Triumph
Chapter 3: Crush The World Down
"You called for me, Captain Commander?"
Unohana sighed wearily, but her blue eyes softened nonetheless as Amara appeared in the threshold of the large, wrought-iron doors of the First Division.
"I did," she answered, motioning to the seat in front of her large desk. "Please, have a seat. And how many times do I have to tell you not to be so formal? I get enough of that from everyone else."
"I can't do that, Sir," Amara answered stubbornly. "If you excused me from standard responsibilities, it would be setting a bad example for everyone else."
The Captain Commander gave another small smile, reaching for the nearby teapot.
"Well, at least let me pour you your tea," she said, putting just enough force behind her voice to let her adopted daughter know that she wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. Amara smiled, but her gaze became concerned as she saw that Unohana's face was lined and showing signs of exhaustion, a worrying sight on a face that was normally utterly tranquil.
"Is everything all right?" she asked slowly, and the Captain Commander masked her expression by taking a sip of tea, placing her cup down gently before she spoke.
"I'm tired, Amara," Unohana said, turning her eyes to look out the window at the birds as they perched on the tree branches. "Rebuilding the Seireitei has been much harder than I, or anyone else had anticipated, and the revolts in the Rukongai pale in comparison to discontent within our own ranks."
"What do you mean, 'discontent'?" the younger Shinigami asked warily, but Unohana continued as if Amara had never spoken.
"He acts as if I do not know what he is up to," she spoke, a rare note of bitterness lacing her voice. "He believes that I am blind. But just as he is watching me, I have someone watching him."
"I'm afraid I don't follow you, Captain Commander," Amara broke in again hesitantly, and Unohana turned her eyes back to her and smiled.
"No," she answered. "the ramblings of the old are meant to be inscrutable to the young. But I didn't call you here to listen to that, I called you here because we haven't talked in some time, and I'd like to know how you are."
"Well, I'm thinking of challenging Lieutenant Daisuke for his post," Amara began, and Unohana had to fight to keep from smiling. She and Orihime had talked on more than one occasion about trying to get the young Shinigami to come into her own at last, and something finally seemed to have happened.
"I'm sure you'll succeed on that account," the Captain Commander spoke, before giving Amara a reproachful look. "Don't glare at me like that, child," she said. "I wouldn't dare belittle your strength by assuming to offer you aid, and you know that."
Amara lowered her head slightly in shame at the rebuke, a mild one from Unohana managing to hit as hard as a vicious one from anyone else.
"Of course," the younger Shinigami spoke after a moment. "Please excuse my impertinence, Captain Commander."
"Don't be ridiculous, child," Unohana parried. "I can imagine how much grief some of your colleagues must give you for your ties to me, and it is only natural for you to abhor the thought of favoritism in any form. Have you decided on the method of competition that will be used in the challenge?"
"I thought it would be best to let the Lieutenant choose," Amara answered. "Don't want to give that prick any chance to say I beat him unfairly," she finished harshly, before realizing what she'd said as her blue-grey eyes widened in shock. Unohana cut her off with a look before she could apologize, though, and waited for a few moments before bringing up the topic she'd been waiting to speak on.
"Have you spoken to your mother lately?"
"That woman isn't—" Amara began bitterly, only to be cut off again by the Captain Commander.
"Yes, she is," Unohana said calmly but with force, tempering Amara's outburst considerably even if rage still simmered in her eyes.
"Then why hasn't she ever acted like it?" the younger Shinigami snapped back. "Every time I try to talk to her, she either ignores me completely or thinks up some reason why she has to be somewhere else! Why can't she come to me for once?"
"She probably believes that she has no right to do so. Just give her some time, Amara."
"She's had twenty-five years to get over herself," Amara spat as the telltale sound of an approaching Hell Butterfly sounded throughout the large room. "How much time does she need?"
As the fluttering messenger landed on Unohana's outstretched finger and relayed its news, the Captain Commander's eyes snapped wide open in shock.
