Hello, people :) I am sick, for the second time in two weeks – this is the reason for the minor delay in updating. Yesterday I was 500 words from the end of the chapter and I was staring at my computer going like "Ichigo is…Ichigo is…" and my brain was like: "No. Sleep. Now." But you get a long chapter again, so I'll be forgiven?

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IMPORTANT: I do realise that there might be some discrepancies regarding how some characters in this chapter might or might not be in certain positions in the Gotei as of this time, but really Bleach is a bit messed up in timeline so there you go.

I don't own, I love you guys, here's the chapter!

Rukia deals him a kick without any real venom, and marches off to stand in the center of the iced garden. A sweeping gesture of Sode no Shirayuki later, the snow is cleared and the garden is a flat plane of frozen ice again.

Ichigo flips to his side, propping his head sideways to look at her.

Rukia holds out her hand.

Ichigo tilts his head.

"Will you dance with me, Ichigo?"

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Moonrise over Seireitei. It is an especially spectacular moon that night, a pale disc of purest white, perfectly round, symmetrical in its glowing beauty. The light that drifts like stardust from the heavens illuminates the ribboned edges of the nighttime clouds, painting the sky a palette of royal blue, ultramarine, navy, zaffre. It is the sort of bright darkness in the sky that makes even the most hardened shinigami indulge in the less-than-manly action of drawing back the curtains and staring up at the coin-like marvel.

It is the sort of moon that requires one no lantern, or lit candle to walk the streets and gardens. A particular garden in Seireitei is bathed in the incandescent moonlight, an archway to the skies, the beginning pinpricks of emerging stars reflected in the smooth abyss of polished ice.

Ichigo raises his eyebrows at the suddenness of the question, taking in his horizontal view of the world and Rukia in it. "I can't dance," he replies, by way of stalling.

Rukia puts her hand on her hip, still beckoning with her other. "Nonsense," she quips, "you've got about the best hand-eye coordination the Gotei has seen in about a hundred years. Come."

Ichigo rubs the back of his head sheepishly as he pushes himself up to a sitting position. "Umm, I really don't know how to dance. Nobody ever taught me how." The moonlight sets Rukia's hair on silver fire. He looks away quickly, hiding a sudden blush, fiddling with his fingers in his lap.

Small hands enter his field of vision, stilling the nervous fidgeting in his. "Well then," Rukia says, a bit of a grin on her face, "that's another thing I'm going to have to teach you, then, baka." She pulls him up, until his taller form once again towers over hers.

Ichigo tries to shuffle backwards, but is foiled by the slippery ice. Rukia frowns. "Stay put," she orders with all the authority of a captain. He complies. "I'm going to teach you the basic box step. You can't mess up something that easy."

"Oi. Someone here didn't receive nobility training, you know."

"Just because you're an under-educated idiot doesn't mean you have an excuse. Now shut up and listen."

A hmpf of annoyance, but Ichigo submits.

Rukia holds out her hand, businesslike. Ichigo takes it, tentatively. He has held her hand many times before, and it wasn't ever as awkward as this. "No," Rukia says, rolling her eyes, "you support my hand, not the other way around." Ichigo flips his grip, scowling.

It takes another two seconds before Rukia realises that Ichigo has no idea what to do. Sighing with a hint of exasperation, she darts forward and grabs his wrist, placing his hand on her waist. Ichigo is clueless - elbows angled all wrong, making him look uncomfortably awkward. Rukia pointedly ignores this and transfers her hand to his shoulder. A moment of this, and she decides that he is way too tall for the traditional way of doing things, lowering her hand rest comfortably in his elbow.

"Right. Now we step like this–" she steps back, and he nearly falls over her as his foot invariably finds something to snag on while on ice. "In the name of all the Gotei–" she says, "can you keep your balance while moving one foot?"

Ichigo is about to snap back a retort, but the moonlight catches the curve of her cheek, and stuns him. "Sorry," he mumbles instead.

"Baka." The word is surprisingly soft. Then Rukia's tone is commanding again. "Now try again. And if you step on my foot, I will kill you."

"Yessir."

He steps on her foot. She whacks him upside the head. He grumbles. They try again.

"Watch your other foot!" She hits him again.

"Owww…"

"You're hopeless. I take back my former compliment about your hand-eye coordination."

"Your steps are shorter than mine! Your feet are small. Doesn't help that you're a midget."

A violet glare.

Ichigo retreats.

"Fine," Rukia says, "you leave me no choice." Ichigo waits for his impending judgment. "Switch. I'll be the man." She rearranges his hands before he can object.

