Schism
Chapter 2: Break
The forests on the outskirts of the Rukongai were quiet at this time of night, a quiet that was only broken by the whispering of Ichigo and Rukia's shunpo—and the occasional snap of them crunching a fallen branch underfoot.
Ichigo'd had trouble tracking down his mother's reiatsu, which was odd enough to heighten his unease even more. And now that he'd found it, Ichigo could tell it was dangerously faint, almost flickering on the edge of his senses.
He sped up, trusting Rukia to keep the pace as best she could. Any thick roots that might have tripped Ichigo up were simply cut apart by the sheer force of his reiryoku. His vision tunneled, the world blurring at the corner of his eyes as he raced forward, drawing closer and closer to his mother's reiatsu—
Until suddenly a slightly different reiatsu spiked up so high that it stopped Ichigo in his tracks.
"Rukia," he called out as he drew Zangetsu, "stay back! There's something here!"
Ichigo had barely finished talking when a figure came dashing down the path towards him, half-running and half-limping with a posture that gave the impression of suffering extreme agony. It looked like a Shinigami, but their face was obscured by a viscous covering of white sludge, leaving only black and yellow eyes visible.
A Hollow's mask. Every instinct in Ichigo screamed danger, and called a Getsuga Tensho to the edge of his blade.
"What are you?" he shouted, the erratic reiatsu the creature was giving off making him more and more afraid as it scrambled towards him.
"Stop!" Ichigo shouted again as the creature sped up, but it was too intent on attacking to listen to any words. It leapt towards Ichigo and he attacked, cutting through it with Zangetsu.
The creature's body hung in the air for a moment, its momentum keeping it there before it fell. The creature's eyes widened, and Ichigo thought he heard it speak.
"Ichi…go."
It fell to the ground, limp, a pool of blood spreading out onto the dirt from where Zangetsu had cut. But the body did not vanish, as Hollows always did.
Instead, the mask that had been covering the creature's face shivered, cracked, broke open, and dropped away. Its face was visible now in the moonlight, and what Ichigo saw froze his blood.
It was his mother's face.
Ichigo was paralyzed again, this time by a wave of emotions that crushed him completely. Words failed him, and his horror burst out of him in an agonized scream.
"Mom!"
He was on his knees beside her body, his hands on her shoulders as he stared into her eye. The rest of his words were half-drowned in grief, and it wasn't long before the only thing Ichigo had the strength left to do was to hold his mother's body against his own, weeping.
"I thought she was gonna be powerful enough to kill you, for sure," a sharp, cold voice spoke out, jolting Ichigo halfway out of his shock. "What kind of Shinigami are you, kid?" the speaker continued, before chuckling. "Besides one that just killed his own mother, that is."
Ichigo stared up at the speaker, a Hollow who was no bigger than a normal human or Shinigami. He tried to speak, but words failed him.
"I'll answer those questions for you," the Hollow said, "since I'm feeling generous. Yes, I was the one who slaughtered all of those dead Shinigami you seemed to have missed on your way here. Yes, that woman was stupid enough to think she could kill me. Yes, I turned her into a Hollow. Or most of one, anyway.
"And yes," the Hollow finished, its eyes gleaming with malice, "I'm going to do it to you, too."
Ichigo barely had time to begin rising to his feet before the Hollow vanished. A heartbeat later, his world exploded in a storm of pain and anger, and everything went black.
Kaien and Rukia watched in silence as the Hollow opened a garganta and slipped through it, petrified with terror and shock. The wound that had been cut diagonally across Ichigo's chest suddenly pulsed and began spewing white sludge, which rapidly spread over his body.
"No," Rukia gasped, quickly understanding what was happening, however impossible she might have thought it to be. "Ichigo!"
She ran out into the open, quickly drawing the attention of the creature that used to be Ichigo Kurosaki.
Kaien darted out after Rukia, hoping he was fast enough to stop what he knew was about to happen.
"Bakudo number 81: Danku!"
The wall sprung into being and the newborn Hollow slammed into it, just a few feet away from where Rukia was standing, wide-eyed and slightly trembling. It shattered instantly, the bypassed spell not strong enough to withstand the Hollow's force.
"Ichigo?"
"He's turned into a Hollow, Rukia!" Kaien shouted, moving in to fight his opponent with his zanpakuto. "Get out of here and go find Isshin!"
