Wait... what... what is this...? I-I-I'm actually updating so soon? Within a week? Wha-what is this...?I don't know... I don't know anything anymore... I'm losing track of reality...ahhhhh... This is very strange. I'm actually updating. (Is in shock) … and... I'm actually excited to write the next few chapters... what is thiisssss...?
Don... Don't get your hopes up. Don't you look at me like that...! This doesn't mean this update streak will last! Don't get excited and then have me crush all your hopes and dreams! I don't want to do that! … I honestly have no idea how long this is going to last, but I don't think I trust myself to continue it regularly for a long time again... I don't know... I don't know..!
Well, let's hope for the best...
...Though... I must admit... I sorely miss having around ten reviews every chapter... I must've been dreadfully spoiled and forgotten what it was like to... Not. Have. That. It's sad... I miss my fans... ccoommmmeeee backk toooo meeee...!.. I neeeeeddd yooouuuuuu! (cries)
Okay. I need to stop being selfish... this is my eternal punishment (of doom) for abandoning Toshiro for so much time... I... I'm a horrible person... yeah. It's really my fault. Yeah.. (sobs)
Please.. enjoy the chapter... lotsa doom and stuff is coming... I can't wait...
A small boy stared into the water, watching carefully as the force of the stream pulled one pebble after another off the shore, all the while bring other pebbles back to take their place.
"And it was as I told you. Either I would swear undying loyalty to Aizen, or they would continue... continue as they tortured her." The boy couldn't take his eyes away from the water as he recalled his story to the older-looking boy by his side. "... And so, I gave in. I couldn't stand watching him hurt her... I swore myself to Aizen, hoping in doing so I could save her.
"I guess that, at the time, I didn't fully think through everything that Aizen could do. At least, I didn't think he would use me to wreak unnecessary, pointless cruelty. But the first thing he had me do was find one innocent family in the Rukongai and kill them." The boy didn't draw his eyes away from the water. He didn't move a muscle as he recounted the events, and his voice remained flat and monotone. He simple spoke of his experience as though he were reading it from a book, and, in his mind, pretended that what he spoke of wasn't his own past, but just some story he had heard. If he did otherwise, actually recalling, remembering people's faces as he killed them, remembering Aizen as he was tortured by him, and remembering all the pain he had gone through, would've been far too much for him to handle. At that point, it was much easier to block out any emotional attachment to the story he spoke of.
"I could've either let Aizen continue hurting Hinamori, or killed that family. I chose to become a murderer, and I did.
"After that, Aizen continued to have me attack villages, and kill innocent people. When I failed to do exactly what he wanted, he punished me... or he punished Hinamori... he even forced Hinamori to punish me once... and so it continued. He kept pushing me, and I kept on murdering innocent people, all for the sake of one." The boy left out all of the emotional turmoil he had experienced, and everything that had happened between him and Ukitake. He wasn't willing to share every detail.
Akite stared at the boy in front of him, his expression set in a grimace, but he remained silent.
"Then, he had me kill my lieutenant, Matsumoto." Toshiro felt his stomach lurch as the memory tried to creep into his mind. Clenching his teeth, the boy steadied himself and forced himself to remain impassive.
"It was only an illusion, but I had no idea. I killed her, fully believing that it was her I was killing. After that, everything was a little hazy. It seemed Aizen found out about my zanpaktou being able do release his weapon, the Hogyoku. Because of that, I became of more value to him, and he stopped having me attack the Soul Society.
"Then the Seireitei sent out a search party for me into Hueco Mundo, including the Substitute Soul Reaper. Before Aizen was able to get me to release the Hogyoku, they got me out of Las Noches... and then, this big battle started.
"I fought Aizen. I had come back to my senses a little bit, and I wanted nothing more than to kill him. But I was hopelessly outmatched, no matter how much I hated him, he was too strong for me, and tried once again to get me to open the Hogyoku." A pebble was pulled loose, and it was washed away by the current. Another soon replaced its spot. Again, one was pulled loose. Toshiro stared at the pebbles, ignoring the words as they came from his mouth.
