Hello people. This is right on time, as I said – end of the week, uploaded for your Sunday enjoyment. You may want to kill me at the end of the chapter. I ask that you postpone your murderous intentions, at least until I have time to finish the story and run away for a bit before you all come on a mass attack with your assorted zanpakutuo.

Thanks to reviewers: DLC2904, uzuki-chan, BleachFreak16, Codegeasslulu, MerryKitten, poooy200, Phantom Claire, Debido, The Unknown ShiniGami, IronEclipse, ZeroRose90, Lovely Loree, Titiaredhead, brialees, ilovebks, Taichichaser2000, laughingspider, Allyieh, Moon's last stand, GhibliGirl91, MugetsuIchigo, Dashita Tichou, mypupps1, Qwerty 321, Mtmeye, Athena SFM, KJC2025, Darkest Kurogetsu, NobodyEpic, (three times!), Emu Thing, Daedricdragon, Chirpy Hitomi chan, Guest, Tsuki No Yukihime.

I don't own, I only own the plot. Enjoy, people! :)

"Greetings, Ichigo-kun, Rukia-chan. Beautiful weather tonight, isn't it? A little bird – wonderfully innocent, that little girl – told me you would be here. I'm afraid I can't really let you go at the moment, there are many more things we have to do together."

There are no words to describe the feeling of icy terror that floods Ichigo's heart at that moment. Rukia stiffens in his arms. Ichigo turns his head, too slowly, too slowly, to look behind him.

Ichigo's inner hollow shrugs awake. Told ya, Boss. I'm wide awake now. Told ya you would be needing me later, neh?

Ichimaru Gin stands in midair, his grin and eyes as inscrutable as always, his fake persona drawn tight around him. And behind him, Aizen Sousuke smiles mildly behind his glasses, standing twenty feet above the edge of Sokyoku hill.

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The world is red. The red of blood, carnation-red, long swathes of scarlet silk and cloth and tainted sky. Everything is painted in shades of carmine, from the dying sphere that is the setting sun to the dusky spinnets of trailing light that fights on the boundary between lifeblood and night, to the haze of alizarin that dances across Ichigo's vision in a mad rush of fear, anger, and venomous hate. Beside him, Rukia's face is similarly twisted in a scornful sneer of hatred surprisingly reminiscent of her brother.

For the half-moment when Aizen pauses in his speech, Ichigo assesses the situation. Gin's hair is silver, but tainted with the light – a rust-like colour of blood on a blade, an ominous call of what is to come. But it is impossible to judge whether it is the smiling man who has betrayed them. Gin had seemed amenable enough to Ichigo's plan after that talk about Masumoto-san, and for all Ichigo knows, the man might have tried his best to delay Aizen, only to have failed under someone else's report…

"Ah, Ichigo-kun!" Aizen's voice again. "You must be wondering how I was informed of your little escapade. I must say you played your cards admirably well, considering I see no shadow of Kuchiki-taichou here. You must have distracted him also. I confess myself to have underestimated you, Ichigo-kun. I would not have known of your excursion tonight to the portal if not for my trustworthy new recruit."

Ichigo narrows his eyes. Renji?

Aizen's glasses blaze as they catch the last rays of the sun. "Nay, not the stubborn-headed brat. My darling Hinamori-chan. That girl shall go places, someday. I daresay I can trust her with much."

Ichigo does not reply, but is acutely aware of the seconds ticking away. If, somehow, Aizen can be distracted until Urahara stabilizes the portal, then Rukia and he might have a chance.

Aizen laughs. "Oh, you don't seem surprised at Momo-chan's betrayal. Then again, you are from the future. You know her better than I." He claps his hands. "Now, I'm going to ask this once, only. Please step away from the portal and come back into my custody. I promise I won't hurt you or Rukia-chan."

There is no avoiding it. Ichigo stands smoothly in a single graceful motion, ignoring the aches that plague his joints from his overuse of reiatsu in forcing the portal open. He takes a deep breath, and allows the veritable river of fury and frustration that he has kept barely simmering under his skin for the past few days in hell to rush forward and show itself in a ferocious grin.

Zangetsu's ribbon unwraps easily, and Ichigo revels in the feeling of his zanpakutuo's hilt in his hand. Finally.

He raises his head and says perfectly levelly, "I would sooner rot in the seven layers of hell than go to you, Aizen."

