Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. Tite Kubo does. I do, however, own this story.

A/N: Very quickly before we begin, I just want to extend a big, heartfelt 'Thank You!' to everyone who's taken the time to review so far… I truly am stunned by the reception this story's gotten. Thank you all; you're awesome.

Torn

Chapter 5: Hichigo Rising

"D'you think Aizen knew about this rebel group, Kurosaki?" Grimmjow asked after a long moment of grudgingly companionable silence, and Ichigo gave a bitter chuckle.

"Knowing him? Absolutely," the Soul Reaper replied. "He's probably sitting up on his throne right now in Las Noches, sipping tea and laughing at how screwed we are."

Jaegerjaques was about to say something else, but the raucous shouts of approaching Adjuchas cut him off.

"How're you maggots doing?" one of them jeered. "Can't use your powers while you're tied up like that, can ya? And with your zanpakuto locked up in our armory, you might as well be dead already. Man, I almost feel bad for you two little shits. You're gonna die down here, and no one will ever even mourn you, let alone try to save you."

"That's where you're wrong, you thugs!" Pesche shouted at the antagonists, prompting them to turn and face him. "When Nel-sama gets wind of what you did, you're gonna regret capturing us!"

One of the more oafish-looking Adjuchas guffawed at the threat.

"'Nel-sama'?" he repeated, incredulous. "Are you telling me that you think Nel Tu, one of the five Vasto Lorde in all of Hueco Mundo, really cares about a couple of whimpering little runts like you? Don't be ridiculous!"

"Just wait and see," Dondochakka persisted. "We'll see who'll be laughing at the end of the day, don'tcha know!"

The Adjuchas proceeded to mercilessly beat up the four prisoners for what they called "insufferable insolence", leaving them each covered in a patchwork of bruises by the time they were finished. Not content to just let his tormentors walk away, however, Ichigo shouted out a question at their backs.

"Why did you even capture Pesche and Dondochakka?" he asked. "They're your own kind, aren't they?"

One of the fiercer, more intelligent-looking Adjuchas spun around at that and glared daggers at the prone Soul Reaper.

"Don't you ever, ever compare out esteemed caste with the likes of those worthless traitors," he seethed. "Do you think we're only fighting against Aizen? The Vasto Lorde sit in their lairs and lord over Hueco Mundo like monarchs, some enforcing their wills upon us while their cronies simply watch the atrocities unfold and call it 'survival of the fittest'.

"We Adjuchas are not such base creatures as that, to be treated like dogs! We have banded together into this army not only to oppose Aizen and his toadies like you, but also to free the Adjuchas from the oppressive yoke of the Vasto Lorde and those who call them their masters."

"And all of those Gillian you harness for firepower?" Grimmjow parried with a snarl. "Did you give them a choice?"

The fierce Adjuchas laughed.

"Those Gillian are nothing more than beasts, incapable of anything other than carrying out our orders. They are the ones whose bones and blood will supply the bricks and mortar for our empire, nothing more."

"Gee, that's not stiflingly hypocritical or anything," Kurosaki grumbled as their tormentors walked away, leaving the captives in relative silence once more.

Jaegerjaques was silent for several moments before he spoke again, his tone guardedly optimistic.

"Pesche," he said, "do you really serve Neliel Tu Oderschvank, or were you bluffing?"

"Why would I bluff about something like that?" he shot back, indignant. "Dondochakka and I have been serving Nel-sama for as long as we've been Adjuchas! Ain't that right, Dondochakka?"

"Sure is, don'tcha know!" the other Adjuchas answered happily, and a small smile began to form on Grimmjow's face as he connected the dots in his head.

"So, if you were to, say, get captured," the blue-eyed Arrancar continued, "she really would come and rescue you?"

"Of course!"

The Espada's smile widened into a victorious grin.

"Well then," he declared confidently, "we have nothing to worry about. We've just got to out of these cells, get back our zanpakuto, start brawling and eventually the cavalry will come storming in. Simple as that."

"Why don't we just wait in here until this 'Neliel' shows up and sets us loose?" Ichigo asked, and Grimmjow's grin turned predatory.

"Because unlike you, Kurosaki," he answered, "I'm not a coward. I don't know about you three," he finished, closing his eyes and concentrating as his muscles tensed, "but I'm sure as hell gonna make sure these bastards pay for humiliating me like this."

