Chapter 17: Silver, Steel, Surrender Arc: Light and Dark Meet in the Ash

Summary:

The swords of the Shinigami are forged in heaven and cooled in blood. Battered and shaken, our heroes finally meet Mari's forces for a confrontation. She's got her mysterious partner. They're down their heavy hitter and Aizen. Both in check... who calls mate?

Notes:

Theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMii9q4qz0E ("Finest Hour" by Extreme Music)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It'll sound silly, but I didn't have some sophisticated way to descend into the old quarry. Flash-stepping? Not going to try that right now. Sneaking around? With what cover? Hiding from people who were where?

I didn't like variables. Taking on unknown people in unknown terrain was my worst nightmare. But this wasn't about me.

So we walked into the enemies' lair.

Somewhere along the line, the ground had transitioned to gravel glued together by mud. Marginally more secure, it didn't make me feel any better about my chances of falling. It did poke the nest of wasps in my chest. So slow. Every second we waste trying not to fall is a second she can solidify her control. A second she can trap us. Faster, dammit!

Like it could hear me, the gravel parted beneath me. I yelped, seizing Hiyori's shoulder for purchase. She glared, but said nothing. As the stone hemmed us in, it narrowed our focus. Now wasn't the time. I had to do this, before I lost my nerve. Before Mari earned the wrath of the broader Gotei and doomed Kinsawa.

Up ahead, behind a tangle of fallen trees, Shinju tensed. She gestured for us to stop.

As I caught up, I frowned. We couldn't be there already.

I bit back frustration. To solidify the masks I needed to make, I had to apply thin layers. "What's up?" my grinning mouth asked.

"They've got a guy on patrol ahead," Shinju murmured. "What's your plan, Hirako-chan?"

I wet my lips. Here we were. "One guy? Anything else?" I said.

Minoru answered instead. "He don't stand like a Quincy. See, he's not ready to create those creepy bows."

I peered around him. Sure enough, a figure stood below. If we wanted to get into the network of mine tunnels, his was the only path to take. Forget sneaking around him—too narrow. I glanced at the rotting structures above, dark with shadows and mold. Was it my imagination that I felt murky reiatsu from within, or just the general miasma of the place?

"If Nanase-kun were here," I said aloud, "we could use his Hadou skills."

"He ain't," Hiyori snapped. She gave me a long look. "Y'need a second ta 'do yer thing'?"

I blinked at her. So she did have some patience. "I'll be quick."

But I didn't draw up my mental blueprints just then. I turned to Arashi. I needed grounding to 'do my thing,' so far out of my element. Help me, Arashi. Tell me I can do this.

A whisper of fabric and rain. I can't, daoshi. Not honestly.

I looked around me, at Hiyori, young face set in iron lines. At Shinju, redness not yet cleared from hopeful eyes. At Minoru, expression grim but posture loose, in his element. At the horizon, where sweet, fragile Aizen was fighting. Where my brother, my pain-in-the-ass, smart-aleck ray of sunshine of a brother was putting his life on the line. You have to. I need it. I need to do this.

The curl of a wave, like the curl of perfectly painted lips. Then you've given yourself all the assurance you need.

I could do this.

"Fujikage-chan," I said, a little substance behind my smile, "how's your Bakudou?" I would've rather cut the knot, had one person take out the guard with well-placed Hadou. "Sarugaki-san, your iaido?" I would've rather put Shinju in the role of executioner, too, but she was the only one I knew could pull off a binding that'd hold. If we'd had any skill, I would've only needed a second. We didn't. More time for Mari to wreak havoc.

Hiyori answered first, hand dropping to her sword. "How lame d'ya think I am? First rule o' bein' a bodyguard: they don't get the chance ta draw on yer client." She smirked at me. "Can't have lords an' ladies seein' any blood."

I took the jab for what it was, a joke, and rolled my eyes. "Good. When Fujikage-chan binds that guy, you're going to take off his head."

Shinju nodded, hands uncurling in preparation. "I'll do my-"

Stars pierced the stillness.

"Scatter!" I screamed, throwing myself back and up as a bolt of blue light speared my footprint, ozone reeking in its wake. Our cover was in pieces around us, burning.

Hiyori and Shinju were already in motion, darting forward as one. Kidou flared and a sword flashed. One arm fell to the mud; I snarled as the other swept a flamethrower-like arc of fire between them. Minoru zig-zagged around it, moving in spurts of flash-step. My eyes flew up to his destination: a silhouette picked out in blazing blue. Our real problem.

"Fugai and I've got the Quincy!" I shouted, twisting out of the way of a volley of arrows.

I didn't pause for their reply. The Quincy was backing up, ready to flee. Not good enough for Hirenkyaku, but definitely capable of ending me. I drew Arashi and headed for the makeshift ladder.

An X of fire blocked my path. My instincts had been right. Two fake-Quincies stepped from the shadows, blue lines bleeding from sweat-stained skin. Five shots left between them, at a glance. My eyes flicked to Minoru, playing chicken with another for the ladder. Too damn slow.

