3: Waking up on the Wrong Side - [Swinging The Sword]
Ichigo Kurosaki sat up on a broad pane of translucent glass, and looked around.
He was within his soul again, for the first time since the reforging of True Zangetsu in the Hōōden. The sun shone down on a seemingly reforged city as well, since the first thing the hybrid noticed was that all of the sideways skyscrapers were unrecognisable. What was once a plain cityscape of rectangular towers of uniform design, was now a grand metropolis of a myriad of architectural masterpieces, from both his own subconscious imagination and from across the globe.
Was that the Empire State Building right next to Tokyo Tower? No, wait, there was something even taller behind them that looked like a Chinese castle, but made out of glass and steel. Something from Taiwan? He might've seen a photo of it once, in a geography lesson a few years ago. He was fairly certain it hadn't been like this last time, what with half the skyscrapers falling apart at the revelation of the Old Man's true nature. Ichigo stood up, and breathed in deeply, feeling the warmth of the sun shining to his left in the blue sky within his soul, before letting it out with a radiant smile.
Not bad. He wasn't complaining at all. This place was probably the most breathtaking vista he had ever laid eyes on, including the likes of the otherworldly landscapes of the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo. Better yet, it was his. All of this metaphysical city was the form his soul took, and he was more than pleased. He could get used to this place. He glanced to the left, the world being sideways after all, and beheld the open sky, touched only by the grandest of the buildings within his heart.
Wisps of cloud vapour gathered at the edges of his sight, but other than that, the topsy-turvy heavens were clear. He gazed to the right, where he expected vertical pavements and streets to be in the distance, but found that he couldn't see them anymore as he once could in this space. Instead, the towering structures he was on were now so incomprehensibly tall that the ground itself was no longer visible at such a lofty height. A distant cloud layer obscured any further 'down' the buildings, hiding their foundations. It seemed even the copies of real-world skyscrapers were massively elongated in here compared to their real-world counterparts, so much so that all of them now must have been multiple kilometres laterally in size. It was an alien sight, but didn't faze Ichigo at all. This place was his soul, after all.
Shifting his gaze towards his feet, Ichigo took in his appearance. He was now clad in his full shihakushō again, with his red rosary strap, solid black fabric and all, though it lacked his Ōken armour and waistcloth.
He reached a hand to his chin, tilting his face and eyeing that his horns weren't there, and that his left eye was no longer yellow with a black sclera. In lieu of his hollowfied features, his fullbring was back on his skin, with four black markings on the back of his hands, intersecting outlined bands around his wrists and ankles, a large double-layered cross over his chest, and an armoured neck guard in black-and-white protecting the back and sides of his nape.
He was glad he didn't look like a ragged vagabond anymore, but noticed something that made him forget about his restored outfit entirely. What caught his attention, was the missing weight of Tensa-Zangetsu from his back.
Ichigo leapt into the air, and sailed up onto a slanted skyscraper that looked somewhat like the Shard, its vitric spire tapering into one point far off to the side. He scanned around the silent stratospheric city of his soul's inner world, and found himself completely alone. After a moment's thought, he had an intuition on where to find his blade. Zangetsu was him, after all. He set his feet wide apart, held his hand out with his fingers tightly forwards, and bent his arm towards himself. This would hopefully be quick.
Ichigo stabbed his hand into his own chest, and pulled.
Instead of a horrific cascading splatter of gore and viscera, out with Ichigo's hand came a flowing stream of black and white. It formed one large viscous monochrome puddle, but the colours did not mix into grey; the jet black was interspersed with flowing rivers of bone white, and the pure white was bestrewed with currents of inky black. The pool's elements remained individually pure, no matter how much they mingled.
He leaned over it. "Alright, Zangetsu, you two already know what I wanna talk about. And you already know I wanna discuss it with you individually, not merged. Come on out, already." Ichigo spoke to the innocuous liquids, and as if fully expecting a response. He got one.
"Alright, alright, I heard ya." an echoing mirror of his own voice, but with a warbling timbre replied, as the white liquid coalesced into a clawed alabaster hand scratching against the transparent pane beneath it. It pushed on the bluish glass, leaning on it to pull up the forming humanoid torso, which was joined by another identical chalky limb, both now growing black tufts of fur at the wrists. They both pressed against the horizontal window, as the last of the liquid melded into kneeling ashen legs, with rings of black fur around the ankles and taloned feet. A skull-like mask, black as night with twin albescent stripes running down from the very top of its head, over its umbrageous eye-holes, skipping the rows of exposed deathly sharp teeth to reach its chin made up the face. Dark horns, angular and lengthy, sprouted from its temples, identical to the ones present on Ichigo's waking body.
Behind the head, flowing white hair cascaded down to the new figure's back, and two black partial bands protected the nape and sides of its neck. Completing the monochrome stance the striking figure cut was the formation of a slim white form-fitting ankle-length jacket, linked by crosses of fabric at the front, and flaring raggedly towards the bottom and with black fur lining the upper neck section. The figure stood to its full height, an identical just-above-six-feet to match Ichigo's. A knife-fingered right hand reached up, tugging the opposite left jaw-side of the mask to the side, revealing a perfect colourless mirror image of Ichigo's features, grinning toothily. It was a reflection of his face; not a fake; nor a copy. It was just as much Zangetsu's face as his own, just as Zangetsu's was his. "Did 'you miss me?"
A new addition to the profile of Ichigo's inner Vasto Lorde was a great bone-white cleaver on his back, with a completely hollow centre and a long blood-red chain running from the front guard, around the back, past the black-and-red diamonded handle connecting to the back of the tip of the blade. Well, he was the manifestation of his shinigami side, so it wasn't a surprise to see which form of Ichigo's blades he wielded. Although it looked slightly different from when he used that bankai himself. The core is missing, but he could tell why.
Ichigo looked back to the now pure midnight black pool and crossed his arms. "Hey, you too. I've got two swords for a reason, Old Man." he scowled, tapping his foot impatiently. The black liquid began floating upwards in what seemed like large petals, which began levitating in place and fusing together. Soon none of the substance was left on the ground, and all of it was in the form of airborne flakes, which formed a shadowy orb. The shape converged into a narrow figure, another slim, form-fitting coat, also linked by crosses at the front, only this time it was sable-dark on the outside and lined with a pale white on the inside. It extended down to the bottom of the obsidian trousers and boots that had emerged, with white soles. The arms of the jacket ended in narrow sleeves, out of which two flesh-coloured hands stuck. A hood materialised from the last of the shadow-petals, hiding the face of the Quincy half of Ichigo's soul.
