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For the last part, what Xeion saw made his blood run cold. A Gran Rey Cero, coming at him at such ferociously high speeds, aiming to obliterate him and the entire town if it isn't stopped. Xeion knew that, at his current state, that directly confronting the thing was totally out of the question, but regardless to the danger to his life and body, he would try. Even if he were to die, Xeion wanted to die protecting something important to him -- the town, his friends, the lives of the people, all of it. It's something that Ichigo-san would want as well, if her were here now in face of this situation.

Waving both of his injured arms in front of him, Xeion distorted the dimensions and released cosmic energy, fashioning it into a thick barrier which, upon contact with the Gran Rey Cero, began to lash out dimensional energies all around the place as was the effect when two high-powered energy particles clashed with each other. For a few moments, the two forces were at a stalemate with Xeion putting all he had left into the barrier while the Gran Rey Cero still tried as hard as it could to penetrate the strong defense before it. Eventually, the power of the Gran Rey Cero started to overwhelm Xeion's barrier, and Xeion himself, as he began to get pushed back due to the force of the energy he was facing. His body was nearing its limit too and his muscles began to ache even more than normal -- the most pain Xeion had to experience in a while. It was clear that he was losing, but at the very least, he wanted to end it while trying to protect his friends.

[3/3]

Finally, the time had come. Xeion, having held off the beam for so long, was no longer able to stand up to its power and slowly began to succumb to fatigue. Nobody could blame him -- he had put up a valiant effort, but in the end, his body was simply too weak now. At the very least though, because of the clash, Xeion had been able to weaken the Gran Rey Cero to such an extent that it would probably take him out only and nothing else, aside from damaging the surrounding area, but fortunately, no people would get killed. "I'm glad...," murmured Xeion, lowering his hand and dissolving the cosmic energy barrier he put up. He was satisfied and just wanted to rest.

As the beam came closer to him, time seemed to slow down until everything around him stopped then turned ghostly white. "Xeion, have you given up?" a disembodied voice asked him and Xeion recognized it to be Elena's. "I don't remember you being a coward, Xeion. I thought you were a knight who never gave up and wanted to protect everyone?" said Elena. "If you're gone, who will protect everyone then? How can you live with yourself after knowing that?"

Xeion was thrown aback at the fact that he was being lectured by his zanpakuto, Elena. In a flash, the sword he carried on his right hand manifested itself into its human form, a beautiful female, and walked toward Xeion, stopping near him with a serious look on her face. Xeion and Elena were silent at each other's presences until Elena broke the silence. "Master, I have served under you faithfully through the years. I have rarely asked of anything from you, but now, I have to ask this one question -- why do you fight? For what reason do you put your body and soul on the line? For who's benefit?"

Xeion lowered his head, discontinuing his gaze into Elena's piercing stare. He was ashamed because he was unsure about his next answer. "I...I fight...to protect...because that is...my duty as..."

"WRONG!!!" shouted Elena angrily, thumping her foot on the ground. "Liar, don't you ever give me that! You fight because of duty? That's just like saying you have no other option but to fight, you idiot! I want the truth, master! Why do you fight? Rather, did you ever want to fight at all?!"

Xeion was surprised to see Elena feel so strongly about wanting to know his reason why he fought. It wasn't like her at all, but then again, it wasn't like him as well to lose all faith and simply accept what fate throws at him like some hungry dog, scrounging up for a morsel of food in a dumpster. With that, Xeion realized that dying in this manner was wrong. "Elena's right. What's the point of protecting someone when you can't be with them after you have done so? Dying to protect something when you know you can still do something to prevent your death? How stupid!

Raising his head up, he met Elena with his eyes, full of spirit, and smiled at her. Of course, she smiled back for she knew that her old master had returned. "So, care to tell me why you fight, master?" asked Elena once again, and this time, Xeion stood up, regardless of the pain or fatigue he was feeling, and answered her, his voice full of confidence and zeal. "I fight because there are things I don't want to lose. What I fear most is not the prospect of fighting or something like that. What I fear most is losing this world that granted me life!"

As soon as he started speaking, the Raven's Mark, 'XIII', his Raven number, appeared on his forehead, and his left arm, too, began to glow with the same energy as his ARC. "Every person fights while carrying some sort of fear within themselves. If you let yourself wallow in that fear, it will only crush the resolution to fight you've already built up. Ever since the Sereitei got taken over, I have don't have time to waver any longer. From now on, everyone will continue to get hurt, so I must grow stronger in order to prevent that from happening."

Instinctively, Xeion raised his glowing left hand toward the direction of the Gran Rey Cero and smiled. Stepping aside, Elena went beside her master and the time around them slowly started to move once again. "The reason why I fight is because I have friends around me whom I don't want to lose. Because I want to be able to laugh with them -- every single one of them -- together in this world."

With that, the glow around his left arm faded away, but Xeion's smile never did. As soon as the light was completely gone, on his left had, Xeion was held a black and white gun, magnificently shining with pure. When time returned to its normal flow, Xeion was more confident than ever that he will get through this alive. Elena, too, was sure of that. Azure energy started to emanate from Xeion body and went into the gun that he was holding. When the gun had absorbed enough energy, it shone brightly with Xeion's blue energy, and just in time to meet the charging Gran Rey Cero.

"Fire."

Pulling the trigger, the gun's muzzle erupted with a single bullet, shining with blue energy, as it whizzed through the air towards the center of the Gran Rey Cero. It was obvious that the bullet was vastly smaller than the Gran Rey Cero, but what happened next was shocking. As soon as the blue bullet hit its mark, the Gran Rey Cero stopped in its tracks as the small bullet pushed the energy back. It was amazing that a small bullet like that was able to face-off with something as big as a Gran Rey Cero, let alone overpower it. But still, it was happening right in front of them and there was no denying it.

