//------------------------------//
// Hannibal Style Planning 
// Story: Cause, Effect, and Consequences 
// by Coltsguy 
//------------------------------//

This was exactly the place that I didn't want to be. I was stuck holding off Sosuke fucking Aizen so that Twilight could seal up the rift and keep this asshat from completing his no doubt nefarious plan. I would have loved for Goku to be here, but future me and his memories of the event were now ingrained in my brain and wouldn't dream of letting Twilight get hurt because I was the obviously weaker person of the two and Goku could play bodyguard better than myself. It certainly didn't make having to keep Aizen occupied any more of an appealing idea.

Wait a second. Did I really need to fight? Maybe I could just talk with him? I'd certainly prefer that over getting run through with a sword.

"So... you wouldn't be opposed to just having a chat would you?"

"Why of course not. It is the reason I showed myself to you," he replied in a soft tone.

...That was surprisingly agreeable... Which means it's probably a part of his plan. Still, keeping him here is better than him attacking Twilight.

"Well alright then. Would you mind coming down to the ground so we can chat face to face?"

"A reasonable request," the man responded with and floated down to the ground fifteen feet away. I then placed a shield around us to at least delay anything he tried. Not that I told him that. I explained it differently.

"Just putting that up so we aren't interrupted. Alright! So... I'm Seth... of the Chaos... Otherworldly traveler extraordinaire... He who sometimes tends to ramble."

"I see. I find you quite the curiosity if you don't mind me saying."

"Not at all. I can be pretty damn odd," I followed up with oh so eloquently.

"I can somewhat attest to that. It wasn't just you, though. It was this entire world. A world completely separate from not just Hueco Mundo and the Soul Society, but the World of the Living as I knew of it. It called not to me, but to the Hougyoku. As an item that breaks down the barrier between shinigami and hollow it felt the barriers between worlds being broken as well. Quite the feat for something that I didn't think it capable of doing. That was my error in seeing through too small of a scope."

"We've all been guilty of that," I thought out loud.

"Perhaps so. Still, for something to call out to the Hougyoku was also something that I could not ignore. So I waited and listened to see if it would happen again. My patience was rewarded as indeed it did happen again. As soon as it did, I followed it to the source and found quite the interesting sight. A simple stage with a creature I've never seen before. Not only that, but it's power was immense. Yet all it did was stand in the middle of the stage with a single onlooker."

"Me," I said to supply context.

"Exactly. I had no idea at first, but the hougyoku felt the disturbance emanate from both you and another source. However, it felt a stronger connection to you than the other one that had arrived beforehand."

"And that would be Twilight. I feel like this is pretty obvious. You're basically saying Eris is the reason that you came to this world."

"But of course. I would have simply confronted you then and there, but the power I could feel coming from not only the creature, but several other sources made me stay cautious. Instead, I sent a simple Gillian to test the waters. The results were surprising to say the least. The appearance of more onlookers with unusual powers and Captain Kuchiki were intriguing. However the fact that you seemed very knowledgeable for a human was most interesting. While everyone else struggled to understand what was happening around them, you managed to stay on top of every twist that occurred regardless of how absurd it seemed."

"I'd had some experience at it by then," I said offhandedly.

"It could be that. However you displayed a comprehension of things that were more recent, people and concepts that haven't spread beyond certain groups, and even now you try to steer me away from a specific possibility. That possibility being that you are completely aware of our existence in a way that isn't possible for a mere human; powers or not."

"Well, you are technically the enemy so I'm trying not to divulge secrets. I'm sure you can understand that line of thinking right?"

"Of course I can. That is not what is occurring here. What is occurring at this moment is that you are trying to keep secret about the fact that you actually are intimately knowledgeable about things you couldn't know about. I am unaware of how you gained this knowledge, however, yet am intrigued by it at the same time. It is not the only thing that intrigues me about you.

"What truly intrigues me are your unique abilities. As strange as the... quirks that every person here has, all of their abilities follow a baseline from which they use said abilities. The shinigami have reiryoku. The so-called devil fruits users have had their bodies modified on a genetic level from the blood samples I have attained. Even the people who were using magic had done so using an internal form of energy that seemed to function similar to reiryoku. In every instance all of these powers come from an internal source. You are the sole exception. Every observation I've made suggests that the vast majority of your powers come from the coin you always keep on your person. You never leave it alone even going so far as to place it in your mouth as you bathe."

"Wow is that creepy. Thorough, but creepy."

"As much as I can observe, this coin of yours grants you your powers. I find the fact that you would hand it to another after all this time rather surprising considering all of the data I have on you up until now. Of course this data is also being contradicted by the very appearance and presence you are putting forth right now. Your power is significantly less than what it was and your usual air of confidence is now nonexistent. Even your physical appearance is different from usual.

"Still everyone here continues to follow your orders. It may simply be from your own hypnotic abilities that I've seen before that surprisingly nearly rival my own. However from this one-sided conversation I seriously doubt that possibility. The more interesting, and yet somehow logical, possibility is that you are another version of Seth."

