Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, or its characters. Tite Kubo does. I do, however, own my OC Saika, and all of the other ones that were present in this story but are now mostly dead. Please don't use them without first asking me. Thanks.
Love Conquers All
Chapter 20: Laid to Rest
Byakuya stood stock-still for a few moments, trying to comprehend how what he had just been asked to do could possibly be a good thing.
"Now is not the time to act flippant, Ichigo Kurosaki," he finally managed to force out, with a definite undercurrent of menace in his voice, but the orange-haired Soul Reaper remained adamant.
"I'm not being flippant, Byakuya," he insisted, that infernally informal mode of address making a triumphant return.
"Don't you get it?" Ichigo continued. "All of this time, the fact that I'm still human has been putting a major restraint on my powers. If you get rid of it, I should be strong enough to defeat Aizen for good!"
Kuchiki frowned; the plan was simple, direct and might very well work, but it also carried some severe risks along with it.
"You do realize that if you go through with this, the odds are very high that you will lose all memories of your human life, including those of Rukia."
Kurosaki's brown eyes remained as determined as ever, but for the briefest of moments Byakuya could have sworn he saw a flicker of fear behind them before it was promptly squashed.
"I'm willing to take that risk, Byakuya," he shot back. "I would rather see Rukia alive and have no idea who she was than to have memories of a ghost and blood on my hands. Besides, there have been recorded cases of those who have held on to their memories after death, my sister among them. So there's still a chance, I'd remember her, and that enough for me, even if it's a slim one."
The elder Kuchiki almost smiled at Ichigo's determination, but held himself in check. Now was not the time for levity; there would be plenty of that once this chaos had passed them over.
"Have you also considered that raw power is not always the answer to every problem, Ichigo Kurosaki? Your potential, if it is not harnessed and controlled, will mean nothing in the face of Sosuke Aizen's honed skills."
"I know that, damn it!" the orange-haired Soul Reaper snapped back, before sighing and lowering his head slightly.
"Sorry," he apologized, "I didn't mean for it to come out like that. Look, Byakuya," Ichigo continued, his voice regaining its calm determination, "I know that what I'm planning on doing might strike you as crazy, but there're no other options and I'm running out of time. I just need you to trust me on this. Can you do that?"
The steely-eyed Kuchiki sighed; it wasn't that he didn't have faith in the kid; honestly, he found Kurosaki's power and potential both to be obscenely frightening. What bothered him was the prospect of not only killing his future brother-in-law, but possibly screwing it up somehow and having to face a heartbroken, wrathful Rukia as a consequence. That was an outcome he had absolutely no desire to deal with. Reluctantly drawing Senbonsakura, the Captain gave the younger Soul Reaper one last look.
"If this goes wrong, Ichigo Kurosaki…"
"… It was entirely my idea, and Rukia has no grounds for eviscerating you," Ichigo finished, smiling ruefully. "I gotcha covered, Byakuya. Just shut up and make it quick… preferably painless, as well. And, uh, throw up a barrier so that no one feels my reiatsu go out and starts to worry," he added hastily, drawing a bitter chuckle from the elder Kuchiki.
"Do not preoccupy yourself with such thoughts, Ichigo," he said calmly, and the brown-eyed Soul Reaper was stunned at the use of his first name,
"You won't feel a thing. Brace yourself, and count to three."
Ichigo took a deep breath as Byakuya erected a reiatsu-blocking barrier, and said his goodbyes to everyone he could think of as he did so. Once he was settled, the count began.
"One… two… th—"
Kurosaki was cut off before he finished the number three, a sense of lightness pervading his entire body and drowning out all of the pain. A spurt of blood left his body, but Ichigo didn't even feel it depart. Rather than grimace, a chuckle escaped his lips and he smiled at the man who now stood beside him, having executed the first half of a flawless senka.
"You sly bastard," he all-but whispered, before the strength in his limbs wilted and he slumped forward, eyes fluttering shut. Byakuya caught the Soul Reaper as he fell forward, laying his body down gently on the grass, face-up. One of the Captain's hands closed Ichigo's now-glassy eyes and he sighed, feeling like hell despite the orange-haired Soul Reaper's unending reassurances that everything would work out fine. Cutting down an opponent in battle was one thing, but this… it had felt akin to butchery, and it made Byakuya's soul heavy with unease.
Unfortunately for him, that weight was about to get much heavier. Byakuya had made the barrier to shield reiatsu from detection, but hadn't made it strong enough to fool a certain someone who was acutely attuned to Ichigo's reiatsu.
"Ichi-nii? Ichi-nii!"
Karin's exclamation of disbelief was muted by shock, but it nonetheless managed to rip sharply through the otherwise-still air. Byakuya was all but toppled to the ground as the frantic Soul Reaper rushed to her fallen brother's side, and after a few tense moments of silence Karin turned her dark eyes up to face the elder Kuchiki, fury smoldering deep within them.
"You…" she choked out, her voice strained. "You did this?! You bastard! Flash, Raitori!"
Byakuya knew that Kurosaki's bereaved sister was by no means in her right mind. When faced with this much raw, un-tempered power, however, he had no choice but to defend himself or become grievously injured.
"I was only fulfilling your brother's final request as a human, child," Kuchiki reasoned. "He felt no pain, and will soon return to us. Believe me when I say that I did not murder him."
"Liar!" Karin barked out, striking again and again only to be parried by the peerless grace of Senbonsakura; Raitori's blows were like mighty waves traveling a long distance before crashing on the shore at long last, beginning flush with power, ending broken and impotent. What Karin lacked in skill, however, she more than made up for in rage and persistence. As Byakuya felt his guard begin to grind down and waver, pride and anger began to well up from within him.
"If you do not cease with this insulting barrage, child," he spoke harshly through teeth grit in concentration, "I will be forced to actually fight back."
"Good," Karin retorted brusquely as their blades clashed once more. "I'd hate to kill someone who wasn't fighting me at full strength! Kuro Shiden!"
Senbonsakura broke apart reflexively and blocked the bolt of black lightning, the attack bringing back more than a few unpleasant memories of the elder Kuchiki's duel with the unchained monstrosity that was Ichigo's Inner Hollow atop the Soukyoku Hill. Karin lunged into the gap created by the scattering blades, and it was only thanks to a last-second flash-step that Kuchiki was able to avoid being skewered. Byakuya was hit inexplicably with the sudden feeling that somewhere, Sosuke Aizen was laughing like a madman.
Determined to bring a stop to this fruitless quarrel, the Captain set his feet and pushed back as he blocked the next strike, sending his opponent reeling backwards.
"Bakudo number 1: Sai."
The additional loss of balance caused by the binding of her arms sent Karin tumbling to the ground, her zanpakuto slipping out of her grip with a clatter. Deeming the battle finished, Byakuya sheathed his zanpakuto and turned his back to the young Kurosaki, walking away with slightly shaky steps as the events of the last few minutes finally crashed down on him.
The dark-eyed Soul Reaper watched her enemy walking away calmly, past the now-paling body of her brother, and felt her reiatsu yearning to break free of its constraints. Anger clouding her judgment, Karin had no qualms about letting it loose. Concentrating as hard as she could, the dark-eyed Kurosaki pushed out against the kido holding her down, and felt it beginning to creak and strain under the pressure. A few moments later it shattered, and Karin's eyes narrowed to slits. Flash-stepping over to Raitori, the furious Soul Reaper re-cloaked her reiatsu, readied her sword and charged towards the unprotected back of Byakuya Kuchiki right as the Captain in question was turning around, having felt the destruction of his bakudo. His eyes widened in shock as he saw the point of the blade barreling down towards his open and vulnerable side.
Right before the blade would have struck home, however, Byakuya felt himself be thrown several feet backwards by a powerful blast of reiatsu. He expected to have been scorched by something of that intensity, or at least marred in some way, but when he looked down there wasn't a mark on him from the energy burst. Turning his gaze straight ahead, Kuchiki saw nothing more than a roiling dust cloud, one that was now rapidly dissipating. In its wake, it revealed a sight that made Byakuya feel genuinely relieved for the first time in a while.
The blade of Karin Kurosaki's zanpakuto was being held tightly in a strong, battle-worn hand, and the figure's other arm was wrapped strongly around her waist, pulling the young Soul Reaper into a gentle, yet firm embrace. The huge blade of Zangetsu took up a huge portion of the newcomer's back, and a bright shock of orange hair sat atop the imposing figure's head.
Ichigo bent down so that his face was on the same level as his sister's and whispered into her ear, glad that she couldn't see the sorrow carved into his face over his failure to have prevented a fight like this from breaking out to begin with.
"It's all right, Karin," he said gently. "I'm right here."
The sudden warm, comforting contact broke through the young Kurosaki's rage and stole away her bloodlust, making her knees weak and causing her to slump into her older brother's arms, crying quietly but fiercely.
"I… I thought you'd left me, Ichi-nii," she managed to choke out. "I thought you weren't coming back this time, just like… just like…"
"Shhh." Ichigo cut off the unspoken 'Mom' with a reassuring whisper, waiting for the tears to stop flowing before he spoke again.
"I'm not going to leave you, Karin," he said with the resolution of a blood oath. "Not now, and certainly not for a long time to come. I promise."
His middle sister stepped back from the embrace, her eyes red and slightly puffy. Blinking, she fixed Ichigo with an attempt at her normally commanding stare that almost made her brother chuckle just a little bit at how silly it looked right then.
"I'm going to hold you to that promise, Ichi-nii," she said firmly, and at that the orange-haired Soul Reaper did laugh, reaching out and ruffling her hair.
"I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Karin. Now go get yourself straightened out, before Toshiro thinks I made you cry and tries to freeze my arms off!"
Smiling weakly, the dark-eyed Kurosaki nodded and flashed away. Sighing and shaking his head, Ichigo turned to face his current teacher and smirked.
"What's gotten into you, Byakuya?" he jibed. "How'd you let yourself get beaten by my little sister?!"
The Kuchiki noble bit back the urge to unleash his bankai, instead forcing himself to be relieved that it seemed like, by some minor miracle, Ichigo Kurosaki had managed to retain his memories.
"For your information, boy," he spat back indignantly, "I wasn't even trying. If I had been, I probably would have killed her. And secondly," he said, his voice rising slightly in intensity before he paused, as Ichigo put his hand reflexively on Zangetsu's hilt and began to draw it,
"It is good to see you made it back safely," the noble finished, his tone calm and even slightly amused as he watched his student react to the fake-out by dropping his sword and turning red with embarrassment and anger.
"Don't do that, Byakuya!" he shouted. "I thought you were going to fight me, damn it!"
"Yes," the elder Kuchiki replied, "that was the point. Or has your transformation robbed you of what few brains you possessed beforehand?" he asked, a smirk gracing his face.
Ichigo went from red with embarrassment to near-purple with rage.
