Ichigo Kurosaki had never seen his godmother's shikai. It was always a passing curiosity in the back of his head. He had once asked her back before they went to rescue Rukia and she turned out to be a traitor.

'My shikai isn't meant for sparring,' was all she could say and with a single passing glance between her and Urahara, he agreed with her. Ichigo dropped the conversation then. He wished he didn't.

He wished he knew more to understand exactly what he was looking at.

With three different attacks, Agito was armored in gold like a War Lord. Her power was fully offensive attacks that lashed out concentrated heat and power like tongues of sun rays. Her strength seemed to triple with each call of her attack power.

And then the final move.

"Dageki, Michael."

The world turned white and burning hot. Winds of a typhoon lashed out and howled through the air, ripping entire boulders out from the ground to throw about. And the screaming...

The screaming was like the Gates of Hell opening and all the lost souls crying out to be saved from their agony.

Ichigo felt something horrible was happening but he didn't have the time to figure it out. He blinked and out of the column of light jumped out Aizen, moving out of Agito's range of power. He was distracted, off balance from the attack and not paying attention to Ichigo at all.

This was his chance.

...

"Getsuga Tenshou!"

Agito heard an attack and she finished the last few moments of her unleashed Dageki. She resealed her blade, knowing that Michael wasn't going to be battle ready any time soon. She closed her eyes briefly and breathed in the hot air, exercising her ability to pull her own energy from the surrounding area back into herself.

Soon she'll be back at full power, her reiatsu awake an active, ready for the final fight against Aizen.

Speaking of the man, Agito looked to the building that was currently cleaved in half by Ichigo's attack. She couldn't see Aizen clearly but to her amazement, he was wounded.

Ichigo managed to land an attack on Aizen.

He attacked once again with the power of a Getsuga coating his zanpakuto but Aizen was ready. As they began to trade a few blows, Agito gritted her teeth together, frustrated from the fight above.

"Didn't know you were that strong!"

She didn't even twitch when Gin hopped down from his shunpo, looking down at the crater she had left behind. The crater, was more like a pit. It wasn't bottomless but it would take Yamamoto a few hours performing his fastest shunpo to get out.

Agito held back.

"Old bastard ain't dead," Agito said and Gin flinched. "What?"

"Been a long time since I heard your accent," he noticed. Agito barely stopped herself from reacting. Her facade was failing because she was so close. Gin would be the worst person to figure out when she planned on murdering Aizen and tried to stop her. "It's nice."

"What's he doing?" Agito asked ready to distract.

"Showing off," Gin said also looking up with Agito to Aizen.

"The Hougyoku?" Before the battle, hell, Ichigo invaded Hueco Mundo, Aizen had implanted the Hougyoku into himself. It was the fastest way to wake up the jewel without relying on Inoue's god-like abilities, which can wish the jewel out of existence just the same as awakening it.

"And now he's revealing his secret plans for the boy," Gin said, "You have to admit, he is a stunning psychological manipulator."

"On par with the best of them," Agito agreed. On par with the god themselves.

"You do know that you are part of 'them' right?"

"I know how to play the game," she said, a secret kernel of truth she allowed herself to give, "I am a chess master. But he built the game. He choose his pieces and even made the opposing side. He quite literally crafted both 'Queens' of the chess board."

"Multiple Queens?"

"I am la Reina on his side. But on the other side," Agito gestured to Ichigo Kurosaki, "Is him. Their champion."

Ichigo had risen up to attack Aizen once again but neither she nor Gin rose to defend him. Aizen would most likely not want an audience to hear him break the boy into a thousand tiny little pieces.

"He will break, Agito-san," Gin said and a rather cruel smile twisted upon his face, "Won't you save your godson?"

"No," she decided, "Not now. There's someone else who could do that job."

Up on the roof where Ichigo and Aizen waged war in the battle of wills and mind, someone flashed in their presence.

"You talk too much, Aizen."

Isshin Kurosaki, father of Ichigo Kurosaki, once a Shinigami taichou, was here to save his son.

...