"...Damn. I'm not sure how you managed to arrive at that conclusion. Still, denying it would serve no real purpose as you would see through it I bet. What I'm not sure of is why you're bringing this up. Hell I don't really think I understand your motivations all too well. I know you want to take over as Spirit King but I'm not sure of the reasons behind it other than you don't want to be ruled over by anyone. None of that even explains why you stuck around this world at all."

"Why isn't it obvious?"

I was about to say no, but I hesitated. There was really only one topic this entire conversation centered around.

"It's my abilities isn't it?"

"That's correct. More specifically the source of them."

"Eris."

He gave me an even more confident smirk.

"I may not be the smartest person around, but I sure don't see how you could pull that off considering that Eris won't listen to anyone other than me... and you have a plan for that don't you?"

"You are correct. I wouldn't be on the battlefield myself unless it was necessary and you wouldn't hand over your coin to anyone else even with incentive. Incentive such as this."

Aizen gestured over to the side and what I saw was terrible. Twilight and Goku had come back and were standing outside the shield I had erected. The bad news was that they each had a brand on their head. A quick check of my memory and I knew what had happened.

"You had Zommari Rureaux, the Séptima Espada, intercept them and use his little eye technique to hold them hostage so that I would hand over Eris."

"Exactly. Of course I know that a simple hostage exchange would not let me achieve my objective as your coin would resist anything I tried. For this to succeed I would need you to tell it to listen to me."

"And why is this necessary?" I growled out.

At my question, Goku pointed his hand at Twilight and readied a ki blast.

"Would you mind waiting for the answer for a moment and letting your shield down?"

With a gesture I let the shield fall. Appearing next to Aizen with a booming sound was Zommari; the asshole holding my friends hostage. He was a tall, dark-skinned, and muscular looking guy who seemed pretty imposing.

"Aizen-sama. The coin and captives as you have requested," he said while holding Eris towards Aizen in his fingers.

Another gesture and Eris flew from Zommari's hand right into mine almost instantly. As I had guessed there was no reaction from Aizen, though it looked like Zommari wanted to retaliate. He probably didn't only because Aizen didn't even flinch.

"I believe you understand the situation you are in. You will tell the coin to listen to my instructions or I shall kill the hostages."

"I want Twilight released first as a sign of good faith. You'll still have Goku and he's more valuable of a hostage than she is."

"You're not in much of a position to negotiate right now."

"Not much of one, yes, but if I don't believe you're going to let either of them go then what's the point of handing Eris over to you?"

"A... reasonable deduction. Very well. Zommari, release the female."

"At once Aizen-sama."

One of the eyes on his head glowed pink for a moment and the mark on Twilight's head disappeared. She stumbled a bit before regaining her composure. She muttered something before her eyes focused on the ball of energy near her head.

"Twilight!" I yelled grabbing her attention. "Don't move! We have some issues we need to work out. And no magic!" I added hastily.

"What's happening? We made it to the rift and then suddenly I was here."

"You were ambushed. I'm currently in negotiations to get the both of you back."

"I have given you a show of good faith as you requested. It is time to turn over the coin without any trouble."

"But you can't do that! If you don't seal the-"

"I know Twilight," I said cutting her off, "but I don't have any choice. He'll kill you and then it won't matter at all."

"But-"

I snapped my fingers and as a result no sound was coming out of Twilight's mouth. As soon as she noticed she gave me a glare that I was none too proud of getting. I knew I was going to be in trouble for that later. Hopefully I could smooth it over. If there was a later, that is.

"We'll talk later," I stated and looked to Eris. "I need you to follow his instructions alright?"

I steeled myself for a moment and then tossed Eris all the way over to Aizen. He easily snatched Eris out of the air. He then reached into his... outfit for lack of whatever it was called since I didn't know, and he pulled out a familiar little object.

"The Hougyuku," I stated as my eyes lit up slightly.

"Indeed. I want the coin to merge with it."

"Do you have any idea what the hell that will do?"

"Of course I do. It is the entire reason I have yet to merge with it. The increase in power and ability that will come from absorbing your coin will be immeasurable. Once it is complete I will have no need to create the ouken as this will allow me to tear open a path directly to the Spirit King. I almost hesitated taking this route due to the powerful beings that existed in this realm, but I saw that the potential benefits outweighed the risks."

"If you do this then countless worlds outside of the realms you know of will be in danger. You could very well doom us all!"

He merely smirked as he touched Eris to the Hougyoku. A bright light erupted from the connection and blinded everyone around. It felt like quite a while until the light subsided, but it was probably a handful of seconds as it dimmed and showed what the result was. The Hougyoku has disappeared and a sort of rainbow aura surrounded Eris as she stood upright in Aizen's hand.

"Spectacular. Now with this-"

That was about as far as he got before Eris vanished and I felt her in my grasp once more. Even holding her then I could feel the surge of power that was contained inside of her. It was just as I, or rather future me, had predicted.