"Why you little…" he seethed, before picking Zangetsu back up and charging. He was so intent on carving the smirk from Byakuya's face that he didn't notice the noble's smile widening, or his hand as it rose up, prepared to cast a kido.
"Bakudo number 81: Danku."
As the Captain expected, Ichigo ran right into the barrier and flattened up against it, groaning pitifully before sliding down it and falling to the ground with a thud. Kuchiki couldn't help himself, and gave a small chuckle.
"On your feet, Ichigo Kurosaki," he said sharply. "Clearly, I need to pound as much kido as I can into you in the next two-and-a-half hours, or you won't stand a chance against Aizen."
"I hate you so much…" Ichigo hissed as he rose to his feet, using Zangetsu as a support at first before standing up straight and tensing his muscles back into coordination. Byakuya made a small sound of approval and flashed away, with his student hot on his heels. As he cooled down from his flash-step and waited for Ichigo to appear, Byakuya allowed himself a small shudder: when he had charged at him earlier, Kurosaki's raw reiatsu had far exceeded that of every Captain, save maybe Kenpachi Zaraki at full strength using kendo or Jushiro and Shunsui when they got really serious. And that outburst had been purely instinctive, without anything to hone or focus it:
Once he trained enough in this new form, Ichigo Kurosaki's potential power level was both astonishing and horrifying. All Byakuya had to do was get him even somewhat close to that level in the next few hours, and maybe, just maybe, the Soul Reapers stood a chance of bringing down Aizen once and for all.
Rukia assumed it was safe to call this the most awkward silence ever. Aizen sat on the grass, cross-legged, with his zanpakuto resting across his knees and his eyes shut calmly. If not for the gentle humming of the sword before him, it might have been easy for an observer to think that Sosuke had fallen asleep; it was clear to Rukia, however, that he was in the middle of a deep conversation with his zanpakuto. And as much as Kuchiki wanted to interrupt, the fact remained that being pulled out of one's Spirit World prematurely was a very jarring experience, and if there was one thing she did not want to have to deal with it was a pissed-off Sosuke Aizen.
And so Rukia Kuchiki remained silent, until the sword ceased to hum and Aizen stood up with a stretch and a sigh, seeming oddly drained. Unable to keep her curiosity in check any longer, the violet-eyed Soul Reaper took the plunge and asked her captor a question.
"What was that all about back there? Are you planning something with your zanpakuto?" she spoke accusingly, trying to wheedle something out of Sosuke that she could use to turn this situation around. Aizen didn't seem very worried about the possibility of such turnabout, and chuckled as he answered.
"You could say that," he answered cryptically. "One should never commit to a major tactical endeavor without first establishing a contingency plan."
Rukia struggled mightily against the restraints of the rikujokoro, stopping only as she felt the rods of light tearing into her flesh.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Sosuke cautioned with infuriating politeness. "Wouldn't want you dying before that boy gets here, now would we? That would just be sad," he finished, his patronizing smirk making Rukia writhe even more until she realized what she was doing and calmed down, glaring daggers of pure hatred at her captor.
"That's more like it," Aizen mocked, and the young Kuchiki spat up a thin stream of blood at his feet with a growl.
"Screw you."
The traitor Captain just chuckled, turning his attention away from tormenting his prisoner and towards warming up his kido. As Rukia watched, petrified at the power the man before her was exuding, she, too, attempted to turn her mind away from the present situation. Closing her eyes, the violet-eyed Soul Reaper dove headfirst into her Spirit World, expecting to land in a comforting bank of snow.
Instead, the young Kuchiki was greeted with a surprise as she found herself diving headfirst into a very, very cold body of water. Centering herself as quickly as she could, Rukia swam up to the surface and raised her head out of the water, trying to figure out just what was going on. The sight that greeted her made her eyes go wide in shock.
The normally placid world of ice and snow was thawing, breaking off into ice floes and floating icebergs as glaciers sheared off slice by slice.
"What in the name of…" the Soul Reaper began, but an annoyed, sharp voice cut her off.
"I hope you can swim, Rukia."
The young Kuchiki hurriedly wiped a wet strand of hair from her eyes and looked up, only to behold a disheveled and quite disgruntled Sode no Shirayuki. Her spirit, Rukia noticed, was also missing her right hand. Concentrating, Rukia managed to propel herself out of the water and land gracefully next to her spirit, before slipping on the ice and falling on her ass much less gracefully. As she quickly adjusted into a sitting position with a huff, the spirit next to her laughed airily while sitting down next to her mistress.
"Some things will never change," she opined, but the young Kuchiki didn't answer, instead looking forlornly off into the horizon. After a few moments of silence, Sode no Shirayuki reached over and smacked Rukia on the back of the head, evoking a strangled shout from the Soul Reaper as she quickly turned and frowned at her zanpakuto spirit.
"What the hell was that for?" she demanded, but the white-clad lady just shrugged.
"Your mood was rubbing off on me."
The young Kuchiki sputtered ineffectually for a few moments before swallowing her anger and returning her eyes to the horizon, seemingly resigned to the fractured state of her Spirit World. Sode no Shirayuki watched her mistress for a few more moments with a sad, maternal look on her face, before reaching over and putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Come, Rukia," she said gently. "I have something to show you."
The violet-eyed Soul Reaper nodded mutely, barely even reacting as the scenery shifted around her, changing into a sliver of one of her memories. As Rukia realized where she was, however, she jolted back to life like someone had just stabbed her.
She was back in Hueco Mundo, watching herself battling with Aaroniero Arreruie, the monstrosity of an Espada that had dared to impersonate Kaien-dono. She looked over at Sode no Shirayuki, expecting some kind of reasoning behind bringing her back to this moment. All the spirit did, however, was point towards the ongoing duel, her eyes focused and cold.
"Watch," she commanded. "I have brought you here for a reason, Rukia, but it is your task to figure out what that reason is."
The young Kuchiki obediently redirected her gaze, observing the duel with a surreal sense of detachment and subconsciously running her good hand over one of the spots that Nejibana had pierced.
"Kido without the incantation?" 'Kaien' was saying. "I must admit, I'm impressed. But still, that won't be enough to defeat me…"
The sunlight poured through the opening left in the wall, forcing the Espada to jump up to darker, higher ground. Rukia could see the wheels turning in her head, and a few moments later she saw the coils of yellow energy appear around her hands.
"Bakudo number 4: Hainawa!"
The ropes shot out and bound 'Kaien', who struggled against them in vain.
"What good do you think that will do, Kuchiki?" he shouted. Rukia saw herself ignoring the ranting Gillian, instead setting up her double incantation.
"Bakudo number 61: Rikujokoro!"
Immediately afterwards, she let the hammer drop.
"Hado number 73: Soren Sokatsui!"
Rukia watched herself pull off a flawless double incantation with no small amount of pride, but as the Ninth Espada revealed his true form and began to speak, her look of admiration shifted into one of shock. As understanding finally dawned on her, Sode no Shirayuki smiled.
"Now she gets it," the spirit said to herself, while Rukia's mouth began to twitch up into the beginnings of a smile as she saw her nemesis begin to take action.
"He breaks out of it…" she mumbled, taking perverse excitement at seeing her enemy destroy her own trap. "He breaks out of it!" she repeated, joy seeping into the edges of her voice, mixed with genuine hope. Turning to Sode no Shirayuki, the young Kuchiki's eyes flashed with newfound determination.
"How did he do that?" she asked, her voice strong once again. "Can you tell me?"
"Stop asking questions you already know the answers to, Kuchiki," another voice spoke out, and Rukia spun around to face the speaker before freezing in her tracks.
"K—Kaien-dono?" she breathed out, before smacking herself mentally in the face. No way was she falling for this trick again. Drawing her zanpakuto, the Kuchiki princess charged at the form of her former mentor and swung the blade down, focusing as hard as she could on cutting through the impostor's neck. She closed her eyes as she did so, not wanting to see herself complete the deed, but when she opened them again she found that her zanpakuto had stopped cold against Kaien's neck. A thin trickle of blood running down his flesh, and nothing more.
"Why?" Rukia shouted, turning a wrathful gaze on her zanpakuto's spirit. "Why did you stop!?"
"Because I called him here, you silly girl," Sode no Shirayuki answered haughtily, "and he wouldn't do you much good decapitated, now would he?"
Rukia stood stock-still, her eyes shifting back and forth between her zanpakuto's spirit and the… thing that she claimed was really Kaien Shiba.
"But… but he's…"
"Over there?" Kaien finished, pointing to where the phantasm of the Ninth Espada had been just moments before, the space now empty and the memory fading away, leaving the trio standing in the middle of Rukia's Spirit World once again. The violet-eyed Soul Reaper stared up into the face of her mentor in disbelief, seeing the warmth in his eyes that had been so noticeably lacking in the expression of the Ninth Espada. Overwhelmed by emotion, her sword dropped from her hand and she fell to her knees, unable to weep but shaking nonetheless. Kaien sighed heavily, gently lifting Rukia to her feet and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"I've really done a number on ya, haven't I, Kuchiki?" he said softly. "I'm so sorry."
"How…?" she managed to mutter, pulling back from him and looking up into his sea-green eyes.
"Didn't I tell you before?" Shiba answered with a chuckle. "I left my heart here with you, remember?"
Rukia stood still for a few heartbeats, before knitting her eyebrows into a frown, jumping up and belting Kaien across the face.
"Damn it, don't do that!" she shouted, her eyes narrowed with anger. "Stop screwing with me!"
Rather than be shocked, however, Kaien just laughed as he rubbed his now-tender jaw.
"Well now, it looks like you've finally gotten a left hook down, Kuchiki," he said jovially. "It only took you, what, 25 years?"
The longer she looked at him, the more Rukia felt her resistance crumbling against her will. Determined to overcome her last great weakness, she faced down the image of Kaien Shiba and spoke, her voice as hard as the ice she commanded in battle.
"Prove it."
The former Lieutenant arched a quizzical eyebrow.
"What?"
"Prove it," the young Kuchiki repeated. "Prove to me that you're really Kaien-dono, or this time I'll kill you and you'll stay dead."
Kaien smirked, his eyes twinkling with the mischievous streak Rukia knew all-too-well.
"Are you sure you want to go there, Kuchiki?" he asked slyly, and Rukia met the question with a resolute nod.
"All right," Shiba sighed, "but don't say I didn't warn you. Here goes:
"Your name is Rukia Kuchiki, adopted sister of Byakuya Kuchiki of the noble house of the same name. When you fight one-handed, it's not just to leave one hand free for kido, but also to hide a shaking tick you have in your left hand that shows up under pressure. You have absolutely abysmal drawing skills,"
Here Rukia's left eye twitched, but finding nothing to chuck at the man in front of her she let him continue unharmed.
"Your obsession with bunny rabbits is frankly alarming, you once told me that if faced with the choice between being a Kuchiki and never being able to eat tuna sushi again or returning to being a street rat, you would go back to the Rukongai in a heartbeat, and finally," he finished with a flourish, looking into Rukia's now-stunned expression with a joyful glint of malice in his eyes,
"You're secretly deathly afraid of clowns!"
