ferocity. It was a harrowing sight: Isane, Kuukaku, Momo, Morgan, and Ichihime witnessed these brutally efficient killers with a shiver at the nape of their necks. The handoshi were seemingly merciless, heartless slayers.
And then Momo leaped out of Kuukaku's arms, enthralled by the danse macabre of blood, guts, and gore.
"Hinamori-kun! Wait!" Kuukaku called, but she wasn't able to move quickly enough. With an inhuman surge of strength, Momo dashed out of her exhausted captain's embrace, feeling a camaraderie she would never feel among the shinigami. Like a ghastly specter from the netherworld, the frenzied spiral in Momo's eyes riveted her with erotic pleasure as she plunged her Savior up a zombie's open nasal cavity.
Oh god I love killing, I love killing, I love killing!
Unlike the methodical clockwork martial artwork of the handoshi platoon, Momo was violent and frantic; not a machine of death but a greedy tornado of violence. The endless stream of corpses left her an insatiable stream of cackling madness; a bloody haven of death. Momo felt grimy black ooze squeeze out of another undead's punctured forehead, and then she hammer-fisted another zombie in the temple with her hilt as she pulled her katana out from its lodged location.
"Kami," Kuukaku swore, a pit of heartbreak in her chest. She's a monster.
Morgan could not hear the buxom woman's thoughts, but he was sure he could deduce them just the same. Momo's actions were not those of a cornered rodent fighting for its freedom - they were the frenetic motions of a psychotic bloodthirsty killer.
"Go after her," Isane ordered Morgan. She was still trying to treat Ichihime. "You might be able to get her back to her senses!"
"Buts what's s'bout-"
"Shiba Taicho is drained," Isane barked at him. "She can barely move, let alone run away from those things."
Kuukaku frowned as Morgan chased after Momo. "Kotetsu-"
"Stand down!" Isane barked at her. Gosh darn it, someone was going to have to listen to her today. "I refuse to write 'cause of death: stupidity' on your death certificate!"
Kuukaku hesitatingly complied, albeit slightly humiliated. Unfortunately, Kotetsu Fukutaicho had properly assessed the situation - Kuukaku was in no shape to fight. Whatever juice she had left had been used to save them from the dragon's breath. Thankfully, Tsubaki-chan had distracted it and led it away from them for the moment. Now, a swarm of gray handoshi foot soldiers had surrounded it and were trying to drive it back from the injured, with mild success.
"Get me to my feet," wheezed Ichihime. She couldn't stand this; sitting out, crippled. Goddamn it, she needed to be doing something right now!
"No," Isane ordered. "What is it with you people? Do you think you're invincible or something?"
"I do," came a menacing voice, and if not for a sudden flicker of a diamond-clear katana, Isane would have been cleaved under Q's zanpakutou.
"You're one really sick monster," 8th Legion Sergeant Hikifune-Shiba Miyako grimaced into the lunatic's eyes. "Tonight, by order of the General - you will dine in Hell."
"Miko-nee!" Kuukaku gasped, shocked and relieved and then shocked some more. The white hair and orange eyes made it challenging to discern her identity by face, but it was impossible to mistake - that was Clara, Miyako's diamond zanpakutou. "You're alive? !"
"Not if I can help it!" Q shouted at this newest nuisance, and prepared to strike again. This time, though, a searing, liver-bursting burrowing drill ripped into his mind; a jarring mental explosion that tore open like someone had taken a railroad spike through the taught skin of a snare drum. Thoughts of suicide flooded his brain, a whisper's echo that escalated until it became a banshee in his ears - kill yourself, kill yourself, die, die! - and then he took his sword and drove it through his own temple to end the pain.
Miyako watched as his body fell to the floor, vanishing into the ether - a startling sight.
Kuukaku shouted. "You've got about two minutes until he comes back to life!"
"What?" the handoshi elite asked in surprise.
"Nevermind - go chase after Hinamori-kun! And then deal with that dragon!"
Ichihime interrupted, using every last bit of strength she had. "Get Isane more med help, and then I can deal with the dragon!"
"Banzo-sa-"
"Shut it!" Ichihime shouted. She felt a muscle in her ribs pull, and she reminded herself that she really needed to just shut up already. Her face scrunching into twisted agony. Okay, maybe that was stupid.
