A Wandering Soul - Spirit 4.9

"BANKAI"

That one word was enough to crush any sense of triumph I felt for managing to actually pull off the ultimate form of my Tracing ability.

A large part of my confidence in this fight revolved around knowing what Aizen might do. And for the most part, the fight had followed the same pattern. His attitude and words might have been different, but the abilities were largely the same. Knowing what he was able to do let me be ready with Rule Breaker the instant he tried Kido, afterall. Hell, I was even ready to swarm his next evolution with anti-demonic swords to take advantage of the strengthening of his Hollow attributes.

...only releasing his Bankai pushed his form more towards Soul Reaper than Hollow.

That wasn't to say Aizen could possibly pass for human as he was now. He had gained a third eye in the middle of his forehead, and the sclera of all three had changed to pitch black while the iris turned solid white. The skin on the outer two thirds of his face had turned an inky black and had the same flame like pattern that had started trailing down his legs and arms. Unlike before only his hands and feet remained white.

The next biggest change were the wings that had been attached to his back.

Now instead of the vaguely moth-like things they had been before, there were ones that looked more like dragonfly wings. That was until you looked closer and saw that each one shimmered and shifted as if they were a kaleidoscope.

"Be proud, Alexandria Cross. You are only the second opponent I have felt was worthy enough to see my Bankai." Aizen commented. "Think of it as thanks for this display...even if it revealed how desperate you are to finish this."

I grimaced at the truth of that.

The creation and use of a Reality Marble like the Unlimited Blade Works was just as powerful as it seemed. I was literally overwriting the rules of reality in a set area and replacing it with a manifestation of my own soul after all!

The downside to that was I was also baring the exact state of my own inner world and weaponizing it.

And mine wasn't exactly in the best shape at the moment.

Similarly to its namesake, my Unlimited Blade Works was a vast barren desert host to an uncountable number of weapons planted into the ground as if in monument. Unlike the original, there were also a number of grand towers dotting the landscape, although they looked like they didn't quite fit in. The ground around the base of each one was cracked and jutting out, like someone had dug a crude hole and simply dropped the tower into it.

Another major difference was the sky.

It was a shattered thing, like it was some giant mirror that someone had struck with a hammer. The massive iron gears that should have dominated the sky were replaced with a roiling mass of energy. Every once in a while hints of a sky peaked out from the chaos, but other than that everything was obscured behind polychromatic clouds and the cracks running through it.

Yeah, my soul was a mess. And that excluded the active damage I was doing to it with my little Reishi trick.

Glowing blue-white streams of energy were burning their way across the landscape. That was sure to cause some side effects once this fight was over.

"Despite the flaws, I will admit you have managed to accomplish a limited form of my own dream…" Aizen continued, "To remake reality around you at a whim! Incredible!"

"You seem far more excited about this than I expected for someone with your abilities." I remarked, taking the opportunity to collect myself and plan out my next move now that my current plans were scrapped.

Aizen scoffed.

"Shall I tell you a secret, miss Cross? While certainly powerful, my Kyōka Suigetsu is unfortunately limited for my liking."

I practically gaped at the person calling complete and total hypnosis for an undefined length of time 'limited'.

"You don't believe me? What else would you call something that can only control the senses other than limited? Even if I created an illusion of the entire world on fire, would that mean the world truly burned? Of course not; it is only an illusion after all."

"This Bankai fixes that flaw to a degree, allowing me to impose a bit of my will on the world. Even then, in its second release Kyōka Suigetsu has limitations."

The six insectile wings on his back detached and warped, becoming vaguely human shaped before more details started being added, quickly settling into recognizable forms.

"I may not be able to control your senses like this, but watching you deal with the forms of everyone under Kyōka Suigetsu's influence should be interesting. Let us see which is more powerful in this instant. Your control over this world or mine of the people inside it."

The six figures stopped shimmering and stepped forward. Kisuke, Yoruichi, Yamamoto, Coyote Starrk, and Gin all fanned out around Aizen.

I just stared at all of them while waiting to react to the slightest move. "Well this just seems incredibly unfair…" I muttered.

No one moved for a second and I decided waiting for seven powerful beings to try and kill me was a bad move, so I went for a kill shot.

A single sword fell from the sky like a bolt of lightning and speared Aizen through the chest. As one of the blades I had with a 'Death' aspect that should have inconvenienced him quite a bit even if his cheating marble wouldn't let it kill him straight off.

Instead Aizen's image shattered and was replaced by Gin's as the copy began to turn black and crumble away.

Wonderful. Not only did that strike prove Aizen's copies were corporeal, but he could either switch between them at will, could disguise himself as one of them, or they automatically swapped with him if he took a lethal hit.

"...incredibly unfair…" I repeated, and then all of them attacked.

