The Challenge – Chap. 14

A/N: We finally get to the critical scene from manga chapters 313 and 314.

For some reason, this story continues to be very difficult for me to write, although I know exactly where it's going to go. It was only the wonderful reviews I got from you all for the last chapter that enabled me to push onward and write this chapter. Thank you! *hugs*

Warning: angst.

(Originally posted 9/6/2011.)

XxXxXxX

"Welcome back, Orihime." Aizen's voice was as deep and seductive as ever as he slowly descended the stairs. She took a step backward, trembling. She felt her eyes go wide with fear and shock. There was something different about Aizen. His reiatsu had always been powerful, but now it hammered at her; she felt like a tiny creature crushed by a tidal wave generated by a vast, indifferent sea. There was a metallic, artificial, cold feeling to his reiatsu; it was impersonal and huge.

"What is it?" he mused, his lips curling slightly at the expression on her face. "Why do you look so sad?" Behind him, Gin and Kaname waited expressionlessly, subservient to his whims as always. They would pause on their way to the primary military objective of the war and wait patiently, simply because their lord chose to spend a few minutes bandying words with a human teenager.

Aizen had reached her now. His eyes were dark and expressionless. He extended his long fingers in a graceful, familiar gesture, taking her face in his hands and stroking her lip gently with his thumb. It was a gesture he had often used just before he kissed her. Now, though, it felt completely different, like a cruel mockery of seduction.

In the past her skin had tingled unbearably from his touch, but now she felt nothing. She stared blankly straight ahead. She would not meet his eyes. She did not want to see the coldness there, so obvious beneath the trappings of seduction. He was playing with her now, showing her how everything had been false, how easily he could play the adoring lover while feeling nothing. Instead of warmth and tingling, she felt only cold disdain from his reiatsu. He was deliberately showing her the hostile edge of his spiritual pressure, even as he stroked her gently, brought his lips to her ear so she could feel his warm breath.

"A girl like you should smile more often," he murmured in a voice as sweet as honey. "Overcast skies blot out the sun… and that always brings people's spirits down." He smiled at her, again with that horrible mockery of sweetness and love. "So why not let the sun shine… for the time being anyway…"

Then he straightened and looked down at her from his full height, his face now cruel and arrogant. "Don't worry. I'll return for you…" His lips curled into a smirk as his eyes searched her face. "As soon as I destroy Karakura Town." He watched for her reaction, and paused, his eyes glittering with enjoyment, as her face turned ashen.

"Destroy… Karakura Town?" she whispered in horror. So it had all been true, that he was planning to obliterate her home town merely to obtain a device to facilitate his invasion plans. She hadn't believed it. She had allowed herself to fall for his lies. But could it really be possible?

Aizen smirked as he turned away with a casual shrug, letting her feel the coldness and emptiness that was left when he withdrew his reiatsu. He mounted the stairs, his pace measured and deliberate. "That's right," he said, continuing to walk up the stairs, his back to her.

At some signal from him, an immense garganta cracked open at the top of the stairs, showing her a distorted view of her city's skyline. She gasped. It was so close. Unlike the other gargantas which led to long, dark passageways from world to world, this one made it look like her home world was only steps away. She felt an unbearable longing and homesickness for her tiny apartment, all her friends. How she wanted to be back there, in those halcyon days when life was so much simpler, before she had been brought here to serve as a pawn and lapdog of this demon in a beautiful form.

How could Aizen create such a dramatic garganta? Then she realized this was also part of his intent. He was showing her his vast power, that he alone could create a dimensional rift that made it but a step from one world to the next. He was also taunting her with its nearness. Home was so near and yet so unattainable… and soon to be forever gone.

"We shall destroy Karakura Town," Aizen continued, his voice exuding silky satisfaction, "and create the Ouken." He turned away from her. "Kaname, the Tenteikuura."

"At once, sir," said Tousen crisply. He began making the gestures for the spell, extending his arm sharply, but Orihime was no longer listening. Her eyes were focused on the upside-down image of her hometown.

Aizen was speaking again, but nothing he said seemed to have any meaning to Orihime. Until she heard her name. "Inoue Orihime," he said, his voice suddenly caressing in that horrible mockery of affection, "I am leaving in the fifth tower. If you wish to retrieve her, you may come and make your attempt." His voice turned icy. "I no longer have any use for her."

