Forget The Rails: Arc 4: Chapter 3 Part 4

Ninja Grandpa's chapter will come out tomorrow! Apologies for the delays this week, next week should hopefully be better.

...

Though his eye didn't show it, he was currently glaring at the anomaly that somehow knew his true name.

Ichimaru Gin shifted uneasily at the stare, his gaze slightly narrowed in return. "Do ya' got a problem with me or somethin'?"

"...How long have you been able to say that name?" He questioned tersley.

The Shinigami had the gall to blink in bemusement at him. "What name?" He questioned back warily. "Yours?" His usually squinted eyes peered slightly more open giving him a chance to actually read the blasted man's expression.

"My name, for all intents and purposes, is Josh Groban." He pointed out as his mind tried and once again failed to recall anything about the shinigami.

"No it ain'-"

"How long have you been able to say that one?" He cut the man off, this time crossing his arms. The sands around them shifted ominously as the three settled into a staredown with Kisuke shifting his gaze between the two of them.

"...I dunno'" The other shinigami, to his annoyance, shrugged. "I couldn't say it after this guy's-" He briefly pointed towards his fellow shinigami with the memory of his first attack against Soul Society quickly filling his mind, "-trial I guess but I thought that was just Aizen playin' tricks on me or somethin'"

He stopped himself from widening his own eye. The man was suggesting he'd known about his name long before Aizen Sosuke had used it when he'd ventured into Huaco Mundo.

That wasn't possible.

Though the bigger issue was the fact even when Aizen had called out that paradox, he'd been in the confines of Huaco Mundo which meant none from Soul Society would've heard it.

What in hell's name was going on right now? Why did an insignificant shinigami know something far, far out of his scope!?

"...Uh, can someone catch me up?" Kisuke questioned idly, a frown still on his face.

He focused his gaze on the other, appraising every facet of him as he tried and failed to figure out what was so important about him and why he had no knowledge of his existence until this very moment and yet never questioned it.

"Star-" His eye narrowed as one of his gun's materialised into his hand and was immediately pointed towards the daft fool. The action, thankfully, froze him as he watched both shinigami tense. "Woah- Okay, okay my bad!" Ichimaru remarked visibly alarmed as he waved both of his hands. "Uh... Josh Groban uh- Well, I knew 'im by a different name and he ain' too fond of it been used I think."

He knew of him? It took Groban a second more before his eye widened ever so slightly. This fool was... was a factor..? He was a piece that knew of something that didn't exist anymore? How? Why did... why wasn't he accounted for!?

He held in the urge to gulp at the oversight before him. At the glaring hole in reality that stood before him, unknowing 'nor caring-

"You know, I always did wonder why Josh Groban was your name," Kisuke muttered idly, his gaze turning confused as he likely took in his own reaction. "...What's the deal with it- If your guns don't mind me asking," The man chuckled uneasily.

He didn't answer, nor turn to the blonde, his sole focus on the very much uncomfortable shinigami before him.

"Under no circumstances, are you to say that name again, without my permission." The silver-haired shinigami blinked at that, a glint forming in his open eyes.

"...I don' take orders from you," The captain remarked thinly. "Never did. Never will."

"If you value your existence, that is an order you will follo-" Never did? The words filled his mind as he processed them properly.

Had he known him personally!?

This wasn't just an oversight if true- A hundred different things ran through his mind as he tried and failed to process the strangeness of it all.

Ichimaru Gin... was... was he a fact as well?

But of all the shinigami available, from what he's learned so far of him, why choose the one least likely to follow him? What exactly had Aizen Sosuke seen in him to let him remember?

And the better question... why couldn't he himself remember?

There was something deeply wrong with the picture before him.

The silver-haired shinigami, to his surprise, smiled an ever so small smile at his words. "Order?" He questioned with a raised eyebrow. "Ain' all your orders supposed to end in failure?"

He narrowed his eyes at that. "I wasn't aware you were a hollow." He pointed out, earning a snort out of the man.

"...I'll listen, if you tell me what the big deal is,"

Was he a moron too?

"It's a fact," He remarked thinly. "My name- my current name is a fact of this universe."