The head turned up, to meet Ichigo's amber-brown eyes with ice-blue orbs of his own. The face was youthful; he appeared even younger than Ichigo did, actually, with a strand of hair falling between his eyes, over the bridge of his nose. Oh, right, he was in bankai after all. Of course both of them would change appearance again. It seemed the spirit wasn't finished taking shape just yet; in his right hand an ebony daitō with a huge manji for a crossguard flicked out. Its lengthy blade lacked the three serrated ridges at its back that it usually had, and neither did it have a hollowed out centre for half its length like it did when Ichigo wielded it last. The blade was instead much longer, and dead straight. A black gauntlet emerged and covered the hand it was held in, and a long metal chain just as dark as the rest of the weapon extended from the pommel of the red-diamond-patterned handle up, winding round and round the arm until it was hidden into the coat. Man, it felt like it'd been a while since he'd seen his original bankai, even though it was only about a fortnight ago, at most. Though the form it was in; now that was strange...
"Ichigo... you've manifested us once more?" the Old Man inquired. Or well, what would've been an old man, but he couldn't really call him that right now. But he couldn't really call him Zangetsu too... that would just be confusing. Oh well, he'd just make it work.
"He's right, y'know. You don't need to talk to us anymore to understand, King. You know we're parts of you, after all. Me being the better half, of course. That goes without saying." Zangetsu brandished the massive hollow blade on his shoulder as he spoke.
"Then just consider this me talking to myself, to organise my thoughts. Quit complaining." Ichigo replied, running a hand through his hornless hair.
"I'm not complaining. Love what you've done with the place, really. Is that Taipei 101 over there?" Zangetsu pointed a pallid finger at a distant skyscraper. So that was what the Chinese castle-looking one was called. He knew he'd seen it in class before, turns out technically he did kinda remember it, only it was the more psychotic side of him who paid better attention in Geography. Who'd have thought?
"This place is great! All the better to cross blades to the brink of death in!" the hollow declared as he suddenly threw the massive cleaver's door-sized form at Ichigo. It shot forth with a sonic boom as the scarlet metal chain spontaneously lengthened to remain in the hollow's commanding grip as it flew.
...and there's the Zangetsu I know. The carrot-topped hybrid leapt out of the way at the sight of the sword's hypersonic approach, somersaulting rightwards and falling between the gaps of the sideways skyscrapers. Tumbling forwards, he picked a destination. Sliding down a invisible diagonal platform of reishi he generated at a steep angle, Ichigo rolled onto the rounded triangular greenish windows of what resembled the Gherkin, but sideways.
Ichigo sighed, his black-marked hand on the bridge of his nose, then brought it away as he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Can we not do this right now! I wanted to talk about my bankai!"
The white cleaver speared directly into the same English landmark Ichigo stood on, but was yanked back to halt its momentum before it could stab too deeply into the steel. Zangetsu then landed directly on the underside of the white blade, slamming it down even further into the vitreous pickle-shaped tower with his taloned feet, smashing the three-sided glass panes and creating a network of spider-webbing cracks instantly. He stretched back up as he stood balancing on the upturned crossguard.
"What? You worried about wrecking this place after the fresh renovations? You know this place fixes itself every time we leave, right? You don't have to care about collateral damage, let's just go all out!" Zangetsu cheered. "Getsuga..." He tipped forwards, off of the blade and twisted sideways as he fell, grabbing the handle where he was standing less than a second prior, sliding it out from the ground as he span forwards, gripping the hollowed sword and swinging into a vertical spiral, round and round. "Tenshō!"
A blinding red wave erupted, larger than the diameter of the entire skyscraper the combatants were stood on, which didn't stand a chance of remaining intact. The Gherkin was sliced like a cucumber under a salad knife, and that was with only the first blast. White Zangetsu had lined his gigantic cleaver with continuous Getsuga-energy, so with each blurring spin faster than a helicopter blade another consecutive Tenshō was fired. Oh, screw it.
Ichigo decided to just go with the flow, evading the first crimson flare mid-air by pushing to the right with his arm against an instinctively generated reishi platform, launching himself in the opposite direction, before avoiding the next by leaping head forward with his feet back against a falling red-tinged rebar from the national landmark White Zangetsu had just destroyed. Holding his arms out in front of him, fingers splayed whilst leaning over the diagonal blast, Ichigo flipped into a combat roll on another invisible platform, coming out of it to slide down feet first a hair's breadth under a horizontal Getsuga this time.
He landed on the next sideways skyscraper, this one a part of a double set of identical buildings with a... bridge midway up them in between? He might've seen this one on the cover of his economics book before. White finally stopped his rotation, and landed on a supine antenna on the tip of the tower to the side of the one Ichigo was racing up. He blitzed forwards towards White in shunpo, towards the tip of the twin buildings that gained increasing geometric complexity the further up he went; first square and flat, then a semi-circle, and now a multifaceted pointy shape he couldn't be bothered to count the faces of whilst he was in the midst of such an enthralling battle. When had he started smiling? It didn't matter. This was the most fun he'd had since the night Chad, Uryu and Orihime had all barged into his room unannounced, with a box full of surplus bakery stock, weeks ago before the war kicked off. He didn't have to care about anything here but himself, the blade, and the battle.
"That's more like it! Now you're getting into it!" White urged on. The achromatic spirit, whilst balancing on the antenna, bent his knees and leaned his masked face forwards, horns level. He began charging a glowing orb of pure, concentrated vermilion reiatsu between his horns. Not so fast. Clearing hundreds of meters faster than light could ever hope to be, Ichigo reached the very tip of the level tower, vaulting over the edge, only to find the hollow had baited him up there. He whirled about, conserving and redirecting his momentum by grasping the pole and twirling around it with his hands, before shooting back off of it in the opposite direction he came. The antenna snapped off of its base, following him, such was the stress of a fraction of Ichigo's beyond-terminal velocity. The hybrid accelerated even faster, leaving comprehension in the dust as space warped to accommodate his speed.
It was then that he found Zangetsu, who after falling backwards out of sight had landed heavily on the topsy-turvy enclosed glass-and-steel bridge. White cratered the metal beneath himself as he continued to charge the oscillating reiatsu between his coal-black horns –it was almost ready. Damn, that was clever. Not as if he'd just let himself take it lying down, though.