I was lucky that being in a manifestation of my soul gave me a perfect perception of everything in it or I might have lost in the first few seconds.

For some reason I was expecting Aizen's copies to be restricted to the level of their real life counterparts. Unfortunately for me, Aizen cheats.

I had to hurriedly duck before clone-Yoruichi's leg nearly crushed my head. The clone moved faster than I had ever seen the real thing, moving only slightly slower than Aizen himself could.

Before I could think too deeply on that I had to dive out of the way as clone-Kisuke began to shower the area in Kido and clone-Yamamoto bathed the entire surrounding area in fire.

If Aizen hoped the fire would prevent me from using those weapons he was mistaken.

clone-Yoruichi rushed in close to deny me the range advantage of my spears so I abandoned one and swapped it for a shortsword. The advantage of being in the UBW meant that I had no need to figure out the name or ability of the blade, simply that this one was fast enough to cut lighting. The clone barely dodged out of the way, strands of hair being severed from the near miss, and was sent flying when I battered her out of the way with the haft of Gáe Buidhe.

Not letting the clone recover I flexed my will and practically rained blades where she landed. If I managed to kill the clone, I didn't know, the instant I did that I was surrounded by ghostly wolves flickering with blue fire and the ground exploded in a beam of blue-white energy.

It hurt. It hurt alot! I was covered in burns and a good amount of my uniform was in shreds.

The blast threw me clear of ground zero even after I managed to kill the closest wolves and counter some of the explosion by breaking the sword in my hand. But even then I didn't have a second to breathe as another beacon of energy started to build in the distance.

I twisted midair and threw my remaining spear, managing to hit clone-Starrk's shoulder and forcing the forming cero to miss before it fired and immediately righting myself as Aizen slashed at me.

I was able to block it, another sword jumping to my hand at the slightest call, but my poor positioning meant that the blow caused me to crater into the ground where I struggled to push back his blade.

"Is this the extent of your power?" Aizen asked. "...Disappointing. I had hoped you would show me something impressive but simple control of the weapons around us and increasing your ability to swap them…" he trailed off.

He thrusted his left hand into my face, a glowing purple cero in his palm, and fired.

The blast failed to vaporise my head, but it must have been a near thing from my experience. Blood poured down my face and my thoughts were hazy. Despite that I could still hear Aizen talking.

"Perhaps I was too excited by the form of your ability and thought it would be stronger...no matter. Our fight is over."

I half expected him to stab me then and there, but instead he backed off and...started walking away?!

With a considerable amount of effort I pushed myself up and saw the reason Aizen walked off where he was joined by the other three remaining clones.

The sixth clone, one that I lost sight of before the fight even really began was hovering in the air on black wings. Ulquiorra Cifer might have thought Aizen was unaware of his second release form, but that was clearly not the case.

More immediately concerning was the massive amount of energy being forced into a small point in the clone's hands.

"I wonder if you were able to figure out the trick to my Bankai in your short struggle? I do not simply make clones of those under my influence. I grant them an aspect of my own abilities."

"Kisuke Urahara, for all my knowledge in Kido. Yoruichi Shihoin, for my speed. My primera espada for my Hollow abilities. The old man for my Shinigami ones. Gin...well I suppose that doesn't matter really. But this one? In this one, I've focused all of my destructive potential. In fact, as a reward for lasting even this long, I will focus every ounce of my power." With the flourish of a hand, all the clones surrounding Aizen shattered and were absorbed by the Ulquiorra clone. Once that was done the sphere in its hands grew to the size of a beach ball before being compressed back down.

"Goodbye, Alexandria Cross."

clone-Ulquiorra fired.

-o-

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the torrent of green-black energy raced towards me.

My mind was furiously trying to come up with a way to either block or destroy this attack but I was coming up with nothing.

Any weapon I could think of needed at least some time to prepare an attack strong enough to do more than slightly delay my death for a couple seconds at best. I didn't think any shield I had could block this either.

So this was it? Everything I had at my disposal and even the Unlimited Blade Works wasn't enough to win?

But I didn't use everything did I?

Well, no.

I hadn't really utilized my Bombardment Magic in any meaningful way for the entire fight, but that didn't matter since my device prototype was lost at some point.

Even if I hadn't, it wouldn't be that useful. The prototype was still not good enough to handle the variables needed to control any spell I loaded into it after switching worlds without maintenance, let alone trying to match the power output needed to threaten what was coming at me.

Does that even matter here?

Of course it mattered! Bombardment spells weren't simply an outpouring of mana! Well, the attack itself might be considered that, but they were carefully crafted structures meant to focus that raw destructive energy at its target and needed to have every aspect taken into account so the spell wouldn't simply explode on the caster! In order to do so I would need to calculate everything from my internal energy structure to the makeup of the surrounding environment, which without a device...was impossible…

My eyes widened.

