Yes, another chapter! I seem to put them up in spurts. I get the feeling that we might finally see Nanao again in the manga (after a really rather length hiatus) in the next few chapters or so, and so I wanted to begin wrapping up this one... if I can! The ending is still a bit of a mystery to me. However, this chapter is definitely an important one (short, but important). Happy reading! And, as ever, I *love* reading your comments, critiques, ideas, suggestions... everything! Tell me what you think!
Chapter 25: A Choice
Nanao blinked the see herself looking once again into flames. Her consciousness had returned to her body trapped in the middle of Yamamoto-Genryūsai's inferno. Despite the heat, she felt a slight chill come over her body as she sensed Aizen nearing.
"Have you returned, Ise-fukutaichō?" came his amused voice from just past her ear. He had returned to his customary formality, but the intimacy of before returned.
"I never really left; I was merely having a slight conversation with my zampakutō," she replied in a tone to match his.
"Oh yes? What does she suggest?"
Nanao turned to face him directly. "She says I should hear what you have to say and then decide."
His smile seemed to hold an icy warmth to it. "Yes, zampakutō generally know how to look out for their own interests, which is to say they similarly look out for their masters'. Her loyalty will be to you, not to the shinigami order."
"She won't show me any loyalty whatsoever if I ever refer to myself as her 'master,'" Nanao commented, folding her arms and shifting her weight. "But she has a point. I'll hear you."
He looked down on her for a long minute, his face a general enigma. Nanao fought the urge to squirm and simply met his gaze with an expectant look of her own.
"This is how I've imagined you all along," he said quietly, nearly in a whisper. "Strong, sure, in control. Kyōraku's a fool to treat you as he has."
Nanao pursed her lips in impatience. "Let me clarify: I will listen to what you want with me, I will listen to what your overall plans are, I will listen to anything related to your betrayal and the whole reason why we've gathered here now. I will not listen to empty compliments. I am in no mood to be seduced." She stared steelily into his eyes. Her attitude only seemed to delight and amuse him all the more. Still, he shifted his weight back and the intensity subsided a little.
"My apologies, Ise-fukutaichō," he said with a smile. The humor in his voice suggested to Nanao that there was little actual apology there at all. Still, his slight change in attitude made breathing a little easier. Nanao had prepared for all manner of attacks from Aizen, but not for physical attraction. Sexual energy of any type always unnerved her, although she had grown used to a certain degree of it after all her years with her captain. How odd to think that nearly a century of avoiding her taichō's advances had been the best training she could have hoped for against such the most formidable enemy she would likely ever encounter. What she wouldn't give for a book or a fan about now.
She couldn't hold back the slight smirk that came to her lips at the recollection. Aizen saw the slip in her hard façade and seemed to take it as an encouraging sign.
"So, you want to know what I want with you?" he finally said with another strangely kind smile. "For my own purposes, I want your intelligence, I want your planning, I want your dependabilty, I want your professionalism, I want your assistance, I want your refined tastes, and I want your company. For your sake, I want to give you a choice. Before I begin, let me inform you that you may rejoin your friends whenever you want. I will not harm you or stand in your way whatsoever. Once you say the word, I will abide by it – and to that I promise.
"The king stands alone on his pedestal, protected by a single key. Despite over a century of looking, I do not know where the key lies. I suspect the only one who does know currently holds us in a ring of fire. Therefore, the more direct method seems to be forging a new one. And, really, given what I hope to accomplish, I think it is more fitting that I should make my own key by my own hand. As you know, for that I need souls. It is regrettable that so many should have to die, but the most glorious victories are never without sacrifices.
"I want you to know, Ise-fukutaichō – Nanao-san – that I do not actually need you. The whole event has been planned out without taking you into consideration at all. Every step, every move, has been meticulously planned with equally meticulous alternatives in the unlikely situation that one step does not succeed; but then, in some cases, that is also intentionally planned. Therefore, I am meeting with you purely from a heartfelt desire to offer you the choice of seeing justice done. Your feelings have been trampled, your work ignored, your respectability ridiculed, and your very existence trivialized by the very people who should be recognizing and admiring your gifts and abilities. What you see as seduction in my words and actions is simply sheer appreciation of your capabilities. However, the only form of consideration or attention you have ever received from your captain has come as drunken overtures and pathetic pleadings to be taken care of." His voice grew harsh as he recounted Kyōraku's failings.
"I offer you respect and dignity. I offer you the chance to have a hand in remaking Soul Society to be the way it should be – the way you've always dreamed it. Like I said, I do not need you to accomplish what I have set out to do, but I can certainly use you. I will win, Nanao-san. That is not something that can even be debated. I will win; the shinigami will lose. I will establish myself as king of heaven. But I will need chancellors and advisors. I'm not offering to make you my queen or anything so paltry as that – I am offering you real power and real authority. This is not from pity but rather from admiration and a recognition that perhaps you and I have often been vexed by the same injustices."
Nanao's eyes remained locked onto his for a long moment. He held a hand out.
"Will you join me?"
Her gaze shifted down to look at the hand then back up in his eyes.
"You know I am not lying," he added with a sympathetic smile and extended his hand further towards her.
"No," she said at long last, "you are not lying. Whether all of the emotions you are portraying are genuine or not is another matter, but in your words at least I do not sense any lies, nor even very much deceit."
His smile grew. She looked back down at his hand.
"And I could, with you, create the very society I'd always dreamed of," she said softly. "Joining the shinigami was a terrible blow, especially for a child. I'd built up such ideals, and to have them not only broken and trampled but also downright mocked and ridiculed was almost more than I could bear. Their treatment made me retreat into myself. It made me who I am – distrustful and distant. And, some might say, the end result of what we could create could well be worth the cost in the long run."
Aizen straightened his back. The deal was sealed. Nanao was his.
She then looked back up into his eyes, and the softness from a moment ago was gone.
"But if the treatment I endured made me distrustful and distant, it also gave me new ideals that go beyond simple rules or regulations. Heaven knows how that man taught me morals or ethics, but from Kyōraku-taichō I learned more about living a good life than I could have from all the philosophers and sages whose teachings I devoured. Whatever I could create with you would only tarnish with time. There is no utopia except what we can create with our current existences. For you, it means a blatant disegard for everyone and everything. If you have any true admiration for me at all it is because you think we are the same. At one time, we might have been. In fact, under different circumstances, perhaps I would be the one offering my hand out to you. But out of all the possible people I could have grown into, I have become someone who could never justify an honorable end through dishonorable means. I will keep my sullied and corrupt Soul Society and hope to do what I can to affect change from within. Because, you see, whatever one's good intentions might be, I see now that no one person has the right to order an entire population to live by an individual's perceived morals and guidelines. There must be choice or else it's simply tyranny. And tyranny is far worse than anything I've ever seen in Seireitei."
He was not angry, but merely looked on her with pity and a twinge of sadness.
"You will be killed, you know," he informed her.
"Better to be dead now than to wish I were later," was her response. "But as I remember it, you promised not to harm me while we are here at least."
He dipped his head in a nod. "That I did. You are free to go and rejoin your friends, Ise-fukutaichō." He raised a hand.
Nanao realized the implications only a moment too late. A tear formed in the fire wall, and within instants it vanished at their feet. Nanao was suddenly exposed to shinigami and arrancar alike. No one there knew that she had left Soul Society, nor for what purpose. All they could see was that she had surreptitiously abandoned her post and had been conferring with the enemy. After a moment of stunned silence, she saw Yamamoto-Genryūsai lift his staff in her direction. A slight spark sizzled at its end.