Chapter Eighty:
Standing slowly, Ichigo peered down at Urahara and Starrk. Both men were unconscious, the thin chains of the Kaikyō Kotei remained fastened around their wrists, holding the current of time at bay even while their energy began to falter.
The strawberry haired Shinigami looked down at the sword in his grasp, he could still feel Tensa's lament. The Zanpakutō spirit's words continued to haunt him. Swallowing hard, he severed the chains on both men and threw them over his shoulders, sprinting through the Dangai towards the bright exit up ahead.
He had no idea how much time had passed in the outside world, but he was startlingly aware that his waist length hair had grown even longer, he seemed to have grown a few additional inches in height and he felt... He felt vastly stronger. Was it the effects of having trained for so long? Was this what his strength would have been like if he had trained non-stop for what he could only assume would be close to one hundred and seventy days, if Starrk's calculations had been correct?
He sucked in a shaky breath and forced himself forwards. He couldn't take the risk of hanging around any longer. Who knew what condition Karakura town would be in if Aizen had even reached it yet. Kurotsuchi... Nemu... They could already be dead... Orihime, Chad, Ishida... The twins...
Ichigo burst free from the Senkaimon, immediately plummeting down towards the ground as he realised, with a jolt, that he was within the real Karakura town. They couldn't have been more than a mile away from the Ishida residence.
He could sense Aizen's reiatsu and dove towards it, easily picking up the energies of the very friends he had been worried about. Undoubtedly they had been forced to join with Kurotsuchi to try and hold Aizen back. He could see them, sprawled dramatically across the ground. His Human friends were uninjured, most likely crushed into place by the weight of the brunet's reiatsu alone. But Kurotsuchi and Nemu seemed in a bad way, bloodied, wounded, barely breathing.
Feet striking the concrete hard enough to split it, the strawberry lowered Urahara and Starrk onto the ground before he turned to face his once upon a time lover. Their eyes met, he found that the tremor of fear he had expected to feel was absent. He felt nothing. Just determination.
He could feel the eyes of those around them settle on his form, his fingers tightened around the hilt of his Zanpakutō.
"Aizen." He said calmly, voice steady as his tattered coat-style shihakusho fluttered around him like blackened butterfly wings.
"I wondered if you would follow... But I must confess that I am disappointed. I no longer sense any reiatsu from you at all... Even if you were to suppress it, it would not vanish entirely." The brunet seemed to tut, "You have failed to evolve. Perhaps I was wrong, perhaps you do not possess limitless potential after all."
Ichigo could sense the jibe, and while he wasn't sure why Aizen could not longer sense his reiatsu he was almost certain that it wasn't as a result of him having grown weaker in the Dangai. Maybe... Maybe the opposite was true.
"Let's move." The strawberry said, "I don't want to fight here."
"A meaningless proposal. Such words are reserved for those with the strength to challenge me. Did you not hear me, I feel less reiatsu from you now than I did the last time I saw you, so you are hardly in a position to-"
Aizen's monologue was silenced as Ichigo's hand planted firmly over his face, and with a sudden rush of air gusting around them, the brunet was thrown backwards by the force of the other man's physical strength. Eyes darting from side to side as he felt the world shift, blue skies moving in a blur overhead.
Ichigo's teeth clenched painfully, his fingertips digging lightly into the man's skin to keep hold of him as he forced them through the barrier created by the Tenkai Ketchu. He rushed forwards, steering them further away, aiming for the place everything had started. Fugai.
"I said... I don't want to fight there." He breathed.
Ichigo released a yell as he threw Aizen away from him, watching as the brunet's body collided with the dense canopy of the Fugai forest. Now that they were outside of Karakura, now that they were away from his precious friends... He allowed the full extent of his power to wrap around his body. He would not be holding back any more.
"Why would you bring me here? To Fugai?" Aizen scoffed, brushing himself down as he appeared nearby, atop the cliff.
"This is where my life restarted. Twice." The strawberry said softly, looking around them at the trees, "Once when you abandoned me here after using the Hōgyoku on me. And once when Byakuya revealed the truth to me concerning your involvement in my life. They were prominent events... Important... Life changing. It seems fitting that I bring things to an end here."
"And you joked that you had surpassed your former arrogance. Ichigo... Foolish Ichigo, if anyone is going to finish things, it will be me. It is clear to me that there is no longer any hope of swaying you, or Shiro... You leave me no choice."