As I caught it out of the air a fun little event happened. I received a fun slideshow of events in my brain. Well... not really that fun. Why? Because the information was going as super speed and hurt like hell. I'm pretty sure I let out a yell at the beginning as everything that the future me had experienced was now stampeding through my brain. Years worth of information at a pace that the human mind was not meant to view events at.

"Hey there! I know that this little slideshow is sucking pretty hard right now, but there is a point to it. Other than integrating all my knowledge into you there's something else that I need to do and implant it into your subconscious while this is happening. You see, I've had time to notice something very particular during this timeline. Aizen hasn't used any of the denizens of Hell this time around. I thought it might just be something off with my inclusion in this timeline's events.

"It turns out I was more right than I realized. In the original series of events Aizen had merged with the Hougyoku shortly after the Dragonballs had been used to bring back those who had died. Because shinigami can visit the realm of the dead he was able to contact people in Hell and merged with the Hougyoku to increase his power and release them into our world. Since no one died this time around he never found out about it at all.

"When he confronts you he'll most likely go after Eris. Since we both know that we don't have the power to combat him we're going to need to put our trust in Eris. He's going to try and combine it with his Hougyoku just like he did with Urahara's Hougyoku and Rangiku's trinket. If he feels that it can empower his own Hougyoku he's going to do it. It's going to be a big gamble, but that's where our faith in Eris comes in..."

Power instantly flowed into my hand as I willed everything to stop. Everything complied immediately to my will. Every person, hollow, being, attack, energy, and even the dust in the air stopped moving. I let up just enough to let Aizen speak.

"How is this possible?! You told Eris to listen to me!"

"I know," I replied with my voice now echoing and a song playing in my head. "However, my future self is good at making plans. Given enough time that is. He even gave me an ability he learned to do. Mentally linking with Eris. Which was good. As soon as I saw the Hougyoku the subconscious memory of my future self came to my forefront and gave me the ability at that time. When you stated you would merge the two, I mentally told Eris to go ahead and do so with the distinction of subverting the Hougyoku's will with her own.

"It was risky. The Hougyoku follows your will because of your power. However, that isn't the case with Eris. She listens to me because we share the same aspect of friendship from Twilight's world. Loyalty. I had faith that she would still remain loyal and listen to me after she merged with your Hougyoku and my faith was rewarded. Now we are both closer and more powerful than ever."

"Maybe so, but we both know you can't hold this field forever. When it falters I shall kill you after Zommari kills your friends."

"You would be right. That is... if I didn't know about this little trick Urahara had made just for you."

Upon uttering this, a red arrow that looked like a cross with sharp edges flashed from Eris and pierced Aizen right through his collarbone.

"What... what is this? A kido? How do you know kido?"

"I don't. It's something that Eris helped to fabricate based upon my memories from a conversation I had with Urahara. He had me commit it to memory after predicting you would fuse your Hougyoku with Eris and then yourself at some point."

Several more arrow-like protrusions erupted from Aizen's back as I kept explaining.

"Now that I have the power, I can essentially form my own kido. That is what is happening. This is a sealing kido. It would have worked if you had assimilated with the Hougyoku as well, but I knew this would be the most likely outcome."

"You fool!" he yelled as his calm demeanor suddenly vanished in favor of a more angry version. "I do this so that someone can lay claim to the throne in the sky! You act without knowing what you are protecting!"

"I protect my friends. That is why I act. Though I assume you mean the Spirit King from what you're saying."

He looked surprised for a moment before becoming even angrier.

"If you know about it then why do you do nothing?! Are you so blind as to just obey it?!"

I held my hand in the air as the seal started to close over Aizen.

"Loyalty remember? If the people I'm loyal to are protecting it, then it should be obvious what I want to do."

"That's near-sighted dribble! That attitude will only make you a pawn for everyone else to use as they wish!"

"Yeah, whatever. Save it for when the Quincies attack."

With that said, the seal finished covering him up. Where he once stood was now three giant versions of the cross arrows overlapping in one spot where I knew Aizen most likely was. With the 'Seal of Destruction' in place, I used my free hand to selectively release everyone I knew to be on my side. I also teleported Goku away just in case he was still under control, which he most likely still was. Aizen was right that I couldn't hold the freeze spell for long. After a few more seconds, I dropped to a knee with spots dancing in my eyes. I kept holding it because every second I did helped out all of my allies that were still fighting.

Eventually it was too much. I fell onto my side as the spell dissipated. Twilight was immediately by my side to check on me. Zommari almost killed us both on the spot, but a flurry of sakura petals kept him away. I'd have to give Byakuya a thank you note for that.

"Seth!" Twilight yelled a little too loudly. "Hang on! You're going to be okay!"

"Yeah," I said weakly with my voice returned to normal. "Tell me I'm a jerk when I wake up."

I didn't have time to process anything else as I felt myself slip into sweet slumber from exhaustion.