Reunion Across Time
The Wahrwelt was built over the Soul King Palace by Yhwach, once he claimed the power of the Soul King for himself. The energy to move the reishi making up the Vandenreich from the Seireitei, and to re-form them within the Soul King Palace, was astronomical.
It was the conversion of mass into energy, to transport it to a location at the speed of causality – the speed of light – and convert it back to mass. The power to shape the worlds into whatever the one who controls this power desires.
Such is the ability of the Soul King in the hands of Yhwach.
But to create the world that Yhwach desired – one where Soul Society, Hueco Mundo and the Living World are once again one, where "Life" and "Death" are one – Yhwach needs one more component. That component is needed to make the separated power of the Soul King "complete", and only two powers in existence would fulfill Yhwach's need.
One of them, the Hollow and Quincy power of Kurosaki Ichigo, was in the Wahrwelt.
The other was down in the Seireitei, a power capable of breaking down the boundaries of the soul, and of "manifesting the desires of the soul" – the Hogyoku.
For now, Yhwach sleeps, and waits for Kurosaki Ichigo to come to him. He does not yet see the change to the "future".
But Haschwalth Jugram, who bears "The Almighty", will…
For a brief moment, a white gate blasted out two figures into one of the arms of the Wahrwelt, transported across time and space from the future of one of the "Paths" of Fate.
Arisawa Tatsuki and Uryu Ishida smashed through the living room of a house in the Wahrwelt before coming to a stop on the other side of the house.
Jugram Haschwalth paused, a lull briefly created in his fight with the younger Ishida Uryu. Uryu did not miss Jugram's reaction to the new arrivals. "What's wrong," he asked, panting from exertion, "did the future change?"
Uryu had hoped this was the case. If the future that Jugram foresaw did change, then he hoped it meant Kurosaki was successful in reaching Yhwach before he woke up. It meant that the war was over. But something troubled him, something telling him that this couldn't be the case, no matter how much he hoped.
He could still feel Yhwach's reiatsu. Ichigo was not yet there.
Haschwalth reached a hand to cover his face, and gave thought to what he had seen.
Where did they come from…? Haschwalth thought to himself. They were nowhere in the possibilities of the future before. Their presence here has changed everything I am seeing with "The Almighty".
Haschwalth lowered his hand from his face. But I can still send "that future" to His Majesty's mind as a dream. If I can still hide what kills him in a dream; if I can keep him from seeing "that future"…
Then, Bazz, I can be assured that we will succeed in leading His Majesty to his death.
"Something…curious has just taken place," Haschwalth spoke wryly, making sure not to expose what he had seen. "Some people…That I did not expect to arrive." An older you, being one of them, Haschwalth noted. "But rest assured that it will not change the outcome of your friends going to confront His Majesty..." Haschwalth raised his sword. "…Nor will it change the outcome of our battle."
I could use the Antithesis to change the outcome at any moment; Uryu thought to himself, the fact that he has not seen any futures involving my ability proves what Yhwach said about my power "surpassing his own". "Are you certain about that," Uryu retorted. I must keep that…as a trump card. "You seemed rather shocked by what you saw. Just who are these people?"
Haschwalth smiled. "I have no need to mince words with a struggling beast."
He lunged at Uryu, and Uryu raised his bow to fire an arrow in defense…
"Ow ow ow ow ow…" Uryu grimaced as he pushed himself up, eyes closed in pain. "It was much smoother the first time Koutotsu sent us through time."
"But you had Orihime there that time, didn't you?" Tatsuki stood up and dusted herself off. "She told me how she used her shields to shield everyone from the impact."
"Yes," Uryu adjusted his glasses and opened his eyes, "but she was also chastised for it, all the same…" He looked around.
The pure-white buildings constructed from stone and concrete, covered and encrusted with an ice that never seemed to melt, with Middle Age motifs to the building style. He involuntarily shivered – he never thought he'd see the semblance of the Vandenreich ever again. He also recalled this part of the Vandenreich.
