A/N: This is it: The end of timeline X+N. Let's see if it'll go out with a bang. ;)
§ x § x §
§ x § x §
§ x § x §
VIERUNDDREIßIG
TIMELINE X + N
Kisuke could be forgiven for the impatient sigh he heaved as he got his bearings in the labyrinth. He had worked through two nights in a row with only a catnap before dawn. The attack was unexpected and he was just done. The part of him that would never cease to be an excellent Second Division officer and stealth operations master came out not to play, but to get the job done. The labyrinth was more complex than he really had the patience for, but he cleared it methodically. The giant rose bush Witch at its center was bulky and awkward, its most dangerous aspect being the versatile thorn vines and scissors it could summon for attacking at a distance. It was an annoyance to counter, but he managed it. More interested in speed than finesse, he released Benihime and used her energy attacks to overwhelm the giant tree-blob-butterfly monster.
Kisuke ignored the Grief Seed falling out of the sky where the Witch had been to assess the battlefield above Karakura. Multiple fighters were just plain missing. Whether they were dead or still trapped, he didn't know. Best to assume their firepower to be lost. Hiyori was boxed in by multiple Witch sigils she was smart enough to not just charge into but looked like that patience would soon die. Jinta wasn't far from her, squinting at sigils and looking murderous. A sigil off to Kisuke's right evaporated and left behind Captain Hitsugaya and a Soul Gem which immediately hatched a Hell Butterfly that drifted away on the wind. Hitsugaya cast about until he made eye contact with the shop owner. Kisuke couldn't help but notice the young captain looked much the worse for wear; that and his active bankai implied Hitsugaya had received a formidable opponent.
Another sigil shattered. Ichigo emerged with his Hollow mask on. The mask was one of its more evolved versions featuring horns, which was worrying. Ichigo bellowed and charged forward— straight into another sigil— and disappeared. Okay.
Yoruichi, a cat once more, landed on Kisuke's shoulder with a snap of displaced air. "That might be a problem," she muttered. "I think he's completely berserk. That's at least the fifth one he's plowed into trying to get to Walpurgisnacht."
Kisuke looked the way Ichigo had come. Sure enough, there was a path cleared of sigils. "Huh. I wonder what set him off. His control is usually much better than this." He glanced at Yoruichi then back to Walpurgisnacht. "Didn't expect you to go kitty on us mid-fight."
Yoruichi scoffed at the implied question. "It's easier to dodge around the things when I'm small." She huffed. "Have a plan?"
Kisuke hummed and looked at Walpurgisnacht. A multicolored wildfire raged beneath the headless mannequin portion. Otherwise, it was just rotating in place with no minions flying about. He was too experienced to write it off as defenseless. Homura had said the core of the Witch was its cogs. Go for them? They'd need a massive, preferably coordinated attack to affect such a large opponent. And he didn't want to go through more labyrinths to get to it. It would waste too much time while Walpurgisnacht would have free rein to possibly attack widely enough to take out Homura, who he could sense was not as far away as he would have liked. At least she hadn't jumped into battle. He was grateful for— and impressed by— her restraint. Anyway, he had a problem to solve and no sigh could adequately express his blend of frustration and exhaustion.
Several things happened all at once:
Isshin reappeared in the sky just as Ichigo broke out of the labyrinth he had dived into.
Ichigo— or his Hollow, it seemed— stood in place, his reiatsu seething with frustrated killing intent, and charged a massive black Getsuga Tenshō. The attack blew through the sigils obstructing his path and obliterated the mannequin portion of Walpurgisnacht and about a dozen of the main cog's teeth.
The main cog of the Witch's assembly span much faster.
Ichigo leapt forward to attack, but was snared by another sigil.
A senkaimon from Soul Society opened roughly five kilometers north of the main battle. The defenders who were outside labyrinths and in their right minds recognized a number of captain-class reiatsu signatures emerging from it.
"Well, I'll be damned," drawled Yoruichi. "The old man came."