He reached within his soul, and drew out the massive blade he wielded in the waking world in a blaze of golden reishi, the bandage unfurling as he pumped it with a Getsuga of his own. Ichigo growled as he zoomed down, getting out of White's line of sight by sonído'ing into the interior of the crabwise skyscraper, shattering the glass with a flaring of reiatsu to get in. Ichigo busted through oblique floor after oblique floor, barrelling through rooms of all purposes and styles, from tiled bathrooms to shag carpeted bedrooms; and yet none of the debris could even touch him without being erased by his cloak of transcendent reiatsu, let alone slow him down.
Ichigo burst from the spire gleaming in the still-bright sun, in a torrent of fragmented glass, his blade's bandage whipping in the rushing jetstream he left in his wake as he thrust the massive butcher's blade forward to lead his body in his lunge against Zangetsu.
"Gran..." White Zangetsu, who he had caught off guard by emerging at a different position than expected, and had to re-aim his horns to match Ichigo's angle of approach. "...Rey..." A precious additional few attosecond's worth gained for Ichigo to approach sword-point first at his flat out top speed, and reach his hollow spirit at the exact moment White howled– "...Cero!"
A cataclysmic surge of hollow reiatsu met Ichigo's metallic greatsword's razor edge as he met the deluge of carmine spiritual power head on. He ran a hand along the back of the blade, lining its edge with a flare of black and white. Ichigo roared as he pushed forwards, getting his blade between white's now-silhouetted horns-
A white blast of discharged energy enveloped both shinigami and zanpakutō spirit, the explosion tinted with vivid coral flames at its edges. The detonation of both Getsuga and Cero together engulfed and incinerated the entirety of the twin oblique linked skyscrapers it sparked in, before the ensuing shockwave emitted out immediately demolished multiple more across the edgewise metropolis, tremendous cracks racing up and over their walls and foundations at the speed of sound. The buildings far enough away to not be devastated were still rocked by the shattering of half of their windows at the thunderous crack of their clash. The billowing grey smoke left in the wake of the frenzy surrounded and obscured the opponents, but now having locked sparking blades, they could easily tell where each other was. Normally, neither would go for such risky manoeuvrers in a real battle, not until the deciding blows at the very end, but this bout was just to muck around and see what they could do if they went full throttle from the start. Ichigo grinned triumphantly as he pushed forwards in the skirmish; time to take this up a notch.
He swapped to only using one hand to push against Zangetsu's equally large stark white cleaver. He knew his arm would give near instantly– but that was just it; near instantly. He had a slither of time for a split-second mix-up. Ichigo's fighting style had been refined dramatically after his visit to the Hōōden, no longer was he a sort-of freestyle unruly brawler, no; now he fought just like Zangetsu. He fought as Zangestu. A shinigami's fighting style was inherent: once one attained enough resonance with one's zanpakutō, you intuitively knew how to fight with it. Though training and refinement was necessary, that training was also based upon introspection, not exclusively just uniform physical practised movements for seated officers who had attained shikai and above. The more you fought with, and knew your blade, the better you grew with it– and Ichigo knew his blade best out of anyone; the blade was him, after all.
So Ichigo proceeded to yank his own sword down with his left hand, step on his own cleaver's long hilt for a springboard, grasp White's horned head with his free right hand, and vault over both their blades to slam him hundreds of meters down by the face into the nearest lengthwise skyscraper. This one bore an extreme resemblance to the Empire State Building, only with a double-decker bus-wide dust-blinded crater halfway along its length, just inside the area where the parts that stuck from the sides of the main tower ended.
Ichigo held his arm up, where he knew to hold it out, and caught the pale cloth ribbon of his enormous butcher's blade. Letting it slip through his palm until the sword itself fell close, he pulled it taught and whipped it about in a swirling circle like he had seen his hollow do so many times before, before sheathing it on his back, neatly wrapped up again. The whirling motion cleared the cloud of dust and rubble about the two, only to reveal White still had his clawed hands on the red chain and had yanked it back. Brown eyes widened before Ichigo bent his knees and tilted into a backflip, landing on the cream-coloured concrete and clear of the hollowed-out bone-white weapon stabbing into the cement where he stood a fraction of a millisecond earlier. White was already on his feet, and raring to continue as Ichigo smirked and leaned forward, eyes glinting whilst reaching for his sheathed blade– "You said you wished to discuss the subject of your bankai?"
"Aw, come on Old Man, this was just getting good." Zangetsu crossed his arms at the hooded figure who had flashed in between the two. The hollow set his left foot on the bottom of his sword, leaning on it with an arm resting sideways on the raised knee as he spoke. "We were celebrating, right King? We won the war and killed the big bad! Killed him in half! He doesn't even need to talk to us anymore to understand himself, or at least he shouldn't have to anyway."
"And you shouldn't have to call me King, since you know we're the same, after all, yet you still do. That whole 'King and the Horse' thing was bullcrap... although I guess out there in the real world it was a pretty helpful mentality." Ichigo considered with a finger on his chin. "That was what you were going for, right? Or did you actually mean you wanted to take control of my... you know what? Don't answer that, actually. It's all in the past." Ichigo rounded back from Zangetsu and stood up straight, facing the not-quite-Old Man. "Thanks for reminding me, Old Man, before we wrecked any more international landmarks. Why is this place so full of them, anyway? Obviously Zangetsu got reforged, but why all these famous buildings?"
"Does it matter, King? I for one, found geography piss easy, but you didn't pick it in your last year of highschool!" Zangetsu accused as he pointed at Ichigo's chest. Ichigo just blinked. White... liked a school subject? He knew he simultaneously experienced everything he did, but... wait a minute, was that why he felt pangs of regret back when he went to history class instead? Actually, that made a lot of sense... about a lot of things.
"So in the psychotic side of my heart... I like geography?" Ichigo simpered.
White shook his head. "Among other things. You already know it woulda fit a lot better if we actually go down the translator route. Don't deny it. If you end up with a deadbeat job I'm not even sure if I'd take control of our body if you begged me at that point anymore. Not that I want to now, 'course."
Ichigo was at a loss. He scratched his cheek, as he admitted, "Alright already... I've already graduated, we just need to study a bit more for the entrance exam, I can't go back and change that now. Now can we please get on to the topic of–" He slung the sizeable blade off his back, whirled it round and stabbed it into the rough stone ground (wall?) at his feet, "–this?"