Rukia's jaw dropped open slightly, her eyes now the size of dinner plates as she staggered a few steps backwards.
"There's… there's no way you could know that, unless…"
"Unless what?" Kaien parried, his warm smile resurfacing. "I am who I say I am? Why would that be so surprising, Kuchiki?"
The violet-eyed Soul Reaper maintained her look of surprise for another moment, before shifting back into anger yet again.
"You idiot!" she shouted, lunging again as she smacked Kaien across the face with the back of her hand. "I thought I made you swear never to speak of that again!"
"Geez, Kuchiki, I'm sorry," Shiba replied defensively, "but it's really your fault for challenging me. How else did you expect me to prove that I was who I said I was? Don't worry, though," he added, the glint back in his eyes, "I promise not to tell Ichigo."
Rukia went from furious to blushing, her frown taking on a much more embarrassed look.
"You'd better not," she threatened in a low voice, a small smile on her face nonetheless, "or I'll beat the crap out of you."
"I don't doubt it," Kaien said with another chuckle, before his gaze turned serious.
"You've really grown up, kid," he said. "I'm proud of you."
"Thanks," Rukia replied, before she, too, became as focused as the blade of her zanpakuto.
"But I doubt you came here just to say 'hi', Kaien-dono," she continued, "so why are you here?"
"I thought you'd be more likely to listen to him than to me, as sad as that is," Sode no Shirayuki butted in, breaking her long silence. "It's not like I'm part of your soul, or anything," she finished with a very Rukia-like huff, crossing her arms and looking pointedly away from her mistress. The young Kuchiki wondered for a moment if she was really that uppity, before shaking those thoughts away and turning back to Kaien.
"You said earlier that I already knew how that… monster broke out of my Rikujokoro," she recalled. "What did you mean?"
Kaien gave her a confused look.
"What do you mean, 'What did you mean,' Kuchiki?" he repeated, know just how much rephrasing questions annoyed his former student. "Exactly what it sounded like. You already know how that Espada broke free, you just have to look for the answer. I'll give you a hint, because we don't have time to drag this out: how did Kurosaki break out of that kido the first night you met him?"
Rukia paused to think it over, remembering just how infuriating it had been to see that brown-eyed, orange-haired human boy break out of her bakudo with sheer strength alone. She remembered just how much determination had shone in his eyes, his desire to protect his family superceding everything, even his own survival. As she realized the answer, her face brightened for the second time and she flashed a grin that would have made Yoruichi proud.
"Willpower," she said, half-to-herself. "Of course; why didn't I think of that sooner? All it takes is the strength to let your fear fade into the background, and all of those obstacles just…"
"Disappear," Kaien finished, a goofy grin on his face as he, and the rest of Rukia's Spirit World, began to turn hazy and melt away. The young Kuchiki tried to reach out and grab hold of her former mentor, but she wound up charging right through him.
"No," she gasped, "don't go…"
"Relax, Kuchiki," Kaien said as he blurred even further. "I'll always be here if you want to talk, but to be honest," the green-eyed Shiba finished with a more rueful smile, "I think there's someone else waiting for you, and he's a much better companion than a dead guy."
Rukia smiled sadly and nodded, unable to keep a single tear from rolling down her cheek as she realized it was time to let Kaien really and truly rest in peace.
"Thank you for everything, Kaien-dono," she said with a voice strained by unshed tears, and the former Lieutenant just chuckled as he faded away completely.
"Silly girl," he said, "you don't have to thank me."
The violet-eyed Soul Reaper closed her eyes, feeling the pulling sensation that marked her ejection from her Spirit World. When she opened them, Rukia found herself back in the plain with Aizen, but she noticed with satisfaction that strength had flooded back into her limbs, and she felt like she could shatter this bakudo with just one hand. Which was a good thing, because she only had one hand at the moment. When this was over, she would have to ask Inoue to fix that.
It was tempting to just try to break out of her prison right now, but Rukia forced that notion out of her mind; not only would it be silly to pull out her hidden ace right now, but Aizen would just re-capture her and her advantage would have been wasted. No, she would wait for Ichigo to show up, and then make her move.
Hurry up, Ichigo, she thought with a small smile, I can't wait for your lazy ass forever.
A few miles away, Ichigo broke of a hado incantation with a sneeze, and Byakuya frowned.
"What was that, Ichigo Kurosaki?"
"Nothing," the newly-christened Soul Reaper replied casually. "Probably just Rukia thinking about me."
Byakuya snorted in distaste.
"Don't flatter yourself, boy," he shot back, noting with hidden smugness that Ichigo quickly shifted from nonchalant to furious. He really was too easy to manipulate, but at the same time, that also made him easier to train.
"You…" Ichigo growled, raising his hand once more, and this time with actual killing intent behind it.
"Hado number 4: Byakurai!"
The elder Kuchiki gave a curt laugh, stopping the kido with the palm of his hand, to the shock and immense irritation of his student.
"First," the teacher began in his imperious tone, "you do not have the luxury of wasting time perfecting low-level spells. Such a weak hado would only damage Aizen at the pinnacle of its power, and you are far from that level. Second," he continued, "did you seriously think that hado could ever harm me? I have used it countless times in battle, and know the structure of it as well as I know the back of my hand. To think you could so much as scratch me with it is only further proof of your appalling arrogance, Ichigo Kurosaki."
The orange-haired warrior sputtered ineffectually for a moment before turning apoplectic with rage.
"You want a scratch, Byakuya?" he fumed. "Fine, I'll give you a scratch! Hado number 63: Raikoho!"
The Captain's eyes widened in shock as the blast of lightning raced towards him; he had only showed that incantation to Kurosaki once as an example of a high-level hado, and he could already cast it with a bypass? Impossible!
Byakuya readied himself to block the blast, but was never given the chance to as a barrier suddenly appeared between himself and the attack.
"Bakudo number 81: Danku," Ulquiorra's voice said evenly, and as soon as the smoke from the collision had wafted away Kuchiki turned a glare onto the former Espada.
"What gives you the right to interfere, Ulquiorra?" he asked, his voice equally as composed but also glinting with a sharpness lacking in Schiffer's.
"Expediency," was the terse reply from the green-eyed Soul Reaper. "It is obvious to me that Ichigo Kurosaki's reiatsu, vastly increased though it may now be, is still woefully untamed. To attempt to contain such a tempest in this short a span of time is nothing short of suicidal folly."
Ichigo bristled at that, whirling around to face his former nemesis.
"Who went and made you kido expert, Ulquiorra?" he blustered. "You've been a Soul Reaper for all of what, a week and a half?"
"One does not go through being subjected to so much kido and not emerge knowing its intricacies, Ichigo Kurosaki," the former Espada replied contemptuously. "To challenge my power in this field, or insinuate that a neophyte such as yourself could ever hope to surpass me, simply proves that you possess an appalling level of arrogance."
Ichigo cocked an eyebrow in surprise, before turning to his steely-eyed teacher and smirking.
"Wow, Byakuya," he said amusedly, "you never told me you had a twin."
"Silence, boy," both Schiffer and Kuchiki said in unison, before looking at each other with murderously narrowed eyes. After a few tense moments, Ulquiorra broke off his gaze and returned his focus to Ichigo.
"As I was saying," the green-eyed Soul Reaper resumed as if the confrontation with his newfound rival had never occurred, "for you to attempt to obtain knowledge of the upper extremities of kido in what scant time we possess is foolish."
"Then what would you propose, Ulquiorra?" Ichigo said sharply, but was surprised when a different voice answered him.
"Hanki."
Ichigo turned and found himself staring into a pair of warm, but determined golden eyes.
"Yoruichi…" he began, but the Shihoin princess cut him off.
"You didn't think I'd just let someone else teach you my specialty and take all the credit once you beat Aizen to a pulp, did ya?" she asked with a grin, before putting on the serious 'Teacher Face' that Ichigo knew so well from his days training to obtain his bankai. It was an expression that left no room to doubt her seriousness, and Ichigo promptly shut up and began to listen.
"Ulquiorra's right," the former Second Division Captain spoke, "we can't teach you the upper-level kido this quickly. What I can teach you, though, is the way to nullify Aizen's kido spells. He'll try to play to your deficiencies, but if you can remove his ability to utilize kido altogether, you'll be that much closer to evening out the odds."
Ichigo spoke up, his voice impatient.
"So this thing you're going to teach me cancels out kido. All right, I get it," he snapped. "Just tell me when we start!"
Yoruichi rolled her eyes and glanced to the men on either side of her, as if to ask 'Would you like to do the honors?'. They both tacitly declined, though, and a feline grin split Yoruichi's face.
"Right now, Ichigo!" she called out, a ball of yellow energy forming in her right hand as she lunged. Kurosaki was caught completely off-guard and raised his arms in a pitiful attempt at a guard, his reward being a stinging sensation that lanced up both of his arms and back down again as the spell struck its target. The strike threw Ichigo backwards, his feet leaving tracks in the dirt.
"What the hell, Yoruichi?" he shouted. "I wasn't ready for that!"
"Then maybe you should try listening to the whole explanation before charging into things, you idiot!" the Shihoin princess shot back, and Ichigo let those words sink in before bowing his head, chastised.
"I'm sorry," he said seriously. "Please, continue."
"Very well," Yoruichi said, rolling her head on her neck to stretch out the joints before continuing, while Byakuya and Ulquiorra flashed away to begin dueling, under the pretext of 'warming up for the coming battle.'
"Hanki is simple in principle; the trouble is in the execution. What it consists of is countering the energy of a kido spell with energy of the exact same potency and flow, but the flow has to be running in exactly the opposite direction, or you're screwed. The backspin is the hardest thing to get down, which is why it's what we're going to start with."
Ichigo nodded, the determination in his eyes palpable.
"Fair enough; let's do this."
Yoruichi nodded, silently in awe of the newfound power her pupil was exuding. Where it had once been chaotic, as the sense of purpose settled over Ichigo he had subconsciously focused his entire being on mastering this new challenge, and his reiatsu had followed suit. As he stood before her now, calm, composed and deadly serious, he could have just as easily been wearing a Captain's haori and Yoruichi wouldn't have even blinked.
"Oi, Yoruichi!"
The golden-eyed Shihoin started out of her thoughts, shaking her head to regain her bearings.
"You all right?"
She nodded hastily, righting herself immediately and exhaling.
"Okay, the first thing I need you to do is call up a small orb of raw kido energy, not tethered to any specific spell. I need you to control its size enough to have it fit in the palm of your hand."
Ichigo blanched at that, remembering the time when he almost tore the Shiba household apart trying to summon raw kido energy. Yoruichi noticed his apprehension and sighed; now wasn't the time to worry about messing something up.
"Look, Ichigo," she counseled, "think about it this way; tapping into your raw spiritual energy to harness energy for kido is like diving towards a big black pool of power, right?"
