Torn
Chapter 31: Kali Yuga
Gin Ichimaru approached the figure standing on the small hill silently, knowing that he had to weigh his opening words very, very carefully or risk incurring the wrath of a teenager almost as strong as, if not as strong as, Sosuke Aizen.
"You're not going to help them," the silver-haired Shinigami asked, coming to a halt next to Ichigo and looking out over the horizon towards the battle, "are you?"
"They've made it abundantly clear that this isn't my fight anymore, Ichimaru," Kurosaki replied coldly, and Gin was taken aback for a moment by the steeliness in the younger warrior's voice.
"Then what is, Ichigo," Gin rebutted after a moment, "if not this?"
"Aizen."
The one word carried enough weight to say everything, and Ichimaru nodded shortly in acquiescence.
"And if they die?" he prodded one last time, red eyes narrowing. "You would be fine with that?"
Kurosaki said nothing for several moments, before closing his eyes, sighing, and tearing open a garganta behind him with a wave of his hand.
"Like I said, Gin," Ichigo replied stonily, "she made it quite clear that this isn't my fight anymore."
Shaking his head shortly and admiring the unbelievable emotional ruthlessness of the broken-hearted, Ichimaru followed behind Ichigo as the pair stepped through the garganta and began their trek towards Hueco Mundo, and the ruler of Las Noches.
Matsumoto watched the cero of her Arrancar opponent barrel towards her with peaceful resignation. But then her mind's eye returned to the words Gin had spoken to her the night before as she felt the heat of Sun-Sun's attack get closer and closer, and bitter regret tainted her last moments of life…
"Soten Kisshun!"
The barrier was formed so close to Matsumoto that she felt it pressing against the tip of her nose, strong enough to stop the cero dead in its tracks. Right after the cero had been extinguished the glowing shield shattered, both predator and prey looking over to see who had interrupted the duel. Before Sun-Sun could strike out against Matsumoto's savior, however, another figure joined the fight as well.
"Tsugi no Mai: Hakuren!"
The massive wave of snow and ice surged forward from Rukia's zanpakuto and swallowed the Arrancar whole, and would have snagged Matsumoto in the torrent if someone else hadn't intervened at the last possible moment.
The barrier kept Rukia's attack from harming Rangiku at the same time its energies began to heal her, patching up the various wounds Sun-Sun had inflicted during their brawl.
"Thanks, Inoue," Kuchiki said as she ran over to make sure Matsumoto hadn't been grazed by her attack. "I owe you one."
"Don't mention it," Orihime replied seriously, focusing on healing the downed Shinigami. "My shunpo is still a bit sluggish, but I managed to get here in time all the same. You take care of the Arrancar; I'll keep an eye on Rangiku."
Rukia nodded once and left the pair behind, trusting in herself to protect Orihime and trusting in Orihime to do her job quickly. If there was one handicap in a fight that Kuchiki tried to avoid whenever possible, it was dividing up her attention.
Sun-Sun was surrounded by a prison of ice in Hakuren's aftermath, but Rukia could tell that the attack was only going to buy her a few moments; the trapped Arrancar's reiatsu was already loosening the ice's hold. Determined to capitalize on her brief advantage while she had it, Kuchiki concentrated and summoned Sode no Shirayuki's power once more.
"Some no Mai: Tsuki Shiro!"
The circle was etched swiftly into the ground, the white pillar of ice spiking high into the heavens a heartbeat later. Rukia could tell that nothing was contained in the column, however, and quickly spun around, raising her zanpakuto to block a swift palm strike from Sun-Sun and gritting her teeth as the impact felt like a sword-blow.
"Impressive reflexes, Shinigami," the Arrancar said with a coolness that Rukia couldn't help but respect. "And you even managed to scar me in this form. But do not believe that your powers are anywhere near great enough to bring me down."
