Final Crimson Prince

"If I may ask, Yhwach," Urahara spoke, "why do you want to go back in time? You've won in this time." He needed to make every second count, even if Yhwach could see how many of those seconds it would take for the Choujikanmon to activate. Every single one was nearly an hour in the Dangai. Uryu could use the Kaikyo Kotei could stabilize the Dangai until Koutotsu arrived.

Once that happened…

"Why throw it all away? You know you will never be able to come back once the path is closed, even with "The Almighty"."

Yhwach simply smiled. "The path may be closed, but the world will still remain. I seek to ensure this occurs again on the new path you will create. And do not think…I don't know I have to go at the same time as them."

Yhwach's power flared, reiatsu and the power of the Soul King tearing apart the land around them. "Komamura, run!"

Komamura heard Urahara's warning, and pain filled his heart as he ran, knowing that fighting would only kill him.

A helix of blood-red energy formed in Urahara's hand, and he gripped it as he charged Yhwach, and the two clashed blades, the ground shattering with the collision of reiatsu as Urahara pushed Yhwach kilometres away with raw physical strength.

They fought at speeds beyond the ken of Humans; Speeds beyond the ken of Shinigami. The Eyes of the Quincy; the Final Evolution of Zanpakuto; powers for which no name existed in the modern day, but were once born by most ancient ancestors of the Shinigami and the Quincy. Yeshua, the father of Yhwach, was the first to awaken the power and the Eyes of the Quincy; the Shiba were the last to know the final secret of the Zanpakuto, hidden even from Squad Zero as a 'technique' not an evolution.

Urahara's form was beyond even the knowledge of Ichibei Hyosube, but Urahara knew its name:

Beniou - The Crimson Monarch.

The battle reached its conclusion.

Urahara Kisuke grabbed the helix blade with both hands, and force Yhwach backwards towards a mountain. Urahara reached out. The structure of the mountain opened up before his hand, the Quincy Emperor flying into the gap. He gripped his hand closed, and the mountain closed with it, sealing Yhwach into its heart.

He reached the mountain, and touched it. The entire mountain had its mass restructured into reiryoku – Urahara's reiryoku. He detonated it, a red pillar of energy piercing the sky, and expanding for kilometres around. Urahara readied his blade. He knew this would not be enough to kill Yhwach, at least what he was now.

Moving through the pillar of energy as if it were water, Yhwach clashed with Urahara again, as energy gave way to fire of the scorched atmosphere, a black wave of the power of the Soul King following him. Although seemingly unfazed, Urahara saw the burns on Yhwach's body. He had hurt him.

Urahara smirked. He knew "the Almighty's" true weakness – unless Yhwach acted directly, he could not "alter the future" in a way so as to directly damage a living being. He could break a Bankai, shatter any inanimate object or manifestation of power through "The Almighty". Its power was dependent on Yhwach's own. If Yhwach himself could not accomplish it in the present, he could not use "The Almighty" to alter the future as he saw fit.

Right now, Urahara was physically stronger than Yhwach.

Yhwach raised his hand, and bonds of reishi tore apart from the surrounding area, and formed into a torrent of reishi extending to behind Yhwach's arm. He threw his hand down, and a rain of arrows threw Urahara into the bottom of the crater, and continued raining down upon him, a miles-high explosion rising from the crater. Yhwach pointed his sword at the ground. The power of the Soul King slammed down into Urahara, who was struggling to get out of the crater.

Suddenly, a crimson beam of energy carved through the darkness, and headed straight for Yhwach. Yhwach smirked, and raised his blade up. Reiryoku began to build along the edge of the blade.

"Getsuga Tenshou."

When Yhwach had come into contact with Kazui Kurosaki fifteen years ago, the boy was just an innocent toddler who knew no better what he was. That, and his being the son of Ichigo Kurosaki, made him the perfect host for his power and consciousness. The show he put on in Soul Society was to lure the Soul Society into complete false re-assurance. When he made Kazui his host, he took all the boy's power and abilities.

Yhwach could 'consume' an entity and make their power his own, as he did with the Right Arm and Body of the Soul King. He could also do it the other way around: infuse his essence into one with Quincy blood, and make them a new host. He had no need for this power until that time.