"Is this even allowed?" Ichigo scowls over this humiliation.

"It's a backup plan for idiots who have two left feet. Now move it."

"Peh."

They shuffle onwards in a slowly revolving circle around the ice, the quiet indispersed with little bouts of squabbling, and the occasional hit or two from Rukia. By and by, the frequency of the bursts of quarreling decreases until a comfortable silence descends on the dancers, and Ichigo is deemed capable enough to revert back to guiding Rukia instead of the other way round.

Ichigo breaks the silence first. "Rukia?" he asks, looking down at the small head of hair under his chin as they skate slowly on the ice.

"Hmm?"

"Are you happy?"

Rukia blinks. "What do you mean?" she asks, snowflakes in her hair.

Ichigo tries again. "I mean, are you happy back in the Fourteenth Division? I know it's a small division, and new, and I was thinking about what you said before…" He trails off.

What I said before? Rukia frowns. Oh. "Is this…about yesterday?" she ventures, keeping her expression impassive.

A shadow passes over Ichigo's face. "Yeah," he whispers. They come to a standstill on the ice.

Rukia looks at him, and sees for, the first time after their argument the day before, what truly lies in those brown eyes. Regret. Remorse. Worry. And fear. Fear that she would grow weary of such a small division, and his leadership, and fear that he would disappoint her, and she would leave. Leave to a place where he cannot protect her.

Rukia sighs. Does she really possess such power over him as to leave him so insecure after a few words said in anger? The other Rukia was right. I am blind. It is she that regrets her words that day. She must fix this.

But Ichigo has interpreted the sigh to mean something else. "I'm sorry," he says in a rush, "I know I made mistakes, and that I'm overprotective. It's not that I don't respect your skills as a shinigami, it's just that – " he stops. "I – Can you give me another chance?"

She takes a moment to appreciate how inordinately worried he is, before stepping in firmly. "Ichigo," she says, looking straight at him, "there is nothing to forgive. I overreacted. I got angry. I said things. Don't take them to heart, okay? I'm sorry." She reaches up on tiptoes and tugs at a lock of spiky orange hair.

"Oh," Ichigo says, nonplussed. Rukia nods emphatically. Ichigo swallows. "So," he ventures, "you are happy? In my division?"

"Yes, baka," Rukia replies, and pulls him back to dancing. "Now forget the stupid argument and fix your footwork," she orders. Ichigo smiles, and does so.

The moon climbs higher into the sky. For a while, there is only the shift of cloth as they whirl and spin gently under the heavens. Ichigo gets used to the gentle rhythm of their dance, and the awkwardness disappears. Around them, the lights of Sereitei blink and flicker as more and more are lit.

Ichigo clears his throat. "Your talk with the younger…with her went well, I suppose? She seemed a lot happier."

Rukia shifts, looking away. "Yeah. I don't know –" She halts. Ichigo waits patiently, unhalting in his guiding steps. Rukia swallows, turning her head back to stare straight ahead, into the black folds of his shihakushuo. "I think I'm scared of her."

Ichigo doesn't have to ask why. Seeing a younger self must be frightening in itself – but the younger Rukia is so different, so much lonelier and weaker and in so much more pain, it must be ten times more unsettling. He steers them back towards the circle of moonlight. "I'm scared of her too, you know." He says softly.

Rukia stiffens, and her head tilts in a silent question. Ichigo shakes his head ruefully. He begins, "The first night we came here –" His words catch in his throat. "– I ran into her, outside your room." Ichigo shivers imperceptibly, and his hand tightens on Rukia's. "She was just suddenly there – no warning – and it was like seeing you, but not you. I – I don't – it wasn't a good feeling." He stops, unsure how to explain himself.

But Rukia also understands. A stranger with her face, standing while she was unconscious and weak in his arms. She nods, and Ichigo relaxes. A strange emotion rises in her throat. The quiet descends again.

Then a small sniff from somewhere below him sends Ichigo into a concerned frown. He stops their dancing, if dancing it can be called, this shifting from foot to foot under the moon, and bends down to peer into her face.

"I miss them," Rukia says, trying not to let the emotion enter her voice.

Ichigo sighs. There is no need to ask who she is referring to. "We'll see them again," he says quietly.

"I miss Nii-sama, and Renji, and Ukitake-taichou, and Hinamori-chan, and –" She chokes back a small sob. Must not cry must not cry must not cry…

Then a voice breaks into her thoughts. "I'm here, you know." Ichigo falls to stroking her hair. Rukia buries her face into the front of his haori, and lets him hug her until she stops trembling. "We're both going to get out of here," Ichigo continues, his voice strong, constant, "and we'll laugh about it after, okay?"