Kurosaki nodded, remembering similar words that Ganju Shiba had told him what felt like a lifetime ago.
"Okay, so think of this like that, except instead diving straight into the blackness, walk up to it first and put one of your feet in."
The brown-eyed Soul Reaper closed his eyes and took a breath in, visualizing the pool of blackness and opening his eyes to see it in front of him, the real world having segued into the spiritual one. Steeling his resolve one last time, Ichigo began to stride confidently towards the whirling maelstrom of energy. As he approached it, he reached out with two fingers and broached the surface.
The effect was electric; the power flowed into the Soul Reaper and he drank it in like a parched man who had just stumbled across an oasis in the middle of the desert. He felt himself rising higher and higher, until he remembered Yoruichi's instructions and forced the power to bend to his will, keeping it contained to his hand instead of letting it flow throughout his entire body. Once he had achieved that, he 'blinked' and found himself back in the Soul Society, a concentrated orb of white spiritual energy floating in the palm of his hand.
"Hey, Yoruichi, look!" he called out. "I did it!" When he didn't hear a response from his teacher, Ichigo shifted his eyes upward from his hand and gasped.
The golden-eyed princess was standing there with extremely dilated pupils, sweat beading on her forehead as she struggled to breathe.
"Um, Yoruichi?" Ichigo asked hesitantly, "Are you O.K.?"
"I'll be fine," she gasped out, as a few of the Captains flash-stepped out to join them, hands on their zanpakuto hilts and prepared to draw.
"What was that just now?" Ukitake asked. "It felt like an Adjuchas, at the very least!"
"Relax, Jushiro," Yoruichi said between labored breaths. "It was just Ichigo."
The white-haired Captain stared at the brown-eyed Soul Reaper in shock while Urahara raced over to brace Yoruichi.
"What did you do, Ichigo?" Ukitake asked, and Ichigo put his hands out defensively.
"I have no idea!" he said. "I was just tapping into my spiritual energy like Yoruichi told me to, and the next thing I know she's paralyzed!"
Jushiro's eyes widened in awe, and he struggled to keep his voice level. There was no way that this kid…
"Ichigo," he began as calmly as he could, "if you had to say on a scale of one to ten how much of your power you tapped into, what would you say?"
Kurosaki stood in thought, remembering how it hadn't felt that taxing when he'd tapped into the pool of blackness. Instead, it had felt nothing short of exhilarating. He hadn't even broken a sweat, come to think of it.
"I dunno," he said, thinking. "Maybe about… one-and-a-half?"
Ukitake temporarily lost the ability to speak altogether. Had he just heard right? Ichigo, exercising a little over ten percent of his reiatsu, was able to thoroughly paralyze a Soul Reaper of Captain class? What the hell was this kid?
"Yoruichi," Shunsui filled in for his friend, "something tells me you won't be needing to teach Ichigo Hanki after all. Teach him how to tap into his Spiritual Energy without entering a meditative state and Aizen will have quite the fight on his hands, kido or no."
"Good thing, too," Soi Fon spoke up, Grimmjow at her side. "We're almost out of time. He's got a half an hour to get ready before the duel starts."
Ichigo's look of slight apprehensiveness over just how surprised everyone seemed by his level of power quickly faded when he heard Soi Fon's proclamation.
"Well, then," he said, "it looks like we don't have any time to waste. Who wants to teach me how to control this thing?"
Ukitake was about to step up, but a smooth voice from off to his side cut in instead.
"I'll do it," Urahara said as he stepped forward, having eased Yoruichi out of her paralysis. "You need to make sure everyone knows what their role is once the battle starts, Captain Ukitake, and Captain Kyoraku is on perimeter patrol duty, if I recall correctly."
Jushiro nodded his assent, and Shunsui muttered something that sounded oddly like 'snitch' before flashing away to patrol around the Shiba household, ready to sound off if Aizen made his move sooner than anticipated. The other Captains followed Ulquiorra and Byakuya's lead, sparring lightly to sharpen their skills before the battle. Soon all of the other Soul Reapers had followed their superiors' example, and Ichigo and Kisuke were forced to flash away to somewhere they would be undisturbed. Once they had picked a spot, Urahara sat down cross-legged on the grass and closed his eyes. Kurosaki paused, hesitating to follow the blond-haired man's lead until the Captain spoke out to him, not opening his eyes.
"Aren't you going to have a seat, Kurosaki-san? The more anchored you are physically, the easier it is to not worry about maintaining the state of your body as much and focusing instead on your spiritual power."
The orange-haired Soul Reaper shrugged and sat down, starting to close his eyes before Kisuke stopped him with a word.
"The first thing we need to do is establish a link between your energy well and the physical world. I want you to concentrate as hard as you can on my voice, Kurosaki-san; when you think you have a good enough grip on it, then, and only then, do I want you to enter the part of your soul that holds your raw spiritual energy."
Ichigo tried as best he could to block out everything except the sound of the soft, rhythmic chant that Urahara had taken up, which wasn't easy when he could feel the flaring reiatsu of Captains and Lieutenants all around him and hear the clanging of their weapons in the distance. After several moments of focusing, though, the brown-eyed Soul Reaper felt confident enough that Kisuke's voice wouldn't fade even if he segued into his energy well, and closed his eyes. Soon enough he was facing the swirling black pool again, and this time he heard the Captain's almost sing-song lilt come in from all around him, as if it had been fed into some kind of spiritual speaker system.
"Can you hear my voice, Kurosaki-san?" he asked, putting just enough stress on the honorific to get on Ichigo's nerves.
"Loud and clear, Hat-n-Clogs," he answered back. "I'm ready when you are."
The jovial lightness left Urahara's voice immediately, the sudden shift making Ichigo reflexively tense.
"Very well," the Captain said. "We've succeeded in establishing a bridge of sorts from the physical world into your spiritual energy well. Now it's time for the hard part: making the path from there back out into the physical world and keeping it stable. This is what allows Soul Reapers to boost and lower their reiatsu at will, and to various levels of power as well, rather than just the extremes you might have been accustomed to as a human. Let me know when you're ready, Kurosaki-san."
"I thought I just told you I was ready, Urahara," Ichigo all-but growled back, and Kisuke's voice took on a decidedly defensive tone.
"Okay, okay; jeez," he muttered back, "try to have at least a smidgen of patience. All right, Ichigo," he continued, his voice returning to normal, "here's what I need you to do. Focus on leaving your energy well behind and entering back into the physical world, but stop before you come all the way back."
The orange-haired Soul Reaper connected the dots and smiled, his confidence returning full-force with more than a little bit of cockiness.
"You want me to stay in-between the two, and then make a pathway with the raw energy connecting them together, right?"
"Exactly so, Kurosaki-san!" the Captain erupted, his gaiety making a triumphant resurgence. "Do you think you're up to it?" he added, adding a sly note of challenge to his voice that he knew Ichigo wouldn't be able to resist.
Ichigo just chuckled.
"Of course," he replied strongly. "Besides, it's not like I have time to waste with those kinds of questions!"
"Then show me," Kisuke parried, and the brown-eyed Soul Reaper concentrated, keeping his eyes open this time to better discern where the border between the worlds happened to lie. When he reached a point where he could see himself on one side, sitting as if asleep, and the whirling pool of his spiritual energy on the other side, Ichigo knew he had found the sweet spot. Now the tricky stage began: dragging that untamed energy towards him and compelling it to form a fluid, but stable link between his physical body and the rest of his spiritual energy.
At first he tried treating it like he had learning Zangetsu's name, almost courting the energy in a game of give and take, waiting for some grand epiphany to strike when the energy would coalesce. After several minutes of almost-successes and frustrating slip-ups so tantalizingly close to getting a grip on the energy, Ichigo was about ready to start tearing his hair out at the roots when a scathing voice sounded from out of nowhere.
"Are you fucking kidding me, King? This is the best you can do?"
Ichigo's head snapped around so hard he almost gave himself whiplash, his brown eyes soon locking on a pair of vicious black-and-yellow ones.
"What the hell are you doing here?" the Soul Reaper asked, more exasperated than angry. Whenever his Inner Hollow showed up unbidden, it was almost always a sign that he had something demeaning to sling Ichigo's way.
This time would apparently be no different.
"I was just sick of sitting around and watching you waste our time," he spat back. "In case you haven't been paying attention, King, we only have 10 minutes before our duel with that bastard Aizen, and I'll be damned if I go down with you just 'cause you were too fucking stupid to get this one thing right."
Ichigo bit back a snarl; now was definitely not the time to get into a drawn out argument with this bastard.
"Then what do you propose I do about it?" he asked sharply. "In case you haven't noticed, spewing insults at me doesn't really help!"
"Stop treating this like it's some kind of mystical process, King," the Hollow spoke out. "All this time, it's like you've been sitting around waiting for the right catalyst to come along that miraculously gets you out of whatever jam you've gotten your stupid ass into. This isn't like that, King. You can't just stand there and wait for the energy to come to you," the Hollow continued, walking over to the whirling vortex and sticking his hand out over it.
"You have to take it!"
With that, the Hollow pulled his hand upward sharply and the dark substance followed it like a dog on a leash, swaying back and forth as the Hollow shifted his hand. It was completely and utterly under his control: the Hollow had dominated it.
"Do you get it now, King? Or should I just take over from here and go rescue Rukia from that scumbag myself? I'm sure she'd enjoy me much more than you, if you catch my drift," he finished, his wicked grin turning salacious as Ichigo felt himself get sick deep in the pit of his stomach. Using that revolting possibility to motivate himself even further, Kurosaki beamed a vicious grin at his evil counterpart.
"Not a chance, buddy," he said, extending his hand towards the pool that was his spiritual energy and focusing intently on the tempestuous mass, before realizing that if the pool was still this would be much easier. Willing the roiling vortex to be still with every fiber of his being, Ichigo felt a surge of elation rise up within him as the black energy stopped churning and became as smooth and clear as glass.
With the hard part out of the way, the rest of this would be as easy as breathing. Making motions with his hands as if he was pulling on a large piece of rope, Ichigo swiftly completed the pathway between the now-tranquil source of his power and the physical world. Before he left this odd limbo behind for good, though, the brown-eyed Soul Reaper turned back around to face his Inner Hollow.
"I never thought I'd say this, but…" he began, but the creature cut him off sharply.
"Then don't break the streak now, King," he replied. "Just don't make me regret it."
Nodding solemnly, Ichigo turned his attention back to the journey to the physical world and shot upwards like a falcon, bursting from the stagnant light of his Spirit World into the vibrant rays of sunlight.
Urahara sighed with relief as he felt Ichigo return to his body; they were running out of time, and fast.
"So?" he pressed when the Soul Reaper didn't open his eyes for a few seconds. "Did you make a stable bridge?"
Kurosaki opened his dark brown eyes and smiled, practically radiating the confident, cocky calm he was known for.
