Torn

Chapter 32: The Deathbringers

"Split and deviate, Ruiro Kujaku."

Yammy didn't even flinch as he heard Yumichika voice his zanpakuto's release command; the Espada had faced the multi-bladed sickle before, and it possessed all the tenacity and force of a mosquito.

It was Yammy's scorn for his power that Yumichika had been counting on. Sure, he had faced Fuji Kujaku before, but Ruiro Kujaku was a completely different beast altogether. The fatigued Shinigami had barely enough energy left to grin at the sight of the energy tendrils enveloping his enemy. He'd be back on his feet soon enough, though, and this battle would be brought to a most savagely graceful conclusion.

It only took a minute for the siphoning process to finish, and Yumichika reached out slowly to grab a delicate, fully bloomed white flower. Putting it in his mouth the Shinigami bit down, savoring the feeling of reiatsu spreading through every inch of his injured body and restoring his strength. Rising to his feet with a calm assurance that had been utterly lacking mere moments ago, Yumichika regressed his zanpakuto back to its multi-pronged sickle state and sighed.

"Thank you for a truly challenging fight, Espada," he spoke by way of parting. "My only regret is that I defeated you before giving you a chance to fight at your full strength."

"Heh, stupid Shinigami… do you really think that's enough to kill me!?"

Rialgo's fists rose and fell with enough force to shake the ground under Yumichika's feet, and a few moments later he had pushed himself up from the dirt and back into a standing position.

"You still have enough strength left in you to stand?" Ayasegawa breathed, stunned. "That's not possible!"

"Don't think I've shown you all of my tricks, pretty boy!" Yammy shot back with a rumbling laugh, squaring his shoulders and beginning to emit a low sound that grew steadily into a shout and then a roar. As the battle-cry gained strength, so did the Espada seem to grow larger and larger right before Yumichika's eyes.

"Try beating me now, you little brat!" the Cero Espada boomed down from his new vantage point, madness gleaming in his eyes. "I'm gonna bash your fucking skull in!"

Yumichika found himself back on the defensive immediately, dodging fists that were the size of large boulders by weaving around like a lunatic. Seeing an opening as his adversary charged up a bala, the Shinigami tried to reclaim some of his lost ground.

"Hado number 63: Raikoho!"

Rather than use his bala to forcefully deflect the kido as Yumichika had hoped, Yammy simply grinned and stuck out his free hand in an open palm, stopping the hado barehanded. Yumichika had almost no time to react as the bala shot towards him, managing to flash away with shunpo in order to avoid the brunt of the damage, but still cringing as he smelled burning flesh and glanced down to find his left thigh severely burned, with charred black ringing the edges of an open wound that had fortunately been cauterized by the heat.

Still, there was no way he was going to be doing much more than limping for the foreseeable future, a future that was growing shorter by the moment.

"Such an ugly way to meet my end, brought down like some trapped animal," Yumichika growled, staring defiantly up into Yammy's murderous glare while silently willing his wounded leg to move.

Captain, Ikkaku, the Shinigami thought solemnly as Rialgo pinned him down with sheer reiatsu and prepared to fire off a cero that would surely be fatal, I'm sorry I couldn't avenge your deaths.

"Let's see you squirm around now, Shinigami," the lumbering Espada rumbled as his cero finished charging. "Die!"

"Gran Rey Cero."

A sudden surge of reiatsu hit both Yammy and the already-stunned Yumichika like a rampaging bull, and a fraction of a second later a massive blast of green energy slammed into Rialgo's side, throwing off the aim of his finishing blow by enough to save Ayasegawa from death.

"Really, Yammy," a calm voice said as the poised figure of Ulquiorra Schiffer walked out of a nearby alley's shadows and into the light, "you have to go this far to crush a single Shinigami? And here I thought you were deserving of your rank; how foolish of me."

"Ulquiorra, you bastard," Rialgo growled as he rose to his feet again, ignoring the burns and wounds that now marred his muscles. "Don't get in my way!"

The former Cuarta Espada didn't reply to the taunt, instead using sonido to vanish from sight. Yammy was immediately alert for movement, but by the time he spun around to behold his enemy once more, Schiffer was already sheathing his lightly-bloodstained zanpakuto. Before he could so much as launch a retaliatory punch, Rialgo's attack was derailed by searing pain in his shoulder, which was followed up immediately by his left arm falling away and landing in the ground with a thud.

"Can you move, Ayasegawa?" Ulquiorra asked evenly, utterly unconcerned with the berserker rage Yammy had been provoked into by his wound.

"If I could," Yumichika spat back, "Do you think I would be here right now? Took your group long enough to show up, Arrancar."

Pointedly ignoring the venomous tone of the words, Schiffer grabbed the Shinigami by the front of his robes and disappeared again, stopping his high-speed movement in front of a run-down shack not far away from the raging Cero Espada.