No time to talk or fight. No time for the Academy focus of the circle. No need. I called to my soul, the cruel force of the sea and the blinding power of lightning. Teal light answered, crashing out, cracking the ground. One fell, two staggering beneath its weight. I growled, wordless and fearless, and bore down on them.

They crumpled bonelessly. Delays removed.

Flowers and armor bloomed at my back. I half-turned to see Shinju and Hiyori between me and a wall of fire. Even one-armed, their attacker was a force to be reckoned with. His remaining limb was more ink than skin, his eyes more blood and fire than windows.

"Go!" Shinju gasped. Her hair was singed, her hand blistered. "Be sharp!"

Not a reminder to stay alert. I pulled my power tight around me and lunged forward, thinking, smooth.

The world blurred past me, too much distance for every step. I jumped onto a rock, onto scaffolding, onto a deck, trusting myself to be fast enough they wouldn't notice I was testing their strength.

There. The Quincy stood halfway to a tunnel, bow drawn. The light around him was guttering, but it stubbornly flared, an arrow manifesting. I'd dodged his scattershot at range, with a second's intuition. One arrow this close, no warning but my increasingly-unfocused eyes?

"S-Stay back!" he shouted. "I'll shoot!" His eyes flicked away, to his escape route.

Wood creaked to my left. A slight, dark form heaved itself onto the deck. "Not both of us," Minoru gasped. He caught his breath with a shudder. " Give it up."

The Quincy nocked his arrow. "You don't understand! She'll kill me if I betray our blood!" he said.

My face was the mask I wore for kata, murderous and implacable. "She'll kill you anyway. If you make a mistake, if you lose, if you object to her plan. If she doesn't care about shedding innocent blood, yours won't be any different. And your soul won't be going anywhere when she does."

Ashen reiatsu soared and crashed down below. Shinju and Hiyori had won.

The Quincy stared us down. His eyes were bloodshot, but not in the way of the fake-Quincies. This was the fatigue of sleepless nights, of someone who thought he'd found acceptance and discovered it was imprisonment. "Oh God. She told me I was special, that I had a destiny."

Shinju and Hiyori's reiatsu was drawing closer. With them came my decision. He was terrified and weak, barely able to keep his bow manifested. Desperation poured off him without a hint of malice. I couldn't in good conscience call him evil. But I couldn't let him go; if there was anything to this 'blood,' he might have to attack regardless of what he wanted. If he was even telling the truth—just because he didn't want to die didn't mean Mari hadn't fed him a sob story to win sympathy from soft-hearted Shinigami.

This was no life for him, a life where the ruling power wanted him hunted down and purged just because he'd dared to be reborn in poverty and starvation. A life where the only people like him were monsters who wanted to use him. But in another life... there was a chance. The Quincy were a shadow of their old empire, but they were alive right now. A baby reborn there could have some respite. One born elsewhere would be odd, out of step, but safe, at least.

I stepped forward. "Extinguish the infernal flames," I whispered, conscious of the embers crackling in the marsh. "Cleanse the unjust"—and the unfortunate—"roar through heaven"—whatever power set you here—"and strike down the moon." Strike me down if I'm doing this for the wrong reasons. "Turn the tide, Tennyou no Rai'arashi!"

The spray of water as Arashi transformed didn't make me feel any cleaner, even as she girded my mind.

I looked the Quincy in the eye as I drew near. Whatever he saw on my face—I switched the kata-mask for one just as sad but more sure than my real face—he didn't back away. "There's a saying," I murmured, "where I'm from, before this. 'See you on the other side.' Whoever you see there, I hope they're better than people here."

The lines of his face were too real, an etching in a world of watercolor. It was a ruddy, round, European face, one I would've once seen commonality in. His clenched jaw was smooth, barely old enough to grow peach fuzz. His eyes, the grey of a winter sky, fluttered shut.

I swallowed hard. "Justo Rayo."

As Shinju crested the ladder, I slammed golden fans into his chest. He screamed, high and strangled, and fell.

I set my face in cheerful lines, the sort I hoped was meeting his next incarnation, and my spine in a straight one. I stepped briskly over his body and continued on.

"C'mon," I called over my shoulder. "Plenty more where that came from."

My little display had ended our chance at stealth. Not ideal, but if the Quincy'd gotten away, we'd have lost it anyway. It evened out.

We ran through the tunnel, saving our reiryoku for the fight. Every step echoed my pounding heart. If my body got used to that, maybe it'd forget how scared I was. Fat chance—countless souls pinged at the edge of perception. Not enough were fleeing. Three were on the move in the wrong direction. The one, a bright, amorphous nebula, made the second dim by comparison, unreadable and murky. The third stung my nose and made my stomach roll, toxic and creeping.

Mari, Reichsadler, and Kurotsuchi. I would've bet my necklace on it, as hard as it was to even sense them. My breath hissed hot with rage and exertion. This wasn't going to be a mercy kill. This was justice. Kinsawa wouldn't burn for their ambition.

We burst into a central courtyard, replete with stone dust and the reek of unwashed bodies. I wished very quickly we could turn back.

