DISCLAIMER: Bleach is owned by Kubo-sensei. I'm also attributing a quote from Frank Herbert's "Dune" that I've used in this chapter.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Minna-san, sorry it took me a while to update. I've finally finished writing this particularly difficult chapter. I'm not good at writing fight scenes, so you may notice some redundant actions in here. I just wanted to finish this up, so we could all move on. Hehe. Hopefully, I did justice to Ichigo and not went OOC too much.
By the way, I got the title of this chapter from Frank Herbert's "Dune". I've been re-reading his stuff and I've found one quote from the book that served as the core of this chapter. It was so appropriate for the story that I included it in one of the dialogues. Again, thanks for the reviews and thanks for reading. Ja!
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Fear is the Mind-Killer
Ichigo saw her fall, blood spurting out of her chest where Zangetsu's blade made contact. He felt his heart crushing at the sight of her body becoming limp in mid air. He saw her eyes widen in shock as the pain bore through her as unknown tears were released in the midnight air.
'RUUUUKIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!'
He screamed, anger and despair rushing through his whole body. He felt as if he was going to go insane. His heart and mind refused to acknowledge what his eyes have seen. Rukia just laid there, motionless.
'This can't be happening! This can't be happening! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'
All the while, the hollow-Ichigo was laughing in the background and reveling in his agony. "Good. That's it. Hate, grief, despair, anger. The more you feel these things, the stronger I will become. HAHAHAHAHA!"
"YOU BASTARD, I WILL KILL YOU!" said Ichigo as he struggled to break loose of the hollow's black reirakus wrapped around him. He pulled and strained feeling his spirit strengthen. Soon, the reirakus snapped one by one, freeing him from its bonds.
He stood there, seemingly calm and collected with his head bowed. Everything around him was steaming, as if his spirit powers were boiling hot. He looked up with a dark face, his eyes bright with anger.
"YOU BASTARD! You will pay for what you did. I'm going to destroy you once and for all," he simply said with his voice tinge with hatred. And his surroundings were engulfed in flames. The hollow-Ichigo began to twitch violently, light shining out of its eyes like something wanted to come out. It tore at its mask, peeling it away from its face.
When the remaining mask was off, flames and light burst forth out its eyes and mouth. The real Ichigo came flying out of the flames and light, denting the ground he landed on with his sheer spiritual force.
He only had one intent in mind – to send this monster to HELL!
"Oi, partner, glad of you to join the party," his hollow self said to him sarcastically, slowly getting up on its feet.
Ichigo didn't reply. His eyes were still burning in anger. He didn't want to think of anything. He had only one goal and this was to defeat the abomination that came from within him.
"DAMN YOU!" he shouted as he rushed towards the hollow. It just jumped out of the way, amused by his outburst.
"My, my, what a tantrum you got there, partner," it said. "I wonder why?"
"You know why, you bastard!" Ichigo said, clenching his fists. "You've hurt my friends and you've hurt Rukia!" He closed his eyes to shut out the image of her falling lifelessly to the ground. It gave him a dull ache in his heart and he wanted to scream it out loud.
"Me? Oh yeah, always blame it on evil me," the hollow said, feigning innocence. "Why me when you were the one who had the sword in your hand…and the wounds that your friends inflicted."
Ichigo froze. He suddenly noticed the blood flowing out of the wounds he didn't know he had. He looked at his hands, there was Zangetsu tainted with the blood of his friends. He saw his own face reflected on the blade, but it wasn't his own but that of the familiar hollow mask he had.
He staggered at the revelation. 'Chad…Ishida…Inoue…Rukia…it can't be. It can't be,' he thought desperately. 'I…didn't do it…I didn't…'
"Yes, you did. But don't worry about it, partner. Who needs them when you got me, right?" said the hollow, seeing through his self-doubt.
Ichigo's gripped on Zangetsu tightened. He shook his head to mentally get rid of despair. His deep wounds ached all over tremendously. "LIAR! YOU did this to them!"
He lunged at the hollow with Zangetsu. But it quickly stepped out of the way to escape the blade and started taunting him some more.
