Summary: When Aizen Sousuke, former captain of the Fifth Division, defected from the Gotei 13, he left someone behind. This is the story of Hinamori Momo, whose life was changed forever by one small, simple idea.
AiHina. More than slightly Sylvia Plath influenced, and based on the song 'Pet' by A Perfect Circle. No one can beat Shou Hayami, of course, but I always picture Aizen's English singing voice as Maynard James Keenan. Whenever I listen to this song, I can picture Aizen singing it to Hinamori.
Warning: This story is rated M. I do not hand out M ratings for the hell of it. This story contains the following mature content:
-Dark themes (attempted suicide, violence, death)
-Sexual content
-Aizen being a complete and utter bastard. (Dude. This alone warrants an M rating.)
Anyway, hope you like.
Pet
Chapter 1
Precipice
She couldn't do it.
Her hands were shaking in the dark, and she could hear her own breathing, rough and ragged. She let out a hoarse frustrated gasp, felt the strain on her vocal chords and the sting in her eyes.
She couldn't scream, much as she wanted to. If she did that, then they would all know. And she couldn't let her division down.
Common sense told her it would only be a matter of time before she stopped being good enough for them, just as she hadn't been good enough for him. She should just give in now, give in and scream. They all deserved to know just how pathetic she was.
Or maybe they already knew. It wouldn't be hard for them to guess. After all, he'd abandoned them all. What kind of lieutenant was she, to make it possible for a captain to abandon his division?
She hadn't been a good enough subordinate towards him. She hadn't been strong enough for Captain Aizen. She hadn't been worthy of being his second-in-command.
And she still wasn't strong enough.
Her hands were still shaking, her Zanpakutou's blade rattling in its sheath. It wasn't fair to Tobiume, to force her to die in this way, but nothing except a Zanpakutou was capable of cutting a Shinigami. She supposed it was just as well. Tobiume would never have to join her in her suicide, because she wasn't strong enough to make the final move.
To her shame and self-disgust, tears welled up in her eyes. She was crying again, just as she'd cried when Captain Aizen's sword had entered her and come out the other side. She was crying, weak and useless and pathetic.
The fingers of her left hand reached in under the thin cotton of her nightgown. Even the healing Kidou of the Fourth Division had failed to completely erase the mark of Kyouka Suigetsu. Momo could feel the ridge of scar tissue, twisted and puckered and a few degrees cooler than the rest of her skin, no more than an inch or so long.
It was such a small, simple action. It had taken Captain Aizen less than a second to dispose of her. He had intended to kill her, and Momo wished he had. She would be better off dead than alive here and now, trying and failing to finish herself.
Failing. She had failed him. Otherwise, why would he have seen the need to get rid of her? He had taken Ichimaru Gin and Tousen Kaname with him. It couldn't be a question of loyalty. Momo knew that no one had been more loyal to Captain Aizen than she, no one had been more willing to lay down their life for him.
Of course, what he was doing now was wrong. He was betraying Soul Society, the cause she had worked for six years in the Academy to fight for. Momo knew that, and it hurt her heart to think that she hadn't been able to turn him back to the right path.
He hadn't ever seen her thoughts, her feelings, as important. She had quite simply ceased to matter to him, or never mattered to begin with. He had only wanted to dispose of her.
The fact that her beloved Captain Aizen had only ever wanted her gone, despite all she had given to him, all she had wanted to give to him -
She choked back another sob, or tried to. It escaped anyway.
She deserved to be disposed of.
Even now, she couldn't obey him in this last, most simple of ways.
Breath shuddering, Momo unsheathed Tobiume. She couldn't see the gleam of metal in the dark. It was if her Zanpakutou had become invisible, insignificant, unreal, just as she herself had in the end.
Her eyes overflowed and spilled. Warm tears rolled down her cheeks, and for a moment Momo let herself imagine with morbid fascination that they were blood instead of salt water.
She could feel Tobiume as if her Zanpakutou were part of her own body. Momo ran her fingertips along the blade, feeling the shiver as Tobiume tried to shrink away. She could even hear her frightened whispers.
Please. Not again.
Don't do this to me. Don't make me do this to you. Not again.
Momo drifted away from Tobiume's silent pleading. She focused purely on the physical sensation of cool sharp steel beneath her fingers, and felt the heat of crying in her face begin to drain away.
It was the only thing that seemed to help her now.
Sharp pain bit into her skin. Momo remembered a much worse pain. She remembered the feeling of solid steel sliding into her, the burning pain around the wound when Captain Aizen had pulled it out, the dark spots dancing before her vision and gradually grouping together.
In here, the whole world was dark. In here, no one would have to know. Not her squad, not Toushirou.
Momo laid Tobiume on the tiled floor next to her and put her hands together as if praying, intertwining her fingers. She could feel the blood, warmer than water, and smell it as well. It was a sharp smell like hot metal, a smell she'd never liked.
She was forcing the memory of that day on herself. The physical pain of the cuts on her fingers was distracting her from the real pain, and Momo hated herself for it. Gods knew she deserved to hurt.
At that thought, the tears welled up again. Momo buried her face in her hands, hiding in warm darkness. She could feel her fingers hot and stinging, and pictured what her face looked like. Swollen with crying and streaked with blood -
Pathetic.
She wasn't strong enough.
Momo cried, unable to hold it back any longer. It felt like hours there in the dark bathroom. Her eyes burned like the cuts. The crying hurt, the cutting hurt, the existing hurt.
She wished, more than anything, that she had the courage to end it.
She wished she had the courage to carry out Captain Aizen's wishes.