Four, five hundred-odd souls there stared at us. We stared back.

With this many people, I couldn't distinguish burned-out from scared. Soon to be panicked, if the shifting at the edges was any indication. A child began to cry.

Shinju slipped past. "Let me-" she muttered.

Steel bristled as Hiyori shoved her way through both of us. "Yer too soft an' yer too happy," she snapped. "That ain't how ya disperse a crowd." Metallic reiatsu crashed out, sending the nearest ones reeling. Even knowing the pair of lungs on her, I flinched at her volume. "Hey, motherfuckers! We ain't here fer ya! All's we care about is the fuckers who bombed children an' burned yer district down. If'n yer human, not Quincy, get outta here an' it stays that way. Ya don't, our friends comin' deal with ya." She glanced back at us. "Walk forward with me, real slow an' in-sync," she said under her breath.

We stepped forward as one. Hiyori's reiatsu snapped in tight around her, her clenched fists threatening readiness to wade into the fray on their level if she had to. I copied her, kata-mask snapping into place. We took another step.

They broke on the third step. For a handful of minutes it was pandemonium, people on the peripheral scattering first while the remainder grabbed tents, packs, and adopted family and scrambled for the exits.

When the dust settled, though, they were gone. Had we been the last straw in a series of abuses by Mari? A reminder of the Shinigami who wouldn't be so selective in who met the sword?

To Hiyori's face, and certainly in my heart of hearts, it was her force of will that'd done it.

You're going to be fucking wasted as a scientist. Maybe I didn't have to beat her out for the lieutenancy after all. Just nudge her into the Eleventh or Ninth, where that hellish stubbornness would guarantee her a seat.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled. A vaguely human shape stepped onto the balcony above. The motion was all that distinguished it from shadow. Bitter wind sighed down into the courtyard, ruffling a navy hooded cloak. I gritted my teeth. Here he was, the mystery Quincy. Probably thought as long as we didn't see his face he could run and try this shit again when the heat had passed. I couldn't work out why his reiatsu was still so dim. He couldn't have the freaky tattoos of the fake-Quincies, could he? There was no way he'd need it.

Kurotsuchi joined him, infuriatingly bold in white paint. He'd traded Shinigami black for Rukongai who-knew-what-color, Ashisogi Jizou's purple glinting at his hip. The fury rising in me didn't so much as waver at seeing it. I'd known he was involved and had a guess at why; Kurotsuchi loved power, knowledge, and whoever could offer the most of both. What pissed me off was his boldness. There was no way in hell someone as distinctive as him could hide. Not unless he killed us all.

Odds were good Mayuri'd be our toughest opponent. Scariest, at any rate. My limbs going useless, a single breath being enough to kill me... I shuddered. So taking him out first.

The third enemy didn't walk out as much as she swanned out. Through some perfect fucking Quincy magic, her arrival coincided with a windburst. Black hair whipped wildly about her face, a renegade flag, and finally parted as she draped herself over the railing. Pale, bloodshot eyes crinkled, bizarrely mirthful above a razor grin.

Fire and ice, anger and dread, surged in my veins. But when I blinked hot eyes, water fell. Too many memories came into focus with the world. I'd been blind. Seeing the best, leaping to innocence over obvious guilt, taking problems onto myself when the fault belonged to others. I'd been exactly the kind of idiot I'd told Arashi I wanted to fool, giving grace where none was due and sparing feelings. Why?

Because I am Hirako Nariko, and I am not. Because some part of me wants to belong to a time when I believed in gods of mercy instead of gods of death. Because I don't even belong here, or really understand here, but I have nowhere else to go. Reality isn't waiting when it fades to black. Their world is my world.

Somewhere, a set of scales shifted. Even as the thought settled in me like lead, another weight lifted from my shoulders. There was no separating me from this world. And I was going to make things fucking better. Starting by getting these assholes out of my way.

"Where's your family, Mari-chan?" I called, newfound lightness dancing on my lips. "Only lured the one in?"

Her smile twitched. "So impertinent," she said. I exaggerated my very real smirk for her benefit. She was bluffing hard, even acting openly—her refined accent came out measured, stilted.

Waves hissed in my head, a wordless nudge towards caution.

"That isn't an answer," I pointed out, tempering my grin with sober eyes. "What about you, senpai?"

Kurotsuchi spat to the side. "Brainless brat. Do you think we need all of them to defeat infants like yourselves?" His lips pulled back, displaying a cemetery of teeth. "They'll serve their purpose."

My fists clenched so hard knuckles popped. "I think you're going to regret calling me brainless."

Shinju's voice was soft as falling snow and just as cold. "Does it matter? He's a criminal and a traitor. He could tell us the secret to destroying Hueco Mundo and it would mean nothing." Her asauchi clinked in its sheath. I feathered my reiatsu on hers, the seeds of lightning, a warning. "But I suppose the rules of engagement are to be respected." She lifted her chin. "I name you forsworn, Kurotsuchi Mayuri. I name you, Quincies, rats to be drowned in Seireitei's justice. I name all with you, now and before, condemned." A slight thaw. "Present company excepted. On our swords, on our souls, on my friends, I so swear."

