For Day 2: (Uryuu) undercover

"But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly." – from the Ray Bradbury short story "There Will Come Soft Rains." / Uryuu introspection, set during his infiltration. (No warnings beyond pretentiousness and a bit of a power-high. The inside of Uryuu's head is a weird, weird place.)


Uryuu has found that he can, in fact, grow utterly sick of the color white. White means clean fabric, white means spilled milk, white means breathing in the cold air.

(These statements, as presented, cannot be true and factual: White is all colors of light, emitted or reflected, or else it is no color at all.)

Despite its continued existence in the shadows beneath Soul Society, the Schatten Bereich is constructed entirely of shades of white – if whiteness has shades, if at all. White, like the walls of Seireitei; the chalky sand and the cracked-bone trees of Hueco Mundo; and now, the labyrinthine halls of the Silbern. It's as though its builders believed that as long as every corner is kept perpetually scrubbed-clean, that this erases every drop of blood (innocent or not) that has seeped into the neatly-cut stones and mortared them together.

Yes... Uryuu has learned that he can, in fact, grow utterly sick of the quality of white.

If only this sky was not an unpainted ceiling – was not only the earth of Soul Society, hollowed out from below – (There is a clear parallel to be made to that hellishly-cramped Forest of Menos; to the Hollows' world itself, with separate-yet-linked mirage-cities of old-bone caves below and white-stone towers above.) – if only this place had any truth to it at all, then maybe that too-pure white would allow itself a tint of black. Then soft rains could come, bearing the weight of a blinding summer storm behind them, and wash all this unbearable and unforgiving whiteness away.

Uryuu treads carefully in the pristine stone halls of the Silbern. No matter how the lack of color burns his eyes, he must not raise a hand against it. Not yet.

He sews curtains to cover the blank walls of his rooms, to cut the unforgiving light.

Perhaps if the color of the sky – the Earth's sky, the true sky, the sky that is light diffusing into the celestial void – existed here, or anywhere, outside of his too-fallible memories – perhaps then he might remember how it felt to breathe. To breathe in air, without rot.

Wishing will not bring rain. Prayer is a waste of breath. No-

If he ever wants to see the blue (true) sky again, he must break this false heaven open with his own two hands. He will, the moment he can – the very instant he sees his chance to kill this madman of a self-declared king – with his own power. It's all he needs.