A/N: **SPOILERS** for Chapter 501.
Fear and Trembling
Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me.
—Psalms 55:5
"When the tried patriarch felt his end approaching, after having fought his battles and preserved his faith, he was still young enough at heart not to have forgotten the fear and trembling…"
—Kierkegaard
Spiked
-in through the heart.
He is impaled.
Äs Nödt suspends over, poised for destruction. He is cool and knowing and calculates the passing of time. He waits exactly three seconds before striking. There is elegance to the art of annihilation, this tricky absurdity that feigns escape
—erose and lurid, reeking of decay.
The moths devour along a hell-bent craze. Paced, beat, they consume by the whole. Rapaciously, they gnaw off slivers of flesh and lap up bloody sweat.
Embalmed (absolved), Byakuya sees something riding—astride, a black knight on a pale horse. Enshrouded, the figure bares its face on the verge of a scream. Ugly, ghastly, and gruesome (head colliding in vertigo) the rider approaches sword-swinging.
Closing his eyes, Byakuya orders himself not to be afraid. It is all an illusion, a perverse manifestation of his mind. Again, he reaches for his sister, trying not to think of her mangled face. There is no one (nothing) there.
The fear of fear in the fear of death is the death of fear.
Determined, he will subdue it.
(trembling in shattery bones)
"Why do you still resist?"
Äs Nödt sinks his hand further into Byakuya's chest, poisoning the heart. Here, Äs Nödt is told, is the origin of nightmares. And in waste, putrefying on a hot asphalt-field, he will rend open the lungs. Snip, he severs the organs individually—beautifully.
Äs Nödt is meticulous in his craft (techné likes nothing short of perfection).
"I'm sure breathing is nearing impossible for you by this point."
There is reason to madness, rationale to anxiety.
"This? I have explained to you. This is the truth to fear."
Pure, refined, it likes to claw. Has a nasty temper and is an ignoble foe (never cared for upfront tact). Crawls inside your innards to make a nest and slowly eats you from the inside. Decomposition is a game: takes a while and sometimes not, but will always leave you guessing.
Don't you realize? Goddam, thought you were better than the rest.
"I can make you feel and perceive anything."
Can, have and already crippled you.
Spitting out a coil of blood, Byakuya grips Äs Nödt by the neck and brings him in. Senbonzakura circles above like the imminent rising of a crucified corpse. Luminous, the blades shiver and convulse and down they approach. Astonished but amused, Äs Nödt straightens his arms and slams back.
"I will see you die."
Byakuya is ready. And so
-it ends.