"Partner, we really need to work together you know," it said, eyes narrowing. "How else can you get stronger? I knew deep inside that you wanted that tremendous power that will make every human, shinigami or hollow alike, tremble under your feet."
"SHUT UP!" Ichigo slashed. Zangetsu's blade tore at the hollow's robe. It staggered at his attack. "Stop messing with my mind, you bastard! I will not let you win!"
Ichigo attacked again, this time hitting the hollow squarely on the stomach. It felt the pain and howled as it tumbled to the ground. He ran towards it to do his second attack, but Zangetsu met another sword in the air. The hollow was holding another Zangetsu with the color of deep blood.
"My, my, I thought we can talk things out," it said, swinging its sword at Ichigo. "But it looks like I won't be able to convince you with mere words."
The hollow attacked Ichigo's Zangetsu with full force that it threw Ichigo off to a wall of rocks. He groaned in pain.
"Do you like the new Zangetsu? It has tasted a lot of blood, you know, especially of that meddling little shinigami girl of yours!" The hollow said to him with an evil grin.
Upon hearing this, Ichigo lost all rhyme and reason. He charged headlong towards the hollow, swinging Zangetsu. And with every blow, the earth shook with his anger. "DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU TO HELLL!" He could hear the hollow's laugh ringing in his ears. But he didn't care. He slashed at it relentlessly until he was out of breath. His body trembling with rage.
"Tsk, tsk, you know what your problem is, you are always so impulsive and reckless," said the hollow, pointing the blood-red Zangetsu at Ichigo. "Don't you realize by now that those are signs of weakness?"
The hollow started twirling its sword by the hilt wrap. The spinning blade gleamed in the moonlight. "Sometimes, partner, I think you are just so pathetic!" It threw the sword towards Ichigo.
Ichigo leaped out of the way, but the hollow recoiled the sword so fast, it slashed him on the back. Ichigo stumbled to the ground, he could feel his own blood drenching his robe.
"Now you see what I mean," it said, with its sword back on its hand. "You bother too much with these people that you allow your spirit force to soften up. If you're not careful, I might kill you."
The hollow suddenly launched its sword towards Ichigo again. But he swung Zangetsu to meet it. Blade upon blade clashed and the hollow's sword recoiled back.
"You are wrong! The people lying here are the same people who had given me their support and strength!" Ichigo said. He leaped in the air and brought Zangetsu down on the hollow with all his strength, the ground cracked.
"Oho, such sweet sentiment will get you nowhere!" said the hollow. It lowered its sword and rushed to Ichigo. The sword's blade came from the sky and bore down on Ichigo with lightning speed.
"Haven't you realized that if it wasn't for me you would have been long dead in Soul Society," it said to Ichigo calmly. With that, it slashed Ichigo's torso and sent him down on the dirt.
Ichigo staggered to his feet as his limbs throbbed from the pain of the attack. 'Damn it! It's as if this thing knows my every move,' he thought to himself. 'How is it possible?'
He remembered meeting it face to face when he was on the verge of defeat against Kenpachi back in Soul Society. Old man Zangetsu had then let him fight this thing to gain his trust back and to give him another chance to win that fight. But he didn't know what it was or where it came from. He thought it was just an illusion, a trick Zangetsu had used to draw his real strength out.
Ichigo felt something cold clutched at the pit of his soul. It dawned upon him that this abomination was part of him, part of what he had become when he chose the path of being a shinigami. He realized that despite all his noble intentions and his quest to become stronger than all the shinigamis in Soul Society, he had bred this thing, even nurtured it at the back of his mind.
Now here it was, a manifestation of all his thirst for power. The abomination that hurt his friends, an enemy that would threaten his family and everyone in his world, the horrible thing that tainted his hands with Rukia's blood.
How could he let this happen? How did it go this far? Ichigo clenched his fists in anguish at the thought. His heart and mind were in deep turmoil. The horror of what he had done was too much to bear.
"AAAHHHHHHHHH!" Ichigo rushed towards his hollow-self with Zangetsu. He would cut this thing down and annihilate it. He would stop it now or die trying. "Even if my limbs get severed or my spirit powers get destoryed, I'll kill you, YOU BASTARD!"
