The morning sun begins to rise over what's left of the mountains cradling the valley that holds the districts of Soul Society. Ice and snow released from Rukia's Bankai covers the entire dimension, and in the purple icy snowflake embedded into the ground, she stands leaning against her zanpakuto to keep herself upright. She's been in her resurrected bankai for over a day now, trying desperately to keep Aizen frozen. "Where are you Ichigo?" She wonders, sweat dripping from her forehead and freezing solid as it falls away from her flesh clinking against the icy ground beneath her feet. "I can't hold him for much longer..." She says to herself, looking up slightly at the frozen monolith imprisoning Aizen. It has been glowing brighter and brighter as the night began coming to an end. She fears what will happen as he breaks free of her power, and she can feel her Bankai dissipating. For almost 40 hours she's held him at bay now, but the clock keeps ticking and her time is running out. She takes a haggard breath using the last of her strength to hold onto this form for a moment longer.

Though it was a moment too long, as in a burst of reiatsu, her Bankai and Resurrection fade, her lilac blade splitting into two sealed katanas as she reverts back to normal collapsing to the floor from the exhaustion. She looks up at the morning sun, casting down on the frozen tower imprisoning Aizen, watching it begin to melt, a large crack appears in the surface of the prison and a deep purple light escapes from it. Oddly she cannot sense Aizen's spirit anymore as the light from the tower casts onto her face. All she can do is watch as it breaks away, showering the land in brilliant purple light. "No..." She whimpers, reaching out with her hand trying with all her might to keep him frozen but all she can amass is a light breeze of winter's air.

"I commend your efforts. Kurosaki Rukia." Aizen's voice now sounds like a chorus of souls, like he and the Hogyoku are speaking as one. "I thank you, as now I am reborn. From the depths of the coldest night, and now a new day dawns over soul society. Over all of reality, all of them will rejoice for the new soul king has been born."

Aizen levitates towards her, still radiating the purple and white light from his body before he allows it to dim and allowing her to be the first to gaze on his new form. Dressed in long regal black and white robes he levitates a foot above the ground. Black silk robes part in the center of his chest with a long white stream of fabric cascading down his chest and to his feet. His upper chest is flanked by three wings of white wrapping around his robes. In the center of his chest sits a diamond shaped hole through his sternum, with the Hogyoku floating within it. At each of the cardinal directions on the Hogyoku a new gem has formed floating around it. His arms are detached and levitate just off of his shoulders, dressed in long shoulder length sleeves that flare at the top into wide angular points resembling eyes. Inside his arms she can see starlight, as if his body has become a cosmic entity. His eyes are black with white irises and pupils, his third eye is flanked by two more slits that sit just below and to the side of the main eye. His long brown hair flowing away from his back, and three sets of mirror-like wings float detached from his body. Eyes set in the arch of each wing, all gazing at the defeated Arrancar Reaper in front of him.

"Be not afraid. As a reward for helping me achieve the pinnacle of all creation, I will nurture you and yours. I will heal your body, and forge your place in my new era." Aizen says as he opens his palm outwards towards Rukia's defeated body.

She feels herself become weightless as she's surrounded by his spirit energy, unable to sense it, all she can feel is a strange force lifting her entire body at once. Aizen levitates a detached hand over towards her and presses his index finger over her forehead, granting her a fraction of his power. When his finger makes contact with her forehead, she can finally feel his power, so great she cannot feel a limit to it. Such magnitude that she cannot put it to words, but she doesn't feel hate, anger or any sort of ill will from him... maybe he was right. No, no that's impossible, even as she feels her power return to her, she wills her body to stab him, still acting in defiance of this false god but she finds herself unable to strike him. As if her body rejects her attempts to harm him. "Pitiful child. You still resent me... but you shall find that I am beyond your attempts to harm me. You cannot cut a hair from my head, ever even strike me. If you have noticed, I have become one with my blade and now even a mere thought puts you under my dominion."

"B-Bastard." Rukia growls before spitting in Aizen's face but it never makes contact as the saliva evaporates as it nears his skin. "I'll never submit to you." She barks, causing him to smile at her resentment.

"It matters not, Kurosaki Rukia. You are too important to me now." Aizen responds, before his third eye opens slightly more and the iris gleams gold for a moment before returning to its silver color. "Kurosaki Hisana... not the name I would choose for the Soul Queen to succeed me. I find it fitting that you still hold Kuchiki Hisana to such high regard to name your unborn daughter after her. However, I believe Reiohime would be a better choice for the new god."

