As it Always Was
ShunNao
Nanao is sure she will die in battle. Nanao is sure she will die dishonorably in battle. Nanao will die it battle. Because it is her wish. Because it is her captain. Because it is her duty, Nanao will dishonorably throw her body, throw her sword, throw her life and die in battle.
She can feel it in warm blood as it seeps from her abdomen. Her zanpakuto is a cruel, cruel thing. She twists it deeper into herself, its spirit hisses and tries to apologize around the pleasure, the pain, it will kill itself and kill her chasing the feeling - like an addict. More, it says, give me more and I'll do whatever you like I'll kill everything. I'll bring the world to your captain's feet. On file, her zanpakuto is a rudimentary kido-based weapon, it works with the evening and the moon and the stars. It draws strength from darkness. On file, Nanao's zanpakuto is not the reason she is a vice-captain.
The wound in her abdomen will kill her if it isn't treated in the next 30 or so minutes. Nanao doesn't care. The more pain, the more pleasure, the more pleasure, the more power. It seeps into her like adrenaline and she's going crazy, she feels so good and blackness surrounds the unnamed thing (it's a quincy, some thing says, but logic has no place here) in the woods around her – they are both blind and they are both crushed under the weight of her zanpakuto's power and they are both suffocating in her blood as it finds them both, seeps into their bodies. There is no escape.
Captain Kyoraku is immobile behind her, he would have died before but he won't now. Bring on the entire quincy army and she could kill them all. But they're smart and they don't come together. Her shikai is seppuko, she will never obtain bankai. And as she bleeds out, she hates herself for only taking five enemies with her.
"Why doesn't vice captain Ise ever use her zanpakuto?"
Captain Kyoraku observed Nanao-chan practicing kidō from his younger subordinate's side, it was an innocent question. Captain Kyoraku chuckled lightly, laying his hand on the young man's head.
"Sometimes the price is too high, sometimes the spirit too greedy," he said, "there's nothing Nanao-chan values enough to pay that price and we must all be grateful."
"Captain Kyoraku," Nanao says through the taste of copper, but nothing follows. He reaches for her in the darkness but won't find her. Won't find anything where she'd been, where her zanpakuto's power had reached. Like it never existed at all. Because it never had.
"Nanao-chan, please tell me you zanpakuto's power," said Captain Kyoraku, in as serious a tone as he'd ever used. She had trusted him above all else. So she would tell him and pray he let her live. She wouldn't raise her hand against. He was a man worth following. To hell if need be. She pulled it from her sleeve and turned it over so that her captain could admire its beautiful simplicity.
"Captain," she said, "my zanpakuto draws power from my pain to adjust reality," and as she knew he would be confused she moved to his side so that they touched and she sliced her hand wide open. The blood seeped into her blade; her captain's eyebrows raised. He watched in mute horror as the entire room dimmed and she raised her hand to a vase on his desk. The spot hazed as if he were looking at it through blind eyes. She called her zanpakuto's name, he couldn't hear the words - the world seemed to distort so that even sound became a foreign concept - and the daylight return and the world seemed as though nothing had been displaced at all. The vase was gone.
"If we hadn't been touching," said Nanao at length, "you wouldn't know that there had ever been a vase. And in fact captain, there never was." Captain Kyoraku's brow clenched in horror as she explained the extent of this power. She reminded him of the concept of the multi-verse theory, and explained that all her zanpakuto was doing was altering one of the choices made, so that a new reality bloomed. That kind of power was god-like. The kind of power was indescribable.
"But it is measurable," said Nanao, unsure herself, "it works within the confines of one's desire to also exist. To kill using it, I would need to sacrifice my own existence…"
When Captain Kyoraku awakens in the fourth he is alone. He feels a sense of déjà vu, as though everything that ever was isn't quite right. Ukitake assures him everything is as it always was.
Originally posted to Tumblr with this: I've been thinking a lot about Nanao's zanpakuto recently, and why she hasn't used it and what powers it may contain. I would like to remind everyone that the hilt of Nanao's zanpakuto looks a bit like it's got two crescent moons on it. It's always personally kind of reminded me of witches/witchcraft/tarot/fortunetellers and the like. That said, while I've been thinking about what kind of power might be associated with the crescent moon design of the hilt, I stumbled upon a rather morbid theory;
What if the reason Nanao doesn't use her zanpakuto is because it requires some sort of sacrifice? I don't know what true witchcraft is like, but what the media has led me to believe is that dark magic requires sacrifice. And because Nanao is Japanese and seppuko (ritual suicide requiring a warrior to gut themselves) used to be a thing practice I thought that would be the ultimate form of sacrifice to release Nanao's zanpakuto's power. Naturally, whatever thing requires the wielder to die must also be an extraordinary power. So I wrote something to go along with the thought.
I may make this multi-chapter (like three chapters) just so I don't have to end it the way it's ended here ... we'll see.