Winter War - Ensemble: Broken Mirrors
Title: Winter War - Ensemble: Broken Mirrors
Authors: incandescens
Characters: The Hueco Mundo expedition
Rating/Warning: PG-13.
Notes: This is a dark AU co-plotted with sophiap and liralen. The war against Aizen's forces went very badly. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe.
Summary: No one is safe.
Index of Links
[...]
45. Nanao: Dark Songs
46. Ensemble: Making War
47. Ensemble: Tactics
48. Ensemble: On Three
49. Ikkaku, Yumichika, Lisa: Use Me While You Can
BROKEN MIRRORS
As far as Grimmjow was concerned, this latest event was just one more cherry on top of the turd that the mission had turned into. So the Big Secret Weapon had failed to kill Aizen or even slow him down. So Aizen was about to screw over Kurosaki and the Inoue girl and nobody would have a clue where he was. So that Kyouraku guy (who had, to be fair, looked like he might have a clue about things and have been a good enough fighter for Grimmjow to want a brawl with him) was down and out of it.
Big fucking deal. The thing that kept him his happy cheerful self under all circumstances, even ones like this, was that he’d never expected, never wanted anything except a good fight. Up shit creek without a paddle was where he lived. At least he was honest about it.
Honest? Pantera whispered. Maybe that was the case when you didn’t have a heart.
You think I care about this lot?
I’m saying that we have a choice. And one choice is going back to being a Hollow again.
The idea appealed. Things were simpler like that. Much simpler. He’d know to stay out of Aizen’s way this time. There would be the cold wastes, and the souls to be devoured, and the moon above him, and maybe in time he would find another group of followers, and . . .
And the other choice, Pantera said with a casual unconcern, isn’t.
The sun rising over Seireitei. Smacking the shit out of one after another smart-mouthed moron from Eleventh. Hot soup burning his mouth. Madarame’s eyes as they faced off to spar. The Shiba woman knocking him down. The shinigami listening to him like his opinion meant something. Even the ones who didn’t like him, like the healer-mouse or Ise, trusting their backs to him in a fight. Kurosaki. Time to grow strong again, maybe even grow stronger. People who were his to protect, whether or not he liked them, because he claimed them as his own to protect, and because maybe part of being stronger was being able to choose when you fought and how you fought and why you fought.
Hisagi laughed beside him, the sound spilling from his mouth like craziness, and jumped at emptiness. His two scythes swung out, the chain between them swirling like a living thing, and as it moved -
Shit. The way it looked, Grimmjow’s imagination could fill in the outline of a form, of a man temporarily hampered by it who hadn’t yet gathered the moment’s power that it would take to turn Hisagi into a smear on the wall. He could see where Aizen had to be. Where Aizen’s arm had to be.
Fuck if I’m going to miss out on this. “Grind, Pantera!” he screamed, and pounced across the intervening space, swinging the blade up high.
And it changed in his hand. The hilt shifted in his grip, heavier than it had been, its wood stained dark with sweat and infinitely comfortable to his hand. The blade was shorter than its previous katana length, smooth sleek steel with a curve to its belly. Without even thinking about it, he shifted his posture mid-leap to bring the blade down at its sharpest point.
On Aizen’s wrist.
The blade bit in. He might not be able to see Aizen, but he felt the meaty firmness of flesh as Pantera carved into it, and the hard impact of bone against the steel. Now he knew where the bastard was, and he had a weapon, and he would even tolerate Hisagi keeping Aizen tangled up in his chains while he carved Aizen’s guts out, and -
Oh. Yes. There had been a plan.
The thought hung in his mind, something new and fascinating and untried. There had been a plan. He was going to get Aizen’s zanpakutou so that the Inoue girl could blow it to scrap, and then they were all going to carve Aizen’s guts out.
Maybe, just maybe, this was one of those very rare times when it was less important to fight a man, and more important to dispose of a piece of shit so thoroughly that it never even had a chance to fight back.
He reached with his left hand to where Aizen’s hand should be, and whether it was real or an illusion he didn’t know, but he could feel fingers and a sword hilt, and blood hot and sticky against his skin.
“You’ve got it!” the Inoue girl screamed.
So either Aizen was fucking with his head to make him think he had the sword, and he was adding in the screams too, or he’d got the sword and Aizen was currently too busy to fuck with their heads.
A bolt of power that tasted of Kurosaki’s reiatsu ripped past him, as violent as a Cero, and impacted with the general area that Hisagi was trying to keep busy. Hisagi went down.
I think it’s real, Pantera said. Let’s do this.
With a roar Grimmjow yanked at the zanpakutou hilt, forcing Pantera’s blade further down into Aizen’s wrist at the same time, grinding the blade against the bones.
And the hilt came free.
He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t feel it, now; his left hand seemed to be closed on nothing, on a handful of air. A blast of reiatsu drove at him in a wave of blue fire, and he threw himself backwards in a dodging swerve that he wasn’t sure he’d ever bettered before, a fraction of a moment ahead of the leading edge of the flames. Before his next pulse beat, he was back next to the Inoue girl, thrusting the blade at her hilt first. She caught it with one hand - or at least, she seemed to grab something, her arm bending under its weight, extending the other hand in front of her as a shield of pale light sprang up round them.
It dented under the impact of another wave of flame, but it held.
“Let me out,” Grimmjow snarled. “You do your thing, let me do mine.”
“If I open it, he might get in.” She dropped to her knees, still holding onto what Grimmjow could only hope was the real blade and not some sort of illusionary joke being played on them all. How the fucker would laugh . . . “Please wait just a little longer, Grimmjow-san - I healed you. I can fix this.”
---
I can fix this, Orihime repeated to herself. I’m not just saying this to convince myself. I really can fix this!
The sword in front of her eyed her steelily, in a metaphorical sort of way, silent amid the noise and blasts of power. It was easy to imagine it as a representation of Aizen, except of course Aizen would be taller and look at her in a more withering, undercutting sort of way, so superior and utterly beyond her that he didn’t even need to prove it, and Aizen wouldn’t be made of metal, he’d just feel as if he was made of metal, or possibly marble.
She swallowed. She wished that she was wearing something other than white. Only dead people and Arrancar wore white.
Power roared against her shield. She forced it back.
Don’t worry, Mistress, Lily said calmly at one corner of the shield. We’ve got this one.
Just imagine that you’ve got Yoruichi-san sitting on your shoulder and telling you what to do, Baigon said helpfully at another corner.
Yes, she’d tell you to hurry up, Hinagiku pointed out at the third corner.
“I know she would,” Orihime muttered to herself. Really, it would be so much easier if Yoruichi-san was here. Yoruichi-san would be able to tell her what the most appropriate thing to do in this situation would be. Should she be healing this sword? Or destroying it?
That is one of the three most stupid questions I have ever heard, Tsubaki said from directly above her head. All of which, by the way, came from you. Destroy it, of course.
“Who’re you talking to?” Grimmjow snarled.
“Nobody,” Orihime lied. She stared at the sword, trying to think how to approach it. Well, of course she could just blast at it, but that would be breaking it, wouldn’t it? Not rejecting it. What she needed to do was unmake it. But how did you unmake things?
Blasting it would be a fine start, Tsubaki snapped.
Somewhere inside, fundamentally deep, Orihime disagreed. Blasting it was what everyone was doing at the moment. Aizen fought them and so they fought him and that made a dead Aizen or a dead them, and however much she rejected it all, none of it stopped it happening. She let herself be taken as a hostage and still it didn’t stop it happening. She tried to protect people and still it didn’t stop it happening. None of it would stop happening until she found a way that would really stop it -
Yes, destroy it! Tsubaki screamed.
I can’t see any way to heal it, Shun’ou pointed out calmly. You did heal Grimmjow, because you restored him from his Hollow state. You can’t heal Aizen that way, because he’s not a Hollow. It’s not your fault if there’s nothing there to heal.
Ayame hid inside her shell of clothing, but Orihime knew that she was shaking her head. She didn’t know if that meant that no, they couldn’t heal it, or no, they were wrong in thinking of it in terms of healing.
I want to save my friends. I want to save myself. She had to be honest. This was all about Aizen’s illusions. She needed all her strength to reject it. She couldn’t let herself lie to herself about anything now. I want none of this to ever have happened. I want to be with Tatsuki and with the others again. I want Kurosaki-kun to be happy. I want nobody to have to die because of me. I want him to stop this.