Rukia broke the deadlock with a shove and struck again and again with Sode no Shirayuki, trying in vain to find a gap in her enemy's defenses. Sun-Sun moved with the agility to match her serpentine form, and swiftly began using her tail as a weapon once Kuchiki started pushing her back.
"Your blade is weak, Shinigami," the Arrancar taunted as she landed a strike that penetrated Rukia's right shoulder, causing Kuchiki's grip on her zanpakuto to slacken. "This battle is mine."
As Sun-Sun prepared to thrust her hand through Rukia's throat, the Shinigami sprang backwards, urged on by a sudden boost of adrenaline. After landing on one knee and forcing herself up to her feet despite the pain in her shoulder, Rukia checked quickly on the depth of the wound to make sure it wasn't critical before turning her attention fully to her opponent.
"You're right, Arrancar," she said, a smile spreading slowly across her face, "my blade is weak. I've never been good with a sword, you know."
Sun-Sun saw the killing intent spike in her enemy's eyes and knew that the Shinigami was planning something; determined not to give her that chance, she leapt forward to attack when Rukia suddenly fired off a completely chantless Byakurai, stopping the Arrancar's charge cold. But Rukia was far from finished, and had already prepared another kido before Sun-Sun had even come back to her senses.
"Bakudo number 61: Rikujokoro!"
"Shit!" Sun-Sun hissed as the rods of light slammed into her midsection, holding her in place despite her increasingly vehement attempts to shatter them. Seeing that the kido was weakening, Kuchiki decided she needed to speed things up, even if it was a big risk to be taking.
"Inoue, get Matsumoto out of here!" Rukia called out as she prepared the final blow. "I still can't control this hado very well, and I don't want to injure either of you in the crossfire by mistake!"
Orihime dispelled her Soten Kisshun immediately, and as soon as the pair of women had flashed away, Rukia focused through the pain of her wound and spoke.
"Hado number 88: Hiryugekizokushintenraiho!"
The blast of blue lightning tore through the air with a deafening crash, drowning out the scream of the Arrancar as Sun-Sun was obliterated. Rukia smiled to herself as the fatigue of the battle caught up with her at last and she fell to the ground, exhausted. Even bypassed, the spell had carried enough force to eliminate her opponent.
If only Kaien-dono had been here to see that… she thought, as her battle fatigue finally pushed her over the brink and into unconsciousness.
As he was ejected from the grasp of Szayel Aporro's tentacle and thrown off of the roof the Espada was standing on, Hisagi realized with a chill that what his opponent was about to do might kill him in a matter of moments. In other words, his lifespan rested on just how sadistic Szayel Aporro Granz was feeling, and how slowly he felt like breaking the Shinigami into pieces with his freakish voodoo doll. On top of it all, whatever process the Espada used to make his bizarre replica had drained Shuuhei of reiatsu, enough to force him to re-seal his zanpakuto if he wanted to keep his wound from re-opening.
It was not a very comforting situation to be in, to say the very least.
"Once again we find ourselves dancing a most familiar dance, Shuuhei Hisagi!" Szayel called out energetically as he jumped down from the roof, landing smoothly in front of his adversary.
"Which reminds me," the Espada continued, his tone shifting abruptly from excited to speculative, "I never had the chance to ask you how it was you recovered from the last time I broke your bones into tiny shards. Hmm, I imagine it was that 'Orihime' woman," Granz mused as Hisagi forced himself to his feet, becoming increasingly furious and looking for a way to get the doll away from Szayel before he began smashing him to pieces.
"I really must study her sometime; her powers are truly fascinating," the Arrancar half-mumbled, turning away from the wounded Shinigami. Shuuhei saw his chance, forcing his arms to cooperate and raising his zanpakuto as he charged forward.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you that it's incredibly rude to charge an opponent when they're not ready to fight, Shinigami?"
Hisagi felt something slam into his head, stalling his charge, and realized that Granz had done nothing more than flick his finger against the doll's forehead.