The Quincy spirit answered, "Ichigo... firstly, you must know... that is not your bankai."
Ichigo held his arm out, palm up at the young visage of the 'Old' Man. "Thank you. Now there's the answers I wanna hea– wait, excuse me?" Ichigo flipped his head back between both spirits, hollow and Quincy. "Not my bankai? But I'm pretty sure I just killed Yhwach with this thing! Are you telling me this is just a shikai?"
The hood was lifted by the spirit's free hand to reveal his teenage face, and mop of hair as black as his outfit. "A sealed form, actually." His expression was completely flat as he dropped bombshell after bombshell, his polar-blue eyes never straying from Ichigo's flabbergasted form. "Your shikai should still be the twin blades." –No, wait, scratch that, there was definitely a subtle upwards tilt to the corner of his mouth there.
"Wha-but how?"
"Can you not tell? If I know, you must of course know yourself, deep down."
Zangetsu sighed in impatient annoyance. "Cut the cryptic crap. Yeah, he probably does know 'deep down', but he still came here to chat with us to speed things up." Zangetsu stood, ripped his hollow cleaver from the mortar and hefted it onto his shoulder, pointing a taloned digit at the hybrid. "The sword isn't in bankai, but you are."
"I am?" Ichigo unconsciously pointed a finger towards himself from the arm he held in front of him.
"Yeah. Why'd you think you could keep up with me when I'm like this?" He gestured to his Vasto Vorde state; mask, horns, claws and all. "Lemme put it real simple for you. Your body right now, is in bankai, like your sword was before it got hit that one last time by Yhwach. When the white sheath crumbled, it was absorbed back into ya, not lost. You must'a felt that, right? Your body should be back to sync with your blade when ya wake up, anyway."
Ichigo considered what he'd heard. A sealed zanpakutō, eh? Looks like he finally learnt how to compress it down... and it was still massive. Who'd have thought the Final Release would be easier to achieve for him than merely sealing it? So that means... if he was in a sealed state, then his bankai... it wasn't broken. Ichigo sighed, relaxing his shoulders. Now that's a relief.
Still, there was more to discuss. "Hey Old Man," Ichigo wandered his eyes over the spirit's chained gauntlet, "that daitō you're wielding... it's the sword I held coming out from the dangai a few years ago, right? If that's the case, then it's a Quincy blade, not a zanpakutō... so it's made out of reishi? If the one I've got right now, is my sealed state, and it splits in shikai, then..." The youthful mirror of the deposed Quincy King met his unspoken question with a small nod. Ichigo understood immediately. "...I get it. Let me try..."
Ichigo broadened his stance, placing one foot ahead toeing the sun-warmed New York glass, back foot wide behind him. He wrested his body-length sword out from the groove it made in the wall-turned-floor and swung it in front of himself, leaning into the motion with a the arm and blade parallel to the ground front of his chest. As the ethereal cloth coiled around his arm, and his clothes rustled with unseen power, the release command that instinctually came to mind wasn't one he'd used before, but a phrase he inherently knew was the one.
"Bleach... Zangetsu!"
The spiritual pressure around Ichigo actually became visible now; red on his right and blue from his left, great torrents of opposing reiatsu antithetic to each other, contradictorily bound by one being that transcended such boundaries. The colours whirled together, mixing into one, fusing into a great golden tornado that obscured him completely. With a whip of his freshly-released shikai, the cyclone of spirit energy was dispelled and out came Ichigo. Gone was the single door-sized cleaver; in its place were two smaller, more focused, more refined manifestations of the perfect hybrid soul. A guardless khyber-longsword of bright white in his right, with a hollow hole core for a hollow blade and smooth alabaster handle that extended well past his hand. An elongated dagger, dark as night in his left, with a guarded onyx handle like a trench-knife that enclosed his hand.
The release of his shikai didn't only change the shinigami's swords, however. Flowing sleeves exposed the black crossed bands on his wrists, with a thin outline. His black kosode remained otherwise intact, and so was his collar armour. Instead of a sash, his waistcloth from his Royal Guard outfit was back on his lower torso, along with the Ōken armour. Ichigo inspected his new garments, pulling with a black-marked hand at the white strap that was still around his chest, now matched by another opposite one linked with it in the centre to make a white cross with coral-coloured pauldrons. New it may have been, but it was really a fusion of his old styles. He looked down and nodded his head, approvingly. Nice.
"Sweet threads, but can we get on with the show already?" Zangetsu tugged his ebony mask to the side, revealing his anticipatory grin. He hitched his own tall greatsword forward and flipped it down, leaning on its crossguard. "This thing's great! The katana was nice, but I always did kinda prefer... 'bustier' blades, y'know." White ran his clawed fingers over his hilt conversationally. Ichigo almost facepalmed himself with his own sword at the pun-come-innuendo. He had to settle for shaking his head disappointedly instead. Still, Ichigo could see it. This was Zangetsu's bankai, so of course it suited him better than the Old Man's. He'd always seemed to enjoy throwing around his huge shikai more.
The 'Old' Man interjected. "It seems that, even though Senjumaru crafted that shihakushō externally, it still restructures to adapt to your personal reiryoku... It must be woven out of reishi. What skill..."
Ichigo sheathed his swords, Quincy dagger at the hip, hollow longsword at the back, as he turned and frowned grimly at the teenage spirit. "Speaking of the Zero Squad... we have a problem on our hands, don't we? What I saw in the Irazusando... they try it again, to me."
"Frickin' ungrateful scum! I knew we shouldn't have trusted those royal spooks! We'll kill 'em all!"
"What do you mean you knew we shouldn't have trusted them!? You never said anything to me for the entire blood war!"
"Did you feel suspicious at all around them, ever? Well that was me, warning you. I'm your gut instincts." Zangetsu crossed his arms as he leaned back on his blade and stuck a sharp finger out towards Ichigo's abdomen, as if he was making a valid point. Ichigo's gut instincts right now were pretty sure he was chatting crap.
"That ridiculous! It doesn't mean anything! You could take credit for anything that way!" Ichigo blinked, regaining his decorum before lowering his voice, "Besides, we don't even know if Aizen told the truth. Squad Zero didn't seem that bad, they helped me reforge you. Should I even trust what he said?"
It was his Quincy half that answered. "Should you take the risk of not trusting what he said? It is better to be safe rather than sorry. Remember, it was my real self who warned you too, at his demise when he had nothing to lose." the teen spirit reasoned.
