Chapter Twenty-Three: Opposing Storms

Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word.

-Laurence Olivier

"This isn't even fun, it's just annoying." Ikkaku complained as he leaned on a wall near Rangiku and Yumichika. "Little pests just don't stop...it's like trying to get of an anthill with water."

"They're hardly beautiful." Yumichika added his complain with a scoff, pushing his bangs aside. "How long do these creatures plan to attack us, they're not even that powerful."

"I think it's the not being able to really die problem." Rangiku commented. "They seem to keep wounds but keep appearing here anyway. I've 'killed' the same fellow four times now."

"Why isn't your captain here anyway?" Ikkaku asked glancing around a corner to see he he could spot any of the bowmen. "He wandered off with Renji earlier, I felt them together."

"Couldn't say." Rangiku commented too innocently. "Either way, at least he's helping and isn't in trouble for nearly starting a war."

"Hey!" Ikkaku pointed at her, giving up on his glance around the corner when he didn't see anyone, pointing at her. "You leave that outta this, he'd of been fine if they hadn't interrupted him."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah, either way, we gotta keep picking them off. If we've finished off the ones here we should move on. Their energy is difficult to pick out."

"I think there are some to the north." Yumichika commented without joining the argument. "My aesthetic scenes can tell they're mucking things up."

He earned a couple skeptical looks from the other two and shrugged, giving his answer before he vanished. "I'll go if you both don't."

Ikkaku paused as a arrow dug into the wall near his head, twirling his spear and looking toward the one that shot at him. "Go ahead Rangiku, I'll take care of things here."

"Right." She nodded, flash stepping after Yumichika. "I hope we're able to keep them away, I didn't realize how many people they actually had. While Ikkaku is right that they aren't incredibly powerful but they certainly have the ability to take out most average soul reapers, the court guard squads are still recovering from the war, every death is a hit for us right now.

She paused her chase of Yumichika when she felt Renji's energy spike, he was still close to the central court of forty-six but he'd just released his Bankai. She frowned a little, wanting to augment her path but knowing she had things to do here. Her captain was still there to the best of her knowledge, and she had faith in him.

Renji and the other captains gathered at the gate had actually been separated and were fighting battles of their own. After Histugaya had been drawn off by a horribly mutilated woman he'd been left to protect the gate as they went after it more than him. So he'd released Zabimaru more out of a want to use the long pieces of his Bankai as a shield than to actually attack with it. It was getting more difficult to keep them away and whatever they wanted to do, he knew it couldn't be good if they were targeting the Gate.

He was fine thus far, but surprised at the pure amount of people, and the fact that he'd seen some of them multiple times. A few even had burns from Zabimaru's baboon bone cannon but they had come back after vanishing from the soul society. There wasn't any sort of pile of bodies to actually show how long he'd been fighting but judging by the fact that his enemies were getting steadily more familiar it had to have been some time.

Byakuya and Kagome had passed through the gate hours before, but their had been nothing further that occurred from the mystic gateway. He didn't include the lunatic ex-priests and priestess' attacking it. The ones that held actual strength were being kept occupied by the captains that had been at the gate with him before the unexpected assault began. Where they were coming from was still unknown as far as he could tell as no hell butterflies had been sent to communicate with him.

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"They aren't at their normal camp." Miroku stated with a sigh, speaking with the few members of the priests and priestess' unwilling to join a specific side. "I am not sure what they're up too, but I believe the increase in hollow activity as well as the strange happenings of non-hollow souls appearing here when they shouldn't. I picked up as many as I could, but if this keeps up it'll be dangerous. It shouldn't happen this often, something is seriously wrong."

"We agreed to stay out of it in return for them leaving us in peace." Kaede reminded him with a frown further wrinkling her face. She agreed that with the strange spikes of otherwise rare events they were facing something new and unwelcome.

"If they're the ones causing this, it's not really peaceful." Rin complained, nocking an arrow after shooting down a hollow that had strayed close to the camp.