"HAHAHAHA. Those are big words for such a pathetic fool," the hollow said as it blocked Ichigo's attacks. But Ichigo was determined to get the better of it, he kicked out high and hard, catching the hollow square in the breast bone. It stumbled to the ground.
But it quickly got to its feet and gave Ichigo a mocking laugh. "Now, now partner. You're not playing nice. Don't force me to hurt you too much, I might lose control and accidentally kill you. If that happens, who's gonna take care of your little sisters?"
"WHY YOU! Don't you come near them!" Ichigo lunged again, recklessly swinging Zangetsu at the hollow. His anger boiling hot and out of control. He bore down on the hollow's sword again and again, with the intent of breaking it in two. But his anger made him lose his guard.
Suddenly, the hollow swung at Ichigo with a closed fist that caught his jaw. It knocked him sideways and he almost fell. Then the hollow gave him a hard kick on the stomach, which sent him bouncing on the ground a few feet away. Blood came out of his mouth as he lay writhing in pain.
The hollow walked to Ichigo's supine body and kicked him again, viciously, on the ribs. He groaned and rolled away. It walked around him and gave him another sadistic kick. He spattered more blood on the ground.
The hollow bent down to look at Ichigo face to face. "Tsk, tsk, you just don't learn your lesson, partner," the hollow said. "Why don't you give up and accept the inevitable. You know that I'm gonna be the king of your world and this time, I won't let you win," it whispered mockingly. Ichigo swung at the hollow with Zangetsu but it quickly moved out of the way.
'Baka mono, don't be so reckless in your attacks,' he heard at the back of his mind. It was Rukia during the time when he was just a new shinigami, subbing for her. He realized she was his first teacher, giving him her strength and wisdom to fight eventhough he didn't listen to her that much.
'Ichigo, don't become emotional. Calm yourself,' he remembered her say again when he fought the Grand Fisher. He scanned the ground to see where his friends laid motionless. 'Sado, Inoue, Ishida, gomen!' Then not far away, he saw where Rukia was, her shinigami robe soaked with blood from her wounds. Ichigo bit his lower lip to stop the tears threatening to fall freely out of his eyes. The dull ache in his heart was throbbing incessantly.
'Be calm, you said,' Ichigo thought. 'How can I be calm when that thing did this to you, to all of you? I shall never forgive myself for not being able to protect you when you needed me the most. But I swear to you I will stop this evil even if it cost me my life!' He clenched his fists and got up on his feet with the help of Zangetsu.
"Yeah, you're the king alright. THE KING OF ANNOYING BASTARDS, that is!" Ichigo smirked. "BANKAI!"
"Oho, this fight is beginning to get interesting," the hollow said with an evil grin. "Don't you know? What your Zangetsu can do, this sword can do as well." The hollow's blood red Zangetsu also changed into its Bankai form. "Now, it's decided. I'll have to kill you."
"Not if I kill you first!" shouted Ichigo and leaped in the air, his spirit power giving him renewed strength. He finally understood what Rukia said. He had let his anger dull his blade and his guilt affect his focus. This evil thing was feeding on him, devouring his anger, hate, grief and despair. Unknowingly, he was letting it take over his soul without a fight.
Lightning flashed and the ground shook when the two blades came in contact. The two opponents came face to face once again.
"You're about to see how determined I am to kill you," Ichigo said, his face grim and his eyes blazing.
"It really doesn't matter," the hollow retorted back. "Because your power will soon be mine!"
Ichigo sliced the hollow's arm and shoulder. It howled and bled black blood as it backed out of Ichigo's way. "What's the matter, partner? Are you losing your cool?" This time, it was Ichigo's turn to taunt and mock.
"SHUT UP!" shouted the hollow and threw its sword towards Ichigo. Ichigo dodged it but the recoiling blade caught his leg. He wavered from the pain but remained standing. "I'm done playing around," it said, its eyes glowing red with evil.
"Baka, who said we're playing around?" shot back Ichigo. "Only one of us will win this fight and I'll make sure it's not you. I'm going to make you pay for what you did to my friends and destroy you once and for all."
