Biting into and ruminating over a sour plum, Rukia observed the flat landscape before her with placid indifference. The caustic prickle of lingering acid coated throat-cells as the fruit's flesh glided past her tongue like a dollop of cumbersome lead.
She scarcely noticed.
Overhead, bright flashes of violet streaks and sudden, overwhelming bursts of lilac hail lit pale skies like a gargantuan blood cell dying. It seemed as if the heavens themselves were weeping. And yet she could only observe the bizarre scene with a tenacious impassivity from her seated vantage point. Everything seemed duller to her of late, wholly moribund and grey.
Rukia scarcely felt anything anymore.
Exhaustion and numbness had engraved themselves deeply upon the surface of her worn-torn heart. Her existence had been reduced to painful flurries and cyclical resurrections each more dreadful than the last. Revival was lightning-quick and agonising. The fast succession of seconds between life and death more torturous than anything she had ever felt and known previously, even when they were marginally tempered by Aizen's whisper-soft hold. He always handled her like the most delicate of crystal in those fast-fleeting instants. All too careful that she wouldn't break before the onslaught of pain began anew, his tender touch already a forgotten memory.
In the throes of unceasing suffering, ice-cold determination was the only thing that kept her grounded and sound.
Deep in her battered soul, she had found a perseverance that could escape death entirely.
It allowed her to pick up her blade and face the devastating blows and strikes, time and time again. She had lost count of the number of times she had faced off against him, of the feeling of his sword tearing into her and his reiatsu beating down on her. It was the only time she felt anything anymore, those merciless moments with him. So much so she had even begun to crave them with a masochistic longing that would have frightened her if she still had a grip on her waning sanity.
And to think, she had been excited—once upon a time—at the notion of being trained by him. Now she could only stand by, a feeble spectator, and quietly watch on as that naïve girl faded into oblivion. Her existence was dwindling, sinking into a stream of torturous heights and fanciful ends. Soon, she fancied Kuchiki Rukia would dissolve altogether.
The plums suddenly felt heavy, lodging themselves at the base of her throat. Turned sickening; a choking feeling that would not abate. Her hand twitched, itched, as she raised it straight before her. Fingers splayed, the violet streams of dust and hail danced in the distance, appearing to fall through the spaces of each digit like raw silk threads drifting down. Gradually the sight blurred, hazed, and from the ensuing mist she drew out a hundred and more water beads. Slowly they converged into a large floating sphere and fashioned a makeshift mirror.
In the ripples a vacant snow-pale face gazed back at her; dull, darkened eyes metamorphosed by the hour and reflecting every shade of impending night. Something deep inside her cried in agony at the sight, called out to her with haphazard jagged words and an enveloping, bruising cold—
Rukia…!
Enough…
…cannot…
Must… stop!
Her reflection responded with ice in her gaze. With figurative scythes piercing deep into her chest. Mercilessly, they quieted the bleeding heart.
Devoured her forsaken humanity by another whole.
Dispelling the sight with more force than anticipated, Rukia manipulated the water and fashioned a stream. Her throat was tightening as if long, slender fingers had crept around her neck. Roughly grasping. Choking.
Rukia drank the water and tasted bitter poison.
"Kuchiki."
The skies continued to bleed and rain violet streaks. Thoughtlessly captivated, she watched on with uninspired, unblinking eyes.
"Kuchiki?"
The image before her shifted and Aizen's visage filled her sight. Rukia blinked, finding herself staring deep into his chestnut-brown eyes. This close she could see the flecks of warm amber and burnished gold in those beguiling dark pools.
It took her mind a few seconds to catch up to what was happening as she slowly registered the soft hold on her chin keeping her gaze turned towards him. Uncertainty and confusion kept her frozen still as she waited the silent seconds out.
After a long pause he finally spoke. "Are you all right?"
Rukia blinked again. His words were a surprise, and had her recollecting another scene between them lost to the unruly passage of time. It stirred something within her, something deep, and the current of faint remembrance manifested in a rush of sudden warmth across frozen-over veins.
"I'm okay," she answered simply, unconsciously.
And she was. In that single moment she truly was. The cloud that had been weighing heavily upon her soul promptly dissipated, allowing the sun's light to shine through. Colour had returned to the world as she continued to gaze upon him. And her heart, long dormant, gave a profound, resounding thump.