"It's as she says." Miroku agreed, his staff in his hand and prepared for battle if it became needed. "I can hardly agree this is peaceful."

"And what would you have us do?" Kaede asked with a small shrug, aiming a shot herself for a moment before taking down a hollow of her own. "None of us should know how to even use those strange spells of theirs to travel worlds."

"Yeah." Rin frowned a bit, growing contemplative. "But...we can destroy the strange stones and things they use to activate those magic's."

"Not all of them need those to do so." Kaede answered, glancing between the younger two priests disapprovingly.

"No, but she's right." Miroku replied. "What's the worst they'd do? Kill us? Well I've already done that a few times. We shouldn't stand aside and let them get to their dark goal any easier."

"Right." Rin nodded with a bright smile back in place. "Let's go remind them how real priests and priestess' are suppose to act."

"Fine, but only take a few others, some need to remain here to help guard the souls here by poor chance." Kaede replied with a sigh of resignation. "Don't get yourselves caught if you can avoid it, we're going to face a lot more opposition after this."

"It'll be fine. If Sesshomaru's still out there...we'll manage okay." Rin assured with a nod before pointing at a couple other of the troops and heading away with Miroku glancing curiously after her.

"I need some of her confidence." He stated, having a bit less optimism with what they were off to accomplish.

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Kagome was staring in wonder at the immensity of Byakuya's attack, she'd not really gotten to watch much of him releasing his Bankai before, but this was more even than she remembered. She got so distracted by it's beauty that she forgot a moment that the exotic magnificence was a mask for what it was capable of. The mass of pink split, still protecting her and making it more difficult to see the field. Which was it's own blessing.

The dark haired priest Kushizu burst into blood as waves of the blades crossed over him. To his credit, he survived the first two mostly intact, but she had to look away as a third crossed him again, wherever his soul returned when he was dead, by the time the fourth wave hit likely he was there and in incredible pain. His broken and bloodied form had vanished with his dark energy after it had cleared.

She touched Byakuya's shoulder, it had seemed a unneeded show of force from him, uncharacteristic as well. "Byakuya, are you...?"

"I'm perfectly well." He answered before she could finish the question, looking back at her. "I apologize you had to see that. But at least until the issues with the priests and priestess are resolved mercy is not a luxury I can give."

She nodded a little, smiling then as he brushed her cheek with his fingers lightly. "I will not lose you again Kagome."

"The Prince..." She blinked in realization, the moments outside of the battle, with Byakuya inside the cocoon of petals had distracted her, but she could feel the strikes of their immense energy clearly beyond the salmon curtain. "...can you help him?"

"I believe it is a battle he needs to complete on his own." Byakuya replied, Senbonzakura moving back to him and lingering at the ground near their feet. Making them seem as if they were at the center of a magnificent field of flowers.

Above them, the battle was raging as two storms vied for control of a small section of sky.

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With Byakuya and Kagome stolen from the battle by the unknown assailant Sestran was left facing his father alone. Byakuya's power and the amount of blades created by his release were much more than the Prince had witnessed prior. To be expected given the amount of pure energy that was here, but the transmutation, the wings, he didn't know exactly what to think of it. Nor did he really have time to dwell, his father had to be given credit; even with his insanity he was a dangerous foe. Retaining more control of his abilities than his son had believed he'd be able.

"Father...do you even realize what you've done? You've reversed seals kept in place by our family for centuries...for a woman that would rather see everything reduced to nothing. Surely you must know she is not mother, the woman you married died to the hollows she was forced to fight for so long." Sestran paused, trying to reason with the older man after tangling him in the branches of several trees nearby.

The older man pushed away the tangles as his son spoke, though didn't immediately counterattack, watching his boy instead warily. "She is your mother...you would do well to respect her wishes more instead of being so apt to toss her aside. The old seal was only causing harm, do you really wish to leave people who have done no wrongs to such a fate?"