"But if you want to get this started right now, I guess it would be inconsiderate of me not to oblige you, Shuuhei Hisagi."
The Shinigami felt every muscle in his body tense up as the outer shell of the doll was pulled apart, and urgency blazed through him as he realized that he was going to be making a return visit to Szayel Aporro Granz's own particular version of hell very shortly if he didn't do something immediately. Shaking off the daze from the Espada's earlier attack, he decided to use shunpo this time and vanished, aiming his zanpakuto right at the wrist of the hand holding the doll that would be the death of him.
"Whether my eyes can see you or not counts for nothing, Shinigami," Szayel said calmly, picking out the organ labeled 'Appendix' and shattering it between his fingers. The shock and sudden sharp pain stalled Hisagi's shunpo and he reappeared, eyes wide, his sword frozen mere inches from Granz's hand.
"So close," the Espada taunted icily, "and yet so far."
After delivering a harsh punch right to the area of Shuuhei's burst organ, Szayel withdrew a lung and smiled while Hisagi could only reel back, totally outmatched.
"You should be glad, Hisagi," the Arrancar said lowly. "Rather than shatter all of your bones to begin, I've chosen to be merciful this time and end your life swiftly by destroying your organs first."
As he crushed the 'lung' between his fingers, Szayel's amber eyes lit up with manic intensity. Shuuhei felt his vision go blurry as pain seared through him and his body immediately reacted to the loss of half its air supply. He felt like he was drowning, and the Shinigami's fear only deepened when he saw the Espada withdraw the small facsimile labeled 'Heart'.
"This isn't proving to be as interesting as I had hoped, Shuuhei Hisagi," Szayel taunted. "You seem to be more pathetic now then when we last crossed blades; unfortunately, it seems as though I will not be able to show you the full extent of my powers during this duel either. But do not worry; this farce of a battle is drawing to a close, and with it your pain shall end as well."
The world started moving in slow-motion as Hisagi's body gave him one last desperate shot of adrenaline to keep his organs functioning; he could see the muscles in Grantz's wrist tensing, and felt his own heart spasm as the Arrancar's fingers tensed around the replica, ready to crush it into dust—
And then it vanished, along with the rest of the voodoo doll.
"What!?" Szayel said, shocked at the sudden turn of events, but before he could look for the culprit he felt one of his lower tentacles become suddenly leaden. He gasped as it fell to the ground and stayed there, weighing him down.
"How…?"
A cold, steely voice spoke out from the left of the two combatants in response to the question.
"Would you care for me to explain the abilities of my zanpakuto to you, Arrancar? Since you are about to die," a blond-haired Shinigami with an oddly-shaped sword in his hands finished, "I see no harm in it."
"Kira…" Shuuhei gasped out, only to have Izuru fix him with a look that silenced him instantly.
"I am sorry it took me so long to get here, Hisagi," he apologized gravely, "but the Kyakko spell took longer to get under control than I thought it would. Please, try to hang on until I can see to your wounds."
"What did you do to me, Shinigami!?" Szayel shouted, regaining Kira's attention. But rather than speak, the warrior simply vanished in a burst of shunpo, reemerging behind and to the right of the Espada. A thin line of black blood graced the edges of Wabisuke's angular blade, dripping down slowly onto dusty ground that seemed to drink it up hungrily. As Grantz's second lower tentacle became weighed down in the same manner as the first, pinning him to the ground completely, Izuru spoke once more.
"Have you figured it out yet, Espada?" the grim Shinigami asked. "For a being who professes to be a scientist, you seem quite perplexed." Taking Szayel's vain struggle to move and vitriolic streams of insults as a 'no' before supplying the answer himself.
"My zanpakuto, Wabisuke, has a very interesting ability," Kira began casually as he dodged a wild attack from an upper tentacle, before slashing that one down into submission as well. "It doubles the weight of whatever it hits. If I hit the same target twice, the doubled weight is doubled again. In short," Izuru finished, bringing the Arrancar's final appendage to heel before walking up and hamstringing him, "by this point, you should be quite incapable of movement."
