Disclaimer: Bleach is not mine, nor are it's characters, it's settings, or anything like that. I am just having some fun. I hope you are too. Enjoy!!!
Holocaust
It's been two hundred years since the Holocaust.
You remember it clearly. You were there.
They made it easy by being so strange. So utterly alien, so staunchly 'other.'
They couldn't hide like the Bounto. Their reiatsu shone like beacons in a starless night and even without such senses the eyes could tell enough.
They tended to be tall and willowy, a mix of pale European tone and sharp, asian features. Dark hair on white skin, dark eyes on fine features.
They had a shared culture, a tradition, as if born from the same mother they flourished the same. Proud, severe, dedicated… they even dressed the same. White uniforms with sharp lines, bows hung over backs, upon hips, dangled casually from long, curved fingers.
Simple, aesthetic, almost beautiful… such pride, such dedication… they were hardly human.
They were Quincy.
Tell that to yourself. Tell that to yourself again and again as the arrows fly towards you. Tell that to yourself as your Zanpaku'to slices through them. Tell that to yourself as white turns red. Tell that to yourself as their black eyes fall into greater darkness.
Tell that to yourself.
It's their fault, simple as a straight line, pure as the flying arrow, they'll not change nor compromise. Their life is simple, the task of killing hollows is uncomplicated, no deviations, no complications, no compromises.
Clear, like the running stream. True, like a well aimed arrow.
'There's nothing more to it than this,' his Quincy friend said to him once, 'nothing more. Know this, keep your heart straight, and the rest comes.'
He'd envied him so, so much then.
And now…
Why couldn't they listen? Why was everything so simple to them? Why didn't they come mid way? Why…?
Because their Quincy. They are the Other.
But… they die. Just the same.
You wonder what becomes of Quincy souls. You've been told that there are plans for them and you can but hope that their time in the Soul Society will teach them forgiveness for the next life.
You hope…
The battle field is empty now, save for wounded (Fourth division for your side, the sharp of your blade for the Other) and the dead. The endless rows of corpses, skin whiter in death, dark hair lank and matted with gore, their hands raised, dripping Quincy Crosses and blood, fingers still coiled with the memory of bows.
Behind them, the tall structure of the Quincy Compound stands proud.
Even now your companions have entered. Clean up, it's called.
Clean.
The architecture is tall and severe, ethereal footsteps will make no sound to those who can hear only with their ears. But all can hear with their souls here.
You wish you couldn't.
You wish you couldn't hear the screams.
You wish you were stronger. Wish you weren't here at all.
Wish you could hold your blade.
In the bedroom all is quiet save for the soft, desperate breathing of someone trying to make no noise at all.
You find them behind a secret wall panel, they have some device to hide their retsu, but your hearing is too good.
Three children, twelve, 6, and two. The oldest holds the youngest tightly, one hand upon her mouth so she does not scream. They look up at you with pure white faces, from their innocent eyes crystalline tears drip, their robes are still pristine, their hair dark and straight.
The oldest looks up, and… oh no… nononono… his mouth is forming words.
'Kurusaki… san?'
(No one sees the stain of red upon black.)
Oh… no.
("Strike from the heart, Isshin, strike and the rest will follow.')
You wish you could hold your blade.
It trembles in your fingers as you raise it.
They fell like lilies before the storm.