"Put me down." She demands, her glare as deadly as ever but Aizen accepts this demand from her, and gently returns her to her feet. "I will never let you get your hands on her. She is mine and Ichigos. Who are you to claim my child?!"

"Who am I?" Aizen asks mockingly. "I am a go-" Aizen begins but stops himself sensing the appearance of something. Power, but he sees that Rukia herself doesn't notice it. "Strange." he says before looking at the horizon, the sky still dark but pierced by a small circle of light. The moon is flying in reverse against the horizon, upwards racing through the sky. He watches as the moon is drawn towards the sun, racing across the entire sky in moments before blotting out the sun. The land is bathed in the darkness of an eclipse heralding the arrival of someone. "He's here."

The sound of a sliding shoji door pierces the silence of the eclipse, as far in the distance Aizen can see the door of a Senkaimon opening briefly before closing. As he tries to search for whatever has appeared from the senkaimon, Rukia suddenly vanishes from where she once stood. Disappearing so quickly that she left an afterimage of herself but not what moved her. Aizen sees the afterimage turn and looks at something before it fades away. Now he can't sense her spiritual pressure whatsoever. As if she had been removed from Soul Society entirely. A moment later, he hears the whistling of a single arrow, he turns to view where the sound is coming from only to be sniped in the face by a black quincy arrow. The arrow pierces through his third eye and protrudes through the back of his skull. "N-nani?!" He gapes seeing the black arrow protruding from his forehead. Despite him feeling no pain from the attack, he can sense that something is very very wrong.

"I'm really starting to get annoyed with all your talking." Ichigo says from behind the ascended god. Aizen reaches up to grab the arrow sticking out of his forehead but is fascinated by it vanishing, seemingly being absorbed by his body. "Do me a favor. Shut up."

"So... this is the height of your power, Kurosaki Ichigo." Aizen says as his form distorts slightly, shimmering like that of water before it begins to become solid once more and he is now facing his final opponent. "I wonder, can you even sense my reiatsu now? There is nothing greater than it, it even soars above that of Squad Zero."

With all of his eyes Aizen studies this new form Ichigo has once again taken. His orange hair now much much longer than it originally had been when they had fought. His clothing is now asymmetrical but it holds some of the same styles as his evolved Bankai. His chest features a white undershirt with strange blue jagged lines moving along the white garment, beneath the cross braces of his outer coat slightly covering a crescent shaped hollow hole on the left side of his chest. His left arm has long strands of white and black hair forming over his left shoulder like half of a cloak that stops abruptly behind his neck. The arm is covered by white and black markings, ending with an onyx black clawed hand with white coloration above it on the back of his wrist up to his shoulder. His opposite hand is wrapped in black bandages with the same electric blue circuitry like markings crawling along the outside portion of his arm. In his hand, a long black and blue bow is fused with his grip made from black reishi that's exterior glows a blue color rather than the typical red that would commonly accent his dark reiatsu. "Didn't I tell you to shut up already?" He asks, extending his left hand, summoning his spirit energy to his palm creating a burning black and blue blade to compliment his bow.

"Is this your transcendence? I must admit, I'm slightly... disappointed." Aizen responds as he floats towards Ichigo who levels the burning black arming sword towards his opponent. "I shall not be silenced by the likes of you."

"Hmph. I didn't think you wanted your last words to be something stupid." Ichigo asks, arching an eyebrow with a slight smirk on his lips. Aizen's wide grin begins fading, and his eyes narrow at his opponent. He lifts his right arm up towards his chest to look at his palm for a moment in contemplation. "And yeah, I can sense your reiatsu. It's pathetic."

"You really have disappointed me, Kurosaki Ichigo. I had hoped that you'd have seen the light by now. Why do you practice such futility, defending a dead god, a linchpin that only serves to hold a broken reality together." Aizen asks before extending his hand towards Ichigo offering for him to join forces. "This will be your one chance, and I hope you make the right choice. Join me, in my new world. You shall be my conqueror, subjugating the realms to your will and you shall lead my new soul society as its emperor."

"You have nothing to offer me, Aizen. I like this world, sure it's cruel and harsh, even unforgiving at times... but it's better than the hell you'd rule over." Aizen, for a brief moment shows sadness on his face as he looks at his hand continuing to gauge his power. His third eye moves first followed by the other two and then the eyes on his wings before he moves his head up with a deep disappointed frown on his face.

"So be it." Aizen responds, before extending his hand towards Ichigo. "Goodbye. Kurosaki Ichigo."

