"The fate of what you want to protect is none of my concern."
"Don't misunderstand, Ichigo. What you want to protect is not what I want to protect."
"Both of us… are your power!"
"What is this? Why is it… that I only sense sadness flowing from his blade?"
"What I wanted to protect… was you, Ichigo!"
"If you use this technique, you will lose all your Shinigami powers…"
"Farewell, Ichigo."
Kurosaki Ichigo stared at Aizen, watching as what was once a man became something… More. Not quite better. More powerful, for sure, but also more depraved. It was pitiful, honestly, seeing a person who was once so proud sink to this level of insanity. Not that Aizen wasn't crazy before, but he was far more subtle and suave about it. Now, on the other hand, screaming every other word and surrendering control to his superiority complex...
It was disgusting. There was no other word to describe this transformation.
"Yes… This is inexcusable, isn't it, Hogyoku?"
Aizen's voice was incredibly distorted by his Hollowfication, more so than the Vizards. The Arrancar sounded like humans, for some strange reason; probably because most of their masks didn't cover their mouths. As for the ones which did, well...
"That I let a mere human get the better of me!"
One of the heads on Aizen's wings let loose a purple Cero. It was extremely fast, covering the distance between the two quickly. It touched down with the force of a hydrogen bomb, and even had the mushroom cloud to match. Ichigo shunpoed a few hundred meters back, avoiding the brunt of the explosion.
Ichigo was slightly perturbed by the sheer amount of dust that was kicked up… Imagine if that had been in his room? Yuzu would have had a fit. The teen shuddered slightly, thinking about the rant he would get if he ever let his room get that bad, then decided to clean up every week, as opposed to every month like before.
Focusing back on the fight at hand, Ichigo noticed that the shockwaves from the Cero had subsided, leaving him a clear line to Aizen. Dashing at the madman, the Substitute Shinigami crossed the area faster than a Vice-Captain's shunpo with pure leg strength. Aizen was prepared, and raised his blade to parry. He was not, however, prepared for Ichigo's blade to pass through his. The Shinigami had shunpoed fast enough to leave behind a very solid after-image, using the distraction to slash across the astounded Aizen's back. There was a large amount of blood, but it sealed up nearly instantly. That Hogyoku was getting pretty annoying.
"So what if you are faster than me!? You are not powerful enough to harm me, a transcendent being!"
Aizen was, too.
"Well, that scratch I just put on your back begs to differ," Ichigo shot back, as Aizen spun around to face him.
Aizen let loose an unintelligible roar of rage, and leapt at Ichigo, who simply slapped the madman's blade away with his bare hand. Unable to change directions quickly enough, the monster was left moving forward with no way to stop. The Shinigami left a large gash across his chest for his troubles. Jumping back once more, Aizen simply stared at Ichigo, the hatred conveyed by his mere gaze nearly tangible.
"What's wrong, Aizen? Why did you retreat just now?"
Shouting once more, Aizen poured all of his considerable strength into speed, exploding forward at the Substitute. When Ichigo did not react, the monster allowed himself a smug smirk, grabbing his opponents face. The heads on his wings circled around Ichigo, each one charging up a purple Cero. Instead of blasting him, the Ceros formed a ring of energy around Ichigo's neck.
"I have you at my mercy now, human! You can beg all you want, but I shall not spare you!" Aizen let out a warbling laugh, obviously pleased with himself.
"Are you done?"
"...Huh?"
With a single swipe of his sword, Ichigo dispersed the Cero ring and knocked Aizen back about 20 meters.
"I'm getting tired of playing your games, Aizen… I'm ending this now." The monster had no chance to reply, when Ichigo vanished. The Shinigami appeared above him, sword raised high into the air. "Getsuga Tenshou."
The red-tinted black reiatsu slammed into Aizen like a mountain being dropped on him from orbit. It didn't help that Ichigo had compressed the technique, meaning all the power was concentrated into a rather small area. The transcendent being went flying into the ground like a meteor, and ended up burrowing under a couple dozen meters. Before he could get up, though, Ichigo was there again.
"If the Hogyoku is what's giving you all this strength, then I just have to remove it, right?" With that, Ichigo reached into Aizen's chest- and pulled. The monster let out an unholy shriek, which hurt Ichigo's ears, but the Strawberry ignored it in favor of using his sword to carve up Aizen's chest and loosen the orb. It was taking quite a bit of effort to get the stone out, but Ichigo finally managed. He jumped up out of the hole, and waited at the edge to see if Aizen would get up. He was not disappointed when Aizen leapt out seconds later.
"GIVE IT BACK!"
"...What are you, a child?"
"HOGYOKU, RETURN TO ME!" Nothing happened. The stone didn't budge.
"Did you seriously expect that to work? This isn't friggin' Pokemon…"
Aizen let loose a roar which made his previous ones seem like yawns. Ichigo was sure the monster's vocal chords were torn up from that, which was lucky, since his poor ears probably wouldn't survive another one of those.
