This is a fic a very long time in coming. It is written is response to the lovely Sarininste's Come Back Alive to This Place, which is on this site and a read I highly recommend. It's advised you read that story before this one, but it can stand alone if necessary. Still, she is a wonderful author and I highly recommend her body of work.
Enjoy.
()o()
Aizen sat alone.
Those who had borne witness to Aizen being crowned king of the Seireitei would be shocked to see him now.
There was hardly a trace of the man who, with typical impunity, had taken the crown at his own coronation from the high priest's hands and, there, before the assembled nobility of the realm, placed the stolen crown upon his own brow, as if challenging anyone to refute his claim. None had. His eyes had shone with amusement then, the calm, confident eyes of a man who knew some secret of the world and would not share. But not now. Now, in the darkness of the underground chamber, Aizen's eyes smoldered like amber set aflame. His brown hair, usually tousled almost carelessly, with a single strand hanging before his composed and handsome face, now hung in true dishevelment before a visage pale and haunted. A tension gripped his muscular frame, obvious even through his royal white robes, a tension like a spring wound too tight to the point of destroying the whole carefully crafted mechanism. His crown, like it had been that fateful day, once more hung in his hands, but limply, and Aizen turned the golden ring slowly over in the light of the few guttering candles he suffered in the chamber.
But none would see their king upon this second throne, for this chamber buried deep beneath the palace was a secret known only to him, with neither builder nor architect capable of betrayal. Of course, when amongst his subjects, Aizen remained the calm, austere and collected king with an indulgent smile on his lips and an appearance carefully cultivated to impress. However, even that façade had begun to crack, and as a result he had been all but invisible for some days. He couldn't keep up the appearance any longer. Only in this room could he relax his guard, even a fraction, and let some true emotion show, for the mask had grown heavy, and he must find relief of it, lest the man beneath go mad. Then again, there were those who believed Aizen to have gone mad long ago.
Aizen raised his eyes from the crown to the pedestal - the only other furnishing in the room - forming a center piece for the cylindrical chamber. It was taller than his throne, and upon its peak, resting on a blood red pillow fringed with gold, was an orb. It was pure black; the glow of the candles seemed to wash over it like a film, as if unable to penetrate into the denser core.
The Hogyoku.
Aizen continued to consider the orb for a long time, his fingers tracing the contours of the crown he held, the gems he had installed in it after it was his. Gems he had stolen as the pirate king. He stood. He stepped towards the pedestal and dropped the crown atop the orb, the ring of gold falling askew on it, and there remained.
Slowly, Aizen paced about the pedestal, hands rubbing his face as if to hide his exhaustion from the shadows. He pulled them away and glanced with sudden sharpness at a flash in the orb, like a sly wink of light.
He watched it as if expecting more. "It's all gone wrong," he muttered darkly. He waited again, but no response. "All of it. Do they think I don't hear them muttering their discontent? Ha!" The laugh snapped through the dark like the crack of a shot. He resumed his pacing, shoulders hunched and head crouched between them. "Yes, they loved me when I was beating back the invaders from their shores. I was the hero. I knew I'd be. You showed me it, how to get there. How to become king."
From the corner of his eye Aizen caught an image in the sphere: a hall strewn with tapestries and filled with people in lavish clothes, himself crowned, and at his side, his queen. His lip twisted bitterly.
"Yes," he said hoarsely. Then, in sudden fury, "Yes, you told me all that. But you didn't tell me I might not live to keep it!"
Aizen suddenly turned about. He ground a hand against his brow, reversing the direction of his pacing. He chuckled thinly. "Did they think reforms just happen?" he asked the shadows, gesturing to them as if to an unseen audience. "Yamamoto practically drove the kingdom to the ground! Of course I raised taxes. Of course I shuffled the bureaucracy; put my Captains in positions of power. I had their loyalty. No one else's. How else was I supposed to get the money? Go back to pirating?" He chuckled darkly. The Hogyoku flushed with an image of Aizen on the deck of a ship surrounded by a collection of ten grim figures, men and women, facing against a stormy sea. "Ah yes," Aizen said as he caught sight of the orb. "They at least have proven effective commanders." He grinned again. "They at least know how to lead troops. Where the priorities lie. Give them power, position, or money, and they'll stay. The old men they replaced were next to useless! Why else did they think the enemy managed to get so close to victory? The whole navy had no one worth its command!"