"It's never that simple father. You know it, as well as I do. Your journal states the exact reason for the seal...something else you never deemed to tell me. Did you intend on never passing over your power? Or have they just been tainting your mind ever sense they found you? When was it? During the last trip you took outside of the Gate? For a hundred years they've been manipulating you and you never once thought to trust me?"

Sestran's words drew steadily colder, and he was forced to dodge or block lines of lightning with powers of his own, his eyes flashing more than in mere refection to the powers being released around them, though he always managed to escape while driving his father backward, the older man hadn't yet noticed his son was hesitating, or that the poisoned arrow he'd gotten from Kagome was now in one of his hands.

"You never had a real grasp of what you needed to do. The effort it takes to be King, Sestran you are my son, I love you, but you have been spoiled your entire life...you cannot fathom what it is to maintain the balance." The older man had raised his voice and the winds blowing around him weren't entirely natural, making his long white hair fling about his face wildly. "If you will not stand with your family then you stand against us. Don't you see, this world is broken, your mother and I simply want to fix it."

"Father, you are the one who is broken...are you so lost to me that you cannot see even that?" Sestran replied, the sadness in his voice evident as he floated closer to his father. "You told me once, that our only duty in existence was to protect the balance of the gates between worlds without personal interference. The ban on the priests and priestess' was unjust, made by an unjust ruler, but not completely without purpose. Your father went as mad as you seem to be going right now, he wrote the ban into the very fabric of the walls that keep our worlds apart. By allowing them to travel freely you risk tearing apart everything for a completely personal desire."

"It doesn't matter...you are still too young and foolish to understand the desicions those with true power must make. Or to live with the ramifications thereof." The older man replied, the winds picking up around him even more, and with the darkened sky, Sestran knew he intended to call a Tornado down. It was an attack he'd used himself only hours before coming to try to talk sense into the old man.

"Father." Sestran spoke slowly, doing his best to keep the pained expression from his face, he predicted the answer before he ever spoke the demand. "This must be my final appeal to you. Relinquish your power to me and I can fix the ban on the holy men and women without destroying everything."

"You cannot do that." The King scoffed immediately. "You dare to tell me that -you-, without an ounce of the power it takes to work such creations would succeed where I did not? Your pride has reached heights that even I didn't imagine it could. We did spoil you too greatly, it pains me to do this but you cannot continue to be allowed to act in such a way."

The older man gestured at Sestran, the whirlwind that had only been building instantly narrowing into a funnel that shot across the field at his son. The lack of pink within the winds a sign that Byakuya had finished quickly and neatly with his opponent. The Prince held his hand out as it reached him, barely moving from his position in the sky, the wind, the clouds, dying out at his will. "Father...I am sorry. I hope that sometime you can come to understand...I did only what you would have once wanted me to do."

"What could you possibly..." That was as far as the king got in his statement, it took him that long to notice Sestran was in front of him. There was a pain in his chest he couldn't explain, then he felt himself losing control of his energy though the younger reflection of himself held him firmly in place.

Golden light flowed out of the spot in the king's chest where Sestran had stabbed him with the arrow, his hand still on the half not buried in his father's chest. His second arm holding up his father's shoulder as he began to slump. The shocked and pained expression on his father's face blurred as the rain in the sky reflected his own tears. The power surged around the king and began to flow into the Prince, as his only predecessor.

"I'm sorry father..." He repeated in a whisper, as the old man continued to stare at him. "If I had realized sooner what they were doing, if I hadn't gotten distracted with other things because of being spoiled as you say... It would have never come to this...it is my failure not yours. Rest finally, know that you did well in your life."

End Chapter

Silly royal family and needing to commit patricide. Poor Sestran. Many explanations to come next chapter. TWO updates today, I deserve cookies.

-Aura

To my reviewers:

Teldra - :) Many thanks for the small comments to help me know more than a few people actually read my fiction.