• • •
"Now get up, Kuchiki Rukia." Aizen commanded, standing beside the powerless Shinigami. Her violet eyes were wide, her face covered in a sheen of sweat, as she stared up at the man before her.
Aizen's hand reached down, gripping the red choker around her neck as he pulled her into a standing position. "Ah… I see. Your whole body became limp because of all the reiatsu around? Okay, don't worry about it. It's just easier for me if you can walk on your own…"
A rustling sound made Aizen pause, his dark brown eyes scanning over to see what was making that noise. I could faintly hear it as well, but I didn't have the strength yet to move. Ankoku-Tatsu was using all the power she had to stop the bleeding and wouldn't let me move.
"How pitiful…! You're still conscious."
Who? Who was still conscious? Was it Ichigo? Was he still alive?
"You must really hate the fact that your strength doesn't match the level of your vitality. Though it would be best to stop that recklessness. Right now your spine is the only thing holding your body together… No matter how hard you try, there is no way to stand up without destroying your body." From my narrow line of vision, I could see Aizen sheathe his Zanpakuto. "It's not a matter of spirit. It is physically impossible. Look on the bright side. You've been very helpful already, so now… Just lay there quietly until you pass on. Your mission is over."
"You…said…mission..!?"
My heart leapt to my throat at the sound of his voice.
Thank goodness; Ichigo sounded alright. Breathless and rugged, but he sounded alright.
Not listening to Ankoku-Tatsu's voice, I sat up a bit more and moved my head so I could stare fully at Aizen. I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything, but I would feel better if I knew what he was going to do rather than facing the unknown.
"Yes," Aizen answered, his eyes flickering to me for a moment and looking a bit surprised before they moved back towards Ichigo. "All along, I knew you two would come, and… I knew the point of entry. I knew that you all would appear in the Western Rukongai. Therefore, I dispatched regular patrols in the vicinity, so that the Seirei walls would be lowered immediately after you arrived. Then I sent the Third and Ninth Division to the inside of the wall…and sent Gin to keep you all out. If you thought that there was a Taicho patrolling on the other side of the door, the only perceivable method of entry would be through Shiba Kukaku's cannon. That would result in a dramatic entrance of invaders who survived a fight against a Taicho! Therefore, all of the Shinigami in the Seireitei would inevitably focus their full attention on you."
I gasped, coughing at the sudden intake of air as pain seared across my back as my lungs expanded. Wincing, I glared up at Aizen. Was he really saying that he had planned this out this extensively?
"The actual invasion was truly phenomenal. Thanks to you two, even when a Taicho was murdered…it didn't seem like that big of a deal in comparison. It was really easy to make our moves." Aizen explained, his voice sounded darker with each passing word.
Ichigo gasped and from the corner of my eyes I could see him still lying on the ground where he had been slain. "W…Wait… How… Did you know…that we would land on the Western Rukongai?"
My eyes widened at the question. There was only one way he would know about that. Wheezing, I sat up a bit more. "U-Ura-Urahara."
"Correct." Aizen's lips curled into a smirk. "There wasn't any other possibility. Urahara Kisuke's referential location was in Western Rukongai, as Kokawa Junko correctly guessed. So the only place his Senkai gate could take you…was Western Rukongai."
"What?" Ichigo questioned, gaping up at the ex-Fifth Division Taicho.
Aizen blinked, looking back and forth between Ichigo and I. "Why are you making that face? Aren't you both his subordinates? Didn't you come back here to take back Kuchiki Rukia…because Urahara Kisuke ordered you to?"
"Wh…what the hell?" The strawberry questioned, rolling a bit on his side so he could better look at Aizen.
Aizen's eyes fell on me, but I shook my head. I had no clue what he was implying; Urahara was helping us save Rukia because she meant a lot to us. It was unfair that they execute her for such a measly crime.
"I see…so you both don't know anything. That's fine… Since it's all over, I will tell you about it." The man smirked, dragging Rukia along with him as he walked a bit closer towards Ichigo. "Do you know about Shinigami's four basic forms of combat? They are zanjutsu, hakuda, hoho, and kido. All of them are similar in that they each have a limit. No matter how much innate capability you have, you can never overcome the limitation of a Shinigami's spiritual body. In other words, that is the Shinigami's limit.
"Is there no way to break that boundary? Is there no way to grow and surpass your innate limitation? There is…but there's only one way. And that is… Hollowfication of a Shinigami."
Ichigo's gasp rang throughout my ears.