"How unlike him," Kisuke said distractedly, staring at the Witch. "I wonder what intel Twelfth managed to pick up. It must be quite alarming to provoke this level of response."
Yoruichi rolled her eyes. "Obviously."
Kisuke glanced at the shinigami reinforcements, who seemed to be assessing the situation. How long until Homura's departure? How long did he have to keep the shinigami from being able to confront her? He didn't want to take the risk that them restraining her would ruin her time travel ability. He flicked his eyes to the cat on his shoulder. "Care to take a kittygram to our kindly old grandpa?"
Yoruichi snorted. "I suppose. What am I saying?"
"Go to Isshin and snag his phone, then take it to the Captain-Commander. Speaker phone, please. I'll take it from there." The black cat flickered away without replying. Kisuke pulled his own phone out of a pocket and frowned at the time.
§ x § x §
The Soul Society contingent held position in the stormy sky on the Captain-Commander's orders. Whatever had changed between their last video and their arrival had resulted in several defenders being accounted for. Kisuke Urahara's reiatsu was distinctly present. Yamamoto chose to give the man five minutes to relay information to him since the enemy didn't seem to be actively attacking anything. Best not to rush in with no intel and make a bad situation worse if they could avoid it.
Without warning, a black cat alighted on top of Soi Fon's head. The captain's first instinct was to stab her small zanpakutō upwards, but she froze when she recognized the reiatsu of the person she most admired. "Y-yoruichi—!"
Yoruichi dug her claws into her protègée's scalp and thrust her face forward and up to draw attention to the phone in her mouth. Yamamoto only had to glance at his lieutenant to prompt the man to dart forward, retrieve the phone, and relay it to his captain. The phone immediately began to ring.
"Speaker phone, he said," Yoruichi called out. The old man raised one bushy brow, decided that would be most efficient, and accepted the call.
"Kisuke Urahara," he rumbled.
"Good morning, sir! It's so kind of you to visit. Lovely weather we're having, yes?"
Yamamoto closed his eyes. It was like the man had a pathological need to be obnoxious. "You failed to report."
"Well, I've been a tad busy, sir."
"I see," Yamamoto said drily. In the distance, the Kurosaki whelp broke free of a sigil, roared, and launched a black attack that completely broke a smaller gear below the main cog. Girl-shaped beings of starry reiatsu and dancing flames swarmed out of the bonfire beneath Walpurgisnacht and mobbed him. "What is Kurosaki doing?"
Entirely too chipper, Urahara replied, "Going completely berserk, from the look of it."
Off to Yamamoto's left, Kenpachi Zaraki cackled in appreciation while his lieutenant cooed over the whirlwind of violence around the young Visored in the midst of the battle. Zaraki's third seat grinned and his fifth seat started murmuring as though giving an art critique.
He was too damn old for this. "What happened?"
"Well, he's had a rough couple of days, what with the whole dead sisters thing—"
"You know that's not what I mean," Yamamoto said without emotion. He suspected the scientist was stalling for some unknown reason and did not like it one bit. "Report."
Yamamoto waved his captains closer to listen to the scientist's briefing on the enemy's abilities. He clinically observed everything in the general vicinity as the former exile spoke. Extensive property damage, mass casualties among the humans, sketchy guesses at best for motive and enemy... a total disaster even without the added headache of the rapid dissemination of information and photos among the living these days. It was a logistical nightmare. Things had been so much simpler even a century earlier.
"Therefor, I propose a coordinated attack on the central structure," Urahara concluded. "It is actually quite fortunate you came. We should have enough combined firepower to do this."
Yamamoto grunted agreement. "We will surround the Witch. Those with powerful ranged attacks will use them, then those with heavy melee attacks will rush in from below. We'll brute force it. Stay far enough below the enemy's position to fire upward. Minimize collateral damage if possible. Avoid bankai if possible to minimize soul suffocation of the humans below." He slid his eyes to the captain of Second Division. "Except for you, Soi Fon. I want you high in the sky and ready to fire your bankai at it if it tries to flee. Your lieutenant may accompany you." He made eye contact with the other officers around him as Soi Fon looked sour but nodded. "If that occurs, I expect the rest of you to do your utmost to protect the city from debris."
