Well, not many readers or anything apparently, or reviews….but I carry on…I carry on…I like writing this fanfic, even if practically next to no one really reads it.
Hopefully someone's reading this, and if so, thanks, and thanks for your reviews.
Hope you enjoy this chapter, because I enjoyed writing this…
Actually, I think this chapter is the longest I've written so far in this story...maybe by a few dozen words.
Great stuff ahead with this plot, get ready for the next few chapters to be pretty crazy…
I'll be updating this as well as I can.
Let's get this started!
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or its characters, settings, etc.. Did you really need me to tell you that?
Yoruichi Shihouin stood before Kaworu, and Kaworu found himself suddenly shuddering, his hand reaching out to slowly grip his trembling skull.
My glance fell on a girl my age trotting past me, but it was too discreet for anyone to notice. Yoruichi Shihouin, beautiful by all standards and smart as well, she was no supermodel necessarily, but she had marvelous hair and a beautiful face that hinted at her patrician upbringing. Indeed she was simply the latest in a long stream of girls of similar nature and appearance that I have secretly admired, all through Shinigami Academy even. I felt my gaze wandering to her long legs, to her kind face, to her pleasant eyes, and wondered why I was so mesmerized by them. I could come up with simply hundreds of thousands of adjectives to describe them, but no words to explain why I felt this way. They were simple body parts, nothing more, why did I find them so sublimely beautiful? How did I even bring up my definition of beautiful? Perhaps this was what I've been programmed over the years to be mesmerized, by my family, by the people around me. But I supposed that that is how one defines oneself, by the entities and objects around themselves. She is certainly quite mesmerizing.
Kaworu's eyes widened as he watched Yoruichi reach for the sword at her back.
He could feel the scar he had all across his torso tingling with nostalgia.
"You're not the only one who's grown, Kaworu…I'm afraid…I can't allow you to carry this on any further…"
Kaworu grit his teeth, studying her carefully as she drew her long zanpakutō. It seemed to be a rather long nodachi with prominent silk tassels all around its hilt and flowing down onto its holder's arm.
Hachimitsu was impressively beautiful indeed, elegant with a long white blade that had a hue of golden yellow. Kaworu had often complimented Yoruichi about its beauty in relation to her own, but that had been before he had tasted Hachimitsu's sting in his stomach.
It had been as burning and memorable as one of Yoruichi's kisses, sliding into his torso and nearly killing him instantly.
It had been a wonder he had survived…
No…not a wonder…it had been…Inazuma…
On that day, Inazuma had truly awakened and saved him, for the first real time. From that day forward, Kaworu depended on nothing else, no one else. His blade could not betray him, would not, but every living being around him had the potential and prerogative.
Even his Uncle Gendo, he had only brought that old fool along because he figured Gendo's anger for Kaworu's father would outweigh any possible chances of betrayal. Still, Kaworu Yamamoto-Genryūsai trusted no one.
Kaworu was still lost in thought as Yoruichi raised her blade, speaking up firmly.
"Shiko, Hachimitsu!"
Kaworu ignored her shikai, still lost in thought. A closer eye at Hachimitsu would reveal that all Yoruichi's shikai changed was an elongation of the white silk tassels that hung from the hilt. Now they flowed and wrapped all the way around her delicate arms.
Kaworu's eyes opened wide as he felt the proximity and mutual warmth of their faces, slowly moving his lips closer and closer to hers, without really thinking about it, unconsciously, they edged closer, two chess pieces in the game of love.
Closer, and closer, he could feel her breath upon his lips, he could see her calmly shut eyes, for he, on the other hand, had his eyes wide open, astonished and mesmerized by her face and by everything that was going on now, inside and outside of him, beyond his control. He had tried to make everything logical and within his control in all his life, but here was something he could not comprehend.
Checkmate.
Kaworu stiffened, almost offended by the reservoir of warmth and softness he found in the kiss, of love, of kindness, it scared him, and he, who was not afraid of death, was mesmerized by a simple girl. She was just a girl. Just a girl. Just a girl. Just a girl.
Kaworu's mind shut down as his eyes shut down calmly, the kiss continuing, his face at peace with hers as those words echoed through his mind irrelevantly.