-:-
"Momo-san!" Morgan called after her, watching her decapitate a zombie and then stomp its free head into the ground, breaking its skull with her foot.
A whisper's echo rebounded over his ears as a gray-and-white blur passed him. It stopped a few feet from Momo, and Morgan watched in confusion as Hinamori fainted right into the demon-woman's arms. The demon-woman, who possessed a striking, charismatic, gentle-but-spectral beauty, trotted over with Momo slumped into her shoulder.
"Take her," the demon-woman instructed him tenderly, and Morgan complied, picking up the sleeping figure with a single strong arm. He held her like a small child. She weighed almost nothing.
The demon-woman then handed him Hinamori's katana, and when he held it in his hands, it surged in his veins with a coal-exhaust darkness; a black void of greed and hatred and lust. Morgan shivered at that feeling; it was so antithetical to his own moral compass. "Gawd Almighty," he swore, the pollution in his hand frightening him.
The woman looked at him knowingly, and Morgan didn't see a demon anymore. He saw the caring face of a woman; an experienced soldier, one who knew. One who knew what war could do to you. Her orange eyes, as otherworldly as they were, were warm; and her meek smile possessed a certain charm that Morgan recognized as an angel's in disguise. "But you already knew what you would find inside, didn't you?"
"I's - uh - I's - "
"Let me show you," the fellow soldier said, and thousands of images flooded his head. Images of a sweet, cheery kid; happy and wonderful and carefree and devoted. A sunshine of a life, bright and promising. Then he saw the face of evil - a man he unmistakably knew by the name of Aizen - who destroyed her; who erased her, who damaged her and broke her and used her like an oiled rag that he then set to burn. He then witnessed the years of recovery; bonding with a shinigami princess named Rukia and an almost-lover Izuru. His heart felt the tears of loneliness as he felt Momo's loss, watching Rukia drift away into the adulthood of marriage and its responsibilities, and then to the slap-in-the-face betrayal of her heart's last hope. He saw his own arrival through the eyes of the girl in his arms, who promised something for nothing. Then he saw the lust for power and the ambition from the sword's heart of hearts that inspired her to experiment with a dark side she never knew she had, only to find that it promised her a morally-gray adulthood that she feared she actually preferred. Then the godawful soulrape at the hands of the inhumane - a tainting that Morgan knew all too well, followed by a brief respite into recovery but then a return to the pull of Hades. The chains of Hades, the dark, grey, blanket of doomlaced despair; the cruelty born in someone who experienced far too much cruelty; a virulent stinking rot that had infested a wormy peach, leaving nothing but a tiny, small patch of its innocent, soft, fuzzy skin still in its original pristine state; the remainder of its surface surrounded by ground bones and maggotty flesh.
The moment the flood of images dissipated, Morgan fell to his knees, and with Momo still in his arm and her possessed katana in his hand, he leaned over and threw up. The wretching lasted several moments, wherein the white-haired demon defended them from a few of the shambling undead. After he regained his stomach's ability to retain its nerve, he wondered at the woman. "How's do's yoos do it? How's do's yoos look innaside anna stomach it?"
A look of intense discomfort came to her face. Morgan could tell she was trying to devise an effective means of circumlocution, but finding none. "I don't," she finally answered mournfully, "but that is the price of Hell's promise."
"What promise izzat?"
Miyako sheathed her katana momentarily and put her hand on the saint's shoulder. This was a question she would not answer. "Theodore Augustus Morgan the Fourth," she addressed him, "you can call me Miyako-dono."
"Huh?" How did she know his name? Who was she?
She ignored his confusion. "Now, you must do your part," she instructed politely and with concern. "Take Hinamori-san and keep her safe."
"But - buts - buts hows I's gonna do's that?"
Miyako gestured to the katana in his hands. "That is her soul in your hands," she explained. "Use it."
Morgan looked at the sword with almost repulsive, vile disgust. This was not his Momo-san. This was not his Hinamori; traumatized and scarred but fundamentally nice inside. This was not the soul of a girl who made him popcorn and tried to find comfort in his home. This was a monster; a devil in a blade.