"I tried to refuse, but then I started to think about the Hogyoku. I had felt its power from trying to release it, and I knew it's immense energy. As a last effort, I released the Hogyoku into Aizen, as he so wished, and it engulfed him. It devoured him, and the power didn't accept him as a strong enough vessel. It was destroyed, along with most of Aizen's spiritual pressure, and his zanpaktou.
"Aizen couldn't handle that. He had always held himself in the highest regard of power, and didn't believe himself capable of being defeated, much less by his own arrogance. The realization, the very thought that he wasn't all that he had though himself to be, and that he was now almost powerless drove him mad. So he swore vengeance on me and vanished."
"Ai-" Akite's eyes grew wide. "Aizen's still alive?"
Toshiro closed his eyes and nodded slowly. "And since then, I was exiled form the Seireitei. They didn't execute me because they didn't know how Aizen would react, they were too worried he would simply wreak havoc upon the soul society. Instead, they banished me here, were Aizen can chase me to his heart's content and they don't have to worry about him endangering in the Seireitei."
The two of them fell into silence. Akite looked over the other soul reaper's distant expression before turning away to also gaze into the depths of the small river.
"I... I'm sorry-"
"I don't want your pity." Toshiro rose, turning back towards the forest as he concluded their conversation, "You asked me to tell you what happened so you could understand why your friend was killed. Now all that's left is for you decide whether or not you want to kill me."
Akite stared at him, his eyes alert. "It's the same as I said before. You're not to blame... it's this …Aizen who's guilty. Even more so because of everything he's done to you."
Toshiro, still facing away from the other boy, stood staring into the forest, contemplating.
"But I still made that decision. I still chose the life of my friend over hundred's of innocent people's."
"You shouldnt've had to make a decision like that in the first place!" Akite stood, staring fiercely at the turned back of the much shorter soul reaper.
"..." Without any words to rebuke the teenager, Toshiro found himself fighting silence.
"Everyone in the village has no idea just how wrong they are to hate you," Akite continued, "You should know that, and protect yourself from them!"
"They have every right to hate me..." Toshiro murmured, unable to raise his voice to a convincing level. He could feel his heart sinking.
"No. No they don't." Grimacing, Akite walked closer to the small boy, his being set with complete determination. "If you do anything to protect yourself, and get them to understand all the circumstances, then I will!"
Toshiro whirled around at him, his eyes wide.
"...No..!"
Without acknowledging him, Akite walked past the ex-captain, his fists clenched at his sides and his eyes resolute.
"Are you mad?" Toshiro exclaimed, "They won't be reasonable, nor should they be! Try to defend me and they'll destroy you!"
This time it was Akite who turned on him, a sense of justice burning in him. "Then that's just too bad! I want the true culprit of everyone's murder brought to retribution, and I doubt I'm the only one who wouldn't want someone innocent to be punished for it! Without Kana, what is there for me anyway? I've got nothing better to do with my life, I might as well stand up for someone who's too thickheaded and idiotic to do it for himself!"
That was all it took to render Toshiro Hitsugaya speechless. He paused, blinking and unable to rebuke, while Akite stormed away, though the underbrush and back to the village.
If he had received such an insult about his stubbornness and idiocy surrounding this matter from someone else he knew, the substitute shinigami being a prime example, he would've taken it with pure annoyance and brushed it aside. But to hear this from somebody outside, somebody who hardly knew him and yet wanted to defend him, hit Toshiro with an unexpectedly strong force.
Toshiro fiercely blamed himself for everything he had done to the people of the Rokungai. His conscious plagued him constantly, and he fully believed the weight of all the deaths of innocent people belonged only on his shoulders. When the villagers attacked him, he didn't have the heart to fight back in the least, especially when he believed he fully deserved it. It was almost inherent in his nature to force himself to take the blame for everything that happened to people around him, especially actions brought on by Aizen. He simply could not believe that anyone should forgive him.
