Part 6 of the Human Experience: Collage of Pure Souls Series. To be read together or independently.
I don't own Bleach.
If I softly whisper a lie like a mantra, then will I believe my feeble words? Child's play, a game of pretend, I can sustain it long enough to convince myself that you are still here. So, I'll wait frozen in the state you left me, waiting to grow up until you return to show me the way. See, I'm afraid of monsters like any child, and there is one creeping in the dark space in my mind. So, hurry back to rouse me from this dreamland I'm weaving. Hasten back because I cannot wake when my fantasy becomes my nightmare, if you're not here to remind me that it's just a dream.
I can still see the blood. It's on my hands.
They ran faster than they should, but not faster than me. The bedlam, the roar, the pained mewls—I became deaf after a few hours; the din became the norm, a vibrating quiet, howling into pillows. It was a chore to round them up and then a wave, a flick, a flare. And they all crumbled. Again and again and again.
I was standing on a mountain of dead bodies. It was mildly irritating, so slippery, squishy like moist goo. I was annoyed because they just kept coming. They were so stupid, so piteously weak. Didn't they know that their superiors sent them here to die? Wasteful--of both my time and their lives.
I did not know how long I had been waving, flicking, flaring, my men crumbling, too. Nothing for it, I stood on them as well. Strange, the deceitful passage of time--my haiori had been white, and then suddenly it wasn't. Not anymore. I could not remember when that happened. Had I changed my clothes? Flare-flicking, killing lots of things, I mused on it, trying to remember.
The destruction was below me by then. I was standing in the sky, perched atop a self-made mountain of pieces and parts of dead things. Absolute deficiency of sound, deafening and expectant, a gravity all its own like the deranged screaming of a mute. It smelled of disuse, putrid puss and rot. And they weren't coming anymore, so I stood, contemplating the indifferent stars.
Someone was yelling again, but this time it was so damn loud after the pressurized silence. We won. We won. We won. What did we win? How could a this heap of decay count as victory. There are lost souls in there—correction: "were." And I hadn't won anything because, if I squint, I couldn't see the difference between us anymore. Except the blood. The blood shooting out of Juu's nostrils and mouth was red and the blood on me, turning my haiori midnight, was black. Somehow, it was funny.
Morbid.
Off-color.
Black Humor.
Juu managed to almost half smiled in reflex, in response to my cackling, even if he did not know why or how I laughed. And then he fell from the sky, an oversized butterfly on holey wings, and landed in among the comparative trash below my feet. And then I really couldn't tell the difference between us and them anymore; I couldn't find him.
Where did you go, Juu? This was no time for hide and seek. My swords disagreed.
The blood, the stink, the oozy matter—it seeped into my laugh lines, the creased skin of my palms.
I was meant to gain something in victory, to learn something meaningful: I hate my job. Is that enough? Is that all?
The blood was black like Retsu-sempai's hair, the mask was white like Juu's hair, and the clash of my swords rung like the children's laughter in the academy's mess hall.
I cannot remember color, not now in this place.
And there is a part of me which has grown fat and happy, gorged on gore and languid on the taste of death. And I hate myself too because I love the fight and the kill. So, how do return to sitting pretty on my roof and pulling flower petals? How do I return to an inert state when the beast who would transform death into a child's game has become stronger than I am?
Juu isn't here to tell me. They say he isn't ever coming, but I do not believe them. He would never leave me here; he knows me too well to die while I am fighting, to die while I am living.
While I am in this state of bloodlust... Juu is the only one who does not fear the beast I become, myself included.
So, I have decided to play a game to force him out of hiding. I will not leave until he comes for me. I won't see color until his green eyes show. I won't sleep until he coughs again.
Who am I in this place that holds no meaning? I need to hurt something. I need to feel anything.
"Juushirou, this is'nt funny anymore!" I whine, noticing that I am sitting in a chair, strapped to it actually. I wonder how long I have been here but decide I do not care.
A woman is in the room too, but she hold no appeal; they never really do which I used to find amusing. Juu thought so, too. I nod.
The woman is standing in front of me; she would be obscuring my view if there was anything to see but four bare walls. White walls like white masks like Juu's hair. And recognizing this, I can't be sure if I should destroy the walls or give them a cough drop.
She is speaking again. She does this a lot. "You're being a bloody fool! Wake up, Captain!" Her glasses flash, and it reminds me of swords meeting in perfect synchronization. The beauty of it is not lost on me. Her words, however, are.
She drops down to my level, efficent and quick. And she stares at me, just stares. She must be waiting.
While she waits, I wonder if she bleeds black, too. There are wrappings, bandages on her arms. The brutality is obscured because they strike the eyes like long lady's gloves. Elegant and lethal.
And then I know her again. Oh, Nanao. But it mutates in my mouth like the cancer in my head. "Lisa, dear, where is Juu?" Lisa and she look very much alike when they are angry. Their jaws become manacles, their glares shine ablaze. And it's always just for me.
Nanao is blinking and breathing slow. I wonder why. "Lisa, dear, are you dying?" But she doesn't answer, and so I assume that I am correct.
I turn away because this is boring. I'd rather kill something than watch it die. I'm no good anymore. It's only a paltry game—death: a parlor trick.
I raise my hands to eye level. They are white today, but tonight they will be black. In the dark, everything is black.
The blood on my hands. I hate my job. I hate myself. Where is Juu?
Not again! This place flashes back to my carnage-mountain. And I'm sitting in the white room and standing on the black bodies at the same time. The edges blur and the sound warbles. And Juu falls again and again, half smiling half choking, painted in his lifeblood.
"Lisa, dear, don't be troubled. I remember red again." I rock back and forth, back and forth. I am amused because each time I move the scene flickers.
When I lean forward Juu is smiling. When I lean back Nanao is crying.
Regression by Shunsui Kyoraku
R and R