From his palm, a blast of purple energy rapidly expands outwards expanding rapidly into three massive purple tinged hexagons that look like pains of glass. The attack expands outwards in a near translucent beam of light, only visible by the purple tinge in the air. Each hexagonal plate within the beam slams into Ichigo before bouncing outwards launching him flying. With a sad expression Aizen looks to where Ichigo was launched before vanishing in a cascade of light, he teleports right behind his opponent. Thrusting his arms outwards towards the ground they vanish from his body before a massive lake forms underneath him. The strange lake he has created seems to move along with Ichigo's flight path, the surface covered in twinkling stars looking like the most vibrant depths of space. Suddenly large cosmic hands burst from the surface, grabbing upwards towards Ichigo. Aizen sees a sudden smirk grow on Ichigo's face as four of the massive hands grab onto his limbs pulling them taught. "Why are you smiling, you are in the worst possible situation for yourself? One flick of my wrists and you'll be torn apart." Aizen warns, willing his arms to begin pulling at his opponent's limbs.

Ichigo flexes, pulling his elbows and legs in towards his body fighting against the cosmic hands of Aizen, and to Aizen's shock he's resisting. Suddenly Ichigo lets his limbs be pulled straight again but as his joints extend to their max length his power explodes out from his body. From his right side those strange blue veins expand outwards into the arms grabbing his right arm and leg. From his left, the black burning and chaotic energy of his hollow scorches away the cosmic hands grasping at his left. "Nani?!" Aizen questions seeing how easily Ichigo had broken out of his bindings. With a wave of his right hand, thousands and thousands of reishi arrows are fired from a single swipe, and as he spins a black cero begins charging on his fingertips in the other hand. He circles all the way around to face Aizen again before firing five consecutive ceros from the tips of his fingers. While Aizen can sense Ichigo's reiatsu, what he can't sense is the spirit energy from the attacks themselves. "Why can't I sense his attacks? He feels no greater than an ant... but I can't sense his attacks whatsoever." He wonders to himself, his arms reappear at his sides before his right one raises up and extends towards him creating a massive hexagonal barrier that stops the onslaught of arrows. When the first arrow slams into his barrier and shatters the power that Aizen senses in the attack reveals all that he needs to know. A single arrow, released so much power in a single moment it felt like it was as strong as a menos grande...

Realizing the magnitude of power just a single shot is capable of, Aizen expands the barrier outwards creating several more hexagonal layers to it. Each bright blue arrow impacting the barriers causes Aizen's arm to flex under the strain as he keeps it extended to defend from the attack. He sees through the eyes on his wings that Ichigo had teleported behind him in a burst of blue reiatsu still charging the five ceros on his fingers. The beams shoot forwards slightly just in front of his palm before converging into a single black cero before being fired. Again, Aizen can't sense the power coming from this attack, but he wills his wings to create a barrier behind him to defend from this attack. "La finale." Ichigo whispers the name of this new attack as it connects with the mirror-like surface of Aizen's wings. Rather than an explosion, the cero he fired acts as a bulldozer pushing Aizen towards the wall of arrows that are still flying towards him. Aizen lifts a second hand to try to expand the barrier and resist the force of the cero pushing him forwards. Thousands and thousands of blue arrows slam into the hexagonal barriers causing small cracks to begin to appear in the surface. All 11 of Aizen's eyes widen in shock seeing this happen, moments before he's squished up against his own barrier by the black cero. His barrier cracks further before shattering, subjecting Aizen to the barrage.

Each arrow slams into his body with the force hard enough to shatter buildings like glass, what's worse for Aizen is that each arrow explodes on contact with him. His body spasming and throttling back and forth from the impact of each arrow slamming into him. He grits his teeth under the onslaught growling as he's struck thousands and thousands of times in a second. Finding the strength, he pulls his body into itself and teleports out of the blast, trying to catch Ichigo with his own attack. The hybrid smirks seeing this, before sensing Aizen's reiatsu collect itself next to him. Turning to the side he extends a hand into the purple massing reiatsu and clenches his hand. When Aizen materializes beside him, Ichigo's hand is around his neck catching the traitor completely off guard. "Peekaboo." He says mockingly before hoisting Aizen upwards. "Impossible!" Aizen manages to squeak out past Ichigo's grip around his neck as he's lifted into the air and planted into the ground. Switching hands he raises the bow high into the air before punching it downwards on top of him. Aizen once again teleports out of Ichigo's grip causing him to miss the strike with the bow. His hand hits the ground and the strange blue veins of reiatsu expand outwards in long lines and right angles before the ground explodes.