Miyako had obviously been reading his mind. "Am I a devil?" she asked amusingly. "I came from Hell, did I not?"
That made Morgan squirm with sudden guilt. He had been unjustly judgemental. "Huh? Uhs, no's, uh - "
She chuckled sweetly. "There are no demons and there are no angels, Theodore," she said, piercing his mind to distill the essence of his soul, knowing that she would find what she needed there. "There are just us."
Morgan couldn't take it. "...No angels and demons? I's can't buhleeve dat, Mee-yahqo-dono." The One Over All had filled His/Her universe with angels, demons, and everything in between to carry out the Will of Fate. Isn't that undeniably part of the One Truth In All?
Miyako sighed amusingly at his miserable pronunciation of her name. "Then you be her angel, so that we can continue to be yours."
He was about to protest, but then he stopped. There was a truth he could feel in his soul. No; not a truth - a Truth. Yes, there were angels; and yes, there were demons. Yes, there were: because they choose to be. And now it was his turn; the time had come for him to ascend. To achieve transcendence. To stop being the sinner still clinging to the Earth so that he didn't fall into Gehenna, but to be the spirit clinging to the Earth so that he didn't have to return to heaven just yet. He had a job to do. "Yes, Ma'am, I will."
"Go, Theodore. May the Great King be with you."
"Aye," he confirmed, his head filling with calm bravery and a return to the soothing cool head he kept when he knew he was about to save lives. Morgan ran back towards the other shinigami party, which was farther out from the center of the conflict. He ran with a determination to save someone precious; the sword in his hand feeling a little bit lighter.
-:-
"Banzo-sama!" Nanao shouted, seeing Isane struggle to maintain the woman. She was just catching up with them now.
"...Glasses-senpai," Ichihime moaned with a mild expression of relief at her arrival.
"Are you okay?"
"Like a bucket of horse piss," Ichihime smiled. "Kotetsu here is taking good care of me."
"Like hell I am! You won't stay still!" Isane muttered.
Kuukaku was helping out. Nanao looked to her, realizing that Kuukaku's own reishi levels were very low and that her healing contributions were providing minimal support. She was about to say something when Hana San Seki landed by their side. "MOVE!"
Nanao didn't ask questions. With a flick of her fingers, she put a bakudo platform underneath them and jettisoned them away before the flailing dragon's tail struck the ground with enough force to carve a ten-foot trench in the soft clay dirt. Nanao was getting sick of not fighting back and put her hands on Isane's and Kuukaku's cheek.
...And then she let loose her ten-thousand year old shinigami/handoshi reiatsu, bleaching her hair pure white and enveloping the entire platform in massive pumpkin-hazed sphere that extended thirty feet in all directions.
"Holy shit, that's badass," Ichihime whistled. And I thought I was a pureblood, she mused. There was no way anybody but a pureblood had that kind of reishi. Glasses-senpai, who the hell are you? Maybe you really are Kyouraku-ojisama's daughter...
Restoring reishi via kido is generally easy for captain-class shinigami, and Nanao was no exception. By topping off Isane (who had a far deeper capacity than Nanao had expected) and recharging Kuukaku from her own massive internal store, Nanao had improved the situation in an instant. Tsubaki fighting back at the dragon (and people thought Madarame was an exceptional third seat, Nanao wondered) and her nearly-immortal handoshi soldiers defending their perimeter from the undead. With that pressure off, the three kido masters were able to get Ichihime's wounds under control. Isane managed the bone regrowth (a 4th division specialty), Kuukaku handled internal organ repair, and Nanao took care of the standard muscle regeneration. It was slightly embarrassing to Nanao that her medical kido was so average when the rest of her talent was off the chart, but she put it out of her mind for the moment. Nanao was good at compartmentalization.
"You guys done yet?" Tsubaki called. She exploded a zombie's head in a burst of black goo with a shunko-charged fist through the head, then arrived back at their position.
"Not yet," Isane stated, focused on Ichihime's collarbone. "Soon."
"Not good enough..." Tsubaki warned, pointing up.