They clashed in an explosive display, swords meeting for only a fraction of a second before parting and meeting again, dancing a vicious waltz of threat and determination. Their movements matched like perfect mirror images, as Ichigo allowed every inch of knowledge he had ever gained from the man to seep into his Soul, movements like water as he flowed around the cliff side. Aizen was a blur, a crushing whirlpool of sleek movements that never seemed to end.
Neither of them paid much attention to the landscape as they fought, neither taking note of how the surrounding mountains crumbled beneath each sword swing, or how a single dodge resulted in a landslide, or how their macabre dance uprooted the very forest below them, tree by tree; root by root.
The force with which their blades met released deafening cracks, the sound likened to that of a thunder storm. The boom of metal against metal. The crunch of muscle against muscle. The crushing weight of reiatsu against reiatsu.
Neither of them were breaking a sweat.
"In all the years I watched you grow and mature... I never once imagined this outcome." Aizen chuckled, his expression borderline amused, "I never pictured us taking up arms against one and other. Fighting to the death."
"I did." Ichigo replied simply, glaring into chocolate pools with his own chestnut eyes, "I knew it in my Soul that one day... I would have to try to kill you."
"I suppose I did train you to willingly kill whoever was necessary to advance our cause." The brunet snorted, "Is it bad that, even now, I find myself proud of how you have matured?"
Jaw setting into a tight line, the strawberry responded, "You have my gratitude for everything you taught me, for everything you enabled me to do, and everything I have become as a result of it."
"Hm." Aizen's amusement seemed to grow, "Now you even sound like a proper noble."
Ichigo ignored the jibe, spinning on his heel and slamming his open palm into the man's chest, taking a moment for himself as he watched Aizen hit the floor. He wiped his face, more out of habit than necessity, and felt the first trickles of sweat run down his spine.
Looking down at the black katana in his hand, Ichigo's expression changed as an overwhelming surge of loneliness struck him, it was so potent and so strong that is very nearly knocked the breath from his lungs.
"I never realised..." He said aloud.
"What?" Aizen muttered, getting to his feet and glaring as he wiped the dirt from his white shihakusho, "Is this where you turn even more melancholic than you already have? Will you begin reciting your misdeeds and mistakes in hopes that I relate to you and vow to change my ways? That is the effect you have had upon my Espada, after all."
"No." Ichigo said simply, "I just never realised just how lonely you are."
Eyes narrowing, the brunet released a low hiss, "Excuse me?"
"Your sword... It is practically screaming for someone to hear it. For someone to care. For someone to understand. Our Zanpakutō are reflections of ourselves... Of our very Souls." His head tilted to one side, gaze entirely focused on Kyoka Suigetsu's blade, "I understand now. Why you said you'd build me somewhere that I could be myself. You weren't just making that promise to me, you were making it to yourself as well. Your sword is lonely. You are lonely."
"How dare you-"
"Someone as strong as you... Born with extraordinary levels of reiatsu that others couldn't hope to comprehend if they realised... Born with a Zanpakutō that was blessed with such an overwhelming ability... You've never met another Soul capable of understanding your reiatsu, of understanding your power. You've been alone from the moment you were born." Ichigo's eyes slowly lifted, meeting furious brown orbs, "That's why the Hōgyoku breaks down the barrier between Shinigami and Hollow powers at your command, it's not because of a morbid sense of interest or experimentation... It's because what you want more than anything in the world, what you crave with every ounce of your very being... Is to meet someone as strong as you."
"Who do you think you are, to make such assumptions about me?!" There was no mistaking the anger that flowed through Aizen's voice as he shot forwards, sword swinging around so fast and so hard that the air around it whistled with the effort to part around it.
"If someone had realised sooner, if someone had held a hand out to you in true friendship and been able to match your power maybe they could have saved you from the darkness you plunged into."
His expression remained troubled even as he lifted his left hand, fingers outstretched towards the oncoming blade. He made sure his eyes never moved from Aizen's, even as he felt the impact of Kyoka Suigetsu hitting his palm. Ichigo watched as Aizen's eyes widened considerably, horror seeming to cross the man's face at the sight of his Zanpakutō coming to a stop within the strawberry's grasp.
"What... Is the meaning of this?" The brunet breathed, "You... Caught it..."
"Why so surprised? Is it so unbelievable?" Ichigo asked, "For me to catch your sword? Is it something you cannot comprehend?"
The anger returned in place of the shock as Aizen tore his sword free and leapt back, his hand shaking with the rage pulsing through him, "Something... I can't comprehend, you say? It was simply a case of your physical strength momentarily exceeding mine. Something which will never happen again, by me crushing you to pieces with Kido!"