The boy sank to his knees on the rocky shore. It didn't make sense. It didn't make sense in the least.
But couldn't stop him. He couldnt've stopped Akite from going, from leaving to do something so foolish.
The boy slumped, burying his head in his hands.
Foolish. The teen was foolish.
Foolish. Foolish.
Who was it that was being foolish?
Toshiro trembled slightly. He couldn't tell anymore.
It was, once more, that the aforementioned substitute shinigami stared at the large pile of books on his desk with growing irritation.
Being the end of the school year, all the work still piled on top of him, and held the teenager to his seat like a monster forcing him into unsavory turmoil. Ichigo had stared at schoolwork for far too many hours on end the past two weeks, and was ready for it to be over.
Only one more week.
Ichigo stared out his window, longing to be away from the mountain of work that sat in front of him. How he wished being a substitute shinigami exempted him from any and all schoolwork. He didn't have time to struggle with formulas and rules while Hollows constantly appeared in the city, requiring immediate extermination.
This was ridiculous. He had more important things to handle. Standing from his worn seat and stretching his stiff legs, the teenager searched his mind for a reasonable excuse to escape from his work.
His eyes brightened. He hadn't visited Toshiro in a while. With a sly smile, Ichigo grabbed his shinigami badge and left the house, heading for the senkaimon gate Urahara usually had at the ready in his shop for him.
Though visiting the dejected ex-captain usually set Ichigo's mood on edge, due to the mounting concern he held for the young soul reaper's emotional state, he usually enjoyed the kid's company. Toshiro was unreasonably stubborn in almost every matter imaginable, but he always had an interesting opinion on things. However, the misfortune that had befallen the soul reaper made him far less receptive to conversation, and most of their discussions remained one-sided.
But, for Ichigo, that was okay. If, perhaps, the conversation and the company helped Toshiro in some way, then it was worth it.
Lost in his thoughts, Ichigo hardly noticed when he reached Urahara's shop. He entered the building, announcing himself as he did so.
"Ah, Kurosaki-kun..." Urahara himself appeared around the corner, his striped hat customarily falling too low across his eyes.
"Hey, Urahara, how's it going?" The teen asked as he walked deeper into the store.
The shopkeeper grinned mysteriously. "We're actually packing up to go on a trip right now... though I assume you came to use the senkaimon?"
Ichigo nodded. He didn't question Urahara's motives for suddenly leaving to go on vacation, or a trip, or whatever. Nothing important had been happening recently, and it fit their eccentric behavior.
With a cheerful grin, Urahara led the substitute soul reaper down to the secret lower levels of the building, and then to the room where he had the gate ready.
"So we probably won't be here when ya come back, but you'll probably be able to get out of here."
"Yeah. Thanks." Ichigo said with another nod.
"See ya later then."
With one last appreciatory glance, Ichigo left the world of the living and directly entered the soul society.
As he entered the Seireitei, the teen looked up at the dark, cloudy sky, and frowned slightly.
It looked like there would be a storm.
As I mentioned before... raining cats and dogs... downpours of adorableness... bwahahaha...
I-I think I'm finally getting to the good stuff... GASP! .. I... I actually get to write about all that STUFF soon... ahhhhhwww I'm soo exciiteeddd... Will be such great fun... and doom and stuff. Yeah.
I've got a most atrocious AP physics test to study for tonight... I dread that test... so unprepared... so impossible to be prepared... argggg... I henceforth curse all laws of kinematics and gravitational pull into eternal doom. May they suffer for all time... bwaahahaha! (sulks away to study for test)
Well, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and you look forward to the upcoming doom and stuff as much as I do. Please make me feel immense happiness and leave me a review...? Please...? I would really, really, REALLY appreciate it... what if I give you a imaginary cookie...? Ppplleeaaseee...?
And, of course, many most gracious thanks to those who have reviewed, and I'm always relieved to see my regular reviewers come back... I was worried for a while... I love you all very much and you get not just imaginary cookies, but imaginary CAKE. DELICIOUS CAKE!