Hey there again! I know I'm too slow.. TT_TT, I just want to keep it short because I am not going to make a TL;DR bigger than the chapter itself (I am quite satisfied with the length of each chapter because it gives enough opportunity for cliffhanger trolling whenever I want! Mu-ha-ha~~)

Anyway, I just wanted to add that any possible silent readers or basically anyone may start posting suggestions for things that should or should not(by any circumstances) happen in the story. Because I want to make it the least bit canonically possible, I'd like to keep the slightly more "cracky" (for a lack of better terms) additions out and focus on the most canonically plausible stuff. I do not mean to offend with this, because I have another IchiRuki fanfiction coming up that will be different, to which I can also add slightly more outlandish ideas.

Without further ado, please enjoy.

EDIT: Fixed some typos, added a recap from the last chapter and just wanted to warn you that this chapter, intentionally, is in first person (Ichigo's) view.

*scratches head* I was a bit too tired when I finished the last few parts of this chapter and uploaded it, I apologise for that.

You'll.. have no choice in the matter.".

Ichigo's eyes spurred open even more, "!"

He's getting closer to me.. where is Tensa Zangetsu?

"I-impossible..", the helpless shinigami proclaimed as the infamous traitor of Soul Society, or at least his visage got closer to him by the second.

"Shatter.. Kyoka Suigetsu"

"Aizen! Don't!"

"If you are to reach your full potential again, you shall have to face the regrets that embedded themselves inside of your soul when you defeated me, which led to my sealing."

"Trade the rain for the white moon."

I did not quite understand what this avatar of Aizen was speaking about. I only knew my zanpakuto's oddly outspoken distaste for rain. I figured it was obvious that this was somehow connected to that, but who or what was this 'White Moon'? White? .. White..

..White..

My hollow? Impossible, he always served to make "the rain" worse in the many times he threatened me, in my past with him. This was a dispute that had long since been taken care of. In fact, back when we neared the conclusion of the 'Dangai Training'. Despite the "peace treaty", he could never be the secret avatar of my inner peace because every interaction with him in the past served to contradict that theory. It is true that both my hollow and Zangetsu were one and another, but that even made the theory of my hollow being this so called "White Moon" even more senseless.

So who was this.. "White Moon"?

I was puzzled and to make things worse, I suddenly had my zanpakuto, Zangetsu in its shikai state in my grip, whereas it was nowhere to be seen a mere minute ago. Were my senses to be trusted in this twisted, misleading and extremely warped dimension? Was this what I was even supposed to focus on.

"It wasn't", I told myself in resignation, an answer forced by the visage of what used to be, or was supposed to be my nemesis.

"So how do you want to do this, and why?", I knew this was not Aizen talking, but something at my mind yet tugged at the notion that this was somehow still hyper-realistic, much like this view of a wrecked Soul Society.

Surprisingly, he only neared while raising his Kyoka Suigetu threateningly.

"Shatter.. Kyoka"

I gasped and flash stepped out of the way with my new, superior speed, hiding behind the crumbled remains of a building. I was not sure whether or not 'complete hypnosis' actually worked in this dimension, since this Aizen was not real, but if it did, then it meant witnessing its release would mean the battle is over.

Only one real thought went through my mind:

I can not afford to take risks!

"Rikujokoro"

My eyes bulged at the sound and I turned around in shock to see the yellow beams closing in on me.

A split second lateness rendered me incapacitated. Damn it..

The force sent me to my knees, and it was as if I was impaled by these six rods of pure yellow, if not golden energy. I looked up and saw the perpetrator. I looked him in the eyes, and I was scared. I was not shivering like a child, but it was worse.

The emotions of the visage I deemed unreal not long ago seeped into me. It was as if this person loathed me.

The sound of his zanpakuto grinding over the ground screeched loudly into my ears and I grunted instinctively at it, all the while unable to look away.

"I despise you, Kurosaki Ichigo.", he stated resolutely as he lifted his sword and placed the tip of the blade to my forehead, but I didn't flinch. I shared the same emotions with him now, as he did with me a mere moment ago.

"I despise you for being so lax, for having potential and not using it. Many are stuck at their limit, but you are not. In fact, it may be because your power possesses no literal boundary that you remain so laid-back, acting as if you can afford to get yourself beaten up while you swing around a rusty blade."

I took a deep breath and looked sideways at my blade which i'd dropped when the rays of light impaled me. I tried to bent over and reach for it, against my greater knowledge, and as I anticipated, the rods of light lodged into my body stopped me from making the slightest movement in that direction.

