XXV.
Trouble Lurking
How long had it been? Years maybe? It felt like decades had stitched themselves into her skin and added weights to every part of her body. On the outside, she carried them on with ease and showed little change; on the inside, it felt like every piece of her was decaying itself into the rotting, repulsive shadows of what they had once been.
Physically, she was well suited.
Emotional, things had yet to change.
Mentally, she was going insane.
Everyone was saying that things seemed different but no one wanted to make a note about it. Isane said she was worried; Nanao only narrowed her eyes; Matsumoto tried not to make a deal out of it; Hinamori started to say something but stopped herself. Something was wrong… she just didn't know what.
That was a lie, she did know what was wrong but nothing fell in line till one incident.
Akon said something… she didn't mean it…
One minute he was trying to review her facts on a certain experiment.
The next minute, the other Division members were pulling her away.
She didn't know what happened; she couldn't remember anything from the incident. The only things she knew about the incident was from what the others had told her. They said it literally looked like she had snapped; it was a dangerous situation since her strength outranked those around her… Akon wasn't the only one who had been injured in the accident- the reports stated there were about ten others as well.
She didn't want this.
She was losing it.
But… there was a reason for it.
The only reasonable one… dated back to those years before. That one battle that had marked the darkest day in the Winter War, or at least she had labeled it as such. Whenever she thought back to it, all she could think of was how everyone had abandoned her and allowed for that Espada to use her as such. But that wasn't true. They didn't abandon her, they just couldn't react in time… and yet, no matter how much she screamed that at herself, she couldn't make herself believe it.
He was changing her.
She could still feel that presence flowing through her blood and inside of her body; he was driving her to madness…
How ironic.
She had once been built to be perfect and then ridiculed for being insignificant and stupid… She tried to separate herself from her Captain as much as possible and tried to keep her presence to a minimum when she was around. There was a fear… a fear that if he pointed out her flaws again… she would kill him.
The man she had been created from, who she had served as the highest being in her life, was turning into her enemy.
And yet… her enemy was being something she could no longer avoid. He was a part of her now… there was no way of denying it anymore.
"Even in death… he controls me."