All We Lost
Title suggested by: thedarkscareslittlekids (check out her story, Broken)
Disclaimer: (If I owned Bleach, Kaien Shiba would be alive, Inoue would keep her damn hands off Ichigo, there would be a law forbidding Kisuke from wearing a shirt, and Histsugaya and Karin would be married after she is turned into a shinigami. And on a very very long honeymoon.)
When Hiyori snapped, she wasn't just angry. It wasn't her normal, let-me-see-how-painfully-you-can-die-before-me manner. No, instead it was blind rage. The rage that came when Hiyori had snapped. The anger wasn't even her usual I-will-now-proceed-to-kill-you-in-the-most-painful-way-I-can anger. She was far beyond that. Her normal thought process wasn't working. Instead, she just went flat out and prepared the one guy who absolutely needed to be killed.
Just because she could easily nail Shinji in the head with her sandal didn't show how smart she was. Nah, that wasn't it. She hadn't been the twelfth lieutenant for nothing.
No, she preferred for them to not notice how smart she was.
Except now, as she fell, her strings cut, a spray of blood splashing across her face, she calmly found herself analyzing with the mind of a true scientist. Stab wound… okay, she reflected, at least 3 by 1 inches. Probably losing a quart of blood now. At least they can donate that quart to some human in a car crash. I wonder what my blood type is?
She let out a wry laugh, knowing that someone who thinks they are about to die will laugh at anything.
She had waited for a century, waited for the damn shinigami to get off their high horses and to let the Vizard come back. Expect, they remained so afraid, so cowardly, that nothing could really convince them that the Vizard weren't looking for trouble. Hiyori must have been cursed, it was that simple.
Why else would her beloved Taicho leave, why else would that damn Urahara leave soon after, after cursing them with white masks, and a rage that boiled up. Even easy going Shinji got that murderous look in his eyes, the eyes of a killer, the eyes of a hollow, the eyes that they all had. After all, what else were those eyes here for, if not for them to be marked as a compassionless killer? Something that should be exterminated. Hiyori had told the others that, many times in the past, always saying a reoccurring of hatred against the shinigami. She didn't truly hate the Death Gods, as they were called. No, it was hate that kept them together, long after they should have scattered into the four winds.
She had noticed how useless she was in the past. They looked to Shinji for joking reassurance, Mashiro for comic relief, Love for ideas and inspiration, Kensei for steadiness and rhythm, Rose for guidance, Hachi for comfort and the strength they needed, and Lisa for her ready speech, and the information she always seemed willing to give them. But Hiyori, she was just the tag-along, she always had been. She was the fetching girl, the one who was easily angered and resorted for violence. She wouldn't have even been a Vizard if Urahara hadn't sent her after them, sent her to keep them safe. No, Hiyori stayed in the background, never truly revealing how she could be a true part of the group. She was on the fringes. She was there to keep them together, and even if she didn't know it, she did all she could to see that though.
As Hiyori analyzing her situation, and knew it would take two-point-three seconds to hit the ground, she also reflected on her current situation. Hiyori was smart enough to know when she made the right decision, and she also knew when she made the wrong decision. Currently this fell into the latter, simply because what being would be so stupid as to dash towards one of the most powerful creatures in existence.
Aizen.
Even if Hiyori was dead, the war would still continue. That time would stop for no one, it was probably the cruelest fate of all for an immortal waiting to die. The wars would continue, no matter how much effort feeble humans and shinigami put forth. For every good soul, there would be more evil ones coming to the surface, showing them how hopeless their effort was.
Whatever side they proclaimed good could never win, because the good had to have rules. Evil never had the rules. They could do whatever they needed, because the side that called themselves good had to have humanity. Justice. Morals.
But even they bent the rules sometime.
She should have never run forward. She should have never let her anger get the best of her. But watching Love fall, watching Rose fall, watching her family collapse around her as they tried and failed to save what they could.
They were hopeless.
Hiyori felt a laugh choking up inside her. They had been scorned as one of the strongest creatures, as an abomination of fate. They were called mistakes, and monsters. They were sentenced to death for a fate they couldn't choose. Yet, they were killed by one of the shinigami who had dubbed them a monster, even while he created them and warped them. He had called them stronger then the shinigami, so why did they fall?
Aizen.
He should have died long ago. Shinji should have killed him, or demoted him while he had the chance. Yet Hiyori knew that wouldn't have changed a thing. Their mistakes would still be prevalent, and the man would have just worked his way back up, with even more trust on his side then they could have ever imagined.
Thinking back on it, she knew that there was no way they could have prevented it. Nothing they could have done. If they had been executed, everything would have fallen into place faster. If they had killed Gin, they would have been branded as traitors without a trace of the strength they had now. They had lost their chance to do everything, and because of that, they were falling like dominos, just pieces in a chess game.
It was kind of sad really, the fact that she was going to die without telling Shinji he was like a brother to her, like a leader to the Vizard.
He was the family she never had.