He started back as the image faded and a new one came to light: that of a light skinned woman with sharp eyes, her short black hair woven with a pair of white braids, frozen in the instant that Aizen's blade opened her chest with a stroke of his blade. He made a sudden gesture with his hand as if to ward away the image. "Her. Her! Fool! All three of them. They gave me no choice. She was too loyal to the failed system. They all were! Yamamoto was dead. I saved their kingdom! What else did they need to see me as king?"
Aizen abruptly stopped. He turned to face the visage now rising in the orb's surface. A heart shaped face with loving, trusting grey eyes, framed by a mane of soft auburn hair, a smile both kind and understanding upon her face. And around her head, the crown of the queen. Aizen clenched his teeth and balled his fists, but could not look away. A hand rose towards the image as if to stroke the pale cheek. "Yes…Orihime. My queen," he rasped, then chuckled dimly. "As my popularity falls hers only seems to rise. 'Gem of the Realm' they call her." His fingers hit glass. Aizen grew silent. "When the coup comes, she'll be fine. They want a queen. She'd be…" His lips twisted in irony. "…Useful for the crown."
"But enough. Enough!' Aizen turned away and cast his hand over the orb, returning it to its patient darkness. "All of this I know. This is all the past! I don't care for the past. You have not told me what is next. They spread their rumours about my reign, turning the people against me. I hunt down their agents and more seem to crop up like weeds! Where will my enemies strike from? Where are the roads of probability?" He whirled back around. In sudden violence he grabbed up the Hogyoku and held it near his face, the orb fitting comfortably in his palm and the crown falling about his wrist like a manacle. He shouted into the glass. "What is the greatest threat to my happiness!?"
An image resolved in the Hogyoku. Seeing what lay within, Aizen dropped the orb. Like the spring had snapped at last he lunged with feverish haste. At the last moment before it shattered on the stone he caught it, fumbling with the sphere until shaking fingers grasped it securely between them. His heart beat horribly in his chest. He raised it up and gazed into the image between his white knuckles. Once more he looked at Orihime, but now a child was in her arms. Brown haired with wide, grey eyes, his cherubic form cradled to her breast, she smiling down with motherly warmth.
Aizen said nothing. His face was cast deep in shadows.
"No," he hissed. He gave the orb a violent shake as if to change the image. "No!" But when he looked within again it was the same. Remembering himself he returned the orb to its cushion. He stumbled backwards and slumped into his throne. His arms fell to the sides, and his crown clattered to the floor with a piercing ring. Aizen was unaware of any of this. The Hogyoku filled his vision, and, consequently, the smiling faces in it.
"I…I can't," he whispered. He threw an arm across his eyes, turning his head and whispering into his sleeve. "If I were to kill her, I'm doomed. She slips from me. She doesn't trust me. Ah. Ah…" He pressed a hand against his brow. "If she dies, the whole kingdom turns on me. My position depends on her…How…But she won't talk to me. Not right now. I need to be strong. They only understand strength…Tried to explain. Why can't she understand? I can't…she's too important…That's why…But she was furious." He buried his face in his hands. His voice came out, muffled and exhausted. "He was there to kill her too. Why couldn't she understand that? I couldn't let him live. None of them. Examples had to be made…"
Though Aizen did not see it, the image in the orb had changed. Several men stood hooded atop a gibbet. One was in rags, his back lacerated by whips and still oozing blood, but he stood straight and proud, defiant. Another was in fine robes, obviously noble and shaking with terror, and with him were several others in much the same situation. In this memory Aizen overlooked the scene from atop a balcony projecting from the castle. He was dressed in all the splendour of his royalty, tall and grim beneath his flashing crown and red mantle. Orihime stood beside him, her expression pained, the wind whirling her white and black dress about her figure. She gently reached out to him, to touch his shoulder, but at that moment Aizen stepped away and gave a sudden motion with his hand. A lever was pulled. The floor of the gibbet dropped out.
The corpses gave a jerk and swung limp like pendulums. Aizen smiled, satisfied, and turned to his wife. Orihime looked at him. Her lips were a thin line and eyes cold with anger. She turned and returned to the palace, left Aizen standing, perplexed, alone on the balcony before the muted crowd.
The image faded and as Aizen looked up he saw once more the mother and son. His eyes were feverish with a sort of desperation they had never known before. He stared at the face, so beautiful, like the first day he had seen her in the orb, when he had orchestrated their coming together. Her kidnapping, arrangements, all to win, save the kingdom, all with the help of the orb which now defied him. Something was wrong with him. He knew it. Had he relied on the Hogyoku so long that he was unable to make a decision without knowing the outcome already? He laughed, and stopped abruptly when the broken sound reached his ears.