"Sounds like a plan!" the scientist chirped. "I'll call Captain Hitsugaya to tell him and Yoruichi will relay the plan to the oth— ooh, Hachi's back! Great!"
"Thanks for volunteering me, Kisuke," the cat droned.
"You're welcome!" Beep! Call disconnected.
It was times like this that made Yamamoto glad Urahara had declined the invitation to return to Seireitei. Just the thought of dealing with the man on a daily basis was maddening.
§ x § x §
"Who are they?" Homura asked seriously as she peered at the newcomers with her field glasses. They were just far enough away for the visual aid to be useless for seeing their faces.
"The captains and some of the lieutenants of the Thirteen Divisions," Orihime answered cheerfully. "You can always tell a captain by their white haori with their division number on their back. Lieutenants have an armband with their division number on it."
Homura hummed her understanding. "Anything basic I should know about them? How to tell who's who? How to avoid making them hate me?"
"Ummmmmmmmm." Orihime lowered her binoculars and put a finger to her chin, looking upward in thought. "Captain-Commander Yamamoto is an old man with a really long beard. He's very serious and wants people to be respectful and responsible and obey rules."
Not unexpected, given his rank.
"Captain Soi Fon is the lady captain with short hair. She likes respectful people who follow rules, too. She doesn't like Mr. Urahara. And Tessai told me to never say bad things about Yoruichi in front of her because she likes Yoruichi a lot."
Reasonable.
"Captain Zaraki is a really big man who loves to fight. He wears an eye patch, but both his eyes are fine. His patch is special— it helps him control his power. He'll like you if you can show him strong enemies to fight. His lieutenant is a little girl named Yachiru. She has pink hair and loves fighting, too. Captain Zaraki doesn't like when people are mean to her. They're nice and good in a fight but you need to lead them places instead of giving them directions 'cause they'll get lost."
Simple enough.
"Captain Unohana is the lady captain with really long hair she braids in front of her. She's a healer. She's very calm and nice. I've never seen her angry, but my shinigami friends said even other captains are afraid of making her angry. So I guess if she likes you, maybe shinigami who don't like you will leave you alone? She likes people who are nice to her division members and don't make a mess or a lot of noise in her hospital. Rukia said she likes flowers."
She could work with that.
"Stay away from Captain Kurotsuchi. He's a mad scientist. His zanpakutō is poisonous so don't get cut by it at all, ever. Uryū says his lieutenant keeps an antidote with her, though. That captain is easy to spot because he always wears funny hats and black and white face paint like rock star."
Homura lowered her glasses and gave Orihime a weird look.
"Oh! Captain Komamura is very nice, but he looks kinda surprising. He's a big dog-man. Wolf-man? So maybe try to act like the dog part is no big deal."
Homura's brow twisted at the absurdity.
"Hey," Tatsuki interrupted. She was squinting through the rain with her hand shielding her eyes. "I think they're gonna do something."
Both girls raised their binoculars once more. The shinigami contingent had spread out in a wide circle below and around Walpurgisnacht. Most of them, anyway— a man with formidable magic and a very long gray beard remained where the group had first appeared. Their commander, Homura realized.
The girls looked up as they sensed a pulse of power up high, but couldn't see anything through the storm. "That was Captain Soi Fon," Orihime commented. Homura made note of what that captain's magic felt like.