"You'll have to excuse me, Amara," she said distractedly, rising from her seat. "I have to call an emergency Captain's Meeting."
"What?" Amara exclaimed as she got up quickly, leaving her tea unfinished. "Why? What's wrong?"
Unohana closed her eyes slowly, taking a deep breath and seemingly resigning herself to some grim fate with a sigh.
"Captain Shiba is dead."
"Please calm down, Shiro-san," Unohana insisted, "and start from the beginning."
Shiro had come forward into the hall as the only witness to Kaien Shiba's death, carrying the Captain's eviscerated body in his arms. The other Captains stood in their rows looking on with expressions ranging from sadness to disgust, Captain Ukitake's eyes the saddest of all at the demise of his former Lieutenant. After handing the body of the fallen Shinigami off to a nearby attendant to be taken to the morgue, the Hollow began to recount his tale.
"I was up early this morning, and I caught wind of the Captain's mission from some paper-pusher in Fifth Division. Thought I'd lend a hand, so I followed them out to the edge of the Rukongai."
"Do you remember the name of the person who told you about the mission?" Captain Orihime pressed, and Shiro met her gaze coldly.
"What is this, a trial?" he parried evenly. "Of course I don't remember who it was, I only talked to them for a few seconds."
"Inoue has a point," Shunsui broke in. "It would have been nice to know who leaked information concerning a classified mission; we can't afford to have such loose-lipped people in our ranks right now, considering the state of the Rukongai."
"We can have a summit concerning our general security at some other time, Kyoraku," Captain Ukitake replied insistently. "Please continue, Shiro. What happened to Kaien and his men?"
"I got there, and Eris Caedea had entered Soul Society through a garganta. Kaien tried to talk her down, but she just attacked."
"Unprovoked?" Unohana asked, a single eyebrow arching slightly. "You're saying she simply showed up and attacked you, without so much as a word of explanation? Forgive me if I have a hard time believing that story."
"And why not?"
All eyes in the room turned to the doorway, as Byakuya Kuchiki walked calmly into the meeting despite his uncharacteristic tardiness. His senkaisan was also absent, and he looked like he'd just come back from a war.
"Do you find it hard to believe because you spent so much time with this Espada in captivity? With all due respect, Captain Commander Unohana," Byakuya continued in a tone that conveyed very little of it, "I believe you are the last person in this room who should be arbitrating this proceeding."
"My past acquaintance with the Arrancar in question aside," she replied testily, "I find it incredibly unlikely that chief proponent of the truce between our two people would so shamelessly dishonor it, and with no real motive to do so."
"No real motive?" Byakuya repeated, lacing his words with skepticism. "What makes you think an Espada needs a motive to attack us? They're Hollows, in case you've forgotten."
"I have not forgotten that," Unohana parried, her voice still hard, "but the logic you are using is weak. The Arrancar were the ones who proposed the truce to us to begin with, when we were on the brink of complete annihilation. They could have killed us all on the day that Aizen died, or they could have attacked us again once the Vizards returned to the Human World and left us behind, but they did not.
"Why would they strike now, and on so isolated a scale, when we are strong enough to meet them on equal terms? It makes no sense."
"Perhaps because this is the beginning of some larger plan," Byakuya answered accusingly. "Perhaps your efforts to have all of us see the Arrancar as toothless is just a way to get us to lower our guard so that when we do, you and your allies can succeed where Aizen failed, and conquer Soul Society!"
"What the hell are you talking about, Byakuya?" Shunsui exclaimed. "That's just insane!"
"Is it?" the Captain of Sixth Division replied. "Why don't you tell them yourself, Unohana," Byakuya spoke to the Captain Commander, his eyes narrowing viciously. "Tell the people who trust you with their lives why you lied about the death of Gin Ichimaru."
Shock jolted through the room instantly, and the normally subdued gathering became complete chaos for several moments until a strong surge of reiatsu coming from Unohana restored order, albeit barely. Even the Captains who had sided with Byakuya opposing Unohana's position of power had been kept in the dark about this revelation, and both Kira and Matsumoto looked like they'd just been gutted.