A small hand grasps his as Rukia also rises, struggling to her feet and reaching for Sode no Shirayuki. "Let's do this, Ichigo," she says, the unbridled bloodthirstiness in her voice startling him.

Ichigo can see full well that she is itching to paint her zanpakutuo with fresh blood, but the fact remains that she is still cuffed. "No, Rukia," he says gently, not taking his eyes off Aizen, "not in your condition."

Rukia's eyes, afire with determination, flick quickly to him, then back at her prey. Her teeth are gritted as she says, "Fine, Ichigo. But I want the last kill, and if you end up in any danger, I'm coming, taichou." The use of the honorific is specifically calculated to remind Ichigo that she is his second-in-command and therefore bound in duty to fight alongside him.

"Granted, fukutaichou."

Ichigo steps lightly into the air, until he is level with Aizen and Gin. The twilight wind whips Zangetsu's tassel into a frenzy, the drumbeat before battle. Below, he senses Rukia folding herself into a meditative position, focusing her reiatsu into breaking her own cuffs.

Aizen's mouth is curved into a belittling arc. "Disobedient, I see. Come, Kurosaki-taichou," he says formally. "Let us see what you are made of." The last sentence has a double meaning, for both know that Ichigo's true nature is about to be revealed.

Gin shunpos to the side, ready but detached from the actual fight.

So, Aizen thinks he can take me on alone, hmm?

Ichigo's inner hollow snickers. Let's teach him better, Boss. Zangetsu inclines his head.

Ichigo grins widely, the bloodlust of battle flooding him, changing his stance and firming his grip and washing any trace of mercy from his features. "So, Aizen-taichou," he says mockingly, "have you seen for yourself the full affects of hollowfication? I think I am happy to oblige."

Then the world explodes, combusts in a searing whirlwind of fire and black lightning, as Zangetsu roars into bankai with scorching heat and the sound of the air itself burning; and all is reduced to a photographic film of black and white, light and dark, both sides aflame in fierce majesty. And his sword is no longer a broad expanse of shield and blade, but a long, sharp shard of shadow and darkness, no longer needing to defend, because the edge of sable is the scythe of Death himself, come to scorn the fading candles of the living.

But Ichigo does not pause, because Zangetsu is strained from supplying power to open the portal, and cannot maintain the release alone. In the maelstrom of ivory, he holds a hand to his inner hollow, and says in a voice of steely command, Come.

And his inner hollow howls in his internal world with a war-cry unlike any before, an animalistic scream of wrath and savagery, and merges with Ichigo's mind until they are two sides of the same whole, no, they are one being with an indomitable purpose, to rage against this serpent Aizen for pain inflicted on self and family in the future, in the past, in all of time. Ichigo is himself yet not himself, for the hollow is his reflection in a still mirror that captures the colour of the bloody sky and paints it in feral stripes across his face, until the mask in all his whiteness in a snarl of untamed fury.

Ichigo finishes drawing his hand across his face, and now the warm brown irises are gone, replaced by discs of reflective gold, and sclera the colour of midnight pitch.

The hollow grins with him. "Hello," his voice scrapes roughly, a dual echo of nightmare wanderings.

Aizen raises an eyebrow, lowering the forearm he has used to shield himself against the storm of reiatsu. "Very impressive, Ichigo-taic–"

The black tip of Zangetsu skewers the space where his head was a heartbeat before.

Aizen is forced to keep his mouth shut as he dances backwards, Kyoka Suigetsu flipping in his hand as he parries a vortex of strikes so fast they seem like a hail of vicious rain. The sound of their swords clashing fills the air with the metallic chime of patterned music.

And Ichigo dances a maddening, taunting beat, flickering like an incorporeal spirit across the sky, darting back and forth, coming in at an angle only to twist effortlessly on one sandal-tip and leap in capering arcs to strike from the opposite side. He blurs so fast that the colours of his shihakushuo and haori leave traces of whirling colour in his wake, pennants of wind and blinking shades half-drifting in the air.

Aizen is hemmed into one spot, changing stances and shifting weight to match the lightning strikes of Ichigo's blade, the smile on his face fading to a pressed line as his lips tighten involuntarily. His arm is a flying distortion, spinning Kyoka Suigetsu in wide circles of protection, barely managing to match Ichigo's speed. The warm glow behind his glasses is gone now, and the calculating, shrewd look that graces the face of Aizen Sousuke in Ichigo's memory is revealed.