Just a girl…just a girl…
Kaworu Yamamoto-Genryūsai could feel his very pores giving off her stink, the smell of fresh sweat they made after lovemaking, that perfume she had always used, the smell of her hair freshly cleaned.
It was suffocating him.
It had been centuries since they had met, and now they met on these terms.
"Just as you have reached bankai, so have I, Kaworu. This has gone on long enough."
She sounded determined, emotionless even.
He trembled, raising his face to stare at hers as she pointed her blade in his general direction.
"Hachimitsu…Bankai! Shikinu Shiranami!"
That intimidating blade was suddenly even more golden white and beautiful, shortening slightly until it was the length of a normal wakizashi. However the long silk tassels that had flowed up her arms in the shikai were now like a massive web of silky waves flowing aimlessly all around her. No longer binded to her body, they flowed out of the hilt and swirled in her wake like a great spider web or as if she was producing an aura of flowing threads around her.
Yoruichi truly looked like a goddess, her beauty equaled by her blade and its flowing silk bindings.
Suddenly, she disappeared, only to reappear in blinding flash step directly in front of him.
She was fast! Faster than he could see at this level! So this was her bankai! The Goddess of Flash was amazingly speedy enough, but this type of movement was beyond belief!
Before he could even react, those long white waves of silk flowing from her hilt had wrapped all around his arms like confining bandages, and that golden white blade was hurtling straight for his throat.
Gendo blinked numbly as the wave of blood splashed upon him.
He did not even flinch against the liquid, standing with a blank face and turning away from the fight…from her vengeful face.
The waves of binding silk retreated from his arms and he stumbled back from the wound that had been delivered at his shoulder.
He touched his damp clothes, bringing up the liquid and smelling it.
It smelled like her.
Captain Sajin Komamura strolled dominantly down the great white steps as the tremors shook Soul Society.
The tremors of a battle he knew was happening, but a battle he was under orders to ignore and not take part in.
One thing was absolute, his belief in General Yamamoto's actions and orders.
However, inklings of doubt had been infecting his head ever since it had been exposed to the open air outside of his bamboo mask.
Ever since that bastard Zaraki Kenpachi had freed him, he'd felt a newfound confidence regarding his appearance, though he still kept on his confining clothes and long gloves to hide every other sign of his anthropomorphic appearance.
He had been infected with inklings of doubt that overloaded his normal pretensions. The idea that Tōsen's conscious was absolute, the idea that all justice was absolute and black and white. He had had pretensions that Kenpachi was a wild beast and that Tōsen was a being of justice…
Even now they were unsettled, despite his vow to bring back Tōsen. Even now he wondered if he had any right to regard Kenpachi a wild fool or if it were wise to follow orders so obediently when he could sense the massive spiritual presences fighting far away.
His inner thoughts were halted by a small grunt below him, and he noticed in prudent horror that he had accidentally bumped or nearly run over the short Captain Tōshirō Hitsugaya before him.
A quick cursory glance revealed that Captain Soifon was there as well.
Komamura raised his voice, still feeling a bit of trepidation about his true appearance, ready to apologize.
"Sorry, Captain Hitsu-"
"It's alright, Captain Komamura…there's something more important awry…"
Soifon suddenly turned to Hitsugaya, shaking her head.
"Regardless of General Yamamoto's orders…I can't just stay still like this…especially…"
Especially because of Yoruichi this morning…this has to have something to do with her…I feel as if I can almost sense her spiritual presence…of course I can't just come out and say something like that…
"Especially what?"
"Nothing…it's just that we should know by now that orders aren't absolute, we have rights to question and contemplate them, or disaster on the scale of the betrayal of Aizen could occur again. We were all following orders back then, you know…"
"Captain Soifon, are you sure you understand what you're saying? We're under orders to-"
Tōshirō Hitsugaya had been thinking along the same lines, but he never imagined someone who seemed as strict and formal as Soifon would ever bend or ignore rules or orders.
"I know our orders…but…I have no choice. I apologize…Captains."
And with that she disappeared, surely flash stepping away towards that distant battle at top speed.