She looked up from the sword. Aizen was standing in front of her shields, his face like thunder, his eyes implacable, his right hand scarlet from the wrist to the fingers, and she knew that to him she was nothing more than a grain of dust, as fragile as one of Soul Society’s butterflies. He would care about killing her as much as it mattered to him, to make a point or achieve an end or simply assuage his temper, but she herself was totally unimportant, it had nothing to do with her personally, and she wasn’t even as much as an illusion to him, she was nothing, nothing at all.
Kurosaki-kun was there as well, his blade raised to defend her, his back to her, blood running down his arm and shoulder, the white pearl of his bone mask cupping over his face once more.
I want to break Aizen’s illusions. I want to save Kurosaki-kun from fighting them and having to become the worst of himself. I want to save myself. I want to save us all.
All illusions, all of them: the bone and crystal of Las Noches that Aizen had raised, the complete hypnosis of his sword, the madness that haunted Kurosaki-kun and the Vizards, the white that draped her, everything around her. She could not listen to any other voices, even the Shun Shun Rikka, because they were part of her, and now they all needed to say the same thing in unison, to truly mean it.
She didn’t understand what she was doing. That was quite all right, as Tatsuki would have told her. She just needed to do it.
She looked down at Kyouka Suigetsu in her hands, but her awareness was wider than that. The sword was Aizen in front of her, and it was the whole of Las Noches, and it was everything that was keeping them here now and killing each other.
She would no longer accept it.
The Shun Shun Rikka spun around her, demanding her intention.
I am not retreating from this. I will not defend myself with daydreams or by withdrawal. I perceive what it is, and I accept it, and I do not need to shield myself from it because it does not exist.
Baigon, Hinagiku, and Lily hung in the air with the grace of supreme gymnasts, flaring as bright as miniature stars. They were a structure that she could build on and go forward. The thoughts came to her one after another, a bridge over emptiness, over the darkness, to the end that she desired.
I am not healing this. I would heal Kurosaki-kun and Grimmjow-san and all the others, but this is not something which I can heal. I heal real things. This is an illusion and it does not exist.
Shun’ou and Ayame spun into place, burning above her head in twin suns, their clear light casting Kyouka Suigetsu’s shadow onto her white robes and across the floor.
I am not attacking this. I would attack Aizen. Aizen is real. I hate him, and it’s wrong of me to hate him, but I can’t change that, any more than I can change that I love Kurosaki-kun, but both of them are real. To attack illusions only gives the illusions more power over you. Therefore I am not attacking this illusion, and I will not attack this illusion, because when you know that something is an illusion, then you do not need to attack the illusion, and it does not exist.
Tsubaki elongated into a brilliant blade of light, falling towards the blade in her hands, like a comet coming down from the skies, as fast as the speed of light (or would it be sound so that she could hear it?) but so slowly that she could see each movement of his body.
“I reject!” she declared.
The other Shun Shun Rikka flashed to join Tsubaki, the six of them becoming a single flaming spear which buried itself in the heart of the zanpakutou.
Was there a scream? No, there couldn’t have been a scream, because there could only have been a scream if something real had been there to scream, and there was nothing in her hands now, nothing at all.
Silence like a physical presence trembled in the air around her, breaking outward like a wave, spreading through the room, making her shake with a sudden and absolute weakness.
Aizen’s hand came down towards her. There should have been something in the way. There was nothing. No shield, no healing, no blade. The Shun Shun Rikka weren’t there any longer. There was a deep flutter somewhere inside her, a certainty within her heart, but now there was nothing to stop him . . .
Grimmjow was tumbling her sideways, carrying her in one arm. Her dress was torn at the shoulder and sleeve, a thin trickle of blood running down her breasts, and Kurosaki-kun was striking at Aizen again. “Good job, woman,” Grimmjow growled in her ear. “Now it’s time to take out the trash.”
---
Byakuya dropped Ise Nanao next to Hanatarou, setting her down with as much gentleness as the battle gave him time for. It was obvious that she wouldn’t have the strength to restore the bankai, which was a pity. There was no point trying to get her further away: if Aizen won, then nowhere in any world would be safe.
But now they could see Aizen. The traitor’s blade was gone. He didn’t know how it had been done, but the fact that Aizen had just tried to put his hand through Inoue Orihime’s chest suggested that she was involved.
There was no time for hesitation. He gestured, and Senbonzakura’s blades lashed out at Aizen like a whip, scything across the empty space between them.
To one side, Kurosaki howled, the substance across his face rippling like fluid. He lifted his black zanpakutou to dash in again.
Aizen turned. Blood gloved his right hand in scarlet and streaked his white robes. His face was still as impassive and smiling as always, but this time there was something a little off about it, like an imitation of a classical style which was flawed to the expert eye.
Hisagi made another run at Aizen, scythes swinging in great heavy loops and shrieking as they cut through the air. Aizen stepped into it, moving faster than the blades, and caught the man by his throat, tossing him back through the air and against the wall with a motion that had kidou behind it. Then he turned towards Kurosaki as the boy came charging at him. “Black Coffin,” he said, and gestured.
The air shimmered darkly and folded itself closed around Kurosaki with a great shudder, cutting off the boy’s voice mid-shout. The kidou’s spears began to form, sliding into the huge black box in a dreadful silence.
“Now you, Kuchiki Byakuya,” Aizen said.
It was the voice that went with captivity, with stinking imprisonment, with starving hunger, with humiliation, with Rukia’s death. With his sister Rukia’s murder.
There was only one reply to that.
“Senkei,” Byakuya said. He dug his nails into his left hand, bringing fresh blood from old grazes. “Senbonzakura Kageyoshi.”
The words came from him as coldly as if he had been criticising calligraphy (Rukia) or commenting on clothing (Rukia), but he had no need to shout. He would let his blade speak for him. He had always known that it would come down to this, whatever the others had planned. He would face Aizen, and Aizen would die.
The blades of his shikai swelled into full swords, and swung into position around the two of them, hanging in the air like promises. Some of them glided down to Byakuya’s hand, responding to his unspoken call. He closed his grip around the hilt.
“You act as if I have never seen you do that before,” Aizen said. He wasn’t moving to defend himself, and for a moment Byakuya was worried that this was just another illusion.
He shrugged. “Were this a duel, I would see to it that you had a sword. But it is not a duel. It is an execution.”
Aizen shook his head pityingly, and without a word simply pointed his index finger at Byakuya. Light sprang out at him, flashing into the Rikujokoro kidou at the same moment as Byakuya sent his blades slashing through the air at Aizen. He sprang to the right, skimming across the floor in an attempt to avoid the kidou, and saw Aizen moving at the same time, as though they were engaged in a complicated dance. He saw the blades cut Aizen. He saw blood drawn.
Then the rods of light slammed into position around him, locking around his waist and holding him frozen in mid-air. But that didn’t matter. He didn’t need to move to control his blades. His will sent them at Aizen again, and this time it would not simply be a matter of blood, this time it would be to the heart...
Except that he couldn’t see Aizen any more.
“Tell me, Kuchiki Byakuya,” that familiar voice said from behind him, “are you willing to throw your blades at yourself in the hope of killing me?”
Byakuya’s heart was as cold as ice. If that was the only way to destroy the traitor -
You promised to live, Senbonzakura whispered, the zanpakutou’s voice the sound of falling cherry blossoms. You promised to live.
But I cannot let him survive! he screamed inside his mind, struggling with the kidou that held him in position.
You have forgotten what you should have remembered, Senbonzakura answered. You are not alone.
But Kurosaki Ichigo was trapped, and Kyouraku and Hisagi were down, and neither Ise nor Hanatarou had the strength to stop Aizen, and the Arrancar Grimmjow was too far away, and Inoue Orihime was no warrior...
“Apparently not,” Aizen said, and Byakuya felt a cold hand touch the back of his neck. “Well, then -“
The blast of red flame behind him singed Byakuya’s back and burned the ends of his hair, but it broke the kidou’s hold and knocked Aizen away.
He turned to see Renji crouched by his feet, his ragged clothing in shreds, and his mouth open unnaturally wide. Fire dripped from his mouth in long tendrils which flared to nothingness before they touched the ground, and his long claws etched grooves in the floor, but his eyes were human, and they looked up at Byakuya in reproach.
An apology to his vice-captain would have been a waste of time. Instead he stepped forward to cut at Aizen, blades coming down in a sweep of steel, as Renji roared flame at the traitor once more.
---
“That was odd,” Ise Nanao said. She was having to lean against Hanatarou to stay upright, and blood ran from the corners of her closed eyes all the way down her face, but she clung to Suzumushi as a drowning man holds onto the rope thrown to him. “That was very odd.”