Neither are fighting at their top form. Aizen is playing safe, defending but not attacking – not that he can, if he would try – bright gaze taking in every little detail of Ichigo's hollow form. Ichigo is considerably slower than usual, relying heavily on his inner hollow considering that Zangetsu is almost completely drained. He is still blindingly, awe-inspiringly fast, but not to the levels at which a single twitch of his sword could end the fight.

"Not bad, Ichigo-kun," Aizen says conversationally. "Is this your best? I have yet to even summon shikai."

The grating laughter of Ichigo and his hollow convulses the sky, seemingly coming from any or all directions at once, echoing in a twisting web constructed from Ichigo's ability to run far swifter than then pace of sound.

The answer to Aizen's question is strung in mocking tones that reverberate from all bearings. "Do – you – want – to –"

The last word is whispered almost directly behind Aizen, a ghostlike taunt, "know?"

And Aizen's smile mars his face like an open wound, as the captain twists his upper body, and with a single, smooth motion, drives Kyoka Suigetsu in a reverse grip in the gap between his arm and his ribcage, skewering the unsuspecting Ichigo in the chest –

The sword slides harmlessly off skin suddenly as hard as reinforced steel, skating a long, deep tear in shihakushuo, but leaving nary a scratch on Ichigo's skin.

Ichigo blinks to a safe distance, breathing heavily, black-blue reiatsu veins fading back into invisibility. He is unharmed, but the force of Aizen's blow has stunned him into momentary pause.

For the first time, Aizen's expression shows something resembling shock, although it is covered up by a condescending smirk a moment later. "Blut Vene," he says in a voice carrying a slight tinge of wonder. "The ultimate Quincy defense. You have my complete and reverent admiration. What are you, Kurosaki Ichigo?"

The question echoes Gin's, but a few hours ago. Ichigo tilts his head, features hidden behind the scowling mask. "My mother was a Quincy. And to answer your question, I am a human shinigami-Quincy hybrid that has undergone hollowification."

Aizen can barely keep the greedy glint out of his eyes. Here is the perfect specimen of the ultimate state of being – all the separate key creatures of the two worlds melded into one universal, perfect individual. All his research into the powers of the Hogyoku could be culminated if he captures Ichigo completely in his sphere of power.

With that thought, Aizen flicks Kyoka Suigetsu in a graceful circle, murmuring, "Kudakero, Kyoka Suigetsu. Kanzen saimin." A wave of reiatsu shudders through the air, passing through Ichigo without jolting him. Aizen relaxes, smiling and looking in another direction.

Ichigo frowns. What on earth? Why would Aizen suddenly slip out of his tense ready stance like that? And he is practically looking in the opposite direction than his opponent.

But a quick glance at Gin reveals the answer. Gin's eyes are flicking across a nonexistent figure in midair, and judging by the minuscule reactions in his stance and posture, he can both hear and see the apparition.

Ah. Kyoka Suigetsu. Aizen must be expecting him to fall under its spell.

A feral grin whiplashes across Ichigo's face, mirroring the smile on his mask. Without a second thought, he hurls himself at maximum speed at the real form of Aizen, Zangetsu held at full extension, the crimson light along its length craving a taste of blood.

Zangetsu nicks a deep cut down the inside of Aizen's forearm – Ichigo's insides twist in pleasure at seeing the serpent bleed – before Kyoka Suigetsu crashes into the sword with a terrifying screech of painful metal, flicking the black sword's scarlet-laced tip into the air.

Droplets of blood scatter in a suspended arc from Zangetsu's edge, and Ichigo smiles vehemently, for although he has defeated Aizen once before, he cannot recall ever seeing his lifeblood gouged out by a sword.

It is immensely, immensely satisfying.

Almost equally as gratifying is the look of outraged alarm on Aizen's features, as if the snake is offended that his own shikai has failed on a shinigami.

Ichigo's inner hollow sticks his tongue out, laughing maniacally. Ichigo grins wider.

Then Aizen's infuriating façade is slammed back down, and he runs a finger over the wound on his arm, saying mildly, "So. You are immune to Kyoka Suigetsu."

Ichigo tilts his head without replying, as if saying, obviously.

