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Refraction

A Bleach Fanfic

Chaos Theory AU

Chapter Six: The End of the Beginning

Though he would not speak to her for three more days, Coyote Starrk met Yuzu Kurosaki on her very first day in Hueco Mundo.

He wouldn't be budged on that characterization of it, either—perhaps she hadn't met him until three days after, but he had met her on that day. In the throne room. While she stood before Aizen.

To meet someone, after all, in any important sense of the word, was to get that first little piece of insight into who they were. What made them tick. And in that sense, very few things counted as a meeting more than watching what someone did when Sōsuke Aizen's attention was completely focused on them. That same low-level—almost subliminal—menace with which he always spoke and acted and breathed was in clear evidence, that day, pressing down on them all like an invisible cloud of fog. Making everything heavy and sticky and uncomfortable in a way that couldn't quite be named.

Aizen was very good at that.

Each of the Espada had been subject to the same thing, at least once. When they were Hollows or incomplete Arrancar or whatever they'd been before. Before this all began. Before their servitude, before the Hōgyoku, before the half-mad plot to seize control of Soul Society that would have sounded utterly absurd from any tongue, in any diction, but his. Coyote had been there to see a lot of those reactions, in the moments before each became an Arrancar—joined the ranks here, in Hueco Mundo. And so he'd met each of his comrades before he ever spoke to them.

All of them had been afraid. That was just universal. It wasn't a matter of simple rationality, either. It was obviously rational to be afraid of Aizen. He had the power to crush every last one of them, and the apathy to do it without remorse or hesitation, should they do other than what he wished. But the fear wasn't a rational thing, born out of that logic and knowledge.

It was visceral. Primal, instinctive fear, just like so much else about them all was still primal and instinctive, whatever control their ascent had granted them over their impulses. The oldest emotion of all. A survival mechanism, held over from long before humanity or anyone else had ever known happiness or despair or love. Or loneliness.

He didn't count the tiny tremors in the captive's body against her. He'd trembled, too, back then. Everyone had.

Beyond that, everyone had been different. Baraggan had almost been too foolish to recognize his fear. He'd certainly been arrogant enough to attempt defiance anyway, and he'd paid for it, in time. Aizen was now the one person he never openly asserted his authority over, and that included Coyote and the other shinigami Aizen had brought with him.

Tier had been cautious, but her monolithic desire to protect her comrades had opened her to the possibilities, consequences be damned. In the end, even her reluctance hadn't survived the promise of an Arrancar's strength. In a way, Coyote figured that made her the perfect subordinate. Ambitious enough to want what was offered, but not enough to ever seek more. Her freedom for strength: a sacrifice she was willing to make.

Ulquiorra was harder to read. But Coyote thought that perhaps his acceptance was a fatalistic acknowledgement that there was no upending the position of primacy Aizen held over them all. With seemingly little by way of preference for how he spent his time, he likely acquiesced from that alone.

Nnoitra had lusted after the strength on offer in the same way he lusted after more of it now. Everything about him displayed it, sometimes more or less subtly. He was just greedy, unhappy unless he was lording himself over someone. Constantly experiencing sensation, and tasting power as often as circumstances would allow. He tended to avoid the company of people who reminded him he wasn't able to do that with everyone he met. The gleam in his eyes when he reached for the Hōgyoku was nothing but avaricious.

Grimmjow had been among the first of the Números; fortunately he made himself the object of Aizen's direct attention often enough that it was not an opportunity missed, in terms of information.

And so it had gone. Szayelaporro had been afraid and intrigued by the possibilities, Zommari afraid and somehow still languid. Aaroniero had met the opportunity like a dog afraid of its master, but still hoping for the gift of food from the master's hand.

In a way, Coyote had met himself, too, on the day Aizen had come to him. He didn't like to think about that, especially.

But here was this girl. This captive. Yuzu Kurosaki, she was called. She was offered no power. Only the ability to keep her life. It should have muted any reaction but the fear.

Yet…

She spoke softly, clearly. Some of the things she said sounded almost like admonishments.

I suspect you will call me whatever you please, Sōsuke Aizen-san.

One might. But I think that would be an overstatement.

The slight edge to her voice was something few of them would have dared. Coyote could not believe that she failed to comprehend the situation she was in: it was obvious enough for anyone to understand. That meant she was choosing this. To lace her statements and her tone with a tiny, whisper-thin thread of defiance. That, he had never seen. Certainly not in himself. Not in any of the others, either. They might howl and shout on occasion, but the moment they crossed the line to open defiance, Aizen brought them to heel, and they went.

The day Coyote met Yuzu Kurosaki was the same day he found something new in himself.

It wasn't his own defiance. That would take much longer. But it was the first taste he could ever remember of the thing that would lead him down that path.

Curiosity.

He did not understand this shinigami. This little woman, barely from the look of her even an adult. This person who could tremble before Aizen as they all did and still find in herself not resignation or greed or intrigue or any of that, but something else instead. Something he might call courage.

Were all shinigami like that? Was this the difference between one of her kind and one of his? Or was it a feature unique to a few? Unique to her? He wondered, and he wondered enough that he wanted to know. To find out.

Without awareness, she'd planted a seed that day, in the fallow soil of his will.

And like so much else did under her care, it would blossom.