"I'd like to see you try," replied the hollow, poised for its final attack.
The two swords began to throb, calling each other to the fight. Their bloodlust was echoing in the air around them while the earth cracked underneath.
Ichigo readied himself. His hands held onto Zangetsu firmly and steadily. 'Cast off your fear, look forward. Retreat and you will age. Hesitate and you will die.' The words of old man Zangetsu echoed in his mind.
He knew that this fight was not about winning or becoming stronger nor was it about pride. But it was about who he is and who he wanted to be. And he knew in his heart, in his mind and in his soul, that he didn't want to be the abomination that was in front of him now. He was just too afraid to face it.
'My enemy is myself,' he thought, finally accepting the truth that he had been denying deep inside. 'Now, I will face my fear and I will let it pass through me. And when it has gone past I will turn to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.'
With these words, he charged at his hollow-self with Zangetsu unwavering in his hands. The two opponents seemingly slashed at the invisible air around them, while dust clouds flew in every direction.
When everything settled down and the clouds cleared, both Ichigo and the hollow were standing opposite each other, their backs turned and their swords were still up in the air.
Ichigo was surprised by the sudden pain on his chest. He coughed blood and went down on his knees. 'I guess, I was wrong," he thought as he let his bloodied body fall to the ground. 'Minna-san, I'm sorry. I failed to stop him and avenge all of you.'
"How pathetic!" said the hollow, with a mocking smile. It turned to face Ichigo but its glowing red eyes opened wide with horror. It suddenly realized that its body was sliced in half. "No…no…NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The hollow's body disintegrated and its mask broke into pieces until it turned to harmless dust. The cold wind blew it into oblivion. And then, there was only the stillness of the night.
Ichigo slowly opened his eyes and only saw blackness. He had a sinking feeling that he was nearing the end. 'Please not yet. I want to see her one last time,' he said to himself. He willed his body to move, even though every limb shouted for relief. He crawled to where Rukia laid. He wanted to run and gather her in his arms but he had lost his strength and will to live. He just wanted to be near her once more.
He was expecting her to run to him to see if he was all right, to scold him for being stubborn and for not listening to her, or even insult him for being stupid and reckless. But there was only silence - just unbearable silence all around him.
When he reached her, he saw the wounds inflicted by his own sword on her small body. Her face was bloodied and bruised. Zangetsu's cut ran across her chest up to her neck. It was so painful for him to see all that.
"Rukia…" he managed to whisper as hot tears fell down his face. He couldn't hold them in much longer. His pride, his image, they all didn't matter to him now. One of the people he cared about and loved was no more.
His despair was beyond relief. It was as if that dull ache had crushed his heart completely. 'Why is it I couldn't tell the people I care about how much I love them? It is only when they are gone that I despair about the wasted time not saying anything,' he thought sadly.
"BAKA MONO! Didn't I tell you to run? Didn't you know you were no match for him? You always tell me to run when the opponent seemed stronger than I am. Why didn't you follow your own advice this time? Huh! DAMN IT! Don't just lie there. Answer me! Answer me!" he shouted with all his might.
He was panting from his outburst and coughed a lot of blood. His vision was becoming blurry. He looked at Rukia's face and kissed her gently. "Gomen ne, Rukia. I didn't want you to…to…" he stopped.
He couldn't bring himself to say the word, as if leaving it unsaid would change what happened to her. "I...I didn't want to lose you again. When the rain stopped, I've realized how much I care about you," he whispered. "But now it's too late. I'm sorry if I didn't tell you sooner that I love you. I'm so sorry."
His breathing was getting shallow and it was hard to keep himself awake. His body was getting heavy and he felt so tired. He laid down beside Rukia and held her hand. "Don't worry, I'll be with you soon…please wait for me," he finally said and closed his eyes.
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Additional Author's Note:Um, should I follow this up with another chapter or should I leave it as it is now? Kindly tell me what you guys think. I'm undecided as to how I should go about it. I just don't like sad stories, especially IchiRuki sad stories. Sniff, sniff! And the manga is not helping me ease that pain. Darn it!