"Open a senkaimon."

Aizen had finished defeating the last of the Shinigami forces. Urahara, Yoruichi, and Isshin all lay in crumpled heaps upon the ground. He arrived just behind Ichigo where Gin and he had stopped their fight.

In a flash, Agito was standing at his side like a loyal servant. Her mask, though fraying as time went on, was firmly in place. An impassable Reina, strong enough to beat Yamamoto-soutaichou and to stand rightfully by her Lord's side.

At Aizen's order, Ichigo nearly dropped to his knees, utter hopelessness consuming him for a second because he could feel just how strong he was. But he couldn't fall now. Karakura-!

"We are going to raid the Karakura town in Soul Society. There is no need to destroy the Tenkai Kecchuu. If we're going to take to Royal Palace, then it will be more convenient to create the okken in Soul Society."

"Yes sir," Gin said, his already unsheathed zanpakuto moving to unlock the gate in between the Living World and Soul Society.

"Hold it!" Ichigo cried out in desperation but he was easily ignored at the moment.

There was something more important to draw their attention to. Aizen's white exoskeleton was finally peeling away. From the crown of his head to his throat, the white substance peeled off and disintegrate into dust.

"Yes, the Chrysalis Period has ended," he said, turning to have Ichigo look on in horror and despair of what he had become, "How fortuitous. Now I can watch the demise of Soul Society with my own eyes."

Long brown hair fluttered down as Aizen's face was revealed out of the expressionless mask. His sclera had turned purple, his brown iris' unchanged. The Hougyoku was fully awake, aware, and even, without Aizen knowing, looking out through his eyes.

"I will leave you here. You can wait until after all is said and done," Aizen said, stepping through the gate Gin had opened.

Agito moved to join them but with a casual look from Aizen, she stopped. No one looked at her as if they were contemplating whether or not peeling her every molecule would be fun, and not seriously be considering it.

"Did you think I would not know when you would betray me?"

Agito's mask broke for the last time. She stared with wide eyes as Aizen smiled pityingly down at her.

"Poor, silly Agito, Naive enough to believe I wouldn't know every single step in your plan. I can feel your power, Agito, you are so close to bankai and though I know that it would be a most stunning bankai to behold, I won't allow you to fester at my side any longer. Farewell, my Reina. I will fetch you when all of this is over, and you will stay in your rightful place, where I want you.

"You cannot run from destiny anymore, Agito Diabolos."

Before she knew what was happening, Aizen raised a single finger and blasted her a thousand meters away with a punch of reishi.

Agito flew, crashing into dozens of buildings, rubble collapsing, glass breaking, all the way through punching through her. By the time her body stopped and laid prone to the ground, Agito couldn't feel Aizen's reiatsu anymore.

He was gone.

Agito stood trembling with rage, her eyes wide and staring. All of this planning. Every single step, thwarted at a time she had not foreseen. Of fucking course! Of fucking course right now!

But she couldn't allow him to get away! She had to kill him! She had to kill Aizen! For Tristan who died trying to save her. For Rue who still had that sleeping kidou inside her like a bomb waiting to go off. For the Arrancars back in Hueco Mundo who were just trying to survive without question of their own right to live. For Ichigo, so that he wouldn't have to take on a burden he shouldn't be taking on. For Gin, who trusted her to save everyone.

But mostly, to save herself.

"SHIT!" She cursed, struggling to stand up. Surprisingly she could. She looked behind herself, sure that her spine was at least broken but now. With the flutter of a blood red cape at her back, Agito knew what happened. Michael's cape absorbed the impact.

She quickly checked herself, finding her energy at eighty percent of what it could be.

"Michael," she called out, "Do you feel him?"

'the Before rumbled, '

"Do you feel him?" she asked, putting aside all animosity she had with the entity to back back to business.

it said, '

"Fuck," she cursed, "Senkaimon's gonna be shit to deal with."

Agito raised Michael up to unlock her own gate and follow Aizen to Soul Society.

'Wait,' said Michael and she froze in her spot. Michael has never talked to her outside of her Inner Sanctuary. 'The boy has gone with his father.'

Her mind flashed forward, thinking as fast as she could.

Ichigo Kurosaki. Everyone has been shouldering him on this entire time and now his father had come last. They were going to Soul Society. They were going after Aizen to the battlefield that Agito initially chose for herself. They were in the Dangai where time had stopped.

"Motherfucking cunts!" Agito exploded before shunpo-ing over to Ichigo's last known coordinates. It didn't take long. Once she was there, she looked for Urahara's body and when found, she picked him up by his collar and started shaking him.

"What's the secret?" she demanded, "What are you going to do with the boy?"

"Agito-san," Urahara weakly called out, a little too weak to do anything but grip her arm.

"No!" she rejected, "Tell me right now how you're going to use Ichigo to beat Aizen!"

Urahara was silent. The accusation was sitting there between them. Urahara was going to use Ichigo. To use another person was to manipulate.