“What was?” Hanatarou said, confused. “Ise-fukutaichou, if I can get you over to the corner, then I can try to reach Kyouraku-taichou -“
“Rikujokoro,” Ise-fukutaichou said. “Why did he use that? Why not Kin or Sajo Sabaku or even Kuyo Shibari? They’d be more efficient. Kuchiki-taichou would have less chance of breaking out of them.” Her eyes might be closed, but her face had the expression of acute concentration that Hanatarou had seen when she’d been unpicking Aizen’s locks earlier.
Hanatarou frowned. He didn’t know the high-level sealing kidou well, and he’d need to use the whole incantation to even have a chance of them working, but what Ise-fukutaichou was saying made sense. “But he just used the Black Coffin on Kurosaki Ichigo -“
“Nothing less than that would have held Kurosaki Ichigo,” Ise-fukutaichou snapped. “And look at him now. He’s defending. He’s dodging. Why?”
“He wants them alive?” Hanatarou suggested. The thought made him sick. But then he frowned. “No, wait, Ise-fukutaichou. His breathing’s off. He wasn’t like this before when he visited us as prisoners - though he wasn’t exerting himself then, so I don’t know, but... Something’s wrong with him.“
Ise-fukutaichou smiled thinly. “I think you’re right. Well then.” She took a deep breath, and raised her voice, and her shriek carried over the crashing of flame and steel against kidou. “Grimmjow! Over here, now!”
The Arrancar appeared at their side, his blade naked in his hand. It had changed shape, Hanatarou noticed with the casual awareness of terror. It had a wider blade and a longer hilt. “Yeah? Got an idea?”
“Aizen’s more injured than he’s willing to show,” Ise-fukutaichou said curtly. “Not just what you did to his wrist, but something more serious. He’s on the defensive.”
Grimmjow’s lips drew back in a snarl, and he wetted his teeth with his tongue. “So what’s wrong with that?”
“We wear him down,” Ise-fukutaichou said. She firmed her shoulders, pushing away from Hanatarou and forcing herself upright. “Don’t go for any killing blows unless you’re sure it’s certain. Just keep him moving, make him use up his strength, waste his breath.” She looked around. “Where’s Inoue Orihime -“
“I dumped her round the corner,” Grimmjow growled. “She’s out of it for the moment. You think this is how to play it?”
Ise-fukutaichou jerked her head in a nod. “Basic strategy. When your enemy’s stronger, you wear him down.” She didn’t seem to realise that she was repeating herself. “Hanatarou, you’re with me: we’ll strike with kidou. Grimmjow...”
“Don’t need to tell me how to do this, woman,” Grimmjow said. He licked his teeth again, then leapt towards Aizen’s back.
---
The spears sliced through the darkness like black lightning, bearing down on Ichigo as he hung there. It wasn’t like being in the nothingness that Nanao had invoked. That had been a true nothingness - no sight, no vision, no hearing, nothing. This was just darkness, and even though he couldn’t have exactly described the difference between darkness and nothingness, he could perfectly well see the spears cutting towards him. It was only his reiatsu that held them off. And with every passing moment he could feel them testing it, probing at it, driving further in.
He had to get out. Aizen was out there. Inoue was out there. This had to stop eventually, didn’t it?
Or, the thought stole into his mind, had Aizen already done the illusion thing to him? Was he just standing in the middle of the floor clinging to his zanpakutou along with everyone else while Aizen just strolled around and killed them when they couldn’t even see him...
No. No, that had to be wrong, because he was sure someone had said that Aizen had to do his zanpakutou thing first before he did his illusions, and he’d been starting to do it, but Hisagi and Grimmjow had got in the way. So this was some sort of kidou. He just had to break it and get out.
Easily enough done, the voice spoke in his head. It was his mask, his Hollow, his other self, and he could feel it rising through him in a comforting swell of fury. First we smash it. Then we smash him.
And then you take control again, like you’ve been doing for the last few months? Ichigo demanded.
The darkness rippled and peeled back, and once again he was standing in his interior world, in a landscape of perpendicular buildings and constant rain. His Hollow faced him from a spur of office block which jutted out from the side of the world like a broken branch.
“Don’t blame me if you don’t like what you see,” his Hollow jeered. “Were you objecting when I killed Zaraki for you?”
“Yes!” Ichigo snarled. “I wanted to stop him. I didn’t want to kill him!”
“Easy to say so.” The Hollow tossed Zangetsu between his hands. “Face it, ‘King’, this isn’t playing patty-cake with Chad any more. If you pick up a sword, what do you think is going to happen? The only reason I was in charge is because you put me in charge, because you didn’t want to fucking think about what happened! What you let happen! What you made happen!”
“Shut up!” Ichigo felt his hands sweating as he gripped Zangetsu. He needed control. He needed the firmness that the Vizards had beaten into him. But he couldn’t look the Hollow in the eyes and tell him that he was lying.
“There’s no Inoue-kun to save you here,” the Hollow sneered. “Just let me take charge now and spare us both the trouble. You weren’t objecting a few minutes ago.”
“That was us both fighting together,” Ichigo argued. “Besides, you weren’t trying to fight Aizen for the last few months.” The thought of them made him boil with a new anger, one directed at himself just as much as at his smirking white reflection. “You just fucking left them there! Chad and Inoue and Ishida and everyone! You didn’t fucking protect them!”
“I don’t do protection,” the Hollow said, and his eyes were as yellow as a wolf’s, yellow as any other Hollow that Ichigo had purified and sent on before.
“Yeah, well, fuck you,” Ichigo said. Making sense of it cleared his head and helped him focus on who he should be angry at, right here, right now. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I do.”
“Ri-ight,” the Hollow singsonged.
“And you know something?” Ichigo reached behind him and shoved Zangetsu into its scabbard. “You’re next.”
The Hollow hefted Zangetsu. “Come on if you think you can.”
“No,” Ichigo said. He felt his lips peel back from his teeth as he grinned. “I mean I’m going to protect you too, jerk.”
The Hollow looked at him slackjawed. “Say what?”
“I mean,” Ichigo clarified, “Aizen’s had you as a prisoner for what, months now? Sounds like you were messed with, just like Chad and Ishida and Inoue. Guess I should apologise to you for that.” He took a step forward. ”I ought to be looking out for you. You ought to be looking out for me. You may not know that, but I should. So from now on, hard luck, Jerk. You can relax. I’ve got you.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” the Hollow said.
“Don’t get me wrong.” Ichigo gathered his balance, shifted his weight. “This isn’t some sort of shoujo thing. I’m just telling you how it’s going to be. The person in charge does that, right? And then he looks out for the other guys under him. Captains do it. Leaders do it. And if I’m in charge here, then I’m going to do it.”
The Hollow sprang at him. It wasn’t a blast from Zangetsu. It wasn’t a bankai. It was a pure, furious attempt to cut Ichigo in half, to bring the white zanpakutou down so hard that it would leave a groove in the stone after it had gone through Ichigo’s body.
Ichigo raised his hand. He remembered how this had been done. It had been his blade, once. He had brought Zangetsu down, and Aizen had caught it between his fingers, because Aizen had been a mountain of power and next to Aizen he’d just been an ant. And Aizen hadn’t even bled. He hadn’t even flinched. He had simply raised his hand, without even needing to think about it...
“Don’t worry,” he said.
He caught the blade between his fingers and it stopped. It hummed through his arm like the vibration of an oncoming train, but it didn’t go any further, and there was no blood. The Hollow stood there straining, face to face with him, animal eyes yellow and face whiter than bone.
“But I’m not going to hug you,” he said. “Just - drop it. I’m in charge now. Leave this one to me. I’ve got you.”
The Hollow glared at him, a seething mass of fury and uncertainty, but for the first moment since that time - it seemed like years ago - when he’d actually fought it to a standstill with the Vizards’ help, Ichigo felt as if he was in control.
No, not felt. He knew he had control.
His interior world blurred into a haze of rain and masonry around him, and then he was hanging in the darkness again, straining against the incoming spears. But this time he could feel the steady throb of power from inside, raw but bent to his direction.
He was going to use it.
---
On your feet! Get up on your damned FEET!
Kazeshini was screaming in Hisagi’s mind loud enough to make his skull ache with the force of it. Hisagi was trying to get up. It would help if he could breathe properly. That last blow from Aizen had broken some ribs.
He braced himself against the broken wall and pushed himself to his feet. The battlefield was a maze of swords and blasts of fire, and while they might have been aimed at Aizen, they weren’t going to miraculously avoid Hisagi if he stepped into the middle of them. He needed a moment to work out what to do.