Aizen adjusts his glasses, the sunlight glaring off their surface. "Well then, you force my hand, Kurosaki Ichigo. I might have to be a bit hard on you. My sincerest apologies."

Ichigo snorts. Sincerity cannot be said with Aizen in the same breath – along with a host of other traits, such as humanity. Nevertheless, he tenses, for his reiatsu reserves are so low, they cannot manage another use of Blut Vene. He has no last-ditch defense now. One slip, and he will taste death.

Ichigo sneaks a glance at the kneeling form of Rukia, far down below. She clutches Sode no Shirayuki between white-knuckled fingers, and her teeth are clenched in an unconquerable determination to break the cuffs on her wrists, channeling wave after wave of reiatsu into the manacles. Gin is not attacking her – whether by Aizen's order or due to his talk with him, Ichigo does not know.

Boss? I'm getting sorta tired without Zangetsu's input. Can we, like, finish this up quick? I wanna mincemeat him, Boss, neh? His inner hollow finishes with a whine-like snarl.

Ichigo turns smoothly on one foot, shifting his weight into a perfectly balanced stance. He wills all to be still, and for a single frozen moment, everything seems to fall silent, his mind an empty hollow where a hollow resides, his heart slowed to a steady pace of anticipation, his reiatsu a calm ocean drifting with the tide. Even the air appears to obey, and hangs motionless in half-awareness, a coiled spring hidden in the recesses of light and shadow, trailing lines of impossible, lithe power around sword and arm and white mask.

Let's go.

And that wound-up power explodes like a detonation, as Ichigo simply disappears. He has reached speeds that no shinigami eye can follow, nor detect, hiding in the slipshod eddies of the wind, dancing in the dark where light cannot follow, slipping unheeded and silent where sound trails far in his wake.

Aizen twists, eyes scanning for a hint of Ichigo's location.

And Ichigo descends like fallen lightning, the air ablaze with his passing, a blinding flash of glorious darkness from the arc of the heavens to the flat plane of earth. Getsuga Tenshou.

Got you now.

In the timeless silence that is only filled with his inner hollow's glee and his own steady resolve, Ichigo sees a flash of grey and silver in his peripheral vision. Gin, standing at a distance, silhouetted against the dissolving light of the sun, is pulling out his own zanpakutuo, a sudden sneer of loathing pulling at his wide grin, eyes focused on – on Rukia?

No, something nonexistent in front of Rukia. Ichigo cannot see anything there – just empty space. But Rukia's face is a haze of panic, also staring at the space, Sode no Shirayuki parrying sword strikes that do not exist –

Ichigo's breath catches. Neither Gin nor Rukia are immune to Kyoka Suigetsu.

And Gin hisses in a carrying whisper that flits through the surrounding sky like a silver-tipped arrow, "I kill you now, Aizen, and you will never hurt Rangiku."

Too late, Ichigo notices that the real Aizen is deftly twirling his fingers in the direction of the apparition that both Gin and Rukia are fixated on, manipulating a phantom image of himself directly in front of Rukia. Gin's face is defiled in pure hatred as he unsheathes his zanpakutuo and whiplashes it towards what he thinks is Aizen, his sword disappearing into dust and slicing towards –

Rukia.

The horror rises acidic in Ichigo's throat, and his heart throbs with sharp, agonizing terror. His blood roars, pounding a drumbeat into his temples and flooding his vision with frazzled static, a blind rush of frantic desperation that drowns everything in his soul. There is nothing but the sight of imminent death reflected in Rukia's round eyes, and her still, small frame crouched at the edge of the cliff, Gin's sword shattered into a million shards of poison dust all rushing towards that pale, heart-shaped face.

For a brief moment, Ichigo glimpses an image of a new gravestone next to a worn one, both labeled Kuchiki…

No. Rukia.

And Ichigo, still rushing downwards, twists in midair and tears towards a different spot of earth, like a lightning strike grounding itself where its heart yearns for.

He might make it. No, he will make it. He will.

Aizen's broad, mocking grin rips a hole in his sight as he rushes past him.

Fifty metres. Thirty. Ten.

Rukia.

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Rukia had forced herself to concentrate on breaking the cuffs to the exclusion of all else, ignoring the clashing of steel against steel and the familiar rushes of air that she knows is Ichigo's high-powered shunpo. Every drop of her remaining reiatsu was poured into her wrists, and beads of sweat trickled down her hairline as she gritted her teeth against the pain and made the reiatsu cuffs nearly glow with her energy.

