Interlude

He felt like the only one left in the Muerte Hold. Everyone else had gone off to wage war against the Shinigami, following their lord and master into a battle they could not win.

General Akama prayed, at least, that they could not win. The very notion of Arrarrico Caro taking control of Seireitei made the former Shinigami sick to his stomach, and that thought made him sick at heart.

That was life under Arrarrico Caro. A paradoxical trap that made those who stubbornly held to their beliefs suffer for it.

One followed Caro whole-heartedly, or one followed with reservations and spent every moment in emotional agony, trying to stay true to conflicting loyalties. Some, men and women he had worked with for years, had gone mad trying to balance those loyalties. The members of the Rescue Plan, suddenly dragged from their base and told they had to chose their master. Caro or Aizen Taichou?

An impossible choice.

And now the last of the Rescue Plan, those that had somehow continued despite serving an unworthy master, were gone too. All of them, dead, except him.

Akama Kagemaru took a deep breath, trying to force his gloomy thoughts to vacate. He was still holed up in the infirmary, though it seemed even the Fourth Division medics Caro had snagged were gone off to war. His injuries from the catastrophe at the gate were still far from healed, and the general figured he wouldn't make it far if he tried to get up. So he lay there, as he often did when by himself, and tried to think of anything besides betrayal.

It was his constant company, betrayal. He couldn't escape it, though he had thought he had when Aizen Taichou saved him from the dark. Saved him from Kurotsuchi.

It all came in circles. He had betrayed Soul Society to serve Aizen, just to escape that monster-in-Shinigami-guise, Kurotsuchi. Then, on the brink of repaying Aizen for saving his life, he was forced to betray his savior to instead serve a man under whom Kurotsuchi also now served.

Curse the fates that keep leading me to meetings with that creature.

There was a rap at the door, and then the First General opened the door and let himself in.

"Oh, you're awake. Good. Our good master Caro was a little apprehensive about leaving you without medical supervision."

General Akama scoffed. "Of course he was," he said, even as his heart twisted inside of him at the negative implications. "But I'm not that important in the grand scheme of things."

"Regardless, he does care about his followers," the First General said with a strange tone, sitting down in one of the nearby chairs. He took a book from inside his cloak and flicked through it casually, refusing to meet Akama's eyes. "Loyalty is a precious thing, and when it only goes one way... Caro sees that as an insult to the concept itself."

"His every existence is an insult to loyalty," Akama replied, then winced as his chest constricted painfully. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't talk about him like that." The words were spoken almost unconsciously, torn from deep within in a sudden panic that he was letting his master down.

The First General, however, was silent for several moments as he considered.

"You're right, though," he admitted finally, though he too looked tense as he said it. "None of this is real, no more real then the illusions of your first master." He fingered his weathered bookmark, then leaned back to stare thoughtfully at the ceiling. "I think both of us would have killed Caro long ago if we could have, in the names of those he made us betray." His free hand clenched into a tight fist, his fingers growing pale. "Yet even so... I hate myself for saying it."

"And I hate you for saying it, even while I agree completely," Akama murmured to himself. Then, louder, "What are we going to do, General?"

"Fight for Caro," the First General replied sincerely. "Overthrow Seireitei if it is possible, and if not, then we die in the name of a man none of us even like."