Kyouraku-taichou still lay puddled in his black clothing on the white floor, blood smeared out in a long streak behind him, but he was low enough to the ground that nothing else had struck him. A black cuboid shimmered in the air where Kurosaki had been. Kuchiki-taichou and Abarai-fukutaichou were keeping Aizen busy, with Grimmjow dodging in and out of the fight to hack at Aizen when he had the chance. Ise-fukutaichou was backed against the wall over to one side together with Hanatarou, her left hand clutching Suzumushi and right hand blazing with kidou, throwing blasts that seemed more directed at keeping Aizen off-balance than actually hitting him. And Aizen didn’t have his sword. He didn’t have his damned Kyouga Suigetsu.
They had a chance. They actually had a chance.
Kazeshini howled delighted agreement through him, like the wind blowing through scrap-iron chimes. Hisagi shook with the force of it, and his hands tightened on the handles of his axes. He tensed himself, waiting for the moment to move, to sweep across and bury his axes in Aizen’s back...
And then the whole world shook. There was no better description for it. Someone nearby had discharged reiatsu on a scale so huge and careless that everyone was thrown off balance. Even Kuchiki-taichou lost his poise and went sprawling. The ceiling cracked across like eggshell, and pieces of it came crashing down. Hisagi was thrown to his knees as if the floor had dropped out under him, and blinked stupidly as the room was filled with lazy dust.
Aizen was the first to move again. He flickered backwards from where Kuchiki-taichou and Abarai Renji and Grimmjow had him surrounding, flash stepping away before they could collect themselves. Blood spattered out from the gash in his right wrist as he raised his hand in a kidou gesture, and as he spoke, a net spun across the floor around them, as red as his blood.
It exploded. They went down.
Aizen turned to sweep his gaze across the rest of the room. His eyes met Hisagi’s for a moment, and Hisagi felt his skin crawl at the gaze. Aizen didn’t have to say anything, but that look promised Hisagi a future of naked pain.
It’s not even because I’m fighting him now. He realises that I fooled him. He is never, never going to pardon that.
Almost casually, Aizen turned away from Hisagi, and glanced towards Hanatarou and Ise-fukutaichou. “It seems that I made a mistake in sparing you, Hanatarou Yamada,” he said. “But you may have been forced into this. Beg for pardon, and you will have your life.”
Hanatarou swallowed. Beside him, Ise was murmuring to herself, lips moving, eyes closed, blood streaking her face.
“Now,” Aizen amplified helpfully. Blood from his wrist pattered onto the floor. “If you want your head to remain on its shoulders.”
A very small motion caught Hisagi’s eye, and his heart suddenly thumped in his chest as if it was trying to crack its way out. Kyouraku-taichou’s eyes were open and fixed on Hisagi. He made a very small motion with his left hand, shielded by his body from Aizen’s line of vision where he lay on the floor between them.
It meant... Hisagi snapped back to days at the Academy. A twitch to say stay where you are and another that meant draw target towards you.
“You’re wasting your time,” he called across at Aizen before he could lose his nerve. “But you’ve been wasting it for the last few months, haven’t you? I certainly haven’t had anything to report.”
Aizen laughed. His voice should have been its usual mellow, relaxed self, but there was a thread of something else behind it now, a shortness of breath and a vicious edge of anger. “Clearly I have wasted my time with you, Hisagi-kun.”
Is this for the first time? Hisagi thought. Or has he been sounding like this for longer than that, and he just made it so that I couldn’t hear it before? “And I’ve been wasting mine,” he said. Kazeshini was a roiling fire in his belly, pushing him on. “Yamamoto-soutaichou put me in as a spy when I first faked joining you. Do I really need to tell you why so many things went wrong for you?”
That made Aizen turn towards him. Hisagi felt his palms sweating at the look on Aizen’s face. “Well, then,” Aizen said, “you can count this as partial payment. Detonation override, authorise.”
A single small spark jumped from the collar around Hanatarou’s neck and fizzled out. It would have been an anticlimax, except that nothing could break the tension of the reiatsu in the room.
Everyone looked at it. Hanatarou stared down at his chest as if a frog had just jumped out of it, and fanned at the smouldering cloth feverishly, his breath coming in great gasps of shock. Aizen stared at it too, in what looked like sheer disbelief - an expression which Hisagi was not used to seeing on his face.
Ise-fukutaichou spoke a single finishing word, and a pyramidal shield shimmered into existence around her and Hanatarou. It had the look of multiple-layered ice to it, and Hisagi could tell at a glance that it was something above his level: the sort of thing that she’d raised against Harribel, but tougher.
Aizen touched it with a single finger. It hummed like wet glass, and sparks showered through the air. He paused for a moment, seeming to consider, then with the air of a man who will simply see to the main course before the dessert, he turned towards Hisagi again.
Hisagi swallowed. Any good advice? he asked Kazeshini, as he took a step forward.
Kill the fucker! Kazeshini ranted in his head. He was a boiling stream of lava, a volcanic eruption, a dark firestorm and a blazing hurricane. Kill him! Kill him! KILL HIM!
Hisagi felt himself shaking, as if from a distance, with the effort to remain in place and not hurl himself forward. Wait, he commanded.
KILL HIM! Kazeshini screamed.
Aizen came towards them in a flash step across the battlefield, faster than Hisagi could ever have managed himself.
But Kyouraku-taichou was faster still. His blade came floating out in a horizontal cut so smooth and graceful that it might have been a dancer’s gesture, broadening and deepening into a full scimitar that sliced heavily into the back of Aizen’s left leg at ankle height.
Hisagi saw Aizen’s mouth open, and another new expression showed itself on the man’s face. Pain.
And Aizen fell to one knee.
His motion carried him forwards for several metres, and Hisagi took advantage of his distraction to dodge sideways along the wall before Aizen could get any closer to him. A thick trail of blood smeared along the ground where Aizen had dragged his foot.
Aizen snarled and gestured behind him. He was a caricature of his usual cool, collected self; bloodstained, hunted, furious, his calm perfection marred. Blue fire came washing from his hand towards Kyouraku-taichou, but it splashed against a sudden wall of shielding from Ise-fukutaichou, and a drift of sakura petals came rushing over it from where Kuchiki-taichou lay, humming towards Aizen in a lethal blizzard that made Aizen raise a kidou shield for himself.
Hisagi dodged forward, his chest screaming at him with every breath he took, every strain he placed on it, and brought Kazeshini’s axes round in a spinning burst against Aizen’s shield. More, more, we need more... Kyouraku-taichou was throwing kidou blasts at Aizen now as well, and Aizen’s shields were glowing like the heart of the sun, but they were still holding, Aizen was still there, and...
The black coffin holding Kurosaki Ichigo burst apart with a concussion that detonated in the air and brought more of the ceiling down.
Kurosaki Ichigo stepped from the tumbling black shards of frozen power, and slid through the air towards Aizen like a blade in motion. His zanpakutou drove forward, and it cut through the shields and into Aizen’s chest, till the point stood out clear behind Aizen’s back.
Aizen coughed, and blood ran from his mouth and down his chest. He reached forward, his stained hands grasping for Kurosaki Ichigo, clawing at the blade that impaled him, and wisps of power flickered from them and boiled away into the air. Kurosaki Ichigo braced himself, both hands on the hilt of his zanpakutou now, an expression of sheer horror and disgust on his face as Aizen struggled, as the blood ran down the zanpakutou and over his hands.
Slowly, very slowly, Aizen stopped moving, and his last gurgling breaths rattled and were silent in his throat. The light reflected on his blank eyes like empty mirrors. He hung on Kurosaki Ichigo’s sword like the dead thing that he was.
Kurosaki Ichigo stepped back, and let the body slide from his zanpakutou to collapse on the floor.
---
Revenge, revenge, we are revenged, Suzumushi keened in Nanao’s mind as they watched the death. We are finished, it is revenged, we have had revenge, the shinigami is dead...
Everything was in greys and blacks now, patterns against darkness. Nanao let her shields fall, and Hanatarou scurried out from behind them to wring his hands, trying to decide who to heal first. The ache in her eyes had gone. She could feel nothing now.
Yes, she answered. It is over. You can rest now.
She felt the driving hum in her body. Revenge... She saw, and Suzumushi saw with her, the other shinigami who still lived. They lived. They should all die, they must all die...
No. One last refusal. Her own zanpakutou finally joined its voice with hers, in this most necessary and absolute answer, and she felt the comfort of its support. They had both accepted Suzumushi. Now they must both refuse it. Rest and sleep.
A whisper at the back of her mind sang, Revenge? but she put it from her, driving it away like any other temptation.
Duty, she answered, and let her hand open. Suzumushi fell with a clatter to the floor.