The sky suddenly lit up with the flashes of multiple ranged attacks. It was mostly a continuous barrage of extremely powerful shinigami magic. A cloud of cherry blossoms, of all things, swirled around the main cog counter to its spin and ground the gear teeth down like a lathe. Ichigo's berserk Hollow apparently had enough wits about him to take a hint and throw his own Cero and black Getsuga Tenshō into the mix. The attacks abruptly stopped on some signal the distant girls couldn't see, but their explosions hadn't yet cleared when several figures rushed toward Walpurgisnacht. Most obvious, a gigantic, ghostly disembodied arm stabbed an enormous translucent sword into the cogs, which made an unholy screech of metal on metal. A burly shinigami launched forward and up as a veritable comet of yellow reiatsu with such strong bloodlust that the girls shuddered at it despite being far away. Similar glowing shinigami followed, blazing rainbow trails as they dodged under and up past the less dense concentration of Witch sigils directly beneath Walpurgisnacht. The Witch shuddered.
The three girls whipped their heads away from the scene, recoiling from a painfully bright explosion.
§ x § x §
Kisuke blindly threw a kidō shield up in front of him with one hand and used the other to hold a strong healing kidō over his closed eyes. He blinked and squinted as soon as he thought he'd be able to see.
Walpurgisnacht had broken down into a dense cloud of multicolored reishi spinning like a miniature hurricane, a million points of light floating in a beautiful spiral. The many Witch sigils that studded the sky glimmered and collapsed into glitter that drifted toward the cloud with its spin. Awed shinigami watched in wonder as the cloud tightened its rotation like a nebula of precious gems. The reishi formed a large globe, then continued to condense smaller and smaller as it spun, shifted through different colors, and glowed more and more brightly. Its power multiplied as it became more concentrated. The sphere shone like a small star.
Kisuke's relieved smile slowly fell while others stayed curious. His eyes widened in recognition.
Hōgyoku.
And unless he was mistaken, one far more perfect than either of those created by himself and Aizen.
§ x § x §
Homura made her magic heal her eyes with a thought and stared at the newborn star in the sky. Wings seemed to sprout from its top and curled down protectively, cast in shadow by the sheer intensity of light shining behind them. Her eyes widened in recognition. She lowered her binoculars and took a step back, slowly shaking her head in confused denial.
Tatsuki was cussing about her eyes somewhere off to her left. Orihime's fairies chimed off to her right, followed by a sigh of relief and a gasp of delight. "It's so pretty!" She bounced excitedly. "They did it!"
Homura just kept shaking her head and dropped the binoculars altogether.
Orihime noticed and frowned in doubt. Turned to look at the apparent miracle. Tentatively gauged the feel of its magic. Blanched and looked like she recognized it.
Urahara landed on the rooftop with a snap, eyes wild in his bloodied face. He strode to Homura and roughly grabbed her arm. "Forget the plan! This changes everything! Go straight to me as soon as you get back! Tell me Walpurgisnacht can turn into a Hōgyoku!"
Homura blinked up at him and knit her brow. "A Ho-what?"
"Mister Urahara, should a Hōgyoku have wings?" Orihime asked with a shaky voice.
Urahara pivoted and looked skyward. The shape must have appeared behind him in transit. He frowned in confusion. "Wings?"
Homura's confusion mirrored his, but for an entirely different reason. "Those aren't wings," she said dully.
Everyone looked to her. "Homura?" Orihime asked. "W-what are they?"
The "wings" expanded still more. Homura just stared in disbelief.
She knew that shape. Hated that shape. Had seen a small version of the same thing around the glow of countless newly-forged Soul Gems as false bunny ears extended and grabbed at girls' souls with greedy fingers.
Whatever a Hōgyoku was, the Incubator was the one making it.
"Miss Akemi," Urahara prompted tensely.
"That's the Incubator."
Silence as Tatsuki was completely lost and Urahara and Orihime breathed sharply and stared at the light show.
"Even worse," Urahara said lowly. He looked at Homura again. "You must tell me that the Incubator can make a Hōgyoku. It changes everything."
Homura scowled and squirmed her shoulder out from under the man's hand. "Why? What does it do? It looks like it's making a Soul Gem from here."
Urahara froze. His eyes went unfocused and darted around, giving him the look of figuring out something momentous on a blackboard only he could see. "Oh. Oh."
Homura leaned away from him. "What?"