Aizen leaned back in his throne in dark humour. Two fingers were pressed against his forehead, the other hand drummed contemplatively into the arm of his throne. Then, very slowly, his lips lifted into a smile, a familiar one, confident like a snake which has seen its prey.
"Yes. Why not?" He chuckled and rose, his robes whispering over the stones as he again began to pace, quick, then calm, slow and measured steps. "If they loved me at a distance, why not again?" he asked the room. "I will be their pirate king once more. The people love romance. If they need new tales of daring then I'll give it to them." He chuckled and stroked his hand back through his hair, setting it once more in the beginning of its familiar shape. His hand paused as a new thought came to him. His eyes flashed to the face in the orb once more and he gave himself a violent shake. "Their hate can be directed at the clerk. The tax collector. The king could not know what is being done in his name they will say. He is gone. Parasites within the palace do it. And when I return." He chuckled darkly. "I will resolve them of those parasites. She can rule for me. I won't lose the throne with her on it. The people love her. She won't abandon me. Be blamed. She loves me too much…I'll see her…Often…" His mood was checked. Muttering, he plucked a candelabrum from its alcove and pushed one of the grey stones in the wall. The surface slid back seamlessly revealing a dark corridor. "It's only to live. She'll understand. I'll come to her whenever I can. It's to appease the people so I can stay. That's all."
Aizen moved into the darkness of the passage. His robes hung on his hunched back as he turned about and shut the door behind him, his last sight that of the Hogyoku gleaming in the dark. The, the door closed, and looked all the world like another piece of the living rock on which the palace had been built. Aizen nodded distractedly.
"Good foundations." Turning, he moved down the passageway by the light of his lonely candles.
Though his course took many twisting turns Aizen never hesitated in his steps, the long rehearsed motions moving him forth even as his mind trailed back and turned within itself like writhing snakes. Soon the roughness of stone was replaced by the familiar dim white of bricks of the palace proper. The corridors here were narrower and often branched off, the passageways of the castle numerous and few remained who knew them all. Aizen suspected he was the only one now, after old Yamamoto died. He smiled sardonically, his bearing slowly straightening.
"-rrive later."
Aizen froze. The back of a painting stood at his side, a secret panel like a screen from which a red light filtered forth from the other side. He recognized that voice. He turned to the painting from which it came.
A second voice came to him. Strong and caring. "Orihime, you have to realize. Aizen isn't good for the country."
"Ichigo…"
Aizen stepped nearer the painting.
"I'm not asking for you to betray him," he quickly assured her. "Don't worry. I would never…I won't let anything happen to you. Or your son. But, listen to me. The hangings, the witch hunts, he sees traitors everywhere Orihime. He may have saved the country in war, but we're in peace now. And peace doesn't demand a tyrant. But that is what we have."
"He's only doing what he thinks is right."
"But is it right?" Ichigo asked abruptly. "Is torturing families to find out where a son or daughter hides right? Is killing anyone who disagrees with him? Sticking his pirates in positions of power? Ousting nobles and seizing their assets? Is any of that right?" Aizen leaned towards the portrait, straining to hear even a whisper, but there was no reply.
Ichigo sighed. "Orihime…You're queen now. That means you might have to do things you…you never wanted to before. This is going to be hard on you. I'm not…I'm not saying you need to do anything. But when the time comes, just look the other way. Your throne is secured. As is your sons. He's yours too. That will be more than enough to offset what he gets from his father." The voice grew impassioned, perhaps bitter; the same tone which Aizen had heard when the red head had boarded his ship to take back his princess all those years ago. The king's knuckles grew white around the candelabra. "I swear. I won't let anything happen to either of you. You have my word.
"Orihime," Ichigo continued, almost pleadingly. "You made a choice all those years ago on that ship. To stay, to marry a monster to save a kingdom. Even after…I'm sorry, but you're going to have to make a choice again."
Silence greeted Aizen's ears. What were they doing? If only he could see her face. He felt if he could see her face he would know some great answer. He raised a hand and touched the back of the painting. The candle's flickering light revealed his ashen pallor. After a minute he heard the faint sounds of footsteps departing in opposite directions. He remained where he was for a very long time. Finally, he stepped back, away from the glow. With a breath he snuffed out the candle, and walked softly down the passage way, wreathed in utter darkness.