"You tell me, Urahara," he quipped, before tapping directly into his spiritual energy and turning it into tangible reiatsu.
Kisuke felt like a crew of miniature construction workers had taken residence up inside his head and were trying to jackhammer through his skull and out the other side, while the rest of him felt like it had suddenly been constricted by a gigantic python as his breath was being slowly but surely squeezed from his lungs.
Then, as swiftly as the pressure had come, it dissipated. Kisuke couldn't restrain himself from gasping for breath, stunned not only by the force behind the reiatsu but also by how effortlessly Ichigo seemed to control it.
"Yeah," the Captain said after a moment, a smile on his face, "I'd say you did it, all right."
"That was about a quarter of the way to my limit," Ichigo said levelly. "I didn't want to push myself too hard too fast, ya know?"
"Yes, and I thank you for it," Kisuke said sincerely. If Kurosaki had exerted very much more reiatsu than he had just then, Urahara had no doubts that he would be the proud owner of his most intense migraine headache ever for a whole week. He got up and dusted his haori off and Ichigo rose with him, just in time for Yoruichi to come running over.
"Five minutes," she said shortly. "You ready, Ichigo?"
The orange-haired Soul Reaper nodded, releasing Zangetsu from his wrappings and smiling as the cleaver-like blade glimmered in the sun, ready to go to war. Then his smile grew even wider as he thought of something, and he took a few steps forward before focusing, closing his eyes and sending out a single, massive pulse of reiatsu that must have been felt for at least three miles in every direction.
"God damn it, Kurosaki," Grimmjow cursed as he tried to stop the ringing in his ears, "at least give me some warning before you do something like that! What the hell was that even for, anyway?"
Ichigo's eyes flashed as he replied.
"Just sending a message. Let's go, Yoruichi," he said, flashing away and almost daring the Goddess of Flash to keep up.
Two miles away, Sosuke Aizen and Rukia Kuchiki both felt the pulse of reiatsu wash over them, and had starkly different reactions. Aizen began to wonder if he should worry about this unexplained increase in power from the human. He then promptly shrugged that concern off, closed off communication with his zanpakuto and rose to his feet, preparing one final time for what was sure to be an effortless victory.
Rukia, on the other hand, felt the reiatsu sweep through her and penetrate all the way into her marrow, bolstering her from within and giving her a second wind she hadn't even known she'd needed. Soon enough she felt that same reiatsu surge towards her in a much more concentrated, focused form, and knew that the time had come. The smile on her face only grew wider as she saw a shock of bright orange hair crest the horizon, charging towards her.
It's about time, carrot-top, she thought, and the young Kuchiki swore she heard Ichigo chuckle in her head.
The remaining Soul Reapers spread out in a wide formation, waiting for the inevitable onslaught that Aizen had surely scheduled to start as soon as Ichigo and Yoruichi were out of the picture. Jushiro and Shunsui stood side-by-side, Komamura carved a tall, imposing presence and Byakuya and Zaraki made for the perfect counterpoint: one of them fairly tingled with excitement for the upcoming slaughter, while the other divorced himself from any and all emotions until the last drop of his enemy's blood had been spilled. Soi Fon and Grimmjow were running a scouting patrol to raise the alarm when first contact was made, while Ulquiorra and Neliel stood stoically, waiting for the first move to be made and making certain not to exert themselves needlessly before that time. Renji stood nearby Senna, the red-haired Soul Reaper sensing her nervousness and putting a hand gently, but reassuringly, on her shoulder.
Toshiro and Karin had a whole corner to themselves; or rather, the awesome fury of Hyorinmaru needed a whole corner just to avoid collateral damage. Gin and Rangiku were only as far apart as Shinso could comfortably reach, and Unohana stood seemingly apart from the group but just close enough to Uryu to keep an eye on him. Hisagi and some of the other Lieutenants formed their own line of defense with him at the core, and finally Urahara stood perched on the roof like an albatross, Benihime unsealed and held out perpendicular to his body. The zanpakuto pulsed with red energy, and was constantly sweeping the horizon for any approaching blood to sing out of its veins. Kisuke had also forced her to partition out a bit of her power to follow Yoruichi specifically; if anything happened to the Shihoin princess during the duel, he wanted to be the first to know.
So the Soul Reapers were arranged, some waiting patiently and others nervously as the seconds melted away, moving inexorably towards the battle that would test them all to the breaking point. Orihime sat indoors, fighting to keep from quivering in the face of possible doom. Yachiru, who had chosen to be her bodyguard, sat next to her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Don'tcha worry about it, boobies," she said, still using her old nickname for Inoue. "With Ken-chan and everyone else out there, there's no way anyone or anything is going to break all the way in here. And if anything does, I'll make sure they regret it," the Lieutenant finished, a seriousness in her voice that was completely at odds with the young girl Orihime had once known. Then again, Yachiru had changed since then, along with a lot of other things. Bowing her head reverentially, the healer said a prayer for all of her friends and their allies before raising her head and looking out of the window towards the horizon, where Ichigo was no doubt about to begin his clash with Aizen.
"Good luck, Kurosaki-kun," she whispered. "Bring Kuchiki-san back safely, and don't you die either!"
Ichigo stopped flash-stepping and walked the last few steps towards a calmly-waiting Aizen, taking Tensa Zangetsu by the chain and spinning it around almost absent-mindedly, as he'd seen his Hollow do before. A sense of power pervaded his entire being like a drug, lifting him up higher and higher until he had to force himself back down to reality; as much as he knew he couldn't afford lose this fight, underestimating someone like Sosuke Aizen was a mistake he simply couldn't make, not now. Seeing the look of surprise on the traitor Captain's face made Ichigo smirk, though: maybe, for the first time, someone had managed to throw Sosuke a truly inescapable curveball.
"What's wrong, Aizen?" Kurosaki taunted, ceasing to spin his bankai around and holding it firmly in his right hand. "You look nervous."
The look of surprise faded as soon as it had come, the traitor Captain's placid expression restored at once.
"No, nothing," he said lightly. "Merely an… unforeseen turn of events, boy; nothing insurmountable. It will simply prolong the struggle, but the outcome will not change."
Ichigo chuckled, turning his eyes to his loved one.
"You hanging in there, midget?" he called out, and Rukia was about to shout back a quip until she realized just how different Ichigo felt, and her eyes went wide with shock.
"Ichigo," she gasped out. "You… you're…"
"A true Soul Reaper now, yeah," he finished, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"But, why did you—"
"If you're going to ask me why I gave up my life for your sake, Rukia," Ichigo cut her off, "I'm going to incinerate every single bunny-related object you own. I did it because I had to save you, pure and simple. I did it because I love you, you idiot."
Rukia was stunned into silence, but the moment between the two of them was soon shattered by a mocking voice that spoke with sinister amusement.
"I wouldn't get her hopes up, boy," The former Captain said. "It'll just make it that much more painful for Rukia when I kill you before her eyes."
The brown-eyed Soul Reaper frowned, brandishing the katana that was his bankai.
"Don't count your chickens before they hatch, you bastard," he growled, motioning with his eyes for Yoruichi to step back. The Shihoin princess nodded and flashed away to the side, giving Ichigo a wide berth with which to fight. Aizen drew Kyoka Suigetsu from its sheath, before pausing and smirking in a way that made Ichigo feel like he was being frozen solid from the inside out.
"What do you say we make things… a little more interesting, Ichigo Kurosaki?"
The Soul Reaper's frown deepened, his voice edgy.
"What are you talking about?"
Sosuke Aizen was apparently a man who firmly believed that actions spoke louder than words.
"Hado number 4: Byakurai."
Ichigo watched in mute horror as the bolt of lighting pierced clean through the right side of Rukia's chest, the intensity just low enough that it didn't cauterize the wound on the way through.
"Looks like you better hurry up and defeat me," Aizen mused, "or your precious Rukia's going to bleed out before you can heal her. And don't even think about interfering, Shihoin," he added sharply, "or I'll shove the rikujokoro straight through her spine. Complete paralysis from the waist down would be most inconvenient, don't you think, Ichigo Kurosaki?"
Sosuke turned back to face his opponent, only to be greeted by a getsuga tensho that would have sheared off the top half of his skull had his hand been a second slower. As it was, Aizen struggled not to grimace as he felt the searing energy scar his hand before he batted it away like a pesky fly.
"Impressive, child," the traitor Captain allowed. "Perhaps you have a chance after all."
"Shut the fuck up!" Ichigo shouted, striking out with his blade as hard as he could. He landed a solid blow on Aizen, only to have him vanish into thin air.
Oh, no...
Spinning around as quickly as he could, Kurosaki saw his enemy holding out one of his hands with the fingers splayed apart, preparing a powerful kido.
"Hado number 90: Kurohitsugi."
Time slowed down to a crawl for the orange-haired Soul Reaper. He could hear Rukia shouting out his name in despair, while all Yoruichi could do was inhale sharply in fear. Ichigo saw the small black orb of energy form in Sosuke's hand that was the nucleus of the spell, and knew that if he didn't do something to stop it now he was going to be in very, very bad shape. Boosting his reiatsu up as far as it could go, the brown-eyed Soul Reaper saw with satisfaction that his surroundings slowed down even further, to the point where he could see the orb spinning in Aizen's hand. It was a huge drain on Ichigo's power, though, and he knew that he would have to act fast if he wanted to succeed before he burned himself out.
Quickly remembering Yoruichi's words about the basics of Hanki, Ichigo formed a crude orb of raw kido energy in his hand and hoped this worked. Charging forward, he focused as hard as he could on every single minute detail of the orb resting in his enemy's hand, which was growing bigger and bigger in preparation for bursting out into the devastating 'Black Cofffin' spell. Subconsciously willing the orb in his hand to take on those characteristics as well and trusting his instincts to handle the rest, the orange-haired Soul Reaper thrust his hand forward over Aizen's hard enough to create what he hoped would be backspin. For a moment the world around him froze completely, and Ichigo's breath caught in his throat.
Then, as if time had realized someone had been cheating and decided to overcompensate for being elongated, the world slammed back to life so sharply that Kurosaki almost felt winded just from the sensation. Sosuke froze in shock at the idea that someone could have moved that fast, and his shock only increased as he felt his kido fizzle out in his hand. Ichigo knew he didn't have much time to exploit this rare opening, so he just did what came naturally: continuing the movement of his hand forward, he angled it upwards, curled it into a fist and slammed it as hard as he could into Aizen's chin.
The spurt of blood that arced outwards from the traitor Captain's mouth and the purple bruise that formed on the part of his jaw that was most likely broken were immensely gratifying outcomes to the orange-haired Soul Reaper, but he also knew that he had to get out of close range before his opponent could strike back. Ichigo still had a scar on his right pectoral muscle where Sosuke had decided to pull an 'Ulquiorra special' the first time they had battled, punching a hole straight through Kurosaki's chest that had very nearly killed him. Pushing backwards off of his heels, Ichigo readied Tensa Zangetsu and waited, every muscle in his body tense and ready to spring.