There were no more patterns, there was nothing except darkness, but she had expected that.
---
Authors: incandescens
Characters: The Hueco Mundo expedition
Rating/Warning: PG-13.
Notes: This is a dark AU co-plotted with sophiap and liralen. The war against Aizen's forces went very badly. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe.
Summary: No one is safe.
Index of Links
[...]
45. Nanao: Dark Songs
46. Ensemble: Making War
47. Ensemble: Tactics
48. Ensemble: On Three
49. Ikkaku, Yumichika, Lisa: Use Me While You Can
BROKEN MIRRORS
As far as Grimmjow was concerned, this latest event was just one more cherry on top of the turd that the mission had turned into. So the Big Secret Weapon had failed to kill Aizen or even slow him down. So Aizen was about to screw over Kurosaki and the Inoue girl and nobody would have a clue where he was. So that Kyouraku guy (who had, to be fair, looked like he might have a clue about things and have been a good enough fighter for Grimmjow to want a brawl with him) was down and out of it.
Big fucking deal. The thing that kept him his happy cheerful self under all circumstances, even ones like this, was that he’d never expected, never wanted anything except a good fight. Up shit creek without a paddle was where he lived. At least he was honest about it.
Honest? Pantera whispered. Maybe that was the case when you didn’t have a heart.
You think I care about this lot?
I’m saying that we have a choice. And one choice is going back to being a Hollow again.
The idea appealed. Things were simpler like that. Much simpler. He’d know to stay out of Aizen’s way this time. There would be the cold wastes, and the souls to be devoured, and the moon above him, and maybe in time he would find another group of followers, and . . .
And the other choice, Pantera said with a casual unconcern, isn’t.
The sun rising over Seireitei. Smacking the shit out of one after another smart-mouthed moron from Eleventh. Hot soup burning his mouth. Madarame’s eyes as they faced off to spar. The Shiba woman knocking him down. The shinigami listening to him like his opinion meant something. Even the ones who didn’t like him, like the healer-mouse or Ise, trusting their backs to him in a fight. Kurosaki. Time to grow strong again, maybe even grow stronger. People who were his to protect, whether or not he liked them, because he claimed them as his own to protect, and because maybe part of being stronger was being able to choose when you fought and how you fought and why you fought.
Hisagi laughed beside him, the sound spilling from his mouth like craziness, and jumped at emptiness. His two scythes swung out, the chain between them swirling like a living thing, and as it moved -
Shit. The way it looked, Grimmjow’s imagination could fill in the outline of a form, of a man temporarily hampered by it who hadn’t yet gathered the moment’s power that it would take to turn Hisagi into a smear on the wall. He could see where Aizen had to be. Where Aizen’s arm had to be.
Fuck if I’m going to miss out on this. “Grind, Pantera!” he screamed, and pounced across the intervening space, swinging the blade up high.
And it changed in his hand. The hilt shifted in his grip, heavier than it had been, its wood stained dark with sweat and infinitely comfortable to his hand. The blade was shorter than its previous katana length, smooth sleek steel with a curve to its belly. Without even thinking about it, he shifted his posture mid-leap to bring the blade down at its sharpest point.
On Aizen’s wrist.
The blade bit in. He might not be able to see Aizen, but he felt the meaty firmness of flesh as Pantera carved into it, and the hard impact of bone against the steel. Now he knew where the bastard was, and he had a weapon, and he would even tolerate Hisagi keeping Aizen tangled up in his chains while he carved Aizen’s guts out, and -
Oh. Yes. There had been a plan.
The thought hung in his mind, something new and fascinating and untried. There had been a plan. He was going to get Aizen’s zanpakutou so that the Inoue girl could blow it to scrap, and then they were all going to carve Aizen’s guts out.
Maybe, just maybe, this was one of those very rare times when it was less important to fight a man, and more important to dispose of a piece of shit so thoroughly that it never even had a chance to fight back.
He reached with his left hand to where Aizen’s hand should be, and whether it was real or an illusion he didn’t know, but he could feel fingers and a sword hilt, and blood hot and sticky against his skin.
“You’ve got it!” the Inoue girl screamed.
So either Aizen was fucking with his head to make him think he had the sword, and he was adding in the screams too, or he’d got the sword and Aizen was currently too busy to fuck with their heads.
A bolt of power that tasted of Kurosaki’s reiatsu ripped past him, as violent as a Cero, and impacted with the general area that Hisagi was trying to keep busy. Hisagi went down.
I think it’s real, Pantera said. Let’s do this.
With a roar Grimmjow yanked at the zanpakutou hilt, forcing Pantera’s blade further down into Aizen’s wrist at the same time, grinding the blade against the bones.
And the hilt came free.
He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t feel it, now; his left hand seemed to be closed on nothing, on a handful of air. A blast of reiatsu drove at him in a wave of blue fire, and he threw himself backwards in a dodging swerve that he wasn’t sure he’d ever bettered before, a fraction of a moment ahead of the leading edge of the flames. Before his next pulse beat, he was back next to the Inoue girl, thrusting the blade at her hilt first. She caught it with one hand - or at least, she seemed to grab something, her arm bending under its weight, extending the other hand in front of her as a shield of pale light sprang up round them.
It dented under the impact of another wave of flame, but it held.
“Let me out,” Grimmjow snarled. “You do your thing, let me do mine.”
“If I open it, he might get in.” She dropped to her knees, still holding onto what Grimmjow could only hope was the real blade and not some sort of illusionary joke being played on them all. How the fucker would laugh . . . “Please wait just a little longer, Grimmjow-san - I healed you. I can fix this.”
---
I can fix this, Orihime repeated to herself. I’m not just saying this to convince myself. I really can fix this!
The sword in front of her eyed her steelily, in a metaphorical sort of way, silent amid the noise and blasts of power. It was easy to imagine it as a representation of Aizen, except of course Aizen would be taller and look at her in a more withering, undercutting sort of way, so superior and utterly beyond her that he didn’t even need to prove it, and Aizen wouldn’t be made of metal, he’d just feel as if he was made of metal, or possibly marble.
She swallowed. She wished that she was wearing something other than white. Only dead people and Arrancar wore white.
Power roared against her shield. She forced it back.
Don’t worry, Mistress, Lily said calmly at one corner of the shield. We’ve got this one.
Just imagine that you’ve got Yoruichi-san sitting on your shoulder and telling you what to do, Baigon said helpfully at another corner.
Yes, she’d tell you to hurry up, Hinagiku pointed out at the third corner.
“I know she would,” Orihime muttered to herself. Really, it would be so much easier if Yoruichi-san was here. Yoruichi-san would be able to tell her what the most appropriate thing to do in this situation would be. Should she be healing this sword? Or destroying it?
That is one of the three most stupid questions I have ever heard, Tsubaki said from directly above her head. All of which, by the way, came from you. Destroy it, of course.
“Who’re you talking to?” Grimmjow snarled.
“Nobody,” Orihime lied. She stared at the sword, trying to think how to approach it. Well, of course she could just blast at it, but that would be breaking it, wouldn’t it? Not rejecting it. What she needed to do was unmake it. But how did you unmake things?
Blasting it would be a fine start, Tsubaki snapped.
Somewhere inside, fundamentally deep, Orihime disagreed. Blasting it was what everyone was doing at the moment. Aizen fought them and so they fought him and that made a dead Aizen or a dead them, and however much she rejected it all, none of it stopped it happening. She let herself be taken as a hostage and still it didn’t stop it happening. She tried to protect people and still it didn’t stop it happening. None of it would stop happening until she found a way that would really stop it -
Yes, destroy it! Tsubaki screamed.
I can’t see any way to heal it, Shun’ou pointed out calmly. You did heal Grimmjow, because you restored him from his Hollow state. You can’t heal Aizen that way, because he’s not a Hollow. It’s not your fault if there’s nothing there to heal.
Ayame hid inside her shell of clothing, but Orihime knew that she was shaking her head. She didn’t know if that meant that no, they couldn’t heal it, or no, they were wrong in thinking of it in terms of healing.
I want to save my friends. I want to save myself. She had to be honest. This was all about Aizen’s illusions. She needed all her strength to reject it. She couldn’t let herself lie to herself about anything now. I want none of this to ever have happened. I want to be with Tatsuki and with the others again. I want Kurosaki-kun to be happy. I want nobody to have to die because of me. I want him to stop this.
She looked up from the sword. Aizen was standing in front of her shields, his face like thunder, his eyes implacable, his right hand scarlet from the wrist to the fingers, and she knew that to him she was nothing more than a grain of dust, as fragile as one of Soul Society’s butterflies. He would care about killing her as much as it mattered to him, to make a point or achieve an end or simply assuage his temper, but she herself was totally unimportant, it had nothing to do with her personally, and she wasn’t even as much as an illusion to him, she was nothing, nothing at all.