It wasn't impossible.

I had made a mistake and overlooked something when I manifested a Reality Marble.

I simply thought it was the pinnacle of my FATE series of magic, and it was, but I failed to realise that it was no longer the singular expression that it was copied from. Now it also incorporated everything that was connected to my soul. That meant if I knew how to cast it, I could do so here, and that included the high level Bombardment spells that I created for fun but could never use without a serious upgrade in hardware.

This was the projection of my inner world after all. I already had the variables accounted for.

The grin that grew on my face might have been slightly feral. I didn't care though. Even if the 'bonfire' in my chest ramped up to inferno, it was all worth it as a bright spell-circle drew itself in front of me.

-o-

"Solar Burst!"

A titanic beam of yellow-white energy exploded out of the crater I was in and rose to meet the rush of green-black Reishi descending on me.

Both attacks clashed, and for a moment, struggled against each other before exploding in a massive flash of light that sent shockwaves across the battlefield.

While I made my way out of the crater I stoically watched Aizen for any sudden moves, but on the inside I was practically trembling with relief and excitement. That had been entirely too close, but at the same time I had been right.

Solar Destruction was a purely theoretical spell I had done for fun. I had made it simply as a thought exercise similarly to taking a handgun and ramping it up to the size of an artillery cannon. It was wasteful, inefficient, and probably overly complex but it was also just as easy to pull off as any other spell while I was in my Reality Marble.

That meant all my other theoretical spells should work just as well!

"So you had some additional tricks left after all." Aizen stated once I was close enough.

"Disappointed? You aren't beating me that easily." I returned.

He didn't respond as the clone-Ulquiorra descended behind him and the other five clones re-emerged. Dammit, I was hoping that he couldn't bring those back once they were dismissed.

I looked at the now healthy looking Gin clone.

And it seems that they healed themselves after some time too. Fantastic.

"Nothing to say? That's fine too..."

One versus seven was still terrible odds, even with the spells I could play around with. I would have to make sure to keep them busy so they couldn't coordinate between themselves.

I swept an arm out to my side and summoned two more Noble Phantasms while another circle bloomed to life in front of me.

"Solar Bullet: Swarm Shot!"

A mass of softball sized glowing orbs poured out into the air as the second spell in my 'Solar' series of spells flared. Again it was just a scaled up version of my more practical and refined 'Nova' spells, but anything less probably wouldn't work against this opponent.

A couple hundred of them shot toward the small group in front of me homing in on six of the figures, causing the clones to scatter while I focused on the main threat. Aizen.

Whether he could swap with the clones after a major injury or if it was something else to do with his Bankai was not relevant. Giving him time to observe and think unmolested was a bad plan regardless.

There was no more banter as we fought. As much as Aizen liked the sound of his own voice, he had already declared I was dead. So when I stubbornly kept breathing, talking to me now would be admitting he was wrong again. And he had far too much pride for that.

I was simply in too much pain to think about talking at the moment.

While I clashed directly with Aizen, one of his clones would occasionally evade enough of the homing orbs of destruction chasing them long enough to launch attacks at me or get close enough to attack directly.

Most of the time they were discouraged by retaliating beams of energy out of one of several spell circles orbiting me at the moment but they did get through which led to me simultaneously fighting Aizen and one of his doubles at the same time. Unsurprisingly the Yoruichi clone had been the first simply be being to fast for me to accurately target with my attention divided but after I made a semi-sacrificial move by allowing a kick to the side that definitely broke a rib or two; I managed to stab her through the throat and kill that copy.

Moments later the Yamamoto clone was finally tripped up by the bullet swarm and took a Solar Blast to the chest, disintegrating it and removing him from the battlefield as well.

That was when I made an unfortunate discovery about Aizen's ability.

The Starrk clone had managed to get close enough to use the glowing sticks of Reishi he called swords and was using them to back up Aizen far more than I would like. Blades were being shattered by both sides, the only exception being Aizen himself, and while I had a virtually unlimited number of swords to use, so did he.

And then he got faster.

It was a sudden thing. The three of us had been slashing at each other so much so quickly the immediate surroundings were practically glowing with sparks and shards of metal coming off our blades. I had practically dedicated myself to using weapons that caused cursed injuries so all of us were bleeding somewhat.

The Starrk clone was primarily focusing on making sure to interrupt my rhythm and was doing a near perfect job of it. Just like I observed in the Yoruichi clone it wasn't quite at Aizen's level but it was close enough to demand respect. Finally, I managed to sneak a swarm bullet into hitting it behind after one of the other clones inadvertently created a smokescreen by exploding dozens of others following it.

Just as my blade was about to score a more crippling blow, the Starrk clone moved at the same speeds I had seen the Yoruichi clone move and dodged the blow.