Fighting to contain the sigh which threatened to escape his lips, Ichigo watched almost with pity as Aizen lifted his hand towards the sky.
"Seeping crest of turbidity. Arrogant vessel of lunacy! Boil forth and deny! Grow numb and flicker! Disrupt sleep! Crawling queen of iron! Eternally self-destructing doll of mud! Unite! Repulse! Fill with soil and know your own powerlessness!" Aizen's voice was booming as he roared the incantation, "Hadō 90: Kurohitsugi!"
The sky darkened around them, violent hues of purple and black were thrown off into the clouds as multiple stages of blackened energy appeared from the floor surrounding Ichigo. He paid it no attention, his eyes never leaving Aizen's face, even as the wall which grew between them sealed the man from his sight.
"I have only ever shown you Kurohitsugi without an incantation in training, but now bare witness to its full power!"
Ichigo felt the chill of the air as the box sealed around him, refusing to flinch as every inch of space within it was speared with black energy. He released the smallest of hisses as his body was impaled in several different places, feeling the warmth of blood running against his skin.
"I feel sorry for you." The strawberry breathed, lifting his left hand again he felt the blazing heat of his reiatsu trailing up the length of the limb, he struck out, sweeping from right to left. Cleaving through the black energy like it was nothing more than glass.
The shattering sound was deafening, and he tilted his head as Aizen came back into view. The brunet's face was contorted in disbelief and bewilderment.
"It is almost unbearable, isn't it?" Ichigo asked as he started walking forwards, taking careful and purposeful steps towards the man he had aspired to be like for so long, "The pain of being all alone. I know that feeling, I've been there. In that dark, and lonely place. But now there are others. Other people who mean a lot to me, I care more about them than I do myself, and I won't let anyone hurt them. They saved me from myself. They rescued me from that loneliness. They were the first to accept me as who I am. They are my friends. That... Is why I never give up. I will stop you, even if I have to kill you."
"Silence!" Aizen barked, lashing out with every ounce of fury he could muster.
Their swords met again, and Ichigo felt the sting of metal on his shoulder, the tearing of skin and tendons. But he didn't stop moving. He kept walking forwards, watching as Aizen slowly retreated despite continuing to dance with new and contorted variations of his usual fighting style.
"Aizen." Ichigo whispered, "The power I have right now... Is more than the power you have. You can't stop me."
"Don't. Make. Me. Laugh!" Aizen plunged Kyoka Suigetsu straight forwards, willingly taking a blow to his ribs as he stabbed his sword straight through Ichigo's stomach, "If you were stronger than me, you would have dodged that."
Doubling over with the pain of the sword entering his body, Ichigo released a faint wheeze, blood trickling from between his lips as his heart ached. He could almost feel Zangetsu vibrating in his grasp, a silent plea not to go any further. His eyes stung as he looked down at the black blade, and slowly he felt a bittersweet smile spread across his lips.
"I wish that was true." He straightened up slowly, his muscles protesting the action as he brought the blade up sharply, slicing a jagged line along Aizen's chest.
They fell away from each other, both panting in pain as their respective wounds bled and wept and stung. Ichigo glanced over, his fears confirmed as he watched Aizen's wounds healing almost as quickly as his own were.
"The Hōgyoku has some remarkable gifts." He muttered more to himself than Aizen.
"You have no idea." The brunet spat as he stood straight, staggering only momentarily as he regained his balance.
As if sensing their conversation, the swirling orb embedded in the man's chest seemed to thrum at the praise it received, Ichigo watched it for what felt like an eternity, feeling a strange sense of familiarity with the whorls of colour etched within the glass ball. It had been twenty six years since he had seen it so close, so perfectly. At yet he remembered it like it had all happened yesterday.
Aizen took a moment to look around the landscape, seemingly finally noticing the devastation they had caused to the area, "Fugai... I haven't stepped foot here since I left you in the forest."
"I wish I could say the same." The strawberry muttered glibly, also taking a brief break to look around, "I hate this place. The forest. The mountains and the cliffs. The people. The lowest of the low, the cruellest of the cruel."
"Indeed, it is something akin to what you might tread in." The former Taichou chuckled softly, looking over at Ichigo, "Why don't we make this more interesting... And change locations?"
"What?" Ichigo's eyes snapped back to Aizen but it was too late. The brunet had disappeared.
