Those Who Control the World

The Eleventh Division members, still hidden away in the cover of the buildings, looked incredulously at Zaraki, whose entire body was now free of the wounds he had sustained against Gerard, and his right arm was now attached to his body.

Zaraki raised up his right arm, looking at his re-attached limbs. "The hell did that kid do?"

Zaraki looked over at the battle that he was missing, and noticed that now it was Gerard's arm was the one that was lopped from his shoulder. "Tch, these Quincy have a lot of cheating abilities."

Yumichika and Ikkaku looked between their Captain and Gerard, making the same connection as Zaraki did: Ishida did something to transpose all of Zaraki's wounds over onto the Quincy. "None of these Quincy have been a fair bunch," Ikkaku complained. "Stealing our Bankai, turning our friends and their own into zombies, that odd guy with the cheer-leader that powered him up, the freaking Left Arm of the Soul, that Gerard bastard, and, now, whatever the hell Ishida did. Magic-like abilities like that are a real pain."

Yumichika diverted his eyes away from Ikkaku, thinking about his true Zanpakuto, Ruri'iro Kujaku.

"Yeah, they are. However…" A happy note entered Zaraki's voice, and Ikkaku and Yumichika reacted to it. "…Beating guys with cheap abilities like that is its own kind of fun, ain't it?"

"Y-YOU…" Gerard growled, and his arm restored itself in a flash of light, the fissures of his body mending similarly. "WHAT DID YOU DO?!" He pointed a massive finger at Uryu. "I BELIEVED YOU TO BE A COMRADE-IN-ARMS! AND NOW YOU TURN AGAINST YOUR FELLOW QUINCY…!" Gerard's eyes widened, finally seeing Askin come up from behind Uryu.

"Well, it is a very, very long story," Askin said, "but if you want the short form…" Askin drew in a deep breath and then pointed at Uryu. "This Ishida travelled back in time with his girlfriend in order to stop Yhwach, who kills everyone in the future after he was bested by Kurosaki Ichigo, and Urahara Kisuke is responsible for the whole thing."

Uryu's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "You didn't have to go into that much detail, either," he muttered in annoyance.

Everyone around just looked at Askin, and reluctantly accepted his explanation. Had Askin said it was anyone other than Urahara who created a means to travel back into the past, they would not have believed him.

Gerard, on the other hand, only laughed ruefully. "I SEE. SUCH IS THE POWER OF HIS MAJESTY. NOT EVEN DEATH AND TIME ITSELF COULD STOP HIM FROM INFLICTING HIS JUSTICE UPON THE SHINIGAMI..."

"That Yhwach is dead," Uryu declared. "He died just before I came back here. That world may still exist, but I can at least make a new one where his tyranny doesn't kill everyone I know and love." Uryu summoned his Quincy Bow and aimed an arrow directly at Gerard. "As for what I did…Perhaps I'll let you try to figure it out when we fight."

Gerard glared down at the Future Ishida.

"…VERY WELL, MY PRINCE."

Off in the distance, Ichibei Hyosube observed the battles unfolding in the distant Wahrwelt. Things were not unfolding as he had expected them to.

On the one hand, Yhwach had taken the whole power of the Soul King for himself. A fortunate turn, he considered it, if Ichigo and his comrades were able to defeat Yhwach. That way, the world the founders of the Five Noble Houses had created would escape collapse; that way, they could simply turn Yhwach's corpse into the new 'Soul King', and not have to make Ichigo the next Soul King.

Like father, like son, Ichibei mused darkly to himself. It took the negation of Futen Taisatsuryo for him to realize Yhwach's true nature – not a filthy, upstart Human challenging the rule of the Shinigami, but a bearer of the blood and 'power' of the original 'Soul King'. Whether he was an actual child of the 'Soul King', or his 'power' manifested as its own entity, like the Right Arm, Left Arm, and the Heart, he could not say. Either way, now he had the power to unmake the world the founders had created and only Ichigo had the power to defeat him.

On the other hand, his mind regarded the aberrations with great suspicion. He sensed it all from where he was, the two individuals blasting out of the Dangai, soaked in the power of the Koutotsu. That strange entity, an ancient spirit from a time when the world was one; when gods were born of the mixing of material and spiritual; the one god whose power had to be contained within a world made for it.

A god whose power over time was beyond the ken of mortal understanding.

He recognized one reiatsu to emerge from the doorway immediately. Ishida Uryu, but older, more powerful, more awakened to its potential. The other he could not recognize, but he knew the scent. A Human with the power of the Shinigami, and more which took him by surprise.