"But—"
"Go!" the Lieutenant urged, sparing his subordinate a quick, desperate glance. "I won't be able to hold it off for long! Hurry! That's an order, damn it!"
Rukia wasted no more time, barely hearing Kaien release his shikai as she ran before leaving her commander behind entirely in a burst of shunpo. She moved as fast as she could, forcing her body to ignore the burning pain in her legs as she hurried back towards Captain Shiba's reiatsu, which was still where she and Ichigo had left it. Rukia used the last of her strength to flash to the front of the Twelfth Division. She collapsed to her knees, gasping.
"Rukia?" she vaguely heard Isshin ask her, sounding worried. "What is it?"
She raised her head and stared at the Captain, struggling to speak.
"Ichigo…" she said at last. "Hollow."
With that, she fainted, collapsing hard onto the stones. Urahara was at her side in an instant, checking her vitals.
"Take care of her," Isshin said, his voice steeled. "Yoruichi."
The two Captains vanished, leaving Urahara alone. He closed his eyes and focused, trying to find Ichigo's reiatsu. What he felt instead sent a chill cutting straight through him.
"Oh, no."
Ichigo opened his eyes slowly, greeted by the cold steel buildings and harsh, perpetual sunlight of his spirit world. Strange—hadn't he just been in the forest?
"Wake up, dumbshit. I don't have time to be messing around here."
The voice drew Ichigo the rest of the way to awareness, and his vision cleared enough for him to perceive a figure standing across the chasm, on another sideways building. It looked almost exactly like himself, except it was entirely white.
"Brain still scrambled, huh?" The strange figure asked, its voice sounding incredibly close even as it seemed to stand hundreds of feet away. "Let's fix that."
In a blink, the figure was standing right in front of Ichigo, and the Shinigami realized why it had felt like trying to look at it was like looking into a mirror: the young man in front of him could have been his identical twin, if not for his completely chalk-white skin and discolored, black and yellow eyes.
It was a Hollow.
Ichigo's memories came back to him all at once, and he staggered backwards with a groan.
"That looks more like it," the Hollow said. "Let me know when you're ready to fight, so I can take this place from you fair and square."
Ichigo forced himself back upright, taking a calming breath before fixing the Hollow with a stare.
"What exactly are you going to 'take' from me?"
"Isn't it obvious?" the Hollow asked, sweeping his arms out around him. "All of this. Everything you are. I'm going to kick your ass and take over. That's how this works. You're weak, I'm strong. Simple."
Ichigo said nothing for a few moments, wrestling with the emotions that were churning in his gut. Hatred, guilt, grief and self-loathing grew and receded, one after the other, mingling and amplifying, until all that remained was pure, cold rage.
"Bankai," the Shinigami said, and the Hollow's eyes widened with surprise.
The explosion of reiatsu that followed the release was large enough to completely demolish the building Ichigo was standing on, leaving both the Shinigami and the Hollow standing on the air as rubble and steel fell away beneath them.
"Cutting to the chase, huh?" the Hollow said, smirking. "I like it. Ban—!"
He never finished the word. Ichigo appeared behind him, the tip of his black zanpakuto dripping with blood.
"How…" the Hollow gasped as pain flooded him, totally unprepared for Ichigo's speed.
"You thought you were going to take this place from me?" Ichigo said as he turned around, his eyes burning with fury even as his voice remained perfectly even. "My body? My soul? Don't screw with me." He held his zanpakuto out in front of his body, ready to attack again. "Give up now, before I actually start trying."
"Don't patronize me, you little shit," the Hollow hissed, its body already almost done regenerating its wound. "Bankai!"
Ichigo stood motionless as the Hollow's reiatsu exploded around him, his own reiatsu creating a protective barrier.
As the smoke began to clear around the Hollow, Ichigo raised his hand and spoke.
"Bakudo number 79: Kuyo Shibari."
When the Hollow came back into view a moment later, it was immobilized by the nine black spots of kido that made up the powerful bakudo. It snarled, staring at Ichigo with rage in its discolored eyes.
"You coward!" it screamed. "Fight me!"
"What's wrong?" Ichigo taunted, raising his other hand and concentrating. "You should be able to break out of that, with your bankai's power. I thought I was supposed to be the weak one, Hollow. Hado number 4: Byakurai."
