Ichigo still felt shaken by Ginjous betrayal.
Though they really hadn't known much about him, Ichigo considered him as a friend, or at least companion.
But the orangette knew that now was the worst time to let that get to him too much, so he pulled himself together and focused on the man that walked in front of them.

Aizen looked shortly over his shoulder at Ichigo, his smile widening when the younger immediately tensed.
'The boy is on guard and it will be amusing to shatter his defenses.'
Mused the brunette to himself.

They reached the shrine that stood on a wide, paved area and Aizen turned around to them, his features relaxed and eyed Ichigo.
"Tell me, young boy. Are you sure that you can trust my cousin?"
"Of course! He isn't like Ginjou."
Aizen smiled at him bemusedly and for a moment Ichigo saw someone completely different stand there with an entire other kind of smile.
"Really? Then how much do you know about him? What did he tell you about his past? Can you be sure that he didn't lie about anything of it?"
The brunette waited for a moment, seeing the doubt slowly creep into Ichigos body and the boy trying to fight it.

Down at the foot of the mountain, the slayers and Vampires collided with Ginjou and Tsukishima.
The Vampires were not as shocked about the formers betrayal, since they all had not really trusted the man, and so they didn't hesitate to attack him with all their strength.
Aizens lackeys gave the two groups some good injuries but in the end, they received a much greater deal of wounds and they turned to retreat, not bothering that their enemies were hot on their heals.

At the shrine Shiro launched an attack at Aizen, stabbing with his dagger at the mans heart, he found it caught by a hand before it could reach it's target.
"Now, dear cousin I was talking with the promised child. Where have your manners gone?"
"I won't let you wrap him in your warped speeches. We will stop you and your fucked up plan."
Aizen rose his eyebrows at that.
"My plan? It sounds as if you knew what my goal was, but if you would, then why would you try to stop me?"

He lets go of the dagger and rests the same hand on Shiros shoulder.
"Shouldn't you rather want to aid me, now that you have your dear Kaien back?"
Shiro felt like a bucket of ice water was poured over him.
"How do you..?"
Aizen played being hurt by Shiros confusion.
"Oh cousin, I thought you knew me so well. Though, the opposite seems to be the case."

His features turned into an emotionless mask.
"Did you think I wouldn't know when the promised child would be born? Did you really think I would be oblivious as to who that boy was, for eighteen years?"

Shiro backed away and took his place beside Ichigo again, while Aizen continued his rant.
"Ah, well. Of course you wouldn't, because not even the Spirits trusted you entirely. You, the one they entrusted with the prophecy. They kept a part of it from you, fearing that if you knew about it you would search for the child to kill it, to keep it from possibly ending the world as it is now."

Ichigo had enough of Aizens talk and barked at him.
"What the fuck are you talking about? How would you know about me, about my fate when I was just a mere human child?"
"Don't yell at me, my child."
"I'm not your child! Answer my question god damn it."

"Fine as I said, the prophecy that my cousin got is incomplete. The complete prophecy is following:

In the day the blood of the angels unites in one person, there will be peace between the clans.
A child will be born under the shine of a blood red moon.
Those who wish the peace, follow the child and to protect it from Judah and false prophets, so that it will not be led astray in the time of his greatest weakness.
Ought it follow Lucifers Prophet instead, it will bring doom to the entire world."

Shiro clenched his hands until his knuckles turned even paler than normal.
"Ichigo would never betray us."
"Oh, who talked about betrayal? He would simply choose what had been destined for us. Finally we will take the place at the top like it should be. We are superior to humans and slayers alike, yet we hide ourselves, play human and change our locations every few decades, just not to stand out to the humans. We feed from stored blood so that the slayers, these failed attempts of Vampires, won't find us and kill us. I will make an end of this."
Aizen tells with a silken voice at first, that soon grows in volume until it borders on bellowing, and his face distorting into a visage that clearly shows the man was just driven mad by his believes.
"With the help of that boy I will erase the slayers for good and show the world that our kind is more than just a fairytale. I will finish the task that our creator has given us and that you and everyone else obviously has forgotten about. Even our so called all father, should he still be still alive, raher hides in some hole than to bring that whole farce to an end."