"May I leave him to you, Orihime?" Ulquiorra asked Inoue, who was sitting inside the small structure and looking quite calm as she knelt over the prone body of Rangiku Matsumoto.

"Of course," Inoue replied, giving both the wounded Shinigami and the Arrancar holding him up a reassuring smile. Orihime had grown physically in the years since Ichigo's mortal death and Aizen's invasion, having been brought to Soul Society as a permanent resident by the Shinigami because of her potent abilities. Constant exposure to the spiritual nature of Soul Society had shifted her gradually away from human and closer and closer to a pure soul, and as a result her aging had all-but stopped in the mid-twenties. A katana was held in the sash circling her waist, devoid of spiritual energy apart from what she chose to invest it with during a battle.

"Very well," Schiffer spoke tersely, depositing Yumichika in the room before turning around and walking back out into the sunlight.

"Heal him quickly," the former Espada said by way of parting as he vanished, leaving to face Yammy once more.

When the healer and her patient-to-be were alone in the room, Yumichika's expression turned from weary to spiteful.

"I hope those two destroy each other," the Shinigami said bitterly as Orihime finished healing Rangiku and shifted her Soten Kisshun to cover Yumichika's wounded leg. As its warm glow began to mend the injured appendage, Inoue arched an eyebrow at the unprovoked venom in Ayasegawa's words and spoke.

"Why do you hate Ulquiorra so much?" she asked, and Yumichika gave her a look of disbelief that she had even bothered to ask before replying.

"Why do you think, Orihime?" he shot back. "Because he's an Arrancar."

"Be that as it may," the healer replied as calmly as she could, feeling her cheeks warm with indignation, "Ulquiorra has done nothing but help all of us since the Invasion, and even before then."

"A wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf," Ayasegawa answered sharply, "the kind of wolf that killed the Captain and Ikkaku. You can't ask me to ever trust one of those dogs, Orihime. Sooner or later, they all go feral."

"You don't know that," Inoue said with increasingly wavering calm. "Ulquiorra—"

"Is someone you're biased towards just because he taught you how to use that sword you have at your hip." Yumichika finished, cutting her off sharply. "Are you done yet?"

Swallowing her now-considerable anger and smirking to herself, Inoue banished her Soten Kisshun and smiled. This time, however, reassurance in her expression was utterly feigned.

"I am," she replied. "Unfortunately the bala that wounded you left behind enough of its own reiatsu that I was unable to heal the wound entirely, but this should still suffice for combat."

It was a lie that she wouldn't have been able to heal the wound fully, but Yumichika deserved to limp for acting like such an ass. The two left the shack and parted ways along with Matsumoto, who was now conscious. Orihime and Rangiku left to check back up on Rukia, while Ayasegawa vanished to return to the fight against Yammy. Not because he wanted to come to Ulquiorra's aid, but rather because he knew that once the green-eyed bastard was dead, Rialgo would come for him, and as much as he despised two-on-one fights, there was no way he could win this battle on his own.

Grimmjow was still smarting from the bala he'd been hit with when he felt Soi Fon's reiatsu drop sharply in the distance, almost as if she was…

No. No, she wasn't dead. That made no sense whatsoever, that she would just go down like that in the blink of an eye, from one attack.

"Oh, what's this?" Wonderwice's cool, calculating voice spoke out from above the prone Arrancar. "It looks like Hinamori's already taken care of your woman, Jaegerjaques. Odd; I would have thought Momo to be the type to play with her prey for longer than that—"

Margera's observations were cut short by a harsh snarl as Grimmjow rushed at him, having risen to his feet and drawn his sword with speed that caused Wonderwice's eyes to widen slightly in surprise. But before the strike from Pantera could land, the Novena Espada had reached out and grabbed the blade with one hand, stopping its motion completely.

"Good recovery," he complimented tonelessly, "but that counts for nothing if you can't land a strike, Grimmjow."

The Espada's next move was so fast it looked like a blur even to Grimmjow's trained eyes, and only a quick leap backwards saved him from being skewered straight through the gut by one of Wonderwice's hierro-strengthened hands.

"Not bad, not bad," Margera spoke as he flexed his hand, his violet eyes narrowing into an expression of controlled malice and murderous intent that looked incredibly out of place on such a young face.

"Then again," he continued, "I shouldn't be so surprised that a coward and traitor like yourself has a talent for evasion and escape."

Jaegerjaques didn't dignify the insult with a verbal response, instead choosing to attack once again, an action that drew little more than an exasperated sigh from Wonderwice.

"You truly believe that you are stronger than any enemy you face, Jaegerjaques," Margera said distractedly as he struck out blind with his hand, slamming his fingertips into Grimmjow's throat and sending the former Espada staggering backwards. "That is your fatal flaw, and today it will be the death of you."