A burning, precise bolt of white lightning blasted out of Ichigo's fingertip and pierced clean through the Hollow's left eye, leaving the creature to scream again, this time in pain. It bucked strongly, causing the bakudo around it to budge.
"Not bad," Ichigo commented, his voice still icy. "But not good enough. Hado number 1: Sho."
The concussive push forced the Hollow off of its feet and into the air, and Ichigo was quick to appear behind it in a bust of shunpo.
"Getsuga Tensho."
The blast of energy was several times more powerful than it had been in Zangetsu's shikai state, the bright blue explosion briefly eclipsing the light of the sun that floated in the imaginary sky. The Hollow was sent flying back downwards, where it slammed through several buildings before Ichigo felt it come to a stop.
He focused on where he could feel its reiatsu emanating from, and took aim.
"Hado number 54: Haien."
The purple flame roared out of Ichigo's hand in a torrent, engulfing the buildings below in a wildfire. Ichigo could hear the Hollow screaming again, but his anger was too deep to allow for pity. The creature appeared in front of him again a few moments later, bloodied and burned and scarred.
"Give up," Ichigo repeated, "and I'll stop."
"Screw you."
The Shinigami grit his teeth, facing down his Hollow and unleashing a powerful concentrated burst of his reiatsu. The spirit world shook and groaned around him, but Ichigo paid it no mind.
He had to finish this, once and for all.
He called a Getsuga into his sword, leapt forward, and brought it down with all of his might.
When the pillar of smoke cleared from the explosion, the Hollow was in two halves on the ground, split across the waist. It heaved strangled gasps as it struggled to heal.
"I want you to understand something," the Shinigami said with perfect calm. "In here, I have all the power in the world. You, whatever you are… you're nothing. Whatever power you think you have, it's mine now. It was mine from the second you came in here. Nod if you understand that."
The Hollow nodded, its will to fight finally broken.
"Good. If you ever try to take this place over again, I'm going to come in here and defeat you. Completely and totally, without holding back like I was just now. Remember that."
The Hollow sneered at him, desperate to recover some semblance of its shattered pride.
"You'd never kill me," it said, "and that's what makes you weak. Your threats don't mean anything, Ichigo."
The Shinigami looked at the Hollow, and it was the Hollow who had to fight back a shiver.
"You don't think I'd kill you?" Ichigo asked, his voice heavy with anger and guilt. "I just killed my own mother. Someone I loved more than almost anyone else I know. Who the hell are you, next to her?"
Ichigo turned around and began to walk away, before stopping and raising his hand back over this shoulder.
"Bakudo number 73: Tozansho."
As soon as the Hollow's scream of rage had died away, muted by the wall of the blue pyramid which now contained it, Ichigo sighed and let himself relax. As he felt his spirit floating away from the confines of his spirit world, he also released his hold on the massive tide of power that waited pooled within him.
Hopefully, he wouldn't need to use it again like that for a long time.
When Ichigo opened his eyes again, he was back in the dark forest, with the moon shining down over him. He was vaguely aware of a sound like the shattering of plaster, as pieces of something hard and cocoon-like sloughed off of his body. For some reason, there was water everywhere, and the ground had been turned almost entirely into mud.
Another sound was clearer still, like the shattering of glass. A translucent barrier of energy cracked and shattered in front of Ichigo, revealing a very exhausted and heavily bloodied Kaien Shiba.
He seemed worried at first, but then his expression shifted slowly to cautious relief.
"Ichigo?" he asked, hesitant. "Is that you?"
"Yeah," Ichigo answered. "Are you all right? Who did that to you?"
He never heard his cousin's reply. Exhaustion from the night's events slammed into him all at once, and the Shinigami slumped to the ground. The last thing he saw as he slipped into unconsciousness was Kaien's face leaning over him, his eyes alarmed.
He was telling him something, but Ichigo couldn't hear the words.
Darkness. Peace.
"Explain yourself more clearly, Lieutenant Shiba. Lieutenant Ichigo Kurosaki did what, exactly?"
Silence. Tension. Pain. First blunt, dull. Then sharp, biting. Burning. It hurt.
Where was his mother? It hurt so much.
Dead. She was dead. Gone. His fault.
All his fault.