"Uryu," Tatsuki asked, as Uryu walked over to a nearby alley. He knelt down, and picked up a bunch of chips scattered on the ground. He was very careful not to trigger them with his reiatsu.
He walked back to Tatsuki, and showed them to her. "These are Collapse Chips," Uryu told her. "Before…Before I sent Kurosaki, Inoue and Yasutora to kill Yhwach, I originally intended to use these to destroy the Wahrwelt…"
"You never mentioned this to me before," Tatsuki said, "why would you go to such lengths…"
Tatsuki looked around. She could feel the reiatsu of Shinigami and Quincy battling one another, including Urahara Kisuke, who seemed to be nearby. "…With all the Shinigami here as well…" She looked at him accusingly. She hated the thoughts that were going through her mind, but she had to ask them: "Were you going to destroy the Shinigami as well?"
Uryu's eyes widened in shock, and softened with guilt. "I…I did not think I had any other choice. "The Almighty" was too powerful, even before I learnt the truth about its ability to alter the future. With the ability "to know" any power and become immune to it, I thought only something that was not a 'power' any individual possessed – the power of a tool, a man-made weapon – would be sufficient to kill him. I had to take that chance…Even if it meant the Gotei 13…"
Tatsuki's eyes narrowed. "Rukia would have died with the Gotei 13 as well. But I at least heard about this part: you gave Ichigo and the others a Sun Key so they could return to the Living World."
Uryu gritted his teeth. "Tatsuki, we don't have…"
"Uryu," Tatsuki asserted, "I never knew everything about what happened in the Shinigami-Quincy War, but I at least heard about the parts I managed to get out of Ichigo when I asked him. But I'm just now realizing that you were going to take the chance of destroying the Gotei 13 – your Nakama – along with the Vandenreich and the Quincy of Yhwach…Yet you took the time to give Ichigo, Orihime and Sado a means for them to escape from the blast. Why? Ichigo simply assumed you joined the Vandenreich for revenge against Yhwach…"
Uryu turned to look at Tatsuki, his eyes pleading for her to not go down that road – to expose a shame he never revealed to anyone. "But there is more to it than that, isn't there? Uryu," Tatsuki said softly, taking a hand in hers, and placing the other on Uryu's face. "Haven't we known each other long enough for me to know at least this?"
Uryu reached a hand to the one Tatsuki placed on his cheek. She's right. She is someone else to me now; someone that no one else has ever been. She deserve to know this much. He took in a deep breath, and spoke:
"I did not want the Shinigami to turn Kurosaki into the next Soul King."
Tatsuki's eyes widened, in shock. "Wait," Tatsuki spoke, trembling as realization hit her. "So even back then…you knew…?"
A pulse of a powerful reiatsu passed over them, interrupting their thoughts and diverting their attention away from the issue they were discussing. They turned in unison, sensing the reiatsu coming from where they had sensed Urahara's reiatsu.
"Now I know what moment Urahara sent us back to," Uryu spoke. "He sent us to the time he was fighting Askin Nakk le Vaar." Uryu turned to Tatsuki in earnest. "I'm sorry, but we can't talk about this right now!"
Tatsuki nodded wordlessly, and followed Uryu as they went to where Urahara was, keeping their reiatsu suppressed so that the people they did not want to sense their presence would be able to. A few minutes running later, and they came upon a giant dark dome with a white reishi patterning surrounding it.
They could sense Urahara's reiatsu within the Dome.
"So this Askin Nakk le Vaar," Tatsuki asked, wondering if she was pronouncing the Quincy's name right, "is the guy responsible for Urahara having all those scars."
"Yes," Uryu answered. "His power was one called "The Death-Dealing". Apparently, depending on what substance he takes into his body, he can control the 'lethal dose median' of specific substances in other people. For example, he could make someone collapse from 'poisoning' by the reishi in the atmosphere itself."
Tatsuki looked quizzically at Uryu. "Sounds like a broken power."
Uryu responded incredulously. "As if either of us can talk about other people's powers being 'broken'".