Ichimaru's gaze, to his misfortune, only narrowed at his words. "Woah, woah hol' up there!" The man remarked a strange glint in his eyes. "Are- Did you just admit to rememberi-"

"I will kill you where you stand," He muttered darkly. "Stop trampling on fate." His reiatsu plunged out with his words and he watched as the dread and slight fear filled both of the shinigami's eyes as it washed over them.

The blonde took a step back, while the silver-haired one merely sucked in a breath. "...You... You don't scare me... Aizen- Aizen made sure that you can't win so... so you obviously can't kill-"

"We stand in the middle of Hell imbecile, I don't need to kill you myself."

The moron blinked at that and nodded once. "Fair enough." And promptly shrugged his shoulders. "Eh, screw it I'll call what you want me to call ya I guess."

He held in the urge to let out a sigh.

"But, I mean at least humor me on what's so important-"

"Because Josh Groban can't win," Thankfully the blonde managed to at least put that together. "...Which means the Soul King can't see him, because there's no future where he wins... So there's no need to look into Josh Groban specifically." The blonde paused for a moment. "...But if he had a different name..."

"...And we want the big bad scary hollow to win?" The other questioned slowly evidently quick to picking up the blonde's point. There was a deadpan look to his face that he directed towards Kisuke.

"...We certainly don't want him to be the reason we lose," Kisuke muttered slowly as his eyes narrowed. "That's what you mean by fact don't you?" He didn't visibly respond to the question. "...Fact... as in if a certain omniscient king were to find out it was wrong..." A dark look rapidly took over the blonde's face. "...This is what he meant when he said those timelines just disappeared..." The man muttered under his own breath though he heard him all the same.

Truth be told, he was still more concerned about the other shinigami- Aizen Sosuke knowing the truth was one thing. At the very least that annoying bastard was fighting for the same thing as him, even if the end result was slightly different. But this shinigami... this one was going to be a problem and needed to make sure it wasn't a problem for him specifically.

But that was a matter for later.

The world was starting to shift again, he could feel it in his soul as the sands of Hell slowly but surely unaligned themselves to a new formation and at the edge and far end of his peripheral vision he watched as the Monk's form slowly disappeared from his sight, his destination down and further below into Hell's bowels.

For all that Ichibe understood the machinations of the Balance, he never quite realised how much of an instrument he himself was. Even now, his very presence, his very being, was nothing more than a guiding point in time. A factor that determined the next stage of the End.

And of the two shinigami beside him, it was telling that only the silver-haired one noticed the departure, the blonde not batting an eyelash whatsoever.

"...Where's-"

"Don't." He calmly stated, his eye locked onto Ichimaru, his word earning another frown that was quickly followed by a sigh.

"What is it?" Kisuke questioned. "Did I miss something?"

Ichimaru's gaze turned confused at that before a strange realisation swept through his face, one followed by a much heavier and more pronounced frown. "...You know, I am starting to miss the illusions."

He couldn't help the snort that came out.

Humans, shinigami and living alike, very rarely enjoyed getting what they wished for.

"Okay, I definitely feel like I am missing something."

He ignored Kisuke that time, and instead focused his reiatsu around his missing eye. His connection to Huaco Mundo came to life again, and this time he followed it with a simple order.

It was time to start.

"Eh, I am sure it won' bite us in the ass."

Grantz, on the other end of his connection, for a brief moment hesitated.

And for the first time in his life, he couldn't blame the annoying hollow- He was basically co-signing their destruction but it couldn't be helped, and the other hollow knew that which was why he opened the floodgates despite knowing the outcome.

"...You're starting to sound like Aizen, Ichimaru."

There was only one way to truly trick the Almighty and that was to cloud it with infinite possibilities and what better way to do that than to kickstart a war? For a war where the Almighty couldn't truly peer through was one hell of a distraction- He had to give Aizen Sosuke his credit for planning that far ahead.

As foolish as it was, risking their fight on that ritual was the only reason they even had a shot at beating the Soul King right now and frankly that was a far more worthwhile endeavour than the compromise he'd himself originally intended.

"That's Captain to you, ya bloody exile."

With Soul Society taken care of, that only left the other two realms- The one he was currently in, and the one currently being held hostage by the former Eighth Kenpachi.

...

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