Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth and Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo. I own nothing of either of them and make no profit from them. I am only playing in the worlds they gave us.
This is more like it. I was able to hammer this chapter out at a much more enjoyable pace. Although, I have alternately loved and hated this chapter as I wrote it. I could live without the angst and after an editing session I have to wonder why I had such mixed opinions.
With that said, here it is.
A Chance Encounter
Chapter 19
Even evil, self centred, imperious schemers needed a day off now and then and that was the reasoning that found Cinder Fall walking through the city of Vale unaccompanied by any of her entourage. They got on her nerves badly enough as it was so she certainly didn't need them tagging along today. Threats to immolate Mercury and Emerald because of their incessant bickering could only placate her so much before she might actually do it, but they were still useful pieces to her.
As for Neo, well it was no secret that the pint sized assassin hated her guts and she looked like she wanted to stab all three of them. Tension among the group was high, especially with how much time they had been forced to spend together while confined to their dorm room and even she could only take so much.
Thus she had embarked on this little excursion just to give herself some breathing room. Settling into a seat at an outdoor cafe, she placed her order and watched the people come and go around her. She despised them. They were ants, insignificant ants every one of them. They went about their utterly mundane daily lives unconcerned, unaware of what hardship and discomfort was. Unaware of what it was like to be used and abused by others, what it was like to go to bed every night, exhausted, beaten, and half starved. They didn't know what despair was but she would give them a lesson in that soon enough.
Her order arrived and she took a moment to savour it. Rich dark coffee that was perfectly complemented by the sweet pastry she had chosen. Too bad she hadn't discovered this place earlier because when the despair she sought to bring came, it likely would be swept away. The plan didn't specifically call for her to bring a rain of fire down upon the heads of the citizens of Vale, the dual tasks of seizing the rest of the Fall Maiden's power and using the Vytal Festival to sow the seeds of discord and distrust among the kingdoms were the primary goals. But why waste an opportunity to also strike against the soft, weak, and all too privileged masses? How could she not return the favour of stepping on them the way they had once stepped on her?
Of course, the sense of satisfaction she would derive from that would only come to pass if the plan worked. She wasn't doubting that they would succeed in the end, but there had been too many bumps in the road along the way. They had been assured by Headmaster Lionheart that not attending all of their classes while in the role of visiting students wouldn't be much of an issue. It never really had been before with the host school simply reporting the lack of attendance to the appropriate Headmaster and rarely acting upon it themselves.
Something had obviously changed in that regard, although she supposed that was an oversight that she should have taken into account. By not participating they were looking to blend into the background and not stand out, but apparently it had produced the opposite effect. Their lack of attendance had been noticed right away by two new teachers and that was strange on its own. Two new teachers coming in to oversee an advanced combat training class and doing so just after the start of the year's second semester.
She had no idea why Ozpin would do that, but she also wasn't familiar with how he went about his business. It could have been an opportunity that had fallen into his lap and been too good to pass up, or he sensed or was aware that something was up and had brought in extra help. Maybe he was just looking to safeguard the gravely wounded Fall Maiden and they were acting as teachers as their cover. But why not bring them in immediately after the wounded Maiden had come into his care? These were all questions she had considered before but still didn't have answers to.
No matter why they were at Beacon, Ichigo Kurosaki and Yoruichi Shihoin were an unknown variable that she hadn't foreseen. That being said, of course the ones to immediately run afoul of that variable had been Emerald and Mercury. The first time on the first day of the new combat class was unavoidable, but the second time where they were caught by Yoruichi denigrating the other students where they could be overheard, that was inexcusable. It seemed that 'keep a low profile' and 'draw no attention to yourselves' was a concept that they continued to have a hard time with.
The new class had also been an inconvenience to her plans when it took two of the better first year teams out of her sight and they couldn't scout them out for any new abilities and methods of fighting that they were learning. While she was sure that her team was more than skilled enough to take out pretty much any team in the school, she didn't like having gaps in their information. How they fought and what abilities they possessed was information she needed in order to set up matches to the best advantage for her plans. The only solutions that came to mind were to find a way to spy on the advanced class, or challenge the two teams to some friendly sparring. The first would be hard since the instructors were obviously highly experienced and would be hard to stay hidden from, especially if they were here as Ozpin's watchdogs.
The friendly spar was out because it would be too much of a radical departure from the behaviour her team had already presented since arriving. There was also the possibility of Neo being recognized by some of those students, even in her disguise. All she would have to do was use her Semblance and the cat could very well be out of the bag, which was why she hadn't been staying in the dorm with them in the first place.
There was also the unexplained issue of that beastly vision she saw, and that she still flashed back to far too often for her liking. She was no closer now to knowing what it was or why she had seen it than she had been then and that bothered her. She had never seen anything remotely like it before nor had she ever felt such bone chilling fear. She knew of no reason why her mind would conjure up something like that on its own and she was convinced that someone must have projected that image to her somehow. If so, who and just as importantly, why?
While she wasn't generally given to engaging in wild conjecture, she couldn't help but feel that all of these things together were too much of a coincidence. The problem of their attendance and the run in with the new teachers could have been just what they seemed to be and were otherwise meaningless. Even the vision, while so malicious in nature, could have been someone playing a prank on a visiting student with their Semblance, but she wasn't a firm believer in mere consequences. All of these things had happened after the sudden arrival of the new teachers, yet she had never seen the two paying an undue level of attention to her group. If anything they seemed pretty focused on their own chosen group of students.
She didn't want to dwell on it to the point of paranoia, but she wasn't going to dismiss the notion outright that something was going on. She would have to keep her eyes and ears open and remind the others to do the same. Which brought her to their latest little observational project, finding out whatever they could about Penny Polendina. Sightings of the girl had become scarce since the day Emerald and Mercury trailed her around, as if someone had realized she was being watched. They swore that they had not been obvious about it and had followed from a distance, never getting too close to the girl.
She had seen the video they had taken and the only thing even remotely notable was that the way the girl moved didn't seem to be quite as fluid as everyone else around her. That in itself didn't necessarily mean anything and there could be any number of reasons for it. Of more interest was the photo of the deep shoe print in the mud and she had even gone out in the evening and looked at it for herself to be sure. There was also the matter of the level of security around the girl.
At the dance she had been accompanied by at least two Atlesian soldiers at any time. During school hours she was always in the presence of the girl Emerald and Mercury had seen her with, and in the rare glimpses of her since then she was shadowed by soldiers again as soon as she stepped out of the building. There didn't seem to be any overt or obvious reason for Ironwood to have security on this girl in the manner that he did. It was possible that if she was indeed closely related to Dr. Polendina that she might have protection around her, but other than Watts she didn't know of anyone who would have any sort of negative interest there, and Watts wouldn't do anything unless Salem ordered it.
Finally, there was one of her biggest headaches, Adam Taurus and the White Fang. She didn't really give a damn about their 'fight for equality', though it was somewhat amusing that Adam and his little band of thugs thought that you could achieve equality through fear and intimidation. It was such an obvious automatic fail that you couldn't help but laugh at them. They didn't even seem to realize that the rhetoric they spouted was geared more towards conquest and not equality and they didn't even seem to care if they spilled the blood of their own kind along the way.