Rukia can hear the comforting thud thud thud of his heartbeat, and nods into his chest. Ichigo holds her closer, and, after a moment of hesitation, presses a kiss into her hair. She looks up sharply at this. Ichigo pauses, afraid of something he cannot name. But Rukia simply tightens her hug, unanswering, and relaxes into his embrace.

The moonlight drifts gently, a gentle nightlight hung high on a curtain of black, over the still-dancing figures of a taichou and fukutaichou on a plane of mirrored ice.

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Rukia yawns, snuggling deeper into her burrow of blankets as the morning chill seeps in through the window. Turning, she cracks open an eyelid, and blearily registers that there is no snoring Ichigo sitting half-slumped over in the chair beside her bed. Rukia turns over again, trying to swallow a weird feeling of disappointment. Two days in a row waking to the constant glow of Ichigo's reiatsu in the chair next to her has left the room feeling somewhat empty without his presence. The wood-panelled walls, carved with the Kuchiki clan's symbol, seem cold and forbidding. Ichigo's comforting presence had distracted her from noticing.

I am not disappointed, Rukia tells herself firmly.

Rukia shoves the thought out of her head. It is too early to wake. Must go back to sleep. Yawning again, she is almost adrift in dreams when the sliding door to her room slams open with a crash.

"Wha-?" she mumbles, but then Ichigo is shaking her awake.

"Rukia! Can't you sense that?" he says tightly. He is already fully dressed, complete with haori and zanpaktuo.

"What is it, Ichigo!" she complains in half-asleep anger, rubbing her eyes.

Ichigo's eyes are wide. "There's something coming. A lot of them, but they're hidden. It's throbbing in my chest –" He looks behind him, sharply.

"I don't feel anything…" Rukia grumbles, propping herself up on one elbow.

But Ichigo is already gone, haori flying behind him. The room is suddenly silent, and all the more empty.

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Over a dreamscape belonging to a particular academy student, a serene wind blows. The dreamscape is peaceful and still, a silence born from too much kido practice followed by intense zanjutsu training, then eating too much at the cafeteria and a consequential food coma. The beginnings of an internal time clock that all seasoned shinigami possess ticks away in this student's mind, comforting in its knowledge that classes are still hours away.

RINNNNNNGGGRINNNNNNGGGRINNNNNNGGG!

The morning bell of the academy is glaringly klaxon-like, breaking the fluffy weariness that muffles the sleepy mind of one Abarai Renji, third year student at the Shinigami Academy. The life of an accelerated-class shinigami-in-training is very tiring indeed.

Renji's internal time clock registers that it is far too early for the bell to be ringing, and decides that the infernal noise must be the fault of his roommates. Groaning, he debates momentarily whether to slam his pillow over his ears and hair, or fling the projectile at the nearest bunk. He decides on the latter, yanking the pillow from under his messy red hair and catapulting it into Izura Kira's half-awake face. It impacts with a satisfying thwack.

"Shut up mmfph…" Renji mumbles under his blankets.

But he is not to enjoy the bliss of sleep, for the bell only rings louder as someone storms to his bedside and yanks the quilt off his face.

"Wake. Up, Abarai you idiot," Kira's surprisingly serious voice hisses at him.

Renji opens his eyes into tiny slits, peering up at Kira's worried? face uncomprehendingly, a scowl twisting his eyebrows. "What," he growls.

Kira is already belting his zanpakutuo onto his waist, tugging his sandals on with an alarming haste. "That isn't the morning bell. Get up," he says shortly. Something in his voice jolts Renji into full wakefulness, as he sits up, hair cascading past his tattoos. That really isn't the morning bell.

Renji shouts out loud, springing to his feet and reaching for his hairtie. That never-ending ringing is the academy-wide warning alarm. Something really, really bad is happening. A glance across the dormitory shows roughly half the students awake, and the rest in the process of waking.

Thirty seconds later, Renji and Kira are fully dressed and armed, shunpo-ing to the central courtyard along with a veritable sea of escaping students. The first-years are in a state of organized panic, asauchi-less, reiatsu signatures warping in their fear. The second and third years are not much better, tugging slightly variegated asauchi behind them as they try to apply what little experience they have. The students in the accelerated classes and those close to graduating have a grim set about their mouths, twisting and weaving through the crowd with carefully placed shunpo. Both Renji and Kira belong to this group, the ones with talent set to graduate early.