Finally, in one, big burst of energy, the bullet successfully penetrated the middle of the Gran Rey Cero is it traveled past its entire length, exiting just behind it before it disappeared. The Gran Rey Cero, having lost its connection to the other energy particles, soon dissipated as well, having lost its ability to take the form of a destructive energy beam and harmlessly turned into reishi particles and disappeared as well. The thick miasma, too, slowly lifted from the area and the moon, returning to its bright, normal self, illuminated the land. The scene was even made more beautiful since they reishi particles looked like fireflies dancing in the sky, and because of this, Xeion smiled. "This is why...I love this world."

Nodding at this, Elena returned to her zanpakuto form and sheathed herself in her scabbard which hung on Xeion's back. Dropping to the ground, Xeion had lost consciousness out of the strain he had put on his body. But even so, he had a wonderful smile on his face -- a smile of accomplishment. He was proud of what he had done and was happy. "Thank you...everyone."

((Thanks, Ky. 3nodding ))

It had only been several minutes after Xeion passed out when he felt a familiar energy in the air. Several familiar energies, actually, and two energy signatures that he hadn't felt before. They were strong and were probably near by and Xeion himself was compelled to see if the one, certain energy he had been feeling belonged to the person whom he thought it belonged to. "Unaharu-hime...I thought she was dead?" asked Xeion to himself, remembering the time when he and the others were in Hueco Mundo and Unaharu-hime suddenly disappeared while he and some others fell down a hole and had to go through the Menos Forest in order to get to Las Noches. He knew deep inside that to ease the incessant and annoying feeling deep inside himself, he had to confirm of disprove his assumptions on the matter. He wanted to see things first-hand, even though his body was in deep and agonizing pain.

Forcing himself to stand up to his own, two feet, Xeion panted and began to make his way to the place where he was feeling their energies strongest. Of course, Xeion knew that he shouldn't walk around all bloodied like that, seeing as it would attract to much attention upon himself if he were to walk through the streets of Karakura like he had been to some grizzly murder scene, so Xeion weaved a cloak of some sort, made from solidified cosmic energy, to cover up his bloodied self and made his way in peace. He went by himself, knowing that Rakey-chan and Yuu-chan wouldn't worry, seeing as they could trace his energy and possibly follow him a bit later. Right now, the most important thing to Xeion was getting there.

[exits to Miko-chan's Barbershop]

Rakey walked back to the town, Yuu standing there with her zanapakto- at hand. Sighing, she felt Xeion's reiatsu wasn't in the area, he had left for somewhere else. Rakey decided to go follow him, but could also feel with her pesquisa that there were other shinigami, and a few others... It wouldn't be safe for an arrancar like her to go there.

Rakey, decided to go into her gigai form, which looked exactly like a normal human, well, a human with higher reiatsu than most others. Once she did go into her form, Rakey walked over to Yuu.

The now human, was dressed in a white one piece dress, with her side bangs sweeping across her forehead, like it did in her arrancar form, but without the mask piece. She wore small white heels, if one looked at her, she was garmented in all white, except her hair and eyes, which stood out.

"Yuu-chan, let's go look for your Nii-san, Xeion-kun, shall we?" Rakey said, turning and heading out the town following Xeion's reiatsu signature. Hopefully, Yuu-chan would follow and not stray from her.
[Exits to Yomiko's Barbershop]

Tiring of these arrancars antics, Yumi gave up on the tense waiting game. Pushing down on her spring heels she leapt up and released a rain of arrows in the direction of the enemies, and landed on the roof across the street from the one who was watching them. Without waiting for their reactions she continued to dash to the next building's roof. She had so much more ground to cover, and these idiots didn't seem to be as big a threat as they once appeared to be, worse comes to worse she could always double back and take care of these two if her arrows now didn't. They were at least enough to do damage.

[exits]


((Due to the inactivity of the arrancar who approached Yumi for a fight this is her exit, any questions or concerns about this can be addressed via PM.
Thank you.))

Off in the distance another lone shinigami would be seen standing upon the roof of a tall building. As Ichigo continued on his way, he would quickly notice something odd. Over within the lone shinigami's location, the reiatsu of different hollows would quickly appear and disappear just as fast. But, before each appearance, a small pulse of a dark demonic aura would be sensed. What was actually happening was the shinigami was tossing a small stone marble into the air. Being the source to the pulses of demonic aura, with each toss a hollow would appear. The stone marble was acting as 'Hollow-bait' and with each appearance the shinigami was quickly taking them out. As a hollow came forth, the shinigami would whip a golden chain outward and quickly destroy it with ease. Still one had to be curious, as to what this shinigami was doing out here all alone....counting along as he continued to kill each hollow.

Afar from the Ice Cream shop stood a stout, three story building. Atop of the structure stood Tagg Masaru. She was on earth to look for the members of the Gotei that were skillful enough to enter X.

Right away she noticed Smico and peered through. She saw what had transpired with the truck and the ice cream. Tagg deep down began to feel bad. She shook her head and headed down to Smico.

...

Once down on the now busy street she got quite the amount of stares from the common folk. She realized she never bothered with a disguise! She just simply sighed and moved on and crossed the street. Tagg walked up behind Smico, passing the ice cream on the floor. Her presence could be felt by him as she her breath could be felt on the back of the shinigamis neck.

"Smico, right? You seem...(she paused) unique. Would you ever be looking into anything different than this everyday?"

She stayed out of sight, and knew that he would easily be able to know who it was.