Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Hell Butterfly ❯ Red Moon ( Chapter 6 )

Hell Butterfly

 

Red Moon

~06~

 

o)0(o

 

"Aizen-sama!" called a voice from beyond the doorway. "The invaders have broken our defences!"

 

"We c'd tell that from the gaping hole in the wall, nee-chan, but top marks for effort," replied Gin; not really interested in the warnings of an arrancar too minor to even sport a number.

 

Aizen crooked a smile. Ichimaru was always entertaining, if nothing else. Right now his second in command was messing around with the alignment of the castle corridors. Szayel had put in place a system that used hidden garganta to reduce the distances needed to travel around the palatial structure of Las Noches - and if nothing else, keep any 'visitors' on their toes. It was now being used to funnel Ichigo and his friends towards combat situations of the enemy's choosing.

 

"You're a bit behind, actually." Gin tapped a few keys one-handed, and one wall lit up with a multiscreen projection of various halls within Las Noches. "The Quincy is now fighting Cirucci Thunderwitch, the ryoka is against Dordonii Alessandro Del Socaccio and the...Chad is against Gantenbainne Mosqueda."

 

"The 'Chad'?" repeated the arrancar girl incredulously. Gin shrugged.

 

"Well I don' know what to call 'im, do you?"

 

Aizen smoothly interrupted the following silence to ask where the remaining invaders had ended up. A few clicks later, a large image of a pitch black chamber dominated the wall.

 

"Abarai-fukutaicho's got lost somewhere and is prob'ly fighting Privaron Bobb..."

 

"We don't have a Privaron Bobb."

 

"But here's the gem. Rukia-chan's fallen into th' hands of the Noveno Espada. Remember who he ate, Taicho?"

 

Aizen's schadenfreude smile was genuinely disturbing. He answered the pale man with great pleasure. "Shiba...Kaien."

 

o)0(o

 

"...Shiba...Kaien...dono..." whispered Rukia, feeling as if her heart had just been ripped out and all the regrets that stained it waved mockingly in her face.

 

He was just standing there. She knew him so well. Honest nature, daring eyes, constant teasing humour. Grey-green pupils, deep purple hair; wide smiling mouth.

 

No. That was wrong.

 

He was not smiling. She could feel his real, coarse hand stroke the crown of her head as he sombrely asked her to redeem her crimes. All she could do was nod: agree, and thank him for the opportunity to repent.

 

Then he requested that she kill her companions for him, and the trance was broken.

 

No. Hell no.

 

Never, ever again, would she murder a friend.

 

And Kaien-dono would never tell her to.

 

This was a lie.

 

Drawing away, she placed a hand on her sword and hardened herself. This was Hueco Mundo. This man was in white robes. Therefore it must be some kind of shape-shifting arrancar attempting to trick her. With the exact same face, voice and mannerisms of her dead senpai.

 

“You looked better in black, Shiba-san.” Her tone was harsh, she strove to distance herself. She trapped the imposter in kido, blasted open the ceiling on a hunch, and watched her mentor's head melt away under the faux sunlight.

 

The creature scoffed distastefully. “With so many in Hueco Mundo whose powers only work in darkness, like myself, it's a mystery why Aizen-sama attempted to imitate sunlight.”

 

Rukia barely heard its words, still taking in the hideous sight of the arrancar's true form. A tall glass bell rose out of its high pleated collar, filled with a plasma-like clear red liquid. Bobbing inside the substance were two small, round skulls. Little white spheres of teeth and empty eye sockets. The higher one had a `9' tattooed across one side of its face, and spoke in a high-pitched screech.

 

“Maybe it's for security - perhaps Aizen-sama is scared that I would eat his army and overpower him…” The monster escaped into the shadows, hiding from the burn of the light.

 

“You have an inflated opinion of yourself, Hollow.” Anyone who had to hide behind facades and groundless boasts must be weak. The shinigami's quick mind was already working out strategies. One of the trickiest parts of fighting an arrancar was undoubted cutting through their steel skin - something that could only be accomplished with raw brute force. But this foe, which looked like it had just crawled out of Kurotsuchi-taicho's failed experiments lab, couldn't hold the same barriers. There was no way glass could have hierro.

