One after another, Rukia's and Layne's reiatsu's fell to near unnoticeable levels, stunning Ichigo and causing him to whip around in their direction
"No…not them too… Layne… Rukia"
"You noticed?" A voice called from behind him in what would have been surprise in anyone else, but was flat and unemotional, a voice that Ichigo recognized from earlier this year, a voice that had taunted him as he lay beaten, with the fallen forms of Orihime, Chad and Layne around him, a voice that interrupted his last fight with Grimmjow and pulled him away… a voice that had seemed to herald nothing but bad times ahead
"I thought you were a child who only possessed raw power… but it seems that you have surprisingly decent senses as well"
Ichigo turned around slowly to face the source of the voice, standing in the archway with the light illuminating his figure was Ulquiorra
"It's been a while, Shinigami"
Ulquiorra stepped forwards as Ichigo watched
"Rukia Kuchiki is dead" he announced calmly as he stepped to the same level as Ichigo
"What did you say?" Ichigo challenged, disbelieving the words he was hearing
"To be accurate, she and the Noveno Espada killed each other at the same time, her body was slashed all over and impaled with a spear… she is no longer alive"
"Don't give me that bullshit, Rukia's reiatsu only just faded, you're not even fighting her, how would you-
"Cognition Synchronization, It is one of the Noveno Espada's abilities as well as one of his duties, he is able to convey all of the information about the enemy he's fought to all of his comrades… instantaneously"
Ichigo instantly turned ninety degrees from Ulquiorra, and started walking in the direction he perceived Rukia's reiatsu to be, taking four steps before Ulquiorra spoke up again
"Where are you going?"
"To save Rukia" Ichigo replied, still walking forwards
"I believe I told you she's dead"
"I don't believe you"
"Is it alright to leave without killing me first?" Ulquiorra asked, causing Ichigo to stop, but he didn't turn around
"I have no reason to fight you, you're an enemy, but you haven't harmed any of my friends yet" Ichigo replied through gritted teeth, as he stared straight ahead
"What if I told you, that I was the one who brought Inoue Orihime to Hueco Mundo" Ulquiorra then asked, in his usual flat tone, but with the air of someone about to poke a bear with a stick
Ichigo crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, Zangetsu clashing violently against Ulquiorra's arm, his anger roused and clear
"So… have you found a reason to fight me?" Ulquiorra asked rhetorically
Nnoitra howled his frustration as he looked around the white desolate sands of Hueco Mundo that Mollow had ported him to, outside the fortress of Las Noches
"THAT FUCKING BITCH!"
The first thing that came to mind was pain, from the tips of his toes straight to his pounding headache, Layne felt it all, his body seemingly on fire as he came back into consciousness, eyes screwed shut as he flexed his fingers, cracking knuckles and feeling them shoot further pain in protest
Before Layne had been forcefully conscripted into being a Shinigami, he'd been knocked unconscious a sole total of twice before in his life, and both times had felt the effects for a significant time after the fact, often feeling like he'd snap back to reality more than a week since the incident that knocked him unconscious
Since gaining the powers of a Shinigami… it had been becoming a frighteningly frequent occurrence, so much so that Layne had become unnaturally good at recovering from blackouts, and so remembered his surroundings seconds after waking up and was on his feet in an instant, so quickly that he nearly didn't notice the change in his attire until he put his hand up over the large rip in his undershirt
The false sunlight still radiated strongly over the harsh desert sands under the dome of Las Noches, as Layne's eyes adjusted quickly, taking quick note of the fact that he was no longer in Bankai, it having faded during his defeat at the hands of Nnoitra, instead in the place where the gloves and armor would normally be there were bandages, clearly covering the places he was injured the most.
