"Did you really think that after all this time? A heart can change me?"

Rue laid face down upon the ground unconscious from the shock of her own twin sister delivering a fatal wound. From her left collarbone all the way down to her knee, a gushing wound bled out, forming a puddle around her dying body.

Agito stood over her, eyes cold. Her words colder. With a flick of her wrist, her blade Michael resealed itself, her reiatsu leashed back into her control. Her wounds were healed from her shikai power, her white three piece suit a little blooded but presentable to the world.

"We both know the truth," she said, "And the truth is this. We are twins but we are not equal. I have all the power and strength. You have all the heart. Together we are our best. Separate, we devolve into disgusting things. How long has it been since we've last been together. How long have I had no heart? How long have you had no real strength?

"We are both but empty shells without each other. You were my perfect half. Before all this. Before our corruption. It's been too long, Rue-chan. We are too late to save ourselves."

Agito turned her back and walked to the edge of the roof, her eyes already scanning the horizon where the battlefield lay, ready to join them.

"Take care of her, Urahara-san."

With a single burst of shunpo, Agito Diabolos surged forward and didn't look back.

"...Already planned to, Diabolos-san."

...

Gin was the first to see Agito arrive back.

"Oh! You're back! How's your sister?" he spoke without really seeing. When he actually looked, a shiver of fear crawled down his throat and nestled deep within the pit of his gut.

Agito Diabolos was splashed with blood.

"Dead," she said and her voice reflected it. Dead voice. Dead eyes.

Gin Ichimaru looked into the face of his once sensei and friend and saw something more terrible than a sociopathic megalomaniac. He searched out for Rue Diabolos' reiatsu and felt nothing.

Just the distant trance of presence but no living beat of something alive.

Rue Diabolos was truly dead.

"I didn't think you'd have the heart to go through with it, Agito-san."

Aizen had his back to his fukutaichou and Reina, absolutely sure that Agito wouldn't backstab him now and that if she did, Gin would stop her. He was smiling. He smiled because for once he felt a curl of an actual emotion. Happiness. He was happy because Agito killed her sister.

He was happy that Agito was just like him.

"I don't have a heart," she said and Gin was frightened.

He knew she was vicious. He knew she could be cold. Could act heartless. Agito could be cruel and be ugly but never had he ever questioned if she lacked a heart. She seemed to have overflowed with it. He had thought that her heart was her biggest weakness but no.

She killed her twin sister.

She had no more heart to give.

Out of the two monsters before him, Gin couldn't be sure which to fear more.

...

Agito felt something but she was already looking.

She was already witnessing the pain in her chest.

Coyote Stark and with him Lilynette, they both fell in a spray of blood, having both fallen to the strength and power of Shunsui-taichou, her old sensei.

Aizen had their back to them, won't even gift them with his acknowledgement but not she. Something within her chest, close to her heart, ached with a sudden fierceness, beat wildly and fluttered desperately for life.

She dared not twitch at the sensation. She had pressed her ribs for Ulquiorra already, she couldn't press her heart for Stark. Not now at least. Something deeply buried inside wanted to weep in grief. Probably that 'heart' she had so admently claimed that she didn't have (she lied).

Metaphorically, Agito pressed a pillow over the feeling and bore down until it stopped kicking.

There was no softness in war.

...

"Enough, Gin," Aizen said.

Gin, who had briefly turned to play with Shinji, stopped in his little fight and they both turned to give Aizen their undivided attention because Aizen was too dangerous an individual not to focus on when he was up to something.

"Let's put an end to this."

"The hell-" Before Shinji could finish what he was saying, Aizen disappeared in a flash of shunpo.

Agito didn't even have to look to know what he was up to. This whole farce of a battle was dragging out too long. Time had run out for the remaining Espada.

Harrible fell, and this time Agito did not look. She would not give the last Espada the cruelty of looking down at her death.

Barrigan had fallen during her fight with her sister. Stark had fallen and was barely surviving under her ribs. And now Halibel was to suffer the last indignity of all.

Betrayal.

"Gin. Kaname. Agito. Let's go," he ordered.