When the Captain Commander made no direct move to deny the accusation Orihime stepped in on her behalf, even as worry coiled in the gut of the Fourth Division's Captain. Why wasn't Unohana denying the claim, unless she knew it was true?
"Do you have any proof of this, Captain Kuchiki?" she asked, and Byakuya gave her a smile that made her blood run cold.
"As a matter of fact, Inoue," he replied smoothly, "I do."
Turning his head to look towards the open doors, Byakuya called out authoritatively.
"Bring him in!"
Three forms appeared in the doorway, two members of the Special Ops flanking the battered, bloodied form of Gin Ichimaru. Clearly he and Byakuya had been engaged in a long, drawn-out duel; a shard of yellow sekki-sekki stone had been jammed through Gin's right pectoral, and his clothing was covered with gashes and tears that were mirrored in the exposed flesh under it. The former Captain moved with a slight limp as his escorts pushed him forward, and the only time Gin turned his head was to give Matsumoto a look with his eyes fully open that was at once apologetic, weary, pained and resigned before he moved on.
Gin was prodded along until he stood a few paces away from Unohana, who looked as if she could see the world crumbling to pieces in front of her and was absolutely powerless to stop it.
"You still haven't told us why it is you lied about the deal you made with this scum," Byakuya rejoined. "What else have you lied to us about, Unohana? Is Aizen still breathing?"
"Sosuke Aizen is dead," the Captain Commander said dully, as if this power play of Byakuya's had sapped her of all her strength and she now felt as old as she really was. "Of that much I am beyond certain. As for why I allowed Gin Ichimaru to live, I knew that there would be those among you who would be resentful of a truce between the Shinigami and the Arrancar, and I had my suspicions that resentment might fester and grow into something far more dangerous to the peace. So I enlisted the aid of Ichimaru—"
"To spy on us, correct?" Byakuya cut in, his voice cold and precise as he delivered the finishing blow. "To spy on us, the very Shinigami you were supposedly leading, the ones who trusted you enough to appoint you to the post of Captain Commander. And so that he would act as your lackey, you pardoned a war criminal behind our backs and excused him from any kind of punishment or retribution for his act of high treason!
"My fellow Captains," he concluded, "I believe that the evidence I have presented to you just now bears more than enough weight to merit calling for a vote of impeachment against our current Captain Commander. I myself will initiate this motion; are there any others who stand with me?"
Kira was the first to step forward in a show of support, followed quickly by Matsumoto. Komamura, Hisagi and Yumichika came forward as well, leaving only Orihime, Shunsui, Ukitake and Soi Fon undecided. After sharing a tense look with his former teacher, Shunsui sighed and stepped forward as well, and Ukitake mirrored the gesture.
Orihime was staring right at Shiro and knew deep down in her gut that something was very, very wrong with this whole situation. But she also knew that it would be more prudent to declare nominal allegiance to Byakuya now and stay alive, rather than defy him and risk being charged with treason as well. Her heart heavy in her chest, the Captain of Fourth Division forced one foot in front of the other and joined the growing ranks of dissenting Shinigami.
Soi Fon couldn't move. She might not have been as perceptive as that smug bastard Urahara, but the Captain of Second Division was smart enough to see that Byakuya was going to push for an all-out war against the surviving Arrancar very soon after taking the reins of Soul Society. Such a conflict would almost certainly wind up leaving either Grimmjow or Héctor dead, if not both of them, and with such overwhelming support for Unohana's impeachment, there was no way that anyone who stood against Kuchiki was going to make a difference.
"Captain Soi Fon," Byakuya urged, "your vote."
Looking Byakuya dead in the eye, she stepped backwards with a slow, deliberate movement. She noticed that one corner of Byakuya's mouth curled up into an infuriatingly superior smirk, but apart from that it seemed as though her refusal to fall in line came as no surprise to the Captain of Sixth Division.