The women stared up and discovered a huge 'oh shit' moment. The dragon had surrounded them with its massive tail and long neck curled around them, their backs facing its enormous torso. One of its eyes was closed and bleeding, a clear indication of the shot that Hana had pulled off. Unfortunately, its scaly hide was far tougher, and most of Tsubaki's other strikes had been not much worse than a mosquito trying to fell a human. Nonetheless, it remembered the lithe black-haired woman with a keen eye for caution. It respected her threat.
The dragon's jaws snapped down at Tsubaki, coming down like a bullet train. With an uncanny confidence and a ferocious right hook at the 18-wheeler sized head, Hana slammed her shunko punch straight into the beast's lower jaw, enough force to knock the dragon's head off course and into the ground with a rumbling thud. Enraged, the dragon whipped its tail at them in retaliation. Isane rushed forward, and in synchronization with Ise, cast a bakudo strengthening spell in order for Isane to catch the tail bare-handed. She was lucky it was only the far end of the tail, which carried too little momentum to break her stance - but as it was, Kuukaku had to leap behind Isane and brace her with all her strength. The two still skidded six inches deep into the ground.
Its jaws lunged for Hana again, who evaded and swiped at its face with her sword. She missed, but only because the dragon pulled back a bit. It cocked its head left, then right; measuring its chances to strike like a coiled cobra. Tsubaki danced to the same tune as she calculated her next counterattack - a backbladed swipe or a shunko fist. It struck center, but short, giving Hana no outs - darting left or right, it could just bat her side-to-side with the swing of its head.
Darn dragons, Hana thought to herself as she leapt upwards onto the dragon's face, grabbing a protruding scale for balance. That lunatic had to summon something with an IQ of 130? So bothersome.
She stuck her sword behind a scale and jammed it in, just enough to pry the scale up for leverage. With the scale sticking up enough for it to catch, she hammered it with a flash punch, exploding the scale right off the dragon's scalp. It roared and bucked, hurling Tsubaki off. She landed with the grace and skill of a Covert Ops member in the center of their little camp, annoyed that she had been shaken off. Just when I got a vulnerable spot exposed, too. At the very least, Banzo-sama was better and able to breathe comfortably. "How much more time?"
"About four minutes!" Isane encouraged her. Ise had freed the 4th division colossus by pinning a Quintet of Five-Kwan Iron Pillars around the dragon's tail. It was a smart move of Nanao to do it around the tail rather than on it: if she had crushed the tail, the dragon would have been further enflared and come after them. This way, it was only an immobilizing nuisance. Isane and Kuukaku had returned to the healing process. She asked for four minutes, but Isane hoped she could do it in three and a half.
"No promises!" Tsubaki shouted as she flickered left, her sword blindingly bright as she managed to cut into the striking maw's gumline. It was an unbelievable shot, and stung the dragon badly. Now, it was pissed. Hana could tell it was going to cut loose a roar of flame right down the middle of their circle. "Yabei - MOVE!"
"There's nowhere to go!" Ise called. "Try this!" A wall of bakudo barriers enveloped them as steaming saliva began to wisp out the dragon's snout.
Angered, the scaly beast raised itself onto its hindlegs and roared a thundering boom that would have solved the constipation of even the most stopped-up of soldiers. It raised a huge forearm and closed its talons in a fist, and then its entire mile-high body came crashing down with a skyscraper-shattering blow that smashed Ise's barriers to pieces.
"Shit," Nanao swore. This is fucknuts.
"Any other ideas?" Tsubaki asked, flashing next to her. Her eyes were trained on the gathering ball of steam deep within the dragon's throat. Another flamestream was cooking in its belly, and they had limited time to stop it.
Nanao didn't want to answer that.
Tsubaki tsked. It couldn't be helped. "Kuukaku-sama?"
"What?"
"Tell Yoruichi-sama that I might not be able to babysit for a few weeks, 'kay?"
"Wait!"
The afterimage of Hana Tsubaki seared into Kuukaku's retina as the young woman charged into the dragon's open mouth. She may not have had one ounce of Soifon's personality, but she had every last drop of her mentor's confidence in the art of killing.
"You fucking Onmitsukido bitch," Kuukaku quietly cursed Soifon in the grave. Tsubaki-chan better make it through this, or I'm going to find your ashes and take a dump on them.