Mari cackled. "Why do you think I care? The nobles and their sycophants"-her gaze fell on Minoru-"ignore the Rukongai when it's useless to them; the same is true for Seireitei's laws and the Quincy. The difference is that the law is truly irrelevant." The light glinted off her manji, revealing the silver symbol as a crooked cross. I huffed a laugh at the ignorance of my 'gifted' eyes. "A Quincy doesn't need a book to tell them right and wrong. Their blood is their guide."

I could practically see Minoru's eyes roll. I could definitely feel his reiatsu buzz with irritation. "Big words, Mari. Ya trade yer 'blood' t'that clown for 'em?"

She simpered. "Minoru-kun. A shame you only took my ink and not my blood. I'll have use of you yet, like I have them." Her reiatsu twinkled smugly. She probably thought she'd cracked us wide open with that one.

Hiyori barked a laugh of her own. "Fuck off!" she retorted. "Yer blood means nothin' ta us until we spill it for what ya done." She spat in Mari's general direction. "Murderin' bitch. Ya should care about the law. Nobody'll complain when ya get what's comin' ta ya."

I pounced on the instant of offense she produced. "So where are they, Mari-chan? Bit early to throw a victory celebration. Unless your 'Quincy' revolution was really just a populist revolution. Did you really find so little support among the Quincy that you had to terrify normal people into submission? That won't last, you know." I tsked.

"You dare?!" Mari snarled, hands tightening on the railing. White snapped into existence around her, tight at first, then swelling. The breath caught in my throat as it continued to grow, well past what I'd felt earlier. Mari's reiatsu flowed thick and wobbly around her head and hands. No, not wobbly. It pulsed irregularly, like a thousand tiny heartbeats. Before twinged at the back of my mind.

I pressed reiryoku into my eyes and brushed it over my ears. Just as quickly I yanked it back. The babble was overwhelming—Ashisogi Jizou, the oldest spirit here, was barely audible. Dozens of voices moaned around Mari. Her reiatsu was a slurry of blues. My stomach heaved at the indistinctness of it all. Too weak to scream, to stand out.

I shook the sludge from my mind. "I dare," I answered, swallowing hard. "Not just for myself and Soul Society. For the 'family' you didn't think anything of cannibalizing for power."

Her shoulders hunched like the wings of a falcon about to stoop. "The power of the Quincy goes to the strongest to wield it," Mari said. Her eyes gleamed wetly, and not with tears. Behind her, her lieutenant stepped forward. "I did what any of them would have done to ensure our triumph."

I didn't even feel his reiatsu flare, it was so foggy. What I did see—and Mari didn't—was the fractal of fire that leaped to his hand, aimed directly at her head. In one fluid motion he nocked an arrow, drew back, and-

Mari turned and shot him in the face.

A gasp. A scream. The splatter of vomit. As Reichsadler staggered back, gore pouring from the remains of his face, I was too numb to know which was mine.

"His face," Shinju croaked. Her voice leaped to a shriek. "Kannon, his face!"

Mari's screech of laughter rose over it all. "C'mon, big brother! I know I taught you to use Blut Vene. Shake it off!"

She'd gone completely nuts. You didn't just recover from that, not without a damn good healer. Kurotsuchi, tapping his foot at the side, wasn't that. But even as I gaped at the gruesome wound, blue fire wreathed it and the trickle of blood cut off. So did the lead curtain over the mystery Quincy's reiatsu. He straightened, hood falling away.

My hand on Arashi's hilt fell. I knew that blue eye, even swallowed by pupil, and that topknot, not entirely resigned to Edo-esque fashion.

"So that's where Commander AWOL went," Hiyori muttered.

Minoru and Shinju were united in tight-lipped silence. Shinju shook her head, but if she had anything to say on Torisei's true nature, it wouldn't be today.

"I really must get my hands on that concoction of yours, it seems," Kurotsuchi commented, eyes glinting, "if only to ensure that my accusations from that time are vindicated. I wonder if that shill Shiraishi could've gotten me access to the Onmitsukidou for its sale. Pure hypothesis," he sniffed. "You've no choice but to help us bury them now. Rip, Ashisogi Jizou!"

I gagged, flinching away as his acid stench stabbed through my nostrils. I barely had the presence of mind to draw Arashi when a crack of flash-step sounded in front of me. But as I looked up, all I saw was a dark cloak falling away.

Torisei stood there, incongruous in his shihakushou. My gorge rose at the sight of the back of his ruined head, but I managed to not throw up. Before I could ask why, he drew his sword. "There's always a choice, you vile man," he bit out. "Mine is to do my duty as a member of the Gotei 13."

Mari's face as she turned to face him wasn't worried enough for being outnumbered and betrayed. "Like your little man chose to do his duty and report on you?" She fished within her clothes and came out with a badge printed with the interlocking rectangles of the Onmitsukidou. "Please, big brother. The stars never swung in your favor."