"Very well," Byakuya spoke evenly, "the final count is nine for, one against. Captain Commander Unohana, please abdicate your post."
Unohana smiled sadly and gave a single rueful chuckle as she slipped off the haori of the First Division, leaving it lying on the ground behind her as she walked out of the hall. She didn't even flinch as the guards who had brought in Gin restrained her, and the oldest Shinigami in all of the Gotei was led to her cell inside the Maggot's Nest, in the deepest recesses of the fetid dungeon.
Orihime finally caught up to her former lover and put her hand on his pale shoulder, gripping hard enough to keep him from just shrugging her off like he had so many times before.
"You did it," she whispered into his ear, to keep any inadvertent eavesdroppers from overhearing, "didn't you?"
"No," Shiro replied levelly, "I didn't."
The Captain felt something crack inside of her as she realized that she couldn't tell for sure whether or not the Hollow was lying. There had been a time when she'd been able to ferret out the slightest shifts in his emotions as clearly as her own, but no longer.
"Shiro," a calm voice broke in, "Byakuya wants to see you."
The Hollow placed one of his hands on top of Orihime's and pulled it away, walking the rest of the way down the hall and turning the corner out of sight. Orihime turned her head over her shoulder and found herself looking at Shuuhei Hisagi, whose face was as impassive as usual. But his eyes softened as he spoke, his tone genuinely concerned.
"You all right, Inoue?" he asked.
"Of course; I'm fine," she answered, flashing a smile that they both knew was fake.
"Well, I'm not," Hisagi admitted, sighing. "I'm heading down to the bar; I'll save you a seat if you change your mind."
Orihime continued on to her office, but it took just twenty minutes of staring blankly at paperwork for her to hang up her haori, snatch up a pouch of money and walk out the door again. As she paced distractedly through the halls, her mind brutally dredged up a memory she would rather have kept buried.
"What did you say?"
"You heard me," Shiro spat back, his tone remaining harsh despite the hurt look beginning to show on Orihime's face. "I asked you what you're doing here, Orihime."
"What kind of a question is that?"
"Don't play that game with me, woman," the Hollow parried, his eyes narrowing spitefully. "Every time I get so much as a scratch, you're there hovering over me like I'm about to die or something. It's fucking suffocating!"
The nearby attendants in the room edged towards the door, knowing that a temperamental Shiro was the last thing they wanted to be around. For her part, it took Orihime a few moments to find her footing again after such a stinging rebuke.
"You almost lost your damn leg," she answered with a simmering tone, "and I reattached it. How the hell is that suffocating?"
He was silent for several heartbeats, but when Shiro spoke his voice was sharp with the same pitiless frankness that had forced Orihime out of her fake shell so many years ago.
"Whenever I get hurt," he began, giving her a searching look, "you don't see me, do you?"
"What?"
"You see Ichigo."
Orihime's gray eyes widened at the accusation, but Shiro pressed on before she could slip a word in edgewise.
"That's all you've ever seen in me, admit it. Ever since he ditched you to shack up with Kuchiki, you've been looking for a replacement. I just happened to fit the bill perfectly and I thought you'd be a good lay, so we each took what we wanted."
His scathing analysis done, the Hollow pushed himself up off of the cot and walked swiftly out of the room, not looking back. Orihime swallowed back a surging wave of nausea and moved with a slightly stumbling gait back to her office. Once there, she took three of the pills she used to treat post-traumatic stress in Shinigami and swallowed them, chasing the medicine with hastily-gulped glass of water.
As her vision began to grow hazy, the Captain moved over to the couch and collapsed onto it, the tears that she had held at bay sliding slowly down her cheeks and dropping down onto the floor.
As the memory faded back into a dark corner of Orihime's mind, she blinked and found that her feet had carried her to the door of the bar she visited at the end of particularly long weeks. Pushing open the doors, she quickly searched out Shuuhei at their usual booth and sat down across from him, smiling as she saw that he'd already ordered her usual drink.