"What do you mean, he won't die?"
"I mean his Hollow keeps regenerating his wounds instinctively. This won't work. If we keep it up, he might wake up. And if he does that, we'll all die."
"The judgment of the Central 46 must be carried out, Captain Urahara. Move aside."
"Stop! Are you insane?"
Pain. Again. Sharp. Make it stop. Make it stop.
"He's waking up, you idiot!"
"Then sedate him! You're the scientist, aren't you?"
Cold. Quiet. Floating. Pain's gone.
Darkness. Peace.
Kaien was positive he'd never seen his protégé look more calmly murderous than she did right now.
"What do you mean, I can't see him?"
The guard stiffened up, clearly aware of the fact that if Rukia hadn't been accompanied by multiple Captains and a couple of Lieutenants, he'd be halfway to dead already.
"I mean your impartiality in this matter is… compromised," the guard said. "The Captain Commander believes you can't be trusted to act objectively."
"And I can?" Isshin asked, arching an eyebrow. "Explain that one to me, please."
The guard sighed, his fear replaced with annoyance.
"Because you're a Captain," he said. "She isn't."
Rukia's fists clenched at her sides. She held them there for a few seconds before slowly unclenching them and exhaling, her body slumping slightly forward.
"Fine," she said dully, turning around. "I get it." She turned to look at Isshin. "I need to leave before I strangle him. Tell Ichigo…" she let the thought trail off, thinking of what to say. In the end, she could only hang her head. "Tell him I'm sorry."
Isshin nodded, barely able to contain his anger. Anger he saw clearly reflected in the eyes of his nephew and niece, who looked about ready to challenge the Captain Commander to a duel.
"I will."
Rukia began walking away without another word, determined to be out of everyone's sight before she let her emotions out.
"Easy, Rukia-chan," a smooth, even voice called from down the hallway, stopping her departure. "I'm sure we can sort this mess out, don't you worry."
The speaker was illuminated by the torches on the hallway walls soon enough: Captain Shunsui Kyoraku, accompanied by his Lieutenant, Lisa Yadomaru.
"Captains," he greeted, looking around at Yoruichi, Urahara, Isshin and Byakuya. "Lieutenants," he continued, looking at Renji and Kaien. "Lady Hisana, Kukaku," he finished, bowing to them. "I wish we were meeting under different circumstances."
Shunsui looked at the guard, his brown eyes hard with authority that rarely resided there.
"You're relieved."
The guard blinked, surprised by the statement that carried all the force of an order.
"Sir?"
"I said, you're relieved. Get out."
"But, the Captain Commander—!"
"If Yama-ji has a problem, I'll deal with it. Go."
The guard could find nothing more to say, mustering the last shred of his dignity and marching down the hallway. He hadn't gone more than a few steps before Lisa appeared in front of him, her palm raised up toward his face.
"Hakufuku."
The guard collapsed following the flash of bright light, and Lisa got to work chanting another, more complex spell under her breath.
"See?" Shunsui said as soon as the guard was unconscious, his voice bright again. "Much better. He won't remember the last day, once Lisa-chan gets through with him. After you, Rukia-chan."
He stepped aside to make room for Rukia, who opened the cell door with shaking hands and had to ignite a small orb of blue flame in her hands to see through the darkness. The rest of the visitors followed in behind her, spreading out along the wall. Lisa quickly shot small bursts of flame into dusty sconces along the wall, brightening up the cell a bit and making its occupant visible.
Ichigo was kneeling on the floor, his arms held up at angles above his head by shackles hanging from the ceiling, while his ankles were secured by shackles that had been bolted to the floor. The large cuffs themselves were crafted out of sekkiseki stone, and the Shinigami were careful to keep their reiatsu to a minimum to avoid harming Ichigo.
He looked up as they entered, his eyes widening at the show of support from all of his friends and family. Small tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, and he let them fall.
"Thank you," he said, and his father smiled sadly.
"Don't be ridiculous, Ichigo," Isshin said. "You never have to thank your family for something like this."
"You're welcome, though," Shunsui said with a smile, before Lisa elbowed him hard in the ribs. "What was that for? I'm not part of his family, am I?"
The Lieutenant adjusted her glasses.
"Just shut up."
Ichigo smiled, glad to see a bit of happiness around him. As the reality of the situation settled over him, though, he frowned.