Urahara straightened and stared at the brilliant light in the distance. "Wishes," he murmured.
Homura looked to Orihime, who was equally at a loss.
Any chance for explanation was ruined by the new whatever-it-was-called firing lances of magic in every direction. The sky over Karakura became dense with shimmering strands like lasers or tracer fire in a pattern like a grand firework. Those at melee distance were shot through before they could even register what was happening. Mid-range combatants had a moment to try to shield, but couldn't react fast enough. Only those who remained in long-range position managed to get barriers up, and they were sorely tested by the onslaught. Many failed completely.
§ x § x §
On the rooftop in Naruki City, the three with powers reacted immediately. Kisuke threw a kidō shield in front of them. Orihime's fairies flew out and made a big triangular shield of translucent gold behind it. Akemi braced herself and leaned forward, brandishing her shield, but held back her power for the moment. For an endless minute, all they could hear was the staccato bullet-like sound of the beams ricocheting off Kisuke's shield. Before long, though, the wall of light began to crack. Jagged lines spiderwebbed out from impact sites. Kisuke poured everything he had into the spell and held until it shattered. Orihime stepped forward and threw all of her strength into her shield as Kisuke took a knee, slow to recover due to the sheer number of massively powerful kidō spells he had used in the long battle. Orihime's shield soon became chipped and pockmarked. Sweat poured down the girl's face and her hands shook.
"Hold out as long as you can, Orihime!" Kisuke shouted. The air was so thick with projectiles that Akemi wouldn't be able to flee even if she stopped time. There was just no dodging them. Time, time, they needed time! He glanced at Akemi. "How long?!"
Understanding his intent, Akemi glanced at the sand timer in her shield, gauged her magic, and bit out, "Four minutes!"
Kisuke grit his teeth. He and Orihime were probably going to die protecting the girl.
So be it.
He centered himself and prepared to cast another kidō when Orihime's shield failed. It collapsed before he was ready, though, and Homura stepped in front of him, thrust her shield forward, and flared her brilliant purple reiatsu to protect the two of them. Kisuke stared up at her as Orihime and Tatsuki fell, pierced by the lances. He was torn between being furious at her for risking herself when she was their trump card and surprised that she bothered to protect him.
Of course, the attack stopped then. They looked around and found that the entirety of Karakura and Naruki were linked to the Hōgyoku by rays of shimmering light. To their side, the beams piercing Orihime and Tatsuki burst and bound them as though in harnesses. It made no damn sense until the rays retracted and tore the girls' souls from their bodies, snapped their Chains of Fate, and drew the slack-faced souls skyward.
"What's happening?!" Akemi demanded, the most panicked Kisuke had heard her.
Kisuke staggered to his feet and stared. As far as he could see, human souls were being reeled up from the streets and buildings toward the Hōgyoku and the Incubator that was apparently above it.
"Mister Urahara? Mister Urahara?!"
As the souls were drawn along, they broke down into indistinct orbs of reishi that made Kisuke deliriously think of hitodama. The reiatsu of many shinigami blinked out of existence. Kisuke supposed they had been snared and absorbed, too. The light of the many souls gathered like Walpurgisnacht's remains had. The Hōgyoku flashed bright indigo. The gathered souls rapidly condensed, the light they cast shifting into brighter and brighter gold.
A Hōgyoku.
A Jūreichi.
A hundred thousand souls, give or take.
"I'll be damned," he said, shaken.
"What?" Akemi demanded as she lowered her shield. "What's happening?!"
"It actually made a King's Key." Kisuke distantly registered that his voice sounded like dull surprise. He couldn't quite believe the words as they fell out of his mouth.
Homura glanced between him, her shield, and the distant glow that faded a bit and looked more like a shining object than a ball of light. "A King's Key is—?"
"The only way to gain entrance to the Soul King's Realm," he answered, falling into automated lecture mode. "The Soul King is the linchpin of existence. It regulates the flow and balance of souls among all the dimensions."