It did not escape the brown-eyed Soul Reaper's notice that Aizen was a bit slower getting back on his feet than normal, or that he had switched his sword arm from the dominant right side to the weaker left side. So his opponent wasn't invincible after all, and he was still hurting from his earlier duel with Saika; that was good to know.
"You have certainly grown more ruthless than when I saw you last, Ichigo Kurosaki," Sosuke said pleasantly, a sly smirk on his face.
"Perhaps the fully awakened Hollow Form you used to avenge your weakling of a sister's death never quite abated."
Ichigo knew that Aizen was trying to coerce him into doing something stupid, and refused to rise to the bait.
"You'd better hope so," he shot back, "because if I'm not even tapping into my Hollow powers right now, you're as good as dead."
Sosuke's infuriating smile just widened.
"From the looks of it," he spoke, "so is Rukia."
Ichigo couldn't keep his eyes from straying over to the violet-eyed Kuchiki, and the traitor Captain pounced faster than a cheetah finishing off a wounded gazelle. It was only the speed provided by Kurosaki's bankai that kept him from being cut clean in half, but he still came away with a vicious gash across his chest.
"Don't take your eyes away from the enemy, Ichigo Kurosaki," Aizen said mockingly. "That's the most basic of battle tactics. And here I thought you'd grown into an opponent worthy enough to face me at full strength," he mused, his voice turning almost whimsical.
"What a shame," he said, holding Kyoka Suigetsu out in front of him. "It's been so long since I've had a good fight. Well, there's no sense in dragging out this mercy killing any longer:
"Bankai: Yuutai Kyoka Suigetsu."
Ichigo felt a deep, primal fear surge up from within him as the final form of Sosuke Aizen's zanpakuto was revealed. He waited for something earth-shatteringly destructive to occur…
And the sword vanished. Kyoka Suigetsu, the sword that had sown so much chaos, and caused so much bloodshed, disappeared into the air completely. Still, as much as he wanted to let his guard down, the fear coiled deep in his stomach refused to go away. Aizen smiled a wide, vicious grin that would have put Grimmjow to shame, lifted his hand high, and demonstrated the true power of his zanpakuto.
Suddenly Ichigo found himself face-to-face with his Inner Hollow, in all of its swaggering, sneering glory.
"Another illusion, huh?" Ichigo said. "Don't screw with me!"
Running forward, he cut downwards with Tensa Zangetsu, expecting to cut through the illusion cleanly and painlessly.
That was when the Inner Hollow illusion moved, hoisting its own, inversed Zangetsu and blocking the strike, before checking Ichigo hard in the chest with his free hand and causing Kurosaki's lifeblood to ebb from the wound even faster.
"What the… hell?" the brown-eyed Soul Reaper gasped out, before the white creature was upon him. Only a frantic, desperate block saved Ichigo's head from being split open like an overripe grapefruit, and Aizen's mocking voice cut through Ichigo's dismay, as light as he had ever heard it.
"Are you curious about the power of my bankai, child?" he asked. "Allow me to elucidate it in a way that your feeble mind will be able to comprehend.
"The illusions of my Kyoka Suigetsu are ephemeral, fading as soon as they have been struck at with enough conviction to be forced into submission. My bankai obliterates this weakness, allowing me to create tangible versions of my illusions, hence 'yuutai'. Now, Ichigo Kurosaki," he finished, clenching his fist and re-animating his puppet, "prepare to die."
Ichigo clashed fiercely with his 'Hollow', trying to ignore the blood seeping from both his and Rukia's veins. He knew that he had to take down Aizen to dispel the illusion, but it was hard to focus on that when the illusion in question was as fast as he was, angrier than he was and wielded Zangetsu. And unlike Kyoka Suigetsu's normal illusions, this one could cut. And when it cut, it cut to kill. The only benefit Ichigo seemed to have was that this thing couldn't go bankai, which would have been all but a death sentence for him in this state. As their blades clashed once more and the Soul Reaper stared down the manic avatar, the voice of the real Inner Hollow screamed out inside the Brown-eyed Soul Reaper's head.
"What the hell are you waiting for?" he yelled. "Call me out! Do it now or we're both dead!"
Kurosaki had never heard his Hollow sounding anything close to afraid before now, but there was clearly a first time for everything. And if even his inner berserker was feeling the pain, Ichigo had to be in worse shape than he thought. Concentrating as hard as he could, the brown-eyed Soul Reaper put his hand to his forehead and pulled downwards, summoning his mask.
The wave of power that surged into him was so twisted and intense it almost bowled him over, but Ichigo was relieved to find that his control over the power his Inner Hollow gave him had not diminished in the slightest following his metamorphosis into a true Soul Reaper. Snarling, the unchained Vizard struck back against his assailant again and again, urged on by the psychopathic cackles of his bloodthirsty evil twin inside his head. Once the puppet had lost balance, Ichigo brutally bludgeoned it into the ground before looking up at Aizen, fury shining deep within his black and yellow eyes. The need to make this man suffer sang throughout every cell of his blood, and as the raving Vizard brought one hand out in front of him, that hatred found physical form.
Sosuke's eyes widened as he witnessed the red, tri-focused cero begin to coalesce, wondering how and when the boy had mastered the manifestation of the purest form of Hollow energy. Even he had not been able to fully master it, having only reached the stages of bala, and yet this arrogant pup was standing before him now summoning a cero equal in power to all but that of the highest Espada. How had he done it?!
"How do you think?" his own Inner Hollow said acidly. "He actually talks to his Hollow, unlike you. Not everything in this world can be treated like a tool, Sosuke."
The traitor Captain willfully ignored the voice of his Inner Hollow, focusing instead on how to avoid his rather imminent and gruesome demise. Jacking up his reiatsu as high as he could in the limited time he had before the beam made contact, Aizen could only hope that it would be enough to at least dampen the force of the heinously powerful cero. Pulling on his own mask, Sosuke formed the two biggest bala he could, one in each hand, and forged them into an impromptu shield just as the blast slammed into him. As the immense concentration of negative energy continued to grind murderously against his barrier, the traitor Captain's eyes widened in shock and fear as he felt his bala crumble, the cero ripping through him with the might of divine retribution.
Ichigo watched his attack collide with Aizen and a feral gleam sprung up in his features, before he noticed Rukia's limp form and thoroughly bloodstained clothing. Horrified, his mask shattered as the Soul Reaper flash-stepped instantly to her side, gently cupping her chin as he tilted her face up to look into her eyes and finding them glassy and vacant. Feeling for a pulse, only leaden silence greeted him as Ichigo felt his heart fracture and break. Scalding tears rolled down his cheeks as he was faced with a reality as cold as his loved one's form: Rukia was gone.
Turning inward and feeding off of his grief, Ichigo sent out one last, desperate pulse of reiatsu, the message in it carved as loud and clear as a trumpet blast:
Orihime, get over here, NOW.
As soon as Ichigo and Yoruichi had departed, Captain Ukitake made sure that everyone was spread out wide enough to avoid collateral damage as much as possible one last time before he felt the air grow suddenly thick with reiatsu. It was clear that the battle would be upon them soon, and the last thing they could allow was to be ambushed and hacked to pieces before a proper defense could even be mounted. Gin was given an especially wide berth to work his magic with Shinso, so that he could avoid slicing his own allies in half if a swing went a bit too far.
Grimmjow and Soi Fon returned from their most recent patrol not a moment too soon; the instant their flash-steps touched down, garganta-like rifts opened up all around the Soul Reapers. Aizen had apparently taught his demons how to travel like Hollows instead of using the gaudy wrought-iron gates, and the mobility it granted them was frightening. All four sides of the Shiba household were instantaneously surrounded, and all of the warriors found their hands full without so much as a roar of warning from their enemies to ready themselves.
As was to be expected, Kenpachi took the field first with crazed peels of laughter, followed closely by Byakuya Kuchiki in his Vizard form. The two killing machines, one honed and one completely reckless, each indulged in their own particular brand of bloodlust and were soon weaving tapestries of viscera with their sword blades. Egged on by the display of prowess, Grimmjow unsealed his zanpakuto and promptly vanished, using his serrated blade to slash some demons to ribbons and force others to bleed out that he didn't have time to finish off himself.
Shunsui and Jushiro were a counterpoint to the chaos raging on the other side of the manor from them; never straying further than sword's reach from one another, four blades danced and arced as one, singing a four-part round of carnage. As one half of Sogyo no Kotowari rose up, damp with blood, one of the curved blades that comprised the pair known as Katen Kyokotsu would descend and finish the blow. Moving in calm, controlled steps that seemed to intuit the other's actions instinctively, the two Captains felled demon after demon without giving up a single inch of ground themselves. As their rhythm became more up-tempo and aggressive Kyoraku began to laugh, reveling in the first true battle he'd had in quite some time. Jushiro couldn't help but smile in kind as he fought along with his best friend, glorying in the feel of strength surging through his veins and the confident warmth of his comrade at his back.
Rangiku was beginning to wonder if Haineko was still working right; for every one of these monsters she cut down, two or three more would spring up in its place, howling and ravenous. Even when she pushed herself to the limit, Matsumoto's web of abrasive ash was doing nothing to stem the tide. Wishing that she'd spent more time trying to get her lazy, happy-go-lucky zanpakuto to achieve its bankai, the Lieutenant let rip one last gale of gnawing ashes before bracing herself for the inevitable counter attack. As expected, a score of the demons went down in a spray of blood and a chorus of bestial grunts. There were still at least five monstrosities still standing, though, their lacerations only compounding their lust for brutality. Rangiku felt her muscles burning from exertion, and her eyelids were beginning to feel like weights she had no interest in keeping aloft anymore. Just when her knees began to buckle, Matsumoto felt a warm, comforting presence slide along her cheek.
"Shoot to kill, Shinso."
Gin's zanpakuto kept extending past the exhausted Lieutenant, skewering the demon closest to her and killing it instantly. Rangiku still had no idea how the weapon that seemed to her to radiate strength and protection was the same blade of cold steel that felled everything it touched, but Shinso was the kind of oxymoron that perfectly summed up its wielder.
"You all right, Ran-chan?" Ichimaru's silken voice asked gently but insistently, his tone pure concern even as his zanpakuto left her cheek and slashed through the rest of the demons that had been encroaching murderously towards Matsumoto. The wave of relief that swept through her body then rose up from the tips of her toes, easing away the pain of her wounds while also making her limbs feel even more wobbly than they had been before. She quickly found herself braced by Gin's deceptively muscular arms, and the former Captain began to chant a brisk, urgent kido. When he finished, there was a flash of turquoise light and Rangiku felt like three doses of Fourth Division's energy pills had been shot right into her bloodstream; springing back to her feet, Matsumoto had to resist the urge to start bouncing off of the nearest wall.