"So, they've decided?"
Urahara nodded.
"They have."
"And?"
"They're going to use the Sougyoku. Any other way—"
"And they risk my Hollow coming out," Ichigo finished, mentioning his hybrid nature with total calm. "At least it'll be quick."
"Ichigo," Shunsui spoke up, stepping forward and kneeling down to face the prisoner at eye-level, "I think we can both agree that this is no time for games or lies, can't we?"
Ichigo nodded.
"Good. The truth is better than both of those, I think. And you aren't very good at telling the truth."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Shunsui smiled, and Ichigo knew in that moment he'd been making a mistake underestimating the easygoing Captain for so many years. There was definitely a reason why the Captain Commander thought so highly of him.
"We both know, don't we?"
"No," Ichigo stalled, "I don't think we do."
The Captain chuckled.
"Well, I know I do, so we'll go with that. What happened to your Hollow powers, Ichigo? If Kaien is to be trusted—and I do trust him—you looked quite different when you were trying to kill him two nights ago."
"Captain Kyoraku," Kaien began, "he wasn't—"
"It's fine," Ichigo cut his cousin off, his voice heavy. "Don't make excuses for me." He turned his attention back to Shunsui. "After that Vasto Lorde Hollow attacked me, I woke up in my Spirit World. Another Hollow was there. One that looked like me. It attacked me, and I beat it."
"Not bad," Shunsui commended him. "Then what did you do? Kill it?"
"No. I just locked it up."
The Captain nodded.
"I see. How?"
Ichigo grit his teeth, knowing exactly where this was going and hating Shunsui for making it so public.
"I used a bakudo."
"Interesting," Shunsui commented, his voice detached. "Captain Urahara," he continued, calling to Kisuke over his shoulder, "how big was the passing margin on Ichigo's kido examination?"
"One of the thinnest I've ever seen."
"And you used a bakudo to seal in this Hollow. I assume you bypassed it, right? Those incantations can take some time in a fight, after all."
Ichigo glared at the Captain.
"I did."
Isshin frowned, hating the sound of the anguish in his son's voice.
"Kyoraku, that's enough."
"I'm almost done, not to worry," Shunsui replied, not budging from his position on the floor. "So, you bypassed it. And which bakudo did you use, Ichigo?"
Ichigo held his silence for as long as he could, and he could feel the door to his past slamming shut in front of him.
"Tozansho."
His voice trembled under the weight of the admission, and for an instant afterward he thought he saw something like an apology in Shunsui's eyes.
He could hear the gasps of surprise, the sound that Ichigo had done his hardest to avoid all of these years. His biggest secret had been dragged out into the open, and he had been powerless to stop it.
"There're only a few people who can pull off a bypassed 70th-level kido at full power," Shunsui said, after another moment had passed. "Why've you been hiding who you are for so long?"
Ichigo hung his head, and said nothing for several moments. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and shaken.
"Because I was scared of it. Of what I could do."
He felt a weight lifting off of his shoulders at the admission, but it did nothing to ease the emptiness in his chest. He felt like a coward.
"Why?" Shunsui pressed, determined to get to the bottom of the issue. He didn't trust Ichigo's friends or family to ask the truly hard questions, and it was very likely that the future of Soul Society depended upon someone doing just that.
"Why?" Ichigo repeated, surprised. "Why do you think? Power like mine…" he went quiet, remembering his mother's face. "All it does is destroy. All it does is kill."
"What happened… it wasn't your fault."
Ichigo stared at Shunsui again, anger rushing up to drown out his guilt.
"Don't fuck with me!" he snarled, straining against the shackles as he lunged forward, stopping just in front of the Captain. "I killed her! I cut her in half, you bastard! It was my fault! If I'd held back, I could have saved her! If I'd held back—!"
"We would have buried both of you yesterday."
The cold, even force of Shunsui's words cut the strength out from under Ichigo's anger, and he fell silent.
"Your mother was no more herself in that moment than you were yourself when you tried to carve Kaien up into pieces," Shunsui continued, as calm as ever. "Let it go."
Ichigo looked at him blankly, shocked by his callousness.
"You have no idea what that felt like," he said, and Lisa stood up a little straighter as her body tensed. "How can you say that, when you have no idea what I went through?!"