It was also a laugh that they weren't so principled that they wouldn't take money and material aid from a human. No matter what kind of pretty packaging they wanted to dress their cause up in, they were still little more than a band of thugs seeking to commit murder, mayhem, and bloodshed and Adam was the worst of the lot.
He had already been on the edge of unstable and obsessive, but this mystery vigilante that had been dogging his group for the last several weeks had driven him to distraction and that was before he got his ass handed to him on video for the whole world to see. As amusing as seeing him get trounced had been, it did not bode well for her plan and she had no idea how much she could rely on him right now. There was no clear indication of how many members he still currently had at his disposal or if he was even up to the task of pulling off his part of the plan. She hadn't heard from him since his diatribe after the beat down. For all she knew he could still be raging and rampaging out in the woods somewhere rather than pulling himself and his piece of the organization together and getting ready for the job at hand.
She didn't care if he went berserk once the attack started, as she had told him the last time they spoke, she encouraged it. He could do whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted, however he wanted to do it and for as long as he wanted to do it to them. But, she needed him to be focused on the task at hand leading up to that point and right now she had no assurances that he was and it wasn't as if she could go out and find him and see for herself.
She didn't particularly want to and she certainly was not pleased about it, but if she didn't hear from him soon she would have to make the call herself because she needed to know the state of things. One thing was for certain, and that was if he failed to deliver he would suffer the consequences and it would not be quick or painless, but it would definitely be final. Failure of the plan was not an option and she would have no hesitation in turning anyone who threatened its success into a pile of ashes.
She sighed. This was not why she came out here today. She was supposed to be clearing her mind, not reminding herself of all of the issues that had been plaguing this operation and refuelling her anger. Thus far, nothing insurmountable had happened. There were annoyances, yes, but there was nothing that she hadn't been able to deal with and when it was all boiled down the only real potential problem she had was the situation with Adam Taurus and that was something she was seriously going to have to deal with soon. But for now, she would order another cup of coffee and enjoy the weather among the ants.
Advanced Combat Class Arena
Once lunch was done, leftovers put away, dishes washed and the table reset for supper, they all gathered back around the low table to hear more stories, beginning with one that a certain red hooded girl was dying to hear.
"Go back to Ichigo's ordeal in Kisuke's 'shattered shaft' training," Yoruichi began. "As you can probably guess, that's not how a Shinigami obtains a Zanpakuto." Ichigo just shrugged. "As a matter of fact, by the time we're done you'll learn that what Ichigo had wasn't truly a Zanpakuto at all and certainly not by the methods of its creator." She cocked her head to the side for a moment, thinking. "Actually, there is a point of commonality but we'll get to that."
"Oetsu Nimaiya was one of the Royal Guard tasked with protecting the Soul King," Ichigo explained. "All of the members of the guard were responsible for the creation of something significant before they became members. What he created was the Zanpakuto, or more accurately I guess, the method for a Shinigami to obtain a Zanpakuto."
"Every student entering the Shinoreijutsuin, the Spiritual Arts Academy, was given what looked to be a plain Katana sword," Yoruichi continued. "It was known as an Asauchi and all Asauchi in existence were forged by Oetsu...and they were forged from combined Hollow and Shinigami souls."
"What?!" Weiss exclaimed, beating the others to the punch.
"He used souls to make swords?!" Jaune blurted out, going pale.
"That is a very disturbing concept," Ren said gravely. Nora and Blake looked like they might be sick.
"I know it sounds pretty gruesome," she admitted. "But what he created gave the Shinigami the power to do their intended job. Keeping the balance of souls, helping the dead to pass on, and purifying corrupted souls. Without it, they would have needed to rely purely on Kido alone and that may not have been enough."
"A normal sword wouldn't have worked against a Hollow," Ichigo said. "It would have been no different than when I attacked that one with a baseball bat." He gave them a level gaze. "The Asauchi weren't the only things created from souls. The Hogyoku was, both Kisuke's and the one Aizen was trying to perfect, and so was the Hollow he created known as White. The Hollow that infected my mother and was later passed along to my soul."
There was a collective gasp and then dead silence. They were all looking a little green.
"Okay, everyone take a couple of deep breaths," Yoruichi instructed. "One thing you need to keep in mind is that this is mild compared to other things in the history of the Shinigami." Everyone's eyes flew wide at that statement. "They began as a collection of some of the worst killers and criminals ever known because that kind of savagery was needed in the beginning to gain some measure of control. And most of what went on at Squad Twelve under the control of Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi is worse than anything you can imagine...even worse than using souls to make Asauchi. In later years that savagery was replaced by complacency, stagnation, and too much of a reliance on an old, outdated way of doing things."
"All which led to them getting blindsided by Aizen and then Yhwach," Ichigo concluded. "I know it's ugly and a lot to take in, but we did tell you all that we wouldn't hide or sugar coat things, whether it was about your progress when training or about anything else we told you."
"Every society has its ugly side," Yoruichi said. "I saw it as someone born and raised in Soul Society, even as a noble, and I saw it when I was roaming around the world of the living for over a century in exile. I've even seen it here on Remnant after we awakened. Sadly, it seems to be a constant."
"Despite its origins, something truly remarkable does come from the Asauchi," Ichigo said. "If their wielder does things right and commits themselves."
"How so?" Ruby asked. Her enthusiasm wasn't what it had been before, and he couldn't blame her, but she was still curious and so were the others. Though, perhaps cautiously so now.
Yoruichi picked up the explanation. "When the students were given their Asauchi, they were told to keep it with them at all times and to put their spirit energy into it. The goal was to have it awaken its own consciousness and then be able to communicate with it."
"It's own consciousness?" Blake questioned.
Yoruichi nodded. "By putting your spirit energy into the Asauchi you are in essence forging a link to it through your own soul in order to create a sentient presence within the blade. How long this might take depends on how diligent the Shinigami is in giving it their spirit energy and training with it, it can even depend on how powerful they are."
"You mean it's alive?" Ruby asked, eyes wide with wonder.
"Essentially, yes," Ichigo answered. "The next goal is for the Shinigami to be able to communicate with the spirit of the sword and eventually learn its name. Without the name, you can't gain access to the Zanpakuto's power."
"In the spirit world names have power," Yoruichi said. "Whether it's the Zanpakuto's name, the name of one of its techniques, even the name and full incantation of a Kido spell, all names were key to unlocking and being able to use the full scope and potential of its power."
"Some can hear the spirit's name fairly quickly," Ichigo said. "For others it might take a while. There were some who still wouldn't know it by the time they graduated the academy and became full fledged Shinigami."
"There were even some who never learned the name," Yoruichi carried on. "If you aren't able to hear the name it's most likely because you aren't ready to be able to hear it or that you haven't proven yourself worthy of hearing it, which can be a pretty harsh thing since that spirit literally is a part of your own soul."
"That's what you meant!" Ruby exclaimed excitedly. "That day at lunch you said that your blades weren't just weapons or something you could use like an extension of yourself. You said you don't wield a weapon, you are the weapon, that you are Zangetsu and Zangetsu is you."
