A/N - Hichigo's POV. Not very original, I know, but. :P
He stands there, across from me, one hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword. His eyes are narrowed in indignation, like he can't believe that I've even had the nerve to try to topple the tyrant's reign.
"Hey, King," I say, and I laugh, my voice only an echoed copy of his. My shikahusho flares in the breeze, pure white – how unfitting, the color of purity and goodness and sainthood – and I reach for my sword. Everything about me – my hair, my sword, my face, my voice, even my clothes – is nothing but a copy. Just a flipped facsimile of the man I hate to the bottom of my . . . well, soul, I suppose. I don't even have a heart of my own.
Zangestu – his spirit, not the sword held in the hand of the boy across from me – stirs, and I can feel him, but I don't let him go. I know he won't side with either one of us, but I can't take that chance.
The boy with the orange hair scowls at me, and I know what he wants to ask, but doesn't: Why are you doing this?
That, that right there – that's exactly the reason why. He's so . . . so thick, so utterly, utterly dull; and weak; and he doesn't deserve to have this body. Why him, why is he the original, and I the copy? What makes him the king, and I the horse? Why should he be the one to walk free, while I sit in his inner world and wait on his every beck and call, lending my powers to him whenever he's too weak to finish the job himself like that fool called Zangetsu?
NO.
I won't be the horse. Not anymore. The king must fall.
I draw my sword, holding it out in front of me. "Let's fight," I say.
I will never be just a copy again.