Shunsui's eyes lost all traces of their warmth, the muscles in his face drawn with tension.
"Let me tell you something, Ichigo," he said, the deliberate edge in his tone putting everyone in the room ill-at-ease. "You know nothing about me. I'm going to give you a piece of advice: never assume you do, ever again. Is that clear?"
The implications of his words were impossible to miss, and Ichigo hung his head in shame.
"Yes."
Shunsui sighed loudly, sounding physically and emotionally drained.
"I think we're done here," he said, putting a comforting hand on Ichigo's shoulder. "What's going to happen next, it could either be very good… or very, very bad. And that's up to you, Ichigo. Time to grow up."
"What do you mean?" Ichigo asked, confused.
"Captain Kuchiki," Shunsui called out, "I think you have some dinner to help your wife prepare, don't you?"
It only took Byakuya a second to catch on, and he only paused long enough to spare a meaningful glance at Rukia before he nodded.
"I think we do," he answered, with perfect poise. "Hisana, let's go."
Hisana nodded, following out of the cell at her husband's side.
As soon as they'd been gone long enough, Shunsui raised one of his hands up behind him.
"Lisa-chan, I think I'll do the honors."
"Suits me fine," Lisa said, pulling a key out of her pocket and tossing it to her Captain.
"See, Ichigo," Shunsui said as he held the gleaming key up into the light, his voice back to sounding completely paternal, "the problem with shackles is, even if they're a mile thick, they always have locks. And locks," he finished with a flourish, "Always have keys."
"Not these," Ichigo replied flatly, holding his wrists up. There were no locks to be found on the cuffs.
"What?"
"That's the key to the cell door."
Shunsui stared at the smooth stone cuffs for a few moments, before huffing indignantly.
"Damn," he cursed. "That's Yama-ji for you, always spoiling my fun. Fine." He got up, drawing his zanpakuto from their scabbards. "Hold still."
The two large blades of Shunsui's shikai shattered the pair of handcuffs a moment later, enough controlled force in the swing that Ichigo's wrists were completely unscathed. Shunsui stepped around and repeated the process on Ichigo's ankles, freeing him.
"This part's going to feel a bit weird," the Captain said, pressing the face of one of his swords to Ichigo's forehead. "Apologies."
The jolt of sudden reiryoku stung worse than an electric shock, and Ichigo shook under its force.
"That should be enough to get you back on your feet," Shunsui told him. "Can your Hollow open up a garganta?"
"I think so, yeah."
"Excellent. Lisa-chan, please get the Lieutenant's zanpakuto."
Lisa turned and left the room, returning a moment later with Zangetsu.
"Why are you doing this, Captain Kyoraku?" Rukia asked, confused by his unpredictable mood.
"Good question, Rukia-chan!" Shunsui said with a smile, turning his attention away from Ichigo as Lisa helped the exhausted prisoner to his feet. "I'm helping him because the alternative is, honestly, unspeakably horrifying," the Captain explained, his upbeat tone serving only to further confuse Rukia.
Shunsui noticed his, and looked carefully at the Third Seat.
"What do you know about the Sougyoku?" he asked.
"It's a giant blade," Rukia answered. "Used for executions of the worst criminals. It's the most powerful weapon in Soul Society."
"Yes, it is," Shunsui replied. "And that was a perfect answer, for someone who's never actually seen it being used. The truth is, the Sougyoku is alive," he finished, the theatrical tone from earlier reappearing.
"What?"
"It's alive," Shunsui repeated. "Only the Shinigami who've seen it in action, like Captain Shiba there," he explained, pointing to Isshin, "know that. It's a big secret, so don't go telling people."
Lisa scoffed, earning her a quick mock-glare from her Captain.
"Point is," Shunsui resumed, "the blade is alive. It feels. It judges the people it has been commanded to execute. And rarely, very, very rarely, it pardons them. In the face of unbendable will, and unbendable strength, the blade relents. That is what I'm afraid of."
"But why?" Kaien asked, joining the conversation again. Shunsui smiled at him.
"Because I know the Captain Commander," he said. "Yama-ji wouldn't stop at that. He would hunt Ichigo down anyway, and do whatever it took to kill him. Because what you are, Ichigo," he continued, looking over at the recovering prisoner again, "is something we've never seen before. Central 46 is scared half to death of that, and even more scared of what you represent."
