Byakuya Kuchiki Chapter 502-503-What Should Happen

The air was tainted with copper, the scent of it so heavy in the air it was stifling.  Stains of crimson painted the cobblestones nearby where blood had rained from Byakuya as Senbonzakura was turned against him.  Disjointed images still haunted his mind of Rukia's death, of his own…even while before him he could see where both Rukia and Renji had fallen.  Was this all he was worth?

"Forgive me…"

Were those to be the final words of the great Byakuya Kuchiki, Captain of the Sixth Squadron, and leader of his ancient noble house?  Would he then be the last of his line?  The pain was so incredible and yet his body was almost numb, little remained of his nerve endings to register the agony his body should be in.  The broken stones at his back were all that were holding him in an upright position, that and the blood that had already adhered to them with the onslaught of blades.   If it hadn't cost him everything, the thought that he could stand at all against the power of his own Senbonzakura Kageyoshi might have impressed him.  The world was growing black however and even though he held onto the hilt of his zanpakuto, his grip was light and the sword itself was shattering.

The damnable creature was right, what could he possible do in this condition?  He likely only had minutes to cling to life and that was being generous.  His vision was blurred and his muscles didn't move despite his desire to do something, anything, against this creature that had turned its icy glare onto the soul society.  

True desperation comes in watching the result of your inability bringing those you love to harm.  Byakuya refused to die here, though they already seemed to believe him dead as they were not looking at him.  Yet, what could he do?  His body was broken, his mind was still unreliable, his spirit was leaking away…willpower alone would draw out his survival but it wouldn't deliver him victory.

"Lacking."  The word curled through his consciousness like a raging fire, dragging him back from the precipice of promising shadow.  Death was so much closer than he realized and yet, a deeper part of him than he knew existed refused it.

More blood fell to the ground and what little flesh remained was ripped free to linger on the rocks as Byakuya vanished from where he had been, already his body was repairing itself, his skin regenerating even as the partly broken Zanpakuto slashed through the upper arm of the shocked black gaze of the masked Quincy.

The air and earth shifted with the explosion of movement, a static in the air that held the pair of Quincy nearby in shocked stasis long enough larger of the two never knew what hit him.  As Nodt certainly only barely registered the blade entering under his allies chin and was dodging away as he drew his bow even as his companion was still falling to the ground.

Spiritual pressure raged around them, distorting the air, making the ground crack and tremble, lines of white formed slowly in the air around Byakuya's face as his body regenerated enough that it was clearly him.  Though his eyes were a sparkling gold and the lines of white formed a mask around them as it solidified.

"You speak so effortlessly of commanding fear, yet until this instant you couldn't possibly have comprehended it." Byakuya's voice even deeper than usual, the arrogance he normally possessed seemed somehow to have grown ten fold.  Normally his aloof vanity often still retained a noble heir; now it dripped with contempt.  His very inflection seeming to scream that this creature standing before him was worth nothing.  

Byakuya vanished and the battle began anew…