"Reiatsu can't get through this stuff, don'tcha know!" Dondochakka said, but Jaegerjaques kept struggling nonetheless.

"Even if I could use it, I wouldn't," he grunted. "I'm gonna tear through this stuff with my bare hands, and then I'm gonna claw out their damn throats!"

Ichigo sighed; Grimmjow was the kind of guy who would blow a hole through a wall to get somewhere even if the open door was right in front of him, just to prove a point. Determined to try the more rational approach, the Soul Reaper closed his eyes and dove into his Spirit World.

Little did Kurosaki know, he was about to find himself face-to-face with a being one thousand times more primal and vicious than Grimmjow would ever be. Ichigo stepped into the realm of sideways skyscrapers, but Zangetsu was nowhere to be found. Instead, a sneering voice called out in greeting from behind him.

"Yo, partner!" his Hollow doppelganger said, smirking cockily. "I was wondering how long it would take you to show up."

"What the hell are you doing here?" the orange-haired Soul Reaper replied angrily. "Where's Zangetsu?"

"You mean this, partner?" the pale being sneered, pulling out a blade that looked like Zangetsu's shikai form, but with the black and silver parts of the blade inverted; Ichigo's jaw all but hit the floor at the sight.

"Where did you get that?!" he demanded furiously, but the Hollow just cackled.

"Silly rabbit," he chided patronizingly, "don't you get it? I am Zangetsu!"

Ichigo was about to reply when his Hollow lunged forward with the feral grace and killing intent of a tiger, slamming his inverted zanpakuto into his counterpart's now-shaking blade.

"What's wrong, partner?" he jibed viciously. "Are you really this hesitant without the old man at your back? God, you really are pathetic!"

Kurosaki felt himself be shoved backwards as malicious crimson flames of reiatsu began to flare around his opponent, making the air around their master hazy from the raw heat and power they radiated. Amazed at the raw force of his Hollow, which seemed to have increased substantially since their last meeting before his duel with Kenpachi, Ichigo forced himself to stay focused. He assumed his stance and readied his blade…

Only to find that it had been shorn clean in half, and he was holding the blunt end.

"What's with the ridiculous face, partner?" the pale warrior shouted over to him. "Why don't you call out to the Old Man for help like last time!?"

Kurosaki hated the thought of listening to his maniacal counterpart, but at this point he was willing to try anything.

"Are you really, though, Ichigo?" his Hollow's voice broke in, astonishingly calm and rational as he read Ichigo's thoughts to the letter. "If that was really the case, instead of clinging to your pathetic delusion you would have opened your eyes to the truth by now."

"Which is?" Ichigo growled back, defiant to the end.

"Zangetsu is dead, you idiot!" the pale warrior shouted, his reiatsu spiking dangerously as the Soul Reaper's brown eyes widened in shock.

"What?"

"When I took the reins back on Soukyoku Hill, Ichigo," the Hollow explained, "you had a choice to make. Turn to Zangetsu for strength, or succumb to your rage and turn to me. By refusing to challenge me then, you slammed the nail into the Old Man's coffin with your own instinct!"

"Liar!" Kurosaki shouted, charging forward despite his broken sword. Dropping his head and sighing, the Hollow raised his inverted blade and stabbed Ichigo clean through the chest without even looking at him; the whole motion was executed as effortlessly as drawing breath.

"Don't you get it, Ichigo?" the pale warrior hissed, turning his head up and locking his bright yellow eyes on his counterpart's now-dulling brown ones. "Every time you pulled on the Hougyoku for your power, you put cracks in the barrier separating us. It wasn't subjugating me at all; the reason I shut up was because I couldn't speak while I was being pulled deeper into your soul, brother!"

Ichigo reeled at the revelation, or he would have reeled if he wasn't currently impaled on a zanpakuto. Had Aizen really played him like that much of a fool…?

"Aizen steered events to the outcome that suited him the most, nothing more," the Hollow answered coldly, intuiting his counterpart's thoughts once again with chilling accuracy. "You chose this road, Ichigo; you alone had the power to make a choice concerning your soul, and you chose me. Because let's face it," the Hollow said slyly as his voice dropped its contemplative calm, "you and I are much more alike than you ever want to admit to yourself: at the end of the day, Ichigo, you don't fight to protect anyone. You fight to get stronger and stronger so that you can cut down anyone who stands in your way, nothing more."