"This doesn't make sense... Where is all this power coming from?! Could he be at a level even beyond me? No, no that's impossible. He's hiding his power. Hiding it until the moment he attacks so that I drop my guard and they land that much harder." Aizen monologues, teleporting to the top of a partially destroyed rock face. "Your tactic is strange, Kurosaki Ichigo. You're hiding your power from me trying to goad me into dropping my guard." Ichigo just rolls his eyes when Aizen says this. Opting to instead lift his hollowfied hand and flex his fingers twice at Aizen, beckoning him to continue their fight. "Am I mistaken?"

"I swear all the Hogyoku gave you for new powers is the ability to talk people to death. Just shut up already!" Ichigo demands, prompting Aizen to begin laughing.

"I admire your tenacity, but that foolish tactic of yours will not work on me. Hiding your spiritual pressure to seem no stronger than an ant. Versus any other opponent it could work, but you're fighting a god." Aizen says as he lifts his hand into the air, gathering his spirit energy into a single point. From his hand a long purple blade of light manifests taking the form of Kyoka Suigetsu. "You can hide nothing from me!"

With a flash of light Aizen teleports behind Ichigo, slashing downwards with the purple blade causing his opponent to lift a hand upwards above his head. Aiznen's face contorts in anger as he swings down at Ichigo. The blade connects with Ichigo's hollowfied palm stopping dead in its tracks, the ground beneath him crumbling and being evaporated by their contesting spiritual pressure. "I think we're even now... If I remember correctly you did this to me right before you..." Ichigo trails off, and the black bow on his arm transforms into a long black blade made from his fiery spirit energy. Aizen's eyes widen as Ichigo swings this blade at him in a reverse grip cutting into Aizen's stomach, nearly the exact same spot that the traitor captain had done to him all those years ago. Despite his self proclaimed godhood, Aizen vomits up a strange golden ichor from his mouth and it also bleeds from the cut across his midsection. "Apparently you're more durable than I thought... that was supposed to cut you in half." Aizen looks down, shocked at the wound that now gashes across his stomach, and while the Hogyoku makes him immortal he still feels the burning sensation of the blade that cut across his stomach. He looks up at Ichigo, with a terrified expression on his face.

"H-how... h-how did you cut me?!" He asks, seeing his golden ichor run down the black blade before being burned away as the blade transforms back into a black quincy bow. The hogyoku glows after a moment causing the flesh to begin to heal itself. As the Hogyoku begins healing him, suddenly Aizen hears a noise that makes his ichor run cold. The sound of a crystal cracking, almost like broken glass. "You asked what I was doing earlier... Does that answer your question?" Ichigo asks, starting at the Hogyoku in Aizen's chest. One of the four points that surrounded the hogyoku had shattered. Hearing this from his rival, Aizen's face contorts with rage before he flares his spiritual pressure outwards. Ichigo is forced back from the power unleashed by Aizen, raising a hand to cover his face from the ice being blasted away from the peak. The feeling of Rukia's calming spirit energy laden within the ice brings a confident smile to his face as he teleports down the mountain side now looking up at his rival.

With a look of anger and fury, Aizen lifts his arms upwards pointing his hands towards Ichigo channeling his power towards his hands. From his palms, balls of flaming black and purple reiatsu fire towards Ichigo, burning a trench into the mountain side as they fly towards him. Ichigo lifts his bow upwards and pulls back the string forming another black arrow before lifting it upwards slightly aiming for Aizen's Hogyoku in the center of his chest. He jumps backwards as one of the condensed balls of spirit energy that Aizen is firing at him slams into the ground and detonates. While the explosions are small, the areas of sekiseki rock that make up the mountains are completely vaporized by each blast. Ichigo dodges and weaves between them as he lines up the shot and fires the arrow. The black arrow streaming through the air faster than anything Aizen had ever seen, so fast that instead of seeing an afterimage, he sees a long black line, as if the arrow had pierced through the photons of light in the air leaving darkness behind it. The arrow strikes center mass in his chest, hitting the Hogyoku dead on before being absorbed into Aizen's body. The strike cracks the bottom right crystal, and this time Aizen feels a dramatic shift in himself.

