Chapter Twelve

Yylfordt felt the change in the air, but wasn't at first sure what it is. There wasn't much time to think about it - his master was in mid-pounce with claws mere heartbeats away from Yylfordt's throat.

Edward, however, seemed to sense it as well, and when Yylfordt swerved to avoid the attack, he made no move to follow up on it. He skidded to a stop on all fours in the loose sand, the fur on his spine standing up on end. They had both released their Zanpakutos for an all-out spar, and in Edward's case this meant he was now in his black-furred, blue-streaked feline form, complete with his old cat instincts. He sniffed the air, tail twitching.

"A new enemy?" Yylfordt wondered aloud, coiling his whip around one arm. "But it feels familiar..."

Edward sealed his Resurreccion. "That's Dikayumi," he said, puzzled. "But it also doesn't feel like like him, exactly... or Aaroniero for that matter."

The two shared a glance, then flashed off to see what was going on.

They found Dikayumi thrashing alone on the sand, clearly in the middle of some inward struggle. His eyes were wide open but unseeing, and blackness crept slowly but surely across them.

"I thought he said he defeated Aaroniero," Edward groaned, turning to Yylfordt. "Watch him, I'm going to go get Kitsune. We may need his Kido if Dikayumi loses. And try not to kill him if he attacks while I'm gone!"

.

Edward was baffled.

According to reports his brother had gotten from Dikayumi a year ago, their Quincy ally was supposed to have destroyed the incarnation of his Hollow past (the two voices that had been driving him crazy before the Seireitei Incident) with the help of his father. They had all assumed that was the end of it on his part, like it had been the end for Charles. Then again, everyone fought their battles differently. Yylfordt had immediately and soundly defeated his human side, quite accidentally too, while for Edward, there had been no power struggle at all between himself and his inner Grimmjow. Maybe Dikayumi had mistaken the disappearance of the voices of Aaroniero as the defeat of Aaroniero, and now the Ninth Espada was trying to take control again while he was unsuspecting.

There wasn't much time for conjecture, though. Edward remembered clearly what Aaroniero was like in the old days, and there had been little love lost between the Sixth and the Ninth Espada. And now, Edward's human side was balking at the idea of letting a comrade-in-arms fall, even to an enemy inside Dikayumi's own soul.

He hopped up through the trapdoor, into the main body of the store-turned-headquarters. He could sense Kitsune in the back rooms, probably tidying up the recently-used guest bedroom.

Edward nearly smashed the door when he flung it open.

"Kitsune! Dikayumi seems to be fighting with his not-dead inner Hollow, or else something even weirder is going on. I think we need you."

Kitsune's little red eyes popped open in surprise. "What? But I thought Megane-kun wasn't in danger of that anymore."

Edward shrugged, grabbing the little mod-soul and running back towards the trapdoor before Kitsune could begin to protest. "Yep, we all thought. Down we go!"

"This feels serious," Kitsune agreed as they got closer, frowning thoughtfully. "Yep, it certainly seems Megane-kun is in trouble. I don't see why I'm down here, though, I can't really interfere with an inner world battle. Want me to call Ryo-chan? Her Zanpakuto might be able to get inside his head and straighten things out."

"Let's call that Plan B," Edward grunted, setting Kitsune down at a safe distance where rogue reiatsu wouldn't crush him. "I think it's best not to interfere in self-battles unless we have to. I wanted you on-hand to restrain him, though, if things take a turn for the worse. Neither of us," he gestured at himself and Yylfordt, "can use Bakudo, and Erina isn't handy."

"'On-hand,' 'handy.'" Kitsune hmmed to himself. "I sound very convenient now; that's nice." He perked up, and Edward felt a new reiatsu appearing somewhere above Karakura. "My, my, this is bad timing."

Edward tsked, annoyed. "Do you think you and Yylfordt would be able to handle things down here in a worst-case scenario?"

Kitsune considered briefly. "No, not really. It's possible we could, of course, maybe even likely, but I'm not confident. You guys just training makes me light-headed sometimes, and if Megane-kun goes full Hollow-takeover on us, there would be a significantly greater pressure down here, hardly the best circumstances for concentrating on a Bakudo barrier."

Edward scratched his ear, thinking hard. He could already sense the others heading off towards the strange new presence above Karakura, including his brother. He couldn't tell at this distance (and through the dampening barriers built into the walls of the training room to help hide reiatsu) the numbers or any specifics of the newcomers, but some primal instinct was demanding he rush to the aid of his allies.

Then Dikayumi snapped, and the decision was made for him.

.

The battle at the gates of Seireitei had separated into two distinct layers. The outnumbered, unseated Shinigami fought the untrained rebels from the Rukongai on the ground, all struggling against the pressure of their champions high above, blazing across the sky in an impressive, terrifying display.

Urai, however, was barely conscious of the fighting. He lay in an alley back within the walls, where some ally had dragged him after his collapse, fighting a battle in his mind.

He had gone into Shikai for the battle, and then tried to go into his Dark Place, and that was when the sickness had overtaken him. Unable to remember where he was, why there were so much fighting, or even who he had become, Urai had nearly been overwhelmed by it all.

Even in his inner world, he was lost to what was going on around him. His Zanpakuto perched in her tree and watched over her paralyzed, unresponsive Shinigami, trapped in fractured memories of the past he couldn't find his way out of.

Memories she had no place in, and only the faintest knowledge of.

Dark trees, pale bone, blood running black under a colorless moon.

"Snap out of it, already," she grumbled, hefting her favourite coconut. She was so sick of being shunted aside for the past; really, truly sick of it. Leaning out, hanging on by another branch to avoid falling, she let the coconut drop towards her Shinigami's prone form below.

A black blur intercepted the coconut, and threw it back with such force it nearly knocked her off her branch when it hit. She grabbed the tree desperately to steady herself, and by the time she had balanced herself again, whatever had interfered was gone.

Like usual.

The black thing only showed up when Urai was in his "dark place", as he called it, or when his fake medicine failed and the past he should be forgetting came back full force. Of course she knew it was the medicine causing his forgetfulness in the first place, but she had promised herself she would never tell him that. She wanted the past gone, erased forever and as soon as possible.

She had only barely come to life, and she knew it was a fragile life she had prematurely come into. Whatever he was before wasn't quite dead yet, and if it came back... there might just be a change in the balance of power that left her dead before her time.

Her and the black past. It was a battle between them, with her Shinigami caught in the middle. For that reason, more then anything else, she was determined not to lose. The past that she had seen was something evil, and she would do whatever it took to drag them both away from slipping back in there.

She dropped from her branch, keeping a wary eye out for the black intruder, and settled down next to her Shinigami.

Then she began to sing.