"Shut the fuck up," Grimmjow growled raspily as his voice returned to him. "You're just the Novena, and you were even back when I was the Sexta! How can you say I'm not stronger than you?"

All of a sudden Wonderwice's face was only inches from his, and Jaegerjaques felt a sharp pain in his torso. Looking down, the former Espada's eyes went wide with incredulity as he saw that Margera's hand had pierced clean through his chest and out the other side, with the Novena's elbow lodged inside his chest. He hadn't even felt the bastard's approach, let alone seen it. This kid, the retarded brat Tosen had kept as his pet in Hueco Mundo, had stabbed him, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques, clean through the chest and inflicted a mortal wound on him.

And Grimmjow, for all of his self-proclaimed strength, had never seen it coming.

"You were the Sexta by default, Jaegerjaques," Wonderwice said calmly over the sound of Grimmjow hacking up his lifeblood in disbelief. "I was the Novena by choice, and that simple fact makes all the difference in the world."

Margera withdrew his arm, looking at the blood that stained up to the elbow of his sleeve with disdain as Grimmjow collapsed onto the ground and stayed there, unmoving.

"Stay down, Grimmjow," Wonderwice spoke a few moments later. "Enough of your pathetic blood has stained me already." The Espada's head turned as he felt approaching reiatsu signatures, and he called out to the arriving warriors.

"Come out," he spoke as Renji and Shiro appeared in flashes of shunpo and sonido. "We're finished."

"Grimmjow!" Renji called out, rushing over to his fallen ally's aid. "Shit, this is bad!" he said as he examined the Arrancar's wounds. "If I don't get him out of here and heal him now, he's done for!"

"Then shut up and do that, Abarai," Shiro snapped at the Shinigami as he drew Zangetsu from his back. "I'll take care of the Espada."

"You sure?" Renji asked as he hauled the Arrancar's unconscious body over his shoulder and prepared to shunpo away as Wonderwice made no effort to stop him, his sharp violet eyes trained totally on Shiro.

"Yeah, I'm sure," the Hollow pressed, growing annoyed. "This brat's just the Novena; no reason to use a sledgehammer on an ant."

Abarai nodded and vanished with a whisper of shunpo, leaving Shiro alone to face down Wonderwice. The Hollow struck first, bringing the massive, cleaver-shaped blade of Zangetsu down on the Espada's raised arm, where it slashed through the sleeve of the white garment before grinding in vain against the underlying hierro.

"Curious," Margera mused as his opponent pushed even harder against the guard, striving to draw blood. "You saw what I did to Jaegerjaques, and yet you are willing to face me alone?"

"Abarai would just get in my way," Shiro answered through grit teeth. "Besides," he continued, digging deep and boosting his reaitsu even further as a maniac grin split his features, "I haven't had a fight like this in a while. This should be fun!"

The Hollow's smile widened as his zanpakuto finally broke through the Espada's shield and drew blood, the sight of the dark liquid causing Wonderwice's features to harden instantly. Frowning, the Espada shoved back against his attacker and sent Shiro flying backwards. The Hollow charged again at once, like a shark chasing after the trail of blood left by a wounded seal. His inverted Zangetsu rose and fell again and again, scoring several small hits on his adversary. Margera wasn't seriously wounded by the barrage, but clearly saw how much more emboldened Shiro became after each hit he landed, a berserker through and through. Determined to squash this insect before things got truly troublesome, Wonderwice set his feet and went on the offensive.

Shiro had to stop his reckless charge in order to dodge and deflect the swarm of knife-like hand strikes Margera suddenly threw out at him, moving with a speed that he could barely keep up with. He didn't want to bring out his trump card before his enemy had even drawn his zanpakuto, but the Hollow also knew that if he didn't even the scales soon, he might be walking away from this fight with more than a few injuries—if he even walked away at all. As soon as there was a gap in the flurry of attacks, he squared his shoulders and shouted.

"Bankai!"

The resulting burst of reiatsu was enough to force Wonderwice to break off from his assault, and when the smoke and dust cleared Shiro had assumed the garb of Tensa Zangetsu, his bankai.

"You're really going to make this difficult, aren't you?" Margera said with a hint of annoyance marring his otherwise calm voice as he reached behind his back and drew his zanpakuto. "Very well, but do not expect your end to be swift."

Shiro just laughed, readying his katana to attack.

"Good luck trying to lay a finger on me now, Espada!" he taunted, before vanishing from sight completely.

"Getsuga Tensho!"

Wonderwice turned around and blocked the black crescent with the blade of his zanpakuto, pushing hard against it and slicing it clean in half.

"Thanks for the opening, you retard."

Another Getsuga Tensho was launched at Margera's back and this time it connected, the force of the blow causing the Espada to turn around. Charging after the staggering Arrancar, Shiro kept up his assault and, by containing the power of the Getsuga Tensho inside of his sword rather than releasing it, carved wound after wound into Wonderwice's chest. Soon enough, the Espada stumbled and fell to the ground. Shiro's sword was immediately at his neck, and Margera didn't flinch as he locked eyes with his enemy.

