THE HITS KEEP COMING

When it Falls Apart

With Kenpachi unconscious, and the battle over, Ichigo and Omor stay put. They'll call for help once they make sure Kenpachi is going to live long enough for help to make it. Plus, moving him might make things worse, and Ichigo is not ready for the shit storm Unohana would rain on him for meddling with a patient.

"Here," Omor starts, handing over the crown.

Ichigo takes it, his eye on the crown. His crown. Skulls etched in gold, a lavish crown meant for a strong, steadfast leader. Perhaps at one time that's who he was, but now? With his resolve so shaken? He doesn't know anymore.

"Who am I, Omor?" Ichigo asks his right hand man.

Omor sets a worried look his way. "You are who you've always been. My friend and my prince."

Hell's Prince screws his eyes shut. The pull in his chest hasn't dissipated. If anything, it has gotten stronger. Something slithers up his throat. It makes his stomach turn at the suffocating feeling. He drops to his knees, and dry heaves against the press in his throat. It doesn't move.

"Ichigo?" Omor gasps in surprise.

The clansman slides to Ichigo's side. He takes Ichigo's face in his hands and forces Ichigo to look at him. Purple reflects off the white of Omor's mask. Ichigo can see his reflection in Omor's wide eyes, and he's not sure if he likes what he sees.

"Omor, get my mother," Ichigo demands.

"What? Ichigo, what are you taking about?" Omor asks with a panicked voice.

A fist closes over Ichigo's heart, and his body turns as cold as a corpse. Something inside of him is wrong. There's something crumbling away inside of his soul. His flesh is cold, but his nerves are on fire. His toes and fingers go numb with heat, and his crown clatters to the ground.

Something must've passed over Ichigo's face because Omor grips onto his prince a little tighter. It makes no difference to him. He can't breathe. He claws at his throat, acutely aware how in vain the action is. He doesn't know what else to do. With his spirits spiraling out of control, he starts to panic.

"It's the Hogyoku. Get my mother. She'll know what to do," Ichigo rasps through his closing throat.

"I can't just leave you here," Omor stresses.

"Take Kenpachi and run. Get to my mother. Please!" Ichigo begs.

Omor's dark eyes flash with raw emotion. He reluctantly removes himself from Ichigo's side to retrieve Kenpachi. The captain's body is so much longer than Omor, but the clansman manages somehow. With a lingering look, Omor flashes away.

Ichigo forces himself to lay down on his side. He gasps for air, his throat raw with struggle. What is he supposed to do when air no longer scrapes down his throat? Does he lay here and suffocate to death? It would be a stupid death, one he could not make peace with. What honor is there from simply not breathing? What would Rukia say? Probably something rude through her tears. He's already put her through one funeral, and he'll be damned if he makes her go through another.

Zangetsu calls to him, pulling Ichigo inside his mind like a black hole would swallow a planet. The Inner World is void of color. There's no blue sky or dark clouds, only a grey mass overhead. It's as though someone draped his world in a blanket of grey. No weather, no light, nothing but eternal nothing.

The skyscrapers offer no reflection in their glass panes. Sound warps into a deep hum that seems to cradle the world to a stop. The whirlwind a couple blocks over might have something to do with the hum. It cyclones high enough in the sky to surpass the towering buildings around it, and from the looks of, it's absorbing all the life in the mindscape.