Chapter Forty-Nine

They had prepared no signal - they needed no signal.

The moment he heard roaring, Urai burst into the room, nearly running into the man who appeared to be Aizen. In that moment, Kuronamida screamed at him - her darker counterpart echoing the sentiment word for word - that he should immediately stab the man through the spine, but he caught himself in time.

His ghost (for that was still how Urai thought of him) shed the illusion that had so completely enshrouded him, down to the feel of his reiatsu itself. His tattered robes and crisscrossed scars seemed even more dramatic after wearing Aizen's carefully perfected appearance; a wild thing taking the place of a lord. But he was not the only wild thing in the room.

"Duck!" the ghost demanded, and Urai hesitated a moment too long. A tail thick as a tree trunk smashed into him from the side, knocking him to the ground before obliterating the doorframe behind him, and the entire wall, and every other wall holding the room together.

Dust and debris crashed down as the roof itself collapsed on top of them. A beam that could have crushed his bones landed mere inches from Urai's leg, but the shingles and broken pieces of wood that peppered him were more then painful enough. Groaning, he tried to rise while pushing wreckage away with one hand, his other still clenched around the hilt of his unreleased Zanpakuto.

"You are wormssss! Sssskittering, shrieking insectsss... little burrowing mice trying dessssperately to escape my ssssight."

The voice filled the air, echoing and hissing and huge. He looked up and saw the speaker, and suddenly he questioned whether this had really been the best plan.

A massive snake filled the balcony, the long tail curled beneath it and circling half the room, and its head held high. Each individual scale on the muscular body was some alternating shade of scarlet or purple tipped with white, or fading into pastels, so with every breath the snake's body seemed to shift and shimmer in the same way as Caro's mesmerizing gaze. Almost without meaning to, Urai's eyes were drawn up to the creature's head, the wide hood, the nostril slits, the white tongue flitting in and out, the blood-red eyes with no depth and no subtlety. Just... desire, and hatred.

The snake's tail flicked, smashing what was left of one wall without the serpent seeming to notice it at all. The head weaved back and forth, turning it's gaze first on Urai, then on the ghost, then at something out of Urai's sight behind the huge coils.

"I... hunger..." the serpent hissed again, but the tone was different now. Less angry, more controlled. "You... shall... feed... me..."

Urai glanced at his ghost. It was only a moment, but hardly had his gaze left the serpent then their opponent struck. He felt the air moving and threw himself blindly backwards, but the snake caught him anyway, rows of narrow teeth sinking into his leg before throwing him violently into the air.

Too fast!

He gritted his teeth against the pain and slashed at the snake's snout, but his unreleased Zanpakuto just skidded harmlessly off the small, close scales. The snake reared back with an echoing laugh that Urai could feel through the teeth.

"Fight harder, little bat! The ssssstrong are tassstiest when they have fought to the bitteresssst end!"

Again, the tone had changed.

The snake's jaws suddenly loosened around his leg as it screamed unexpectedly in pain. Urai grabbed one of the teeth and barely caught himself before he could fall. He had to put weight on his torn up leg to get a better grip, but with a grit of his teeth and a surge of effort, he managed to clamber up onto the Hollow's snout while it was distracted. Down below, his ghost and the woman- no, not the woman... Kurosaki Ryohime - flashed around the serpent's thrashing coils, their released Zanpakutos proving a more immediate concern then Urai.

He steadied himself, kneeling on both hands and feet to try and keep his balance on the violently moving serpent. He dug his fingers into the scales, his Zanpakuto still in hand and so caught between himself and his opponent.

This is it. You have to tell me how to call you, now.

For once, his Zanpakuto seemed to agree with his sense of urgency, but she could not do it alone. He closed his eyes and braced himself, then dug down into the Dark Place of his mind. It did not want to move. You are supposed to descend, it seemed to say, though it was no spirit and had no voice. It was suppressed, unwanted memory, stifling old power beneath the strength of subconscious rejection. When he had, knowingly or not, let himself sink into oblivion, that power had been able accessible to some extent, and a trace of the instincts that had come with it.

That was no longer good enough.

He dragged them all up, forcing himself to let all of it rush through him. The hopelessness, the cold dispassionate cruelty, the meaninglessness. More then mere memories, these were all the thoughts and feelings that insisted, in an unrelenting stream, that this fight wasn't worth fighting, that Seireitei was not worth saving. Worst of all, he could not allow himself to suppress them again. This was the confrontation they had all known was necessary, and the one even his own powers were convinced he could not withstand.

"I am a Shinigami." He had not meant to speak aloud, but his words were drowned out anyway, unheard. He barely noticed the battle beneath him, though the movement of the snake crushed his fingers into the sharp edges of scales and drew blood, and his grip barely kept him aboard his hostile perch. "I am a Shinigami."

They came to him at the end, though he could not figure out from whom. Was it his Zanpakuto, or the inhabitant of the dark, or... something else? No matter.

His bleeding fingers tightened around the hilt of his Zanpakuto. He became newly aware of the swaying, the sudden abrupt movement that threatened to knock him off as the serpent fought his two ghost friends.

You should be dead.

You are a monster.

You have no friends.

They will never trust you.

Your life means nothing.

Cruel thoughts, but they meant nothing. Urai clung to that knowledge as tightly as his Zanpakuto. They were nothing but echoes from a distant life, and even then they had been lies. He drew in a long, shuddering breath, and then pushed himself to his feet. He finally knew the full release.