"See? Let's carve that band of pigs up! We'll see how those clowns like it when they're the limbless corpses." Zangetsu cheered.
Ichigo just sighed and rubbed his hand into his eyes, not even bothering to respond to that. On some level, it was sort of disturbing, hearing what he wanted to go out and do to the squad that helped him, deep down, but he just couldn't really care. He was the one who accepted Zangetsu; not the other way around. This was what he desired, and he acknowledged it. Who wouldn't want to get back at someone who was allegedly planning to stab them in the back?
Ichigo knew someone had to become the Soul King, but it wasn't gonna be him. Never. He had enough on his plate already, thank you. Maybe if he was lucky, they'd have already sorted out something else or strung up Yhwach's corpse by the time he got back, and none of this would be an issue. If he was lucky, that is... if not, he'd just... he'd just have to cross that bridge when it came to it. He knew he had allies, friends who would side with him over the Soul Society any day. Kisuke, his dad, Uryu, Chad, Orihime, Nel, the visored and fullbringers; hell, even some Arrancar like Grimmjow were a lot more amicable to him now, especially towards him over the shinigami anyway. As for the Soul Reapers in the Gotei he knew, like Rukia and Renji... well, he wouldn't want them to be forced to make such a choice.
A cloud passed overhead, prompting Ichigo to scan around. The sky was slowly becoming overcast, but what really caught his attention were that some of the buildings had lights switching on inside of them. He whistled in awe at the sight. This place hadn't been so detailed; so real before. His own personal metropolis, of grand designs of architecture and amazing feats of engineering the world over, and it was all his. He'd be coming back here often, and not just for the bankai refinement he had planned. He reached to his side, and unfurled the cloth sheathe of his dagger.
"Old Man... the Quincy blade in my left hand... you agreed that it was made out of reishi, so it can be reshaped, right? But my clothes, they're woven out of reishi too, you mentioned. That got me thinking..." Ichigo held his dagger to the sky, inspecting it against the faltering light.
An imperceptible smile surfaced on the youth's face. "Yes, Ichigo, you assume correctly. Although its base is that of a asauchi, that blade can be reshaped to your subconscious will, just like your clothes are. Just as your coat used to in your old bankai. If you wish, you can make it return to that form."
"My old 'bankai', eh? That was actually the super-compression of all my reiryoku, and my jacket was part of it... it was something I wore..." he thought of Quilge Opie, and how he wore a harness and boots of reishi, and of Candice Katnipp, and her wings and halo of thunder, "...that was a Vollständig, wasn't it?" Ichigo was rather pleased with himself at figuring that out, and a shallow vindicative smile graced his lips as he returned his vision back towards the monochrome duo and gauged his Quincy half's reaction.
"Not exactly a Complete Holy Form, but yes, the principles are extremely similar." A small gust of wind blustered past the trio, their achromatic attire flowing in the fast air. "The bankai you used against Yhwach, you'll notice, is extremely similar to his blade as it is here." the ice-eyed teen spirit motioned to the hollow still leaning against his massive, white cleaver. "The missing black core, is the small amount of Quincy power you managed to channel into the blade. I am not truly a shinigami spirit, and it was your first and only time wielding it thus far, after all."
"So then... my old 'bankai'," Ichigo held up a quoting gesture, two fingers curled over as he referred to his bootleg partial Vollständig. "was from my Quincy half, with minimal access to my hollow side from the mask..." Ichigo nodded to White, who gazed on expectantly as he pieced it all together. "...and my true bankai is from my hollow half, with minimal access to my Quincy side at its core." Ichigo drew the snow-white longsword from his back, and crossed it over with the dagger in his left hand as he inspected them both. "So far, the best balance of both worlds is my true shikai, but that isn't a hundred percent of either..." Ichigo's hazel eyes widened as he realised what he had to achieve to truly master himself. "But I have drawn on a hundred percent of everything all at once, before... one time... and that was..."
"...The Final Getsuga Tenshō." The Quincy spirit finished. He stepped onto a window, his form was reflected in the translucent glass pane. The wind grew stronger, causing his coat's lower section to billow out behind him. "You just need to learn to contain it, without the loss of your abilities."
Ichigo closed his eyes, feeling the movement of his orange hair in the wind and ruffling of his clothes. He took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, there was no doubt, nor fear of failure, nor second-guessing nor questioning in his eyes. "What do I need to do to master the Mugetsu?"
Zangetsu shrugged. "Dunno. We can't fire it ourselves, since it takes everything you have after all. You're us, but each of us are only half of you. I'm no Quincy." Zangetsu shifted, reconsidering as his white hair drifted in the sky breeze. "Maybe if we were merged... whatever, good thing you've got the first part down, at least." Ichigo raised an eyebrow at that, imploring him to elaborate. White went on, "You know, the whole merging with your zanpakutō part you gotta achieve first? Where did you pull your sealed blade out from when you first came here?"
Ichigo probed the swords in his hands as it dawned on him that he really had just pulled out a sword on instinct against Zangetsu's 'greeting' when he had arrived here without one. It was kinda like what Aizen could do, actually. He thought back to immediately after reforging Zangetsu, of how the blades had dissipated in his hands but he hadn't questioned it then at all.
"But... shouldn't there be a sign? Like the gauntlet from after the dangai a couple years ago?"
"There already is a sign, a pretty damn obvious one that that ghost lady pointed out." Zangetsu pointed towards his own jet-black horns, and Ichigo unconsciously reached for his temples only to find none there. "No, not in here dumbass. Out there, we're all just one entity, so of course it'll show there. In here is where we're a bit more distinct. As soon as you acknowledged that 'the blade is you', you merged with Zangetsu. For good, this time."
"But what about the Old Man?" Ichigo twisted his head to his manifestation of a teenage Yhwach. "Shouldn't there be a sign I merged with you?"
"There doesn't need to be, Ichigo. You are a Quincy, and so through your blood runs mine. That is already enough. As a Quincy, you should even have access to my abilities in your living body, which you should regain upon exiting this soulscape." he informed.
"Wait, wait, wait–" Ichigo sheathed his blades again and waved his hand around, shaking his muddled head. "–You're saying that when I wake up, I'll be in my real body?"