But the sheer number of students is preventing the experienced from moving quickly, and they have to fight their way through a melee of terrified rookies. A corridor away from the central courtyard, they run into a breathless Hinamori Momo, trying to stay afloat in the stifling mass of students.

"Momo!" Kira yells, reaching towards her.

Hinamori clasps the tips of his fingers and allows herself to be shielded somewhat by his taller frame, a wordless thanks in her eyes. "Can you feel that?" she gasps. Renji and Kira nod. There is a darkening miasma in the air, the encroaching shadow of an approaching horror. Renji has felt it once before. On the field trip when Hisagi Shuuhei lost his right eye.

Hollows.

Together, the three spill into the expanse of the largest open space in the academy. Their eyes widen.

It is war in the courtyard.

Dozens of towering, white terrors loom across the field, their shrieking cries reverberating across the panicking students. The younger students cower along the walls, holding each other as some braver ones fire random kido at the beasts. The sixth-years are scattered all over the yard, small explosions of shikai release trailing their feet. The limited number of academy training instructors are mere distortions in the fight, felling hollow after hollow in a mad dance to protect the untrained shinigami.

Renji tightens his hold on Zabimaru. He had attained shikai a few months ago, but true shikai release only weeks before. For a third-year student, this is exemplary. But as a screaming howl tears across his eardrums, he doubts his ability. Beside him, Kira also hesitates.

And then a blurred form flies past him, slamming into the wall with enough force to crack brick and stone. The sixth-year drops his zanpakutuo, falling to the ground and retching on his knees. Hinamori runs to him, healing kido glowing in her hands, but the sixth-year raises his head, rivulets of sweat and blood running down his temples, and stops her with a look. "Run, you fools," he gasps past his racking coughs.

Hinamori backs away, looking at Renji and Kira helplessly.

Renji grits his teeth, and unsheathes Zabimaru with a rasp of metal. Kira draws Wabisuke, tucking his fringe behind his ear. Renji gives Hinamori a glance. He is about to tell her to run, but she too draws her zanpakutuo, the fear in her eyes balanced by determination.

"Let's go." Renji's voice is toneless, hiding the fear in his throat.

They dive as one into the warzone.

This is timeless. There is no minute by minute, only action, and reaction, hollow's roar against roar of war, claw against metal, gargantuan steps against shunpo. It must have been mere seconds, but it feels like hours. Between slashes of Zabimaru and near-misses from clawed white hands, Renji registers that they are losing. The two gates of escape at the far ends of the courtyard are blocked off by the sheer number of hollows, and the students are only prevented from massacre by the continued efforts of the academy instructors and those students skilled enough to fight.

There is a gigantic rift in the sky, torn in the barrier around Sereitei itself. From within the boundless chasm a tsunami of white pours, an endless wave. But the ones coming now are smaller, more humanoid, halfway between monster and man-shaped. And by the Gotei, are they fast. Renji barely sidesteps the laughing strike of the first one he encounters, a weirdly childlike face leering in bloodlust as it pivots in midair and comes for him again. Where did they come from? The attack was sudden, calculated so that the Gotei 13 would be slow to respond. There had been no warning.

"Five minutes!" An instructor screams across the battlefield. "Hold them back for another five minutes! The Gotei are coming!"

We can't make it. Renji despairs as he parries another blow, unable to risk shikai release in such a high-speed fight. A cut opens on his right cheek. Another on his left arm. There are no shinigami deaths so far – but in five minutes, there may as well be a hundred.

A piercing cry from behind. Renji swivels, too slowly, too slowly. Can't block in time. His death looms in front of him.

A whisper of shunpo, a murmur of cloth, and hollow blood sprays fountain-like into the air.

Renji catches a glimpse of shihakushuo, a long, heavy blade, and a flash of a white haori, before the blurring figure shunpo-s halfway across the yard.

A captain. Renji breathes a choked gasp of relief.

The tall captain sports a head of alarmingly coloured orange hair, but Renji cannot discern the rest of his features clearly in the cloud of smoke and dust kicked up by the man's extremely fast shunpo. The taichou moves like a ghost, flitting from hollow to hollow with such extraordinary lightness and grace it seems like he is in several places at once.