"Hollow-Shinigami, Shinigami-Hollow; when the boundary between Hollow and Shinigami is removed, you can create a new existence capable of achieving new heights. This concept has existed in theory for a long time." Aizen continued to explain, taking his time to make sure that we understood. "I focused on Shinigami-Hollows, and I had successfully created several Hollows that were close to Shinigami. Hollows that could hide their reiatsu, a Hollow that could make Zanpakuto disappear…and even fuse with Shinigami… But all of them were trash and not worthy of being called breakthroughs. Other researchers are bound by stupidity and morality…so no one has ever made any sort of breakthrough either. No one, except Urahara Kisuke."
Hissing as I took in another gasp, I felt my eyes narrow.
Of course; Urahara was suspicious enough.
"He created a substance that reacts beyond the conventional physics of Soul Society… It can instantly dissolve the barrier between Hollow and Shinigami. The name of that substance is Hogyoku."
Orb of Destruction.
What a fitting name, I thought with a mental scoff.
"It is an extremely dangerous material. He probably thought so too, because he tried to destroy the Hogyoku. However, he could not find a way to destroy his own creation. So, in desperation, he did something else. That was… He put a barrier around the Hogyoku and buried it within the depths of a person's soul." Aizen explained, only to pause for a second to let all of the information sink into our minds. "Figure it out yet?"
We were all quiet, processing what he had said.
If everything was true…then Urahara had to have hidden the Hogyoku…
"In the beginning, I thought that it was inside of Kokawa Junko." I gasped when my name was mentioned, feeling Aizen's cold dark eyes on me. "You were Urahara's pet. You were sent to the Soul Society already knowing the name of your own Zanpakuto. You were better than the Sixth Years at the Academy in hakuda and kido. All of the other Taicho's were suspicious of where you learned everything, but I knew. You had Urahara's mannerisms within you.
"Urahara knew that the others would be suspicious of you when he sent you here, so he made sure we knew of your last name: Kokawa. You were the daughter of Kokawa Hayate, previous Taicho of the Tenth Division centuries before. While the other Taicho's didn't suspect you because of that, it drew my attention to you even more: Kokawa Hayate was good friends with Urahara Kisuke.
"However, your reiatsu levels weren't impressive. Even with the seal that Urahara had placed on you, I couldn't be sure if you held the Hogyoku within you or not. So, I observed you as the years passed. Sooner than I thought, you led me straight towards the real Hogyoku: it rested within Kuchiki Rukia."
Rukia gasped at Aizen's words, her violet eyes wider than I had ever seen them. How had it wound up inside of her? Rukia hadn't known Urahara until she came to the World of the Living…
"By the time I had discovered all of this, the two of you had gone missing in the real world. I knew intuitively…that this was all Urahara Kisuke's doing. A gigai is made up of high density spiritual matter and is used to temporarily contain a recovering Shinigami. Therefore, it is usually very easy for Soul Society to locate gigai. Yet they lost track of a Shinigami after she entered a gigai? That should be impossible. However, he developed a type of substance that did not contain spiritual matter, and because he created an untraceable gigai using that special substance, he was sentenced to exile.
"There was also another reason for his exile: that particular gigai caused the reiatsu of the Shinigami inside it to deteriorate. So the Shinigami that entered that gigai…could never recover their reiatsu. Their control over that gigai would become dull, and eventually they would lose all of their reiatsu. And then they would change from a Shinigami into a normal human spirit."
Aizen turned his attention towards Rukia, who he was still supporting by the red choker around her neck. "Don't you see? He wasn't trying to help you. He was actually making you human, so that he could hide his Hogyoku forever. Fortunately, you were discovered a few months later. I immediately went to the Forty-Six Chambers and…"
However, Aizen was cut short by a huge figure landing behind him. I coughed as the dust flew up, wincing as it caused pain to shoot down my back. Ankoku-Tatsu was still in the process of healing my wound…and dirt in it wouldn't speed up the process.
"AIZEN!" The gigantic Seventh Division Taicho screamed, his bucket helmet finally off of his face and exposing his wolfish characteristics. The Taicho swung his Zanpakuto down, causing me to let out a startled yelp of surprise as a huge gust of wind blew throughout the area.
When the dust cleared, everyone could see that Aizen was able to block the blade with one hand. "I haven't seen that for a while… Your face, that is. Did you have a change of heart of some sort, Komamura-Kun?"
"How…can you still laugh, Aizen..?!" Komamura-Taicho aimed another hit towards Aizen, but missed as well. "For your lies and betrayal of all of us, I shall give you no mercy! And you… Tousen! Do you have anything to say for yourself?!"
Quiet met everyone's ears.
"Nothing…at all? How disappointing…Tousen!" Komamura exclaimed, his reiatsu spiking. "Bankai..!"