The madman leapt forward, sword flashing dangerously close to Ichigo's neck. It was a testament to Ichigo's superior kinetic vision and reaction time that he leaned back the perfect amount, purposely allowing the blade to kiss his neck every time. Aizen seemed to notice- or he at least saw Ichigo's confident smirk- because his wing heads burst into activity. They began tossing purple Ceros every which way.
Ichigo saw a few of them heading to the fake Karakura Town. If his friends (and other innocent people) hadn't been there, he probably would have let it go, but he obviously couldn't do that. The Shinigami decided to have a little fun, despite how bleak the situation seemed. He shunpoed to the out-of-control Ceros, and smacked them with the flat of Tensa Zangetsu, sending them back at Aizen. A couple were canceled out by random return fire, but Aizen wasn't very lucky; the majority hit the monster with their full force, blowing holes into him which desperately attempted to heal. Without the Hogyoku's extra power, it was a bit slow. After a minute of playing a dangerous game of baseball, Ichigo noticed that Aizen had finally stopped blasting everything. The monster was lying face-down on the ground, limbs splayed out and bent at awkward angles. They began to slowly twist back into place when Ichigo landed in front of the prone form of Aizen.
"Guess you really aren't so powerful without this thing…" Ichigo commented lightly, examining the Hogyoku, which was still gripped in his offhand. Ichigo was in slight awe of the intellectual prowess of Kisuke Urahara, the man who'd managed to invent something that could create gods, given enough time. He also swore to kick the shop owner's ass the next time he saw him, for putting Ichigo through so much trouble.
"You… Brat… Give it…Back…"
Aizen was slowly clawing his way over to Ichigo, and finally managed to get close enough to grab Ichigo's ankle. The madman's hand was trembling, and his grip was slack, as if that crawl has sapped the last of his energy. Deciding to take pity on his opponent, the Shinigami swung his blade down and decapitated the transcendent being. A rather anticlimactic end to such a vicious opponent, but Ichigo wasn't going to wait for Aizen to pull a deus ex machina. He was fine with some peace and quiet, especially after the last few months of madness. To think, he had been a normal, spirit-seeing high-schooler just last year. Now...
"Ichigo. Aizen's sword… Grab it."
"...Tensa Zangetsu? How the hell are you talking right now?"
"I am a part of your soul, fool. I could always do this, I simply did not wish to deal with your stupidity on a regular basis. Now, grab the sword!"
Ichigo complied, slightly offended, and also wondering if he had just technically insulted himself. With a sigh, he gripped AIzen's blade. The Hogyoku clinked against it gently- he had to hold them in the same hand because his sword hand was kinda stuck as a gauntlet. A badass gauntlet, but still annoying.
Ichigo was suddenly drawn into his inner world.
"Woah! Zangetsu, what the fu-!" Ichigo was silenced by flashing colors assaulting his eyes. "Zangetsu!" He called out, fearing something was happening to his Zanpakuto, and by extension, himself. A hand grabbed his shoulder, turning him around forcefully.
"I am fine, Ichigo. Focus more on that." Tensa Zangetsu- since Ichigo hadn't released his Bankai state- pointed towards the center of the disco-strobe-flashbang clusterfuck.
"What the actual fuck am I looking at?"
"It seems as if your soul is about to become a bit more… crowded."
"Oi, that sounds dangerous..."
"It would be, if it weren't you."
"What does that mean!?"
"You'll see…"
"Fuckin' cryptic-ass old- uh, young man." A figure stepped out of the flashing lights, followed by another. Slowly, the miniature star faded away, leaving behind what looked to be a woman and a man.
The woman was tall- not taller than Ichigo, but tall for a female (definitely taller than Rukia). She had green hair, was wearing an ornate kimono, which was long enough to almost be dragging on the ground, and was carrying a sheathed sword in her right hand. The left hand was covering the lower half of her face with the baggy sleeve of the kimono. Ichigo had a feeling there was a lot going on underneath that kimono, but he wasn't about to try and find out.
The man… looked like Aizen. The same angular face, slicked back hair with a single strand hanging down, and that damned arrogant smirk that the bastard wore everywhere. However, Ichigo knew he wasn't Aizen. For one thing, Aizen didn't have purple hair. Aizen also definitely didn't wear glasses; the man had discarded those things months ago at the conclusion of the Seireitei invasion. That shade of purple seemed familiar, but Ichigo couldn't quite put his finger on it. The two strangers walked forward with purpose, eyes trained directly on Ichigo.
"Oi, Zangetsu… Why are they looking at me like that? It's creepy as hell."
"This level of stupidity is the exact reason I don't speak to you more often." Ichigo could only gape at his Zanpakuto. How the fuck was he just supposed to know two random spirits? Zangetsu rolled his eyes. "Think, Ichigo! What happened the instant before you came here?"