Aizen didn't say anything, nor did he relinquish his hold. Rather he continued to stare at her, several inscrutable emotions flickering across his eyes. Gaze probing, seeking.
Why… was he looking at her like that?
After a weighty pause he finally released her, standing tall once more, his elusive scrutiny seemingly reconciled. Rukia curiously stared after him.
"I was thinking it's about time for a change of pace," he proclaimed, tone purposefully light.
With a horizontal swipe of his hand the ground next to her shimmered opaque and white, giving way to fantasies and façades. Vertical and horizontal lines of light appeared atop the dense fog, intersecting with one another and fashioning a perfectly arrayed grid. To her side a bowl of dense black appeared, filled mid-way with stones so dark they appeared to swallow all surrounding light. Across the glimmering board a similar bowl appeared, coloured a glowing white.
With dramatic flourish, Aizen swept back his coat and fell into seiza across from her. Rukia merely stared at him with a sceptical arch of her brow.
"Go?"
"Mens sana in corpore sano," he quoted with an instructive flair, as if he expected her to understand whatever the hell he'd just said. "Training and maintaining a healthy mind is just as important as the body. We'd be remiss to neglect either."
Rukia closed her eyes as she massaged a temple. She could feel the onset of a headache coming on.
Aizen continued; wholly, purposefully, oblivious. "As you served under Ukitake, am I correct to assume you're already familiar with the game?"
Unfortunately for her, she was. Ukitake-taichou had possessed a great fondness for Go. He'd often implored squad members to play a round with him whenever a lull came around—when his eyes weren't glazed over in fever and white hair matted, fanned out, long and hanging like a dead man's rope. When he wasn't hunched over and wracked by violent, wheezing coughs.
No one ever had the heart to deny him.
Kaien had been an ever willing opponent, even when he'd spectacularly lose every single match. Kiyone and Sentarō tried their hardest to appease, even with their negligent skill and abysmal patience. All too often it was she left to heed her Captain's earnest invite; behind the warm walls of ancient wood, or out on the engawa, or under a gnarled tree near the koi ponds, always blooming, just in spring.
Kyōraku Shunsui was his preferred rival in the game, as in most things. Though even when the breezy, carefree Captain graced their squad, she was scarcely spared. Kyōraku-taichou would insist she sit with them and observe, would make some offhanded remark on the pleasantness of the view while her Captain, for whatever reason, admonished him with a stern word or frown. Oblivious and overwhelmed by propriety, Rukia had quietly sat and watched on as they played, drank—sake and tea, respectively—and chatted merrily away.
The memory flittered through the mind, came and went in a flash, and left her with another layer of numbness to fester the heart.
"Come now," she heard Aizen coax as she stared vacantly into the lonely distance. "Just a few games. And I'll teach you a new Kidō once we're done."
Rukia sighed resignedly as she shifted into seiza. Her heart just wasn't in it. Thankfully however there would be a morsel of appeasement. According to her taichou there had been two nonpareil Go masters in the Gotei Thirteen. One of them was Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni.
The other, naturally, was Aizen Sōsuke.
'Just a few games' would be over all too quickly.
Bowing low as was custom, Rukia prepared herself for the succession of humiliating defeats with little to no care in the world.
Aizen followed suit with a respectful bow.
Black went first. Reaching for one of the stones she held it amidst her index and middle fingers as she scanned the grid, deciding on an intersection on the top left. The stone landed with a decisive clack despite it and the board being fashioned out of illusive lights and shadows.
Aizen promptly responded with a glowing white stone on the right-hand side.
Their game had begun.
Rukia only had an amateur's understanding of the fundamentals though she knew well enough Go was a game of psychology as much as it was one of strategy. One's personality and thoughts shone stark through their moves. She could already foresee Aizen's placement of the stones; elegant and purposeful across the board.
Slowly he drew her in, unsuspecting, into an elaborate dance.
The stones struck the board with staccato beats, a slowly building climax. White bordered black like the soft caress of his hand on her waist. Leading, guiding. One step, two. Rukia unwittingly reached out for him, a hand to place atop his shoulder. Was caught up in his pace as the dance picked up, black trailing after white. The world spun around them, a whirl of greying shades and light-and-dark hues as they deftly slid and stepped and turned. Still, her hand kept seeking, thinking she might just finally reach him. Capture him—
Clack.