Szayel had crumpled to his knees, bright eyes burning with hatred towards his soon-to-be-executioner.
"Even if I die here, Shinigami," he spat, "it will change nothing. The upper Espada will move soon enough, and when they arrive, you inferior beings will be swept away!"
"We survived their first purge, Espada," Kira replied stonily, raising the blade up and severing the Septima's head from his shoulders.
"I see no reason why we won't survive the second."
Quickly re-sealing his blade, Izuru hastened over to Hisagi's side and began to cast the healing kido he'd learned in his time with Captain Unohana in the Fourth Division. Once the emergency steps were taken to pull Shuuhei back from the brink of death, Kira took a moment to cast a Tozansho pyramid around them, taking the recently-departed Espada's threat seriously. In case the upper echelon of Aizen's death-squad did decide to make an appearance soon, the last thing Izuru wanted was to be caught unprepared.
Soi Fon opened her eyes slowly, expecting for the heinous pain caused by Momo's Kurohitsugi to return when she did. But instead of that, she felt nothing at all. No pain, no fatigue, no discomfort. She was perfectly fine.
The world around her, though, was another story altogether.
The tranquil field that normally composed her Spirit World was dying, the lush grass withering and decaying on the ground while sheets of rain poured down from the sky.
"What… what's going on?"
"Is it not obvious?" a lean, muscular woman with short dark hair, grey eyes and a sharply perceptive voice called out to her. "This world is in mourning."
"Mourning?" Soi Fon repeatedly slowly, wondering what the cause could be for such a thing. "Why?"
"Because you are dying," the spirit of Suzumebachi replied stoically, and the Shinigami's eyes snapped open in shock.
"What!? How is that possible if I'm standing here now, talking to you?"
"Your body has been ripped to shreds," the spirit explained. "Right now, the only thing that tethers you to this plane of existence at all is sheer willpower. I am doing all I can to hold this realm together, but if you do not assist me, very shortly both of us will cease to exist altogether."
Soi Fon nodded firmly and began to focus as hard as she could, intent on drawing her soul out of this spiritual prison and back into the corporeal world of Soul Society, where that bitch Hinamori was no doubt gloating over her victory. She couldn't lose, and especially not to Aizen's whimpering little lapdog.
But as soon as she began to feel herself rise out of the Spirit World, a wall of agonizing pain slammed into her entire body, forcing the Shinigami back down.
What the hell? Soi Fon thought as she tried to force the fresh agony into the back of her mind.
"That is only a glimpse of the pain you will face once you are reunited with your body in the physical world, Mistress," Suzumebachi chimed in evenly. "I would be remiss if I did not tell you that the trauma of such a reunion might result in your death outright."
"Then what's the point, Suzumebachi?" Soi Fon shouted. "Why even bother to try, if it's just going to kill me anyway?!"
The spirit got a strange gleam in her eye just then, and smiled in a way she only did when she was about to show Soi Fon just how much of an idiot she was being.
"That's funny," Suzumebachi quipped. "I remember someone asking you a very similar question one time. Do you remember that?"
Soi Fon's eyes widened as she realized what her zanpakuto's spirit was telling her, her thoughts pulling her away to a moment more than a decade old.
"Mom," Héctor had said one day, when he was only six, "can I ask you a question?"
"Of course you can," she had replied with a small smile, pulling her son onto her lap and looking down into the vivid blue eyes he had inherited from his father. "What's wrong?"
"I want to know why you and Dad are pushing me so hard to train and get stronger, if you're never going to let me fight."
"You think we should let you go out there?" Soi Fon had answered with wry amusement, trying to deflect her child's melancholy with humor. "I don't know if you'd be able to reach any of the bad guy's heads, let alone defeat them!"