The Quincy spirit folded his free hand into a hidden pocket in his hooded jacket. "Did you not regain it as soon as you were sent back to the Kurosaki Clinic by Ōetsu Nimaiya, remember? It is the same circumstance as when you regained your spiritual powers to face Kūgo Ginjō. You don't remember a body being left behind then, do you?"
Ichigo didn't enjoy looking back on that fight; it was the first time he had ever willingly made the choice to kill somebody, and gone through with it. He appreciated it now, being given the chance to take his time with coming to terms with it, and becoming acquainted with choosing to take a life before having to do it again and again in the Thousand-Year-Blood-War. Still, it was against a man he had befriended at his lowest, who honestly, from what the Zero Squad were apparently planning for him, was maybe just a little justified, after all? Wasn't something like this what drove Ginjō over the edge in the first place? Albeit what Ginjō wasn't justified in, however, was screwing with his family. For messing with them, he paid the price. Ichigo made sure of it, but he didn't have to like it. At least he seemed more mellowed out in the afterlife.
He thought back to his transformation on the mansion's rooftop, on that dark, rainy evening. His spirit spoke the truth; there was no body left behind to worry about as he stepped into that battle to the death. "You're right... well, at least people will be able to see me, and I'll still have my combat pass. Maybe I can just get a plane home." Ichigo stared out at the sideways city wistfully. "So then, looks like I've still got a ways to grow, huh?" Ichigo flicked his head back to the personified halves of his soul, and grinned. "I'm glad."
The Quincy spirit whipped forth his daitō as he responded, his voice had a proud lilt to it, but his face was as calm as ever. "That is good to hear. We begin immediately."
Zangetsu nodded eagerly as he drew his hollow cleaver. "Knew you had it in ya. Now, just try not to die."
"...That doesn't sound too hard. What're we waiting for? Let's get to work."
Taiyang Xiao-long set down his scroll only a few minutes before his recent visitor upstairs awoke. He left the living room, Zwei sleeping on a cushion, shutting the door softly behind him whilst listening to the splashing sounds of the bathroom taps. He'd already contacted Ozpin a day ago, but the bastard hadn't replied. He knew he'd seen his report of some unfamiliar faunus on Patch calling himself Ichigo Kurosaki coming to stay; the man had probably read it five times over by now.
This was the head schemer of Remnant, after all, and he'd never let his guard down about his plans, never again. He didn't want to send his daughters to his school, but it was the closest one, and the academy that was directly linked to Signal. Not as if he could explain the reason why to Ruby and Yang if he tried to bring up going to Haven instead, that would be disclosing the inner circle's secrets, he thought with sarcastic derision.
As he stepped out onto his front porch, pulling on gardening gloves, his thoughts shifted towards the young man claiming to be on his way to see Ozpin. Specifically to see Ozpin, not Beacon. Faunus weren't unheard of on Patch, but this guy was unusual. Horns and an eye? What animal was that? A chameleon?
Twin animalian traits were rare, but not rare enough to make him seem like he was some genetic anomaly. The real red flag was that he called him Mr Rose. He'd slammed the door in shock when someone had the audacity to call him that, to his face no less. He strolled across his front yard, across the chalky gravel path to his short-cut lawn. Where did the stranger hear that name? Was it worth interrogating him on it? Taiyang set to work with a pastel blue painted spade, digging into the soft brown soil in the flowerbeds just inside his fence.
He put a little mesh bag aside as he kneeled down. The spring bulbs inside would need to be established before Winter arrived in a couple months. Still, he'd put on a nicer, casual front to see how his unexpected guest would react. The lad honestly seemed pretty polite, actually. He even washed his bowl in the sink, without asking yesterday. That was better than Ruby and Yang's table manners! If he was an unsavoury agent, why would he enter the home of someone he apparently knew was a contact of Ozpin? A disgruntled contact, who wouldn't want anything to do with the man, but still a contact who would message him immediately that an unknown traveller was on his way. Unknown to Tai, anyway. Not as if he didn't expect Ozpin to have an entire freaking secret service to himself.
Maybe that was how the stranger knew the name Rose? Did he use to know or work with his wife on her missions? He couldn't bring himself to ask, and the guy looked quite a bit too young. All he'd sent to Oz was that a horned faunus was on his way to meet him, and that he had something of the utmost importance to say. No way in hell he was gonna mention it had something to do with the witch over text. The guy, if he was telling the truth, would bring it up anyway once he met the man. Hell, maybe the headmaster was already expecting the guy. Besides, he should be out of his hair right about... now-
He heard the solid wood door open, revealing the late teenager from the day before's morning. He yawned, and stretched, wringing his fingers together before extending his hands out backwards. He knelt down side-on to Taiyang's perspective on the patio's wooden decking as the combat-professor turned to watch him, and began tying his metal-tipped shoelaces. Shoelaces, that he didn't have the day before. The adolescent was wearing an open black hoodie with square patches on the sides of the upper arms, a plain white t-shirt underneath and light grey jeans. The trainers he had just finished tying up were a loud bright orange all over, with a small... air hole? As well as a large tick on the side. A logo? He'd never seen it before. Must've been Mistralian. It didn't matter. What did matter, was that he was quite clearly not wearing any of that yesterday. He couldn't have brought those clothes, he had no luggage on him other than that massive bandaged sword yesterday.
"Good morning... or should I say afternoon? It's been over a day since you went to bed you know, now it's almost evening." Taiyang waved at him from his crouched position in his colourful flowerbed. "Are you really about to leave at this time? You said not to wake you up, so I didn't. You saw the food I left on your bedside table?" The guy hadn't even stirred when he went in there to leave it, he remained as still as a man self-possessed no matter what noise he made. It was mildly unnerving.
"The leftover pasta in the container, right? Don't worry, I washed it before I left. The red washing up liquid, right?" He Ichigo stood to his full height, and Taiyang froze at getting a full view of his carrot-topped head as he met his gaze. He blinked, and stared, fixating on just over his guest's right ear.
"Y-your horns..."
The traveller ran a hand through his orange hair, jolting as he realised something.
"I still have a horn!?" he exclaimed in shock.
"You're missing a horn! And, –and your eyes? What happened!? Should I call an ambulance?" Taiyang was freaking out now, he really didn't want to have to deal with this, especially right at the end of the weekend.
"I'm missing a horn? I shouldn't have any at all! –oh, oh crap, crap–" Ichigo began pulling at the horn on his left temple, the one on his real body. This was bad, this was really really bad.
"What do you mean you shouldn't have any!? Did it fall off!? Do they do that!?"