"Exactly," he said with a smile. "The Zanpakuto spirit is literally born of your own soul, so how can they be anything else but a part of you and you a part of them?"
"That's amazing," Ren gasped. Despite the disturbing origin of how the Asauchi was made, what it could become really was something to behold.
"Sadly there were too many Shinigami who couldn't seem to reach that level of understanding, of seeing the relationship as an equal partnership," Yoruichi said. "They treated their Zanpakuto like a mere tool or something to subjugate and control. The consequence was that they never realized the full potential of their Zanpakuto or of themselves."
"The spirits are both a part of you and distinct individual beings with their own personalities and beliefs," Ichigo said. "It is also entirely up to them if they will share their power with you or not. Most will have some criteria of their own on what makes a wielder worthy. Their goal is not to deny you that power or their help, but you can't just expect to have it or take it. Like everything else, you need to earn it. To earn their trust and their respect."
"But you didn't get your Zanpakuto through an Asauchi," Pyrrha said.
"Not at first, no," Ichigo said. "Although at least part of the method was close. When Aizen made the Hollow known as White, it was essentially done the same way an Asauchi is made, only it was made up of strictly Shinigami souls. When what was left of White became part of me when I was born, it merged together with my Shinigami power and essentially became my Zanpakuto. The way White was created also essentially made him a pseudo Asauchi."
"You have two blades, so does that mean you have two spirits?" Weiss asked.
"Yes, and it's a little bit of a complicated story," he answered. "It might actually be easier to explain if I bring both spirits out."
"Huh?" Jaune asked, just as puzzled as the rest of them.
"You can bring out the spirits in your swords?" Yang questioned.
"You have to be pretty powerful to do it at all, let alone make it last for long," Yoruichi smirked. "But that's not a problem for him."
There was a shimmer to either side of him and two beings appeared. On his right was a pale, negative image of himself with black and yellow eyes and dressed in a white Shinigami uniform. Disturbingly, where his uniform gaped open a bit, there was a hole that went straight through the middle of his chest.
On his left was a tall middle aged looking man in a white shirt and black pants, a long ragged coat, and wearing a pair of angular, smoke tinted sunglasses. His long black hair and the ragged tails of his coat wavered about in a seemingly non existent breeze.
"Heya kiddies," the one on the right greeted them flippantly.
"That's Shiro, the representation of my Hollow and Shinigami powers. He also represents my instincts." He gestured to his right. "And the quiet and respectful one..." Shiro gave him the finger and he just smirked. "is Tensa, he represents my Quincy powers and my reason." Tensa simply nodded but they all got the distinct feeling they were being evaluated and measured. They were surprised when it was him that picked up the story rather than Ichigo.
"Initially Ichigo thought that I was his only spirit. He wasn't ready to confront the fact that he had a Hollow inside of him or that it was the avatar of his Shinigami abilities, but I also had a much more selfish reason for posing as the lone spirit of his Zanpakuto." He glanced over at Ichigo. "While his motivation and desire was to protect others, mine was to protect him. The life of a Shinigami is full of blood and pain and I did not want to see him walk that path. I hoped I could dissuade him from it. I posed as his Zanpakuto spirit and was largely the source of his power, which I tried to keep limited."
"Problem was, King was good at being a Shinigami when he wasn't blaming himself for things and dragging his bottom lip on the ground," Shiro spoke up.
"King?" Yang asked.
"When I did meet Shiro for the first time in my inner world he used an analogy of the King and his horse," Ichigo explained. "The King rules and the horse carries him into battle, but the King has to earn that right. I had to face him and beat him in order to remain in control of my own body."
"I'd tell him how weak he was and threaten to crush his skull and take over," Shiro said with a dark grin. "I threatened him and everything he loved."
"How could you do that?" Ruby gasped, horrified.
"That's terrible!" Nora echoed.
"Fear's a great motivator," Shiro answered simply. "And King learns faster and better when the shit gets ugly." There was a slapping sound and Shiro grabbed the back of his head and turned to Yoruichi. "Why do you smack me every time that comes up?"
"Because you deserve it," she smirked. "Your 'fear as motivation' tactic nearly gave him a nervous breakdown."
Shiro crossed his arms over his chest and adopted a rather petulant pose. "Yeah, well if he hadn't insisted on diving headfirst into trouble he couldn't handle every five minutes like a moron, I wouldn't have needed to do that. King was dense as a brick back then, but if he died, we died and I wasn't going to take that without doing something about it."
"Dense doesn't begin to describe it," Tensa said with the barest of smirks.
"Yeah yeah," Ichigo said, waving his hand dismissively. "Even after all this time they like to remind me, but they aren't wrong. It took a long time for me to realize it and even then they had to tell me. Every time I needed help and needed to unlock another skill or ability to survive, it was Shiro that saved my ass and taught the skills to me... the hard way to be sure, but it was him. He could have just as easily done what he kept threatening to do and taken over but that wasn't his true intent."
"It also didn't help that no one ever adequately explained to him about the Zanpakuto or even his own heritage and how that related," Yoruichi added. "We've said it before, even if there were things he was dense about, those of us around him didn't exactly do a lot to make things better or easier."
"I'm just as much to blame," Ichigo said. "I never spent a lot of time really thinking about it and I never asked a lot of questions, and when I did they weren't the right ones. It wasn't until I was learning a technique from them that would cost me my power and my connection to them that I began to understand even a little bit about the connection between a Zanpakuto and its wielder."
"Why would you have to make such a huge sacrifice?" Blake asked. "You would literally be sacrificing part of your soul."
"We'll get to all the details when we reach that part of the story," Yoruichi said. "But at that point, it was the only way to stop Aizen."
"Hang on a sec," Ruby said, her brow knit in concentration. "When you told us about the different races, you said Hollow energy was poison to the Quincy. So if Shiro is a Hollow even if he's your Shinigami power, wouldn't that power be harmful to Tensa?"
Shiro chuckled. "I like this kid. Cute and smart. Smarter than you were back then King."
"That is a very good question Ruby," Tensa said to the now red faced girl. "The reason it does not harm me is because of Ichigo's unique nature as a hybrid of the different races. Quincy, Shinigami, Hollow, and most importantly human. That is the part of him that possess the greatest potential for adaptation and growth. However, our individual powers do not mix well and our techniques remain separate. When Ichigo did finally obtain an Asauchi we were split into two separate blades, partly because we were two separate entities but also so each was able to utilize its own reiatsu and specific techniques."
"Like what?" she asked excitedly.
"We'll take you out into the field one of these days soon and show you," Ichigo promised. "It'll be better than just trying to explain it."
"Great, now she'll be bouncing off the walls in anticipation again," Weiss groused lightly. She wanted to see it too but she could contain her enthusiasm. For her part, Ruby just stuck her tongue out at her.
"Why don't we all grab a fresh drink then we'll get on with the storytelling," Yoruichi said. "You'll find out more about Zanpakuto along the way and how Ichigo finally got an Asauchi."