A second later I was blown away by a blast of blue energy and sent skidding across the ground.

Panting heavily, I pulled myself back to my feet and zeroed in on Aizen and Starrk, who was standing nearby.

"I see you figured it out." Aizen said as another two clones were killed. The Kisuke clone caught a Trace bullet through the heart after the anti-magic properties finally overwhelmed it's defenses and the Ulquiorra clone was caught between three beams and almost vaporised. I had a sneaking suspicion Aizen let me destroy them.

"That you don't need the clone alive to add its aspect to another? Yeah, I got that."

"Indeed, the forms don't matter; they are simply illusions afterall. I can simply readjust what power I give each one, although the more of them there are, the more the overall power drops."

I hadn't noticed that part but I supposed it made sense.

"So are there any more tricks you wish to use? Any more powers you have hidden away? I will not give you the same chance twice." Aizen declared, only one clone standing with him now. It looked like he had seen enough of my newly displayed powers and was going to focus his own as much as possible to kill me at close range.

Not a bad idea if I was unwilling to blow myself up with my own attacks.

I smiled and raised a hand.

"Just the one more." I said as the entire shattered sky was suddenly covered in thousands of sigils and the weapons on the ground started to glow.

Aizen looked up and seemed to understand what I was about to do.

"You wouldn't…" he nearly whispered, horrified.

"I would." I replied.

"Ragnarok: Starfall!"

My hand came down and the sky followed. There was a brief moment of light and pain…

And then nothing…

-o-

The first thing I was aware of when I regained consciousness was the sky was blue.

For a while I was content to just lay on the ground. I hurt in ways I didn't know were possible. Turns out even though I shielded myself, magically nuking an entire sub-dimension isn't easy to walk off. Was it because the sub-dimension was my soul that this hurt so freaking bad? I bet it was because it was my soul.

My internal musing was interrupted by an odd hacking laughter.

With far more effort than it should've taken, I managed to push myself up on my elbows. I saw Aizen laying on the ground not far from me and in much worse condition. The majority of his limbs had been blown off at certain points, the largest remaining being his right arm and even that was charred and broken off at the forearm. The rest of him wasn't much better -even if it was slowly regenerating now that all the weapons causing the cursed injuries were destroyed- but the creepy thing was that he was missing most of the left side of his face. And it was regenerating wrong.

Instead of his human face, Aizen was regenerating and transforming to look more demonic. The small amount of skin growing back was black as pitch and his teeth were growing larger and sharper as well.

"HAHAHAHAHA," the broken creature in front of me continued to laugh, "you've lost, Alexandria Cross! Even at the cost of all your power you were unable to kill me, and now I am progressing to my next form!"

"You have NOTHING left! This is the END!"

"N-not...yet…" I gasped out, pulling myself to my feet and awkwardly shuffling towards him. "...I got...one...thing left…"

I was scraping the bottom of practically everything, mana or stamina, but I still managed to Trace what I needed.

"You think that trinket will be enough to kill me?" Aizen gloated, observing the iridescent dagger in my hand. "It may have the power to break my Kido but you would have used it earlier if it had the potential to kill me."

"True…" I replied, taking a moment to try clearing my vision as everything went blurry. It didn't work. In fact shaking my head in the attempt only meant the entire world seemed to be rocking on top of that. "But I don't...need it to kill you...just get rid of one thing."

Aizen stopped laughing when the dull tip of the athame landed on the Hogyoku. When nothing immediately happened he started chuckling again.

"Really? Did you not learn after Gin. The Hogyoku is indestructible and even if you remove it from me, it will do nothing. It is perfectly bonded to me."

"That's nice…" It was getting hard to keep my eyes open. "Too bad for you… this is a bit of a…Rule Breaker."

The dagger glowed and sank into his chest. With a tiny 'pop' the jewel-like sphere that had caused so many problems fell to the ground.

Aizen gasped as his connection to the Hogyoku was severed. I couldn't see his face -my sight was still too blurry for that- but I could hear the rage and confusion in his voice.

"How did you…?! What Have YOU DOONE?!" he screamed.

"I broke the connection." I murmured. "You aren't the Hogyoku's master anymore…"

"IMPOSSIBLE! YOU DON'T HAVE THE POWER TO DO THAT! NOTHING HAS THE POWER TO DO THAT!" Aizen raged, sounding oddly distant. "It doesn't matter, I am still regenerating. I will simply subjugate it again and you won't be able to stop me!"

His rant was interrupted by a small spike of glowing white energy bursting out his chest. Finally, it was about time.

"..." Aizen continued to scream at me, but I couldn't make out the words any more. There was a low buzzing sound that seemed to drown out everything else.

I idly noticed that what remained of my vision was slowly going black.

Recognizing what was going on, I collapsed back on to the ground, and finally passed out.

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