"Aizen-" Halibel cursed and this time, Agito turned to look at her desperate attempt to harm her molester. A beautiful stab into Aizen should have killed him ... if he were even there. But then again, all Espada had fallen under his power of absolute hypnosis. Aizen had to swing his blade again to finish her off.

Agito made a mental note of what an honorable death she had.

"Now then, shall we begin?" Aizen called out, "Members of the Gotei Juu-San and you botched pseudo-arrancar."

If you ever want to really piss someone off, take some lessons from Aizen.

Agito wasn't really focused on what he had to say next. How Aizen started to bait the Vizard into action. If she were more aware, she would have known she was disassociating. But she wasn't. All she knew was that there was blood in the air and maybe it was just her imagination but she could hear a war horn in the distance, like a singing whale.

That war horn brought her blood to a boil.

Something was coming.

Destiny maybe.

It felt good.

She had felt this once before. Last when she was learning bankai. Bloodlust rising up within her like a goddamn tidal wave, dragging her down -down- down to the depth of how much she wants for this. Wants for battle, for war, for spilled blood and rotting bodies. She wanted for gore like a glutton. The greed in her heart aching for life lost. Too long had she been a tired of the build up of this war and now that the battle was here she wanted for all of it. It rose within her like a long simmering lust but she wasn't dying to be overtaken. No, she had too much pride for that.

She knew what this was. It was her call to bankai. Michael was gearing for war.

Agito smiled.

...

"Ho," Shinji Hirako said, "Look to your subordinates, Aizen. You surely twisted them into following you."

Aizen did look because Shinji was looking and if there was something worth taking his eyes off the real enemy, it must be invaluable.

Shinji Hirako was looking at Agito Diabolos. Gin was doing exactly what Aizen would exact him to be doing (watching, waiting, what a cunning, loyal snake he turned out to be). Kaname did nothing that he didn't expect him to (the lowly maggot). But It was Agito, the jewel upon his crown, that really drew the eye.

Covered her her own sister's blood, Agito was a vision of grotesque horror. Her head was lifted to the sky, eyes closed and she was smiling.

Smiling with such ecstatic joy.

Aizen then knew that the time had come in hand.

"Not at all," he said.

They already come as twisted as they always were.

...

Kaname was dead.

Agito didn't care. She could barely care at all for lost souls anymore because her mind had snapped out of her blood lust the very moment Ichigo Kurosaki fell into the battlefield.

She wanted to scream.

Ichigo Kurosaki shouldn't be here. She had planned for him to remain with his friends in Hueco Mundo. She had planned for no gargantia to open! Nothing was to leave Hueco Mundo! Why was he here?!

The sky had splintered and cracked like shattered glass, Ichigo fell from the sky already in bankai and swinging his zanpakuto at Aizen's back.

"Getsuga Tenshou!" A wave of black energy lashed out and Ichigo's familiar hollow tinged reiatsu lit up like a beacon of hope upon the world.

"No," Agito couldn't help but murmur, "Not now."

She had thought she had time. More time to spare before Ichigo was called to be a sacrifice.

Ichigo's attack did nothing. Despite his power. Despite his assault. Despite the surprise. It did nothing.

"Do you think," Aizen said, "That I would show up to a battle without preparing any kind of defense over my greatest blind spot?"

Ichigo was pulled into battle with Aizen and Agito could do nothing. No, she could do so much. But not here and now. She wanted to pull Ichigo away from the fight, to replace him with herself. She wanted to battle Aizen.

But what if this were destiny?

The boy was more than what Agito could ever be. He had the blood of champions running through his veins. She could almost feel Destiny's hand upon his presence. The boys fate was clearly greatness.

But was it this?

She understood why the Shinigami put their faith in him. He was strong and powerful with the best of hearts. He didn't have the weakness every other Shinigami had. He was true hero material.

It would be so easy to just accept him as the hero. Even easier to trust the final victory on his shoulders. Or anyone else's shoulders, really.

But then ...

Agito looked at Ichigo's back. How strong he was now but how much stronger he had to be to carry the weight of the world.

His shoulders weren't wide enough for such a heavy weight.