Everyone took the suggestion but Ruby lingered behind. "Um, can I ask you something Ichigo?"
"Sure, ask away," he said.
"I know Zanpakuto can't be made anymore, but is it possible to feel like there's..." she was struggling to find the right way to explain it. Finally she threw her hands up in the air. "Is it possible to feel like there's something alive in Crescent Rose?" If Weiss heard her ask that question she'd have a fit and tell her it was all in her imagination.
"How long have you been feeling something from it?" Tensa asked.
"A couple of weeks or so," she answered.
"Did you feel it before we started having you all work with your Aura?" Ichigo asked.
She shook her head. "No, it was a little bit after that. I wasn't sure at first if I really was feeling something or not."
Ichigo nodded. "Any object used by someone with an active Aura will be infused with that Aura. It was the same way with spirit energy, which makes sense since they are essentially the same thing. An object that's used a lot, like a Huntsman's weapon, will be infused with a higher level of Aura because a Huntsman will usually be actively using their Aura when using their weapon."
"Can you and Yoruichi feel that Aura in an object?" she asked.
"We can," he said. "In your case, there will be a much higher amount of Aura infused in Crescent Rose because you made all the pieces for it yourself and put it together. An object that someone built themselves will always have a higher level of Aura in it simply because of the time and effort put into it and especially if the project was important to them. Then there's all of your Aura it was exposed to as you trained with it and used it in battle."
"You couldn't feel it before because you didn't know how," Shiro added.
Ichigo nodded. "That's right. Once you began to learn how to manipulate Aura, you also began to learn how to sense it and the easiest to sense at first is your own, that's why you can feel it now in Crescent Rose."
"Will I be able to do anything with it?" she asked. "You told Nora and I that one time that eventually we might be able to use our Aura through our weapons."
"It's possible," he said. "But that's a ways off yet."
"I want to be able to do what Blake does when she fires off the crescent shaped wave," she grinned. "That would be awesome." She scratched her head and laughed nervously. "I'm kind of jealous that she inherited it and can do it naturally."
Tensa looked at Ichigo. "There might be a possibility that Ruby could learn to do something similar when you consider the make up of her soul. Genetics aren't just a physical thing, it applies to related souls as well."
"Yeah King," Shiro said. "Your old man could do Getsuga Tensho. Since she's got parts of the twin's souls maybe she could too."
"Really?" Ruby gushed.
"Don't get too far ahead of yourself there Little Red," he chuckled, making her face turn scarlet. "You might be able to do it someday, and it will take a lot of training with your Aura."
"Little Red huh?" Yoruichi asked as she rejoined them. "Oh look at her blush! I think she likes it when you call her that. I don't get that reaction from her."
"That's so adorable Rubes!" Yang teased. "Big brother hits you with a pet name and you get all flushed."
Little Red was getting redder and lost the ability to speak. And Yoruichi...she started to laugh hysterically and nearly went over backwards in her chair, and would have if Shiro hadn't steadied it. Everyone was looking at her like she was insane.
"What hit her all of a sudden?" Weiss asked.
Ichigo facepalmed. "Don't worry, it'll pass in a minute."
"S-sorry," the Flash Goddess wheezed. "Triggered a funny memory." As mischievous as she could be and as much as she loved to tease, even she wasn't going to let the cat out of the bag that Yuzu had been a bit of a bro-con. Poor Ruby just might spontaneously combust if she heard that and Yang might die laughing.
Once the were-cat had regained control of herself they continued to explain a little more about Zanpakuto, promising to tell them later about some of the different ones and what they could do. They told them about the inner world of the soul and filled them in on what Shikai and Bankai were, and that Zangetsu was always in Shikai. Ichigo had enough control now that he could seal his blades into another form but he and his spirits chose not to unless there was some reason they wanted to disguise the blades.
They also explained that Ichigo didn't have a Bankai anymore since Yhwach had broken it and the only way to fix it was to have Oetsu reforge Zangetsu and that was no longer possible. It really didn't matter since there was nothing powerful enough on Remnant for him to need it. If he did need something like that he would use Resurreccion, which led to the explanation of the differences between a Shinigami's Zanpakuto and that of an Arrancar. They were promised the possibility of a demonstration of it and a few other things on a field trip they were thinking of taking them on. Throughout it all Ruby was so amped up that she was all but bouncing in her seat and literally squealed in delight at the possibility of the demonstration. Nora wasn't much calmer.
Finally, they moved back to their previous line of storytelling. They went over the aftermath of Aizen's betrayal and the subsequent arrival of Ulquiorra and Yammy and the rather one sided battle, the description of which left them scowling at Shiro.
"Hey, even if things hadn't been a mess between me and Kingy at the time he still wouldn't have beaten the big goof," Shiro said in his defence. "He did manage to cut his arm off though. Yoruichi axed kicked him in the head and tossed him around like he was a rag doll."
"Like you kicked that Goliath?!" Ruby gushed.
"Yammy was a lot tougher," she answered. "I didn't really hurt him much and I actually fractured my leg. A Hollow's skin is literally like armour and the more powerful they are, the harder it is."
"You said this guy was huge, and one of those Arrancar and you tossed him like he was nothing?" Weiss asked, incredulously.
"It was hilarious," Shiro laughed. "She grabbed his wrist and flipped him over and slammed his head into the ground like he was a lightweight."
"Don't forget, Shinigami may look human, but even their normal physical strength is inhuman, even if they don't augment it with their spirit energy," she said. "I'm super strong, but I just happen to come in a small and sexy package."
"She could have picked up that Goliath by its trunk and used it to swat the other ones like flies and wouldn't have broken a sweat doing it," Ichigo told them.
"I did that one night at Mountain Glenn with a Death Stalker," Shiro cackled. "Sent Beowolves flying like bowling pins."
The kids all looked at him like he was nuts...
"Sounds like something you'd do," Ichigo said as if it didn't sound totally ridiculous.
...and they all face faulted.
"Moving on," Yoruichi said as they got themselves sorted out. The story continued on with Ichigo training with the Visored to get control of his Hollow, his first encounter with Grimmjow, the arrival of other Shinigami to patrol Karakura and the subsequent arrival of more Arrancar... and Orihime's abduction.
"What a minute!" Yang said hotly. "This Yamamoto guy called her a traitor because she went quietly so no one else would get hurt?!"
"Unfortunately Gramps was stuck in a default mode where anything that looked even remotely to be against the interests of the Soul Society got labelled as treason," Ichigo said somewhat sourly.
"The Head Captain was well over two thousand years old," Yoruichi began. "And was even more of a stickler for laws and rules than Byakuya. There were periods of the Soul Society's history where treasonous behaviour wasn't an uncommon occurrence, there was even a veritable civil war among divisions at one point. He was not a man without compassion, but he did have a thought process that would see him condemn first for the sake of security and order before having the truth in his hands."
"That's still messed up," Yang countered.
Yoruichi shrugged. "Never said it wasn't, but not a lot of people would or could argue with someone as powerful as he was. There's a reason why he was the Head Captain for over a thousand years."
