Summary: Because, in the end, they were a family. Shinji could only hope that the masks they wore didn't consume them.
Warnings: Some AUness, some OOCness (some characters more than others)
Spoilers: If you haven't read the totally awesome Turn Back the Pendulum Arc in the manga, do so before reading this fic.
Peccadillo
Mashiro was the only one who remembered that night with any sense of clarity: the deep cut across her throat, the all too familiar fear, the all too familiar pain, the bloodlust, the power surging through her veins. Mashiro hated hurting her friends, her family, but God, being able to down—to kill—a captain? She shuddered with pleasure.
She didn't no why she remembered. Perhaps because Mashiro was the only purified soul amongst them, with two white scars on her heart to prove it. Perhaps because her own inner, deprived self had rushed to fill in the gaps, to bring back the strength she missed, the power she craved.
The mask set delicately upon her head and faced the world for her. The sword spun in her hand and prepared to destroy the world for her.
Hollow and shinigami. Shinigami and hollow. What did it matter?
Kuna Mashiro could kill an ex-lieutenant as easily as she could decapitate a captain.
It was too risky to not risk one of them. And, damn it, wasn't she his lieutenant? The one person he should trust the most? Believe in the most? The one person he could count on when their world fell apart around them?
In her heart, Hiyori knew she would never be that person. And, really, it wasn't as if Hikifune-taichou had depended on her, either. But it still hurt. She a lieutenant, not a child.
Urahara-taichou's fukutaichou.
And that thrice-damned bastard wouldn't listen to her and his own common sense, even though they both knew she was right.
This gigai was only a temporary measure—the longest any of them had was another a year, unless Urahara-taichou discovered another method to suppress their inner hollows. Hiyori scowled. And he had found another method.
We can't afford to take any chances.
Hiyori wasn't stupid. She knew how close she was to losing it. That made her the best candidate for the experiment. The only candidate.
Hiyori fingered the gikongan dispenser. Kidou wasn't her strong suit—the bindings Hiyori had placed upon herself would last five minutes if she was lucky.
She took a deep breath. Prayed the others wouldn't be too late. And swallowed the gikongan.
The kidou spell died upon the last word, broken even before it had a chance to breathe. So much like its caster that it hurt.
Hachigen should not have become a member of the kidoushuu. But he wanted it. Badly, desperately, no matter how laughable it was for a shinigami of the eleventh to even bother applying. But he needed it—the thrill of reiatsu racing through his veins, the mighty roar of the destructive art and the seductive complexities of bindings and healing. Laughable. But hard work had paid well, as Hachi discovered, and he soon became lieutenant to the Tsukabishi Tessai, the first multi-circle head in over a century. He loved every minute, every spell, every forbidden art he was permitted to learn but never perform.
Only, hard work wasn't paying off now. Hachi couldn't even bring himself to meet the eyes of Shinji when he asked for a level fifty binding spell. How could he tell his captain that everything he was, everything he had ever been, ever hoped for, had been ripped away from him the moment his mask formed?
It wasn't right.
Eyes hardened black and yellow. Hachi hadn't been in the Eleventh for nothing: sheer force was his specialty.
Golden light sprang to life around him, lighting the world with unholy ire.
Kensei was the only one was average. Laughable, he thought, that one could be counted as "average" amongst the vaizard. But it was true. Defiantly true, even when Kensei ground his teeth against his mask and screamed to the world that he was a freak, a monster, a traitor to everything he once held dear.
But still, he remained average. Fists clenched around his zanpakuto, drawing blood. Captains were not average. They were the best, the greatest, the epitome of the shinigami. Everything a white-haired academy student dreamed of.
Average?
Reiatsu, red as blood and more powerful than a raging torrent, crackled in his hand.
Like hell.
Lisa stared at the girl beneath her, her heel pressed deeply on her chest. The girl gasped for breath, her eyes pleading with the monster in front of her. Monster, eh? Lisa studied the familiar curve of the face, the lips, she remembered, twitching into an unreadable smile, and the eyes so bright, so vibrant, so full of life that every second overflowed the cup of sake.
But time had long since dulled the girl's eyes, the embers within them lighting a new fire that burned with the thirst to prove herself worthy of the badge she now wore. The badge Lisa herself had once worn with pride.
Kyouraku-taichou had always been a hard captain, hadn't he?
Lisa's blade wavered over the girl's neck, for once hesitating before the final blow.
This girl was her Nan-chan, after all. This girl was the cute Academy brat who trailed at her heels like a lost puppy dog, like a proper lieutenant. This girl was the young prodigy, who had graduated in a year and a half, who won the respect of her comrades and commanders alike.
Lisa's free hand brushed against the mask as she contemplated ripping it off and telling her Nan-chan how much she missed her, loved her, needed her like a man dying of thirst stumbling upon the Garden of Eden. And she envisioned the sheer horror on little Nan-chan's face, revulsion. Shinigami were taught to hate anything that even resembled a hollow.
Or worse, what if, when she ripped off her mask and threw down her sword, and hugged her Nan-chan like the lost sister she was—Nan-chan would look upon her and not remember.
Hate she could live with. Fear she could deal with. But forgetfulness? It was too much. And Lisa found she couldn't risk it.
Her blade steadied, hungering for blood.
Rose had a secret.
The sake cup overflowed, amber liquid staining the table.
The others—his friends, his family, his kin—knew his secret, or had at least guessed it.
The young woman's cup had seen much more over the course of the night.
They had all tried it once before.
It was easy to drag her out of the bar.
Just to see what is was like.
It was easier still to drag the giggling girl down the dark alleyway.
No one blamed Rose for doing it again and again and again…
She didn't even scream when her soul went flying through the air, only to be jerked harshly by her own chain of fate.
Every one of them had enjoyed it.
The girl stared, horrified, at the white mask and yellow on black eyes. Rose smiled with his mask.
It was their nature, after all.
Tonight would be a feast.
His zanpakuto gleamed a bloody red. The corpses of shinigami lay scattered at his feet. Love snarled at the captain, dared him to come closer. Fear was irrelevant. He had been a captain, a powerful one, and this boy stood no chance against him.
The boy didn't stand a chance.
Ice snapped around him as the child released his bankai. A stark reminder that he, too, was a captain. Love's own successor. But what did it matter? This boy had befriended their brother, aided him, earned his trust and then turned around and stabbed him in the back.
There was no excuse.
The boy paled when he saw the hollow mask begin to take shape. Love smirked. So like a shinigami.
Tonight, Seireitei would burn.
Despite their quirks and peccadillos, they did love each other. They certainly would do anything to protect each other. Because, in the end, they were a family and that was all that mattered.
Shinji could only hope that the masks they wore didn't consume them.
Author's Note: So, like, dislike? Love? Review?
Peccadillo means a "slight sin". Somewhat ironic, considering that each section (except Shinji's, but he isn't exactly an angel, either) is based on one of the seven deadly sins.