The Getsuga clashed with the crimson wave of energy, the two forces cancelling each other out in a heavens-shaking explosion. Up from his right, Yhwach saw Urahara Kisuke fly out of the crater. "Do you think such a distraction could fool me?" Yhwach boasted, and charged to meet Urahara. He had to make this quick.

No matter what else, he had to make sure to not have his body touched by Urahara's hands. He knew even a brush of the finger would be fatal. He saw what would happen.

He sent the power of the Soul King before him, and Urahara was left vulnerable as he had to deflect the attack. Yhwach foresaw his chance.

He cared not for the name of Kazui Kurosaki's Zanpakuto, or the name of the Bankai. For when he took Kazui's soul as his own, it had been subsumed into his own power. The power of the Shinigami gave him a new power.

The blade turned to black, the swastika guard changing into a six-pointed symbol within a circular guard. His white Quincy uniform transformed to a black, sleeved robe, the shoulders and bottom of the robe lined with black metal ornamentation.

An obsidian, five-pointed star sat in the center of the robe, and a metal crown of thorns encircled his head. The orange-blond hair of Kazui's body turned black.

"IT'S OVER, URAHARA KISUKE!"

He focused the reishi into a platform beneath his feet, and propelled himself off at speeds so fast that light itself was left behind. He rammed the blade through Urahara's body, smashing him into the walls of the crater, fracturing the crater along its entire side, and the landscape collapsed into the hole.

As the dust cleared, Yhwach saw blood streaming from Urahara's mouth, and exploding from his body, his body driven deep into the ground.

Black ice formed over Urahara's body. Yhwach was not surprised. It was why the Vandenreich he had made with his power was always covered in ice – it was a reflection of his inner world.

"You should have let yourself die, Urahara Kisuke," Yhwach spoke. "There was no need for you to die such an ugly death."

"An…Ugly death…" Urahara spoke through a blood filled mouth, a stream of blood pouring out as he spoke. Yhwach followed the blood as it gushed onto the ground.

It dissolved into energy when it touched the ground.

Yhwach's eye's widened. The future had just shifted.

Urahara's body glowed a brilliant crimson, and exploded in Yhwach's face, blasting him out of the hole in the wall of the crater.

"A…clone of energy?!" Yhwach was shocked. How could have Urahara hidden this from him! There was only one entity in the entire universe that he could not see with "The Almighty" – Mimihagi, The Right Arm of the Soul King. It governed Stillness, so of all the Aspects of the Soul King, it remained the most true to its essence – his father, Yeshua. Yeshua was the one thing Yhwach could not see with "The Almighty".

Wait. A flicker of memory passed through his mind, of the moments before his second death. There was one other…

Snikt

The wet sound of steel running through flesh reached Yhwach's ears, and the future he saw went dark. He looked down. No…

It was Still Silver, the by-product of Yhwach performing Auswahlen on Quincy who were not Aspects of the Soul King. The Still Silver collected in the Quincy's heart, where the Quincy flow all the reishi and reiryoku they collected through absorption. Quincy used a special method of manipulating reishi to forge Star Silver, the metal used for the Quincy relics, the Quincy Cross, the Medallion. It was even used for the Vollstandig Crosses, which drew on the Schrift Yhwach had bestowed them to unleash greater power in the Quincy – his greatest creations were Quilge Opie, Lille Barro, As Nodt, and Gerard Valkyire, the Heart of the Soul King.

Be it a few days, a few months, or even years, the Still Silver collects in the heart until it kills them. This is how those whom Yhwach gave his soul to in his youth died so that he could reclaim pieces of his soul – the piece of his soul drew in and built up the Still Silver.

Yhwach realized now: this Still Silver, the bane of even his own essence, was a metal not seen by his eyes, nor are the one who holds it in their hand. Back then, he had assumed Uryu's power awakening, "The Antithesis", was why he could not see it.

But here it was, once again piercing through his body, only on a shaft of red energy, rather than one of Quincy blue. He turned around as the power of the Soul King fell to the ground around him. Urahara Kisuke was charging towards him, a red bow changing once again into a red helix blade. Yhwach spied a hole in Urahara's chest weaving itself closed.