"You're finished, Espada," the Hollow declared viciously as he raised his sword, blade pointed down and aimed directly at Wonderwice's heart. As the katana fell through the air, though, Shiro felt a powerful presence appear behind him. He quickly jumped backwards, flipping through the air and landing on his feet in a crouch. The newcomer looked over at Wonderwice and spoke.

"Aizen wants you small-fry out of the way while we clean up the mess," he said.

The Novena Espada used his opportunity to rip open a garganta and escape, leaving the Hollow to deal with a new enemy. He had black hair that hung down in bangs to frame burnt orange eyes, the spear-shaped zanpakuto that had almost skewered him moments ago now resting against the Arrancar's shoulder blades. It was an enemy Shiro hadn't seen since the purge of the Captains almost 15 years ago: the Tercera Espada, Saika Aron.

"Yo, Saika," he said seriously, but with his ever-present cockiness still lacing his tone. "Long time."

"Yeah," Aron agreed nonchalantly, swinging his spear around to the front and gripping it in a battle stance, "it has been. Try to stay alive long enough for me to get the rust off of this thing, will you?"

"That's my line, Arrancar!" Shiro shouted as he charged, and to his surprise Saika flipped his spear around so that the blunt end faced first, before slamming it hard into the Hollow's stomach. Winded, Shiro tried to raise his sword to parry the thrust, only to have Aron flip his spear around again, so that the spiked end was racing towards his head with an arc strong enough to split him clean in half. The Hollow couldn't jump out of the way without risking hitting the spearhead, and so he dodged to the right instead, letting the point go by him and embed itself in the ground.

By the time Shiro noticed that Saika was only gripping his spear with one hand, the cero that had been charging in the other hand had been fired off and slammed into him at close to point-blank range. Now the positions were reversed as the Hollow fell to his knees and then to the ground, Aron looming over him victoriously.

"Seriously, that's it?" he scoffed, looking down at his felled opponent with disdain. "You've gotten weak, Hollow."

Shiro grit his teeth and willed his legs to bend, using the position to spring upwards back onto his feet and charge Saika again.

"Toothless," the Espada said dismissively, hooking his spear round the back of Shiro's leg and slicing the spearhead past his left hamstring, sending the Hollow crumpling to the ground once again.

"Damn it," Shiro forced out as he hauled himself back up to his feet yet again, "You honestly think one severed bit of muscle is going to stop me, you bastard?"

"If one won't do the trick," Aron mused as he hooked the spear around the Hollow's buckling right leg and cut that hamstring as well, "perhaps two will get the job done."

Shiro fell to his knees as his other leg gave out from under him, left with no other recourse but to raise his sword and attempt to fire on last, desperate Getsuga.

"I guess the third time really is the charm after all," the Tercera quipped as he ripped through the muscles in Shiro's sword arm with his spear, looking on in grim satisfaction as his opponent finally fell on his back in the dirt, powerless.

"If you're going to do nothing more than waste my time, Shiro," Saika said evenly, "stay down and don't waste any more of it."

"Fuck you!" The Hollow hissed defiantly, and Aron's gaze darkened considerably.

"You never learn, do you?" he asked as he slammed the butt of his spear down on Shiro's sternum, crushing it and causing the Hollow to hack up blood. "For all of your self-proclaimed sentience, you're still nothing more than a bestial Hollow."

Before the prone warrior could snarl so much as a curse in response, the Espada's foot crashed down onto his skull and the world went black. Saika sighed at how disappointingly easy the 'duel' had been, turning around with the intention to go assist whoever needed it when he found himself facing a strange-looking opponent.

"Who the hell're you?" he asked, his interest rising as he felt the power of the warrior before him.

"The name's Love Aikawa," the figure said, raising a hand up to his face and holding it there. Saika's mouth opened slightly in shock as a Hollow Mask coalesced out of thin air, affixing itself to Love's face as he pulled it down sharply. His eyes became black and yellow, and Aron could immediately feel a shift in Aikawa's reiatsu; it became heavier and more twisted, exactly like…

An Espada's reiatsu.

This was going to be fun then, after all.

Kira was working as quickly as he could to heal Hisagi's considerable wounds, and had nearly finished when the loud, strained noise of a tear being opened in the spiritual fabric of Soul Society sounded out right nearby. Turning his head to face the new arrival as they stepped forward from the garganta, Izuru's eyes widened in fear as he saw who had come to face him.

It was the Cuarta Espada, the one who had captured Kisuke Urahara: Barragan Luisenbarn.