 

A bubble swam from the base to the tip of the jar. The lower, deeper-pitched shrunken head spoke. “I am Aaroniero Arruruerie, the Noveno Espada. I am also the only Gillian among the Espada.” A scrap of skin appeared on its glass flask, swelling fast to the size of a face, and the real head of the arrancar twisting round and absorbing into it.

 

“You are the ugliest Hollow I have ever seen,” admitted the Kuchiki, taunting it to remind herself that the new appearance it was rearranging itself into was false. The handsome features of Shiba Kaien, Thirteenth Squad lieutenant, skewed in an unkind grin.

 

“I am the only Hollow capable of infinite potential!” he corrected her. He was holding a zanpakuto suddenly, and began to spin it around his hand like a baton; in a way that Rukia knew chillingly well. “My power is to totally absorb everything my enemy is - body, memory, experience, - zanpakuto and soul. But never mind…figure it out as we fight.” The sword was glowing and extending; Rukia's heart was sinking with every rotation. No…that couldn't possibly be…

 

“Rage through the Seas and the Heavens, Nejibana!”

 

o)0(o

 

In the core of Las Noches, Aizen and Gin observed Kaien's old shikai for the first time since his death. A hybrid trident and Chinese halberd, there was a long blue tassel below the three prongs of its head and a spiral drill carved into the other end of its haft, reflecting its name: `screw flower'. Everywhere the pike moved with its twirling speed it was chased by a powerful geyser of water.

 

The battle progressed quickly, both combatants well-versed in their opponent's styles. They parried with gouts of water and explosions of ice. But Rukia was always a step behind, and visibly beginning to realise that it was the real Kaien blocking or dodging every one of her shikai's first and second dances.

 

“She's gonna get butchered,” predicted Gin. “An unseated shinigami versus an Espada, and he's the guy that trained her an' all…”

 

Sousuke Aizen was inclined to agree, although Arruruerie's ridiculous pride did tend to be his downfall whenever he tried to climb another rank. Aloud, he asked a question.

 

“And where did Nel Tu end up after you separated their group?”

 

“Aizen-sama!” cried a small, lisping voice. Neliel Tu Oderschvank, the three-foot-tall former Third, scampered into the control room and leapt onto the back of her leader's throne without an iota of respect. “…why is dis chair spinning?”

 

“Because it is convenient,” replied the lord of Las Noches genially. He braced his foot gently against the floor to halt the turning. Nel peered curiously over his shoulder at the expansive computer panels. Well, that seemed logical enough.

 

“That's a bit brave of ya, Nel-chan, ta come straight here after killin' Nnoitra.” Gin was smiling, as always.

 

She appeared unflustered, tumbling into Aizen's lap with no concern for her own life. “He had it coming, chauvinizzic bastard…anyway it's not like you've lost a Kwinta. I'll repwace him.”

 

Her master looked down at her with a currently calm expression, but his words were laced with poison. “You seem not to care that you aided our enemies in breaching the castle's defences. Even now there are three shinigami, a Quincy and a human causing havoc in our home.”

 

Nel thought quickly, and beamed her most innocently evil smile. “Nel had amnesia! Besides, dis way is way more fun!”

 

Aizen laughed and patted her mask with one of his large hands. “Yes, my dear Quinta Espada…it is.”

 

Gin was no longer grinning. “An' if yer thinkin' o' betrayin' us again, just remember that information flows in two directions; an' we got torture chambers. So welcome back, Nel-chan.”

 

The green-haired child looked away at the screen to hide her discomfort. “Oh, hey…” she chirped, trying her hardest to be an unfeeling Hollow like they had always expected of her. “Rukia is fighting Aawon. She's gonna get tentacle-waped.”

 

Ichimaru laughed, and she felt a little safer with his fearful seriousness hidden once again, out of sight.

 

o)0(o

 

There are fights for survival, and fights for pride. She had little chance of living beyond her fatal, fated meeting with this Espada, and her pride was calling for her to die for the sins she had committed against the man who stood before her at last. Just as she had prayed fruitlessly; hour upon night upon month upon year, for her fukutaicho to live again.

