Remembrance/Resemblance

She remembered the distant sensation of being dragged up by Aizen, air escaping her throat as the crimson collar bit into her neck. She remembered the potent, miscible cocktail of emotions that pulsed and rushed into her, the manner in which air fills a vacuum, when she had faced then-captain Ichimaru's gently cruel smile and Shinsou.

She remembered the sound of steel burning into flesh, the sound blood made when spilt on a ground of clay rock, the sound of words, driven by desperation, spoken when a lung is punctured and ribs are cracked.

She then reacquainted herself with the concept of guilt, a concept revisited years after the Shiba clan buried their eldest clan heir.

I was told I greatly resembled your late wife; that was the reason for the adoption.

-Indeed. I instructed for them to tell you that lie.

It was not entirely a lie.