"What's this?" the Espada said gruffly as he hoisted his axe-shaped zanpakuto over his shoulder. "All I have to deal with are you two rats? How disappointing. That brat Ulquiorra and I have some unfinished business to attend to; perhaps I should have brought along my servants after all. No matter," he finished as he swung the giant blade of Arrogante and shattered the Tozansho pyramid in a single blow.

"I will simply erase your flesh from existence, and then turn my attention to worthier opponents. Rot, Arrogante."

Kira remembered from the last time he'd seen Barragan in battle that it had been a ways into the duel before he'd released his zanpakuto: clearly, the Cuarta was deadly serious, and it would be suicidal for the Shinigami to be anything less than that as well. He used a burst of shunpo instantly to move the duel as far away from Hisagi as he could, trying to maintain a firm grip on Wabisuke as Luisenbarn casually closed the distance between them. Kira's grip began to shake, however, as he saw the turning the ground black and arid with every step Barragan took.

Izuru knew his close-range zanpakuto would put him at an extreme disadvantage, so he tried to maintain what distance remained between him and his opponent by using the only weapon that remained to him.

"Hado number 73: Soren Soukatsui!"

"Respira."

The black smog issued from Barragan's maw with surprising speed considering its stifling thickness, blotting out the blue flames of the Soren Soukatsui like a gale of wind extinguishing a sputtering matchstick. Kira executed a quick shunpo to evade the Respira as it closed in on him, but the Espada wasn't about to let his target escape so easily. Luisenbarn immediately disappeared in a buzz of sonido, and before his Shinigami prey could so much as blink, his skeletal hand had closed over Izuru's right arm. The appendage rotted the flesh beneath its grip into nothingness, before shattering the underlying bone as well. Kira let go of his sword and howled in pain, but the outburst made no impression on the Cuarta Espada whatsoever as he crippled Izuru's right leg in the same fashion; he wanted to make absolutely sure there was no chance of his enemy escaping before he moved in for the killing blow. As his hand hovered over Kira's head, however, Barragan became aware of another person having appeared behind him. Shifting his attention away from Izuru for the moment, Barragan turned his skull over his shoulder to appraise the new arrival.

"And who might you be, maggot?" he asked, but the newcomer simply cracked his neck settled into a fighting stance, the glint of the sun off of the ring in his eyebrow paling in comparison to the murderous gleam simmering in his eyes.

Rangiku and Orihime were beyond relieved to find Rukia no worse off than simply being unconscious, and Inoue hurried over to rouse her friend while Matsumoto stood guard, watching and waiting for the next enemy to appear.

She didn't have to wait very long at all, as a sharp disturbance in the air alerted the Shinigami to a garganta being opened not too far away. Wasting no time and calling out Haineko's shikai, Rangiku forced her heartbeat to remain steady and faced the direction she knew her enemy would be coming from. When that enemy finally appeared, however, Matsumoto's confidence evaporated completely and she stood stock-still in horror, praying that this was some kind of sick joke. When Orihime saw who had come to face them, her reaction was equally shocked.

"Oh, no…" she breathed out, and the Espada in front of the trio smiled grimly.

"Yes, I'm afraid," Eris Caedea answered. "If you wish to surrender now, I give you my word that I will spare your lives. Fight me," she continued ominously, "and I cannot guarantee that I will be so charitable."

Matsumoto gave a chuckle that was buoyed by entirely false bravado, brandishing her shikai despite the overwhelming odds in front of her.

"You think I'm going to back down just because you're the Primera, Arrancar? Don't take me so lightly!"

Rangiku was about to unleash Haineko's full fury against her enemy when Eris appeared directly in front of her, so close that the Shinigami could see her reflection in Caedea's green eyes.

"Foolish woman," she muttered, striking out with her hand and hoping that a hard enough blow to the abdomen would break Matsumoto and force her to stay down. Right before her fist reached its target, however, the Primera stopped her attack and her expression became clouded by surprise for a brief moment before she calmed back down and frowned.

"Women in your condition," she said softly, "have no place on the battlefield."

The fist that would have collided with Rangiku's midsection instead shifted course and slammed into her lower jaw in a fierce uppercut, knocking the Shinigami out cold and sending her briefly into the air before she landed on the dirt, unmoving. Her first opponent incapacitated, Eris turned her attention to the young healer and her Shinigami companion.

"Next," she challenged, drawing her katana-shaped zanpakuto from its black sheath at her hip. Knowing better than to try and duel the Primera Espada in a one-on-one duel, Rukia and Orihime attacked together. Sode no Shirayuki's white blade glinted proudly in the sunlight, while Inoue summoned Tsubaki and used his power to augment her katana, wrapping it in a flaming glow and illuminating the healer's inner strength.

"Not bad," the Arrancar commented as the two-pronged attack hit her, Rukia's zanpakuto striking against Eris' side and drawing a small amount of blood, while Inoue's blade clashed against the Espada's zanpakuto and possessed enough power to put a notch in it. "But I have no interest in fighting for any longer than is necessary."

