alopexplasma asked:

I remember you making a post about Momo's theoretical sickass lava bankai - what if she achieved it in the middle of the ryouka invasion cluster****?

Oh, the old Momo's bankai post? The same post where I said that getting bankai was not necessarily a sign of being a good person or a moral person and it certainly wasn't a sign of being a mentally healthy person? That it was really just a sign of being driven to single-minded extremes? That post? [Note: ff dot net doesn't allow links, but if you google "recurring-polynya the ceiling is lava" it will be the top hit]

I was outside gardening when I got the notification for this ask, and I failed my critical reading check on the second part of it, and somehow got "Fake Karakura Town cluster****" instead of "ryouka invastion cluster****" and by the time I read it more carefully, I was already too in love with the idea that I had come up with, but I know what you like and I think you will like this.

"Captain Aizen?" asked Gin. "Is everything all right?"

Aizen narrowed his eyes. "Something is coming through."

Like nearly all of Yamamoto's techniques, Joukaku Enjou was a manifestation of elemental fire magic. Elemental magic was difficult to control for anyone who didn't specialize in it; countering it relied on tapping into the underlying kidou that controlled the spell. Joukaku Enjou didn't have any underlying magical control structures, though, it was simply a giant sphere of horrifically hot flames that burned until it got tired of burning. Yamamoto himself could even be killed and it would continue on.

So, when Aizen felt a strange presence making its way through the bulwark of flames, he assumed it was the doing of the Captain-Commander himself. Aizen knew an illusion when he saw one, and this was definitely something physical. It was a cold spot within the fire- not actually cold, mind you, just less hot, and yet it seemed to be traversing the barrier with only minor difficulty, the way one might wade through thigh-deep water. It had its own reiatsu-heavily muffled by the smothering magical static of Ryuujin Jakka, but familiar enough.

Tousen's hand drifted to his sword hilt, Gin rocked on his heels. Perhaps they were trying to signal their readiness, their allegiance to him, but it honestly just came off as cowardice. To be fair, sometimes cowardice was a good thing to see in a subordinate.

"Attempting some sort of high-concept appeal is new for Yamamoto," Aizen sighed boredly. "Hopefully it will at least be amusing in its feebleness."

But when the small figure, the crude form of a woman shaped from molten rock, emerged into the clearing, as the flames wreathing its form fizzled down to glowing coals, it became clear that this was not some sort of construct, not some sort of simulacrum designed to elicit sympathies for a woman Aizen had never seen as anything more than an amusing plaything.

"Kill her," Aizen demanded.

Gin was faster, of course, but Tousen was hardly far behind.

"Oh," said the lava thing in the voice of Hinamori Momo, as she looked down to see her midsection skewered from two directions. "Well, that's convenient. I was wondering how I was going to get you to touch me with your sword, Captain Tousen."

And then, faster than he would have expected, streams of magma erupted from her, engulfing both zanpakutou, curling in great waves around his subordinates and cooling nearly instantaneously into rock.

"You didn't even go to shikai, though," Momo sighed, because it was Momo, but a Momo extrapolated to some impossible endstate, a Momo who had somehow found her own power, despite the years Aizen had spent chipping away at the foundations of her psyche. "I had to go to all the trouble of talking to Captain Zaraki to find out how he beat you, and I didn't even need to! I wasn't expecting such close conditions, although I suppose I shouldn't complain about something that went so heavily to my advantage."

Aizen's eyes darted from Tousen to Gin and back again, as the rock consumed their faces, leaving only their eyes and noses exposed.

"I should kill you both, for what you've done to Captain Aizen," Hinamori tried to growl, sounding no more threatening than a nursery school teacher. "But I'm not like you. You'll just have to face justice back in Soul Society."

Aizen's mind worked frantically. This was unexpected, but not insurmountable. Momo had…was this her bankai? It had to be, her reiatsu was far beyond what he ever dreamed she was capable of. Fortunately, her brain capacity seemed to be at its usual dismal levels.

"Lieutenant Hinamori!" he gasped. "Oh, you've come for me! I knew that no one would believe-"

"I'm sorry if you're talking to me right now, Captain," Hinamori interrupted. "Or if I'm talking too loud. I've sabotaged all my sensory organs, you see. I know you aren't yourself right now, and I couldn't run the risk of you using Kyouka Suigetsu on me. I don't know if Total Hypnosis extends into the infrared, but I am betting that my perception in that realm exceeds your ability to convincingly manipulate it."

Aizen grabbed for his sword, when scorching heat blossomed in his chest at the base of his sternum.