"He wouldn't send anyone after her and told us not to go, but he had to know that we would anyway," Ichigo said. "Pretty sure the old fart was counting on it actually. So, me, Chad and Uryuu went to Hueco Mundo to get her back."
"Did you have any idea of what you were going to run in to when you got there?" Pyrrha asked.
"Not a clue," he answered, causing them all to give him that disbelieving look again, to which Yoruichi just chuckled. "All we knew was that it was where the Hollows lived and it was where Aizen had his base. We didn't know how many Arrancar he had and it didn't matter because we weren't going to let them have Orihime."
"So what was this Hueco Mundo place like?" Ruby asked.
"It's always night there and it's a seemingly endless desert with just a few trees made out of something that looks like quartz sticking up out of the ground," he said. "The only other thing of note was a fortress of some kind off in the distance which turned out to be Aizen's base, Los Noches. Place was so big you could see it from a long ways off. We travelled for hours and it didn't seem to be getting any closer."
"And then he first met Nel," Yoruichi laughed.
"We see this little girl running across the desert being chased by Hollows so we go to save her only to find out that she's a Hollow too," he said. "She has a cartoonish looking, cracked Hollow mask on top of her head and she's dressed in what literally was a green sack with head and arm holes torn out of it. Turns out they were playing a game they called eternal tag. When they found out I was a Shinigami they got scared because I was supposed to the bad guy. Once we got that straightened out..."
"And he got his Zanpakuto back from Nel who stole it to get him to play tag with them," Yoruichi interrupted with a grin.
"A little kid stole your Zanpakuto?" Yang guffawed.
"That little kid at one time was one of the Espada, the ten most powerful Arrancar in Aizen's army," he countered.
"Wait...what?" Weiss interjected.
"We're getting to that," he smirked. He went on to tell them about travelling to Las Noches with Nel and her 'brothers' Pesche and Dondachaka on the back of their pet snake Hollow, Bawabawa, and running into Rukia and Renji on the way, finding out that there were other Soul Reapers coming and that they might already be in Hueco Mundo. There was the battle against the giant sand Hollow Runuganga and their eventual arrival at Aizen's fortress.
He told them how the group got split up...and Nel insisted on going with him...and about the fights they had along the way with the most detail of course covering his own. They were amazed at Nel's ability to swallow a Cero and send it back at someone with her own combined with it, and were grossed out by her healing 'saliva'. Then there was his confrontation with Ulquiorra.
"He punched his hand right through your chest?!" Jaune exclaimed.
"Was that what left the scar?" Nora asked a bit sheepishly.
Ichigo shook his head in the negative. "That came from the second time he put a hole through me."
"He did it twice?!" several of them exclaimed together.
He carried on like it wasn't a huge deal. "Grimmjow came along and he was pissed because he wanted to fight me again so he went and got Orihime from her cell and had her heal me."
"She was able to heal a hole punched right through your chest?" Blake asked incredulously.
"Her power didn't heal as much as it rejected that the damage ever happened in the first place," Yoruichi explained. "How strong her power was depended upon the strength of her will."
"So as soon as she healed you, you just got up and fought this Grimmjow guy?" Yang asked.
"He didn't leave me a lot of choice in the matter," he answered. "But before we were done another Espada showed up out of nowhere and attacked Grimmjow, then he came after me."
"One of the Espada attacked another one?" Ruby asked. "Weren't they on the same side?"
"Not all of the Espada got along, which is a big part of the story with Nel," he answered. "This Espada, Nnoitra, was stronger than Grimmjow and was kicking my ass all over the place. All of a sudden there's this big explosion of spirit energy and when the dust clears there's a tall woman, as tall as Pyrrha, with long green hair and dressed in rags that just barely covered her. She's holding a sheathed sword out in front of her and she's between me and him."
"Exit Nel and enter Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck," Yoruichi chuckled. "Tall, very well built, and had one of those faces that was both beautiful and cute at the same time. And she definitely had a thing for 'Itsygo'."
"Are you saying that she changed from a little kid into an adult?" Weiss asked skeptically. "Exactly how does that happen."
He told them the story he had learned later, about Nnoitra's hatred of women and especially of any woman who was more powerful than him, since he was the fifth ranked Espada and she had been ranked third at the time, and of all of his failed attempts to beat her when she did give in and agree to fight him. Of how he enlisted the aid of another Espada, the demented scientist Szayelaporro Granz to set a trap where he could take her out once and for all after tearing off the masks of her Fraccion to get her angry and bait her to him.
"When the trap was sprung Nnoitra attacked her, striking her in the head and splitting her skull. Her mask remnant cracked and a piece broke out of it. He threw her and her Fraccion off the top of the walls of Los Noches and out into the desert like they were trash. The cut in her mask caused most of her spirit energy to leak out and it reduced her to the size of a child and she had no memory of anything before until she changed into her adult form."
"Please tell me that she got her revenge and took him out," Yang said.
"She tried," he answered. "And she was handling him pretty easily for the most part. She even went into her Resurreccion form. She was basically a Centaur but instead of a horse her animal form was more like an Ibex, a kind of large mountain goat with big horns. She was just about to do him in when her spirit energy gave out and she reverted back to child form. He kicked her away and I got attacked by his Fraccion."
"Lucky for him that's when Kenpachi showed up," Yoruichi said. "Unluckily, another one of the Espada showed up and took off with Orihime. When he went after her, he ran into Ulquiorra again."
"You had to fight that guy again?" Jaune asked.
"Yeah, and I didn't do much better than the first time," he said with a sigh. "Worse actually. Orihime was trying to shield me from him but Yammy showed up and ambushed her. Fortunately Uryuu found us and fought with him so she could get away and I kept going at Ulquiorra. We eventually ended up on top of the dome that covered most of Los Noches."
"I was enough trouble that he released his Zanpakuto. It give him big wings like a bat and two long horns and he got a lot stronger and faster. He wanted to know why I wouldn't give up and I told him I always knew he was stronger but nothing was going to stop me from fighting."
"That wasn't really smart was it?" Weiss asked.
"Probably not," he answered. "But I wasn't going to be able to get Orihime home if I didn't find a way to beat him. He said he was going to make me feel true despair and he released into another form that no one knew he had. Part of his body became covered in fur, his wings got bigger and he had a long, thin tail. His spirit energy felt like pure despair and it stopped me dead. He wrapped his tail around my neck, lifted me off the ground, and fired a Cero through my chest."
"Orihime and Uryuu arrived just in time to see it happen," Yoruichi said. "Orihime tried to reject the wound but it didn't work. Either something about Ulquiorra's spirit energy kept her from doing it, or her own despair made it so she couldn't concentrate, whatever it was she couldn't reject it."
"Somehow we could hear her crying for help and we responded," he continued. "We turned into a Hollow, with a different form than the one we told you about when I trained with the Visored."
Yoruichi got out her scroll. "We'll show you what he looks like in that form, but be warned, it's a scary sight."
She set the scroll down on the table and activated its projection mode. There was a collective gasp when the image came up and a bit more than just a gasp from two of them.
"Hey, are you guys alright?" Jaune asked Ren and Nora who were staring at the image as if it was going to suddenly turn and attack them.