Just at that moment Ginjou and Tsukishima apear before him, kneeling in front of him and bleeding heavily, Aizen regaines his mask of coolness and stares down coldly at the two.
"What's with you? Have you come running back with your tails between you legs?"
"I appologize Aizen-sama. They were stronger than we thought."
Ginjou told and seconds later their followers arrived at the shrine as well.
"I don't have any need for weaklings like you."
His lackeys looked up to him, their eyes meeting with the barrel of a gun.
"Aizen-"
Two gunshots echoed in the air and the two hit the paved ground, with empty, wide open eyes.
Ichigo had snapped his head away in disgust at the cruelty.

Aizen lifted his gaze, fixing the gathered people behind his cousin and Ichigo.
"I will deal with you later."
By a minute, slayers and Vampires alike fell to the ground, unconscious and Ichigo and Shiro just could stare at their limb forms in shock, they hadn't even seen when Aizen had moved.

"Now my child, will you come with me and help me change the world into what it should be?"
The brunette asked as he leisurely walked around Ichigo and Shiro, to stand in front of them again, with the corpses of his lackeys in his back.
Ichigo took a stance, Shiro following his example and Aizen sighed.
"Then I'll have to erase you as well."
Aizen aims his gun at Ichigo and pulls the trigger, the orangette is unable to move his body, like he's held back by an invisible force.

Before the bullet hits him, he's being pushed aside and he hears Shiro cry out in pain.
Ichigo looks over at his mate, seeing him hold his side, that bleeds profoundly.
"Bastard. Where did you get those slayer missiles?"
The orangette was on alert in an instant, knowing full well what it meant when Shiro had been hit with something like that.

"Shiro!"
"Don't worry it's just a scratch."
"But-"
"Concentrate on your enemy, Ichigo!"
Ichigo hung his head, his hand clenching around the hilt of his shortblade.

Aizen sighed, watching the two argue then said with a disappointed tone in his voice.
"I really thought you had more in you than that. I shouldn't have let you live after all, back then."
Shiro looked up to his cousin, snarling at him.
"Are you saying that I'm weak, because I protected him?"
"If that's what you think, then you're an even greater fool than my worthless parents."
"Is that so?"

Shiro grabbes the hilt of his dagger harder, then leaps forward yelling.
"Then let me reunite you with those worthless fools, who were too blind to see your true colors and too weak to kill you themselves!"
Ichigos head snaps up, and he let's out a battle cry, connects his blade with the chain in a swift motion and throws it, hitting his mark with it.
Shiro is frozen on his place right in front of Aizen as he looks back at him.

"Ichi...go. Why?"

Flashback

France, Paris 1547

"No! Marquis I won't let a filthy street rat soil your home, that I take care of every day."
The middle aged maid of Marquis Lunalber muttered, refusing to let the boy the pale nobleman had brought with him, enter the house.
"If you dislike my order so much, I'm sure I can find a solution for it. How would you like to float down the Seine? I guess the citizens won't mind it when a woman, branded as a whore, less runs around on Pari's streets."
The Marquis replied and the maid hurried to get the boy in, apologizing to her master for her rudeness.
"Let a bath in for the boy and get out of my sight."
Shiro told his maid and continued to walk to his private rooms.

An hour later the maid had drawn the bath and was about to help the boy sit in it, and scrub the dirt off him, when the Marquis entered the bath.
He sat down on a low chair behind the boy and began to scrub his black hair with soap and comb it out afterward.
"Marquis, you don't have to do that. That's my job, please get back to your rooms and rest."
The maid said, but received a stern look for it.
"This is my house, and I can do whatever I like to."

The maid lowered her gaze, clearly afraid of the wrath of her master, but Shiro would have none of it.
"Listen. There is just one thing that I want you to understand. Both of you."
He said, turning to the boy for the first time since he came into the bath.
"What, Marquis?"
The little child asked curiously.

"It doesn't matter how much money you have, or what stand you have in society. We are all equal in the face of death. Once we die we leave everything we had behind and only the memory others have of us is what remains. That's why, while we're alive we should treat each other equally and with respect, so that those who we keep behind will remember us as a kind and righteous person."
The maid nods and the little boy smiles brightly.
"I will remember the Marquis as a really, reaaally nice person."

Flashback end

Ichigos blade stuck in Shiros left lung and the albino coughed up some blood.
The orangette fixed the albino with hardened eyes.
"You know, for a while you really had me fooled. But you betrayed yourself. Aizen."
Ichigo pulls the blade out of the hit body and the mirage fades.