The new Ishida Uryu was down with the Shinigami, fighting the Heart of the Soul King. The new presence had left with Ichigo, his comrades, and Shiba Isshin to follow Yhwach.

"Hmm, those aberrations could cause things to spiral beyond my predictions," Ichibei mused darkly. "I must wake up Squad Zero ahead of time."

He turned around and jumped over to the decoy platform they had made, regarding the bodies of his deceased comrades. So long as their Zero Riden – their palaces – existed, he could revive all of Squad Zero when he called their names. The Soul King Palace may have been reworked by Yhwach, but the vestiges of the Zero Riden were still present, so he can still revive them. Such was the nature of those whose flesh and bones were converted into Oken.

"You will not die as long as the wills of the 'Soul King', of the Five Noble Houses, need to be served," Ichibei spoke to himself, and pronounced the names of his comrades.

Before his eyes, their wounds mended and healed, bringing them back from the cusp of death. The first to stir back to the waking world was Nimaiya Ouetsu, creator of the Asauchi, the modern Zanpakuto. Every Shinigami in existence had an Asauchi forged by Nimaiya. All save Kurosaki Ichigo, but that was something they conveniently rectified in short order.

Also, Ichibei mused, himself. He decided to keep the secret of manifesting a Zanpakuto without an Asauchi to himself.

"…Oh, man, they really beat us, huh?" Nimaiya muttered, patting the parts of his body where he had been fatally wounded, and looked out at the Wahrwelt. "Damn, YH has gawdy taste, doesn't he?"

"It is not over until peace is attained," Ichibei declared, eyes narrowing, "whether the Quincy destroy us Shinigami, or we Shinigami destroy their King."

He spoke these words as he acknowledged the disappearance of the reiatsu of the Quincy from the Wahrwelt. Someone, apparently, ordered all the Quincy to evacuate from the Wahrwelt to elsewhere. Well, it didn't matter to him. Without Yhwach, the Quincy could never come to power and be a threat again. Over time, their Human selves would die out and the Shinigami would weed them out of the afterlife afterwards.

Once that occurred, true peace would come to the world. For that is what peace was, Ichibei believed – when no powers in the world could threaten the singular, dominant power.

"But there is something I need you to confirm for me, Nimaiya. A count of Zanpakuto."

"Care to explain?"

"Trespassers from another time – the future, most likely – abused the Koutotsu to travel back to this time. One was a Quincy – Ishida Uryu. The other, a Human bearing Shinigami power. I need to know if her blade is one of yours."

Nimaiya's eyes widened quizzically, but he went into his mind and made a count of all Zanpakuto in existence. Not a single Shinigami since Soul Society's inception ever had a Zanpakuto made without Nimaiya's Asauchi. Over six thousand Asauchi in total existed – at least three thousand enlisted, at least three thousand among new recruits and retired. When a Shinigami died, the Spirit imprinted upon the Asauchi disappeared as well, leaving it blank for a new Soul, though there were very rare, exceptional circumstances.

Nimaiya knew the exact number of Asauchi, knew exactly where each Asauchi was, knew their exactly abilities and powers just as Ichibei knew all their names. If there was new Zanpakuto wandering about, he could tell two things if he found it: it was a time-displaced version of one of his blades, and what it could do. Even if it was time-displaced, it was still made by his hand.

However…

"Nope, all of them are accounted for, down to the one and two. No impossible duplicates."

Ichibei took in the information, pondering it. "So, it is an entirely new blade."

"Yep. What do ya wanna do about it?"

"Just watch, for now. If their presence can lead to Yhwach's defeat, all the better. But if they are also here for other reasons…" He pondered the possibilities darkly.

Nimaiya looked questioningly at Ichibei, trying to guess what the Monk was thinking. "Well, it can't be bad, can it?" He shrugged. "If they came back in time to this point, maybe we blew it somewhere down the line and they're trying to fix things."

"Perhaps. But, only Urahara Kisuke is intelligent enough with the potential to send people through time, and the only one with the will and drive to."

He glared out at the Wahrwelt. "One can only guess at what his true intentions are. He is on our side, now. But the him who sent those two back…Who knows what side he was on."

The pendulum of time swings once more. The 'past' has become the 'present'. Now, let us turn back the clock and go back through the Paths. Back to the world that is now 'future-past'.

As the will of the Soul King once guided Kurosaki Ichigo to his Palace, the 'future-past' was guided by another. Let us return to this 'future-past' and see the past of our travellers.

To before a perfect ending became a tragedy. To when their paths became entwined.