"Have you seen this before?" Yoruichi asked. She and Ichigo were quite concerned. He always tried to be well away from people anytime he used that form because it would be a pretty terrifying thing for people to see up close, not to mention the level of collateral damage that could occur despite how good his control was. He was dreading that he might have exposed these two to that form at some point in their lives without realizing it.
"N-not that, b-but something else with a mask and l-long horns," Nora stammered.
"It was a Grimm called a Nucklevee," Ren said. His response was quiet but the strain in his voice was obvious.
"Ren?" Nora gave him a surprised look. In all the years they had been together he never spoke to anyone about this and didn't really want her to either. It was not a memory that either of them really wanted to recall if they didn't have to. It showed itself in their nightmares enough as it was.
"All of these people...they're not just our friends," he said. "They've become like family and keeping this inside and trying to bury the memories hasn't done us any good." He looked at her, looked into her watery turquoise eyes. "But I won't say any more if you don't want me too."
She took one of his hands in both of hers and she smiled a little as tears trickled down her cheeks. "It's okay," she said. "And you're right, they are like family now."
"Our village of Kuroyuri," Ren began before a squeeze of his hand stopped him.
"Your village," Nora corrected. "I was just a homeless little kid living wherever she could get shelter and eating out of the garbage cans."
"You were homeless?" Ruby asked, feeling very sad for her friend.
"My mother abandoned me during a Grimm attack and somehow I eventually ended up in Kuroyuri. I actually met Ren for the first time the day that Nucklevee showed up."
"I saw her in an alley being harassed by some other kids," he said, his voice now filled with shame. "They were making fun of her for being homeless and I just stood there, too scared to do anything about it."
"I was really hungry and they were trying to take the mouldy loaf of bread I got from the garbage behind the bakery. I think I bit one of them."
"My Father came along and it scared the boys off and he chastised me for my poor actions," he said. "Watching them and doing nothing was the same as joining in with them."
"I forgave you for that a long time ago," Nora said softly, a bit of a blush adorning her cheeks.
"I remember standing in our house beside my mother and my father was telling us we needed to get out and run when something came through the ceiling," he continued. "I must have been knocked out because when I came to my father was carrying me and we were somewhere in the middle of the village. There was fire and smoke and people screaming...the sound of Grimm screeching and roaring." He had to stop for a moment and another squeeze of his hand from Nora gave him the resolve to continue.
"When he set me down I could see that he was hurt. He gave me his knife and told me to run. He told me to be brave. We saw the Nucklevee coming through the smoke...I was so terrified that I couldn't move but my father pushed me along and made me go while he fired whatever arrows he had left at it. I ran across the village and hid in the canal channel. I was crying and starting to hyperventilate... and then my Semblance activated for the first time. The colours around washed out to shades of grey and I started to feel calmer. I didn't really know what was going on."
"I looked up over the edge of the canal channel and saw Nora huddled under a nearby house and I went over to her. When a Grimm came nosing around my Semblance kicked in again and it left like it didn't even see us. Even the Nucklevee walked right past us."
"I was so scared," Nora said. "But Ren made most of that fear go away." She might claim that they weren't 'together-together', but there was no mistaking the fondness in her eyes as she looked at him, nor in the gentle smile he gave her in return.
"Considering what the two of you have been through you've done well," Ichigo said. "And it was good that you had each other to rely on."
Ren nodded, both in agreement and acknowledgement of the compliment.
"Nucklevee are pretty rare," Yoruichi said. "I think we've only ever encountered one of them before and that was a long time ago."
"What do they look like?" Weiss asked. "I don't think I've even seen one in our Grimm Studies class or in the textbooks."
"It looks like a horse with its rider growing right out of its back," Ichigo answered. "It has long arms that can stretch a long way, a long set of horns that curve back and it has a bunch of bone spikes sticking out of its back."
"Gross!" Yang exclaimed.
"The horse seems to be the more aware of the two," Yoruichi added. "The rider is kind of lethargic and slumped forward until you catch its attention. And the thing has a scream that'll damn near make your ears bleed."
"Don't like it when you scream back at them either," Shiro chuckled. He gestured to the projection. "We were in that form when we killed the one we faced."
"That really is you?" Ruby whispered, still in awe of the sight.
"Sure is," Yoruichi said. "His body looks like a Vasto Lorde Hollow, but his power is definitely that of an Arrancar."
"A naturally evolved Arrancar now," Shiro corrected. "Not one of those knock offs Aizen created with the Hogyoku."
"We had no awareness of anything but the fight," Ichigo said. "It was pure survival instinct and we went from beating Ulquiorra to trying to slaughter him. Uryuu tried to stop us but he got our sword in his guts for his trouble." There was a horrified gasp from someone and he simply nodded. "Eventually Ulquiorra was able to cut off one of the horns and that snapped us out of it. I changed back to myself but he had sustained so much damage his regeneration factor couldn't keep up and he died shortly after."
"It is actually a good thing that there was still fighting going on because Ichigo needed that as a distraction," Tensa said. "He was falling into despair over losing control, over stabbing Uryuu, and at seeing the fear of him in Orihime's eyes."
"When I went back down into Las Noches I saw my friends fighting Yammy," he continued. "He had released his Zanpakuto and his form was so large it would probably cover this entire campus."
"Seriously?!" Nora exclaimed, eyes wide.
"Seriously," he confirmed. "And the angrier he got, the bigger he got."
"Each Espada represented an aspect of death," Yoruichi explained. "Ulquiorra's was despair, and Yammy's was anger. And as it turned out, the numbers for the Espada didn't go from one to ten, they went from zero to nine. When Yammy took on his Resurreccion form the one on his tattoo disappeared and he became the Zero Espada. Fortunately being bigger and more powerful didn't make him smarter."
"Other Shinigami besides Zaraki and his Lieutenant had arrived while I was occupied," he said. "Byakuya was there and so were Captain's Unohana and Kurotsuchi and their Lieutenants. Also while I was busy Aizen had gathered up most of the Espada and their Fraccion and went to Karakura. Well, what thankfully turned out to be a fake copy of it anyway."
"A fake copy?" Weiss asked. "How do you make a fake copy of an entire town."
"With a whole lot of spirit world science," Yoruichi chuckled. "Between Kisuke and Captain Kurotsuchi they made an exact copy of Karakura out in some open land in the Soul Society then swapped it for the real one."
"They sent an entire town to another dimension?" Ren questioned, still not quite believing it. "What about all of the people?"
"They used a Kido spell to put them to sleep for their own safety and to keep them from panicking," she answered. "There were four pillars around the fake town that anchored it to the dimension of the living world. When Aizen's forces arrived the Espada sent their Fraccion to try and destroy them, which would make the towns swap places again."
"I forget," Jaune said sheepishly. "Why was Karakura important to Aizen again?"
"To sacrifice one hundred thousand souls on land that was rich in spirit energy so he could create a key that would get him into the realm of the Spirit King," Blake answered. That revelation when they had previously been told of it had sent chills down her spine. She had been too close to the killing of innocents for the attainment of a goal in her own life for it not too and she had spent a couple of sleepless nights after hearing it.