Kurosaki-kun was there as well, his blade raised to defend her, his back to her, blood running down his arm and shoulder, the white pearl of his bone mask cupping over his face once more.
I want to break Aizen’s illusions. I want to save Kurosaki-kun from fighting them and having to become the worst of himself. I want to save myself. I want to save us all.
All illusions, all of them: the bone and crystal of Las Noches that Aizen had raised, the complete hypnosis of his sword, the madness that haunted Kurosaki-kun and the Vizards, the white that draped her, everything around her. She could not listen to any other voices, even the Shun Shun Rikka, because they were part of her, and now they all needed to say the same thing in unison, to truly mean it.
She didn’t understand what she was doing. That was quite all right, as Tatsuki would have told her. She just needed to do it.
She looked down at Kyouka Suigetsu in her hands, but her awareness was wider than that. The sword was Aizen in front of her, and it was the whole of Las Noches, and it was everything that was keeping them here now and killing each other.
She would no longer accept it.
The Shun Shun Rikka spun around her, demanding her intention.
I am not retreating from this. I will not defend myself with daydreams or by withdrawal. I perceive what it is, and I accept it, and I do not need to shield myself from it because it does not exist.
Baigon, Hinagiku, and Lily hung in the air with the grace of supreme gymnasts, flaring as bright as miniature stars. They were a structure that she could build on and go forward. The thoughts came to her one after another, a bridge over emptiness, over the darkness, to the end that she desired.
I am not healing this. I would heal Kurosaki-kun and Grimmjow-san and all the others, but this is not something which I can heal. I heal real things. This is an illusion and it does not exist.
Shun’ou and Ayame spun into place, burning above her head in twin suns, their clear light casting Kyouka Suigetsu’s shadow onto her white robes and across the floor.
I am not attacking this. I would attack Aizen. Aizen is real. I hate him, and it’s wrong of me to hate him, but I can’t change that, any more than I can change that I love Kurosaki-kun, but both of them are real. To attack illusions only gives the illusions more power over you. Therefore I am not attacking this illusion, and I will not attack this illusion, because when you know that something is an illusion, then you do not need to attack the illusion, and it does not exist.
Tsubaki elongated into a brilliant blade of light, falling towards the blade in her hands, like a comet coming down from the skies, as fast as the speed of light (or would it be sound so that she could hear it?) but so slowly that she could see each movement of his body.
“I reject!” she declared.
The other Shun Shun Rikka flashed to join Tsubaki, the six of them becoming a single flaming spear which buried itself in the heart of the zanpakutou.
Was there a scream? No, there couldn’t have been a scream, because there could only have been a scream if something real had been there to scream, and there was nothing in her hands now, nothing at all.
Silence like a physical presence trembled in the air around her, breaking outward like a wave, spreading through the room, making her shake with a sudden and absolute weakness.
Aizen’s hand came down towards her. There should have been something in the way. There was nothing. No shield, no healing, no blade. The Shun Shun Rikka weren’t there any longer. There was a deep flutter somewhere inside her, a certainty within her heart, but now there was nothing to stop him . . .
Grimmjow was tumbling her sideways, carrying her in one arm. Her dress was torn at the shoulder and sleeve, a thin trickle of blood running down her breasts, and Kurosaki-kun was striking at Aizen again. “Good job, woman,” Grimmjow growled in her ear. “Now it’s time to take out the trash.”
---
Byakuya dropped Ise Nanao next to Hanatarou, setting her down with as much gentleness as the battle gave him time for. It was obvious that she wouldn’t have the strength to restore the bankai, which was a pity. There was no point trying to get her further away: if Aizen won, then nowhere in any world would be safe.
But now they could see Aizen. The traitor’s blade was gone. He didn’t know how it had been done, but the fact that Aizen had just tried to put his hand through Inoue Orihime’s chest suggested that she was involved.
There was no time for hesitation. He gestured, and Senbonzakura’s blades lashed out at Aizen like a whip, scything across the empty space between them.
To one side, Kurosaki howled, the substance across his face rippling like fluid. He lifted his black zanpakutou to dash in again.
Aizen turned. Blood gloved his right hand in scarlet and streaked his white robes. His face was still as impassive and smiling as always, but this time there was something a little off about it, like an imitation of a classical style which was flawed to the expert eye.
Hisagi made another run at Aizen, scythes swinging in great heavy loops and shrieking as they cut through the air. Aizen stepped into it, moving faster than the blades, and caught the man by his throat, tossing him back through the air and against the wall with a motion that had kidou behind it. Then he turned towards Kurosaki as the boy came charging at him. “Black Coffin,” he said, and gestured.
The air shimmered darkly and folded itself closed around Kurosaki with a great shudder, cutting off the boy’s voice mid-shout. The kidou’s spears began to form, sliding into the huge black box in a dreadful silence.
“Now you, Kuchiki Byakuya,” Aizen said.
It was the voice that went with captivity, with stinking imprisonment, with starving hunger, with humiliation, with Rukia’s death. With his sister Rukia’s murder.
There was only one reply to that.
“Senkei,” Byakuya said. He dug his nails into his left hand, bringing fresh blood from old grazes. “Senbonzakura Kageyoshi.”
The words came from him as coldly as if he had been criticising calligraphy (Rukia) or commenting on clothing (Rukia), but he had no need to shout. He would let his blade speak for him. He had always known that it would come down to this, whatever the others had planned. He would face Aizen, and Aizen would die.
The blades of his shikai swelled into full swords, and swung into position around the two of them, hanging in the air like promises. Some of them glided down to Byakuya’s hand, responding to his unspoken call. He closed his grip around the hilt.
“You act as if I have never seen you do that before,” Aizen said. He wasn’t moving to defend himself, and for a moment Byakuya was worried that this was just another illusion.
He shrugged. “Were this a duel, I would see to it that you had a sword. But it is not a duel. It is an execution.”
Aizen shook his head pityingly, and without a word simply pointed his index finger at Byakuya. Light sprang out at him, flashing into the Rikujokoro kidou at the same moment as Byakuya sent his blades slashing through the air at Aizen. He sprang to the right, skimming across the floor in an attempt to avoid the kidou, and saw Aizen moving at the same time, as though they were engaged in a complicated dance. He saw the blades cut Aizen. He saw blood drawn.
Then the rods of light slammed into position around him, locking around his waist and holding him frozen in mid-air. But that didn’t matter. He didn’t need to move to control his blades. His will sent them at Aizen again, and this time it would not simply be a matter of blood, this time it would be to the heart...
Except that he couldn’t see Aizen any more.
“Tell me, Kuchiki Byakuya,” that familiar voice said from behind him, “are you willing to throw your blades at yourself in the hope of killing me?”
Byakuya’s heart was as cold as ice. If that was the only way to destroy the traitor -
You promised to live, Senbonzakura whispered, the zanpakutou’s voice the sound of falling cherry blossoms. You promised to live.
But I cannot let him survive! he screamed inside his mind, struggling with the kidou that held him in position.
You have forgotten what you should have remembered, Senbonzakura answered. You are not alone.
But Kurosaki Ichigo was trapped, and Kyouraku and Hisagi were down, and neither Ise nor Hanatarou had the strength to stop Aizen, and the Arrancar Grimmjow was too far away, and Inoue Orihime was no warrior...
“Apparently not,” Aizen said, and Byakuya felt a cold hand touch the back of his neck. “Well, then -“
The blast of red flame behind him singed Byakuya’s back and burned the ends of his hair, but it broke the kidou’s hold and knocked Aizen away.
He turned to see Renji crouched by his feet, his ragged clothing in shreds, and his mouth open unnaturally wide. Fire dripped from his mouth in long tendrils which flared to nothingness before they touched the ground, and his long claws etched grooves in the floor, but his eyes were human, and they looked up at Byakuya in reproach.
An apology to his vice-captain would have been a waste of time. Instead he stepped forward to cut at Aizen, blades coming down in a sweep of steel, as Renji roared flame at the traitor once more.
---
“That was odd,” Ise Nanao said. She was having to lean against Hanatarou to stay upright, and blood ran from the corners of her closed eyes all the way down her face, but she clung to Suzumushi as a drowning man holds onto the rope thrown to him. “That was very odd.”