"You know what I mean, Mom," Héctor had replied petulantly, and Soi Fon sighed as she realized that her son was too clever even at this age to be put off by such simple diversions. She had shifted her expression into seriousness to make sure that Héctor was paying attention, and then Soi Fon had begun to speak.
"Héctor," she had said, "the people we are fighting against take their orders from a man who doesn't possess a single bit of mercy in his soul. If your father and I were to fall in battle, and if everyone else you know, all of our friends and allies, were to fall as well, then there would be nothing more important than knowing how to protect yourself from harm as best as you can."
"What are you saying, Mom?" Héctor had replied slowly, knowing exactly where his parent was going with this but afraid of where that path ended.
"I'm saying, Héctor, that even though you might not need to ever use the powers you train so hard to improve, there may come a time when you need to face down enemies far more powerful than yourself in order to protect something precious to you. Whether it's your own life, or the life of someone you care about more than your own, that doesn't matter. All that matters is that you have the strength within you to overcome whatever obstacles you may face, even as you pray that you never have to overcome those obstacles to begin with."
"You're not going to leave me, though, are you?" Héctor had asked with slight apprehension in his voice as he hugged his mother tightly, resting his cheek against her chest. Soi Fon had smiled sadly then, wrapping one arm around her son and resting her free hand on top of his head.
"I can't promise you that I'll be around forever, Héctor," she had told him. "But I can promise you that for as long as I am alive, I'll protect you."
"Do you remember that?" Suzumebachi's voice called out, snapping the Shinigami from her thoughts. "Don't tell me you're too weak to practice what you preach, when your loved ones are out there fighting and you're cowering in here afraid of pain; afraid of death. Is that the legacy you wish to leave behind to your son?"
The sudden image of Grimmjow and Héctor standing bitter and broken-hearted over her grave galvanized Soi Fon into action. Once again, she attempted to break out of her Spirit World and go back to where her lacerated body was waiting for her, hellish suffering be damned.
The wall of pain slammed into her again, but the Shinigami refused to buckle, pushing against it as hard as she could until Soi Fon felt it giving way before her. She kept going, shoving the wall along with her like a huge weight. It seemed determined to try and force her back the rest of the way, and Soi Fon knew that the force opposing her was her base instincts telling her not to risk potential death, but she didn't care. She had too much left to do to worry about something as trivial as death right now.
Her sense of direction blurred for a moment as the Shinigami strained against the border separating her two worlds, and with a final thrust she broke out of the darkness and back into the light of the sun shining down upon Soul Society.
I did it, she thought with a weary smile as she forced her leaden eyelids to open. I'm back.
A torrent of anguish smashed Soi Fon's sense of triumph to pieces, but she was too determined to let her body's base desire to make the pain go away obliterate her mind as well. She had been through all-consuming pain like this once before when she'd re-accepted the memories of her human existence back into her mind; she could do it again.
Hinamori had just finished sealing and sheathing Tobiume, and was about to go eliminate the unconscious Kuchiki lying on the ground not that far away, when a sudden surge of reiatsu coming from her downed opponent stopped the Vizard in her tracks.
"What's this?" she asked, turning back around and drawing her blade once again as Soi Fon hauled her body up onto its feet, the tattered muscles bolstered by a dense aura of reiatsu that was a testament to her rank as a Captain in Soul Society's army. "You can still stand? Most impressive, Soi Fon. But I can tell that this is just a front; your body is in shambles, you can barely stand, and the hand your shikai is on will never be able to reach me—"
Momo's words were cut off suddenly as Soi Fon appeared right in front of her in a terrifyingly fast shunpo, placing her bare hand against the Vizard's chest and smirking viciously.
"I only need one hand to rip your heart out, you worm," she hissed, striking forward with her functional hand. Hinamori vanished with a shunpo of her own and reappeared a few paces away, but she was hunched over slightly and blood was clearly dripping from the contact points Soi Fon had hit on her chest.