Caedea vanished with sonido, and when she reappeared behind her attackers a heartbeat later both Orihime and Rukia gasped sharply. Their nerves finally caught up with the pain blazing along them as blood arced out from slash wounds on their chests, forcing both women to fight to stay upright as their knees buckled under the strain.

"You can still stand after that?" Eris mused, her eyebrows arching slightly in surprise. "Impressive. Either you all have gotten stronger since last I took the field, or my own blade's sharpness has dulled. No matter what the reason, however," she finished as she turned her zanpakuto's blade around in her hand, "I will respect your tenacity by not treating it lightly any longer. Prepare yourselves."

"No way," Orihime said in shock as she continued to force back the pain that threatened to bring her to her knees. "She made that cut… with the back of her sword?"

Shit, Rukia thought bitterly as she tried to lift Sode no Shirayuki up and couldn't, we're as good as dead like this!

"Man, did I come to the right place or what?" an unfamiliar voice broke in from off to the side. "I haven't seen this many lookers in one place in ages!"

Eris looked over to take the measure of the newcomer, put off at once by his odd manner of dress, casual yet commanding bearing and frightening strength.

"Who might you be?" she inquired, and the man flashed the Espada a wide grin.

"Shinji Hirako," he said confidently as he took off his cabby hat and summoned a Hollow Mask over his face, drawing a look of shock from the Primera.

"Pleased to meet ya."

Neliel broke apart from another clash with the creature who had once been Momo Hinamori and caught her breath, cursing the fact that she couldn't get enough of an opening to use her resurreccion again. Fighting a rampaging monster with no concept of pain or exhaustion while using Gamuza's sealed form was a decidedly sub-par strategy, but she would have to find a way to make it work nonetheless. Before the former Espada had much of a chance to think about how to attack, though, the rabid Hollow had roared and charged once again.

"You just don't give up, do you?" Nel grit as she traded blows with the bloodthirsty Hollow, her face tightening in consternation as she was forced to give ground under the pressure of her enemy's relentless assault.

The Arrancar decided to try flowing with the force of the Hollow's attack rather than pushing against it, shifting her body to the side and allowing the monster to be carried forward by its center of gravity. The beast stumbled as its own momentum worked against it, and Neliel immediately capitalized on the opportunity by scoring a solid blow and slicing clean through the Hollow's arm. Her eyes widened in shock heartbeats later, however, as white liquid erupted from the stump and hardened into a new, totally healed arm; the attack had succeeded in doing nothing but making an already-infuriated opponent even angrier. The monster whipped around and threw a vicious series of punches at Nel's face and midsection, sending her reeling back as her senses went fuzzy with pain and disorientation.

"Die," the Hollow hissed as she extended her arm and began to charge up a truly powerful cero, with Neliel too stunned to do much more than prepare her body for the imminent onslaught of a very, very intense pain.

But that pain never came. The light of the cero was snuffed out completely as a snarl replete with pain and rage tore through the air, the sound jolting Nel partway out of her daze. The rabid Hollow's limb had once again been severed, but this time its attacker followed up that blow with a series of brutal, unrelenting slashes and finished off the string of attacks with a cero that utterly disintegrated the monster.

"Thank… you," Nel forced out through winded lungs, unable to clearly make out which of her allies had saved her but desiring to show her gratitude in any case. To her surprise, the one who had kept her from being killed let out a darkly sinister chuckle.

"Why would you thank me, woman?" he spat as he turned around, and Neliel's heart clenched as she recognized the man's face as that of Ajax Oileus, the Quinta Espada and the warrior who had killed Kenpachi Zaraki.

"I was just getting rid of that thing so it wouldn't get in my way!"

The adrenaline of the moment cleared up her vision, and Nel saw the feral gleam in Ajax's blue eyes. All of a sudden she was back on the parapet in Hueco Mundo, her mind's eye forcing her to relive the last time she had been so helpless in the face of an enemy: when Nnoitra had ambushed her and beaten her to within an inch of her life.

Ajax saw his prey go rigid, her pupils dialated in abject terror, and a thrill ran through him. Targets were always so much more fun to kill when they couldn't do anything to stop him from getting creative with the process. He walked towards her slowly, noticing how she would recoil one step for each stride he took forwards and continuing to move until Nel had her back up against the wall. The contact seemed to pull her out of whatever hallucination she'd been seeing, and Oileus reached down quickly to take away her zanpakuto before Neliel had fully returned to her senses. He knew as soon as she saw her blade in his hands and opened her mouth that his favorite part of the game was about to begin; something he hadn't been able to do when he had disposed of Halibel.