Should he cut it off? Yhwach ripped one off of him and he could just regenerate it later... no, no, he couldn't willingly self-mutilate himself like that. He'd need... he'd just need a gigai, yeah. Maybe Urahara could help with this. Would help with this. He'd fix it, and tell him why there was a freaking hollow horn on his human-ish body-
"Hey! Listen to me! Your name is Ichigo, right?" A rough garden-gloved hand grasped him by the upper arm. He turned to the blonde guy, Taiyang, and breathed out, calming down. These people wouldn't freak out; they saw him yesterday when he was even more hollowfied in his spirit body and didn't bat an eyelid. His host was actually losing it because he'd lost a horn overnight. Ichigo knew he shouldn't be freaking out, but he was. He knew it was a part of him, as much as his other facial features, and he even liked how they looked on him, honestly.
But in his spiritual body, he'd only have to deal with those in the know. In his actual body, where everyone could see it, –now that would be a problem. Maybe he could pass it off as a costume thing, or, even better, a really big dyed spike of gelled hair? Yeah, now that could work. It even came out from behind his hairline! Sure, his reputation as a delinquent was bad enough already, and this would only add fuel to the fire, but there were loads of people who dyed their hair at university, right? ...right?
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. This is... normal? Like when a lizard loses its tail? Or a deer loses its antlers in Spring?" Ichigo sweated.
"It's Autumn! And why are you saying that like it's a question!?" Taiyang yelped. "Am I gonna find a horn in my house somewhere?"
"No, no, it... uh... you know what, let me just show you. I can't really be bothered to hide it right now, honestly." Ichigo shook off the green-gloved hand from his arm, and flashed with reiatsu. The mysterious guest was surrounded by a wisp of white aura, before he was inexplicably wearing what appeared to be a restored version of the shredded kimono he was garbed in yesterday. On his back, the gigantic cleaver was there, only now it looked like a much more refined version of what he carried only the day before, and the bandages were actually overlaid rather neatly in a diagonal cross-stitch pattern.
Instead of a single point, the spine dipped in a bit under the wrappings before curving back out to the tip, like a very wide falchion. The sword still didn't have a guard, but at least now it had a solid diamond-patterned gripped handle that matched the band across the visitor's chest, instead of the exposed tang from his first meeting. At the base of the pommel, a metallic chain dangled out, quiet and without clinking in the windless air. On his head, his features were back to the way they were before, with an ethereal golden-yellow iris set in night-black sclera, and both his horns were back.
Taiyang was flabbergasted, and took a second to shut his jaw. "That's uh... a neat semblance, you got there. Or is it like... magical shapeshifting? I know a couple of people who can do that..."
Ichigo paused, before answering bemusedly, "Spiritual transformation, but sure, let's go with the latter option. Call it magic, if you want. Which way is Ozpin's academy, again?"
"...Beacon's not far to the East of here, on the mainland... why?" he was so transfixed by the shinigami's transformation, that he didn't think to question why a supposed agent of Ozpin didn't even know where the academy of Sanus was.
"I was just about to leave." Ichigo smiled gratefully at Taiyang, the guy was a pretty good man. He didn't have to give him food or a room, but he did. "Thanks for the help Tai, I owe you one. I'll be out of your hair, now."
"You're ...welcome? It was no problem, really." Taiyang found himself smiling, despite of himself. The lad, Ichigo, wasn't that bad, by all rights. He reached out, and took the teen's black-marked hand, shaking it firmly. Ichigo didn't seem to expect it, but reciprocated all the same. "See ya 'round, Ichigo. Have a safe trip."
"I'll make sure." Ichigo turned away from him, and bent his... knees? "Bye." In a blur, he vanished.
Taiyang stood there, confused out of his mind, and rapidly shook his head with his eyes closed to recompose himself. Checking his rough yellow cargo shorts, then his half-buttoned shirt, he at last remembered he had left his scroll in the living room. Shrugging, he went back to planting his bulbs before dusk came in. You know what? Never mind, that was Ozpin's problem, not his, and he'd make sure Ozpin's problems were never his family's problems again.
Ichigo had elected to travel over the ocean, this time, and not under it. He'd need to see his destination, after all, and visibility was best on land. Even better at night, with his left eye, since he could see clearly with it in the dark and a lit-up academy should be like a beacon to him, pun unintended. Hence why he chose to leave at the onset of evening, just after waking up in his physical body. It was nice that he had access to it still, so if all else failed he could just find an airport and fly home... if he figured out a way to hide his horn. Maybe he really would have to break it off, and pull on a beanie hat...
After crossing the off-white sandy bar of the coastline, he bounded a kilometer over the arcadian countryside, past rolling hills, plains and mostly empty roads. Even so, he still saw the odd traveller from time to time even as the sun began to set. Dusk set in, dyeing the sky above purple, sprinkled with little pinpricks of light appearing in the heavens above. There were a lot of stars out, far more than he could see at similar times in Karakura, thanks to the lack of light pollution.
Ichigo saw a crossroads below, and spied a group of travellers approaching it. Landing in front of them on the cobblestone pathway, he flashed back into his corporeal form. The path was a bit lower than the grassy knolls on either side of it, and was lined with the odd willow tree every few hundred meters. He feigned walking back towards the group, tugging his hood up over his horn, and set forth to greet them.
All of them were dressed in an odd fashion, but that was probably just the local style. What did stand out, however, was that all of them were armed, even the women. Was this an open-carry country? He'd have to be more careful walking around in his one-horned physical body. He'd sensed reiryoku arranged in a similar 'shell' to how Taiyang's and Summer's were arranged, so at least a few of the travellers should've been familiar enough with the apparently local 'faunus' spirits to not be spooked by his horn, but he still covered it up nevertheless.
Said horn wasn't completely hidden by his hood, but he twisted his head away from meeting them head on, and the darkness of the night, without any lights along the cobbled path, mostly hid his face. The woman in the back with a toddler in her arms turned away at the very sight of him, and a few stood back warily. What gives? He didn't even have Zangetsu on his back when he was like this, and they were the ones with guns! The man who seemed to be the leader of their little caravan, an older man with a greying silver-mane of hair combed back, and rough stubble, spoke rather passive-aggressively to him, but he still helped him out, probably to get him to leave as soon as possible. He told him which pathway was to Beacon, in a place called Vale, at least.