He hid it, Yhwach realized. He hid it in his soul, the same technique he used to hide the Hogyoku inside Kuchiki Rukia. A technique he derived from his own Bankai.

Yhwach gritted his teeth. "What a bold strategy…BUT IT WON'T BE ENOUGH!" Already, he felt his power coming back to him, and moved to counter Urahara. He would not let his defeat happen again. He would not be taken off-guard. He would kill Urahara before he could implement his plan. And once he could awaken "The Almighty" again, it would be all over. Even if it killed this body, he would follow the futures of Arisawa Tatsuki and Ishida Uryu, which now went back into the past, and he would strike them, and the Gotei 13 itself, down there.

The power of the Shinigami still remained. He charged towards Urahara, aiming to plunge his blade through Urahara's heart. He reduced the cold of his body to its furthest possible temperature - -273.15 Celsius.

Urahara dissipated the red helix blade. Yhwach's eyes widened, in confusion. As his blade touched Urahara's body, they shone in horror. He wanted this. But it was too late. His own inertia carried him forward.

His blade ran through Urahara Kisuke, blood freezing into ice, and breaking down into white mist as the bonds between atoms broke down at an impossible temperature, the ability of his blade making entropy reach zero and freeze at that point.

Urahara reached out his left arm, and gripped Yhwach's shoulder.

Urahara won the battle, and the war. In all paths of the world. Yhwach knew this now, as his blade read Urahara's soul – an inheritance from Kurosaki Ichigo, who could read the hearts of others, but refused to read Yhwach's own.

He wanted all of this…Yhwach's horror became terror as he felt his own body pull itself apart, Urahara's power coursing through his body and reaching his eyes. His eyes became "re-structured", and Yhwach lost his sight.

A God became blind. When God is blind, that is when God dies.

He felt the rest of his senses go, Beniou crippling him completely.

He never fought to restore the world to what it once was, because…This is the world he wanted.

Urahara, even as his own body froze from the inside out, continuously restructured his body within his crimson ceramic armor to keep him going. He plunged his right arm forward, and tore into Yhwach's chest.

The only thing that was wrong with it, in his eyes, was me. He needed to remove me.

Reduced to the state he feared the most of all things – the black void without sense that he was born into as an infant, where he lived yet could not experience life – to think and imagine was all that was left to Yhwach.

Just as he did as an infant, where all he had to know of the outside world was the memories that came with pieces of his soul that came back to him. He had that, and his spatial perception of himself, of the heat and the cold, and of pain.

He was helpless to prevent his heart from being ripped out. He couldn't even scream in pain, even as he knew what was happening.

He wants a world where Life and Death are one. He wants a world where a new generation of Shinigami and Quincy may find a path different from their predecessors.

A world where I cannot belong.

Wordlessly, as Urahara's stamina gave out from the cold consuming his body, Urahara crushed Yhwach's heart in his hand. It was the only way he could be sure he could kill Yhwach, even having blinded him.

Yhwach smiled.

Ah, so that is how it is, Urahara Kisuke. To create the best possible future, you will plunge the past into its most dire outcome. You want the evil of the Shinigami's past exposed.

Yhwach's blade broke. With it, so did Urahara's body.

Urahara Kisuke and Yhwach fell to earth side by side, the last of an old war now concluded, dying in mutual destruction.

As he fell, Yhwach accepted his fate.

I did not trust the Shinigami to restore the world to what it should be. Kurosaki Ichigo giving up proved that for me. But…Perhaps the two you sent into the past…Will help make a world better than the one we live in now….

Yhwach embraced his final oblivion, letting his immortal Soul move on to its next life.

This is as far as I can go…

Urahara thought, as he fell to earth, the cold encroaching upon the rest of his body as his power gave way. Arisawa, Ishida…Set Kurosaki and Kuchiki back on the path they were supposed to go. Make this a world where Life and Death are one…Where Ishida Souken can finally have his dream fulfilled.

Urahara felt the frozen parts of his body dissolve away. He closed his eyes.

Forgive me…Kurosaki…Forgive me…

With his last breath, Urahara uttered his last word.

"…Rukia…"

The cold fully covered him, and his body dissolved into the wind. The corpse of Kazui Kurosaki crashed into the ground, and became covered and crushed by the collapsing crater.