"Wait, don't say anything," he cut her off, pressing the blade of his sword to her throat to make sure she didn't make any funny movements either. "You want this back, don't you?" he asked, gesturing to the green-sheathed sword he held in his other hand. Nel could do nothing more than nod, and Ajax flashed a wicked grin that chilled the pinned Arracar to her bones.

"Okay then, since I'm feeling generous," the Quinta replied, his voice light, "I'll make you a deal. I know that when we Arrancar assume the resurreccion state, all of our injuries are healed. So here's how this game is going to work, you traitorous whore," he finished, his tone shifting from airy back to murderous in the way only the truly insane could manage. "I'm going to put this sword of yours over there," he explained, throwing Gamuza so that it skittered to a halt on the ground several paces away, "and I'm going to do this."

Nel gasped in pain as the cold steel left her throat and embedded itself in the right side of her chest seconds later. The wound was deep but not instantly fatal, and Neliel's eyes widened once more in fear as she realized how this sick game of the Quinta's was going to play out.

"If you can reach that sword of yours before you bleed out from your wound and pull off your resurreccion," Ajax spoke up once again, "I'll let you go free. Hell, I'll do even better than that; I'll let you cut my head off. And just so you know," he cautioned, "if you even try to use sonido, I'll kill you immediately."

Nel started to move as soon as the Espada backed away from her, taking a few steps before the fatigue of her fight with Momo and the pain of the wound Ajax had just given her forced her down onto one knee. Still, she didn't have any time to waste; she had to make it to her zanpakuto before she bled out, or it was all over. Lying down on the ground, she began to pull herself along through the dirt with her arms and tried to ignore the slick trail of blood she was leaving behind her as she moved.

She could do this, she told herself. She'd managed to get Ulquiorra Schiffer to smile, for God's sake; she could reach her zanpakuto in time. As the blood loss began to make her whole body feel lighter, Neliel had to force herself to keep from drifting off to sleep as she moved towards the green-sheathed katana that was her life. But the sun was so warm, and sleep would be so comforting…

"Wake up, Arrancar!"

The sharp sensation of pain jolted Nel back to wakefulness, and it was only after a few heartbeats that she became aware of Ajax's sword being lodged in her left hand.

"You're almost there," he said with twisted encouragement as he pulled out his sword and moved away, Neliel scrambling harder now than ever to reach Gamuza. "Don't give up now!"

But what Nel hadn't had time to think about was that moving faster also sped up her pulse, causing blood to flow faster from her wound. Still she pushed through it, remembering all of those pep-talks she'd given to Ulquiorra about being less of an emotional closet case and realizing that it would be horrible of her to have pushed him so hard, only to die here and let him down. She was almost there, just a little bit more…

But just as Neliel's hand was about to close around her zanpakuto, Ajax's foot kicked it further away from her. Feeling the blood continuing to seep from her wound and realizing that this was the end, Nel summoned up all of her strength and rose to her feet. This done, she reached out and gripped onto the Quinta's throat, with the intention of breaking his neck and taking him down to hell with her. But Ajax merely smirked as she tightened her grip, holding up a small black box in his left hand. Neliel saw what it was and tried to get away, but had no strength left in her limbs to retreat.

"Have fun bleeding out in the darkness of the void, woman," Oileus said viciously as he freed himself from Nel's grip and activated his caja negacion, trapping her in the space between the worlds of Hueco Mundo and Soul Society. There was no way she could possibly escape in the shape she was in:

That void was where she would die.

"One down," Ajax said coldly as he turned his attention to Soi Fon, who was still prone but clearly conscious, "one to go."

"You son of a bitch," the Shinigami spat, furious that her friend had been murdered so callously right in front of her eyes and she'd been utterly incapable of helping her. "I'm going to kill you."

"What is it with you women and your overconfidence?" Ajax sneered as he closed the distance between them and readied his zanpakuto for a quick strike down into Soi Fon's heart. "Am I just gonna have to kill each and every single one of you before you realize you have no business holding a sword?"

The Shinigami didn't close her eyes as the steel shrieked towards her, cursing the Espada above her with her last breath as she felt the point of the zanpakuto pierce the flesh of her chest.

"That's far enough, you bastard."

Ajax's blue eyes grew in shock as he felt his blade stop dead, a hand wrapped around it and holding it firmly in place. The owner of the hand was clearly unconcerned about the blood leaking from it as it gripped the weapon's edge, and when the Espada shifted his attention to see who would be so reckless, he was met with a sight that shocked him even further.

The yellow-and-black eyes of a Hollow glared murderously at him from behind a white mask, a zanpakuto at the warrior's waist completing the terrifying picture of a wrathful Hollow-Shinigami hybrid.

"Get the hell away from her," the Vizard growled, before snapping off the lower half of Ajax's sword and forcing it into his chest, bypassing the protective hierro like it didn't even exist. The Espada cursed and instinctively used sonido, retreating a few paces and yanking the steel from his body before dropping the shard to the ground and splintering it with his foot. Funneling reiatsu into his zanpakuto, Oileus regenerated the broken weapon and stared down his new foe, anger flashing in his eyes. His opponent, however, was utterly unfazed by the strength of his adversary.