Aizen quickly caught her wrist. Pulled her in with both hands and stretched her taught against him, dipping her low. Bending her over backwards. White locked black in an inescapable embrace, brought her hips flush against his. Triumphant, he gazed upon her with dark gleaming eyes before dipping down to claim his prize—
Rukia blinked, pulled away from the mirage of her mind and staring down at the board once more.
What… in the nine hells… was that…?!
Before her all her territories had been surrounded and pillaged. Her options exhumed and defences demolished. All she could do was retreat—lest she lose her head too.
"I have lost," she whispered in confused, quiet shock.
"That was a beautiful initiative, Kuchiki-san," he complimented her final play, swiping his hand across the board. The stones disappeared. "Another round."
Like hell it was, she thought with a sudden growing annoyance. Her hands silently balled into fists over her knees as something bitter and acerbic began to stir and ferment, rousing her heart from a millennium's worth of sleep.
Quickly reaching for a stone she brought it down with a near-violent flurry. It struck the board, hard. Aizen arched a brow but said nothing, his own stone finding its place on the board with liquid clam.
Passivity was suddenly the furthest thing on her mind. She was still too proud, too stubborn to be bent.
The numbness was slowly receding.
And from figurative ashes Rukia rose with all her lovely furies. She engulfed them in a vengeful cloud and battered the board with acid rain. Stones landed in quick succession, sung a murderous aria as the onslaught continued.
She would see his territories reduced to cinders.
Aizen only chuckled.
"You must truly hate me," she heard him say. There was amusement in his tone but Rukia also heard the plaintive fissure of his lips twisting into a deprecating smile.
She couldn't entirely say to whom it was being levelled at: her, or oddly enough, himself.
Pausing, she studied the board. Saw the violent, aggressive patterns she'd reflexively formed and quietly sighed. Her vehemence slowly vanished and she was left enervated once more.
Stones continued to strike at ghostly intersections, now with slow, measured—morose—beats.
Clack, clack.
"I don't," she finally said after a long, stilted silence. Aizen looked up at her with a slight, curious tilt of his head.
"Hate you, that is. I don't. I used to, once, but… not anymore."
And that was the truth. What she felt for him presently was an elusive thing that ebbed and ached and faded in and out of her reach. Even as it escaped capture, she knew hate and fear no longer dominated her heart. She'd been drowning for so long and he alone had proven her one and only life line. Time and time again he pulled her out from the suffocating depths; the corrosive, inexorable despair and tragedy.
Beyond the hollow numbness he was a permanent reprieve, a balm on her wounded soul. A source of meaning that she could grasp onto for millennia.
And chase for perpetuity.
Rukia could no longer imagine a life without him in it.
Aizen didn't say anything as he slowly regarded her. She didn't shy away from his scrutiny, the truth and sincerity of her words shining bright and plain for him to see.
And for the first time ever, Aizen blinked. Aizen looked away—first.
Rukia could scarcely believe her eyes.
Slowly, his gaze swept to the side for a moment before falling back down onto the Go board.
On anyone else, the gesture would have seemed almost bashful.
Clack.
He placed a stone as she continued to silently study him with shell-shocked wonder. His head was dipped low, eye lashes—whispery, silken, long and she'd never noticed before—spanning like dusky night-wings against the healthy hue of white cheeks. High cheekbones and finely shaped, marbleised lips; the shadowed contours were all too elegantly chiselled in his soundless reveries. Brown hair swept back, scant wayward strands gently fluttering. Distant violet, heavenly streaks framed his silhouette, almost making him glow at the edges.
She'd never truly appreciated just what a beautiful image he carved… until now.
Thump.
Her heart responded with an aching red-burnished throb as every detail before her was immortalised in memory. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch him. To feel and confirm the truth for herself; that he was still real and tangible and sitting across from her and not a lovely, fleeting fantasy.
Far too good to be true.
Her hand moved, quietly seeking….
She quickly caught herself. Dispelled the miasma that had struck and stunned her. Her hand, suspended mid-raise, abruptly sought a black stone. It landed with little thought on the board.
Aizen countered without a word.
Clack, clack.