Something, probably her resolve, in Agito's mind clicked. Her facade may have temporarily broken at the arrival of her godson but it slide firmly back in place.

"You're going to fight to protect me?" questioned Ichigo loud enough for Agito to hear. The entire Gotei Juu-san members and Vizards had risen to the challenge of fighting Aizen.

To Agito, it made sense to protect the boy. Aizen was frightening enough without him throwing his zanpakuto around.

"That ain't gonna work," Gin said, stepping up beside Agito, "Ya'll have a total misunderstanding of Aizen-taichou's power."

"Gin," Agito greeted.

"Agito," he returned, a sly smile ever present, "You've been getting excited."

"It's been an exciting day," she said.

"What do you think?" he asked, jerking his chin to the battle raging in the sky.

"I think," she said, "That it doesn't matter.

"It doesn't matter how many go against him. How much power they all accumulate. All the knowledge in the world can't save them. I think it's too late for them to reach to be his equal. They are too late. He started centuries ago. We are all but starving dogs wanting to eat the stars.

"In the end, it doesn't matter," she said, "He's already at the top."

"My," Gin said, "It sounds as if you had already given up your Judas act."

"Oh no," Agito said, "Here's my thirty pieces of silver: Did you know what in certain mythologies the end of the world comes within the jaws of a great wolf?"

Gin didn't know what to think.

She was turning more and more frightening. More monstrous with each passing second.

"What?"

"The Norns believed that Fenrir, the Great Wolf of Calamity, would break free of his chains and swallow the world whole. Slovakians believe that the dog leashed in the stars would fall and in his hunger eat never ceasing. In nearly all cultures, we romanticize the wolf howling at the moon. Wonder why?"

Agito looked at Gin and he swore he saw something unnatural in her eyes.

"Because we too starve for divinity," she smiled and for a second he hillusinated sharp teeth and bones. "A mouthful of godliness. Aizen wants to believe himself to be god? Fine, I'll play. But he shouldn't complain when I take a bite out of him.

"I'm H U N G R Y."

That wasn't her voice.

Fuck no that wasn't her voice.

It was the sound of demons laughing, children dying, soldiers screaming in fear. Ichimaru opened his eyes just a little to see Agito because he was once blind but now...

Now he saw too much.

He looked away before his eyes could burn out of his skull.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING?!"

Something was wrong and it wasn't the Shinigami's dubious betrayal to Hinamori.

"AIZEN!!!" screamed Toushiro in the distance.

Agito and Gin looked back at the battle before them. Love and Roujuurou were down. The remaining taichous of the shinigami forces had banded together to trade blows against their enemy.

But there enemy wasn't there.

Aizen had switched bodies with Hinamori.

Toushiro would have dealt a fatal blow to him, but instead the boy had dealt it to his treasured friend. Agito hated Aizen. To trample upon bonds of love so cruelly was despicable.

Before any of the taichous could ever retaliate with their rage, their emboldened sense of revenge, Aizen cut them down. Blood sprayed into the air as they all fell. Kira. Iba. Hitsugaya. Shunsui. Soifon. Shinji.

There was no mercy in this war.

"I will not kill you," Aizen said as if he were a merciful ruler to grant pardon. What a liar, "With the level of power you all possess even losing consciousness due to those wounds would most likely be difficult. Just lie helplessly on the ground. Observe; the conclusion of this battle."

A pillar of flames burst through the sky in rage, destroying the fake buildings of Karakura town into cinders. Within the flames stood a single man. Yamamoto-soutaichou.

"The Soutaichou finally graces us with his presence at last?" Aizen said, "You're too late. All of your taichous have fallen before you. Should you fall with them, Gotei Juu-san would literally collapse on itself. The war would be won. The war is still won, now that all your generals lie dying at my feet. Shouldn't you have saved them sooner?"

"Don't get arrogant with me, little boy," Yamamoto-soutaichou said, his voice rough and filled with rage, "Do you think that with your level of power, you can still cut me down?"

"I think nothing of the sort, for I have already done so," Aizen said, full of sociopathic belief in his own god-like power.