"Got'cher second wind, Rangiku?" Ichimaru asked with plain amusement in his voice. "Why don't you put it to good use?"
Matsumoto only spared her best friend the one glance needed to stick her tongue out at him petulantly before the air around her transformed into a scathing tornado of ash, every ounce of the Lieutenant's newfound strength being harnessed for the purpose of destroying the demons that had very nearly destroyed her.
Some distance away, Ulquiorra Schiffer couldn't keep from frowning as he blasted away yet another demon that had managed to flank Neliel.
"How many times do I have to tell you, woman?" he ground out as his raikoho put a hole through straight through another demon and reduced it to cinders. "Watch your back!"
Far from being concerned for her wellbeing, Nel Tu was smiling widely as her zanpakuto slashed and stabbed its way through the horde.
"If you're doing your job right, Ulquiorra," she quipped as her blade found its mark again with unerring precision, "I shouldn't have to!"
"Infuriating," the former Fourth Espada muttered, but even as he vented his frustration by means of a soren sokatsui, a small smile still graced his face; he wouldn't have her any other way.
"Oh, yeah, that reminds me," Neliel said lightly as she severed a demon's head from its shoulders, the contrast between her actions and her attitude slightly disturbing Ulquiorra, "what was that thing you said you wanted to ask me about earlier, before we got interrupted?"
An odd lump formed in Schiffer's throat at the question, a sensation he still wasn't used to.
"It was a private question," he replied, having to raise his voice over the din of battle. "I do not believe now would be the best time for me to broach the topic."
The former Third Espada got a glimmer in her eyes that Ulquiorra knew to mean she was about to push one of his buttons, and he began to feel very apprehensive.
"Is that fear I hear in your voice, Ulqui-chan?" She asked, going for the jugular and combining his two greatest peeves: being accused of having fear, and being called by a cutesy nickname.
"I do not want anyone overhearing me," he parried weakly, knowing that he was close to losing the argument but too preoccupied with surviving to care.
"Whisper it to me, then!" Nel insisted as she shoved her sword into yet another poor victim with a gleeful ease that made Schiffer shiver on the inside, a sort of tacit sign that he would suffer the same fate if he didn't spill what was on his mind.
"Fine," he grumbled, erecting a triple danku barrier on all sides before leaning over and whispering the question into Neliel's ear. As it turned out, putting up so many barriers was a very good decision on Ulquiorra's part, because the former Third Espada's eyes doubled in size with shock and she gasped, her zanpakuto slipping out of her lax fingers. The tensest moment of Schiffer's second life so far passed in front of his eyes and, as nothing seemed to happen, he felt the edge of despair's knife creeping close to his heart, ready to cut it in two.
"Oh, Ulquiorra, I'd love to!"
The ecstatic shout banished the clenching feeling as soon as it had come and replaced it with the feeling of genuine happiness that made all the weaknesses of the heart worthwhile. Searching for the words to express how he felt and not finding them, Schiffer decided to throw modesty to the wind and took his newly-betrothed into an embrace that put the V-Day kiss to shame.
"Get a room, you two!"
Grimmjow's gruff but highly amused tenor cut smashed through the heartfelt moment with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and it took every ounce of self-control in Ulquiorra's body to keep from tearing his comrade into bite-sized chunks. Neliel just laughed, the musical sound threatening to put a grin on Schiffer's face that could only be described as ludicrous for someone of his temperament.
"He has a point, dear," the green-haired warrior said, rolling the last word around in her mouth like a fine wine before letting it slip languorously out, its numerous implications sending the green-eyed Soul Reaper's heart pounding into overdrive.
"Shall we?"
Ulquiorra barely heard her question as he tore down the barriers separating him from a bunch of walking corpses: if getting rid of these monsters was what it would take to be able to truly celebrate his engagement, they'd be dust in five minutes flat.
Karin Kurosaki was struggling to stay focused on the battle at hand, mesmerized by the hundreds of thousands of tiny blades that made up the storm known as Senbonsakura Kageyoshi.
"Damn it, Kurosaki," Hitsugaya all-but snarled as he ripped through another row of demons with the power of Hyorinmaru, his eyes pulsing bluish-green with strength,
"Pay attention!"
"I'm sorry!" Karin called out, lancing through another demon with a bolt of black lightning before her eyes were drawn inexorably back to the shimmering blades.
"They're just… so… pretty," she breathed out, and Toshiro funneled his immense exasperation into fueling the slaughter he was currently engaged in. Not only was this girl the most nerve-wracking person to play chess with ever, she was making goo-goo eyes during the middle of battle at Byakuya Kuchiki's bankai.
"Remind me why I put up with you again?" he asked, the sly humor in his voice taking the edge off of the taunt. Karin frowned at him for a moment before deciding to throw the icy Captain for a loop of his own; grabbing him by the shoulders, she pulled him forward into a searing kiss that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. As they broke apart, the dark-eyed Kurosaki looked into those adorably shocked emerald-blue eyes and smirked.
"That's why, Toshiro," she said, leaving a stunned Hitsugaya catching his breath subconsciously while Karin went about the business of picking up his slack.
"Now who's not paying attention, Captain?" she jibed with mock innocence, drawing a growl from the white-haired Soul Reaper that was anything but.
"That was hardly the same thing!" he shouted, his anger taking him all the way to bankai. The dark-haired Soul Reaper's smile just widened as she watched the prodigy tear though demon after demon with hormonally-fueled abandon: messing with him was going to be so much fun.
Kenpachi Zaraki was starting to feel bored, and it pissed him off. Dealing with these scum was like shooting fish in a barrel; there was no challenge in it at all. Looking over his shoulder, he smirked at the Vizard nearby.
"Oi, Kuchiki," he called out. "You want to go a round?"
His question was met with an incredulous glare.
"You can't be serious," Byakuya deadpanned, flicking his wrist almost absentmindedly and eviscerating a demon or six in a blizzard of shimmering blades.
The Eleventh Division Captain flashed a deranged smile, his one visible eye glowing with the rush of battle.
"Do I ever make jokes about shit like this, Kuchiki? Come on, at least slash me up a bit; I want to make this fight interesting!"
"I am not here to facilitate your psychotic death-wish, Kenpachi Zaraki," the noble said evenly as the hurricane of blades raged on around him. Zaraki chuckled ruefully.
"Be that way," he groused, reaching up to take a hold of his eyepatch. "I guess I'll just have to massacre all of these wimps, and hope Aizen has something stronger hidden up his sleeve!"
Ripping off his reiatsu restraint, the spiky-haired Captain cackled madly as he released his bankai. The two-pronged storm of reiatsu was enough to give the Lieutenants pounding headaches, and even some of the other Captains grimaced uncomfortably. The fearsome duo of Kenpachi and the incarnation of his killing intent charged headlong into the crush of demons, cutting them down like the scythe of the Grim Reaper herself. The horde could do nothing but crumble in the face of the malicious, frenzied yellow reiatsu that seemed to hunger like an insatiable leviathan, swallowing up the blood and the corpses and the earth and clamoring for seconds and thirds. After several minutes of berserker rage, Zaraki finally felt the strength in his arm beginning to flag.
What he didn't know was that Aizen had instructed his most elite demon to not emerge until Kenpachi's reiatsu had begun to dim and fade from its zenith.
What Aizen didn't know was that Kenpachi had been waiting for that moment, too, and used kendo to give his drained reiatsu a boost as soon as a massive rift opened up in the sky, blotting out the sun itself. The creature that emerged from the tear was a massive, coiling dragon, with gore-stained fangs that contrasted sharply with its midnight-black eyes. Its scales were a rotting patchwork of tarnished silver, pale gray and pitch black, with a group of them sloughing off every few moments to reveal pulsing, scarred flesh and muscle underneath.
The Nidhogg, one of the Old Gods and harbinger of the apocalypse, had been unleashed after countless eons imprisoned in the blackness. It was huge, powerful, starved and unbelievably wrathful, with no target on which to vent its rage until now. With a mighty roar, it descended upon its prey in a mass of fury and killing intent the likes of which no world had seen since before the dawn of man.
All of the Soul Reapers had gathered together to form a final bulwark against this new evil, but even the most veteran of their number were unsure of their chances. As dark, hellspawned fire began curling in the beast's maw, those chances became even more uncertain. Zaraki was swept aside by the raging black flame as effortlessly as a piece of dust, ugly burns marring his already scarred skin even further. From the look of it, the only thing that had saved him from being completely butchered by the assault was the shield created by his absurdly high reiatsu.
Making things even worse, it appeared as though the dragon's hide was completely impenetrable. Senbonsakura was impotent against the beast, and even Soi Fon using shunko at full power and moving like a capoeira master on speed failed to yield a single spot where the dragon was vulnerable. As Captain after Captain was rendered gravely wounded or unconscious by injury, it seemed as though the Soul Reapers would not survive to see the light of the sun that had been obscured by this fiendish presence. Eventually only Byakuya, Gin, Urahara, Shunsui and Toshiro were left standing, bruised and battered but not defeated. As Hitsugaya was preparing to release his bankai in one final, soul-draining attack, the voice of Hyorinmaru stopped him in his tracks.
'I found it!'
Toshiro tried not to snap as the vague exclamation frayed what precious little was left of his nerves.
'Found what, Hyorinmaru?' he asked back, hoping that the dragon above them didn't notice he was talking to himself and exploit that opening to attack.
'Every single dragon has a weak spot,' Hyorinmaru elaborated. 'Even I did, before I became a zanpakuto. The problem when you're trying to kill a dragon, however, is that this weak spot does not remain in a fixed location.
'With every major molting cycle, it shifts as one layer of scales rises up to replace the previous, dying layer. I finally found where the Nidhogg's weak spot lies now: it is a single scale wide, midway up the spine. If we can find a way to strike it there, it will fall more effortlessly than autumn leaves.'
While Hitsugaya was definitely bolstered by this revelation, it raised another question entirely: how the hell was he going to get around to the back of that monster without being swatted out of the sky, find the weak spot and strike at it without missing, seeing as how it was likely to be the size of a sake bottle? Looking over at his comrades who were still standing, the white-haired prodigy turned all of his formidable intellect towards thinking of a solution to the problem. Just as the Nidhogg reared back for another powerful lunge, Toshiro faced his fellow Soul Reapers and the Quincy and spoke.
"The three of you," he said, meaning everyone but Gin, "set up as good a diversion as you possibly can. I know how to take this thing down, but I need a clear shot at it. Do you think you can manage that?"
The three warriors heard the conviction in the green-eyed Captain's voice and nodded their heads, but Gin was still puzzled.
"And what exactly am I supposed to be doing, Captain?" he querried, and Toshiro smiled.
"You're going to launch me," he answered.
Ichimaru arched a fine silver eyebrow at that pronouncement.
"I'm going to what-now?"
"How much weight can your zanpakuto support when it extends?" Hitsugaya pressed, unconcerned with Gin's skepticism.
"However much it needs to," was the reply. "Why do you ask?"