"Uh, I grabbed Aizen's s-..." Ichigo trailed off, eyes widening in realization. "Kyoka Suigetsu!" He shouted, pointing at the woman. She seemed rather amused.
"Oh? And what tipped you off, Kurosaki Ichigo?"
"Your hair. It's the same shade of green as the guard on Aizen's sword."
Kyoka Suigetsu scowled for a moment, irritated that she was referred to as Aizen's sword.
"And what about me, Kurosaki Ichigo?" This time it was the man who spoke. He even had the same distorted, growling voice as Aizen's transcendent form.
The Shinigami stared at him for a good minute.
Then he turned to Tensa Zangetsu, his facial expression showing his utter confusion, silently asking for assistance.
Zangetsu sighed, and stabbed Ichigo in the neck.
Ichigo woke up screaming. He had had the weirdest dream; two strangers had peacefully invaded his inner world, one of them being Kyoka Suigetsu, the other an Aizen look-a-like, and then Zangetsu stabbed him.
Oh, wait.
"Zangetsu! What the fuck!?"
"Relax. You wouldn't have died… probably."
"Oh, because that's so reassuring. You can't just do shit like that!"
"I can, and I did. Shall I do it again?" Tensa Zangetsu lifted his sword a bit, to emphasize his point.
"No! Never do that again!"
"Maybe if you weren't such an idiot, we wouldn't have these issues."
"Listen, how the fuck am I supposed to know who that purple Aizen is!?"
Zangetsu sighed. "Think, Ichigo. Regardless of how hard that is for you-"
"Oi!"
"What else were you holding when you picked up Kyoka Suigetsu?"
"Uh...wait, are you serious!?"
Ichigo quickly stood up from his prone position, and speed walked over to the purple Aizen.
Shoving his finger in his face, Ichigo shouted, "You're the Hogyoku!?"
"Yes. Now, if you could please move your hand…" The now identified Hogyoku pushed the Shinigami's hand aside gently. "Didn't anyone ever tell you pointing is rude?" Since he hadn't quite gotten over his shock, Ichigo's hand simply returned to its previous position. The Hogyoku was thoroughly annoyed.
"Move yer hand, dammit!" The stone slammed a fist down on Ichigo's head, eliciting a yelp of shock. Crocodile tears sprang up in Ichigo's eyes as he crouched down and held his head.
"Ow! Ya know, I figured you woulda been above such 'crude behaviours', considering you were part of Aizen."
"Hmph. That man was as lecherous as Kyoraku Shunsui, and more depraved than Kurotsuchi Mayuri. Why else do you think he had such a scantily-clothed Arrancar in his Espada? Let me tell you, it wasn't for her power!"
"...I mean, she was pretty hot, though."
"Yes, but that does not excuse his constant staring whenever she was in the room. It was positively disgusting, the lack of self-control he had." Ichigo chuckled at the mental image, before refocusing back on some more important manners.
"How are you here, anyways?"
"Ask her." Hogyoku pointed at Kyoka Suigetsu, who had heard the entire conversation and seemed… Less than pleased.
"Pigs." Ichigo shrank into himself a little bit, wishing he could just leave and deal with this later. Hogyoku simply chuckled.
"Oh well. I suppose men will be men, unfortunately. As for how we are here, that is simple; I wished to be."
"Uh… what?"
"It was not quite that simple, Kurosaki Ichigo. Kyoka Suigetsu was terrified of dying, as that is what surely would have happened once Aizen Sousuke's soul had completely faded in the next few minutes. She desperately wished to survive, and I determined this to be the best course of action."
"Then… How did Zangetsu know I needed to pick up the sword?"
"That is easy; I told him, when you held me in your hand."
Ichigo's mouth opened as if to ask another question, but he thought better of it. "Alright… Listen, we can deal with this later, once I take care of things in the outside world, 'kay?"
"That is agreeable. Farewell for now, Kurosaki Ichigo." With that, the purple Aizen faded out of view. Ichigo waved at Kyoka Suigetsu, who soon followed Hogyoku. Tensa Zangetsu was the only one who remained. He stared at his wielder anxiously, and the two remained quiet for a moment.
"Ichigo… Why?" The Zanpakuto broke the silence. The Shinigami seemed quite confused by the vague question.
"Why what?"
"Why… Did you not use the Final Getsuga Tenshou?"
"Turns out I didn't need it. You saw how easily I beat Aizen with a few well-aimed strikes, right? Besides... I remembered what you said earlier, and I don't want to say goodbye. Not to you. Not to anyone else... " The teen became slightly introspective for a moment, eyes glazing over in grief, before he refocused on his previous task. "Anyways, see ya later- by the way, that's a promise." Ichigo faded away with a grin on his face, non-gauntleted hand raised in a wave.
Tensa Zangetsu remained, looking for all the world like he was about to cry. However, these tears would not cause rain in the inner world; these were not tears of strife. No, these were tears of joy.
The joy of being wanted, despite the terrible things he had done.
Cleaned a bit.
