The Double Edged Sword

33

Recap:

"What!? What the hell are you talking about? This is impossible!!" Ichigo screamed back up, there was no way he could get the whole way up there without using his arms. Izumi stared down at the boy with tears still draining from her eyes; Ichigo made eye contact with her for just a moment and in that moment she had jumped.

While Izumi was falling, her long hair flew around her crazily and Ichigo couldn't help but watch her fall; he wanted so desperately to catch her.

"Oh my! You're not in the position to question whether this is possible or not. Look! The corrosion has already begun." Kisuke said loudly while looking down at the chain hanging from Ichigo's chest. Izumi was still falling but she looked at it as well as Ichigo to see that the very bottom rung of the chain had sprung mouths that were eating away at the metal of the chain. Panic filled both of their hearts while they stared at crazy and gross looking metal eaters.

This lesson was going to be the worst.

....

 Time seemed to almost pause around Ichigo as he stared at the chain being savagely eaten in front of him. He screamed loudly in fear; this was really happening. His chain of fate was corroding; it was eating itself. In the moment of it all, Izumi touched down with a booming noise while holding one of her zanpaktous in her hand, the other rested on her hip; staring at her friend with a concerned look she sheathed her sword before reaching her hand out toward him about to say something comforting, but before she could Kisuke's voice echoed down the pit. 

"The chain of fate that I cut off is starting to consume itself. That is corrosion." he said loudly while staring down at his niece when she glared up his way. Ichigo screamed loudly in response to the older man, and immediately smashed his chest against the wall of the hole. Panic had set in faster than anyone had thought it would. 

"Damn it! Hurry and take this disgusting thing off of me!!" he screamed while aggressively rubbing his chest against the stone in a desperate attempt at knocking the chain from his chest. He didn't care what the chain was anymore, all he could see were the many mouths biting and consuming themselves and they were all attached to his body. 

"Ichi don't do that!" Izumi's plea was drowned out by the loud voice of Kisuke and the desperate grunts from Ichigo. 

"That won't do, if I try to stop it; then even I will be eaten" Kisuke's voice carried down the pit with an almost haunting echo as Izumi stared Ichigo's back with panicked eyes. She had seen corrosion before, and knew nothing ever good came from it; only some could survive the process. Right as Kisuke finished his last word, Ichigo paused in pain as one of the many mouths took a chunk out of his mid-section. Immediately he pulled away from the wall and dropped to his side allowing the chain to lay away from his body; there he processed the pain and tried desperately to calm his breathing. 

As he did so, Izumi began walking towards him from the opposite side of the pit; it was rather spacious. 

"Starting form when the chain is cut, to enter this stage, usually is will take months to years even. However, at the bottom of this "hole of despair", is something special. It's filled with a gas that will activate the self-consuming process faster. When you're at the bottom of this hole, the time left until the end of the process is at most 72 hours." Kisuke said loudly while watching Izumi walk towards her friend; he hoped that she was stable enough to think out the situations instead of simply becoming upset. "In other words, you have three days." he said loudly.

Ichigo paused his heavy breathing and stared alarmed as Izumi  crouched beside him and grabbed hold of the chain attached to his chest. He stared at her panicked as she held the chain without looking alarmed or scared; in fact her whole focus was on him. He stared at her face and she simply wiped away the sweat that had gathered on his forehead.