Captain Hitsugaya sighed, turning back to Captain Komamura who had been silent and rather non-present. It was surprising that such a massive and unique Captain could have such a small presence when he chose to, but Hitsugaya knew nothing of Komamura's past of hiding his spiritual presence and trying his best to keep everything hidden inside.
"Captain Komamura, I wonder, what do you think concerning General Yamamoto's orders?"
Komamura paused for only a mere few seconds before responding formally but firmly.
"They are to be followed at our utmost ability, of course. Even if they happen to order us into non-action."
Tōshirō Hitsugaya nodded quickly, as if this had been the reply he had been expecting even before he had vocalized the question.
The pause on Komamura's part did not go unnoticed by Hitsugaya, however. It had never existed before.
"What do you know of pain, Kisuke Urahara?! Of exile? Of Soul Society's punishment? You and that whore my young nephew adored, you two simply fled, I have heard, fled your punishments! We were not such a dishonorable, cowardly sort. While you were out there, I was rotting away in that hole…until Kaworu came. I learned much in that darkness, and so did Tokikaze…"
Kisuke took a step back, urging Renji and Kira to give him room as Gendo continued.
"Let me show you the lessons of time and eternity, Kisuke Urahara, one colleague to another. Let me enlighten your fascinating research, Kisuke Urahara…"
He gripped Tokikaze by the blade that sprouted out of his metal hand as he continued, as if he intended to yank it out.
"Tokikaze…Bankai! Chireksi Okki!"
Kisuke's eyes widened and he downright ordered Renji to pick up Kira and unconscious Isane and hop over to the other building roofs, even though Renji was resistant and annoyed.
Kisuke Urahara hadn't felt fear for a long while, and he did not feel it now, but this development certainly irked him a great deal.
Bankai? He had no idea Gendo Yamamoto-Genryūsai was even alive, let alone at this sort of level. He had been gone for centuries…
It certainly annoyed him not to have heard of this or seen it in the research, however, it mattered but little. Kisuke Urahara prided himself in being able to figure out tactics and weaknesses in his enemy at the spot, quickly and efficiently. He had a glaringly dangerous mind.
Now, as Gendo Yamamoto-Genryūsai declared bankai, he continued gripping Tokikaze and indeed yanked the blade out of his metal hand which was quickly returned to its former flesh state.
Indeed Gendo only held the blade now, and it slowly elongated and changed until it was a fierce black katana that looked surprisingly like what Kisuke had heard Renji tell him Ichigo Kurosaki's bankai looked like.
Gendo flash stepped in front of him in a flash, sending his blade slashing wildly at Kisuke, who simply gracefully parried with his Benihime and forced Gendo back away.
This happened a few more times, Gendo trying to increase his speed and power and flash step towards Kisuke with a flurry of slashes and thrusts, but in the end Kisuke simply forced him back over and over.
Now Gendo was forced back for the tenth or eleventh time, and seemed to be panting from fatigue.
Gendo Yamamoto-Genryūsai had never been much of a swordfighter and Kisuke now found him markedly unimpressed.
"Is that really all you can do? I'm disappointed."
Gendo raised his eyes to lock with Kisuke's, and the old man sighed.
"No…I simply wanted to see if I could defeat you by blade instead of using my bankai's true ability. You see, even I consider it far too cruel to use on another living being, even on such scum as you…"
"All talk! All talk! You're just trying to delay us, right? I bet the entire might of Soul Society is already coming to smash you and your nephew, you know…There's no point."
At that point, Gendo smirked.
"Oh, I found a Hell Butterfly that told me far different, Kisuke Urahara. We're being kept under wraps by my brother, concealed you could say, so he can send off his assassins to kill us again. Or so he thinks. The majority of Soul Society is probably still asleep or simply apathetic."
Kisuke's eyes widened in realization.
It was true; he hadn't seen any Captains or Lieutenants at all, except the three behind him.
His only outward response was a shrug.
"So be it. Then I'll simply have to handle you myself. I doubt I need to even utilize my bankai, which is providential. It'd probably do a lot of collateral damage, maybe even kill my Lieutenant friends there. And we can't have that."
Gendo Yamamoto-Genryūsai only sighed, shaking his head in what seemed to be deep sorrow.
The ground around them had slowly descended into total darkness, as if Kisuke and Gendo were standing on a murky pool of black shadows.