 

Metastacia had eaten him, body, zanpakuto, memory and all. And Aaroniero had eaten Metastacia. Everything of Shiba Kaien was here. She could no longer lie to herself that she did not recognise him.

 

She could no longer pretend that she had the will to kill the same friend twice.

 

Sometimes just letting go is easier.

 

Life could go on because dead companions could not come back, because nothing could be done but to move forward, even if it was only time dragging you along.

 

But Kaien had returned, and that rule was now reversed. Rukia's life had halted.

 

She did nothing to block Aaroniero Arruruerie's next lunge with Kaien's trident. Sode no Shirayuki, weakened by her mistress's desolation, shattered into ice dust under the stabbing points of Nejibana. In the same movement those steel spikes punctured Rukia's body, hoisting her agonisingly into the air where the Espada held her triumphantly. A corpse for a flag. It suited Aizen and his followers well.

 

Shock shut her body down far too slowly; she was torn asunder by the sensation of being ripped open until the excruciating pain forced her consciousness out of its tortured mind.

 

In the emptiness of oblivion, she chased her fleeting memories. Catching glimpses of the past so faint that her mind's eye forgot what it had seen even as it turned for a second glance.

 

Ukitake-taicho...philosophy...fights for survivalpride...

 

But...think they're one and the same...

 

Both...heart...

 

...lame... -oi!-

 

That! That picture had been of Kaien-dono! The ghost she had murdered, the events she allowed to haunt her...just so she would never forget him...

 

the bonds between us when we meet...in friendships and in shared pains...our values and our selves...heart...

 

...where...do you think...they are kept...?

 

...never die alone...

 

thank you...now I can leave...my heart here...

 

...with you...

 

Words. But more than that, fragments of truth, life, 'heart' as it had happened between them. They were filling her up, sharper and sterner and infinitely stronger than the metal in her lungs. Kaien had spoken those final words to her despite the suffering that killed him - the same trauma of being stabbed straight through by the weapon of a friend.

 

She, too, would speak; though the damage was too unbearable to truly block or rise above.

 

"You're still conscious? How admirable - or rather, pitiful."

 

She no longer saw the face of her senpai. Only a monster, vicious with bloodshed. Blood that dripped from her lips as she coughed up the words that were so much more important than pain.

 

"I remembered where Kaien's heart is."

 

Aaroniero flicked her off the end of his trident before she could shear through his head with her broken sword. He knew exactly what she meant by that, imbued as he was with Kaien's philosophies; and the knowledge irritated him. To speak of hearts to Hollows was degrading.

 

“Let me show you where the rest of him is, then.” The Espada sounded displeased; it was bored of toying with her now. Pulling off his left glove, Nejibana tossed away, Aaroniero unveiled his own zanpakuto. In place of a hand, a thick, leech-like tentacle writhed on the end of his arm. Offshoot feelers wriggled all the way along its length.

 

Rukia would have cringed, but the wounds through her abdomen were occupying her mind more than the bizarre appendages of arrancars. She hauled herself away weakly, leaving a trail of liquids that should have been internal.

 

Her hearing was fading in and out like her vision. Was the Ninth Espada saying something?

 

“Devour, Glotonería!”

 

Reiatsu blasted out of the false-real Kaien's body, and it exploded into a gargantuan mass of bloated, roiling tentacles and formless sacks of flesh. “This is the combined form of the thirty-three thousand, six hundred and fifty Hollows I have eaten. In my Ressurrección I can use all of their powers at once.”

 

Shit…

 

Rukia was once again paralysed by fear. Even if she could have summoned the strength and energy to fight, she could no longer summon the desire.

 

Let it be over…

 

His attack was like a mountain falling. Until time skipped a beat, and the horrendous onslaught paused.

 

Sode no Shirayuki, the beautiful snow geisha, her zanpakuto spirit, had materialised.

