"Why the long face, cap'n?"

Aizen Sousuke did not bother to visually acknowledge his fellow traitor from his seat as he gave his half-filled wine glass another contemplative whirl, their image reflected in the body length mirror that he had placed in his private quarters in Hueco Mundo.

He so loved the irony.

"You know I am no longer a captain, Gin."

It had been months he'd enjoyed the rare grape vintage and he delicately savored the crimson fluid's heady fumes. Once, this particular variety had evoked the brilliance of autumn's colors. Now, it seemed to have lost some its potency.

"You will think me foolish, Gin."

"Hee-hee, probably."

Gin's insolence rolled off Aizen as harmlessly as drops of rain. For if a comment is to provoke anger, it must somehow agitate a weakness.

"I am finding myself somewhat nostalgic and even remorseful," Aizen continued, slowly taking another sip.

"Oooh?" Gin casually sat himself down on the armrest the opposite of which Aizen reclined over. "Why's that cap'n?"

"It's the end of an era."

"Well, ya', just like you wanted it." Gin prodded, meditatively scratching his chin as he lazily examined the benevolent and unknowable tyrant. In all his years as partner and attack dog to the older death god, he'd never seen Aizen so…forthcoming. Sure, he was an amiable guy, that wasn't even an act, but unless he was giving instructions, he never actually said anything when he spoke.

"I had such hopes for Seretei, once." Aizen's glass hung forgotten in his calloused fingers while Gin had fallen silent, each mirror image measuring the flesh and blood of the other man.

The smile in Gin's reflection did not grow wider; instead it became longer and far sharper. Fitting, Aizen thought, for the wielder of Shinsou.

"They failed us." Aizen concluded after a heavy silence. "Yamamoto Genryuusai for allowing himself to become complacent and lazy, for simply allowing his world view to conveniently smother anything and anyone that opposed him."

Aizen's image in the mirror swirled its glass once again, but did not drink from it.

"Central 46 for being a bunch of doddering old fools, drunk on power that isn't theirs and greedy for such trivial things mere titles and wealth."

Gin held silent, waiting as this one and only aberration in God's perfect mask allowed him to very briefly glimpse into the lightless abyss of Aizen Sousuke.

Go on, Gin thought with an inner laugh, and tell us how you really think.

"But mostly, he failed…" Aizen pauses and something unknowable stirs in the usually reflective eyes of the man in the mirror. "Ukitake Jyuushiro came into power with the world at his feet. Yamamoto had taken the necessary evil upon himself and imposed order on the chaos and so also took the hatred of the conquered. He was given intellect and the potential to surpass Yamamoto in power."

Gin just sits and smiles as Aizen continues on, implacable as any judge.

"And he was given that rarest of gifts: the ability to draw others to himself, to make them want to follow him." Was that envy of all things?

The wine swirls around again, almost, but not quite slipping from loose fingers.

"He could have done it," Aizen declares to no one, but himself in a voice that grows softer with passing each word. "He was Yamamoto's heir and he had the three worlds at his feet…"

The glass stops.

"He should have done this."

Aizen tossed back the drink, the remains of the bloody liquid disappearing behind his lips in one mouthful before he swept upward from his seat and passed through the hallways of Hueco Mundo for the final time.

"And now they will pay a far greater price."

Gin falls into step behind his captain and king, amused by what his old colleagues might have thought if they could have known the black key that jingled so happily in Aizen's pocket was merely the beginning.

Why, he thought, they just might laugh as much as was.