Standing far below him on the cold concrete, Orihime shivered. The last time she had heard Aizen announce he had no use for someone, it had been followed by an order to kill. She waited, the space between her shoulder blades tingling. He had ordered their child destroyed; now he would undoubtedly arrange her death as well.

"Her ability is truly a wonderful one," Aizen continued, dragging out the suspense before he gave the final order to kill her, as she hunched her shoulders and waited for the finishing blow. He was speaking to the assembled members of Soul Society, but every word struck Orihime directly in her heart. He described in excruciating detail how he had used her as a piece in his game, both to confound Soul Society and as bait for a trap, to lure their military strength to Hueco Mundo and imprison them there. Orihime felt her heart chill at the way he had used and deceived her from the very beginning, and her guilt mounted at her realization that she had, after all, played an important, though unwilling, role in the war, all the while she was allowing Aizen to seduce her, to play with her, to amuse himself with her. He had toyed with her as he often did with his underlings, and she, foolish creature that she was, had deluded herself into thinking that she was something more to him than a plaything.

As her cheeks flamed and despair overflowed her heart, she stared straight ahead. Perhaps it would be better if she died now, so as not to ever have to face her friends ever again. So as not to have to live through the shame of seeing the knowledge in their faces, the knowledge of what she truly was, someone who was worse than her mother, who at least had only harmed members of her own family. Orihime's crimes, her willingness to go along with Aizen's plans, made her far worse. Yes, better indeed if she died. If only the ground would open up and swallow her, or if Aizen's minions could complete their task and kill her. She knew she would not fight back. She would never fight back. Her life was truly worthless. It was worse than worthless. Far better that she never exist at all.

Aizen's voice was replete with satisfaction as he continued to speak, and Orihime shuddered at his voice. "The true strength of the Gotei 13 lies in its thirteen captains. However, right now, three of those captains have defected and four are imprisoned in Hueco Mundo. Soul Society's military force has been cut in half."

Aizen smirked as he stepped forward into the garganta and took a few measured steps into the sky above Karakura Town. "This conquest will be easy."

With a loud crack, the dimensional rift snapped shut, and Orihime was left alone in the empty, echoing hall.

XxXxXxX

Aizen stood in the sky above Karakura Town, relishing the view of the human world beneath him, the pitiful remnants of Soul Society standing like leaves about to be scattered by the wind, attempting their feeble defense against his might. He felt anticipation curl within him at the thought of the battle ahead, how everything was going in accordance with his plans.

Looking below him at the elaborate replica of the human town, he smiled with pleasure at the thought that once again, all of Soul Society had scurried around under his machinations. It was amusing to see them try to oppose him. They had always been more powerful combined than he was alone. But he had always been able to outsmart them. He had never been one for the direct frontal attack, but rather the carefully planned strategies to maximize his opponents' weaknesses while leveraging his own strength. The events unfolding now were once more proof of the effectiveness of his strategies.

Now, however, as he felt the staggering primal energy of the Hougyoku pulsing in his chest, he wondered if all those clever plans were no longer necessary. He had truly become a God with this new power. His thoughts ran together with a heavy ferocity, as though he was a colossus rather than in the shape of a mere human. The human form was only limiting. It no longer mattered.

This was power beyond all he had ever dreamed of, when he was a helpless boy in the poorest of the poor districts. Power that could easily smash the human girl's world, the girl who had thought to defy him. He would enjoy crushing her town and killing all her friends. Then he would hang up their corpses so she could see them.

He was leaving her alive on purpose. By keeping her alive, she would suffer far more, knowing he had destroyed everything she had held dear. The Hougyoku within him heard his desires for revenge and promised to satisfy them.

Soon the world would turn under his hand. What need had he of a foolish human woman, of her pitiful half-human spawn? She was nothing to him. Less than nothing.

He would be the God of three worlds.

He stepped forward into the skies above Karakura Town and confronted the assembled captains and lieutenants of the Gotei 13. Yamamoto, the man he had had to kowtow to for a hundred years, stood in front of all the others.

Aizen smirked and prepared for the battle of wits as well as swords. As he called his Espada to him, he savored the thought that soon Yamamoto would fall to his blade; soon all the captains would be crushed under his power.

He had never felt so powerful before. Moving forward with relaxed amusement, he took the first steps to begin his conquest.