"You know I don't normally do this here," Hisagi opened in a tone that put his fellow Captain on edge immediately, "but I'm afraid I have to talk business."
"What is it?" Orihime asked, and Hisagi paused to take a long pull on his drink before continuing.
"Byakuya's already been sworn in as the new Captain Commander, Inoue."
"What!?" Fourth's Captain exclaimed. "There wasn't even a vote!"
"There didn't need to be a formal one, not after that show he put on at the Captain's Meeting. But that's not what I need to talk to you about.
"He's already planning a surprise attack on the Arrancar still alive in Hueco Mundo; Soi Fon's already been thrown into jail with Unohana to keep her from tipping off Grimmjow, and I don't even know what's been done with Héctor."
"What does that have to do with me, Shuuhei?" Orihime pressed, and Ninth's Captain locked eyes with her once again before continuing.
"Byakuya's goal is to wipe the Arracar out of existence, Inoue. All of them. Including Ulquiorra."
Orihime felt her breath catch at the mention of her old friend; she hadn't heard from him since the night he had come to her asking for his zanpakuto to be repaired, but that lack of contact hadn't stopped her thoughts from straying towards him from time to time.
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked, a note of pain in her voice. "Do you want me to be executed for sedition, Shuuhei?"
"Of course not," Hisagi replied as he finished his drink and rose, leaving enough money to cover the bill. "But I do think that you're the only one he would listen to if the time came that we needed his help."
"'We'? Who's 'we'? Aren't you on Byakuya's side?"
"You voted to stand with him too, right?" the other Captain parried. "Are you on his side?"
Hisagi turned and left, leaving Orihime even more confused than she had been before coming here in the hopes of gaining some degree of solace.
What the hell was happening to Soul Society?
Ulquiorra woke from his sleep with a start as the oppressive wave of reiatsu slammed down over him, only pausing to check that both zanpakuto were still at his waist before he walked out of his shelter. Barragan Luisenbarn awaited him out under the light of the sickly crescent moon, his fraccion by his side.
"Ulquiorra," Barragan ground out. "It's about time you showed your cowardly face."
"Cowardly? Me?" the former Fourth Espada shot back evenly, utterly unfazed by the taunt. "I'm not the one who insists on maintaining an entourage of fraccion, Luisenbarn. Are you really that afraid of the Gillians?"
Barragan grit his teeth, but said nothing for a moment before shifting his tone along with the subject.
"We have unfinished business, Schiffer," he declared, motioning to his fraccion to get ready for battle. "That worthless female Shinigami kept me from killing you last time we fought, and Yammy got to you before I could when Aizen called for his final assault. I despise not finishing my battles, Ulquiorra," Barragan finished as his fraccion advanced before him, leaving their leader to sit on his throne and watch the battle unfold.
"I will give you the chance to prove yourself against my loyal soldiers, Schiffer," he decreed. "If you can survive them, I shall pay sufficient respect to your skills by allowing you to die by my hand. Kill him!"
Avirama, Findor, Poww and Ggio advanced, but stopped short of attacking when Ulquiorra released his reiatsu, holding them in place for a few moments.
"I do not have time to waste disposing of trash like you," he said calmly, "so I will give you an ultimatum. Either leave your master's side and vanish from my eyes forever and I will let you live, or choose to fight me here and I can guarantee that you will die."
Findor, Avirama and Poww all shouted vehement declarations of their loyalty to Barragan, but their tongues were stilled when Ggio made his position known.
"Sounds good to me," he said, moving his hand away from his sword hilt. "I'm not about to die for that arrogant bastard."
"Ggio, where the hell are you going?!" Avirama shouted, but his former comrade was already gone.
"Don't worry about him," Poww said seriously. "He can go starve to death on these wastes for his treachery. For now, we have a far more serious threat to focus on."
"Then why did you let your guard down, you trash?"