Torisei shook his bloody head. "I suppose not. You never lay down your arms."

With that, somehow I felt the door of conversation swing shut.

I went very still, wrapping myself in watchfulness of my clan style. In the few private lessons he'd had time to give me, Himura had told me that faking bravery was about seeing the flow of the situation and taking a slightly different tack. To swim against it would make you look crazy, but showing you could operate both according to your convictions and the context distinguished you.

What context was I operating in? How could I fight so I took them off-guard, but not my allies?

The expected way to handle this situation would be to take out Kurotsuchi, then go for Mari. It was tempting—it was hard to even get to an archer if a swordsman was in your face. But it was too risky with the random dispersals of Kurotsuchi's poison. Bum-rushing Mari first wasn't the answer either. She was acting off. If I pressed her like my dad would've said to, she'd explode. I didn't want to be the one at ground zero while she was drunk on Quincy blood.

Think. They both had abilities that forced you to work around them. We absolutely couldn't face Kurotsuchi's poison, not without healers, so retreating to the tunnels wasn't an option. But in open air, Mari had a clear shot. We couldn't get close. We couldn't. A ranged fighter could.

I grabbed Torisei's wrist and flash-stepped back from the opening volley of Hadou and arrows. "Swap the sword for a bow or we all die," I ordered, yanking him away from a bolt of lightning then relocating when Ashisogi Jizou buried itself in the rock beside us. "Take Mari!"

He snarled wordlessly, orange rope of Kidou barely tugging a massive arrow aside before dissolving. "I am a Shinigami and your commander, brat!"

I pulled us both behind a rotting tree and slammed him up against it. "You couldn't do your job before and you can't do it now!" I snapped. "So I'm going to do it better. Do your duty and help!"

He tore himself free, nodded shortly, and vanished.

I remained long enough to release Arashi. Tensing to leap back into the fray, I paused. I could hear my friends' shouts of pain and triumph and feel the hurricane of reiatsu. Something niggled at me in between the two senses. An instant of introspection found the source—residual reiryoku in my ear seals.

"-peek-a-boo!" A voice chirped at my back. I hurled myself to the side, narrowly avoiding decapitation as Ashisogi Jizou cleaved through the area my neck had occupied. Pain spiked in my arm as I landed. Too sharp to be anything but a cut. Fuck dammit. An instant later Shinju touched down beside me. Pride and alarm shot through me as I saw her stance buckle—but she held it.

Kurotsuchi was on us like a rabid dog. He broke down my raised fan—oh fuck my arm doesn't work—and buried his foot in Shinju's stomach. I didn't even see her go flying, just heard the thump of flesh on rock. Something burbled close by. My instinctive flare of reiatsu came at just the right time to disperse the toxic cloud spewing forth. It didn't block the invisible column that slammed into me and threw me back. The explosion of pain in my head choked my cry.

I moved to stand and the world rolled under me. I puked, indistinct remnants of food joining the haze my vision had lapsed into. Damn. Grey and white shifted at my side. I had to get up. For Shinju. For the future. I flushed my head with reiryoku and the world solidified slightly. It'd have to do. I heaved myself to my feet one-handed, looked up, and saw that the action had produced something else: a yellow-skinned, winged baby with a halo hovering behind it. Oh, and Kurotsuchi, blade in hand.

It made a wet sound, like spitting up. "Papa, that makes my tummy hurt," it babbled. "Can we take her apart now? I wanna see if her insides are as old as her eyes! I wanna! I wanna!"

Arashi made a disgusted noise amidst the static in my head. ...crossed the line... made it through.

I tightened my grip on the remaining fan. The other was somewhere. Thoughts about where got lost in the static. There was an idea hidden with it, too. A shout of warning from Minoru jolted it free. If I could hear Ashisogi Jizou, could I hear it preparing to attack?

"Ya ain't takin' me serioushly," I slurred. "Level one Hadou? Pleashe." At my side, Shinju still hadn't made it up. Her reiatsu felt defensive, but not defeated. Petrified. Of what?

"'Seriously'? You're every other noble who stood in the way of progress." Right. Kurotsuchi. An attack. From him. "Your weapon is useless. You can barely stand."

I smirked. In the back of my mind I knew it was an inappropriate reaction. He needed to be closer. Needed to think I had something more up my sleeve. He did think I was just a student. To show him something else would set him off. "Just because it don't work don't mean I'm helplesh." I raised my reiryoku and shifted my grip, index finger towards him. "Cold kings of Kamakura, singin' lupine shrouds-"

"Her heart, papa! I wanna see red!" Ashisogi Jizou whined. It was all the warning I got before he lunged in, stabbing towards my chest.

I jerked to the side. In the second between his realization that he'd overcommitted and changing course, I drove my fan into his chest. "Justo Rayo!"

He howled, dropping to one knee. I didn't wait for him to get up. I swung Arashi down like a club, aiming for his head. "Justo-"

"No!" screeched Ashisogi Jizou. "No, no, no!" With every second its voice approached a real baby's wails.