-:-
Morgan found the small archangel from before, hovering over the big blonde who had manhandled him and another shinigami man whom Morgan had recognized as the 69er. Green balls of energy surrounded her hands, and she was waving them slowly up and down the bodies in a pattern that Morgan couldn't quite discern. About a hundred feet past them, another archangel (a male, also with a white ornament in his hair) was doing more or less the same thing for Anubis. "Hey! Miss!"
The petite woman looked up at him, giving him her attention but not saying anything. As Morgan got closer, he could see that she was chanting something under her breath, so he took that as a reason that she opted not to communicate verbally.
He laid Momo down at the foot of the two others. "She's okays," he explained. "Mee-yahqo-dono poott'er ta sleep." The name caused an uninterpretable reaction on the shinigami's face, but then she hid her expression from him as she refocused her attention on the wounded. He let it go. "We's came o'er heres 'cuzzitts quieter."
Rukia nodded. Indeed, ever since Nanao went bankai - what an awesome, frightening, terrifying bankai it was - their little zone had been safely guarded by at least twenty-five of the gray-robed warriors, each of them fierce and fearless fighters. They had easily dispatched the zombies with clockwork efficiency. None of them spoke to the shinigami, but they were all polite and made friendly and encouraging gestures. Rukia wondered if they were mute. (The sudden thought brought Hikaru to mind, and Rukia refocused. She was going to make it out of this just fine, for Hikaru's sake.)
Morgan still held the psychotic katana in his hands, wondering what he should do with it. A very significant part of him wanted to abandon it. It was dangerous; it was a vicious, insatiable killer. No, worse: it was masochistically sadistic; as though it wanted to experience pain just so that it could understand how to inflict it. It was disturbing on a level that Morgan had only seen in Q before.
Yet, because he was Morgan - saint over all - he did not abandon it. To do so would be to abandon Momo-san. He couldn't accept that. She might cross into the specter of Darkland's shadow, but he wouldn't let her if he could. The katana itself buzzed in his hand, a bloating, festering hunger for blood and death and maiming. In it, though, he felt a love; a love that was pure - a shaded tinge underneath suffering and pain and sorrow. It wasn't love for him - there was some of that in there, too; but not so strong as to be so easily found - but a love born of self-acceptance; a feeling of safety, a complete lack of self-hatred or self-loathing. Whatever darkness Momo possessed in that sword of hers, at the very least, it would never reject or betray her: it would never cast her aside like so many had done. It was this discovery that strengthened Morgan's resolve, and his fist clenched round the hilt tighter and tighter until his knuckles turned white. He wasn't trained with a sword - he was a firearms guy from beginning to end - but he began to trust the weapon's ability to protect him.
I'll protect you, and you'll protect me, he thought. That's what Momo Hinamori and I believe.
For the first time - to anyone - the katana spoke in words. It was a heavy, raspy, clanking voice; a harsh female's crone that sounded like the vocal chords were made from iron chains. I will make you a pact, Moses the Humble. I will be your Savior, if you will be mine.
Morgan smirked. He hadn't been called by that name in a very long time. Then you must follow my rules and my will. You may not succumb to sin, or I refuse.
So be it, the katana answered, and the rasping voice faded.
Suddenly, in his mind's eye, Morgan saw Hinamori's face. He focused on it, and it pleaded with him - he couldn't hear the words, but he could see her begging; and he meditated on it. The rest of her tiny figure came into place, clad in a beautifully elegant miko dress - a shrine maiden's uniform - replete with large, ceremonial bells dangling from the sleeves. It was a gorgeous mix of pink and plum colors, and her visage solidified in the prophet's mind. She seemed so childlike; so innocent. A hint of purity that didn't know what to do with itself. Her face pleaded, and he could see the tears stream down her face, and then she smiled at him one last time before her face was startled, and then it bore a look of iron defiance.
He knew what was to come, and with his eyes closed he didn't even bother to open them. He knew what had startled her. "Itsa tima we's seddle diss fais ta fais, ain't it, Kwennt'n?"
Q spat at his feet in disgust. "You can rot in Soul Society, you little piss-shit. I'm going to kill you for the ages."