The orange-haired Soul Reaper was cowed into silence by the assault of plain, unvarnished truth. For the first time since the duel began, Ichigo shut up and took a long, hard look at himself. Here he was, defeated and broken, run through with a sword that wasn't even his own.

Was his Hollow right? Why had he given the pale warrior control subconsciously, when he could have wrestled it back like he had earlier against Byakuya? It clearly wasn't because he wanted to protect Renji and Rukia, because if that had been the case he wouldn't have attacked them so brutally before turning on Aizen.

No, he had submitted to the Hollow inside of him for one reason: because he had needed strength beyond what Zangetsu could give him to be able to defeat Aizen. Defeating his enemy was all that had mattered. It was all that had ever mattered.

"He finally gets it," the Hollow crowed, relieved. "It's about damn time, brother; I was getting tired of just lying around and flailing like a dying fish while you're stuck in this cell."

"Just answer one question, Hollow," Ichigo said gravely. "If I accept your power, will we be able to defeat Aizen?"

"Not yet," the pale warrior replied, his voice hungry. "But soon. If you truly learn to trust in me, brother, no force in the universe will be able to stand against us. What I can do right now is get us out of these damn restraints, though," the Hollow continued, "and I'd say that's a good place to start."

In a way, Kurosaki found that being faced with a single, absolute path was liberating. No more regrets; life was too short for those. He was going to get stronger. He was going to kill Aizen. And when the dust had settled, he was going to return to Rukia and apologize for being such a stubborn idiot and leaving her in the first place.

"I'm glad you have your fucking five year plan thought out, Ichigo," the Hollow broke in with a growl, "but we have somewhere to be."

The orange-haired Soul Reaper looked at his yellow-eyed doppelganger in a new light then, seeing him for the first time as an ally rather than a hindrance.

"You know," he said, "I never thought I'd say this to you, and especially not at a time like this, but thank you, Hollow."

The pale warrior's smirk turned into something approaching an actual smile.

"It's not 'Hollow'," he answered. "It's Hichigo."

Grimmjow was making himself blue in the face trying to break through his bonds when he was suddenly blindsided by a spike in reiatsu so powerful that the shockwave alone was enough to launch his body through the air and slam it into the nearby wall. Not only that, but the substance that had previously restrained him so completely had been cut to shreds like cloth. Jaegerjaques' ears were still ringing and his vision was still clearing up when a voice reached him that sounded like Ichigo's, but with none of the uncertainty it usually held and quintuple the killing intent.

"What the hell are you doing laying down there like a rag-doll, Grimmjow? I thought you wanted to rip some throats out."

The Espada blinked, saw the figure in front of him, and then blinked a few more times to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. Ichigo's eyes had turned yellow and black, and white stripes ran across the left side of his face like tribal war paint. He wasn't a Hollow, but his reiatsu was far too twisted and dense for a Soul Reaper.

"What the hell are you?" Grimmjow asked in awe as he rose to his feet, and his comrade just smirked.

"That's a damn good question," Kurosaki answered. "To be honest, I'm not really sure myself. For now, though," Ichigo finished, his eyes narrowing as his voice gained an edge sharper than any zanpakuto, "let's just settle on bloodthirsty."

After ripping the bars to their cell open with his bare hands and liberating Dondochakka and Pesche, the transformed warrior flashed away before returning a few moments later. His arms were streaked with black blood that was not his own, and in his hands were clutched both Pantera and a now-inverted Zangetsu. After tossing Jaegerjaques his zanpakuto, Kurosaki turned his attention to the shocked, but now-rallying and increasingly furious Adjuchas.

"I don't know how long this form is going to hold up, Grimmjow," Ichigo told the Arrancar as they advanced, matching berserker grins on their faces,

"So let's make this quick."

A/N: Sorry for the second consecutive cliffy and lack of Soul Society this chapter, but Hichigo took up more screentime than I thought he would. I'm already working on Chapter 6, though, and I can promise you that the brawling will commence in Hueco Mundo, the planning will be underway in Soul Society and a certain Vasto Lorde will make an appearance. I hope you enjoyed it, and as always, please review.