The dome in front of them contracted, the spherical dome becoming more conical in appearance, and the reiatsu it put out became more intense. "Shouldn't we break this thing open?" Tatsuki asked.
"We can," Uryu responded, "but I don't want to inadvertently do something that might cause the battle inside to go awry!
"Oh, now you are concerned about changing the past," Tatsuki barked. "Yet we were sent back to pull a Marty McFly and change everyone's present to change the future!"
"That reference doesn't fit!" Uryu protested. "McFly caused those changes by accident when he had to prevent his own existence from disappearing; we're deliberately trying to cause change, not prevent our erasure from existence!"
"Given that changing the future will keep everyone we love from dying, that is about a good enough comparison, don't you think?!"
A reiatsu within the dome faltered, and the two turned to look at the dome. It was the reiatsu of a Quincy. There was the reiatsu of an Arrancar now in the dome. Tatsuki shivered as he recognized the reiatsu. "This Arrancar's reiatsu…It's like that one guy who beat up Ichigo."
"Yeah," Uryu said. "I remember now; Urahara recruited Grimmjow after he made a deal with him: Grimmjow would give Urahara his co-operation in defeating the enemy, and Urahara would help Grimmjow discover the means to grow even more powerful as an Arrancar."
"That guy was the King of Hueco Mundo back in our time," Tatsuki recollected. "So, that is how he did it."
"Before Grimmjow, the ruler of Hueco Mundo was Tier Harribel…" Uryu closed his eye. "She was the leader of the Stern Ritter that you killed a month ago."
Tatsuki looked at Uryu. "But she was a Quincy, not a…"
"Yhwach is able to convert Arrancar into Quincy," Uryu responded. "I can only reason that he gives his blood those Arrancar who join him, and that causes the holes in their bodies and Hearts to be filled…And the process turns them into Quincy."
Suddenly, the reiatsu from the dome intensified exponentially, and even began to spark. Tatsuki and Uryu looked up at the dome wide-eyed. "What the…What's happening?!" Tatsuki exclaimed.
"I don't know," Uryu replied, "but this might be what caused Urahara to have all those scars!"
Tatsuki made an annoyed sound, and pulled out her Zanpakuto. Uryu looked at her. "Tatsuki, what are you…?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Tatsuki responded. "I'm going to burn this dome down!"
"But Urahara survived, so there's no need to…!" Uryu protested.
"Yet he was bed-ridden and unconscious for over a week afterwards! We need him up on his feet NOW!"
Uryu stepped back from Tatsuki and gave her room.
"Purify the World, Okamiryuu – Wolf Dragon!"
Urahara Kisuke coughed blood as he collapsed, the effects of the "Gift Ball Deluxe" putting an inconceivable strain on his body. Kannon Biraki Benihime Aratame, in response to her master's suffering, collapsed around him. Without her power, the stitching he made into his body when he used her power to "restructure" on himself began to open, blood spurting out.
"…I guess this is it…" Urahara muttered, resigned to even the possibility of his death, despite the preparation he made. "…Sorry…To leave the rest of this up to you…" In this moment, Urahara's thoughts turned to the two people he trusted with his life to make a change in the world – to defeat Yhwach and to guide the world down the right path, to a world as it should be. His life flashed before him, as he recounted the moments where he incorporated them into his tapestry for the world's future, knowing full well the hardships they'd have to go through.
"…Kurosaki…Kuchiki…"
The "Gift Ball Deluxe" was suddenly immolated all around him, an incandescent blue flame consuming the Quincy technique and exposing the sky around him, the effects of "Hassein" now extinguished. Urahara's vitality, though greatly weakened, returned to him, and he looked up at the sky. "The…"Gift Ball", it…"
Grimmjow looked around and got onto his feet. "What the hell just happened?"
Neliel popped out of the path that Urahara had made in the "Gift Ball Deluxe", and looked around, bewildered. "But…there was a dome here just a second ago…"
"…Now that's just not fair…" Askin moaned, who was still not dead despite his injuries. He looked past Urahara to see the ones responsible for his "Gift Ball's" destruction. "So you did betray us, Ishida…But who is the fine lady with the odd Zanpakuto?"