"They've made their reiatsu disappear?" Aizen said, "It appears that they put up a rather powerful barrier. You've been spectating for quite a while, Gin."

He glanced behind himself to see Gin blinking into existence with a flash of shunpo. Directly after him came Agito who didn't look any worse for wear.

"How was warm up?" Aizen asked.

Agito looked into Aizen's eyes and he saw something inside her more alive than anytime he could remember. Her once cold stone gaze were now smouldering like the eye of a volcano, the golden iris glittering with malice.

"Fine. He's been dealt with." Even her voice had changed. A timber of sound that put life back into her very soul. Agito was more awake and aware than she ever was before and that, he decided, was dangerous.

"Gin," Aizen called.

"I wasn't spectating! I just didn't see any chance or need to make myself useful." In a move of bad karma, Ichigo Kurosaki jumped out from his hiding spot to lash out in a surprise attack against Gin. The roof of the building splintered apart.

When Ichigo attacked Gin so to did Isshin, his father, move to attack Aizen. The force of their attacks splintered the traitorous group of shinigami apart leaving behind Agito.

The building crumbled to the ground but Agito stayed up in the air on a step of reishi. She didn't feel the need to barge in on Gin's battle with Ichigo, nor was she feeling particularly masochistic enough to defend Aizen.

They could take care of themselves. Besides, she wasn't yet recovered from her fight with the soutaichou. She took stock on herself, closing her eyes to focus and to breathe.

It ... wouldn't take long for her to recover her power. Already, Michael had enough for one more Dageki, but one Dageki wasn't what they needed. Agito had to be recover enough for bankai.

Two pieces of souls still fluttered beneath her rib cage but they were ignorable at the moment. In the back of her mind, she noted that Grimmjow was not among the ones who died.

Suddenly, without her permission, a blood red cape flowed down her back and dripped down to the ground. Her shikai had activated itself.

"Michael," she growled, "What are you doing?"

There was no answer because she already knew. Michael was not a zanpakuto. That had become very clear when she learned bankai. Maybe she didn't have the correct words to express it then but she did now.

Michael wasn't a zanpakuto spirit. He was the very literal personification of war. A spirit that dwelt out in the cosmos, a being of consciousness without ownership. His 'shikai' was nothing more than a blessing of his power that shifted to what was needed. His 'bankai' was everything. All of it. The power, abilities, and prestige of an Archangel given physical form and brought to a plane of existence that could be perceived by others.

But it came at a price.

"Not now," Agito demanded, not willing to call out bankai at the moment. The blood red cape did not dissipate back into nothing, but at least she felt Michael pull back from the edge.

Michael might have pulled back but something else revolted.

"

Before. After. Nothing. Eternity.

"No," she groaned because the pain of a migraine building up behind her eyes was too much, "Not now."

"

Agito felt her insides being scrapped raw, her veins turned cold like many ghost hands strangling her blood. Then release.

She groaned at the sensation of power moving back into place, slotting itself down like Tetris pieces. Everything within her was awake and paying attention.

Everything within her was preparing for the fight.

...

She didn't have to wait long to feel the flux of power coming from Aizen.

"Agito," he said and she heard clearly. She shunpo-ed over to where everyone had now gathered (a rather interesting move of manipulation on Gin's part). Ichigo and Isshin stood side by side. She didn't dare look at either Kurosaki, knowing that they wouldn't understand and that Ichigo would most likely feel the most pain over her betrayal. She couldn't give Aizen a weapon to use against her. So she didn't look and kept her mask firmly in place.

Gin stood behind them and Aizen had his audience. His coat and shirt was split open to reveal his chest and the Hougyoku shining like a possessed entity. Out from the jewel poured forth a white substance, much like a hollow's mask but it had a very distinct feel.

It felt ... a little like the Before. Like the dark, cosmic entity in Agito's own soul. Not exactly, but very similar. Just from the feel of the Hougyoku's pulsating presence, Agito felt the Nothing rising like a tidal wave at midnight.

' The Afterward purred deep within her head but she allowed nothing to escape her mask.