Renji can suddenly breathe again, as a bubble of empty space clears around him. All over the courtyard, he sees the white glow of the captain's haori as hollows are pushed back towards the far end of the field. Renji narrows his eyes. Why isn't he cutting them down? The captain is herding the hollows with deft skill into a seething mass, his lightning speed preventing any from darting back towards the shinigami. Academy instructors and students stumble out of the fray into the waiting hands of the huddled student crowd, as all turn to see the magnificent display of shunpo and zanjutsu performed by this blur of a captain.

When every last hollow is grouped together, snarling, in a heaving corpus boiling with frustration and blood against the far wall, the man finally slows enough for the entire student body to see more than a flash of orange and white.

The captain slides through an elegant sweep of dust, his haori billowing behind him, huge zanpakutuo out and ready. The students gasp, and mutter among themselves.

Fourteenth Division?

The man gives the students a look over his shoulder, and Renji catches an expression torn between concern and anger. Then the captain throws himself into the air at a breathtaking speed, zanpakutuo raised high above his head, the morning sun glinting blindingly over the keen silver of his blade. He flips into a perfect arc, silhouetted against the rising sun, and the very air shifts with power.

The students gasp again as one, as the ground jolts under the weight of a reiatsu unlike anything they have ever felt before, as the captain reaches the apex of his flight and flings his sword in a single, brilliant curve towards the mass of hollows. A massive wave of cerulean energy sets the air on fire, glorious against the patterned sky.

It decimates over seventy hollows in an instant.

The sudden silence is tinged with awe.

Ichigo lands lightly, without a sound.

Renji swallows. So this is the power of a shinigami captain. He thinks of Byakuya. Renji somehow feels further than ever from his goal.

Ichigo half-turns, and an eyeblink later, he is within speaking distance, his haori drifting slowly to rest about his ankles. The students waver before his gaze.

But what comes out of his mouth is unexpected. "Sereitei security sucks," Ichigo snorts derisively, straightening his crooked haori. "It's even worse than when I broke in."

This is answered with a disbelieving sort of silence.

Ichigo takes in the cowering crowd of students before him, and picks out a few familiar faces. He has to control himself before he grins – he would pay quite a fair amount to bring a photo of the expression on this Renji's face back to pineapple-head, just to rub it in. There is something akin to hero-worship mixed with awe and jealousy on this younger Renji's visage.

But no time for that.

"We don't have much time. The second wave will be here in a minute," Ichigo says clearly across the courtyard, addressing the few academy instructors. "I take it you know who I am?" Higher-level shinigami should have been informed of his and Rukia's arrival a few days ago.

Several nods. A man sporting a clipped moustache steps forward – the headmaster – and replies with a military-like brusqueness, "Yes, Kurosaki-taichou. Our thanks for the speedy intervention."

Ichigo takes the compliment in stride. When he next speaks, it is in the tone he uses to address his subordinates – clear, effective, weighted with authority. "You need to get the students out. A few strong hado spells should clear the main doors. Instructors, you hold the hollows back." He settles his gaze on the students, and many unconsciously stand straighter. "Sixth years and near-graduates, step forward."

About fifty students pick their way out of the crowd. Ichigo narrows his eyes, and hefts Zangetsu at a particular trio. "Including you three. I know you guys have shikai release."

Renji splutters – How does he even know me? – and looks behind him to check whether he meant someone else.

"Yes, you, Renji," comes the mocking call.

He knows my name?! The students explode into another round of mutters. Only the teaching staff seem unsurprised.

Ichigo slams a wave of reiatsu outwards, kicking up a cloud of dust in a broad circle around him. Silence falls immediately. "All of you will assist the wounded and guard the evacuating students. Momo," he suddenly calls, eliciting a sharp squeak from Hinamori, "start clearing the entrances. Get moving, people."

There is no arguing with that tone. The students snap into motion, even as Ichigo turns to face the rift in the sky with an inscrutable expression. "Moustache-san," he calls.

A tic appears on the headmaster's brow, but he stays admirably calm. "Yes, taichou?" he answers.

"Was there any warning? A folding of the fabric between worlds? Anything at all?"

The headmaster shakes his head. "No. They came out of nowhere."

Ichigo's eyes darken. "Right. Thank you." His fingers touch the front of his shihakushuo lightly, where his heart is. But I felt them. He turns toward the sky.

"Where are you going?" the headmaster asks quickly.

Ichigo laughs humourlessly. "To stop them before they spill into Seireitei proper." He crouches, and before the headmaster can reply, disappears into a distant speck, shunpo-ing on air. The wind from his passing whips the surrounding students' hair into disarray.

The academy braces for the next wave of hollows.