I looked back at this fake version of Aizen with an intense scowl, but stopped trying to resist, analyzing him, and I realized a flaw in this Aizen, he was way too overcome by frustration.

"You don't know Kido, you barely know how to sense or hide your own reiatsu, you sported an imperfect, forced bankai for the longest time. What can you even do?", the man screamed, reminiscent to his desperation before his sealing, and once more I looked away.

Noticing my denial, he quickly added, "You only know how to look away when you are scared of facing the truth and rely on the powers you fear and ignore to save you!"

Against my will, my head sunk and my flaring orange hair came to conceal my eyes.

"That may be so.. I may not be particularly good at anything, I may not..", my body started glowing luminously and my hand gripped one of the beams as I looked up at this clone of Aizen with an intense expression, "- I may not be worthy of defeating anyone I have defeated thus far, and I may have feared a part of myself up until long ago.. But all I know is that if I can.. I WILL PROTECT!", my words resounded loudly the dimension as the six rays of light that held me a prisoner crackled and shattered under the combined weight of my grip and reiatsu.

With the kido prison shattered, I stood up and arched over, clenching my right fist as heavy reiatsu erupted from my form.

"Im.. possible..", the man said in shock, as his eyes widened.

The visage gritted his teeth and readied Kyoka Suigetsu but he didn't expect my attack, and he was sent flying through several ruined buildings from the punch alone, with his zanpakuto shattered from the impact of the hit.

Releasing a growl that basked an echo that very much possessed evident traces of my hollow side in them, I copied a move that he had shown in the fight against Ulquiorra, by reaching out my right hand to Zangetsu and recalling it to my grasp.

With my zanpakuto in my hands, I gave chase.

In a futile attempt to use Kyoka Suigetsu to block the strike from my shikai, "Aizen" slammed against the crackled remains of a wall, which broke at direct impact, leaving Aizen to tumble backwards and collapse, looking up in shame as I looked at him decisively, brandishing my shikai with both hands.

"Damn the luck..", this mock-Aizen said as his started to blur out and become transparent before unweaving and regressing to black energy that made a clear trail behind me, where my eyes met the silhouette of Tensa Zangetsu.

I looked down at what felt like an empty grip and found out that my zanpakuto was indeed gone.

The teenage representation of my soul clapped with the mixture of an arrogant grin and a soft smile, as far as I could spot because he was hiding most of his face under his trademark hood.

The reiatsu fully disappeared into Tensa Zangetsu's cloak and the aforementioned cloak straightened out and returned to its original shape.

"Well done, Ichigo. Now this was a rash reunion, but it is good to see you again", he stated as he raised his head, now clearly smiling at me with a paternal affection.

He then looked behind him and softly called out, "You can come out there, it's all over."

I blinked a few times in confusion, confusion that quickly cleared up as I noticed that a familiar pale person came closer to us, it was my alter ego.

"Yo, king! It's been a bit too long hasn't it?", he smirked as the reiatsu-mingled winds of the desolated Soul Society swept through his uncharacteristically long snow white hair.

I could not say his presence left me completely elated as it did when I saw Tensa Zangetsu again for the first time, but it felt relieving.

Then he reached to the side of his head, from which protruded two pitch black horns, he took them off and revealed that it was in fact a mask, the same I wore when I hollowfied after Ulquiorra had killed me.

"Oh, aren't you curious", he remarked with a wink as he noticed my quirked brows before he tossed the mask in my direction and I caught it after balancing the weight on my two hands a few times, commenting on the danger of the horns with faked anger much like I had back when I first met my hollow and Zangetsu threw a nondescript sword my way.

Tensa Zangetsu looked over at my bleached alter ego and quirked a single brow himself, "You're going to give him that? Are you really okay with that?", he followed up as he crossed two slender arms across eachother over his chest.

My hollow closed his eyes, arched over and just shrugged nonchalantly while his echoed voice tore through the dimension, "Yeah, well, I felt after that fight, that he kind of deserved it."

Focusing down at my mask while the two sides of mine seemed to argue with one another, which I didn't know because I wasn't listening to them, I noticed that the once black mask with white stripes was now in fact slowly turning into a white mask with black stripes.

The mask seemed to attract to me, as if it controlled me to put it on, I also looked cautiously at it and realized that there was a good reason my friends were frightened of this form because the skull-like structure and the added demonic horns made for a very menacing appearance.

Breaking out of my trance, I looked up at my hollow in confusion equal to that of my zanpakuto.

Shocked as I was, I stuttered..

"This is.."