He glanced around, becoming aware of two facts
One, if he was bandaged and healed, someone had to have helped him, as the last thing he remembered was passing out while Nnoitra cackled at him
Two, he was currently unarmed, his zanpakuto nowhere to be seen in the surrounding areas
"This is a rather large problem" He muttered to himself "Alone, unarmed in enemy territory… there's no possible way this goes well for me"
"Oh shut the fuck up" Mollow growled from behind him, her presence having been hidden so expertly that Layne hadn't even visually noticed her while he was scanning the dunes for his swords
That fact worried him, though not as much as the fact that she was here and he was still unarmed… but it still didn't answer the question as to who healed his wounds
"That was some real weak shit before, Layne" Mollow said, her tone full of disdain as she walked closer to him, his sealed zanpakuto visible in her hands, answering one of Layne's problems "You ripped through Esteban like paper, and then got crushed by that wiry fuckwit Nnoitra nearly immediately… you're better than that… you know that I'm the only one that's allowed to kill you"
"That's something you've made up in your head" Layne replied, eyeing off his swords in her hands, inwardly wincing every time he shifted his weight, whoever had patched him up had done an excellent job of everything except pain relief, his nerves were on fire even though all his bleeding was staunched and his reiatsu restored "I wouldn't say that I'm allowing anyone to kill me"
"Bullshit, you've got a sick fetish for jumping in the way of blades" Moll shot back, her comeback so on point that Layne winced at the partial truth of it
"Blades aimed at my friends" He said back "It's not like a have a death wish"
"Oh get over your hard on for fucking justice, it's unnatural, in this world the strong should crush the weak, it's just part of the cycle, when a soul dies it just gets recycled into the process, Protecting and defending the weak doesn't matter"
"I don't believe that, but I didn't come to Hueco Mundo to have a philosophical debate with you… I came to rescue Orihime" Layne said back, realizing that any further debates were just wasting time, time that he didn't have
Mollow tossed him his swords, before drawing her own and calling out its name, releasing her Shikai
"Rise Inside, Sora"
Her blade disappeared in a flash of light, replaced with the mockery of Moll's Sora, Golden blade and silver hilt, and she held it up menacingly towards Layne
"Like I said, I'm the only one allowed to kill you, I didn't go and steal that egghead Szayel's medical supplies, and make Nnoitra disappear just so you could keep running at Las Noches"
Well that answered the other burning question Layne had been carrying… but it also brought to light another
"Why heal me? I was probably going to die and solve your problem"
Mollow looked at him as if he'd just asked the dumbest question in the world
"Are you stupid? I just said I'm the only one allowed to kill you"
"Why do you even want to kill me?" Layne asked flatly, ignoring the look she was giving him
Her expression changed, hardening as she remembered each of the incidents where he'd escaped death at her hands in the past
"Because when I drained all your reiatsu to split from my shell, you stood back up and blasted me through fifty feet of solid rock… and then later I put a fucking hole in your chest, and you stood back up, and after that I came and beat the shit out of you, and still you stood back up"
"That is kind of what I do… it's kind of a natural thing that people should do" Layne confirmed "People should stand up if they get knocked down"
"It really pisses me off" she shot back, as if that was all the reason she needed to completely and utterly end his existence
"That's a pathetic reason to want to kill someone…but fine, I guess I didn't really need a good reason to try and end this loveless dance we've got going on"
Mollow grinned as she taunted him again
"I'm going to see you fucking scream, and paint the sands red with your blood"
"Well, last time you told me you were going to shit in my mouth, so this can only be a marked improvement from that… Drift, Roxas"
Layne tossed his zanpakuto to his right where they vanished before raising his reiatsu further
"And… Bankai"
As the familiar power of his Bankai enveloped him, Layne let out an easy breath; most of the pain he'd been experiencing seemed to wash away with the activation of his Bankai as if he'd just immersed tired muscles into a warm bath, and his familiar pieces of armor appeared, with his gloves and greaves appearing in their regular spots, however the shoulder pads had morphed into an entire chest piece, extending down the front to just below his sternum, and behind a similar length
"Roxas: Final Form" he said softly, as the dust kicked up by his release settled around him,
"The name of your Bankai is a bad joke, Final Form? it keeps evolving every time you use it… and I know you've got something else as well… out with it, I'll still crush you anyway" Mollow taunted
Layne stared expressionlessly at her and cocked his left eyebrow, before forming his mask in an instant, the pointed mouth, green markings and three jagged rips in the left side stirring Mollow, and she let out an involuntary growl
Layne appeared in front of her before she could blink
"Be careful what you wish for" he said lightly, his blades forming in his hands as he swung at her
"Blitz, Rakurai"
Layne's shock was evident as he got slapped with the air pressure from Mollow's Resurrecion and was blasted backwards, rolling in the sand before he got to his feet and stared at the dust cloud before him
Why do I always fight in places that kick up huge amounts of dust whenever someone releases their sword?