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The western edge of Seireitei is a chaotic frenzy of battle; an unorganised turmoil of footsoldiers, seated officers, fukutaichou, captain, against hollows of every shape and size. There has been no time for orderly ranks or division-controlled attacks – the melee is every shinigami for themselves. The war cries of shinigami mingle with hollow shrieks in a dark concerto of blood and death, a shadowed orchestra of kill or be killed.

Across the tiled rooftops, two figures dart and dance through the occasional enemy, not pausing for more than the moment needed for a well-placed slash of a zanpakutuo. The one leading is dark-haired, a severe frown on his brow, sea-green eyes narrowed in concentration. The one following close behind grins a macabre smile, an undercurrent of dark humour twisting his laughing mouth.

"Suiten sakamake, Nejibana!"

A blade glows dazzlingly golden, lengthening into a trident worthy of Poseidon, elegant, poised, deadly. A flip and a spiral in experienced hands, and a massive wall of reiatsu-charged water torrents through a group of hollows, drowning them in a wet sphere of crushing pressure.

Shiba Kaien lands with a gracefully executed roll on the next rooftop, Nejibana in full shikai mode and held in a reverse grip behind him. He looks back at his companion.

"Moero, Engetsu! Getsuga Tenshou!"

Reiatsu explodes along the length of the blade, bathing the sword in unearthly fire. A flare of blued fire, dancing madly to a madman's wishes – and a swathe of hollows disappears in the roaring crackle of flame.

Shiba Isshin lands on one knee, and straightens with a cocky smile. "Got more than you. I win, heheheheh. Bow down to my superiority, insolent nephew."

Kaien raises one eyebrow. "You can make anything into a game, Uncle. I am undeniably obliged to your positivity," he replies with a sardonic roll of his eyes.

Isshin ignores the pointed sarcasm. "Revel in my power, merhehehe," he cackles in an admirable impersonation of a fantasy supervillain.

And then there is a blast of reiatsu behind them that can only be described as a detonation, as a half-familiar reiatsu signature swells to ten times the magnitude of either their previous attacks. They only have just enough time to up their own signatures to shield themselves, when the strike happens.

"Getsuga. Tenshou." The words are not an exclamation. They are a cold, factual statement of power.

The world turns blue and black. The sky covered in a sheen of cerulean, the edges of the reiatsu wave melding into stunning white, the emptiness of pure, unadulterated power.

"Whoa," Kaien whispers, despite himself.

The following silence is almost anti-climatic.

Ichigo ghosts next to them, not even out of breath. He greets them with a terse nod, brushing a hand through orange spikes to clear them out of his eyes.

Isshin, when recovered, is almost beside himself. "That. Is beyond cool, my friend," he breathes, eyes glowing with a hint of pride. Then the silliness returns. "I defer my sword to your magnanimous power, O great one!" he shouts, grinning widely.

"Shut up."

"Awww. Don't be like that."

Ichigo turns very deliberately to Kaien, leaving Isshin pouting in his wake. "How many?" he asks shortly.

Kaien grimaces, twirling Nejibana absently. "Hundreds. The smaller ones are the worst. It's good there aren't that many of them."

"I don't see any arrancar yet," Ichigo returns, eliciting a sharp look from Kaien at his use of the term, "but we need to be on our guard. I can take them out most efficiently when there aren't any others in the way. Can you push them to a clear area?"

"Of course. Where's Rukia?" Kaien suddenly asks.

"I left her back at the Kuchiki compound. Should be here soon, though. She's not the type to miss out on a fight." Ichigo does not mention how she would probably get here twice as fast just to beat him up for leaving her behind.

Isshin's voice suddenly breaks in. "Are we doing this or what?" he grins, a hint of bloodlust in his smile.

Ichigo's mouth twists upwards. "Let's go."

The three leap as one into the air.

Countless minutes later, perhaps hours, perhaps seconds, lost in the emptiness that is war, the tide of hollows is unfading. As each one is dissolved into screaming ash by water, fire, ice, blade, another rises to take its place. The science team's hell butterflies flicker thick and frequent in the air, reports regarding their progress in closing the gaping rift in the sky. Nobody really has any time to activate them. Shinigami and hollow are evenly matched – the battle is now a standstill of blade and claw.

Landing on a rooftop between the Eleventh and Tenth divisions, Ichigo takes a moment to catch his breath after his last attack. Kaien lands a beat behind him, wiping sweat out of one eyebrow. Isshin approaches from the opposite direction, still grinning, although there is a grimness about his jaw. "Good hunting –" his eyes widen, "– behind you, Ichigo!"