He said, "The Final Getsuga Tenshou."

He told her everything.

When Urahara was done talking, she dropped him with no remorse. Agito's eyes were wide and her skin ashen.

"I wish you had told me," she murmured before turning her back and walking just a little ways away from him.

"What are you planning to do?" Urahara said, staring in surprise at Agito' back. Agito took Michael in her hand and opened a Senkaimon.

"I'm going to go save the fucking world!"

...

Once inside the Dangai, Agito immediately noticed that something was wrong. The purple oozing walls had stopped moving.

Time had stopped within the Inbetween Place.

"Shit," Agito said, "Now I need to find Ichigo. We took two separate doors so there's no way for me to find them on my road. They've taken a different road. So now..."

She thought fast and said, "Michael. You can cut through the planes of existence right?"

She was referring to that one technique that she had used when last she was being executed in Soul Society fifty years ago. Without her sword, and only Michael's spirit, she had gained a temporary blade that was surprisingly gifted with the ability to slice through realities. She needed that now.

Michael was unsurprisingly silent because Agito already knew his answer. She closed her eyes and focused, focused on what she wanted and exactly who she was tracking. Ichigo Kurosaki. She could remember his reiatsu like she could remember her own sister's. It was warm.

Focused, she swung her blade.

"Shinkou, Michael," she intoned. Liquid light dripped from Michael's edge and as easy as a blade through paper, the purple walls split. With no hesitation she jumped through.

On the other side was another Dangai road. She heard voices at one end.

"-until my reiatsu runs out. Off the top of my head, I'd say we have two-thousand hours until that happens. Roughly a little less than three months. Use that time to get information." Isshin was talking and Agito didn't like what he had to say. She walked towards they two, ready to stop all this nonsense.

"Get information?"

"Yeah, get information from your sword, Zangetsu, about the true nature of 'The Final Getsuga Tenshou.'

"Isshin, shut up."

...

"Isshin, shut up."

Ichigo didn't even notice anyone else in the Dangai with them. By Isshin's reaction, he didn't either.

"Agito!" Ichigo's godmother stepped out of the shadows, her white suit dusty and a little ripped but no worse for wear. Her hair was tousled from being in the few battles she had been in and around her shoulders and down her back was a blood red cape. She looked infuriated.

"Oba-san!"

"Ichigo," she finally acknowledged him, relaxing her eyes just enough to show that she wasn't angry at him before glaring back at Isshin. Ichigo was startled because that mannerism was so familiar with how she used to be that it was surprising to see it now. She said, "I won't let you go through with this."

"Are you here to stop us?" asked Isshin, resting a hand on his own zanpakuto as a threat. He might be tied down with the Soul Society inventions, but he was still a past taichou.

"Fuck no!" Both Kurosaki's jumped at the sudden use of foul words, completely unused to how they fell out of her mouth.

"Oba-?"

"I ain't gonna stop you from goin' to Karakura. Frankly, I kinda need you there. What you ain't gonna do is drag Ichigo into a fight he was never apart of!" The accent, the foul language ... suddenly Ichigo felt he was seeing the true face of his godmother.

"He was dragged into it, whether anyone likes it or not, by Aizen," Isshin growled, getting defensive.

"AND YOU'RE LETTING HIM!" Agito burst out in all the rage that she was keeping, "You might be okay with giving the responsibility of adults to children but I'm not! I refuse to pass the mantle of our mistakes to the next generation! This is our mess! We fix it!"

"But Ichigo is the only one who-"

"Isshin." Agito moved to stand right before him, her hand clasping over his mouth to shut him up. He looked into the fury in her golden eyes and knew that right now was not the time to lick her palm. "I am not going to break the back of a child by dropping the weight of the world on his shoulders. My own are strong enough. I'm going to do it."

"Oba-san," asked Ichigo. Finally, Agito turned around to look at her godson, dropping her hand from Isshin's mouth. He asked, "What are you doing here?"

He didn't ask because he didn't know the immediate reason. He wanted to know the whole story. What led her to being here?

Agito's expression slowly fell as her anger peeled away to reveal the pain underneath.

"No one knows," she said, "No one knows because everyone looks for a real hero. The White Knight. Prince Charming. A good Messiah. But really, no one knows that Soul Societies hero is already here. I just never seem like it."

"Wha-?"

"I'm rash. I have to consciously think about being kind because it's not in my nature. I don't make friends well. I don't smile often. I curse more than I use manners. I don't seem like the hero, do I? And yet here I am."

"You're-!" Ichigo stopped and stared at his godmother in shock and awe.

Agito could only smile, a little bit bashful to actually put it all to words. "Yeah. I'm a Chosen One too."

"Bullshit," accused Isshin, "You're not the hero of this story. You're some sort of anti-hero. Anti-villain, maybe. Author-sama's still on the fence."

"At this point, I don't fucking care," she shrugged her shoulders, "All that matters is that this is my Final Battle. Ichigo, you barely started living, your fight is going to come much later."