The beast's roar signaled the beginning of its assault, and Toshiro mouthed a silent prayer to whatever God or Goddess was willing to listen that this worked.
"There's no time," he said, hurrying over to Ichimaru's side and jumping up, balancing himself gracefully on Shinso's tip.
"My bankai moves too slowly to get behind this bastard on its own," Toshiro elaborated hastily. "I need you to launch me to get some momentum, or I won't be traveling fast enough! Now do it, before we all die!"
Gin muttered something like 'It's your funeral,' before readying himself and speaking the command.
"Shoot to kill, Shinso."
Toshiro felt himself fly up into the air like a cannon shot, tensing and pushing off to give himself even more speed. Powerful kido, the vicious onslaught of Byakuya's Nibai Senbonsakura Kageyoshi and the terrible wrath of Benihime's bankai proved to be enough to distract the dragon from the Captain soaring past him, and Hitsugaya stopped himself on a dime once he had gone far enough. Converting his momentum into a powerful wind-up, he brandished Hyorinmaru while scanning frantically for the weak spot; soon enough, the Niddhog would be on to him and wheel around, and this had to be finished before then. Just as the dragon roared in pain and rage and began to turn, Toshiro saw the gap in the scales right where Hyorinmaru said it would be and smiled victoriously.
"Reign over the frozen heavens, Hyorinmaru!" he shouted as he swung the blade down, sending a concentrated and slim dragon racing towards the one gap in the evil dragon's armor. The Niddhog gave an unholy shriek as it was pierced, writhing in agony for a few moments before the dragon began to gnaw furiously at its own flesh in its anger, the final victim of its own hatred.
Right when the sun re-emerged in the sky, however, this herald of tranquility was interrupted by a much more ominous messenger.
Orihime, Ichigo's voice called out like a thunderclap, get over here. NOW.
The orange-haired healer had been safely ensconced within the reinforced walls of the Shiba household throughout the battle, but when she heard her name being called so urgently Inoue was on her feet in an instant and racing outside. Both Urahara and Byakuya accompanied her, with Kuchiki carrying her along as he flash-stepped; after all, Ichigo had failed to mention whom exactly Orihime needed to heal.
They just hoped they weren't already too late.
Inoue saw the scene come into focus in front of her and she had to bite back a horrified scream; Kurosaki-kun had been beaten half-to-death despite his Vizard form's tolerance for injury, and Kuchiki-san…
Kuchiki-san wasn't breathing, or even moving.
Dashing forward as fast as she could, Orihime activated her healing shield without even saying the words as Ichigo ripped the rikujokoro apart like so many pieces of paper and laid his loved on down on the ground. He seemed to relax slightly as the golden field engulfed Rukia, but grief was still visibly etched into his face. The air was tense and silent for the next few moments as the violet-eyed Soul Reaper's life hung in the balance, but as soon as her chest started to move again and she drew a shaky breath everyone present relaxed. After a few more moments Rukia could stand on her own, albeit shakily, and Ichigo allowed himself a rare, genuine smile. The group began to make preparations to flash away when Yoruichi's eyes went wide and she gasped.
"No…"
All eyes followed the Shihoin princess' gaze, widening in kind as they saw what stood before them.
Sosuke Aizen, torn and bloody and mangled, had somehow managed to bring himself to his feet and was preparing to cast a full-powered kurohitsugi; a spell that, this time, Ichigo had no chance of stopping.
But the spell was never cast. The image of Aizen faded away, a product of Kyoka Suigetsu. Instead of being greeted by a chorus of angels, the Soul Reapers and Orihime were treated to a much more horrific sound: a second after the illusion vanished, Yoruichi yet out a strangled scream that was accompanied in gruesome unison by the sound of a blade stabbing clean through flesh. Turning around, the shocked Soul Reapers saw the real Sosuke Aizen leave his sword lodged in the golden-eyed Soul Reaper's chest, his eyes shining with madness as Kyoka Suigetsu began to glow with strange blue energy.
"One last illusion," he crowed as he stepped away from the falling body of Yoruichi Shihoin, his voice broken and raspy. "I had one last chance, and it worked. Kill me now if you want, Kisuke Urahara," he continued, chuckling weakly as the Twelfth Division Captain tried to will his friend back to consciousness with urgent pleas and bitter tears,
"It doesn't matter. As soon as my Kyoka Suigetsu has finished melding with that maelstrom of energy inside your whore's womb, that embryo will become the vessel for my reincarnation. It's a little trick I picked up from Szayel, in fact, only improved. Feel free to act impressed, if you like; all I need are four more seconds, and none of you can kill me that quickly."
"I can."
Sode no Shirayuki's sealed blade came down in a perfect arc behind Aizen, slicing the traitor Captain's head clean off of his shoulders. Looking down at the corpse of the man who had killed her, Rukia spat a stream of blood down upon it and smirked, rage simmering in her eyes.
"I told you I'd kill you, you bastard," she said coldly, uttering no last rites and offering no burial to the body as she turned away, leaving it for the vultures.
Kyoka Suigetsu ceased to pulse with energy and vanished entirely, but did not take the wound away as it departed. Urahara quickly laid his best friend on her back and tried to close the wound, but the malevolent reiatsu was too strong for him to close it entirely, even with the large amount of reiatsu at his disposal. It was enough to allow Yourichi to open up her eyes, however, and she turned a bittersweet gaze on Kisuke as she did so, laying on of her hands on top of his and offering a thin, sad smile.
"It's okay," she whispered, and the blond-haired man turned to hold her gaze, his grey eyes dim with shock and sorrow.
"It's okay," she repeated softly, her eyes beginning to flutter. "You can let me go, Kisuke."
"No!" Urahara growled, trying to force his friend to stay with him. "No, I can't! I never could, and I never will, can't you see that? I love you!"
Yoruichi's eyes gleamed brightly for a moment, and her familiar fanged grin came out for one last encore.
"Silly boy," she said, "I know. I lo—"
Before she could finish, her breath left its body behind and her eyelids came down, sealing off those mischievous, vibrant golden orbs from the light of day.
Kisuke let out something comparable to a howl, his hands digging into the orange folds of Yoruichi's clothing and staying there until the thin, strong hands of Byakuya Kuchiki pried them away and pulled him off of the corpse, the noble's own heart cracking with every mournful moan, guttural groan or stricken scream Urahara forced from his throat. The Captain was oblivious to everything outside of his pain, be it the red-clothed figure that knelt solicitously over him like a mother by her son's sickbed, the sympathetic looks of his comrades or even the orange-haired girl focusing all of her might on repeating what had already been a miracle, even as she was drained of most of her strength.
Just as the wound closed up completely and the blood stopped flowing, Orihime fainted into the waiting, strong arms of Ichigo Kurosaki. As he carried his friend in his arms, the orange-haired Soul Reaper began to speak.
"When we get back, I'll make sure to tell the cooks to make you whatever you want to eat, no matter how weird it may look or smell, Orihime."
The girl's ears perked up at that, and her gray eyes opened to half-lidded.
"Really?" she asked slowly, still half asleep and fading quickly back into slumber.
"Really," Ichigo echoed, running a hand through her hair gently. "You earned it."
Urahara sat cross-legged on the ground, immobile and lost in the dark abyss of grief. He barely even noticed when someone removed the hat from his head, giving nothing more than a half-hearted grunt of protest.
"Hey," a rich, comforting voice floated over his numbed ears, "if you're not going to take this thing back, does that mean I finally get to throw it away?"
Kisuke's eyes snapped open and his head jerked up so fast he almost broke his neck. His breath caught in his throat as his tear-blurred vision cleared to reveal the golden-eyed, purple-haired, dark-skinned goddess he thought he'd lost forever. Springing to his feet propelled by raw emotion, Kisuke took hesitant steps forward, as if he thought the figure before him was a mirage that could vanish at any moment. When he put his hand tenderly and disbelievingly on her cheek and she did not vanish, however, the shock in Urahara's eyes turned to wonder.
"How…?" he gasped, and Yoruichi just grinned.
"You really didn't think I'd leave without you, did ya? Come on, at least have some fai—"
Kisuke didn't give her a chance to finish, all but lunging forward and capturing those infuriating lips in the most feverish kiss he could imagine. When he broke apart from her, he noticed with some small amount of pride that her eyes were glazed over and her breathing was labored.
"Wow," she said after a moment. "You're good at that."
Putting a finger gently over her lips to make sure they stayed closed, Kisuke spoke.
"What you were saying to me, before you… well, you know," he took a deep breath, "you never finished. What were you going to say?"
"Silly boy?" she said, her voice teasing.
"After that," Urahara prompted, still high enough from sheer giddiness that he could let her theatrics slide, just this once.
"I know?"
"No," Kisuke said again, his heartbeat accelerating, "after that."
"Ahh!" Yourichi exclaimed, as if she really had been ignorant this whole time.
"I love you."
Kisuke moved in again and kissed her, quickly but with feeling, before moving back.
"Say it again."
"I'm pretty sure you heard me the first time, genius," the Shihoin princess mused, but now it was Urahara's turn to play the game.
"I can't think without my hat on," he parried, "so either repeat what you just said, or give me back my hat. The choice is yours, Yourichi."
"Hmm, that's a toughie," she temporized, before moving her mouth right next to his ear.
"I love you, Kisuke Urahara."
His heart skipped three beats before immediately falling into his stomach, every nerve in his body was tingling, his blood was on fire…
And Kisuke had never felt better in his life.
"Ahh, that was it!" he said, the biggest grin on his face that Yoruichi had ever seen. "I thought so, but I just wanted to be sure. Scientific curiosity, you know," he finished, the smug undercurrent back in his voice. As Yoruichi stuck her tongue out at him petulantly, Ichigo's deep laugh could be heard beyond them.
"That is one beautiful sunset," the orange-haired Soul Reaper said, and the warriors took a moment to bask in its healing glow as it closed the curtain on this dark day and promised a brighter one to come. Turning to his friends, with an arm draped around Rukia's shoulders as Byakuya consented to carry Orihime the rest of the way, Ichigo smiled.
"Let's go home."
A/N: And thats the end of that chapter. There's still the epilogue to go, but the story has more or less been told. I hope you enjoyed it, twists, turns, ups, downs and all, and if you did, please tell me so by leaving a tasty, delicious review. Much love and appreciation to everyone who has reviewed so far, and especially the stalwarts, those who have stuck with me and my convoluted imagination throughout this wild ride. I've enjoyed it immensely, and I hope you have, too.
I'm sure I'll see at least some of you around for the epilogue, but until then, have a great one!
JP
PS-- To those of you waiting to see how certain, lingering plot-threads tie up, or tie in to the sequel to come, don't despair... that's what the epilogue is for!
PPS-- I'm sorry Ryuken didn't make an appearance; I was going to have there be an exchange between him and his son about Uyru not having any talent, but i ran out of space. Perhaps in the epilogue...?