Ichigo turns to find his vision filled with adjuchas, a leering white mask of impending death. He brings Zangetsu in front of him –

"Tsugi no mai, Hakuren!"

Blinding white. A torrent of snow and ice, leaving Ichigo blinking in its passing.

Something small and hard impacts the back of his neck with a painful crack. Ichigo turns his head to find Rukia's bunched fist making its second approach, thumping into the small of his back with resolute intent.

"Ow! I'm sorry for leaving you behind, midget, but Renji and the others would have been in deep crap if I didn't get there!"

"Hmpfh." Rukia's violet eyes are dangerous – but she pulls back her next punch at the mention of Renji. She glares at him. "And what if I had gotten here just a second later, hmm, BAKAMONO!"

Ichigo winces. "I would have blocked it?"

He gets a kick in the shins. He accepts it without complaint, because he can tell that Rukia is venting her what is left of her worry into anger. It was a close miss. Behind him, Isshin is practically beaming at their argument. Ichigo sighs. He can see the cogs working in his father's brain, shipping them together with a paternal glee.

"Hello, Kaien-dono," Rukia says, managing to look him in the eye. She smiles when he nods back.

"I am honoured to fight with you," Kaien says, only half-joking, smiling in return.

"Come on," Rukia says in a different tone, "we've got work to do." She pulls Ichigo's sleeve, her white-gloved hand tugging on black.

Ichigo is glad to have someone he trusts defending his back, and he can tell that Rukia is too. They fly into the battle with synchronized experience, an ease in their movements borne of years of shared training and implacable trust in the other's abilities. If there is a hole in Rukia's defense as she waltzes with ice, Ichigo is there beside her to make up for it. If Ichigo has a blind spot to his left as he blasts a Getsuga Tenshou, Rukia's sword is within slashing distance. They almost seem to read each other's minds and they dance together in a deadly chain of impenetrable attacks, weaving a fabric cavorting with death.

Kaien grins proudly, Nejibana a blur in his hands as he flits along the perimeter of their swords, driving the hollows into their blades. Isshin is almost cackling with delight.

Around them, almost every captain has arrived on the battlefield. A haze of pink announces Byakuya's entry on a wave of sakura petals; Ukitake's white hair flies behind him in sweeping arcs as he cleaves hollows asunder; Kyouraku's haori flutters in the wind, his hat staying on his head against all laws of common sense as he ducks and weaves between cero; Soi Fong, faster than a hornet, clawed fingers deadly stingers, twisting in midair; Zaraki laughing a madman's laugh, enjoying himself obscenely as he hews his way across the sky, surrounded by piles of fallen white; Komamura, helmet gleaming, sundering the air with his zanpakutuo.

And still the wave of hollows is not quite pushed back.

Someone will have to fall to bankai soon, Ichigo thinks amid a storm of cero. Their method of grouping the hollows into bunches and finishing them off with a quick Getsuga Tenshou is effective, but not fast enough. What they need is speed. Soi Fong is currently the most efficient, leaping from clash to clash and picking off the hollows with lethal rapidity, leaving foot soldiers blinking as their enemies fall in front of them.

Ichigo knows that he could finish it all in seconds if he struck with bankai. He also knows that even if the other captains used the next release, none of them possess the high speed required to decisively push the battle in their favour without causing collateral damage.

Beside him, Rukia meets his gaze with worried violet. She understands the danger of revealing too much of their powers. Ichigo asks her the wordless question.

"Do it," she hisses back when she next passes by his ear, "but be careful."

Ichigo translates this to mean don't reveal your hollow powers.

"Okay then," he says half to himself, readying Zangetsu. He breathes in, and out. Let's go, he thinks to Zangetsu. And you, stay put, he thinks to the hollow hiding in the skyscrapers of his consciousness. It gives him a wicked grin, but curls in upon itself in an uncharacteristic display of submission. It, too, understands the significance of hiding.

Zangetsu's broad blade extends in front of him, straight and true, somehow feeling right clasped in his hands. Ichigo, in a sort of detached way, knows that Rukia is covering him as he readies himself, and that Isshin is paying exceptionally close attention, some instinct signaling a change in Ichigo's stance.

Ichigo opens his eyes, and speaks words lined with steel. "Bankai. Tensa Zangetsu."