Kisuke had just realized this, and was stepping back in surprise.
Gendo spoke as he slid his blade into the shadows below as if they were a pool of water, Tokikaze disappearing below.
"I…suppose I have no choice…Tokikaze…Natsukashii!
And then…
Nothing…seemed to happen.
Kisuke raised his eyebrows and smirked, pointing Benihime at Gendo and planning to raze him to dust.
"That's all you've got, old ma-"
"Show him the grand ring of mortality, Tokikaze…"
Suddenly, Kisuke noticed the shadowy ground beneath him moving and warping, actual human shadows rising out of the ground and forming into figures around him.
The shadowy figures had no definition or features or faces, but slowly they began to form into normal-looking people.
Kisuke's surprised eyes spun around, looking at the people gathering around him, realizing he could no longer see Renji, Kira, Isane, or even Gendo himself.
Instead, he was surrounded by these strange people…no…he recognized some of them…wait, not some of them…one…two…three…four…
Face by face he realized that all the people standing around him were familiar.
They all held one thing in common.
They had been killed by Kisuke Urahara in his long lifespan as a Shinigami and Shinigami exile.
All of them…a great deal of them were Quincy he had fought, or rogue Shinigami or simply rivals and evil enemies…
All of them…even the great deal he barely remembered as Hollow spirits he had slain.
All of them…including his own brother, Touji Urahara,
No…no…no…no…I didn't…I didn't…why is he…why are you here…no…no…it wasn't my fault…it wasn't my fault…it wasn't my fault…it wasn't my fault…he…he…accident…I didn't…I…no…no…no…
Kisuke Urahara suddenly remembered Gendo's face shaking in deep sorrow, and he now realized why.
The figures all slowly closed in around Kisuke, who could just barely hold his blade Benihime up in startled defense. It seemed as if they wanted to give him a group hug.
Kisuke Urahara didn't know whether to scream, cry, flee, attack, or just fall to his knees.
Overwhelmed and surprised, he simply did the latter.
Kaworu stumbled backwards from yet another blow of Yoruichi's sword.
She seemed quite determined and ruthless, and Kaworu realized with a tinge of fear that he couldn't sense any regret or emotion on her face anymore like when she had first come.
He had counted on her being the one overwhelmed with nostalgia and emotion, but it was him now just barely dodging attacks and getting slashed up.
Truly however, her bankai complimented her speed and fighting moves well, the long flowing silk threads wrapping around her opponent and helping make her blows and slashes even more terrifying and absolute.
Kaworu sent Inazuma thrusting at her stomach, only to watch the silk waves from her sword slam into the ground and send her propelling over the spear like they were spider legs.
They then wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his sides and strengthening the slam of the jump kick that she had launched into his chest. The bindings held him in place and made the blow even worse as she quickly worked herself into a combo of fist and foot.
It sent him stumbling backwards, spitting blood in surprise, almost falling over.
Her speed was surely eclipsing his at this level, and her moves were too smooth and precise for him to try to counter.
A thrust of Inazuma was suddenly repelled by the silk threads flowing around him, the fabric suddenly condensing in a web-like net in front of her strong enough apparently to send his blade flying back without a scratch on the defense.
His eyes widened in surprise from that, even he hadn't seen that coming. And so he was totally unprepared as Yoruichi flash stepped out of the web of fabric, the silk flowing behind her as she sent a stiff uppercut slamming into his chin.
The blow sent him flying a good twenty feet in the air, and before he could even come down she had already leapt up in a flash alongside him to deliver a hard kick which sent him flying up higher into the air.
Kaworu's eyes widened as yet another punch to his back sent him flying up so that he was now eighty feet in the air, wondering how Yoruichi managed to shadow alongside him with nothing to jump off.
Suddenly she was behind him as he hovered in the air about to fall back down mere gravity, her silk threads wrapping all around him as she grabbed him in a bear hug from behind.
He felt her breath against him, and her voice for the first time since the fight had entered its feverish climax.
"I'm…sorry…Kaworu…Hachimitsu… Senpūrendan!"
The silk threads binded him from his neck down to his toes, and suddenly he found himself upside down with her, her head against the middle of his back as she held him in her tight embrace.