The Hougyoku was alive. Awakened, alive, and very much curious, Agito could feel that much. Maybe it was because of her overexposure to entities beyond that of the gods but she could see that she was the only one who could feel the light touch of this foreign entity. Like a child, feeling its surroundings for the first time. The Hougyoku was most definitely bonded to Aizen ... but beyond that, it still reached out to feel and touch.

She didn't know if it touched any others or even if they knew how to feel it, but she did. The Hougyoku touched her spirit ... and jerked away. It retreated so fast that Agito knew that it must know what lay hidden deep within herself, knew the true enemy Aizen dared to dismiss. She hoped that Aizen was too arrogant as to not listen to whatever the Hougyoku was screaming.

"The Hougyoku is aptly named! This is undoubtedly the power to utterly obliterate the boundary between the ever-separate planes of the divine and the mortal!" Aizen began on his accursed rant but he was interrupted-

When a beam of energy shot him in the back.

"So you came,"Aizen said, turning around to glare at whoever interrupted him, "Urahara Kiseki."

Such an attack wasn't enough to kill Aizen. Wound him? Yes. Kill him? No. Urahara Kiseki stood above them all, his zanpakuto in hand and already in shikai.

"It's been a long time, Aizen-san," the man greeted, "That's a rather curious outfit."

"Everything is ugly when it's at the midway point in its evolution," Aizen said, the jewel in his chest still pulsating, the white exoskeleton of whatever he's about to become still forming around him like a wet, beating organ.

"No one said anything about it being ugly. I see you've fused with the Hougyoku," Urahara deduced.

"It's not 'fusion'. Let us call it 'subjugation'. I subjugated the Houkyoku that you were unable to gain control over."

Agito couldn't help it.

She giggled.

All that tension build up, all the grotesque body horror of his transformation, all his beliefs and research on what exactly the Hougyoku was and-

"You've been," Aizen said, his tone choking on a threat, "Quite talkative today, Agito."

"Sorry!" she said, waving her hand up and feeling any particular bit of apologetic, "You're just wrong."

"What." Very much a threat.

"'Subjugating the Hougyoku'," Agito quoted, "As if the Hougyoku was something that could be bent to a mere mortals will."

"Do I have to remind you on who you are dealing with?" Aizen hypothetically asked, already spiking his bastardized reiatsu. His reiatsu was transforming along with his physical body, what once felt like the pressure of the sky had turned into this feeling of a hot thunderstorm. It was discomforting and a sharp reminder of who the enemy was.

"I was unable to gain control over the Hougyoku, that was indeed the case back in those days, anyway," Urahara challenged.

"'Back in those days'? You very obviously are unable to admit defeat. No, it doesn't matter whether or not you're able to admit defeat. For you-" Aizen cut himself off to speed through a shunpo to stab straight through Urahara's chest with his zanpakuto.

"-Have already lost the chance to command the Hougyoku."

Before anyone could process that Urahara might very well die, his body ballooned out and exploded in a burst of broken reishi. At his back was the very real, and still living Urahara with his palm out for his next attack.

"Rikujou Kuurou!" Urahara enchanted, six beams of light forms and spiking into Aizen in a prison of restraint.

"What do you plan on doing with me, now that you've trapped me in this meager bakudou?" he questions, rightfully arrogant that he could easily break out of such a kido.

"Meager bakudou? How much will it take before it's not meager anymore?" Urahara raised his hands and in quick succession enchanted, "Bakudou Roku-Juu-San: Sajou Sabaku! Bakudou Nana-Juu-Kyuu: Kuyoushibari!"

Chains whipped around Aizen to lock him down and twelve points of black energy rose up and locked onto his reiatsu, suppressing his spiritual power. Urahara began to chant one specific bakudou, a long winded and gruesome attack if he were to succeed.

Beside her, Gin's reiatsu jumped. It was quickly stifled back to it's uniform resonance but Agito noticed and found it interesting. Gin didn't feel panicked, he felt ... excited?

Truly interesting.

"Do you think something like this could contain me? Do you think I'd let you-"

"Too slow," Urahara said, mercilessly enchanting, "Hadou Kyuu-Juu-Ichi: Senju Kouten Taihou!"