"Ishida…?" Urahara muttered, disoriented from the "Death-Dealing". "…What lady…?"
"I think you should be thanking us instead of complaining."
Urahara's eyes widened. Despite it sounding older from time, he still recognized the voice of one of Ichigo's friends. But it just could not be! He turned to the source of the voice.
Uryu Ishida stood behind Arisawa Tatsuki. However, Uryu was not wearing the Vandenreich uniform; Tatsuki was in a Shihakusho and possessed the powers of the Shinigami. It was indeed an odd-looking Zanpakuto – a furred hilt in the shape of a living wolf with two hind legs and no front legs, with Tatsuki's fingers wrapped through what he presumed was a handle obscured by the fur, the head facing downward. Extending from the hind of the "wolf hilt" was a long, winding tail extending back into the hilt, a blue flame pouring off of the thick blade at the end of the tail, receding back into the fur as it retracted.
But both of them seemed…inexplicably older. The 'scent of power' that clung to them, however, reminded Urahara of Koutotsu. Urahara processed all of the possibilities inside his head, and came to the most logical conclusion – one that exposed a grievous error to his own plan for Kurosaki.
He struggled to his feet, panting as the opened stitches slowly poured blood, even as they were now sealing up his body again, now that he could maintain consciousness and Kannon Biraki Benihime Aratame. "Can I assume…That I somehow used Koutotsu to send you backwards in time to here?"
The immediate and correct question took Tatsuki and Uryu slightly off-guard. They did not expect the younger self of Urahara Kisuke to catch on to things so quickly. "You're both older at least two decades, by my guess…and the scent of Koutotsu is all over you…" Urahara explained. He sighed, and briefly coughed blood.
"Urahara!" Uryu ran over to Urahara, and supported him on his shoulder. "I suppose…" Urahara spoke, "…This means things did not turn out the way I intended them to."
Tatsuki looked sadly at Urahara. "And exactly what was it you 'intended'?" Grimmjow spoke with a hint of menace, as he walked over to Tatsuki, who glared at the Arrancar. "I could not care less about what you intended, but if you sent these guys back from some future, this must be something you very badly want."
"Urahara never told us specifically what he wanted," Tatsuki told Grimmjow. "All we were sent back here for, as far as we know, was to make sure events play out in a way that doesn't end up with Yhwach coming back from the dead over two decades from now and killing everyone."
"Huh?" Grimmjow gritted his teeth in annoyance. "So you mean that bastard Kurosaki couldn't even keep that Quincy King down even after killing him?" His eyes glared back at the Wahrwelt. "Pathetic."
Tatsuki glared at Grimmjow. "Could you permanently kill a guy who can "alter the future"?"
Grimmjow looked at Tatsuki in apprehension. "What was that? I heard that guy could "see the future", but altering it in any way he can see fit? That sounds like something only God can do."
"Well…" Urahara said as he sat on the ground while Uryu tended his wounds with Quincy healing techniques. "From a technical standpoint, Yhwach's soul is that of a God. It was one long before he absorbed the Soul King. But given that we are on the subject of "The Almighty"…Did Kurosaki falter when he was confronted with this power?"
There was another question that Tatsuki rather wanted to ask, rather than answer Urahara: did he know about this aspect of "The Almighty", and why didn't he tell anyone? But now wasn't the time. She had to brief Urahara on what happened, as the future Urahara instructed them.
"He didn't falter; he will break." The memory of Ichigo tugged at her heart, as he explained what happened. "Yhwach first broke Ichigo's "Tensa Zangetsu", bypassed Inoue's shield, and explained in detail the extent of his power. Ichigo…he told me that he could think of no way of beating such a power, especially with "Tensa Zangetsu" broken so easily. He never fought anyone or anything like that before, and…
"It was a moment of weakness he was ashamed of, he told me," Tatsuki continued. "He completely fell into despair at the thought of such an overwhelming ability even taking away his ability to shape his own future. The only thing that kept him going was how he knew that everyone was depending on him; how everyone needed him to beat Yhwach, because no one else could. But Yhwach beat that out of him, and left him completely helpless. He told me that, with his Bankai broken, there was no way he could have beaten Yhwach. He just…gave up, for one moment.