Aizen looks at where the arrow had stuck him, seeing the cracking bottom corner of the crystals that surround the Hogyoku now in an equilateral triangle. The cracks spread through the surface before it shatters like glass. The moment it breaks, Aizen's eyes widen in unimaginable pain causing him to clutch his chest where the Hogyoku is. The mirror-like wings floating behind him crack before shattering into the aether. Aizen's body is enveloped by black and purple reiatsu as he flexes his chest outwards and bends back pulling his arms in towards his sides as he convulses from the pain. From underneath the diamond shaped hole through his chest, the bottom of his sternum explodes open into a circular hollow hole in line with his stomach. From his back, The butterfly wings explode from his flesh with only one of the pairs returning to the mirror-like state as before. The last two still show the extra eyes in the folds of the wings with large eyeless white hollow heads appearing at the points of his wings. It's evident that as his connection with the Hogyoku is becoming unstable, the god is falling. His black robes fusing back with his skin and turning white. The black pigment beginning to leak upwards towards his face. It bleeds over his skin like the same viscous substance that forms the masks of hollows, covering the bottom part of his face just below his eyes in a black hollow mask. "Wh-what are you doing to me?!" Aizen asks as an overwhelming hunger begins pulling at him, the tell tale sign of hollowfication.

"Killing you." Ichigo responds as he extends his left hand forwards, from his fingers five blue bolts of lightning begin arcing from his fingertips forming into a large blue and black cero in his palm. "Gran Rey Cero." He says calmly, the black and blue cero screaming from his hand as he finishes saying its name.

"Bakudo no 81. Danku." Aizen chants, summoning the invisible barrier to block the attack. The black and blue beam slamming into the barrier blasting past it in rays of light that evaporate the remaining portions of the mountain range. He increases the output of power, pushing harder and harder trying to pierce through the kido Aizen is using to protect himself. "I will crush you with my spiritual pressure alone boy!"Aizen declares as he raises a hand up to his face before extending it towards Ichigo. Around him his black and purple reiatsu shatters the ground creating massive fires of purple spirit energy around large hexagonal stone pillars that are lifted from the earth. "Hoarder of power, aspect of dominion, corrupter of wills, devourer of gods, hence forth, burst into reality, burn all of humility, ye ever hungered serpent, limited only in aether, unable to grasp fealty and hasten destruction! Hado no 99. Goryu Tenmetsu!" From the destroyed rock faces, the black and purple reiatsu rises high into the sky snaking out and twisting. A large whiskered flaming dragon rises high above the mountains bearing down on Ichigo and looming over Soul Society.

Karin and Yuzu are sheltered away in the basement of the shiba estate huddled together with Kukaku and Ganju. Feeling the ground shake again, Yuzu tightens her eyes trying to wait out the battle taking place almost 250 miles away from them. Karin opens her eyes slightly and sees something reflecting off of one of the pans. Above her the open window is providing very little light from the eclipse overhead but a dark purple light is cascading over soul society. Reflecting in the back of the wok, Karin sees a massive dragon looming high in the air. Gaining a modacom of courage, she stands up just enough to see through the small window. Gazing through the small cellar window her eyes go wide seeing the whole of soul society blanked in snow. In the distance she sees the massive dragon rear upwards before blasting a massive laser through its mouth. A moment later a massive explosion in the distance occurs, creating a mushroom cloud that reaches high above soul society. She watches intently as the explosion gets bigger and bigger before the light begins to dissipate.

"Karin. You need to get down and take cover. It's getting really heated out there." Kukaku suggests as she reaches up to grab Karin's arm in order to pull her back to safety.

"I can't sense anything out there... but I see them fighting. I can feel Rukia-nee's spirit energy everywhere but... I can't sense Ichinii." She responds, still watching the battle taking place in the distance. Suddenly theres a flash of bright blue light illuminating her face as a massive five pointed star forms over the heavens. "Woah... what is... that?" She asks causing her twin sister to stand up and watch what Karin is looking at.

"I-Is that I-Ichin-nii's power?" She stutters looking out at the massive five pointed star rising above the heavens.

Having evaded the bulk of the attack from Aizen, Ichigo now flies high in the air, flaring his spiritual energy as high as it can go. A massive tower of blue light appears over the heavens, expanding outwards into a large five pointed quincy cross. Aizen stares up at this technique watching in confusion and then horror as a pair of wings appears on Ichigo's back. A pair of glowing black and blue wings spread out from his back. Above his head a burning black and blue halo floats just over the crown of his head. Aizen stares up in confusion as the spiritual pressure around them begins being pulled in towards the hybrid. "What is this?! I've never seen such a technique! What are you?! Kurosaki Ichigo!!!" Aizen asks in horror as Ichigo lifts the burning black and blue bow up. From his left hand, he forms another cero in his palm before pulling his hand towards the string of his bow. The black cero expands outwards into another black arrow, this one covered in the blut arterie lines that cover the right side of his body. As he pulls it backwards to full draw, the arrow grows larger and denser as every ounce of reiatsu is being pulled from the surroundings towards this single shot. "I already told you Aizen. I am the one who will defeat you." Ichigo answers as he releases the bow string. "Harmonized Cero." He says quietly to himself as the arrow slides past the bow.