One thing she knew, Ichigo hadn't been kidding about the pain.

But it was necessary, because Ichigo was fighting alone, with Zangetsu barely capable of keeping in bankai form. Impressive as his inner hollow was, Rukia knew that it was incapable of holding a long, drawn out fight.

So she had burned her wrists and her power on a pyre, trying to crack the manacles that prevented her from leaping into the air as a fukutaichou assisting her taichou.

It hadn't been enough. She just couldn't reach the peak spike of power that Ichigo had. I'm sorry, Sode no Shirayuki said, I can't give you any more, not with you in this state.

And then the air had shifted, and suddenly Aizen was between her and the stationary Gin, and Ichigo was nowhere to be seen. And the glasses-wearing captain had almost lazily drawn his zanpakutuo, raining elegant slashes of his blade upon her, taunting her with her weakness.

And then Gin had hissed something she didn't understand, and suddenly his zanpakutuo disappeared from hilt onwards, towards Aizen's back. She had barely any time to wonder why Gin was attacking Aizen, before the captain before her had wavered like a watery reflection, fading into nothing.

Kyoka Suigetsu.

And Rukia feels a gigantic force of something homing in towards her from Gin's direction, a million buzzing motes of dust, and she realises with a little jolt that Gin hadn't had time to retract his sword strike towards "Aizen".

Towards her.

Oh. In that eyeblink before her death reaches her, Rukia feels a tide of self-hatred flood her being. So this is the end. She hasn't helped Ichigo, she hasn't drawn blood from Aizen for herself, she hasn't seen her Nii-sama for one last time and told him that she had forgiven him long ago for his coldness back then. Useless. She hopes that Ichigo isn't disappointed with this, last, failure. She would miss him. Terribly, terribly so. I'm sorry.

The sword-shard-tide has come.

Then ragged silk, black and white and red, shielding her from half the sky.

She frowns. She had thought, childishly, that death should be more…black.

Then gentle fingers stroke her chin, fingertips cold enough to be drops of ice, shocking her back into herself.

And she looks up, into a feral mask of white streaked with red, and gold irises.

The mask speaks in an injured rasp, like a gasp of breath. "Are you –"

Then the visor cracks in two, and shatters, falling, tumbling to the ground, and irises are gold no more, but warm brown, soft, pained, concerned, Ichigo.

"– all right, Rukia?"

She can only nod numbly, her cheek fitting perfectly in the hand that cups the side of her face, not understanding how he had gotten there fast enough to push her out of the way. She hadn't felt like she had moved from her spot. And why are his fingers so cold?

Then Ichigo chokes, and a thin line of crimson trails out of one corner of his mouth, bright scarlet like the setting sun and the oft-spoken thread of fate that links soul with soul.

Still, he smiles that infuriating smile that makes her want to hit him and laugh at the same time. "Good," he murmurs, "good."

And Rukia raises a trembling hand to wipe the sudden redness away with one glove, but her nails run into the steel of a blade. A grey swordtip, protruding out of Ichigo's chest. Zangetsu lies loose in his hand, to one side.

Oh.

"Ichi – Ichigo –"

Then the portal behind them resonates, once, like the great tolling of a bell.

Ichigo's hand shakes, and falls from Rukia's cheek. Rukia catches it before it hits the dirt, pressing her other hand to his chest. "Thanks, Rukia," Ichigo breathes, another line of scarlet running down his chin. His eyes are slowly drifting shut, hiding that steady brown gaze. She can feel his heart beating.

And suddenly, Rukia remembers the rain on grass, and blood slick and dripping from her hands to the ground, and the moonless sky overhead, and the feeling of Kaien-dono's heart faltering and stilling and fading…

Ichigo's heart quavers under her palm, and she feels the wetness of blood running through her fingers.

Her own heart is going to burst. She can't speak, can't think, can't breathe.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sode no Shirayuki inclines her head, and speaks reverently. You are ready. I give you the power you need. Avenge him.

Rukia closes her eyes and screams as her zanpakutuo roars white.