Swearing loudly, Ichigo chased after him. He knew where he was going. He would return to Karakura town, he would use the advantage of Ichigo's Human friends to make him weary of using his full strength. If he held back... Everyone would die for the sake of making an Ōken.
Letting out a roar, Ichigo pushed himself harder, faster, further. His body was protesting, his soul was protesting. He could hear the rush of blood in his ears, the taste of metal on his tongue, the feeling of bile scalding his throat as the threat of being sick washed over him.
He could see the Tenkai Ketchu again and the pale green light that signified the barrier around the town, and he could see a blur of white and brown heading straight for it.
"Ichigo."
Chestnut eyes widened slightly as he heard Tensa's voice, his head turning slightly as he sensed the faint form at his side, he still had the appearance of the merged form from their fight. The wavy white hair, the paler than snow skin, the single ebony horn spiking outwards like an angry lightening bolt, the one blue eye and one gold eye, the white shihakusho lined with blackened fur.
"What are you doing?" He asked aloud.
"We've come to help you one last time." The Zanpakutō Spirit said softly, "To give you that speed boost you always seem to need at the very last minute."
"Thank you." Ichigo whispered.
The warmth of Zangetsu's hand resting on top of his sent a jolt of strength through him. He watched as Aizen grew slower- no. Aizen wasn't moving slower, he was moving faster. He was catching up. He whirled through the air as Tensa disappeared from his sight, letting out an agonising scream as he lunged, leaping through the air like a panther uncoiling every inch of muscle in order to catch it's prey.
Their bodies collided with a painful crunch, Ichigo and Aizen were sent to the floor, rolling and bouncing over bumps and boulders before stopping when they struck the side of one of the Tenkai Ketchu pillars.
Jumping back to his feet, Ichigo reached out, his fingers knotting in Aizen's length of brown hair as he swung him away from the real Karakura town, pursuing him relentlessly, swiping with his sword and his fists and his feet, using every ounce of his body, every inch of his physical being to push the man back.
"I will protect Karakura town with my life!" The strawberry barked, "You will not set a single foot back over that barrier while there is still breath in my lungs!"
"Then allow me to fix that!" Aizen yelled suddenly, his hand flying out, fingers wrapping around Ichigo's throat, "If all it will take... Is your death then so be it! Once I have created the Ōken, once I have entered the Royal Palace I will have all the power I need to fill the gap left by your demise! Only the next person I gift with power will have considerably less attitude than you!"
Ichigo released a short sharp gargle as his wind pipe was crushed, his body convulsing in the desperate attempt to suck in air. His eyes lifted from Aizen's face, looking towards the town he was trying to protect. He could sense, even from such a distance, the reiatsu of his Human friends.
Orihime, Ishida, Chad... They were all inside that barrier. Kaida was inside that barrier, that huge confident smile that illuminated her entire face like a sunbeam, dark blue eyes like her fathers', burnt orange hair like her mothers'. Hotaru was inside that barrier, shy but bold with a warmth in his cinnamon brown eyes that could melt even the coldest personality, spiky black hair reminding Ichigo of his younger years when his own hair had been an untameable mess of orange bluster.
Somewhere in that town were the other Human friends he had been gifted with as a child, ones he had not yet reconnected with. Keigo, Tatsuki, Mizuiro.
He wanted them to live. He wanted them to have long, happy lives. Enjoying the world, finding love, having families, having the mediocrity of boring jobs and hobbies that kept them happy when nothing else did. He wanted Kaida and Hotaru to grow up, to have the childhood he never had, to have the love of their parents for as long as they could. He wanted them all to live.
"You really think I'll die..." He spoke plainly as he glowered down at Aizen once more, "From something like this?"
He swung his arm around ruthlessly, striking the brunet across the face with the full length of the blade. He watched as Aizen recoiled from the force behind the hit, blood dripping ruthlessly down his chin, staining his clothing with scarlet splodges.
"It's time we finished this, Aizen. I'm sick to death of listening to you talk." He lifted Zangetsu above his head, pointing the tip of the blade towards the sky for a fleeting moment before extending his arm towards his enemy, his left hand coming to rest on his right forearm, "This... This is the Final Getsuga Tenshou."
Ichigo felt like his very consciousness had left his body as the world erupted around him in brilliant hues of startling blue light, christened with jagged searing lines of blackened reiatsu. He thought he had bonded fully with Zangetsu, with Shiro, in Hueco Mundo. But that had been nothing. Nothing at all compared to the feeling of his body changing. His mind mending. His Inner World becoming his outer world.