Poww gasped in surprise and his eyes widened as searing pain slammed into him, a deep gash appearing diagonally across his chest running down from his shoulder a heartbeat later. Ulquiorra had used sonido to wind up behind his target, and whipped the blade of Murciélago downwards to clean it of the blood rolling along its edge. As the right half of the large fraccion fell away from the left, Avirama and Findor spun around quickly to face their adversary once again.
"You bastard," Avirama seethed, "I'll kill you! Scalp, Águila!"
When the Arrancar's resurreccion was completed he hovered in the air, kept aloft by four large eagle wings.
"I don't care if you used to be the Cuatra, you piece of shit," Avirama taunted, "there's no way you can keep up with me airborne like this!"
A vicious smirk flashed across Ulquiorra's face, and he held out his zanpakuto in front of him.
"Bind, Murciélago."
The surge of reiatsu from the release was so strong that it made Barragan flinch from his seat on his throne of bones, and Avirama gave ground before the sudden downpour of black rain. As it ceased, the fraccion refocused only to find himself staring right into Ulquiorra's hard green eyes. A pair of huge, black bat-like wings had grown out from his back, his helmet had completed itself and his hair had grown longer and wilder as a result of unleashing his release.
"I can't keep up with you?" Ulquiorra mused with dark wryness, before vanishing in a buzz.
"I think you have that switched around, fraccion."
Avirama could only look down in shock at the hole that had been torn open where his sternum had once been, most of his vitals either outright destroyed or falling uselessly to the ground below him.
"Now vanish," Ulquiorra spoke from behind Avirama, not even turning to face his opponent as he raised up his right hand and began to charge a dark cero at his fingertips.
"Cero Oscuras."
The blast of dark energy completely engulfed the wounded fraccion, leaving nothing of him behind. Findor was daunted by the display of power from his opponent, but wasn't about to back down and be killed cowering like a rodent.
"Engrave the surface of the water, Pinza Aguda!"
As soon as his release was complete, the Arrancar raised up his large pincer and snapped off all but a sliver of the mask covering his face, boosting his reiatsu considerably. Ulquiorra simply watched Findor with a blank expression, only reacting once the fraccion went as far as to launch an attack against him by charging up a large cero. Ulquiorra wordlessly materialized a large spike of lightning in one hand, throwing it like a spear hard enough that it cleaved the cero in half and still retained its form, piercing Findor's skull right between his eyes and blowing his head clean off.
"Foolish."
Ulquiorra alighted and turned to face Barragan, who looked rattled by such a dominant display of force. Rising from his throne, the older Arrancar reached behind him and drew his massive, axe-shaped zanpakuto Arrogante from the blackness within the seat.
"Impressive," Barragan conceded. "Your strength certainly has improved. If I'd known that all it would have taken to make you serious was to kill off your woman, Neliel would have been dust long before Ajax killed her."
"Bite your tongue," Ulquiorra spoke with simmering rage, summoning another spike of lightning with a flick of his wrist and throwing it at Barragan with as much force as he could muster. The other Arrancar didn't even flinch, however, and the bolt stopped short of actually impacting Barragan before he reached out and gripped the projectile, dispelling it with ease.
"How naïve," he chided, before vanishing so quickly that Ulquiorra barely registered the buzz of his sonido. A sharp dodge to the side turned what would have been a decapitating blow into a severed wing, and a burst of sonido brought him face-to-face with Barragan once more. After a moment's concentration the severed wing had been regenerated, and Ulquiorra called another spike of lightning into existence as his opponent brandished his axe.
"Your paltry weapons are nothing compared to the power I hold sway over, the ravages of time itself," Barragan spoke, before his tone shifted and he began his release.
"Rot, Arrogante."
Ulquiorra gazed levelly into the cluster of writhing black flames that surrounded Barragan as the resurreccion occurred, using the lull in battle to prepare himself. As the flames receded, Ulquiorra could see that Barragan's form had changed drastically, as if the flames had obliterated all of his flesh and left a living skeleton in their wake.