Dozens of energy spears ignited, locked onto Aizen. Bakudou was used exclusively for binding. Hadou though, made offensive kido attacks look vicious. Hadou Kyuu-Juu-Ichi was for the purpose of chopping up body parts.

All that seemed left of Aizen was a cloud of smoke and dust.

Urahara deserved the title as an enemy of Aizen.

But Aizen wasn't meant to die so easily.

He flashed directly behind Urahara and before he could turn to defend himself, Aizen waved a hand and cut through his chest, blood flying through the air in a arch of shock.

"I can feel it. My body has subjugated the Hougyoku and now the entirety of my abilities, which were once unsurpassed in all of soul society are beginning to climb even greater heights! Even Kyuu-Juu-Ban Kidos no longer merit being avoided!"

"You've misunderstood. When I said that you let your guard down, I wasn't referring to your not avoiding kido. In the past, you never would've come into physical contact with me twice without any kind of plan." Urahara was right. Aizen would have never trusted Urahara within twenty meters of him if he could help it. And now, Urahara had gotten up very close and very personal without a second thought of deception.

Over Aizen's wrist suddenly flared to life two spheres of power. Bakudou.

"What is this?" Aizen asked and barely touched upon in his voice was panic.

"They are seals," Urahara said, "I have blocked off the reiatsu vents located in the wrists of all shinigami."

Brutal, Agito decided, a small curl of vicious satisfaction forming in her gut. She already always loved violence and this would be a rather gruesome death. At the wrist of every Shinigami were vents that released excess reiatsu. It was vital to the shinigami's health that the vents were not neglected or harmed, for fear that the build up of reiatsu could make the shinigami fatally ill. Urahara found a way to completely close off his vents. With a being as high of power as he, his death would be nothing short than glorious fireworks.

"You will be incinerated from the inside out with your own reiatsu."

Aizen was consumed by a flash of light so bright that it looked like a hole was ripped through the air.

"Urahara-san," called out Ichigo hopefully.

"It isn't over yet," Kiseki cut that hope in half, "Aizen will emerge shortly."

Yeah, Agito could feel it. The attack Urahara developed just to fight and kill Aizen was only a catalyst towards Aizen's own transformation. From the smoke and refuse of Aizen's own self-destruction stepped out a being unlike anything before.

It was not man or beast. It was alien in nature. Aizen was pure white in his new exoskeleton, his face a flat mask with two purple eyes. In the center on his chest was the Hougyoku who had stopped pulsating and was now luxuriating in its new host.

Agito paid no more attention to the man. Aizen may be her enemy but he wasn't the most powerful enemy in their midst.

"To think that you would attack me," Aizen said, suddenly shunpo-ing into their ranks to show just how futile their defenses are, "Using a hadou of the Kyuu-Juu-Ban degree to mask your real deception of planting your own technique to destroy me. Quite cunning of you. But no matter, for your meager understanding of the Hougyoku has been surpassed. Maybe once I would have died to your attack but as I am here and now, all your schemes are nothing."

Urahara drew his zanpakuto.

Agito didn't know what was about to happen. She didn't know any of Urahara's plans as he didn't know her own. But her instincts started screaming and she followed it. She grabbed Ichigo and shunpo-ed out of range of Urahara's next attack.

"Wha-! Let go of me!" Ichigo demanded, which she did once they were out of range. It was a smart move, seeing as how Yoruichi Shihouin, the Goddess of Flash and arguably one of the strongest women on the three planes of existence, had arrived to deliver a striking blow that corrupted nearly ten blocks in diameter of city space. Pieces of buildings fell all around, dust kicked up and swept out.

But Agito and Ichigo were out of the new crater's radius.

Ichigo looked at the destruction he could have been standing in, and to his godmother who was still looked at the battle before them. Why? Why did she protect him? Why now?

He had heard stories. All the shinigami have known or at least heard of her. Agito Diabolos, a genius of battlefield tactics, a training fiend, and someone whispered to have had no heart. Ichigo didn't know the woman she was before. He had only known the woman she was to him.