Eyes closed, Morgan braced his hands on Momo's Soul, and raised their Savior to defend the heart of a fallen angel in hopes that it will fly again. There is no need to see with my eyes, he reasoned, when I can see with my soul. "I's kanta say I's cumm ta clean yoos o' yer sins, Kwennt'n," Morgan smiled charmingly; still blind to the world of sight.
"I don't have any, Morgan," Q retorted. "And it's time for you to stop preaching."
Morgan breathed in and out calmly. He could feel the eyes of the wounded and the archangel princess following this exchange with tension in every fiber of their reishi. "Yes, itt izz," he answered with a curt nod. Then, with Hinamori's decades of skill in his hands and her strong proud cherubic face in his heart, he made the first swing.
-:-
Hana Tsubaki was a nobody. She had no mother. She had no father. She had no brothers. She had no sisters. She was nothing. A nobody. She didn't even exist. That was everything she had been taught from the day she had been accepted into the Onmitsukido.
A consummate student of Soifon Taicho - who respected Hana's unwavering devotion to the Onmitsukido cause and her more than ample competence - Hana Tsubaki had been groomed from the finest members of the Stealth Force. An elite of the elite, Hana Tsubaki was Soifon's handpicked favorite. She was among the very, very few who had known Soifon on a personal level.
Soifon's death had been devastating. Hana never worshiped or idolized Soifon Taicho the way Soifon grovelled before Yoruichi-sama, but Hana owed her captain and mentor a great deal of everything. Hana had become strong because she had learned from Soifon's indomitable sense of duty: the way of the Onmitsukido. Hana Tsubaki even erased parts of her own personality at times to fulfill that duty: become nothing, become less than nothing. You are nothing but an instrument of a larger system, a single tooth on a saw, a single tool to kill. If you die in the line of duty, than you must rejoice at having fulfilled your life's purpose.
Yet Hana Tsubaki wasn't your average Covert Ops elite. She didn't think it was her role in life to die in service. She didn't want that at all - Tsubaki had never had a family, and she had learned of the joy that children could bring you. She loved babysitting Hisako-chan or Zari-chan; loved watching the two of them get into mischief. She wanted to one day find her own love and have her own children. She believed that her role in life was to reconcile a verdant future with the path of shadows; to be happy in self-contradiction. She wanted to prove that love of service and love of family were not mutually exclusive. She wanted to be a woman in all its glory; to reject the notion that she was a nobody.
But now, she charged into the mouth of the dragon, knowing full well it was suicide. It was seppuku, it was hari kiri, it was fatalistic. It was a march into her own grave. She would die, so that she could save the others. She would die, because she was expendable, and they were not.
Hana Tsubaki didn't believe that because she was brainwashed or enslaved. She wasn't expendable because she was worthless. On the contrary, her blood was just as red as theirs; and she knew it and believed it. No, she was expendable for one reason and one reason only: because that was the Onmitsukido Way. It was the right and noble thing to do.
With a fearlessness of one knowing that they have nothing left to lose, Hana entered the dragon's maw. She rammed her blade into the roof of its mouth, suffering its hot, humid breath and feeling its scratchy, bumpy tongue undulate under her feet, trying to lash around and push her out. With an open-fisted punch into the pommel, she lodged the sword in even deeper; hoping to hit some vital organ.
The dragon screeched and shook its head back and forth, lashing violently in an attempt to dislodge the painful prick. Hana held fast to the hilt, using it to stablize herself; and then flash-punched the gumline around each of the upper teeth. It was a painfully sensitive area. Hot, acidic blood gurgled and sprayed inside; pumping over her in spurts. Tsubaki was persistent, and aimed a shunko kick towards the bottom front of the mouth once the tongue moved out of the way; expecting to hit a salivary gland.
It took a couple of strikes, but she guessed correctly; and the gland exploded in a sloppy mess of mucus-laden drool, coating Hana in a layer of bile, blood, and phlegm-laced spit. Still using her deeply-embedded sword as a handle, she held tight as she tried to fight against the angry dragon's tongue, which threatened to scrape her out. She punched and kicked at it, not really making good contact - at least until she could feel the steam.