"Then Yhwach stole his Quincy and Hollow powers from him – stole everything he inherited from his mother. But…You already considered that a possibility didn't you?" Tatsuki glared at Urahara, indirectly posing her question.
Urahara closed his eyes. Now, he decided, was the time to admit his guilt. "…Yes. I always consider all the possibilities, and make the best plans for the worst possible outcomes. I recruited the Xcutioners who had died and gone to Soul Society so that Tsukishima might use "Book of the End" to allow for "Tensa Zangetsu" to be restored by the Soten Kisshun, by creating a "past" that changes the "present", and create a "present" where Kurosaki's Bankai wasn't broken "in the future". That was only ever intended as a last resort, however. Did…Kuchiki-San, at the very least, accompany Kurosaki, afterwards?"
Uryu looked at Urahara sadly. "…No, she stayed behind. Ichigo felt there was no time, and Rukia was too injured to use Sode no Shirayuki safely. With the help of a Still Silver Arrow my father gave me, we were able to take away Yhwach's power for a moment, and Ichigo cut him in half…But he must have been able to use them one more time the moments before his death.
"Ten years later," Uryu explained, taking care to omit specific details, "Yhwach's power appeared in the future, and 'gave' his essence to a chosen host. Thirteen years after that, once his power had built up enough…he destroyed the Gotei 13, killed Kurosaki and Kuchiki, and made the worlds one."
"…I see…" Urahara lamented. "I suppose that, no matter how much I plan for all the possibilities, I cannot precisely take into account the hearts and emotions of others."
"It is not your fault," Tatsuki re-assured him. "Ichigo…He already bore enough of his own guilt, before he died."
"No, it is," Urahara explained. "I kept so many secrets from Kurosaki…from the both of them; because I thought "learning these things on their own" would be better than explaining things to them directly. Had I actually told them more of what they needed to know about themselves, instead of "only what I thought they needed to know" at the time, I know things would have turned out differently. That said…Squad Zero already knew everything about Kurosaki.
"I had to keep everything about Kuchiki hidden."
Tatsuki's brow furrowed. "What exactly do you mean?"
"Kuchiki was…the Ace in the Hole, so to speak. Aside from trying to kill Yhwach after taking away his eyes completely…Her power was one of the few means to kill him permanently, overriding his ability to 'alter futures where he died'."
"Kuchiki," Grimmjow expressed his disbelief. "You mean that small, scrawny Shinigami with the white Zanpakuto that froze my skin once? How could she possess the power to kill someone who can 'alter the future', much less someone whom you just said was a God?"
"Because her power isn't simple "freezing", or control of ice; those are merely the by-products of the true nature of her power."
"What is it?" Neliel asked. "Neliel once saw Rukia freeze Runuganga with wind. She even killed Aaroniero and survived, despite Aaroniero reporting that she died with him."
Urahara stood up on the ground, sufficiently healed by Uryu's healing technique and Kannon Biraki's stitches finally absorbing into his body. He looked at everyone around him, and looked to Mirai Ishida and Mirai Arisawa (his new terms for them in his mind). "I must have never told you, Mirai Ishida?"
Uryu raised an eyebrow at the term. "No, you didn't. Urahara…You felt that only your past self should explain. Though Kuchiki once told me that her power was to reduce the temperature of her body to below zero by manipulating the reishi of her body, which also allows her to move around in that state. She even said she could reduce it down to Absolute Zero, though I was never sure how that worked. I simply concluded physics with Souls differed from physics in the Living World."
Urahara replied. "That isn't exactly the case."
"What do you mean?"
Urahara drew in a breath to speak…