I snapped Arashi shut and bolted, no thought in my mind but not being there. I didn't want to find out what happened when it reached breaking point.

"Terror Magnitude Three!" Kurotsuchi gasped behind me. Infantile screams tore through the air. He couldn't be up! I was almost to a tunnel when my legs locked up, sending me crashing to the ground.

"-nolent unbelievers! Bakudou #4: Crawling Rope!" Shinju shouted, finally back in action. Cloth tore and Kurotsuchi cursed. Even face-down in blood and grit, trying not to puke again from the jolt, I hissed relief. Not a second later it died. I could feel their reiatsu clashing, poison against shade, and hear metal on metal and flesh on flesh, but I was powerless to help Shinju, whose great iaijutsu didn't help her after the first blow.

Two thuds and the sound of skittering metal in quick succession. Like my foot falling asleep and waking up, my body tingled. I held onto that sensation as I scrambled to my feet, pushing past a tidal wave of vertigo. I almost toppled doing it, but I managed to whirl and head for- Minoru? Thank fuck. From the way Kurotsuchi was shaking off grit, I guessed Minoru had tackled him and kicked away his sword, with enough force that one shoulder had lumps where shoulders didn't.

"Hirako-chan!" Shinju gasped. She was favoring one leg. "His chest!"

I couldn't help but see it, even without the warning. Scorched by Arashi and torn by Shinju's blade, Kurotsuchi's shihakushou had split to reveal a massive blue bruise. Not blue like healing, brilliant blue like the sky, like the fake-Quincies' tattoos. It vanished as we watched.

He cackled. "Fools! I took the liberty of acquiring the Quincy power of Blut Vene, in case you approached mediocrity." His gaze darted to Ashisogi Jizou, a good distance behind Minoru. "Even with variables, I'll come back from the brink!"

I ran through my memories of Before, stumbled through my memories of Torisei's use of the technique, and crashed to a halt at my assessment of our relative strengths. I completely botched my calculations of how much damage he could take. As Hiyori screamed, raw and panicked, and Torisei's power cut out, the logic centers of my brain collectively went "fuck it."

"Blast him to hell," I told them. "If he can't die, all our worst can do is take him out of the fight."

As one Minoru and I sprinted for Kurotsuchi. Minoru made it first, blade in one hand and Hadou in the other; I tripped halfway there. Kurotsuchi easily disarmed him, flicking a ball of blue light at his sword hand, but the fistful of Kidou—the real attack—dove under Kurotsuchi's guard and buried itself in his crotch.

The resulting scream was satisfyingly high-pitched. I rode that high for a heartbeat.

Then Kurotsuchi whipped out four silver tubes and Minoru went down, impaled by a beam of light. He didn't have the chance to scream.

The ground I'd nearly met fell out from under me. But momentum was at my back, carrying me upright and forward. I crashed into Kurotsuchi, knocking him down and landing on him and screaming incoherently in every language I had for healing and lightning. Again and again I slammed Arashi down sharp-edge first, pouring my power in until all I was doing was drawing from a river, then a trickle, instead of portioning it out.

A hand on my shoulder, patting, then tugging. Numbly, I slid off and looked up to find Shinju, face ashen. The hand she was pulling with was the burned one, the other outstretched in a shaking seal. I followed it to Minoru, who lay under a wash of green Kaidou. As I watched, it faded. She swayed.

"He's alive," she mumbled, releasing me. "It was weak... whatever. He can fill in the rest. He has to. Another hour if he doesn't." Alive, not functional, I read. My vision blurred again. I beat it away with a stomp of the foot. I wouldn't lose this. I would not!

I stood, grabbing her shoulder to steady the both of us. "Shinju! Focus! Forgive me later," I said at her look. "Get pissed now. D'ya have enough juice for a final binding?"

She nodded dully, raising a hand towards Kurotsuchi. I shook my head. "When Minoru says so,'" I improvised.

"But-" she began.

I was already staggering over to an iron bar, rusted by time and twisted by gods knew what. I stooped, picked it up, and dry heaved my way back to Kurotsuchi.

"Center of mass," I gasped, staring down at his prone, twitching form. Ashisogi Jizou was silent, but his reiatsu spasmed weakly. Alive. Gods, I wished I'd killed him. "Eat yer heart out, 'Doctor.'" I stabbed down vertically, just above his bellybutton. Some-fucking-how getting impaled only made him jerk. When he woke, he'd find that moving would dislodge the thing keeping his insides from becoming outsides. Probably. I'd settle for payback.

Over to Minoru. He was sitting up, ignoring the skin flapping loose around his wound. If I squinted—my eyes wouldn't let me—I could've seen amber reiryoku knitting him back together. I could feel it dropping, either way. I helped him up, mindful not to dislodge Arashi where I'd shoved her through my sash. Even concussed I knew where she was, if not where we were.

"Tell Shinju t'bind her an' cut her head off," I told him without preamble. Fuck, when had I gotten so fucking tired? "I'll distract her."

Minoru broke off his stream of curses to nod at Arashi. "Seal her an' ya can do it."

