I don't own Bleach or it's characters. This is my newest project! I really hope you all enjoy it. I'm not sure how people will respond to it since it's a bit different from how I usually write. But I feel comfortable in it, and I hope it's intriguing!
Chapter 1
Love.
It's a concept we all think we grasp, most of us that scuttle around this earth, downtrodden, submissive to the rules of society, in our own little universe as if each of our lives is the most important thing, the only thing that matters, that exists. Love gives us hope, keeps us going on the days when our feet hit the cold floor and we think, "Why even fucking bother climbing in the hamster wheel? It's the same shit today as yesterday, and it will always be that way." It gives us something to live for, doesn't it, when we are all swept up in its waves, being smashed around in the waters as if we are nothing but insignificant flotsam, absolutely powerless to stop it from happening. We are crashed time and time again against the jagged rocks on the shoreline; and yet we still come back for more.
If you look up the definition of love in the dictionary, or on your smart phone, because of course who the fuck would own a dictionary in this day in age? Just me I guess, but I digress. If you look up love's definition, you get nothing but sentimental shit like feelings of adoration and affection and tenderness. Yeah, they throw in some shit about sexual desire, but it takes a real fool to confuse lust and love, which explains a lot of the daytime channel shows about infidelity. Sex is more than sex when it's with someone you truly love. And that's not being sentimental, that's real talk.
That's all shit we know and expect about love. But love isn't as basic of a concept as we like to make it out to be. Most people's depth of understanding barely scratches the surface of what love truly is. Because if people really understood it, most wouldn't fuck with an emotion like that, because they haven't the grit to withstand what it's gonna put you through. Because there is so much about love no one tells you, and I think that's because of the aforementioned: they don't know.
Nobody tells you how love will hit you out of the blue when you are minding your own fucking business. They don't know how it will fuck with your head, driving you to feel shit you've never felt before- in both good ways and bad, and how insanely intense those feelings will be. You transform into this whole different person. You'll be standing there staring at yourself in the mirror. That reflection is you, certainly, until you look into your eyes. You do shit you wouldn't normally do, and that person becomes your whole life- the center of the universe that used to revolve around you solely. It's absolute lunacy. And it's the best shit that will ever happen to you.
The person I fell in love with was the last person on the fucking planet, hell, the fucking galaxy that I thought I'd ever end up with. I would say it's fair that it surprised the hell out of both us to be honest. It was sort of like walking down the city street at midnight with the neon lights drowning out the stars. You have your head down, watching your feet, dodging trash and keeping to yourself, minding your own business and hurrying toward your destination, when suddenly a meteorite rips through the atmosphere and takes out half of the city before your eyes.
There's a symphony of screams of terror and agony, car alarms and sirens filling the air that smells of burning ozone-instant fires and collapsing buildings. Debris is everywhere, sidewalks and streets are impassable. People are hurt and dead everywhere, the ones who aren't running the opposite way in pure, unfiltered human panic. And you just stand there, feet cemented to the pavement, aghast and uncomprehending the magnitude of what has just occurred before your very eyes. Yes, our encounter was a lot like that.
Me, I'm a branded man. My life is forever fucked to be a battle up a treacherous mountainside both ways. I never had parents, at least not ones I can recall. I was raised in an orphanage, a fucking hovel that was severely underfunded with a sadistic director and abusive caretakers. Nobody gave a fuck about us little street urchins, aside from the few that took pity on us. And there were a lot of us like that, because the black hole of a place where I grew up, Hueco Mundo, it left behind a lot of orphans, just little people discarded as easily as trash out of a car window while flying down the freeway. Unfortunately, none of us danced like a plastic bag in the wind to a place where we'd be recycled, where our potential could be seen and be developed into something useful to the world.
But there's this saying: One's trash is another man's treasure. And us pathetic little urchins that showed any sort of potential, we became someone's treasure all right. At the tender ages of twelve and thirteen, right at the prime age for molding a brain and body toward a cause, some of the children in the system were hand selected to be pulled from the poverty that was all we'd ever known.