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The cavernous high-ceilinged room within the depths of the Twelfth Division laboratories is no longer empty and sonorous, despite its size. For the lights, blinking and shimmering in row upon row upon the thrumming morass that is the machine, throw leaping shadows of not only wires and equipment, but the outlines of dozens of shihakushuo and haori.

Mayuri and Urahara's hands fly over the assorted flashing controls, the black-and-white faced captain murmuring intelligible scientific gibberish under his breath, his excitement at the workings of such a great invention showing in his jumpy skips from one interface to another. Urahara is more sedate, brow furrowed under the shade of his striped hat as his eyes track the never-ending length of dials that spin under a mass of energy readings.

Ten feet beside them, a whirling, tumbling portal hangs suspended in space, edges electric blue, spinning into a dark emptiness that flashes with surges of lightning.

"The portal is holding relatively steady, I think…" Urahara says to the room at large, an edge of seriousness underlying his singsong voice.

Assembled directly in front of the portal is Seireitei's elite. Shiba Isshin is at the forefront, bouncing eagerly on his toes, unable to shake his readiness to see his son again. He had just finished shouting a lengthy rant to Ichigo on the other end about his darlings' soon-to-be graduation from the academy.

"Neh, Urahara-san," he calls out, "are you sure that it's normal that we can't hear my son's reply?"

Urahara throws him a look over his shoulder as his fingers twist a switch, hat obscuring half his face. "I'm mostly sure, Isshin-san. Last time we made a connection, I couldn't hear Ichigo-taichou's words, but he had obviously heard us – if the paper message he sent through is anything to go by."

The mention of the note chills the atmosphere almost immediately. Ichigo's message had been scrawled in hurried handwriting.

Reiatsu cuffs. He knows. Be ready.

A smooth, cold voice cuts in. Kuchiki Byakuya, hair pulled back in silver-grey clasps that are the same colour as his eyes. "To clarify, Urahara-san, you have no real way of knowing definitively Kurosaki-taichou and my sister's current operational status?"

The hall awaits, silenced. Clustered in a small group are the strongest of Seiretei's captains and vice-captains – Kyouraku-soutaichou, flowery haori belted tightly in preparation for battle, eye patch sombre; Ukitake, face glowing with the first hint of health since an age, having taken a new and revolutionary treatment for his lung disease; Renji, a furious, worried scowl on his face, hair tied back in a high ponytail, fingering Zabimaru distractedly; Matsumoto, head shadowed by her vivid hair, her eyes lost in the past, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.

And behind them, the assembled Visored, predatory in their gaze and stance, every hand on their zanpakutuo. Hirako Shinji's blonde hair swings like a pendulum over his shadowed eyes as he taps his nails on his zanpakutuo hilt. Hiyori had already kicked him hard, twice, with the flat of her sandal for making the annoying noise, but even his fukutaichou's actions had not quelled the look of dark revenge on the usually breezy captain's face. In fact, all eight of the Visored wear grim expressions, as they contemplate the idea of one of their own caught in Aizen's trap.

Urahara turns to face Byakuya, meeting his eyes levelly before answering the question. "No, I do not, Kuchiki-taichou," he says softly. "We cannot know their status until we go through ourselves."

Byakuya nods once, sharply, his face an emotionless mask. Only Renji can see the turmoil brewing in those storm-grey eyes.

Kyouraku clears his throat, striding forward to face the crowd. His haori whips around him in the generated airstream of the portal. "Hello," he begins quietly. His voice is low, but hard as steel. "Thank you for coming here today. You have all been briefed before this moment, but I want to make something clear. Kurosaki Ichigo and Kuchiki Rukia are invaluable shinigami of Seireitei. We owe them our lives, several times over. I have no doubt that you are as determined in this as I, if not more. They are also our friends and comrades – and to some, sister, and son. We will come back today bringing them with us, alive."

Ukitake takes over at this point, green eyes grave. "I am sure you are all clear as to protocol. Aizen is not, I repeat, not, to be killed. His death, though welcome, would change the timeline irrevocably." He gestures towards a small group of shinigami without fukutaichou badges or haoris. "Please take your positions, seated officers."

These shinigami are all young, showing signs of recently joining divisions. There is something markedly different about the way they stand and hold their zanpakutuos, speaking of less experience. These men have not gone to war.