"And what are you scared of, Captain Kyoraku?"
"I'm scared that you and Yama-ji would burn the Seireitei down to the ground," he said. "Before… whatever happened to you happened, you were strong. A lot stronger than you wanted anyone to know about. But now? After this?" He shook his head in wonderment. "I have no idea what you could do, if you were driven far enough.
"I want to live long enough to get old and fat and even more rich than I already am, Ichigo," Shunsui finished. "We don't need to fight another war. Not now, not ever. The last one almost cost us everything."
"But, even if I do manage to get to Hueco Mundo, and survive," Ichigo replied, puzzled, "the Captain Commander will still order my capture. And then I'll get put in front of the Sougyoku anyway."
"Yes, he'll order you to be captured," Shunsui said, his eyes gleaming with mischief. "And since you've been convicted of high treason, Yama-ji will turn to the best of the best to organize your capture: the Onmitsukido. Yoruichi-san, remind me who runs that branch?"
The Captain of the Second Division grinned.
"Last time I checked, I did."
"And don't these fine young people all look like strong soldiers who would stop at nothing to make sure Ichigo was found, and brought back home safely?"
"Kyoraku-san, I think they certainly do."
"Splendid news!" Shunsui finished with a beaming grin. "I can leave the rest to you, then?"
Yoruichi nodded.
"Of course."
Shunsui looked over at Ichigo one last time, a kind smile on his face.
"Stay alive out there, Ichigo," he said. "Give us boring old people enough time to get your name cleared, and we'll send you the good news."
Ichigo nodded, determination in his eyes again at last.
"Looking forward to it, Captain."
"Lisa-chan," Shunsui said in parting, "I think it's time for us to get out of here. These two need some time alone."
Before Ichigo could finish figuring out the Captain's last words, everyone had left the room but Rukia. She smiled at him, happy and relieved. Ichigo walked forward and drew her into an embrace, and Rukia reciprocated it with a contented sigh.
"I'm glad you're all right."
"So am I," Ichigo said. "I didn't try to attack you, too, did I?"
"No. I left to find your father almost as soon as you transformed."
"Good," Ichigo said, with relief of his own.
"I'm fine," Rukia assured him. "Don't worry. And we'll find a way through this, too. I know we will."
Ichigo said nothing, overjoyed just to be able to hold Rukia again. They stepped back from each other a few moments later, and Ichigo looked at her sadly.
"I have to go."
Rukia smiled, her eyes just as determined as his.
"I know. I'll see you soon."
She took a step forward and kissed him, then turned and quickly left before her resolve weakened.
Ichigo pushed the melancholy out of his mind, closing his eyes and focusing. He reached down into the recesses of his power, finding the place where his Hollow resided and tapping into the energy flowing around it. Acting as though he was opening a senkaimon, Ichigo smiled as he heard the garganta being ripped open in front of him. He opened his eyes, gathered himself one last time, and stepped through the breach.
It closed behind him with a discordant, muted whine, leaving the cell empty.
The kido lights in the sconces died, and darkness closed over the silence.
"Shatter, Kyoka Suigetsu."
The figures of Sousuke Aizen and Gin Ichimaru emerged in the cell as if out of thin air. Aizen gazed at the place where the garganta had been opened, sensing the shreds of Ichigo's reiatsu that remained. He noted with interest that they soon vanished altogether, leaving no traces to follow.
"Well, that was adorable," Gin said with a chuckle, before looking over at his commander. "How d'ya wanna play this one out, Lieutenant Aizen? Should I go after 'im?"
"No," Aizen said calmly. "Let's see where this goes on its own, for now. I think Ichigo will wind up doing all of the hard work for us, Gin. As long as he does, I see no reason not to let him."
Gin's smile widened.
"Whatever you say."
…
…
A/N: So yeah, there's Chapter 2. Hope you enjoyed it! Things're starting to pick up, and the stuff in the story's summary actually happened. Fancy that. I'd love to hear what you all think; the reviews for last chapter were awesome and incredibly encouraging. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to leave 'em.
And big thanks as always to JasoTheArtisan, beta wizard and all-around badass. Go read his Bleach Trilogy ('So', 'Anonymous' and 'Heroes') if you haven't already. It's top-shelf stuff.
Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
- Jazz