“What was?” Hanatarou said, confused. “Ise-fukutaichou, if I can get you over to the corner, then I can try to reach Kyouraku-taichou -“
“Rikujokoro,” Ise-fukutaichou said. “Why did he use that? Why not Kin or Sajo Sabaku or even Kuyo Shibari? They’d be more efficient. Kuchiki-taichou would have less chance of breaking out of them.” Her eyes might be closed, but her face had the expression of acute concentration that Hanatarou had seen when she’d been unpicking Aizen’s locks earlier.
Hanatarou frowned. He didn’t know the high-level sealing kidou well, and he’d need to use the whole incantation to even have a chance of them working, but what Ise-fukutaichou was saying made sense. “But he just used the Black Coffin on Kurosaki Ichigo -“
“Nothing less than that would have held Kurosaki Ichigo,” Ise-fukutaichou snapped. “And look at him now. He’s defending. He’s dodging. Why?”
“He wants them alive?” Hanatarou suggested. The thought made him sick. But then he frowned. “No, wait, Ise-fukutaichou. His breathing’s off. He wasn’t like this before when he visited us as prisoners - though he wasn’t exerting himself then, so I don’t know, but... Something’s wrong with him.“
Ise-fukutaichou smiled thinly. “I think you’re right. Well then.” She took a deep breath, and raised her voice, and her shriek carried over the crashing of flame and steel against kidou. “Grimmjow! Over here, now!”
The Arrancar appeared at their side, his blade naked in his hand. It had changed shape, Hanatarou noticed with the casual awareness of terror. It had a wider blade and a longer hilt. “Yeah? Got an idea?”
“Aizen’s more injured than he’s willing to show,” Ise-fukutaichou said curtly. “Not just what you did to his wrist, but something more serious. He’s on the defensive.”
Grimmjow’s lips drew back in a snarl, and he wetted his teeth with his tongue. “So what’s wrong with that?”
“We wear him down,” Ise-fukutaichou said. She firmed her shoulders, pushing away from Hanatarou and forcing herself upright. “Don’t go for any killing blows unless you’re sure it’s certain. Just keep him moving, make him use up his strength, waste his breath.” She looked around. “Where’s Inoue Orihime -“
“I dumped her round the corner,” Grimmjow growled. “She’s out of it for the moment. You think this is how to play it?”
Ise-fukutaichou jerked her head in a nod. “Basic strategy. When your enemy’s stronger, you wear him down.” She didn’t seem to realise that she was repeating herself. “Hanatarou, you’re with me: we’ll strike with kidou. Grimmjow...”
“Don’t need to tell me how to do this, woman,” Grimmjow said. He licked his teeth again, then leapt towards Aizen’s back.
---
The spears sliced through the darkness like black lightning, bearing down on Ichigo as he hung there. It wasn’t like being in the nothingness that Nanao had invoked. That had been a true nothingness - no sight, no vision, no hearing, nothing. This was just darkness, and even though he couldn’t have exactly described the difference between darkness and nothingness, he could perfectly well see the spears cutting towards him. It was only his reiatsu that held them off. And with every passing moment he could feel them testing it, probing at it, driving further in.
He had to get out. Aizen was out there. Inoue was out there. This had to stop eventually, didn’t it?
Or, the thought stole into his mind, had Aizen already done the illusion thing to him? Was he just standing in the middle of the floor clinging to his zanpakutou along with everyone else while Aizen just strolled around and killed them when they couldn’t even see him...
No. No, that had to be wrong, because he was sure someone had said that Aizen had to do his zanpakutou thing first before he did his illusions, and he’d been starting to do it, but Hisagi and Grimmjow had got in the way. So this was some sort of kidou. He just had to break it and get out.
Easily enough done, the voice spoke in his head. It was his mask, his Hollow, his other self, and he could feel it rising through him in a comforting swell of fury. First we smash it. Then we smash him.
And then you take control again, like you’ve been doing for the last few months? Ichigo demanded.
The darkness rippled and peeled back, and once again he was standing in his interior world, in a landscape of perpendicular buildings and constant rain. His Hollow faced him from a spur of office block which jutted out from the side of the world like a broken branch.
“Don’t blame me if you don’t like what you see,” his Hollow jeered. “Were you objecting when I killed Zaraki for you?”
“Yes!” Ichigo snarled. “I wanted to stop him. I didn’t want to kill him!”
“Easy to say so.” The Hollow tossed Zangetsu between his hands. “Face it, ‘King’, this isn’t playing patty-cake with Chad any more. If you pick up a sword, what do you think is going to happen? The only reason I was in charge is because you put me in charge, because you didn’t want to fucking think about what happened! What you let happen! What you made happen!”
“Shut up!” Ichigo felt his hands sweating as he gripped Zangetsu. He needed control. He needed the firmness that the Vizards had beaten into him. But he couldn’t look the Hollow in the eyes and tell him that he was lying.
“There’s no Inoue-kun to save you here,” the Hollow sneered. “Just let me take charge now and spare us both the trouble. You weren’t objecting a few minutes ago.”
“That was us both fighting together,” Ichigo argued. “Besides, you weren’t trying to fight Aizen for the last few months.” The thought of them made him boil with a new anger, one directed at himself just as much as at his smirking white reflection. “You just fucking left them there! Chad and Inoue and Ishida and everyone! You didn’t fucking protect them!”
“I don’t do protection,” the Hollow said, and his eyes were as yellow as a wolf’s, yellow as any other Hollow that Ichigo had purified and sent on before.
“Yeah, well, fuck you,” Ichigo said. Making sense of it cleared his head and helped him focus on who he should be angry at, right here, right now. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I do.”
“Ri-ight,” the Hollow singsonged.
“And you know something?” Ichigo reached behind him and shoved Zangetsu into its scabbard. “You’re next.”
The Hollow hefted Zangetsu. “Come on if you think you can.”
“No,” Ichigo said. He felt his lips peel back from his teeth as he grinned. “I mean I’m going to protect you too, jerk.”
The Hollow looked at him slackjawed. “Say what?”
“I mean,” Ichigo clarified, “Aizen’s had you as a prisoner for what, months now? Sounds like you were messed with, just like Chad and Ishida and Inoue. Guess I should apologise to you for that.” He took a step forward. ”I ought to be looking out for you. You ought to be looking out for me. You may not know that, but I should. So from now on, hard luck, Jerk. You can relax. I’ve got you.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” the Hollow said.
“Don’t get me wrong.” Ichigo gathered his balance, shifted his weight. “This isn’t some sort of shoujo thing. I’m just telling you how it’s going to be. The person in charge does that, right? And then he looks out for the other guys under him. Captains do it. Leaders do it. And if I’m in charge here, then I’m going to do it.”
The Hollow sprang at him. It wasn’t a blast from Zangetsu. It wasn’t a bankai. It was a pure, furious attempt to cut Ichigo in half, to bring the white zanpakutou down so hard that it would leave a groove in the stone after it had gone through Ichigo’s body.
Ichigo raised his hand. He remembered how this had been done. It had been his blade, once. He had brought Zangetsu down, and Aizen had caught it between his fingers, because Aizen had been a mountain of power and next to Aizen he’d just been an ant. And Aizen hadn’t even bled. He hadn’t even flinched. He had simply raised his hand, without even needing to think about it...
“Don’t worry,” he said.
He caught the blade between his fingers and it stopped. It hummed through his arm like the vibration of an oncoming train, but it didn’t go any further, and there was no blood. The Hollow stood there straining, face to face with him, animal eyes yellow and face whiter than bone.
“But I’m not going to hug you,” he said. “Just - drop it. I’m in charge now. Leave this one to me. I’ve got you.”
The Hollow glared at him, a seething mass of fury and uncertainty, but for the first moment since that time - it seemed like years ago - when he’d actually fought it to a standstill with the Vizards’ help, Ichigo felt as if he was in control.
No, not felt. He knew he had control.
His interior world blurred into a haze of rain and masonry around him, and then he was hanging in the darkness again, straining against the incoming spears. But this time he could feel the steady throb of power from inside, raw but bent to his direction.
He was going to use it.
---
On your feet! Get up on your damned FEET!
Kazeshini was screaming in Hisagi’s mind loud enough to make his skull ache with the force of it. Hisagi was trying to get up. It would help if he could breathe properly. That last blow from Aizen had broken some ribs.
He braced himself against the broken wall and pushed himself to his feet. The battlefield was a maze of swords and blasts of fire, and while they might have been aimed at Aizen, they weren’t going to miraculously avoid Hisagi if he stepped into the middle of them. He needed a moment to work out what to do.