"You're really pissing me off, you whore," Momo growled in an unbalanced voice made even more ominous by the scratchy Hollow-like tone that her mask gave her. "Just shut up and die already! Hado number 54: Hai—"
"Lanzador Verde."
Hinamori's fatal kido was stopped just before it could be released as a massive white, double-edged lance flew at the Vizard and slammed into her abdomen, causing her to cough up blood instantly before throwing her backwards and slamming her into a nearby wall. The weapon pinned Momo against the concrete securely at the same time as it punctured a hole deep into the flesh right below her shoulder blade. A few moments later the weapon sprang out of the wound it had caused and arced away, landing with one point down in the dirt right beside its owner.
"I've been hesitant to enter this state ever since Inoue re-forged my zanpakuto for me," Neliel said as she picked up her lance and moved forward, the hooves of her resurreccion form clicking softly against the ground. "Honestly, I didn't know how it would turn out. I'm relieved to see that I haven't lost any of my power, at least."
"I'm impressed," Momo said defiantly. "Even after witnessing my power, you would still interfere?"
"Oh, I plan on doing much more than interfering, little Vizard," Nel replied easily as she charged forward at full speed.
"I plan on finishing it."
The former Tercera Espada weaved flawlessly in between hasty blasts of kido before ramming the spike of her lance through the center of Hinamori's sternum, shattering the bone and crushing the tender organs that rested underneath it.
"This is far too painless of an end for you," Neliel mused disdainfully, wrenching the lance from the wound as Momo fell to the ground, her eyes wide and glassy. Nel quickly released her resurreccion form and returned to normal, intent on using every bit of reiatsu she could to help aid in the recovery of Soi Fon's wounded body.
"Don't move," the Arrancar insisted as Soi Fon attempted to push herself off of the ground. "I don't know how you're still breathing, but if you push it too far now you'll die."
Neliel could see the Shinigami's onyx eyes balk initially at the thought of staying down, but soon enough rationality won out over pride and she relaxed, allowing her ally to pour reiatsu into her wounds.
"Just hang on," Nel encouraged. "I should be able to have you at least healthy enough to move around in a few minutes—"
The former Espada's words were cut off by an animalistic shriek, and her head whipped around at once to behold a monstrous sight.
Momo was back on her feet again. Or at least, the body that had once belonged to Momo Hinamori was upright. But it was clear from the appearance of this thing, as white liquid began to seethe over her body and harden into a carapace of armor, that Hinamori was no longer in control.
Her inner Hollow had come out to fight, in full force and without any control holding it back.
"Oh, no," Neliel breathed out in horror as the monster's dense, twisted reiatsu spiked when it opened its mouth and roared to the heavens in rage. The creature sprang forward with blinding speed, and even though Nel was able to block the initial attack with the blade of her zanpakuto, she could tell that the battle against this freakish enemy was going to be anything but easy.
"God damn it!"
Gin watched Kurosaki's typical overreaction with amusement and a hint of relief; what seemed at first blush to be a setback would actually be quite the boon for him.
"I told you we weren't at Las Noches yet, Ichigo," Ichimaru broke in, "but you were just in too much of a hurry to listen."
"Whatever, we'll just use shunpo to get there. It won't make a difference!"
"Except to completely rob us of the element of surprise, of course," Gin parried, and Kurosaki could do nothing more than shoot his comrade a dirty look. "Any excess leakage of reiatsu could tip them off, and I wouldn't be surprised if Aizen already knows exactly where we are."
"Well then," Ichigo shot back sharply as he turned away and began to walk towards the fortress looming in the distance that they had once called home, "what do you propose we do, Ichimaru?"
"This," Gin said simply as he appeared in front of Ichigo with a shunpo so fast Kurosaki hadn't even felt it, before cracking Shinso's hilt against the kid's temple and knocking him out cold.