"No," he said, "I can't accept that."

"Why not?"

"This is my fight as well! You didn't hear Aizen but he was watching my entire life, he manipulated everything!" He was suddenly struck by a flash of understanding, "You. You didn't hide in the human world like Urahara or the Vaizards. You're with Aizen. He ... you were only there because he ordered it."

"Ichigo," Agito snapped him out of his depressing thoughts, "He manipulated nothing. I came to Karakura not for you but for your mother and father. I became their friend because I didn't have to but I wanted to. Isshin granted me the privilege of being your godmother and when I carried you in my arms as a baby, I promised that I would be the best that could ever be asked for. As for what Aizen manipulated ... nothing! Did he develop your heart and your desire to protect others? Did he develop your bonds with your friends? How about your own desire for strength? Did you sweat, bleed, and cried for power because of him? No! That was you! All you!

"This isn't your fight! This is a war a century into the making. Us Shinigami created that monster, it's us who has to defeat it. Not a fifteen year old boy who had only heard of Aizen's existence barely four months ago. Let me take care of him."

"But ... " Ichigo cut himself off, absolutely bewildered by everything going on. First, he wasn't strong enough, then Agito turned out to be a traitor by Aizen's own words, then he has to train to get stronger, and now Agito is saying that she'll defeat him.

"Little Ichi," Agito said, using her nickname for him that she hadn't used in a while. Like flipping a switch, Ichigo relaxed. She approached him, raising her hand to take his shoulder. She paused for a second, allowing Ichigo to either accept or push away her touch. He didn't. "You're strong. Strong enough to protect Karakura Town. To protect your friends and neighbors and all the people you pass by on the street. But you're not strong enough to protect all three worlds. Trust me when I say: I'm strong enough. I'm strong enough to protect the world.

"As long as I'm alive, there is nothing too powerful to be afraid of." Ichigo was shorter than her. He was young and would surely grow taller but right now he was shorter and the perfect height for her to lay a kiss upon his forehead.

The nickname, the soft tone of voice she was using, the lecture to drive away all doubts, the affectionate kiss upon his brow, it was all too much and the best thing to have happened. He dropped his forehead upon her shoulder, clearly giving her his trust to do what she said, relaxing from the heavy burden he had put on himself (and the burden others had given him). He could trust that his godmother could save the world.

"Are you strong enough?" questioned Isshin, his arms crossed with distrust.

"Otou-san!" Ichigo rebuked, really tired and not willing to argue anymore.

"Yeah," Agito said, moving away from Ichigo to be weighed and measured by Isshin. "I am."

She let go of her tight control of power, letting her mountain-like reiatsu transform itself back into hot magma, like it always wanted. Isshin stumbled from the weight of her presence and Ichigo's eyes widened in awe.

"No matter how strong you are," Isshin said, "You still seen Aizen's shikai. You still have a weakness."

"I already have that covered," she said unwilling to relay her true plans on the upcoming fight.

"You're not strong enough," he said, "Ichigo can at least still feel the monstrous power Aizen now has."

"Kurosaki-san," Agito said, her tone sharp, "First of -fucking- all, you haven't even asked if I can still feel it or not. Which, I can by the way. Bastard now feels like drowning in the Marianas Trench. Second of all, why are you trying to fight this. I'm going to save your son from what you were going to do to him."

"Wha-" Sadly, Ichigo was continued to be ignored by the adults. Mostly because Agito didn't want to reveal the ugliest part of whatever scheme the Shinigami's had cooked up. That was his father's job.

"Ichigo isn't your son," Isshin said, getting to what he believed was the root of the problem.

Agito felt like she was slapped across the face. Her insides hollowed themselves out as an image of Tristan, her own son, flashed into her mind's eye and ripped her heart apart.

"Don't do this because you think Ichigo will replace your own," Isshin said, "Because he isn't and he won't."

"I know that," Agito mumbled with her heart still bleeding, "I know he's not my son."

"What are you guys talking about?!" Agito turned to look at Ichigo. He was going to grow up to be a handsome man. She felt so proud of him. He had gone so far in his life already that she couldn't be anything more than proud of him. She loved him. But she knew that he wasn't her son.

"Aizen killed my son. No, actually, he manipulated his torture and forced me to kill him." Ichigo flinched back from the horrid past she had revealed. She said, "I have never forgiven him for it. I might be saving the world. I might become a legend for being the greatest hero in all three realms. People may rename my true attributes to be more heroic. But if I were to write an autobiography, this isn't a story of selflessness. This is my revenge story.

"I'm going to kill Sousuke Aizen. For my son. For the world. For you, Ichigo Kurosaki, because you might not be my son but goddamn do you have his eyes."

With one final smile she turned away, letting her focus move back to the direction of Soul Society.

"How long have we been here?"

"One hour," Isshin said, "Do you need more time to-"

"No," she said, drawing out Michael from his sheathe, "Destiny calls now."

~~~

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