"How did you see through my hypnosis? Ginjou was supposed to have taken your abilities."
Aizen staggers back, bringing some distance between himself and his opponents.
"Oh, he has, though it feels like now that he's dead, his own ability wears off slowly. But that isn't what made me realize your fake."
Ichigo tells the brunette with a smile on his lips.

"Then what did?"
Aizen yells, loosing his cool for the first time since they faced each other and Ichigos smile grows a tad wider.
"Your image of Shiro."
Mentioned albino as well as his cousin just stare at him, so he elaborates it a bit further.
"You're right, when you said that Shiro didn't tell me much about his past. But he doesn't need to. Just now I remembered something from his past with Kaien. Something that you seem not to know."

Behind him, there was some stirring and a weak voice asks.
"You remember? So your memories are back?"
It was Ishida who had regained consciousness and now slowly was getting back to his feet.
Ichigo glanced back at him then said.
"Yeah, I don't know why or how it happened, but since some time I occasionally remember things."

He then turns his attention back to Aizen.
"And just know I remembered that there is one thing that is most important to Shiro. Because of that he never would have insulted his family even less the deceased and that's why you blew up your facade."
Aizen chuckles lowly, but flinches when the stab hurts and bleeds some more.
"I see. I never would have guessed that something so small would blow me up. It seems like my path will end here..."
He grabs into his suit as he continues.
"...but if I have to go to hell I'll at least drag the both of you with me!"
Aizen throws a pair of darts at Ichigo and Shiro, the former deflecting it with his blade, but the albino wasn't as fast, slowed down by the already great loss of blood it hits him in his shoulder, before he could even try to dodge it.

Ichigo cries out and looses it, with an raged cry he jumps at Aizen and slits his throat.
The moment the brunette touches the ground with his body bleeding out, Ichigo was already by Shiros side and he desperately tries to stop the bleeding from both wounds.
"Sh-Shiro, come on you can't die on me now. Stay awake ok?"
The albino blinks and smiles weakly at him.
"Who...is going to die? Something...like that...won't kill me."
Ichigo smiles back, but tears are already rolling down his face proving it to be a fake.
"Your cousin really didn't know you well. You're such a bad liar."
He says with a shaky voice.

A hand is rested softly on his shoulder and he looks up to the owner.
"D-Dad? What are you doing here?"
Isshin kneels beside his son, setting an ice box on the ground and holds a hand over Shiro, slowly his wounds begin to close.
Ichigo just stares wide eyed at what his father was doing, before he stuttered.
"How...How did you do that?"
His goat-faced father sighs and finally speaks, as he takes some blood bags from the ice box and hands them over to Shiro.
"Ichigo, you really are dense. Have you never wondered how my patients always could leave the clinic so fast, no matter how grave the injury?"
"Well, no...but... You can heal people? How?"

From behind them there was suddenly a lot of motion and someone groaned lightly, before he spoke.
"That's because Isshin-san is similar to yourself, Ichigo-san."
Urahara answered the youngsters question and stepped over to the three men.
"What?"
"Actually, Aizen wasn't the reason why you were partially a Vampire. He just had been the influence to reactivate your sleeping genes as it seems."
Ichigo looked dumbfound at Urahara and then at his father.
"What? I don't get it."

Shiro, groaned in frustration on the ground, threw the third bag he had emptied in the time the others had spoken aside and retorted.
"It means that in your lineage there were Vampires and your father as well as your sisters have those genes laying more or less dormant in them, while yours have been triggered to activate through Aizens blood that you've been fed in your mothers womb."
"Then, I'm actually a mixed-blood?"
He asked, but he never heard the confirmation of his father, because suddenly lots of presences hit his senses so that they were overloaded by the force of it.

"What is this feeling?"
"Those are..."
Renji set on to say, but was soon overwhelmed by the feeling as well, but Shuuhei finished for him.
"Our lost brothers and sisters."

Shiro props himself on his elbows, not getting what it going on, and struggles to get up, still feeling a bit weak from the slayer weaponry that hit him.
"What is the meaning of this?"
Kisuke reached down to him and pulled one of his arms over his shoulder to help the albino up.
"I think it means that a change is in order."

Chapter 33
End