A/N: An experiment for a possible story where things don't quite go as planned. As it goes on I'll make it clear which details changed and which stayed the same. Other than that, review and let me know if it is worth continuing. XD

Disclaimer: Tite Kubo owns my soul. T_T


And It All Goes Dark


It all goes dark.

She's not sure how or why, but the moment she sees the skies darken she knows.

It's over.

War is never simple.

Even as the garganta opens and out comes a procession of the Espada with blood (red, so much red on white) she doesn't move. Even as the vice-captain of the fourth division is carted off screaming to her last breath, fighting vainly to return to her charges, Rukia Kuchiki does not stand (is a silent stone in a sea of madness), doesn't flinch. Even as they surround her and she shudders involuntarily at the feel of the deep pressure surrounding her, she doesn't let violet stray from the two bodies of her friends.

Even as they are slain in their sleep.

A monster comes to stand before her.

The deep irises seem to darken as she notes the different stages of drying blood on white—the newest, brightest, a trail splattering crimson petals and splashes like her brother's blade across the delicate looking cloth.

It doesn't take her more than a second to discern the ryoka boy's fate—their fate.

To feel, to remember the whisper of a breeze through bright orange is almost like a dream in that moment.

"What're we gonna do with her?" The familiar lilt sends a chill down her spine and it is only then that the fear begins to course through veins that but a moment ago were filled with numbing ice. There is movement, her limbs respond, and violet meets crimson.

Rukia knows this is the first and only time she will see those eyes so clearly, so vividly before she dies but try as she might she can't move, can't look away anymore and the snake slithers up her arm and into her black uniform (stained white by the sands and darker by the blood of those she knows, and those she would rather not have known) and it finds its way up to the thin white pillar that is her throat, choking whatever life, whatever little humane part of her remained.

She is but a quivering rabbit now.

"Do what you will." Is the even reply as if the man was being asked about furniture in the attic.

The snake hisses in her ear but she is beyond trembling and so she does nothing. Not when Gin shrugs nonchalantly, not when Aizen calmly turns his back to her and Gin gives nothing but a Cheshire smile over one shoulder, not even as the scrape of their sandals begins to put distance between her and their blades.

But maybe she did tremble just a little as she sees Gin stop and turn around.

"Ikorose, Shinso."

And yes, she definitely trembled when his blade pierced her heart.