"Fade from memory, Kuronamida..."

Urai hesitated as the familiar green lance began to form in his hand. He knew what to say, and that he had to say it, but not what would happen afterwards. I'm sorry.

"... and arise within, Awaiwarai!"

The serpent threw him off mid-release.

He flipped in the air and landed on one knee, a hand pressed to the ground for balance. His lance was in the other, but it wasn't the same lance; he could feel the difference. The serpent loomed above him, its neck held high and hood spread wide as if it meant to intimidate him into surrendering.

And then, it froze in place. A sudden shiver ran through the serpent from snout to tail, the scales lifting and falling in a display of color and broken light unlike anything Urai had ever seen. He could not tear his eyes away. His grip on his lance loosened without his realizing it as another shiver ran through the snake, filling his vision and making even his breath catch in his throat.

There was a flash, and he serpent that had been towering over them was suddenly on the ground, jaws clamped around Urai's ghost. Then those gleaming eyes were high above him again, blood dripping from its fangs as it threw its head back.

Kurosaki Ryohime moved faster then Urai could follow, only a fraction of a heartbeat behind the serpent's strike. Still too slow. Her scream of rage trailed behind as she thrust upward with her Zanpakuto into the softer scales beneath the chin. She tried to tear it out again through the jaw, but the scales were too tough. Her Zanpakuto got lodged and stuck, leaving her dangling with no momentum and only the snake's own neck to brace herself.

The snake screamed the moment her Zanpakuto pierced through, its half-swallowed prey suddenly forgotten. Before Urai even had the time to draw his breath, another Zanpakuto stabbed up through the snake's mouth - this time from within.

The snake went berserk.

Urai flashed away moments before the floor he had been kneeling on was pulverized by thrashing coils. A bloody body slammed into the ground near where he landed, but before he could even identify the person a great cracking sound reverberated through his bones... and the entire building collapsed beneath them.

Everything vanished into a cloud of dust and a wall of wreckage, stabbing and crushing and choking everything like a malevolent force. Urai clenched his eyes shut, his fingernails digging into his palms as the pain of broken bones and lacerated skin flowed through him, gathering from every inch of his body into a focused point behind his ribs.

Pain... but not damage.

Before the dust could settle, he rose. Reiatsu flared out behind him, green energy spreading out from that point of agony in his back almost like wings. His lance burned in his hand, incinerating wreckage that fell too close.

You only have moments.

He could sense the snake, gathering itself together after the fall it hadn't been any more prepared for then they. He shifted, putting one foot back and bracing himself against the sturdiest piece of wreckage he could find. With a deep breath, he reared back.

"Yozoratosshin!"

...

Ryohime meant to catch her friend, but she could barely sense him over the Scarlet Cobra's violent, uncontrolled reiatsu. When the serpent threw itself into a frenzy, her Zanpakuto still lodged un-moving in its jaw, she let it go and dropped to the ground. In that moment she had feared the whiplash of its rage, but as the floor gave out she realized she may have made a mistake.

Maigetsu, come.

Her Zanpakuto returned to her hand, and then they dropped.

Another reiatsu spiked, and dust blew suddenly outward from a point behind her. She knew that energy, and so she did not hesitate. She flashed away from the snake, though after a few steps her leg buckled and she collapsed to the shattered ground. Vaguely, she realized she must have been hit during one of the snake's thrashing attacks, but any thought of that vanished as an explosion lit up the storm-darkened sky.

The snake's screaming silhouette appeared for a moment against the dark backdrop of the clouds, then it tore into pieces as green fire devoured it from within. When the sound of the blast had faded and the pressure was gone, Ryohime slowly got to her feet.

All that was left of the Captain's old office, and the entire building in which it had been housed, was ash, and that had been blasted away from the origin of the explosion to pile thickly against the nearest standing structures.

What was left of the snake burned on the ground, a blackened skeleton - half-clad in faded scales - flickering with eerie light. Ryohime could barely tear her gaze away, but this time it was no mesmerizing flutter of scales that held her attention; the sheer destruction was as awe-inspiring as it was horrifying.

Then she remembered her companions. With worry clutching suddenly in her chest, she whirled around, scanning the ashen ruin for any sign of life.

She found Urai just in time to see him collapse into the slightly-less-fine ash further away. She rushed to his side, limping from the injury she still could not remember receiving.

His Zanpakuto, back in unreleased form, fell from his limp fingers as she pushed an arm under his shoulders. For a moment, she almost couldn't find him, not a heartbeat or a trace of spirit energy. Worry turned to dread in a heartbeat, then turned just as quickly to relief as her sensitive fingers caught a pulse of life.

His spiritual energy was drained almost to the limit, but he was alive. She made sure there were no injuries on him that would change that, then rose again. There were other allies who might need her help.

...

The whirlwind died without warning, without apparent cause. Had he not been so exhausted Charles would have had an ideal opening, but now he simply rushed to gain some distance while his opponent hesitated.

Time slowed during battles with the strongest of opponents, stretching minutes into far, far longer. The senses were focused to an absurd degree, the mind raced to keep pace with the speed of their bodies. In that state, it felt like far more then a few seconds before Charles finally realized what had happened. His opponent had no intention of reengaging him. He stood there, his bankai fading even as Charles watched. Without a victor, the battle had simply ended.

All over Seireitei, battles simply ended.