Shinji lifts his head and speaks for the first time, to this group. "You are our eyes and ears," he says, voice calm. "Aizen's Kyoka Suigetsu is infallible. There is no escape, save if one has not seen its release. You young seated officers were chosen for this reason. You are all the brightest graduates from the shinigami academy in the past four years. Your sight is unmarred by Kyoka Suigetsu. I will be clear on one thing – if your eyes fail, so does ours. Your captains and vice-captains are blind, officers. You are instrumental. Do not fail us."

"YES, sir!" comes the concerted reply. Many members of this group shift from foot to foot nervously as they reach their allocated partners, taichou or fukutaichou.

Urahara clicks his fingers, a sharp crack in the still air. "Good luck," he says. "The portal should be ready momentarily."

The room fills with the sound of shifting cloth as the shinigami train their postures into ready stances. Isshin and Byakuya unsheathe Engetsu and Senbonzakura, standing shoulder to shoulder at the front of the column, right next to the gateway.

And then the portal shudders, shivering, the concussion shaking the walls and flinging dust off the ceiling.

"What –" Isshin calls out, flailing for balance.

"Is that expected, Urahara?" Byakuya says almost at the same time.

Urahara's eyes are wide. "The portal is trying to collapse – I think the original power source on the other side has suddenly cut off."

The original power source?

"Ichigo," Isshin breathes, a painful word hissed through his teeth.

Byakuya does not waste a single moment, although his heart also leaps in alarm. They have no way of knowing Rukia's condition. He throws himself bodily at the portal, and feels Isshin and their two assigned seated officers do the same.

All is lost in a whirl of cerulean and sable.

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The first thing that Kuchiki Byakuya hears as he emerges from the non-space of the gateway into a crimson sunset is the sound of his sister screaming.

The cry is a sound of rage, pain, and plaintive, soul-wrenching grief.

Byakuya flinches, the sound cutting into his soul like a white-hot knife. Even when Hisana had reached the peak of her agony while under the disease that ultimately took her life, she did not shriek in such abject anguish. All at once, he abandons any pretense of cold placidity, determined to do anything to stop his sister's cry. He shunpos into the air, hair streaming in a pennant behind him.

The sight engraves itself in streaks of crimson and black paint scarred upon his consciousness. Kurosaki Ichigo lies crumpled in a limp heap, face hidden under his shihakushuo sleeve, scarlet slowly seeping from a hole in his back, a spreading pool that drenches his pristine haori in blood. In front of him, eyes large and round on her pale face, is his keening sister, on her hands and knees, white gloves soaked in Ichigo's blood.

In her hand is Sode no Shirayuki. It burns with a clarity never before seen, shining with a pure luminance that shames even sunlight glinting off a new snowfall. The sword pulses, flickering brighter, each crest of light more dazzling.

A high, cold voice, deathly familiar, from above. "Now, Gin, don't look so surprised. Did you think I didn't know you had defected the moment you walked into my office after letting Ichigo-kun go? You are an open book." Aizen's smile is cutting. Beside him, Gin stares at the blood-tainted tip of his zanpakutuo, ice-blue eyes visible and wide. Aizen's smile grows wider. "I owe you my thanks for getting rid of our chief problem."

A surge of fury that threatens to overwhelm Senbonzakura rushes through Byakuya's chest, and his zanpakutuo shakes in his hand.

Then Rukia's scream changes tenor, and all at once, Sode no Shirayuki cracks from tip to hilt, the snow-white shell of the blade splitting like a ripped curtain, and the maginitude of light that blasts out of cracks is devastating, shining brighter than the noonday sun.

Rukia curls inwards, head bowed over her clasped hands, sword next to her heart. "Bankai," she whispers, her voice carrying faintly to Byakuya's ears.

And her very being shines with tongues of white fire.

Now, you may all hate me. Is the cliffie worse than last chapter? I suppose your consolation is that I'm already beginning the next chapter, and writing away :) I'm sure that you are all waiting for what Rukia's bankai looks like. I'm going to throw every single iota of kickbutt-ness into it. It's time for her to take her time beating up some people after being locked away for so long. Yup, looking forward to it :)

Review please! If only to come after me with machetes :)

Replies to guest reviews:

ZeroRose90: Haha, there's your answer! Some good stuff is coming for Rukia. Thanks for reviewing :)

Guest: Why thank you! And you got what you wished for! I have to say that I had planned the captains coming through thing since ages, so your review made me laugh, cause I was doing that already :)