Right. I could do that. So I did, feeling my power stabilize. Had it been draining all this time? "Y'have ta. There's two of ya right now." I scrunched up my face to indicate vision. My left arm was still limp and I didn't trust myself not to stab myself in the face if I used the right.

That was good enough for him. He twitched his chin in a nod and bent, wrapping one arm around his middle as he grabbed his sword. Warmth thrummed through me with the action. I suspected it had something to do with my seals, which I withdrew reiryoku from. I needed every mote, not that Mari had a spirit anyway.

"Around," I said, belatedly realizing a step I'd left out. "She came from somewhere. If a go around to the balcony, ya can get the drop on her."

Shinju shook herself. "Yes. Let's go, Fugai-kun. Bishamonten guard you," she added over her shoulder as they moved past me. Listening to their footsteps behind me and my own beneath me, I wanted to lie down and give up. Minoru needed the reiryoku to live. Shinju needed it to bind Mari. I needed mine to not keel over. Didn't change that running took precious time flash-step wouldn't.

"God, gods," I muttered, "give us speed. She has to die."

As I arrived at the place I'd heard Hiyori scream—pretty much where I'd left Mari—I wanted to repeat that irreverent prayer. I didn't, because I was scared Mari would hear it. She looked like Tsukuyomi, power leaping from her in bolts of white and leaving craters where it struck. Her grin was so fixed I wasn't even sure she realized it.

The flare of Hiyori's reiatsu brought me back to the real world. White reishi had swamped her up to her shoulders. Her power splattered the upper edge away.

Mari lifted her hand, languid as someone practicing pushing hands, and reishi broke away from a dark shape to replace what Hiyori had destroyed. I swallowed hard. Torisei. She was using her own brother's corpse as fuel for whatever the fuck this was. Was this an extension of the Quincy ability to manipulate reishi? It didn't look like she was hurting Hiyori. I couldn't see why she'd stick around with one foe dead and the rest occupied.

Her head snapped around. I raised Arashi, but all she did was blink at me. My stomach was well past empty, but I wanted to throw up at what I saw. The whites of her eyes had bled indigo. She wasn't even a person who needed killing anymore. Just a monster.

"You came to die too?" she asked. "You'll have to wait. We're almost ready to drain the short one."

"Fuck you!" Hiyori yelled hoarsely. "I ain't Quincy!"

"We're all Quincy," Mari said. Her voice rose and fell, inhumanly chipper, but all emotion was gone. "Just like Soul Society is all reishi. Food is reishi, too." Her bow flickered in and out, taller than she was. "We're so hungry."

"Hollow," I said without thinking.

Her face switched to a scowl as made by someone who didn't know what a face was. I threw myself to the side just in time to avoid an arrow to the chest. The stench of burnt hair followed me as I twitched and pivoted away from the ensuing hail of fire.

"We're free!" she screamed, elated rictus unmoving as her arms worked methodically, firing arrow after arrow. My legs burned, pushing me away from danger the instant my feet touched ground. "They will be too! No laws, no gods, no division!"

I swiped away a stray arrow with a flash of reiatsu and hit the deck as more took its place. I was barely on the ground for an instant when heat rose at my back and the rock quivered. I rolled to the side and was up—or down? head met sky—as molten reishi burst forth.

If I'd had breath, I would've cursed as it followed. Then again, if I'd had working eyes I wouldn't have hit a mass of white head on. I lashed out blindly, blade scoring the form, and met steel.

"Watch it!" a blonde blob yelled. The torrent of reishi parted us, but relief surged within me at reunion. Hiyori was free.

"Don't let it catch you!" she called as we stopped for breath. Mari's reiatsu wavered, torn between us. Maybe the souls she'd eaten were arguing. "It'll slow you down 'til she can pull that cage shit. Heat's new."

Escaping. No, escalating. I filed that away. "Kurotsuchi's down," I said. "Not goin' anywhere."

Stone broke with a deafening crack. I glanced up, thinking Shinju and Minoru had abandoned stealth and flash-stepped in, but my eyes quickly dropped. Mari, stamping her foot like a petulant child. The rubble dissolved, joining the molten reishi weaving in a crazy eight behind her. Globs broke off, clinging to her shoulders like the malformed beginnings of wings.

"Bastards!" she snarled. A husky edge deepened her voice. "Ya sit there in yer fancy city an' hoard all the food an' act like we're nasty insects when we take what we need!" Despite the fury in her words, the reishi behind her settled on her shoulders, filling out skeletal wings. "Now," she continued at a pitch between the two, "don't you think it would be reasonable to give us a helping hand? We stand for what we say, little miss." She inclined her head to Hiyori. It would've been strangely complimentary if not for the fact that her expression was slack, deepening the shadows under colorless eyes and making her mouth look more like an open maw. Her eyes—and only her eyes—turned to me. "Don't you hate this system that sends children to die? Aren't you tired of thanklessly serving others' ambitions?"