Ichigo begrudgingly thanked the man, and walked that way until they were out of his sight, before flashing back into his shinigami robes and shunpo'ing back into the sky at a relaxed pace. He was on his way back, his way back home, as soon as he got this Ozpin guy of what was hopefully the Western Branch of the Soul Society to get in touch with Head Captain Shunsui. He'd need a rundown on losses; he had only a slight idea whether his friends and fellows were okay. Hell, he had no idea if half the Gotei Thirteen were even still alive. He'd need to get his peace of mind, first, and when he heard the casualty list, he'd take it as it came. After that, he'd see Yuzu, Karin, and his dad. They'd order takeout, or maybe go to a fancy restaurant, or something. There was a nice one that had recently opened on a corner not too far from the clinic, actually. He'd like to go there.
- –—{}—– -
It was a cloudless night, as Ichigo dashed through the boundless sky. He strode within the sea of stars, roving his heterochromatic eyes over the unfamiliar celestial shapes. It was a cloudless night; yet not a moonless one. Ichigo stopped, deathly still. Paling, like a man possessed. Deathly silent. He did not scream, nor shout, nor yell. Instead, his only response, was a frown. A frown, that contorted with electric, chilling comprehension, into an open-mouthed gape of sheer despair. Harrowing, terrible despair, with contrasting eyes wide and brows drawn tight.
The moon... it was...
The most familiar of all celestial bodies, the world's primordial natural satellite, was not whole; to the left, it was still intact, but the right... the right side simply wasn't there. It wasn't there!
Great, white segments, the size of continents, hovered in the gouged out void, where the core was solid rock, not still molten, as if it had already been exposed to the alginic vacuum of space for eons prior. The closer Ichigo stared at it, the more transfixed he was, the greater the disparities became apparent; even the scarred craters that marred the lunar surface were in new, unfamiliar locations. The darker seas, they were all unrecognisable.
The moon had likely been rotated by whatever force had obliterated half of it, revealing the dark side that had been obscured to the naked eye for all of time, breaking it out of its tidal-locked face. It was far closer too, far closer than it should be. It took up a much larger potion of the sky, rather than a mere coin, it had the diameter of a football. The wind picked up, rustling, unsettling, ruffling his bicoloured shihakushō, yet the rest of Ichigo, from his upturned pale horns, to his staring, pinprick mismatched eyes, to his taut jaw, to his lax arms at his side to his torpid feet standing upon an invisible reishi platform, far above the foreign world below, was rigid. Rigid, paralysed out of sheer shock and discombobulation at the sight of the broken moon.
The moon was a full as it would ever get on Remnant. The soft wind blew through a grassy plain below, oak trees sparse yet looming high where they grew in the wilderness. An unseen beowolf howled, sensing the negativity now blanketing the grassland and lacing the air for miles around.
Space itself fizzled as it burst into unseen static.
NEXT: 4 - FULL BROKEN MOON - [Batalla Batalla]
Author notes:
This chapter was pretty hard to write. I knew what I wanted to have happen, but getting there, now that was the challenge. These chapters are just meant to only be 5k words, did you know? I just keep writing dialogue, describing things, and boom, it's almost 10,000 words long, completely accidentality. No way am I gonna delete words, though. I hate doing that crap for those limited-word essays. I think the little descriptions, the little additions to the picture in your head really do matter. I had to avoid actually writing the dialogue for that band of ambiguous travellers Ichigo met, otherwise it'd drag on for another few thousand words. Also, yeah I'm BS'ing a reason why he doesn't drop his body out when he turns into a Reaper, but c'mon, imagine how tedious and messy it'd be to describe/read through what happens to his body every single time he powers up. If only my coursework was this easy...
200 follows, 40 reviews and 150 favourites, in only two chapters? * confetti * That's incredible. This is fun.
Here, have an international fight across multiple real famous skyscrapers, too. Bet you didn't expect that. The unnamed twin-building is based off of one in South-East Asia.
I wanted to be sure I did Ichigo's inner world right, especially post-The Blade Is Me. (Which is the best scene in Bleach, and one of the best scenes in manga, fite me). Now then, I know the new KINO anime makes it seem like that was 'goodbye forever' to Zangetsu and the Old Man, and I am completely fine with that. But:
A) This is a fanfic.
B) You see highest-level captains casually talking to their zanpakutō in the latter TYBW.
Also,
C) Ichigo seems like the type of guy who, even if he doesn't have to, would still pull them out from time to time (in the same way Quincy-Tensa pulled White out of his chest in the Dangai) to converse with them.
I made sure to refer to Zangetsu as a mirror, or a reflection of Ichigo, avoiding words like "copy" or "facsimile", because that's the whole point of TBIM. Ichigo accepted Zangetsu; not the other way around. White wasn't declawed, he didn't lose his 'edge', which I'm glad for. He IS Ichigo, a part of him, anyway. It was a nice chance to show them in an updated bankai form, too. Hopefully calling his Quincy half the 'Old Man' when he's in his young form wasn't too confusing, but this is probably the only time you'll see him like that, so this isn't a regular thing. Hollow=White=Zangetsu, and Quincy=Old Man. They got to show off their versions of his bankai swords, and believe it or not this isn't OC stuff (Except for the shikai command... but c'mon, admit it, it'd be perfect) but actually based off of an interview with Kubo:
[imgurDOTcom/a/LHgpUF9]
So therefore, Ichigo's new Hell oneshot blade (which he has now in this story) is his sealed state, and he can choose his bankai's form. He's not gonna get these things immediately, and there won't be any chapter-long explicit "training" segments. This was just done early so that I can set it all up to happen in the background offscreen and call on it as I see fit. You won't see his inner world again, not for a very long time (if at all), because that's what makes their interactions with him special. If he talks to them again, it'll be for advice, not power. The Mugetsu is still his strongest form, in my opinion, since it uses EVERYTHING (and looks mental). You might be thinking "bro that's ridiculous, why tf would you make him train more offscreen when he oneshots everyone?" Well that, is simply for variety's sake, by increasing the scope of what he can call upon, which I've now justified. That, and I have a (very) far off reason for it...
So there you go, reviewer who wanted to know what Ichigo was gonna learn here. Surprise, to the one guy who was wondering about what the horn was– it's Ichigo's proof of merging with Zangetsu- which just so happens to resemble a faunus trait, definitely important to note for the future. Finally... extreme mindf]ck time! Imagine his final face matches that scene/panel where he learns the truth about the Old Man. I know you were looking forward to it...