"You believe that your aspect of death is the supreme destroyer of wills, Schiffer," the aged Arrancar growled. "But even the very concept of nothingness stems from the erosion of time. Come, and I will show you the true form of that despair you seem to hold in such high esteem."
Ulquiorra said nothing, instead disappearing in a burst of sonido and reappearing right in front of Barragan, another lightning spike in his hand. He felt the speed of his attack slow to a crawl right before it connected, and Barragan's smirk gleamed through his sightless eye sockets.
"Respira."
Ulquiorra's own eyes widened and he backed off as quickly as he could to escape the black smog of decay, but some of it managed to graze his hand all the same.
"Damn it!" he hissed, willing his mind to stay calm despite the pain that blazed along his arm with more and more intensity as layers of flesh and tissue were sheared off of his bones. Gritting his teeth, the Arrancar chopped off his necrotic limb and focused, the pain in the stump's nerves replaced by a warm sensation for a moment before a new arm grew out from the stump.
"Oh ho," Barragan said with an amused chuckle, "this looks like it might be fun after all. Your regeneration powers have improved, to be able to counteract my Respira so quickly… I guess there's no room for toying with you this time around."
The elder Arrancar summoned a massive black axe from within the depths of his shroud, the edges of it much more sharply curved than his zanpakuto had been.
"My Gran Caida will show you the limits of your gutless power, Schiffer. If you have any other tricks I suggest you pull them out now, or get down on your knees and humble yourself before your executioner."
Ulquiorra felt fury well up within him at the prospect of being forced to play his ace so soon in the fight, but he shelved his pride almost as quickly as it had reared its ugly head. Barragan wasn't wasting any time, and for him to hold back now would be a sure death sentence. That, and he had learned the consequences of hiding his powers in the most brutal way possible: because he had been so proud and hadn't finished Yammy off earlier, he had lost Neliel for good. And during his decades of roaming on the plains of Hueco Mundo, the former Espada had sworn to himself over and over again that he would never sacrifice anything else he cared about for the sake of his pride.
And he cared about his own life very dearly.
"Very well," he said evenly, pulling all of his reiatsu inwards and preparing his body to assume a form he had only unleashed once before. "If you wish to witness the full extent of my powers then I will oblige you, as befits the final request of a dead man."
Ulquiorra's pent up reiatsu exploded, but remained contained in an area that enveloped the Arrancar's body. As the dark energy subsided, Ulquiorra stood with a changed form to rival his opponent's, as the skeletal reaper found himself staring at a demon of myth made flesh. Elegantly curved horns crowned his head now in place of his earlier helmet, his hands and feet metamorphosed into claws and talons wreathed with black, along with a tail that now curved sharply behind him, taut with strength. The Hollow Hole in his chest had widened considerably, and now a thick stripe of black pitch ran from the bottom of it down most of Ulquiorra's chest. His reiatsu had also magnified by at least tenfold, and as his now-yellow irises bored through Barragan with murder seething from the gaze, the skeletal Espada experienced the shiver of fear lancing down his spine for the first time in his existence.
"I see that you have finally begun to feel it," Ulquiorra said with an undercurrent of amused malice, "the true power of despair. Even though time may bring all things to an end, Luisenbarn, despair is the most potent catalyst for ruin that exists. Prepare to die."
Ulquiorra placed both of his palms together and coalesced his reiatsu, forming a powerful spear of lighting between his hands as they were drawn apart.
"Lanza Del Relampago."
"Still using ranged attacks?" Barragan scoffed. "When will you learn that they are powerless against me?!"
The winged Arrancar smirked, unleashing his more powerful attack despite Barragan's assurance that it wouldn't connect. As Barragan exercised his powers to halt the flight of the projectile and reduce it to dust, Ulquiorra launched his true gambit. Using sonido to slip behind his opponent, he tapped into the increased power granted by his Seguenda Etapa to summon an instantaneous Cero Oscuras, firing off the attack before Barragan had a chance to redirect his powers and stop it.