Tired? Yes. I was so, so tired. So weak. She knew that. Knew that I just wanted to collapse right there and be brought into the hive mind. Give up on the insane quest I'd set myself. Nothing between me and what I wanted except myself. No one needed me. Just bury Arashi in the dirt...

...necessary...without us... Rain echoed.

Arashi fell from my hand, indigo-wrapped hilt brushing the two fingers that couldn't bear to let her go. I joined her on my knees. Mari's endless eyes shone above, eclipse pupils on moon irises on night sky sclerae. What was one more world to cross?

Heaven and earth split within me as I reached out to her. Even lifting my hand felt like crossing a chasm, a void. It was worth it, to have a bridge. To have connection.

Mari's smile was beatific, wide as the sky. So was mine. It was over. "Love ya, Hiyori."

"No!" Hiyori screamed, starting forward only to be snared by a torrent of reishi. She howled, reiatsu rising higher and higher, sending cracks shuddering down its length.

Her noise almost covered my final whisper.

"Hadou #4: Pale Lightning."

And storms raged across the divide.

A bolt of lightning lanced from my fingers, striking her in the throat. The world revolted, rock rippling and knocking us both back and down like a petulant toddler's dolls.

The noises erupting from Mari were animal, guttural and unending. Blue fire crackled over the hole in her throat, but instead of pausing the wound, it grew, eating through flesh. Mari's hands, palms up in front of her in some demented prayer, hooked into claws. And the screams went on and on.

The quarry exploded, rock melting to white magma, rising like a tsunami behind her. It blotted out the dim sun. My future. All things good. I closed my eyes. I'd tried.

A weight hit me. Hiyori, throwing herself over me, like she could save me. Nothing could save us. My cracked lips parted to tell her that just as Mari brought the wave crashing down.

Bone cracked and thunder roared. I threw my arms around Hiyori as a force like the hand of God plucked us from the ground. For a second-eternity we were aloft, the two of us crossing the world divide.

Impact. Everything was black and numb for two heartbeats-forever.

I opened my eyes to colors without focus. A worried, grateful maybe-face hovered above me. Someone was yelling and crying. My ears rang with the sheer volume.

Then arms heaved and the world turned. I felt one arm drape itself across warm, bony shoulders. The world was still ringing, but the blurs gradually resolved into double vision.

I was alive. Hiyori was alive. And Shinju, though collapsed atop a rotten balcony, was alive. Minoru, swaying on his feet, blade in one hand and a black-haired, white-skinned head in the other, was alive.

Water spilled forth from my eyes. Renewal and rebirth. New growth after a storm.

I don't know how long Hiyori and I stood there, wrapped around each other, sobbing.

I don't know how long it was before we hobbled over to Torisei's fallen form. I don't know what I said over it. 'Memento mori,' maybe. I always liked the sound of that.

I don't know how long it was before a handful of black uniforms appeared in my vision, nor how long it took them to pass healing light over us. I know, relatively, how long it was before they began to ask questions, because they started the second my thoughts snapped back into clarity and completion.

I never saw them patch up Kurotsuchi, but they must've. More Shinigami turned up for that than had come to help against Mari. They led him away with discussion of how to leave Torisei's name in the dust of shame and emblazon Kurotsuchi's in a judge's record. He was screaming. So was the fire they set to cleanse the marsh.

I was silent the whole way back. They took us to the nearest district unaffected by Mari's rampage, to the barracks. It was just a place to let us eat and sleep. Not rest. That was for later. I think they hoped later would be at Shin'ou, where we had to go back anyway for the trials to be graded. We got a day's headstart, as recompense. Never let it be said that the Shinigami aren't merciful.

My head beat a cadence on the back of a Shinigami. I was slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Not that I cared.

To my right, Shinji was trying to talk to me, smiling determinedly. I mirrored it. It was more than the blank, bloodshot stares Aizen gave him.

Shinji cared. So I'd care. I would pick myself up, dust myself off, and move on with my life, stronger. I'd get up and do my duty as a Shinigami. Oh, and save the world. Later.

Dawn was breaking behind the teasing clouds as we came to the crossroads that split the path to Shin'ou and the Rukongai. The moon still hung stubbornly above the clouds, a guardian remaining past its time.

As my eyes slid shut again, a soft, genuine smile touched my lips. Wasn't the moon so pretty stained crimson?

Notes:

So, this took a while, huh? Still with the inaccurate update stamps. Whatever.

I said in response to comments that Mari /=/ Mira. This chapter undermines that. But I want to point out—Mari isn't Mira. Mira was a persona who never really existed. And really, was Mari Mari at the end? Names matter, as Nariko notes. They shape you at least a little.

Other note on Mari, the Quincy, and Hollows: Quincy souls explode instead of Hollowfy. I headcanon that as some fundamental lack of a mechanism that Yhwach's power supplants. Yet in the land of souls... well. Many Quincy souls approximate a human soul. That soul breaks and breaks wrong. If not a Hollow, a demi-Hollow.

Last note, of which crafty fans might take advantage: there are many chapters to go until the end of Dual Pendulums. If you've got a good idea, I'd love to hear it. You just might find it on your screen someday.