 

Completely cloud-white, tinted with delicate blues wherever her indigo blood touched the surface of her skin…eyes like pale blue diamonds and lips a fragment of sky. She dressed in glowing white silks; her kimono sleeves were long and flowing like a child's, to match her name. The sleeve of white snow. Sode no Shirayuki.

 

The zanpakuto knelt down behind Rukia and wrapped her chilled arms around her.

 

“Frozen again?”

 

Time seemed to have stopped, but the shinigami's terror of the lunatic blitzing towards her had not. Dread flooded like ice melt through her veins.

 

“That's what I like about you, Kuchiki Rukia…” murmured Shirayuki so softly and dangerously into her ear, a glacial femme fatal whose very beauty could kill. The exquisiteness of a snowflake, and the bite of its frost. “You so easily feel the cold avalanche of fear in your soul.”

 

No, time had not stopped. The enemy was approaching sliver by sliver. She tried to back away but the corporeal form of the zanpakuto blocked her escape. She could feel the ground humming beneath her crumpled body. Under the earth where none could see its light, the white moon was hiding. Instinctively she had performed some no mai, the first dance.

 

“Now,” the yuki-onna whispered; “share it with them.”

 

Time snapped back into place and the grotesque Espada was bulleting towards her once again. She was trapped in the range of her own attack with no chance to evade because he was already upon her. And once again her sword was shattered.

 

“Shi-”

 

“Fu-”

 

“SHIRAFUNE!” shrieked Rukia, as the full moon filled everything above it with ice, including her and her attacker. The white blade reappeared, sweeping through its element without cutting it.

 

And she…she felt cold, but she could still move.

 

The tsukishiro couldn't hold back an Espada for more than a few seconds, but lo, her zanpakuto ghosted through the iceberg and sheared straight through the enemy. It was swift. A single movement.

 

Everything thawed in an instant, and blood exploded from the arrancar's torso. Made brittle by the sudden cold snap, Aaroniero's glass capsule shattered in a spray of translucent crimson.

 

The vast chamber flooded with the Hollow's melting corpse. Clinging to her glacier, the exhausted soldier managed a final slash with her sword, severing one of Arruruerie's floating heads in two. The other began to scream for help to Aizen. Its symbiote cursed at her once, and died.

 

“Sode no Shirayuki…” breathed Rukia, staring at the elegant blade in awe. In the heart of her soul, the snow woman whispered a reply.

 

Did you think the third dance existed because I was weak? Do you expect me to shatter in every battle? The white sword, the ghostly blade; is for cutting through ice. And remember, Kuchiki Rukia - you are a shinigami. You are a ghost as well.

 

Nodding slowly, as she was lost for words, Kuchiki Rukia laid back and rested her sword against her stomach. Cold heat began to stem the seeping blood, cauterizing her injuries with ice.

 

“Thank you…Shirayuki…” shivered Rukia, and let go.

 

o)0(o

 

Shinigami Cup!

 

 

“I am the Noveno Espada, Aaronieroroniniaararerunaroniero Arruruerie - wait for it! - rarariurorerukoranirusorrirereerongurie.”

 

“Die.”

 

o)0(o

 

“You are a ghost as well.”

 

When Rukia hesitated, Shirayuki pulled out a sketchbook and started explaining again with stick figures.

 

“Look, it's like this:”

 

The illustration was beautiful in itself, artfully drawn in ferns of frost just like those Jack Frost drew on windows. But it was also totally incomprehensible.

 

“Wow…you're worse than me…” gasped Rukia in awe. The zanpakuto glared and threw the pad at her.

 

“I'm never going to step in and save you again, you ungrateful cow! And also, the way you started swearing when he attacked you was just vulgar.”

 

Rukia sweated. Her sword was a mouthier version of Byakuya. “Sorry…Onee-sama…”

 

o)0(o

 

Chapter notes: The sound track for this chapter was `Red Moon' by Turin Brakes - look it up. Spot the lyrics. = )

 

I'm considering rating this as an M, but so far I believe that Bleach has an older readership anyway and I'm mostly mirroring the manga as it is. So it remains T.

 

We have passed the halfway point of Arc 1, which is now looking at being 13 chapters long.