And so they fell, spinning and hurtling upside down, his head protruded outwards for the certain killing blow that would happen when they landed while she remained safe, binding against him and riding him down.
So…this was her killing technique…and even now, he could feel her flowing silk threads and powerful spiritual energy increasing the fall's speed and making them spin like a corkscrew as they fell.
Certainly, anyone receiving this final blow would have their skull and neck smashed to dust from the landing.
No…no…no…what did this woman mean to him? Long ago, he had shed his humanity for strength…no…had he shed it or had she simply carved the soul out of him with that traitorous stab of her blade as they had embraced?
Perhaps it had been a little bit of both…
Why had he weakened so much now, after seeing her again, under these circumstances?
Was it the memory of the love they shared…their embraces…
No…he could not…allow this.
Kaworu Yamamoto-Genryūsai's eyes pulsed with renewed energy as Yoruichi's embrace continued to hurtle him at top speed towards the ground.
He remembered now, his words to her.
She only shook silently as crushing sobs overtook her, as his gentle caressing hand brushed against her soft lips and face.
Suddenly however it took hold of her chin, roughly, painfully, with energy that should not have existed in a dying man.
He pulled Yoruichi forward roughly by the chin so that she was inches away from his lips, her own breath washing against his short and hitched dying breaths.
Kaworu licked his lips, moving forward so that his lips were nearly touching Yoruichi, yet he halted before they met and smiled sardonically.
Yoruichi trembled in fear, noticing something in his eyes. Killing intent. Hate. They bored into her skull, mixed with sentiments that could have been love and morose abandonment of life.
"Let me…teach you a valuable lesson… Yoruichi Shihouin…there is nothing in this world of worth…NOTHING! Love is a mere foolish fancy, as we both know well now. It is so easy to betray love…so easy to fall weak because of reliance on the human heart."
She flinched at his words.
"As are all other adventures in emotion and frailty…useless…a waste of time, this existence."
To her surprise he rose, pushing her off of him and looking down imperiously at her as he yanked out the blade embedded in his chest in one clean motion.
It clattered to the floor and blood began to rush unimpeded from Kaworu's fatal wound.
As he stared down at her, he smiled, and then spit in her face, speaking slowly in contempt.
"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"
Where had that determined apathy gone? That empty nihilism that drove him on…
That detachment…
He realized now, he had been depending too much on that dead Kaworu Yamamoto-Genryūsai instead of the one that had been awakened with the great Dragon of Lightning, Inazuma.
That dead Kaworu had depended on Yoruichi's strength and love, this Kaworu depended on the strength and love of nothing but himself and Inazuma.
Having faced her again after such a long time, had relapsed back into the old Kaworu, the dead Kaworu, and now as they hurtled through the air she was planning to kill him once again.
No…no…no…I can't die…I won't die…I am not that Kaworo Yamamoto-Genryūsai. He is dead, I was awakened, transformed, revived…I cannot die, I am Power…I have come to set things right and the only way that can be done is to deliver a pound of pain equal to mine to Soul Society and father…to rend them to DUST!
I've been holding back, ignoring Inazuma…relying on my emotion…being overtaken by that…that BITCH!
She tore out my heart, didn't she?! So why does she make it feel like this still? That isn't fair…I won't have anymore of this…
No…no…no…Not anymore…It's time to show them my true abilities.
As Yoruichi Shihouin delivered Kaworu Yamamoto-Genryūsai's skull brutally into the ground below, Kaworu spoke one single word before the massive explosion of dust, before the ground that he had been hurtled towards reached up to meet his skull.
"No."
Could this be the end of Kaworu!?
Yoruichi's moves seem certainly impressive…if not rather familiar at some points…heheh…
Certainly she's even more powerful and dangerous like this, and with a blow like that, Kaworu has to be dead or at least messed up with a broken neck and crushed skull.
Especially from that high up…
And could this also be the end of Kisuke Urahara? He seems to be quite broken and confused by Gendo's abilities…and he also seems to have a bit of dark history concerning a certain member of his family….
Anyway, all those answers and much much more and more favorite characters and battles and maybe more Ichigo even and other stuff…
Just stick with me, onto the next chapter!