"I know you think you're the one who has the most grievances with Aizen," the former Captain said calmly as he strode a few paces away from Ichigo and tore open another garganta, "but I've been waiting for my chance to pay him back for far longer than you've been breathing, kid. 'Sides, you're no use to anyone if you just get yourself killed again.
"Let me take care of this one."
Ichimaru passed through the tear and closed it behind him, hastening through the swirling, inky void before finding his point of entry and stopping, taking in a breath to calm himself down before he opened the exit and stepped out into the Throne Room of Las Noches, where Aizen and his top five Espada were currently assembled.
"Ah, Gin," Sosuke greeted with his usual calm, despite the fact that his subordinate's eyes were open wide and the smile had vanished from his face completely, "you've come after all. I was beginning to think you were simply going to flee, and pray that I never found you."
"We both know that would be pointless, Captain," Ichimaru answered evenly, and Aizen smiled.
"Indeed it would be," he agreed. "You five," Sosuke continued, addressing the Espada now while keeping his gaze locked with Gin's, "leave us, and go reinforce your brethren fighting in Soul Society."
"You sure you don't want us to just crush this shifty bastard for you, Aizen?" Barragan spoke up gruffly, and as Sosuke and Gin stared each other down a grin began to rise again on Ichimaru's face.
"Barragan, the only person in this room who could defeat Gin is myself," Aizen replied smoothly. "Now go."
The top five Espada rose and exited the room in silence as they had been commanded to do, leaving the two Shinigami alone in the massive room.
"So, Gin," Sosuke began, the edges of his lips turning upwards into a smirk, "how was Matsumoto?"
The grin on Ichimaru's face vanished immediately, his reiatsu spiking reflexively at the question before he willed it back down to normal without missing a beat. Still, Aizen's smirk widened at the reaction. "I assume you used the opportunity I gave you to cut ties with her once and for all before marching here, to your death?"
Gin's smirk returned as a shadow of its former self, but his reply lost none of its strength.
"No."
"No?" Aizen repeated, intrigued. "Then what did you say?"
"The truth of how I felt about her; how I've always felt."
Sosuke chuckled, feeling the rage simmering underneath Gin's calm exterior and now realizing where it had all come from.
"And then?" he prodded, enjoying the sight of watching his once-unflappable subordinate slowly crack.
"She called me a liar," Ichimaru replied stoically, "said that I had chosen you over her when it mattered the most, and that nothing would ever change that."
"And am I to assume you blame me for the choice you yourself made, Gin?"
"Following you was never my choice," Ichimaru shot back, finally moving one hand to Shinso's hilt, "because you never gave me a choice to begin with."
"There was always a choice in front of you, Gin," Aizen calmly insisted, disappearing from atop his throne and reappearing on the ground at the other end of the long table. "Just because the alternative to joining me was death, that doesn't mean you didn't have a choice. Either way, you were going to lose her. Not being able to accept that is your own fault."
"Maybe," Ichimaru replied tersely, drawing his zanpakuto and slipping seamlessly into a combat stance, "but that doesn't change the fact that you were the one who forced me to make the choice to begin with."
"Then come," Aizen said coldly as he unsheathed Kyoka Suigetsu, "and exact your revenge from me, if you can."
The surge of reiatsu that Gin unleashed was enough to shatter the thick stone table into rubble, and a heartbeat later the two former allies clashed for the first time in the heart of Las Noches.
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A/N: Man, that chapter was exhausting to write. Once again, nothing but the biggest ups go out to both JasoTheArtisan and MatsuMama for beta-ing this chapter. Also, thanks to Jaso for additionally convincing me to shorten this installment by a few scenes, which was what needed to happen in the end. But don't worry, those scenes will show up next chapter.
Hope this chapter proved to be enjoyable, and show my buddies some love by reading and reviewing their fics, namely So and Anonymous by Jaso and Nebula by MatsuMama. You won't regret taking the time to do so.