"That's right," Ichigo said seriously. "The Captains told me they would take care of Yammy and it was my job, one I had taken on as my own already, to protect Karakura and I was also their potential trump card against Aizen. I was the only one who had never seen the Shikai release of his Zanpakuto so I wouldn't be affected by its complete hypnosis."
"Dude, that's pretty heavy," Yang said. "You were what, fifteen, and you were supposed to be their ace in the hole against someone like that?"
"There's plenty of blame to go around for that but I could have just as easily kept my nose out of places it didn't belong," he said. "But I didn't and I'm just as much to blame for being in that position as anyone else is." He turned and looked at his wife. "No matter how much someone tells me otherwise."
She made shooing motion with her hand and he just rolled his eyes. "They sent me of through a garganta with Captain Unohana and when I came out the other end Aizen was right there with his back to me. I went for his neck but he had already put up a Kido shield and blocked it."
"By this point all of his Espada and their Fraccion had been defeated," Yoruichi continued. "The last one by Aizen's own blade for not meeting his expectations."
"He killed one of his own people?!" Weiss exclaimed.
She nodded. "They were expendable pieces that had specific roles to play, he had no regard for them otherwise."
"After my first attempt I was told to hang back," Ichigo said. "The remaining Captains and Visored were pretty beaten up. They said they would protect me so I wouldn't be exposed to the release of Aizen's Shikai. If there was an opening though I would take it. Problem was, while it didn't affect me, his Shikai had been active the entire time. They thought they had him beaten but he had used his Zanpakuto's effect to make one of their own look like him, is own former Lieutenant no less. In the confusion he took out all of them, but he didn't kill them. He wounded them so that they wouldn't be able to move because he wanted them to see what happened next."
What happened next was the Head Captain stepping in to face Aizen only to be interrupted by the Arrancar Wonderweiss, a being Aizen had specifically engineered for the single purpose of nullifying the flames of the Head Captain's Zanpakuto. He defeated him easily enough but had to scramble to reach the remains of the Arrancar in time to suppress the release of all of the flames it had taken into itself. If he hadn't the entire fake town and a great deal of the surrounding area would have been destroyed. Instead there was a large crater with the Head Captain lying at the bottom. Aizen went to finish him off but was actually caught by surprise for once when Captain Yamamoto utilized a high level sacrificial Kido. Aizen didn't escape unscathed, but he wasn't seriously hurt either.
Their audience was sickened that Aizen would do what he did with Wonderweiss, rob a being of its ability to speak and most of its other faculties just to imbue it with one single ability. Nor were they too happy about the Head Captain being willing to sacrifice all of his wounded comrades when he initially went to attack Aizen. They understood the Old Man's motivations and his mindset, but they weren't going to try and impart that knowledge and the lessons that went with it right now. Maybe another time when there was a greater need for it.
"Once Aizen was done with the Old Man it was just me and it was safe to say my mental state wasn't the greatest," Ichigo said. "I couldn't stop thinking about how I had lost control against Ulquiorra and I had just seen Aizen handle multiple Captain level opponents with ease. I tried to fight him, even managed to wound him but the would closed up. He had embedded the Hogyoku in his chest and was combining its power with his own."
"That's like the ultimate cheat code in a video game!" Yang exclaimed. "As if he wasn't strong enough already."
He nodded. "Which in itself makes you ask the question, why, at any point since all of it began, why didn't Aizen just swat me down like an annoying bug? For that matter, why didn't he just ignore me completely from the beginning? What possible threat could I have really been to him?"
None of them seemed to have an answer until suddenly Ren spoke up. "Because of your nature as a hybrid," he answered. "You were the only one."
"Exactly," he confirmed. "Aizen proceeded to tell me that I was his greatest experiment and that every incident and battle had been orchestrated by him to see how I would grow and progress, to see if I could attain the various stages of power and abilities and how long it would take. I was just an interesting sideline he could amuse himself with while he worked his plan. I didn't want to believe any of it. I was already having a hard enough time understanding my own power, but then to find out you were someone's lab rat? It was too much."
"Aizen was about to tell him about his heritage when his father showed up and cut him off," Yoruichi said. "Kisuke and I were there as well and we took Aizen on. Unfortunately, as strong as we were he kicked our asses too."
"While they were doing that I was fighting one of the Captains that went traitor with him, Gin Ichimaru," Ichigo continued. "He talked a whole lot too while we fought and by the time were were done I didn't have a hell of a lot of confidence or resolve left. I was a total wreck. With no one left to stop them they opened a gateway to the Soul Society, heading for the real Karakura so Aizen could make his key to get into the royal realm. That's when my Dad told me about a technique that would be my only chance to stop him."
"Saigo no Getsuga Tensho," Tensa said. "The final Getsuga Tensho. A technique whereby Ichigo would become Getsuga itself and it would cost him all of his spiritual energy with the possibility of never regaining it."
"How is that fair?" Blake asked. "Why did you have to be the one to sacrifice so much?"
"Because I was the only one left that had a chance and he had to be stopped," he answered simply. "If I didn't at least try then the entire population of Karakura, my family and my friends included, would all die. All because Aizen didn't like the way things in the afterlife were being run and he wanted the throne for himself."
"But how were you going to be able to learn a new technique in time to stop Aizen?" Ruby asked.
"By stopping time, "Yoruichi smirked. "Or at least altering its flow enough."
The response was silence interrupted only by the chirping of crickets.
"Say what now?" Yang asked.
"You can stop time?" Nora asked.
Yoruichi explained to them what the Dangai was and how it worked, how time passed at different rates inside and outside of it. She explained how Isshin was able to temporarily restrict the time currents and was able to give Ichigo the equivalent of three months in his inner world to try and get his Zanpakuto to teach him the Saigo no Getsuga Tensho.
From that point Ichigo and his spirits picked up the story about his training, about his despair causing his inner world to be completely flooded. About it being when Tensa told him that what Ichigo wanted to protect and what he wanted to protect were two different things. They told about the two of them merging to fight him and how slowly he began to realize what Shiro really was and how he began to understand the link between a Shinigami and a Zanpakuto. How he took their blade through his body in a sign of acceptance. The nature and method of the technique would now come to him when he needed to use it.
"Do all Shinigami have a thing about getting impaled on swords?" Weiss asked.
"No, that's mostly just an Ichigo thing," Yoruichi laughed.
"If King wasn't so dense he'd have figured it out sooner," Shiro grinned. "Then again, he was just an agnsty teenager."
"I was not angsty," Ichigo said in defence.
"Yes you were," his spirits and his wife all said at once.
"Mocked by your own soul," Yang laughed. "That's harsh dude."
"And by my beautiful, loving wife," he said, shaking his head. "Maybe Ruby and I really should run off together. I bet she wouldn't treat me like that." He didn't really mean to drag the little reaper into it but when you spend enough time around Yoruichi, you either die from the teasing or learn how to adapt and hand it out... and sometimes it just slips out without thinking about it.
As for the little reaper, she had gone bright red again and her mouth was opening and closing like a fish gasping for air, the ability to speak had fled her entirely.