Before his Bankai could release, Aizen disappeared from his line of vision and appeared right before him. Komamura didn't have enough time to react; he barely had enough time to move his eyes downward to stare at Aizen.
"Hado #90: Kurohitsugi." Aizen stated, performing a level ninety kido spell and skipping the complete incantation. {Kurohitsugi = Black Coffin}
Reiatsu spiraled around Aizen's hand, tainted a deep purplish black before it formed a large black box around Komamura. Black spears pierced the box, making everyone watching wince a bit as the spell deteriorated and revealed a seriously wounded Komamura-Taicho.
"Kyouka Suigetsu's 'complete hypnosis' is absolutely flawless. Even if the target is aware of its ability, they cannot resist its influence." Aizen smirked, apparently quite thrilled that he was able to take down Komamura-Taicho so quickly.
Ichimaru's grin stretched across his face. "Ya skipped the incantation for a spell at the ninetieth level! How scary~! When did ya become able to do that?"
"No, it failed." Aizen shook his head. "The power of that blast did not reach even one third of its full potential."
"I see. Spells in the ninety levels are more difficult 'ta handle after all." Ichimaru noted, happily handing Rukia back to Aizen.
Aizen smirked, turning back to Ichigo and me with a smile. "My apologies. I was in the middle of talking to you, wasn't I?
"So… Kuchiki Rukia, when I found you in the Human World, the first thing I did was assassinate the entire Forty-Six Chambers. You've probably heard something like this from Isane-Kun: 'Aizen Sosuke faked his death to move in secrecy, and then murdered the Forty-Six Chambers.' That was incorrect. I butchered the Forty-Six Chambers as soon as we found you, then I used Kyouka Suigetsu in the 'Central Underground Conference Room' to create the illusion of the Forty-Six Chambers holding a meeting, alive and well, so that even if someone intruded unexpectedly, they wouldn't notice anything wrong. However, without permission from someone on the inside, not even Taicho's may enter the conference room. To play the role of the Forty-Six Chambers…and giving out orders to achieve our goals. To ensure your capture, I assigned the task of your retrieval to those two in the Sixth Division. To keep you from becoming a human, I ordered the immediate destruction of that gigai, as to completely evaporate your soul…so that I could retrieve the Hogyoku inside you, I decided to use the Sokyoku for your execution.
"The only times that we left the conference room unguarded were the few hours before and after each of the two Taicho meetings. I have been in the conference room ever since I feigned my death because of the possibility of your group causing the execution to fail. There are two ways to extract a foreign object implanted into a spiritual body. One can either use an intensively heated and highly destructive force, like the Sokyoku, to evaporate the outer shell of the spirit, or… Use some sort of special procedure that causes the spiritual body structure to break down and thus create an opening. If the Sokyoku plan failed, I'd have to find another way."
Aizen pulled a small cylinder from the insides of his robes. "Therefore, I needed full access to the Great Hall of Records inside the conference room, where reports of important events in the Soul Society are kept. I carefully researched everything that Urahara Kisuke ever did, because implanting foreign objects into a spirit is a technique he invented. So naturally, the extraction procedure must also be hidden somewhere within his research records."
Activating the small cylinder, reiatsu flared around Aizen and Rukia. Before our eyes, six posts of sharpened dark green wood shot up from the ground, surrounding the two of them. The reiatsu from the cylinder even circled around Aizen's arm, seeming to cover it in the same dark green wooden substance.
"Yes. This is…that procedure."
Rukia was thrown into the air, Aizen's arm going completely through her chest. When I say going completely through, I mean completely through. You could see his hand protruding from her back.
It appeared like Aizen finally found what he was looking for, grasping something in his hand before he pulled his arm from her chest. Rukia fell to the ground, a large gaping hole in the center of her ribcage.
"What a surprise..!" Aizen murmured, staring down at the small orb in his right hand. "It is awfully small! So this is… Hogyoku…"
The small violet eyed woman continued to breathe, slightly leaning forward to show that the wound in the center of her chest was quickly closing and vanishing.
"Oh, the recipient is unharmed?! What an incredible technique this is..! Unfortunately, you are no longer of any use to me." Aizen said, placing the Hogyoku in his Shihakusho before pulling Rukia back off of the ground and holding her an arm's length away from his body. "Kill her, Gin."
"It can't be helped," Ichimaru shrugged, advancing towards the two of them as he drew his Zanpakuto. "Ikorose, Shinso!" {Shoot to kill, Sacred Spear}
Ichimaru's Zanpakuto instantly stretched like it was supposed to.
Before our eyes, there was a splash of crimson blood.