"Shut your mouth!" Yamamoto demanded, already taking a swing with his zanpakuto.

A single swing of his zanpakuto was enough to break Aizen's into a thousand tiny little shards. Yamamoto's blade was too strong, too hot, too powerful to ever land a blow.

Bt he wasn't the only one with a blade that was considered too strong, too hot, too powerful to ever land a blow.

"Conquer, Michael."

Two swords met and the resulting force of their rebounding power destroyed the surrounding buildings, twin sonic waves washing out to crumble the earth, air, and sky around them.

At a stalemate, Yamamoto's eyes widened to see who could ever dare survive his initial attack.

"I had first believed in creating a weapon to negate your power," Aizen said, "But then a great light flashed in the sky and I knew that whoever had the zanpakuto to call for the falling sun was destined to be your equal."

Agito Diabolos stood in between Yamamoto and Aizen, her blade in its shikai form and not straining against the strength of the soutaichou.

"I trust that you're all warmed up from battling your sister," said Aizen, resting his hand upon her shoulder.

"That was nothing more than a stretch. This'll be my warm up," Agito said.

"You-!" Yamamoto finally seethed.

"Long time no see, Ojii-san," Agito said with a smile, "Ready to play?"

"Ennetsu Jigoku!" he shouted and nine pillars of flames sprang up from the ground in various spots, but they all started moving together, closer. "I won't allow you to escape!"

"You would really burn down your fallen taichous? How merciless of you," Aizen said.

"They knew what they were getting into," Yamamoto said, "Fall back, Kurosaki Ichigo! You are not a member of the Gotei Juu-San, as such I cannot allow your involvement with this final move."

"Final you say?" Agito said, her smile dropping, "Don't make me laugh. Dageki, Michael!"

The nine pillars of bright orange and yellow flames turned white hot and searing. The screams of a hundred thousand souls rang out and gale force winds buffered around, turning the pillars into writhing snakes of destruction. Agito lashed out with her blade, bouncing them both back and the nine tongues of fire whipped forward to be absorbed into her sword.

Michael turned white hot and nearly burning to even look at. It was like looking at the corporal form of the sun given form.

"Dageki, is the power of a concentrated laser beam. White light holds all the colors of the rainbow and therefore, the hottest temperature a flame could have. Your reiatsu, your zanpakuto is just fire, Yamamoto," siad Agito, "I have the power over light itself."

"You think you can defeat me, girl?" the soutaichou spat, absolutely enraged that his past student would be so arrogant as to suggest the impossible, "I trained you when you were but a babe. A child should never go against their parent."

"You were my general, my CO, my task master," she said, long buried resentment pouring forth, "You did not love me as you do Shunsui or Ukitake. I was nothing more than a weapon you needed to control. I am no unruly child you need to whip into submission. I'm someone who you never even bothered to care!"

Agito swung her blade out, not to strike but to thrust all the power and force of nine of his pillar of flames back at him in one swing. White fire billowed out like an angry dragon and lashed upon the battlefield. Yamamoto blocked the attack with a defensive stance and lasted through the heavy fire.

"I am the weapon you created! The war general you raised! A child? I was never allowed to be one! Look upon me and see the failure of your own character! I will break you because you're already at fault!"

Agito lunged forward in a flash of shunpo, and Yamamoto blocked.

But this time, she didn't use the usual fighting style that he was so fond of using. Traditional japanese sword fights called for skill, practise, it was an art form that Yamamoto himself promoted. But Agito wasn't raised in traditional.

She wasn't raised with honor.

So when he moved to strike with both hands, she struck back with only one, sliding her blade across his edge to reach her free hand out to grab at the soutaichou. She did a twisted judo throw that forced him around, grabbing onto his arm to back back at his shoulder joint, hoping to pop the joint as fast as possible.

Yamamoto skillfully freed himself from the hold, taking his fighting ques from his opponent and using aiming to use his fists against her belly. But just from his movements to free himself out of her twisted hold, she was in free fall horizontally. Knowing that he would most likely strike when she was so opened, She pulled at her blood red cape and threw it into his face.