I was a little hood, learned to pick pocket when I was six, and that in turn also educated me in how to beat a motherfucker down. It was self defense, because the second anyone knew you had something they didn't, they wanted it for themselves. By the time I was 13, I could lift a wallet, purse, or jewelry off most people without them ever knowing, which was great for me, but theft was a necessary evil. There was a bit of a rush while doing it, but what really got my blood going was a fight.
I was in the typical Hueco Mundo back alley, the crumpling brick structures slathered in various gang graffiti, the dumpsters overflowing with trash onto the ground, littering the area with old newspapers, boxes, and broken glass from beer and liquor bottles. There was a small gang of 3 boys all a few years older than I was who had tried to recruit me into their unit because of my reputation in the streets. But me, I was always a lone wolf, never learned to play nice with others. I told them to go fuck themselves.
Apparently they didn't like my answer, but see, I knew they wouldn't and oh, how I was counting on it. I could taste the tension in the air and my blood was hot and rushing with every beat of my over excited heart, mixing with adrenaline as they moved in on me.
The first one to move was the one behind me, thinking he had the element of surprise. But I knew better, because people like these were cowards and they always go for your back. The minute I saw him move in my peripheral vision I ducked and spun around, planting my feet firmly in the dirty gravel. I launched myself upwards with all the strength I could muster and caught that unfortunate soul right in the jaw with my fist. I can still feel the way his hard jawbone felt against the skin stretched across my knuckles, and I can still hear the way it splintered like precious china hitting the floor that slipped from the careless hands of a maid.
Needless to say when you have a broken jaw, the fight snuffs out of you real quick. I spun on the other two. Oh, they were stark raving mad at what I did to their homeboy and rushed at me at the same time. One of them had a piece of lumber raised in one hand and the grin that stretched across my face when I broke the first guy's jaw grew in width. I kicked the unarmed guy in the knee as hard as I could and began ducking the furious swipes of the 2x4. I think I dislocated the kid's knee because he didn't get up from where he fell bellowing in pain.
I was a quick shit but I lucked out and caught the 2x4 by the mouth. The taste of blood flooded my mouth and the pain fueled the madness within me that came out when fights got physical. I bull rushed the guy and knocked him to the ground, scrambling for the piece of wood that fell during our altercation. I raised it above my head, and the boy began screaming, begging me to stop and that they'd leave me alone for good. I knew it was lies.
It was that moment when the devil spoke to me. I didn't even know where he came from or notice exactly how long he had lingered in that alley, his eyes watching, assessing, and deciding. But that's how devils are, silent, stealthy, and deadly. His voice was like smooth silk sliding down a beautiful woman's bare back when he commanded me.
"Finish him."
It was barely audible over the boy's screams and pleas, but the lowly spoken command drifted into my ears and seized my senses. The madness in me returned as I stared down at this wretch that was crying like a little bitch now. He reminded me of every weakness in myself that got me beaten, starved, abandoned, and taken advantage of. I hated him. I didn't think twice when I let that 2x4 come down again and again, until there was no more sound coming from the mush that was a head only moments before.
I stood and turned to the devil, seeing him for the first time. I wasn't impressed, I must admit. He was handsome, but he was a man. An average mortal man, but I wasn't a made thief for nothing. My sharp eyes noted the style and cut of his suit to be designer, caught the flash of a platinum time piece on his wrist. His shoes were made of alligator skin. He handed me a gun.
"No witnesses."
I was 13 and in a matter of minutes, I had added triple homicide to my list of crimes. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. That's how I became Espada. I was branded by Aizen. I'm ashamed of it all now. In the nights when we lay awake in the moonlight, I talk to my lover about it. I don't understand how he could love a cold blooded killer. But when his tan fingers trace the outline of my tattoo, and he covers it in kisses with his sweet mouth, I feel like he's trying to psychologically train me to associate that part of myself with something much more pleasant.
It's working, for the most part.
End Chapter. Please tell me what you think! Good or bad, or both, I can take it! (Just be polite if it's bad, lol) 3