Grimmjow looked up and instantly zeroed in on the direction that Layne and Mollow were fighting, before he looked down at Ichigo being healed by Orihime
"That's a pretty nice reiatsu your friend's got over there" he said with a giant grin "Shame she's going to rip him apart"
"What are you talking about?" Ichigo asked "She's the one person here who Layne isn't allowed to lose to"
Layne watched the cloud intently for any signs of movement, though correctly anticipating that Mollow would want to revel in a dramatic reveal of her released form, dismissed his mask with a thought, and gripped his blades tightly
Layne mentally reprimanded himself for being surprised that she even possessed a Resurrecion, obviously she was an Arrancar, even though she could also use Moll's Shikai as a result of her origins, the fact that she could have been capable of more shouldn't have eluded him, and he got punished as a result
"Ahhh" Mollow sighed with relief as the dust began to settle, revealing her transformation in all of its glory
In her right hand she held her mockery of Sora, and in her left, what looked like an elongated drumstick, white like her clothing, which had also changed, becoming longer, flowing with white fur covering her shoulders and upper sleeves, around her hands and down by her legs as well, but the most striking part of her change was the large ring that extended from the middle of her back and up and over her head, with several drums on the circle evenly spaced
She grinned, and brought the drumstick up and beat on one of the drums, seemingly testing its sound
"What is this, death by bad beats?" Layne asked sarcastically
"It's a shame that this probably didn't surprise you Layne, My released form is beautiful… is it not? My pathetic shell could never hope to match my prowess"
"No… you surprised me" Layne confirmed, before redonning his mask so it altered his speech "You won't do that twice"
Layne charged in, and they clashed, blade on blade and blade on drumstick, which Mollow soon proved to be as adept as dual wielding as Layne was
Layne frowned beneath his mask, he didn't like to admit it, but he'd been totally outclassed by Mollow in their previous two skirmishes, but now he was holding his own, even pushing her back, despite her release, had he improved or was she holding something back?
Mollow jumped back, and gave three beats to three different drums on the ring around her back, before grinning at Layne as a lightning bolt appeared from the tip of the drumstick and shot towards Layne, who barely managed to twist out of the way, the bolt clipping the side of his mask and ripping a chunk out of it
"You'd better keep that mask up Layne, or the next one might kill you" Mollow taunted
Layne regenerated the missing section of his mask with a thought and answered her taunting with a black Rain
She appeared behind him using Sonido
"That was pathetic; you're not even trying to destroy me… is it because I look like my shell? Because if that's just going to get you killed"
With great speed and precision, she beat the drums several more times, causing three more lightning bolts to streak towards Layne, one he deflected with Oathkeeper, and another which hit him in the shoulder, cracking the armor provided by his Bankai
The third, he punched away with his hollowfied hand, where it streaked back past Mollow's head as she looked on in surprise
"Did you just punch a fucking bolt of lightning?" she asked incredulously
As the Rikka flew back into Orihime's hairpieces she stared forlornly at Ichigo as he stood, completely healed after his earlier encounter with Ulquiorra had nearly killed him, before kneeling down and patting Nel on the head
"Don't give me that look Nel… you either Inoue"
He stood fully and looked at her, smiling reassuringly, the reiatsu flashes he could feel from Layne, Renji and Ishida all still alive, all still fighting revitalizing his determination for his own upcoming struggles
"Don't worry; I'm definitely going to win"
Ichigo turned towards Grimmjow
"Let's take this elsewhere"
Layne and Mollow sprang apart again, this time the injuries from their repeated clashes manifesting as opened wounds and not insignificant amounts of blood, mixed together making it impossible to tell who's was whose, in fact, it was equally likely that the blood covering Layne and Mollow was an equal mix of both of theirs, their combat having proved them to be equally matched at swordplay with occasional use of special abilities afforded them by their transformations, but Mollow appeared to have had enough
"Goddammit, you fucking piece of shit, why don't you just lay down and die!"
Layne shrugged, not really understanding the reasons for her sudden infuration, and his nonchalance seemed to infuriate her further
"You aren't even going to answer me you bastard?"
"I really don't see a point"
"Fine, I'll show you something good"
Mollow holstered the drum stick and reached across with Sora, slicing the pad of her index finger and pointing her hand at Layne
"This is a special Cero only available to the Espada, Gran Rey Cero!"
Mollow fired the translucent white blast off at Layne, where it expanded and threatened to engulf him
Layne merely mimicked her movements and scooped some of his blood onto his claw and then pointed it at the Cero approaching him rapidly, speaking softly
"Null Infinity"
Layne's dark green blasted impacted Mollow's and they exploded blanketing the area in smoke and dust obscuring the view of any who might have been observing the combatants