Rukia studied the unfolding game in hopes of a distraction; to reel in drifting, wayward thoughts. The patterns he'd formed shone brightly, formidable and assured. He wasn't playing to win as much as he was testing her, creating false fissures and secret traps so as to see how she would respond. As always he wasn't facing off against an equal, but rather standing on a higher ground.
Was watching quietly from on high, covertly guiding her. His victory a secondary thought yet already assured.
Rukia sighed tiredly, eyes bleeding over at the multiple layers upon layers of hidden meanings and unspoken intents taking place on the board before her. Perhaps it was time to even the playing field, if only a little.
Perhaps it was time for another long overdue confession.
"Why?"
He looked up, his silent gaze requesting clarity. Rukia held his stare as she sought an answer to one of the most profound of all her whys.
"Why did you do it?"
Why did you do any of it?
A silent stand-off commenced, neither one of them willing to break it. Rukia held her ground, eyes unblinking even as his appeared to darken at the edges at the unspoken challenge. She would not back down.
She would not look away.
She would have her answer.
Aizen sat a little straighter and exhaled a heavy breath. Slowly, he picked up a white stone.
Clack.
"Have you ever been free, Kuchiki-san? Free to forge your own path, free to exercise your will… free to control your own destiny?"
That headache she had felt forming earlier had suddenly arrived with an unforgiving vengeance that left her all too disoriented and annoyed.
Of course Aizen was incapable of a simple, straightforward answer.
"Sure," she responded bitterly, dismissively, placing down a stone.
Clack.
"Really? Now that is quite the feat. Indulge me, then. Tell me how you achieved such a thing."
How about I tell you to go f—!
Rukia swallowed the end of that mental retort. No, she would not let him worm his way under her skin. She would not let him get a rise out of her.
"Aizen…," she almost pleaded instead, exasperated. "What does this have to do with anything?"
Silently he regarded her for several beats. "In the last war, did you per chance encounter the Quincy progenitor?"
There was an undeniable shift in the mood, in his tone. Rukia suddenly felt compelled to sit a little straighter, the sudden severity not lost on her.
"No."
"Yhwach's power was known as The Almighty. A mimicry of omniscience and omnipotence. It allowed him to see any point from the present into the future, and further possible futures too. What he saw, he was able to know. What he knew, he could render powerless. And what he willed, he was able to materialise upon the causal nexus, thereby altering the future as he so desired."
Rukia's eyes widened at the revelation, fear leaving a trail of ghosting tremors across her skin.
God… just what on Earth had they been up against?!
"What many did not know was that this power was not exclusively his. It too belonged to another," a pause, and another stone came down.
Clack.
"The Soul King. His father."
Rukia's mind stilled. "…What?"
"There is an old maxim belonging to an even older religion," Aizen began, seamlessly shifting gears. "As above, so below. It's a universal principle that maintains a correspondence between the laws and phenomena of the various planes of being and life. Take for instance, this very Go board."
His hand swept across it, a slight incline of his head towards her meant to prompt her into action. With thoughtless shaky movements, Rukia absently placed down a shadowy stone.
Clack.
"Its structure is just like that of the universe. The black and white stones interconnect with and equally complement one another despite their contrary nature. Every game symbolises the laws and interactions between everything in existence. It is a reflection of the macrocosm within the microcosm. As above, so below. As in Heaven, so on Earth."
Aizen picked up a glowing stone, twirling it deliberately before his eyes.
"What do you suppose is the effect of a being imposed upon the very fabric of the universe, upon whom the entirety of existence is dependent upon?"
His gaze found hers. Silently, he waited for a response.
Rukia swallowed a growing lump in her throat as she carefully considered his words. "Existence… would be a reflection of it…?"
He gave her a small nod. "Precisely. All creations are a reflection of their creator, and the macrocosm and microcosm mirror each other faithfully. If existence is flawed, malicious and inept, so too is the being that fashioned it."
"The Soul King was a lynchpin that ensured balance was maintained across the realms. Sealed away for that lone purpose, it maintained the flow of souls in and out of the Soul Society. That was the oft parroted account. Existence then was relegated to nothing more than a mundane cycle of aimless drifting. A perpetual suffering-laden sequence of life, death and rebirth, without beginning or end. There was no salvation to be had, no karmic reprieve to be found even after countless lifetimes of moral deeds and accumulated virtue. Bound to that cycle forever, no soul could ever hope to escape their worldly contagion and all its desolate misery… much like that thing."