"Dolt," Weiss scolded with no heat behind her words. "Reacting like this is why they keep teasing you."
Yang pulled Ruby's hood up over her head. "She's just way too adorable not to tease."
Ruby swatted at Yang's hands and pulled the hood down. "I'm not adorable," she protested.
"Yes you are!" came the simultaneous response from everyone in the room.
She pulled the hood back up and shrunk into her chair.
"There are worse things than being adorable," Yoruichi chuckled.
"Can we get on with the story?" Weiss asked, coming to her partner's rescue. "I don't think she can take much more."
"Fine," Yoruichi agreed in an exaggerated drawl, before grinning brightly. "You should have seen Ichigo when he came out of the Dangai. His Bankai coat was now sleeveless and his Zanpkauto had changed a bit. The hand guard was a lot bigger and his hand was pretty much fused to the handle and there was a long chain winding up his arm. His hair was grown out to the middle of his back and any sense of despair was gone from his face. He grabbed Aizen by the face and took off so they were out of range of Karakura and threw him into the ground. Totally bad ass."
She went on to tell the particulars of the fight, how their power was destroying and changing the landscape. All eyes went wide when they heard that the mere pressure from the swing of Zangetsu's blade and sliced a mountain in half. Aizen couldn't feel Ichigo's spirit energy and assumed that he had discarded it for sheer strength. But as the fight went on and Ichigo tanked everything sent his way and occasionally taunted the traitorous Captain, Aizen got angrier and angrier and began to realize that Ichigo had become transcendent just like him and was actually stronger. Utilizing the Hogyoku he went through a number of transformations, each more hideous than the last but he couldn't defeat Ichigo, but Ichigo wasn't able to defeat him either.
"I'd had enough of him and knew I didn't have much choice left and had to use the Saigo no Getsuga Tensho," he said. He looked at his spirits. "I didn't want to, I knew what it would cost but he couldn't be allowed to realize his plan."
Yoruichi continued, detailing the way he changed when he activated the technique, more bad-assery in her opinion, then Mugetsu, the wave of pure black spirit energy that swallowed and destroyed everything before it. Everything, except Sosuke Aizen.
"Even that wasn't enough to kill him?!" Yang exclaimed in disbelief.
"It knocked him back to his first transformed state, Yoruichi explained. "Considering how powerful he was that was an enormous amount of damage. Without the Hogyoku, which effectively makes him immortal, he would have been dust."
He looked at Yang. "I pretty much had the same reaction you did and thought that I had failed, that I had given up all of my power and my spirits for nothing. Aizen began to gloat. His Zanpakuto began to disintegrate and he actually seemed happy about it, saying that the Hogyoku had decided that he no longer needed a Zanpakuto. He was happy about losing a piece of himself... I can't begin to imagine what Kyoka Suigetsu must have been feeling right then, it had to be like the ultimate betrayal."
"So if the Final Getsuga Tensho didn't finish him, what did?" Jaune asked.
"When Isshin, Kisuke, and I were fighting him, Kisuke attacked him with a bunch of different Kido," Yoruichi explained. "Hidden within one of those spells was another spell that he had created specifically to be able to seal Aizen away. Ichigo's Mugetsu weakened Aizen enough for the spell to activate and seal him."
"I passed out shortly after," he said. "Rather painfully too. I was unconscious for a month and shortly after I lost the last of my power and the ability to see spirits. I thought being a normal human would be a good thing but it didn't take me long to realize that it wasn't. It sucked."
"And of course he never told anyone... but we were all just as guilty," she said. "The Soul Society ordered all of its personnel to leave him to his now human life and not have any contact should they come to the world of the living. Those of us at Kiuske's shop as well as the Visored...we gave him his space too. Too much space. We should have kept tabs on him and visited now and then. Even his friends gave too much space. They acted like any mention of the spirit world would break him."
"I didn't exactly help myself too much either," he admitted. "I could have went to Kisuke's or the Visored's hideout myself, but I didn't. It did hurt to see my friends go off to fight Hollows in my place and it did hurt to not see any of the friends I'd made among the Shinigami. On the other hand I had no right to expect they would drop everything to come and see me. I wasn't looking for parades or medals or to be cheered as a hero."
"Even though you should have been," Weiss said, being grumpy about it for him. "It's very noble that you weren't looking for praise, but you saved them when it was their own incompetence and complacency that got them in a mess in the first place."
"I think that's what the Head Captain was trying to do when he issued the no contact order," Yoruichi said, puzzling them.
"How would that be any kind of a 'thanks for saving us' thing?" Nora asked.
"Even though Ichigo had always been able to see spirits, the affairs of the afterlife were not something he should have ever been dragged into," she answered. "His reward for everything he did was to be allowed to live in peace without further interference from that world."
"It didn't quite work out that way in the end," Ichigo said. "But, those stories will have to wait for another day. Right now, I've got dinner to cook. Anyone that wants to help is welcome to."
Ren volunteered his services again and so did Yang, while Blake volunteered to help Yoruichi at the table this time. Tensa and Shiro silently went off to do their usual patrols around the perimeter of Vale and Mountain Glenn, but would be back after dinner. During dinner the kids got more info and some stories about the souls that had been reincarnated into some of them, and after dinner it was all about the different Zanpakuto and the abilities and forms they had, and their colourful if not outright eccentric wielders.
They were in awe and maybe a bit freaked at the sheer power of the Head Captain's Ryujin Jakka. Who wouldn't be when its release phrase was 'reduce all creation to ash'. Then there was the sheer opposite nature of Soifon's Suzumebachi. From a stinger that fits over a finger, to a massive missile launcher. They wondered over the lethal beauty of Rukia's Sode no Shirayuki and Byakuya's Senbonzakura. There was a 'so cool' moment over Toshiro's Hyorinmaru and a reaction of 'holy crap!' for Captain Komamura's giant armoured samurai Bankai. There was universal revulsion for Mayuri Kurotsuchi's Ashisogi Jizo, especially its Bankai.
Needless to say a certain little scythe wielder was very happy that evening. They were all intrigued but she was utterly fascinated and holding a deep sense of wonder. Firstly by the fact that the Zanpakuto were essentially alive, and secondly by the great variety of forms and what they did. By the end of the evening her infectious enthusiasm had everyone jokingly coming up with release phrases and release forms for their own weapons.
It ended up being a late night but no one had to worry about being out after curfew. Ichigo had made sure that Glynda and Ozpin knew what they were doing and that the students might be late getting back to their rooms. As it was, Ozpin had a late night himself within his inner world hearing many of the same tales from Kisuke. The students were promised more outings like this because there were a lot more stories to tell and they couldn't wait to hear them. Ichigo and Yoruichi discovered that they really enjoyed telling them. What better way to remember the people you had lost than telling stories of the adventures you had with them?
AN: Hope you enjoyed it, reviews would be appreciated.
As always, trolls and idiots need not bother commenting so don't waste your time or mine. You'll just get ignored, deleted, and/or blocked for it.
As for the next chapter... I seriously have no clue right now what's coming next. I really don't.