There is a moment when the world fades, and all Ichigo can hear and feel and see is the beating of his heart and the rasp of his breath, and Zangetsu's inclined head, saying yes, here. Then the sky and the air shudders with immense gravity, and everyone on the battlefield stops breathing as one, because heaven itself is weighing on their shoulders –

An explosion of black, warring with white and a residual of blue. It clears to reveal Ichigo garbed in a magnificent cloak of crimson and shadow, Zangetsu extending long and fatal from his fingertips, a metal instrument of coming death.

Rukia shifts in relief. She can hardly detect any hollow energy, although if she concentrates, a trace is undeniably there. She gives Ichigo a terse nod of affirmation.

Isshin is the first to recover after Rukia, rubbing grit out of his eyes. "That's a bit of an underwhelming bankai, isn't it?" he laughs, taking in the simplicity of the coat and the sword.

The corner of Ichigo's mouth twitches.

And then he is suddenly gone, borne by the wind.

"What –" Kaien falters, eyes unable to follow the movement, only able to discern the barest whisper of air as Ichigo passes him. Rukia relaxes, lowering Sode no Shirayuki with a sigh of tiredness.

Kaien notices. "What are you doing?" he says in alarm, shunpo-ing to her side. "The battle's not over yet, you can't drop your guard like that! Haven't I taught you not to –"

But he is forced to swallow his words whole at Rukia's smile, devoid of anything other than trust in her captain. "Don't worry, Kaien-dono," she says, "just watch. Try not to blink."

Kaien doesn't.

It is a sight to behold. All over the battlefield, on rooftops and alleyways and streets, hollows fall to a silent and swift blade, seemingly at once. Shinigami stumble awkwardly into walls as they are buffeted by something passing by, only to turn and find their enemy bleeding out at their feet. So terrifyingly fast does Ichigo move, the first drop of hollow blood from a felled monster does not touch the ground before the throats of twenty more are opened along Zangetsu's keen edge.

Kaien squints, sea-green irises struggling to catch a glimpse of Ichigo. He manages to see a whisper of a haori, ephemeral white at the turning of a corner, but nothing more. This is shunpo on a whole other level.

"Woweee…" Isshin whistles, eyes gleaming.

The other captains fare no better. Byakuya narrows his eyes as his writhing prey is snatched clean out of the jaws of Senbonzakura; Soi Fong snarls as she claws at thin air, her enemy collapsing a half-second before she reaches them; Zaraki howls in disappointment when a dozen hollows fall soundlessly twenty feet from his blade. Ukitake and Kyouraku merely sheathe their blades with a soft smile and an approving grin respectively.

In less than a minute, the battlefield is still.

Ichigo appears on a tiled spire of a rooftop, right arm and blade drenched with gore, coat flying in the wind. A glance upwards shows the gap in the sky closing, no longer bleeding hollows.

Ukitake holds out a slender finger, a hell butterfly alighting gently. A tinny recorded voice, a scientific officer from the science corps, ensues. "We have stabilized the breach; I repeat, we have stabilized the breach. Now running investigation on why hollows were able to enter undetected – preliminary data suggests shielding. Please be advised." The recording finishes.

The captains shift as one. Shielding? Ichigo frowns – that would explain why only he felt a warning pulse that morning. His inner hollow must have enabled him to sense the incoming hollows. Shielding. By who?

Ichigo suddenly has a very good idea. He deactivates bankai as fast as possible, clamping down on his reiatsu while scanning for Rukia in a panic. Where is she, where is she…

A voice, mild and warm, but engraved in Ichigo's memory as high and cold, the voice of hell itself, a voice belonging to a person more beast than man, breaks into his thoughts.

Ichigo tries to calm his raging heart, and breathe through the sudden constriction of his airways, as he struggles to turn and meet the gaze still framed at that point in time by square glasses, a dove's mask on a snake.

Aizen Sosuke smiles warmly, scholarly brown eyes soft, the very picture of the kindest captain in the Gotei 13.

"That was very impressive indeed, young man. I believe I have not had the pleasure of making your acquaintance?"

Well, muahahahaha…how do you like that?

I am fully aware that I am working myself into a potentially massive plothole. All those flashback arcs in the manga to how Aizen was in the past were not the clearest, and so I shall have to manage on my own. So if there are any disreprancies, please have mercy! :)

Please review, it makes me happy :) I will see you guys in around eight days or so :)

Replies to guest reviews:

Guest: Thanks for reviewing! I hope you liked this one too :)

vine: Thank you so much! Haha, I'm now feeling the plotholes involved in time-travel, because I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH AIZEN. Sob. But I shall manage. Ichiruki forever! :)

insertnamehere: Isshin is my favourite too, I hope you liked his bit in this chapter :)