"Oh, wonderful, it did work!" Momo exclaimed.

"Bakudo 81! Dankuu!" Aizen wheezed out, the translucent ward snapping into place in front of him.

"Sorry, Captain! Dankuu works by creating a thin vacuum field which disrupts the casting line of most kidou spells. But you see, my power is radiative in nature, it works just fine through a vacuum."

"Hrnnngh," Aizen managed as he doubled over in pain, scrabbling at the skin of his mid-section. He was dimly aware of Momo moving toward him with the graceful and yet entirely unnatural locomotion of a bunraku puppet. "I can heat any sort of rock up to and over its melting point," Momo explained, although Aizen was hardly in the mood to pay attention. "I knew the Hougyoku was crystalline in structure, but I wasn't sure I would be able to affect it."

"No…" Aizen grunted. "A simple being like you would never be able to destroy it."

Momo laughed, a pretty, silvery sound. "Oh, Captain Aizen, even though I can't hear you, I bet I can guess what you just said! 'An ordinary person, even in bankai, couldn't destroy the Hougyoku.' I can see your surprise through your changes in body temperature, you know. I can see how impressed you are with me right now, but I can't help it, I just have to ruin the magic and tell you my clever little trick! I'm not going to destroy the Hougyoku, I'm just trying to get it out of you so you can think clearly again. You're right, of course, it wouldn't let me do this if I intended to destroy it, but it doesn't mind being burned out of a host. You had planned to burn it out Ms. Kuchiki with the Soukyoku. Renji told me so. It's bad, Captain, can't you see? It makes you do horrible things! I'm sure that killing the Central 46 was Captain Ichimaru's doing, but you tried to kill Miss Kuchiki. You tried to kill Renji, too, and that poor ryouka boy. I forgive you for trying to kill me, because that's how I knew you were being controlled. My captain would never hurt me. And that's how I was able to dig down deep into myself and find my bankai. I mean…Renji got bankai. I can do anything Renji can do. At first they were watching me very closely, but you were the one who taught me to tell when I'm being observed, how to be so boring that your watchers lose interest in you. I'll tell you all about it later, when this is all over."

She crouched next to him, heat pouring off of her, the sharp smell of hot metal filling his nose.

"I've been trying to forgive you for pretending to be dead and scaring me, but that's been a little harder. I'm sure I'll be able to eventually, although…well an apology couldn't hurt."

The pain was blinding, overwhelming. His vision was beginning to blacken around the edges. Even if he could bring to mind any kidou that could defend against this, there was no way he could cast it in this state. Desperately, he reached out to the Hougyoku itself. I know you have begun to awake! he begged. I am the one who will bring you the greatest glory! You must come to my aid!

The Hougoku remained silent.

"Don't worry, Captain! I've thought all of this out! By heating the Hougyoku directly it will burn away the minimum amount of your flesh necessary to loosen itself. I promise I will heal you up promptly as soon as it's free!"

Things went a bit black after that, and when he came to again, there was something hard and heavy covering the lower part of his face, and he couldn't move his hands or feet.

Momo was leaning over him. For the first time, he was able to get a good look at her. Her face was off-putting, too stiff, too constructed, like a Noh mask. Maybe he hadn't noticed before, or maybe she had just grown them, but a trio of prongs protruded from her head, likes horns or, perhaps a crown. Two more sprouted from each shoulder. Seven, of course, a seven-branched sword. Her body was mostly black, with shifting veins of violet and ruby beneath her gently drifting tectonic plates. Maybe it had been reflections from Yamamoto's flames earlier, but he had sworn that she had been more…reddish orange…before…

"Oh, good, you're awake now!" She sighed. "I'm sorry Captain, but I wasn't able to plan for everything. I thought that if I held myself to a high enough internal temperature, I could make an internal pocket of atomized air that could safely hold the Hougyoku. You know. Without it trying to merge with me."

Aizen tried to grab at his chest, at the place where the Hougyoku had nestled inside him, a star, gently dreaming. But he couldn't move his arms. A finger of rock held his tongue to the floor of his mouth, cuffs of it bound the kidou vents in his wrists, pins of it stabbed the pressure points in his back that paralyzed his soul chain.

"I think it will be okay, though," Momo went on, whether to reassure him or herself was unclear. "The Hougyoku seems very happy. I don't have a heart in this form, so it has nothing to compete with. It says it's going to grant my greatest wish. But my greatest wish, Captain Aizen, is just for you to come home again, safe and sound and for everyone to understand that none of this was your fault! So don't you worry about anything, Captain. I'll take care of it all."