Aizen stares up at the oncoming black cero heading straight for him, unable to find the will to move his legs as if the fear had frozen his legs in place. The only thing he could do is watch as the darkness got closer and closer to him before he is swallowed by the attack. The beam was silent until it made contact, melting away Aizen's wings, burning his body and shattering the remaining crystals around the Hogyoku. This cero didn't explode, rather it bored a hole into the ground, melting the sekiseki rock turning it to lava. As the beam dies down, the charred form of Aizen falls to the ground, slamming against the earth face first on the stone. Ichigo descended from the air, landing just a few feet in front of Aizen's charred remains. "I know you're not dead. I can sense you." He says, a few moments later a sickening fleshy noise bursts from Aizen's back as his body ejects three large wings from his spine. His body regenerates and turns white as a third hole expands in his lower abdomen. A full faced black mask now covers his face, his arms and lower legs having turned completely black. A long black blade appeared fused with his left hand.

"How... how did you get this strong..." Aizen asks as he finds the strength to get up while still trying to fight. Ichigo walks up to him grabbing the blade protruding from his hand before snapping it like a twig.

"I trained. For ten consecutive years. 40 hours out here, is 10 years in the Dangai. I trained every hour, every minute, every single second for all that time mastering my abilities." He answers before opening a hand and pointing it over Aizen's chest. "Before this ends... tell me. Why do I feel nothing but sadness from your blade?"

"I was afraid... Afraid that you would be the only one to ever be my match." Aizen answers, his voice now hollow, demonic and evil. "But I see now... I was never your equal. You weren't suppressing your power at all were you? I was just barely strong enough to sense even that small amount of your strength." The power gap between them is so vast, he cannot sense his power whatsoever, and knows that there is no point in resisting. "This fight was over when you hit me with that first arrow. Wasn't it?"

"Yes." Ichigo responds, "That arrow and the others I fired at you infected your reiatsu with mine, granting you a fraction of my power. That was how I severed your connection with the Hogyoku." Ichigo explains before sighing deeply before speaking again, "Silver emblems, ashen meadows, circular path buried in light..." In his palm a whirlpool of reiatsu begins swirling in collecting in a black hole in his palm. "Eye of agate, tongue of gold, skull cup, coffin of Adnyeus. The object I raise is your heart." The black hole in his palm shadowed in blue light explodes outwards covering the entire soul society in a wide blue halo. A technique that hasn't been seen here in over a thousand years. The people who have been cowering away in their homes, in cellars and bunkers, the barracks and storerooms now stand in the streets looking up at the halo that covers The Soul Society.

"...Aushwalen."

As soon as it appeared, the halo vanished, being replaced with a new tower of light burning high into the sky and touching the moon. Aizen is swallowed by the light, his power being stripped away by the holy selection. He doesn't resist this, doesn't scream out in pain as every ounce of spirit energy is ripped away. Aizen merely looks up, proud of his final project, his magnum opus. Perhaps he wasn't the one destined to forge himself into the new soul king, but instead forge Ichigo into the new god. A smile crosses his face as his mask is burned away, "How amusing. I have created the soul king and the queen of the hollows." He thinks to himself as the last vestiges of his powers vanish from him. The three hollow holes close up on his chest, and as the last hole closes, he feels the Hogyoku be pulled from his body. The tower of light shrinks being absorbed by Ichigo and Aizen watches as the Hogyoku floats over to Ichigo's chest and embeds itself into his sternum. Having stolen Aizen's power, a slender purple sword manifests in the air in front of Ichigo's hand. Its green silk handle is instantly recognised by its new master. Ichigo grabs the handle of Kyoka Suigetsu and frees it from its sheath, raising it up to frame his face on his side.

"Take care of Hisana." Aizen says as he closes his eyes and accepts his fate. "Don't let her become what I was."

"For what it's worth. I'm sorry, Aizen. I hope that you'll be reborn as a better man." Ichigo responds as he lifts the blade up higher, preparing to make the final strike.

"Sayonara. Kurosaki Ichigo..."