Then she knew it was time for the long goodbye, as she could see the jetstream slowly build up deep down the black hollow tube of the dragon's throat. She had no time to save herself. All she had hoped was that she had bought them four minutes; enough time to get Banzo Taicho on her feet.
A quick glance at her watch have her a peaceful smile. She could die without regret: five minutes and twenty-three seconds. With harmony in her soul, she watched the fire tickle up the walls of the dragon's throat, illuminating the darkness and providing an oddly soothing warmth. Death by fire. It is just another footnote in the Onmitsukido Way.
-:-
Ichihime was on her feet, ready to fight - but the dragon had gone haywire. It was bashing its head into the ground, swinging left and right; desperately distracted by the nuisance in its mouth. Ichihime had no idea what she was going to do. At this point, the dragon's dance of madness had already led it away from them a sizable distance. Great, Ichihime thought. In the end, I didn't do jack shit. What a pussy I am, sheesh.
"Shimata!" Kuukaku shouted, seizing their attention.
"What is it?" Ichihime asked, but then looked where Kuukaku was pointing. And then, of course, came out the inevitable pottymouth. "Ksa with a double dose of shit," Ichihime swore as she looked up into the sky. "I can't fucking believe that fucker! Rhino balls in hot sauce, I am going to fucking fuck that fucker with his motherfucking fuck!"
Coming upon them through the darkened gray skies was a whole storm of dragons; at least ten of them. Flying ones, three times the size of the mile-sized monstrosity they were fighting. Insanely large; each one of them a Godzilla in its own right. As they approached, the shinigami all realized how dire the situation was. This entire time, they had been fighting an infant dragon. One that still hadn't even grown wings. And now, Mama, Papa, and all of the brother and sister dragons were coming to rescue their little darling.
They were dragon chow.
"Run!" Ise ordered. "Find cover!"
"No," Ichihime insisted.
"Are you crazy?" Nanao shouted at her, and Ichihime could see that Glasses-senpai was unhinged. Her eyes, a chilling shade of tangerine that Ichihime had never seen before; her hair, a disheveled mane of ghost-white lightning flowing from her scalp. Both were stained with tears and hysterics; something Ichihime had never seen on Senpai before. Ise was always cocky and cool. Something had happened. Something very traumatic had happened. It was clear in Senpai's voice: "We can't hope to fight those things!"
"Tch," Ichihime responded with a smirk, sass everpresent and even amplified in the face of danger. "You turning tail, Glasses Shosho?"
"You're going to die!" Nanao screamed. She couldn't believe this. She was going to get everyone killed. She was going to leave a field full of handoshi defending nothing but shinigami corpses. Nanao maybe had enough energy left to shoot down half of them from this distance, but the odds were not in her favor. She had been maintaining bankai for a long time now, with an exceptionally large army of control underneath her. She had already expended a ton of juice to recharge the others. She had plenty left - enough to still be the strongest shinigami on the field - but not enough to reliably take down a horde of angry dragons. Even if Rukia-san could go bankai to ground them, she still wouldn't be able to kill so many things of that size.
"Relax," Ichihime promised, and withdrew her tanto. "I can't tell Adame-kun that I spent the whole battle on my back," she smiled.
Kuukaku looked to Ichihime with a contrite, dour expression. "Just because my brother taught you a new trick doesn't mean you can take on that kind of assault. Those things will eat us alive. Don't be an idiot - we have to retreat!"
Ichihime's devilish grin spread so wide it practically soared over the horizon. "C'mon, Fireworks Taicho. They all say I'm a young and wreckless Head of House, right? Can't let the reputation be undeserved, can I?"
Isane protested. "Wait, Banzo-sama! You're not read-"
The 7th division captain wasn't hearing any of it. "Bankai, Burning Oni - Shiji Screaming Through the Glass Cannon," Ichihime invoked, and the circle burst in a ring of fire so hot even Kuukaku would have sworn her eyebrows had been singed off.
C'mon, folks - it's review time! Next chapter: The battle climaxes - Ichihime's bankai, Momo's zanpakutou in Morgan's battle against Q, Tsubaki's fate in the dragon's craw, and more! How will their fates collide? There's still quite a few surprises in store - don't miss it! Keep those reviews coming! Thanks! -njx