"Who are you?" Ajax demanded, and the Vizard answered as he drew his zanpakuto with a hiss.

"My name is Héctor Jaegerjaques, and I'm going to kill you." he answered evenly, as Soi Fon's eyes widened in surprise. That was her son?!

"Heh, you're a cocky little shit," Ajax parried, glad that he was going to have at least a little bit of fun fighting someone who could actually give him a good duel.

"Let's go."

It had been a long, long time since Sosuke Aizen had bled, reaching all the way back to before he had changed his face and his name: back to the time when his brother Isshin had nearly killed him in a duel to the death. And yet here he was, about to deliver a killing blow to his traitorous second-in-command, and he couldn't see out of one eye for blood seeping down from a cut above it.

"I must commend your performance in this fight, Gin," he said as Ichimaru tried to lift his broken zanpakuto and failed. "Truly, you have managed to exceed even my expectations. It is quite impressive that you managed to hide your true abilities from me for so long, which in turn makes my heart even heavier at the thought of having to kill you."

"You have a heart?" Gin quipped, holding on to his sense of humor to the very end. "I guess we both learned something today, huh Captain?"

Sosuke said nothing, his smile widening infinitesimally as he hoisted the blood-soaked blade of Kyoka Suigetsu into the air. Before he completed the stroke, however, a shout boomed from the other end of the now-ruined Throne Room.

"Aizen!"

The lord of Las Noches' smile broke out into a rare grin at the voice, and he lowered his sword.

"This will have to wait, Gin," he said genteelly, before turning around to fully face Ichigo, who was standing in the doorway already having assumed his bankai form.

"It's been quite some time, nephew," he addressed the younger Kurosaki. "I trust your father trained you well?"

"Well enough to kill you," Ichigo growled back, his black-and-yellow eyes narrowing, "which is what I'm going to do right now."

"Why not join me instead, Ichigo?"

The question hung in the air for several moments, and neither Aizen nor the younger Kurosaki said a word. Finally, Ichigo broke the heavy silence.

"Why the hell would I want to do that!?" he shouted. But Sosuke was unfazed by the outburst, and tried a slightly different tack.

"Why wouldn't you want to?" he pressed. "Think about it this way, Ichigo," the Shinigami continued. "The girl you loved, the one you sacrificed so much for, now finds her comfort at night in the arms of another man. Your friends have abandoned you, and would rather face insurmountable odds alone than ask for your help. Your sisters are nothing more than corpses in the ground, and your father is trapped in the King's Realm now for the rest of his existence.

"I am the only family you have left, Ichigo," Aizen finished, lifting his zanpakuto's most important illusion and standing before Ichigo wearing his true face, that of Kago Kurosaki.

"Why shed your blood for those who would give you nothing but scorn in return," the older Kurosaki asked in a voice that reminded Ichigo of his own to an uncomfortable degree, "when you could fight for me, when we could achieve power enough to rival God and reshape this world as we see fit?"

Ichigo said nothing for a few long moments, too stunned by the sight of his own face aged by about 40 years physically staring back at him to speak. It would be nice, he thought, to possess that power, the weight of his uncle's final proposal and the implications of the words 'as we see fit' ringing in his head and surging through him like a drug. He could bring his sisters back to life, have a second chance with Rukia, see his mother again…

"No," he forced defiantly through his lips, and Kago's eyebrows arched in mild surprise.

"No?" he repeated. "Are you serious, Ichigo?"

"I can't just sacrifice everyone else for my own personal desires!" Ichigo shouted, feeling strength well up in his soul as he banished the delusions of gradeur further and further from his mind. "Everything Ulquiorra and Grimmjow and Neliel gave up to follow me, everything they've all suffered so that I could come here and defeat you, I can't just throw that away! I'm going to defeat you, damn it, even if you are family!"

"The words of a truly idealistic fool, who has not seen this world for what it is," Kago replied with a steely tone as he brandished Kyoka Suigetsu. "Very well, Ichigo. If you will not join me, then I cannot allow you to live!"

Ichigo simply smiled; he knew that with his training, he could definitely win this fight.

"Getsuga Tensho!"

A/N: I'm fully aware of the fact that the constant cycle of "Good Guy almost loses a battle only to be saved by Just-In-Time arrival of Heretofore-Unseen-Protagonist" in this chapter probably got old around the third time it happened, but when the "Close Save" is a Shonen trope as old as the genre itself, there're very few ways to avoid it, if any at all. So if you're planning on harping on it in a review, don't.

Also, mega props go out (as usual) to JasoTheArtisan, for being a fantastic beta once again. Go read his stuff; it's awesome.