The black light slammed into the other Arrancar, and Ulquiorra fired off another one just to be sure of his enemy's destruction before backing off in a burst of sonido to survey the results of his assault. His yellow eyes widened slightly in surprise, though, when Barragan was still standing as the smoke and dust cleared away. Half of his body had been obliterated, but even damage of that extent didn't seem to daunt Barragan. If anything, it only increased his power as his rage spiked concurrently.
"You impertinent little shit," he growled, hefting his Gran Caida with his remaining hand as if it weighed nothing. "I'm going to grind you down to dust, even if I have to do it one hundred times before you break!"
Barragan harnessed his terrifyingly fast sonido and swung his axe down on Ulquiorra, feeling visceral satisfaction as a black arm was sliced asunder. Keeping up the assault, he unleashed a full-speed Respira, aimed at cleaving his opponent clean in half. Ulquiorra vanished, but Barragan still chuckled in satisfaction: he'd felt his attack connect, and that meant his enemy was as good as finished. Still, he didn't want to leave anything to chance. Rushing forward through the smog of his Respira, he struck once again with his Gran Caida, intent on leaving not even a shred of Ulquiorra's corpse for the vultures.
"Such unmitigated paranoia does not become you, Luisenbarn," his opponent's coldly amused voice spoke out from no more than arms-length away. "Were you that unsettled by my strength? As I said," Ulquiorra finished, crushing the axe-blade that he had caught one-handed into shards, "your powers are crippled in the face of despair."
"Impossible!" Barragan exclaimed as he saw a deep wound on Ulquiorra's abdomen closing up. "That was all of my Respira that touched you? How did you—"
The aged Arrancar's voice was stilled as he caught sight of a bladeless sword grip in Ulquiorra's regenerated hand, the hilt bearing the distinctive double crescent moon of Neliel's Gamuza.
"I see," he spoke spitefully, "you used that empty husk of a zanpakuto to absorb the brunt of my Respira. How poetic, if still futile."
Ulquiorra used the time Barragan took backing off to form another Lanza, slinging it at his opponent. The other Arrancar broke it down as before, but Ulquiorra noted with satisfaction that his speed had decreased since the Cero Oscuras had blown him in half.
Now, it was only a matter of time.
Barragan began to feel frantic as spear after spear of lightning flew at him, but he forced his mind to remain calm. Ulquiorra would run out of reiatsu eventually, and then the killing blow would be Barragan's for the taking. It was only a matter of time. As the barrage of projectiles finally slowed and stopped, the elder Arrancar mustered all of his dwindling power and attacked, the blade of his double-axe that was still intact screaming down to cleave Ulquiorra in half the same way Poww had been butchered.
"The all-consuming desperation you now feel is the true end of all things," Ulquiorra said calmly as his enemy rushed at him.
"And now, having shown you that truth, I may end this farce."
Barragan felt the strength rush from his limbs as one final Lanza pierced through the remainder of his chest. He noticed with bitter rage that Ulquiorra had been holding this last trump card with his tail, waiting for his enemy to put all of his energies towards attacking before attempting to strike.
"Damn you," Barragan rasped out while his bones began chipping away and crumbling as his life force finally flickered and faded.
Ulquiorra relinquished his resurreccion and re-sheathed his zanpakuto before falling to his knees as the fatigue of the battle finally caught up to him. As he lay prone on the sand and his eyelids began to close, Ulquiorra saw the remains of Gamuza break apart and fly away on the wind. The ground beneath the fallen Arrancar had been weakened to the point of erosion by the titanic amount of reiatsu released by both fighters, and the sand soon gave way beneath Ulquiorra, dragging him down into the subterranean Menos Forest.
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A/N: Whew, that was an intense chapter. Apologies for the mammoth length, but that Ulquiorra fight kind of ran away with me a little bit. Well, we're at the midway point of the story now, and I hope this chapter proved enjoyable! Things look bad now, but I'd be lying if I said they couldn't get any worse. Big ups to JasoTheArtisan once again for being a fantastic beta and looking over this chapter for me, and please review!