A sound that was not truly sound at all reverberated through the atmosphere, the tumbling of ancient locks turning.
"If the Soul King was to be destroyed, reality would collapse. Were it replaced, its replacement could shape the worlds as it wills."
Akemi's face contorted in horror.
Kisuke turned to look at her, dread plain on his face. "I think the Incubator is a much bigger problem than any of us ever thought possible," he said blankly.
Reiatsu flared up in the cloud cover. The huge golden missile that was Soi Fon's bankai screamed toward the King's Key. One of the oversized Incubator limbs shielded it while the other batted the missile away with enough force to counter its homing properties. The resulting explosion obliterated eastern Karakura. The Incubator's limbs settled into an offering position, holding the King's Key to the heavens. Storm clouds were suddenly propelled away from it, forming a perfect circle of blue morning sky with the King's Key in its center like a small sun. The air around it shimmered like a heat haze as a sharp clunk sounded and the city directly beneath was crushed flat under the severe pressure of immense reiatsu.
§ x § x §
In the northern sky, an old man watched almost his entire command structure crumble before him. All life in the city was a complete loss and an enemy was trying to breach the King's Realm.
There was nothing left to lose. Best to end things quickly.
Stone-faced, Captain-Commander Yamamoto stood tall and rumbled, "Bankai. Zanka no Tachi."
§ x § x §
Homura sucked a sharp breath in through her teeth at the sudden, intense heat. Steam rose around her as the fallen rain evaporated. She was startled out of her stare when Urahara shook her arm. She looked at his face and found it desperate and near-crazed.
When he had her attention, Urahara pressed, "You must describe all of this to the other me. All of it. Hōgyoku, King's Key, all of it. What it looked like, what it felt like, everything. This isn't just about saving your friends anymore."
Buildings began to smoke. Trees and telephone poles nearby spontaneously burst into flame. Homura wobbled on her feet and blinked. It only took several moments for her to feel like she had been wandering beneath a desert sun for weeks.
"Go back in time now," Urahara said urgently.
Homura looked at her shield. "I can't yet!"
Fire raged in the city center, the inferno spreading outward as everything was baked so dry it all became kindling. It hurt to breathe. The air smelled of ashes, burnt rubber, and charred meat.
"Go now!"
Flames blossomed in the sky where a small figure met the Incubator's limbs and incinerated them. The Hōgyoku strobed like the world's largest flash grenade and instantly regenerated the limbs.
"I can't!" Homura shrilled and desperately watched the sand trickle through her timer.
Urahara fell to his knees. "You have to," he rasped through parched, bleeding lips.
Homura's breath came in painful little gasps as she struggled to remain conscious— a battle Urahara lost. She didn't bother paying attention to the battle in the sky, instead using every ounce of will she had to focus entirely on her shield's sand timer. Her legs fell out from under her as she concentrated her magic on countering the damage being done to her body long enough to survive to the turnback point. To conserve magic, she disengaged what she thought of as her pain buffer and arched into the agony of something that went far beyond any sunburn with a rough scream. Her battle costume had just begun to smoke when she felt the last grain of sand fall. Homura blindly grabbed the edge of her shield, ignored the sizzle of her bare skin against super-heated metal, and sharply twisted it into a complete inversion.
She had never been more glad to hear that familiar click.
The world around her stopped. Everything was utterly still for a long second. The golden shaft and hellish plume in the distance were rendered more terrifying by the extra frozen instant to really look at them. Then reality shattered around Homura like so much glass and she was hurtling backwards, fragmented images spinning around her like a kaleidoscope as she lost consciousness.
§ x § x §
§ x § x §
§ x § x §
A/N: Let's~ do~ the time~ warp~ again~!
I would like to take a moment to thank you for reading this far. Your responses have been wonderfully encouraging for me. I never expected this degree of response. Thank you so much! See you on the story's first anniversary~! ;)
This chapter was replaced with an edited version on November 1, 2019. Reviews with timestamps before that date refer to a slightly different version of the chapter.