He felt Zangetsu crumble between his fingers, watching mournfully as his Zanpakutō decayed and became part of the reiatsu surrounding his body. The sight immediately reminded him of that moment, within his Inner World, when he had dared to ask Zangetsu for more power.
Tensa seemed to press into his touch, teeth clenched as if experiencing physical pain as a broken sob escaped his lips, his fingers slowly loosened on the white hilt of the blade, hands falling to his sides as his body arched forwards. Ichigo could barely stand to see him so broken, so hurt. But he didn't understand.
Their eyes met for a long moment, Tensa's voice cracking with emotion, "The Final Getsuga Tenshou... This blade will teach you the meaning soon enough. Together with the essentials of the technique. Ichigo... If you use this technique you will..."
There was a sickness swirling in his senses, a deep plunge of regret and longing that he didn't dare grasp onto in case he became too afraid to move forwards. He had accepted his fate while running through the Dangai. He was so glad he had been able to join the battle in the fake Karakura town... He was so glad he had been able to free the Espada. He had been able to see them all. His friends. One last time.
"If I use this technique... I will lose my Shinigami powers." He whispered.
As the reiatsu around him began to clear, Ichigo became more aware of the changes to his body. His waist length sunrise coloured hair had been corrupted to inky blackness, blowing around him in the gusts of wind created by his very presence. His Shiba tattoos had been replaced by finger to chest length black rings that coiled around his limb like one long snake, disappearing from sight beneath grey bandages. The wraps whorled around his chest and his right arm, leeching up his throat to cover the bottom half of his face.
He was acutely aware that his eyes were no longer chestnut, instead they were were the colour of blood, his irises glinting with the very instinct to overcome his enemy, the very instinct to draw blood and spread it across the horizon. His shihakusho was gone, his lower half clad in an inky black skirt of reiatsu that seemed to loosely resemble a hakama. His feet were bound by bandages.
Finally, his eyes moved downwards, to his right hand. Jet black rivets of reiatsu trailed along his fingers, trickling up into the air beside him like a warning of what was to come. He felt powerful. More powerful than he had ever felt in his life, and that was saying something. He had gone through so many changes, so many transformations, he had gained so much power, gained so much strength. But it was shadowed by what he held in his grasp now.
Ichigo could hear Aizen ranting. The brunet was in denial. Hollering, almost screeching that there was noway he could have so much power.
"I can't feel anything." Aizen breathed, his eyes wider than they had ever been, "When I evolved prior to coming to this war, I moved to a level of existence beyond the Shinigami, they became unable to affect me. Thus, neither Shinigami nor Humans were able to sense my reiatsu, unless I deliberately restricted myself in order to allow them to do so."
"Would it be of any comfort to you..." Ichigo murmured, "If I told you that there has never been a day where I have been unable to sense you?"
"That cannot be..." The brunet choked, "You cannot... Have gone beyond me... To a higher level of existence... Ridiculous! It could never happen! A mere Shinigami could never surpass me!"
Lifting his right hand, Ichigo flexed his digits, he could feel the power of Getsuga dancing at his fingertips ready to be called upon, "You are correct, Aizen. A mere Shinigami could never surpass you. But I am not a Shinigami! You made sure of it! I AM HUMAN!"
He clenched his fist, the outline of Tensa Zangetsu forming in his grasp as he summoned together the particles of his power, the single black streak of energy pulsing at his will as he lifted his arm high above his head.
"The enemy is one, and you are one. Cast off your fear. Look forward. Go forward. Never stand still. Retreat and you will age. Hesitate and you will die." Ichigo thought silently, his Inner World devoid of his Zanpakutō's spirit now, "Thank you Zangetsu. Thank you Shiro... Farewell."
Scarlet eyes narrowed with determination, the air around him turning ice cold as he focused everything he had on Aizen, a single word leaving his lips, "Mugetsu!"
Ichigo swung his arm down towards Aizen, watching as a massive veil of black reiatsu erupted upwards and hastily sped towards the brunet Shinigami. The sky darkened to a moonless black canvas as the energy surged upwards, dissipating into the air and allowing the clear blue to shine back through. Aizen released a howl of pain as he was enveloped in darkness, feeling his body splitting in half from the unbelievable strength of the reiatsu.
Taking a few steps forwards, the now black haired Shinigami watched as Aizen's body hit the ground not far away, he was horrifically wounded, but he was already beginning to regenerate again. There was a moment of panic as he wondered if his best had not been enough after all.
That was when he saw Kyoka Suigetsu snap in half.