Kyouraku-taichou still lay puddled in his black clothing on the white floor, blood smeared out in a long streak behind him, but he was low enough to the ground that nothing else had struck him. A black cuboid shimmered in the air where Kurosaki had been. Kuchiki-taichou and Abarai-fukutaichou were keeping Aizen busy, with Grimmjow dodging in and out of the fight to hack at Aizen when he had the chance. Ise-fukutaichou was backed against the wall over to one side together with Hanatarou, her left hand clutching Suzumushi and right hand blazing with kidou, throwing blasts that seemed more directed at keeping Aizen off-balance than actually hitting him. And Aizen didn’t have his sword. He didn’t have his damned Kyouga Suigetsu.
They had a chance. They actually had a chance.
Kazeshini howled delighted agreement through him, like the wind blowing through scrap-iron chimes. Hisagi shook with the force of it, and his hands tightened on the handles of his axes. He tensed himself, waiting for the moment to move, to sweep across and bury his axes in Aizen’s back...
And then the whole world shook. There was no better description for it. Someone nearby had discharged reiatsu on a scale so huge and careless that everyone was thrown off balance. Even Kuchiki-taichou lost his poise and went sprawling. The ceiling cracked across like eggshell, and pieces of it came crashing down. Hisagi was thrown to his knees as if the floor had dropped out under him, and blinked stupidly as the room was filled with lazy dust.
Aizen was the first to move again. He flickered backwards from where Kuchiki-taichou and Abarai Renji and Grimmjow had him surrounding, flash stepping away before they could collect themselves. Blood spattered out from the gash in his right wrist as he raised his hand in a kidou gesture, and as he spoke, a net spun across the floor around them, as red as his blood.
It exploded. They went down.
Aizen turned to sweep his gaze across the rest of the room. His eyes met Hisagi’s for a moment, and Hisagi felt his skin crawl at the gaze. Aizen didn’t have to say anything, but that look promised Hisagi a future of naked pain.
It’s not even because I’m fighting him now. He realises that I fooled him. He is never, never going to pardon that.
Almost casually, Aizen turned away from Hisagi, and glanced towards Hanatarou and Ise-fukutaichou. “It seems that I made a mistake in sparing you, Hanatarou Yamada,” he said. “But you may have been forced into this. Beg for pardon, and you will have your life.”
Hanatarou swallowed. Beside him, Ise was murmuring to herself, lips moving, eyes closed, blood streaking her face.
“Now,” Aizen amplified helpfully. Blood from his wrist pattered onto the floor. “If you want your head to remain on its shoulders.”
A very small motion caught Hisagi’s eye, and his heart suddenly thumped in his chest as if it was trying to crack its way out. Kyouraku-taichou’s eyes were open and fixed on Hisagi. He made a very small motion with his left hand, shielded by his body from Aizen’s line of vision where he lay on the floor between them.
It meant... Hisagi snapped back to days at the Academy. A twitch to say stay where you are and another that meant draw target towards you.
“You’re wasting your time,” he called across at Aizen before he could lose his nerve. “But you’ve been wasting it for the last few months, haven’t you? I certainly haven’t had anything to report.”
Aizen laughed. His voice should have been its usual mellow, relaxed self, but there was a thread of something else behind it now, a shortness of breath and a vicious edge of anger. “Clearly I have wasted my time with you, Hisagi-kun.”
Is this for the first time? Hisagi thought. Or has he been sounding like this for longer than that, and he just made it so that I couldn’t hear it before? “And I’ve been wasting mine,” he said. Kazeshini was a roiling fire in his belly, pushing him on. “Yamamoto-soutaichou put me in as a spy when I first faked joining you. Do I really need to tell you why so many things went wrong for you?”
That made Aizen turn towards him. Hisagi felt his palms sweating at the look on Aizen’s face. “Well, then,” Aizen said, “you can count this as partial payment. Detonation override, authorise.”
A single small spark jumped from the collar around Hanatarou’s neck and fizzled out. It would have been an anticlimax, except that nothing could break the tension of the reiatsu in the room.
Everyone looked at it. Hanatarou stared down at his chest as if a frog had just jumped out of it, and fanned at the smouldering cloth feverishly, his breath coming in great gasps of shock. Aizen stared at it too, in what looked like sheer disbelief - an expression which Hisagi was not used to seeing on his face.
Ise-fukutaichou spoke a single finishing word, and a pyramidal shield shimmered into existence around her and Hanatarou. It had the look of multiple-layered ice to it, and Hisagi could tell at a glance that it was something above his level: the sort of thing that she’d raised against Harribel, but tougher.
Aizen touched it with a single finger. It hummed like wet glass, and sparks showered through the air. He paused for a moment, seeming to consider, then with the air of a man who will simply see to the main course before the dessert, he turned towards Hisagi again.
Hisagi swallowed. Any good advice? he asked Kazeshini, as he took a step forward.
Kill the fucker! Kazeshini ranted in his head. He was a boiling stream of lava, a volcanic eruption, a dark firestorm and a blazing hurricane. Kill him! Kill him! KILL HIM!
Hisagi felt himself shaking, as if from a distance, with the effort to remain in place and not hurl himself forward. Wait, he commanded.
KILL HIM! Kazeshini screamed.
Aizen came towards them in a flash step across the battlefield, faster than Hisagi could ever have managed himself.
But Kyouraku-taichou was faster still. His blade came floating out in a horizontal cut so smooth and graceful that it might have been a dancer’s gesture, broadening and deepening into a full scimitar that sliced heavily into the back of Aizen’s left leg at ankle height.
Hisagi saw Aizen’s mouth open, and another new expression showed itself on the man’s face. Pain.
And Aizen fell to one knee.
His motion carried him forwards for several metres, and Hisagi took advantage of his distraction to dodge sideways along the wall before Aizen could get any closer to him. A thick trail of blood smeared along the ground where Aizen had dragged his foot.
Aizen snarled and gestured behind him. He was a caricature of his usual cool, collected self; bloodstained, hunted, furious, his calm perfection marred. Blue fire came washing from his hand towards Kyouraku-taichou, but it splashed against a sudden wall of shielding from Ise-fukutaichou, and a drift of sakura petals came rushing over it from where Kuchiki-taichou lay, humming towards Aizen in a lethal blizzard that made Aizen raise a kidou shield for himself.
Hisagi dodged forward, his chest screaming at him with every breath he took, every strain he placed on it, and brought Kazeshini’s axes round in a spinning burst against Aizen’s shield. More, more, we need more... Kyouraku-taichou was throwing kidou blasts at Aizen now as well, and Aizen’s shields were glowing like the heart of the sun, but they were still holding, Aizen was still there, and...
The black coffin holding Kurosaki Ichigo burst apart with a concussion that detonated in the air and brought more of the ceiling down.
Kurosaki Ichigo stepped from the tumbling black shards of frozen power, and slid through the air towards Aizen like a blade in motion. His zanpakutou drove forward, and it cut through the shields and into Aizen’s chest, till the point stood out clear behind Aizen’s back.
Aizen coughed, and blood ran from his mouth and down his chest. He reached forward, his stained hands grasping for Kurosaki Ichigo, clawing at the blade that impaled him, and wisps of power flickered from them and boiled away into the air. Kurosaki Ichigo braced himself, both hands on the hilt of his zanpakutou now, an expression of sheer horror and disgust on his face as Aizen struggled, as the blood ran down the zanpakutou and over his hands.
Slowly, very slowly, Aizen stopped moving, and his last gurgling breaths rattled and were silent in his throat. The light reflected on his blank eyes like empty mirrors. He hung on Kurosaki Ichigo’s sword like the dead thing that he was.
Kurosaki Ichigo stepped back, and let the body slide from his zanpakutou to collapse on the floor.
---
Revenge, revenge, we are revenged, Suzumushi keened in Nanao’s mind as they watched the death. We are finished, it is revenged, we have had revenge, the shinigami is dead...
Everything was in greys and blacks now, patterns against darkness. Nanao let her shields fall, and Hanatarou scurried out from behind them to wring his hands, trying to decide who to heal first. The ache in her eyes had gone. She could feel nothing now.
Yes, she answered. It is over. You can rest now.
She felt the driving hum in her body. Revenge... She saw, and Suzumushi saw with her, the other shinigami who still lived. They lived. They should all die, they must all die...
No. One last refusal. Her own zanpakutou finally joined its voice with hers, in this most necessary and absolute answer, and she felt the comfort of its support. They had both accepted Suzumushi. Now they must both refuse it. Rest and sleep.
A whisper at the back of her mind sang, Revenge? but she put it from her, driving it away like any other temptation.
Duty, she answered, and let her hand open. Suzumushi fell with a clatter to the floor.
There were no more patterns, there was nothing except darkness, but she had expected that.
---