His eyes suddenly burned like darkened, blackened coals.
"If he was to be sealed away for all perpetuity, then so too would every other soul in existence. But such petty malevolence would not end there. Fundamentally ingrained within the world was a being with the power to foresee the future, to determine events. To impede upon the natural law so as to shift the gears of destiny as he so willed. Before such brutal influence, a soul is a mere speck of sand torn apart amidst the rotating gears. It can never be free, can never willingly choose… it can never take command of its own destiny."
He paused, staring at the stone still held aloft between long, slender fingers. Rukia could only gape at him with growing paralysing dread.
"I would transcend such a reality. I would go beyond the shackles of torturous destiny imposed upon me, on the world, by a decrepit, hostile imposter. I would find the power necessary to crush the gears of fate. I would reclaim that empty throne—"
The stone came whistling down, in a furious blur that caused her to startle and jump, and landed with a hard decisive clack on the board's centre point.
Tengen.
The Origin of Heaven.
"I would have made a heaven out of hell… and seen the world and each individual will within it set free."
The words came out as a whisper.
Hypnotised, petrified, Rukia felt the rapid palpitations in her chest. Their echo in her head. She needed air, needed to breathe but could not. She could only watch him, mouth agape, frozen and stunned raw at what she had heard.
Just what had they all been fighting for?
Just what had they all died for?!
With a shaky, painful inhale she turned away from him, folding into herself and staring blindly at the bleeding purple skies above. Downcast beats of stones hitting the board filled the silent void as Aizen continued playing Go against himself.
Clack, clack.
There was nothing more to be said, and he would not beseech her any further. Rukia was grateful for the space.
Her heart and soul were drowning. And yet the tears would not come.
. . .
True to his word, Aizen set about teaching her a new Kidō—after the voices in her heart had finally stopped screaming.
Rukia honed her renewed anguish and anger into spirals of vibrating reiatsu. Poured it all into the demon spell, all too thankful for the outlet.
Her hand shot up to the heavens, tenacious and bristling, readying herself for a vengeful rhapsody.
The incantations poured from her lips, a tenacious melody. Andante to begin, a crescendo here, a diminuendo there, a cadenza of sacred energies. Black lines and planes formed and stretched and built upon themselves in the empty space.
Aizen had suggested she view a Kidō spell as a musical piece, a series of vibrations and oscillations. It was an enlightening analogy. For the first time ever she was thankful for her lessons in the shamisen and koto, easing her understanding. She had heard that Hisana had been quite talented in both, and Byakuya had been awfully fond of her playing. Rukia had hoped to follow in her steps, to please her noble brother in this one small way… only her insecurities had held her back. The idea that she wasn't good enough, that she'd inevitably end up only sullying those precious memories he closely guarded of her late sister.
She never had found the courage to play for him.
Now her reiryoku was the musical medium; a lone instrument within a greater orchestra composing a rising cadence.
"Motion manifests in everything. Nothing in existence ever truly rests. Everything moves, everything vibrates. The universe sings all around you. It calls to you, even now. Listen well. Utilise its energies and make them yours. Answer its song with your own."
Aizen's prior words played in the back of her mind as she reached a fever-pitch. The air was vibrating around her. She felt the thrums in her veins as her voice and heart sang out loud and clear into the wind.
"Hadō no 90: Kurohitsugi!"
The black coffin at last took shape, rising high above the ground, glowing white at the edges and pulsing with a chilling energy. Elation filled her. Then all too promptly it dissipated, swirls of black descending and stretching as if pulled every which way by silent derisive winds.
She forlornly collapsed to the ground, lungs burning. Gasping. Her shihakushō was drenched with sweat and veiled the throbbing tension engulfing her burdened limbs.
She could hear Aizen's gradual approach, the steady beat of his steps. An encroaching calm. He stopped in front of her keeled over figure. And then a hand appeared, filling her hazy sight.
Shock rang in her skull and pierced her ears as she stared at it for a moment too long, thinking she'd finally lost her mind—melding dreams and reality—before tentatively reaching for it. His grip was warm, strong… real. Effortlessly, he pulled her up.
"A commendable first attempt," he said, releasing his hold once she was standing on her own two feet. She almost sighed, suddenly missing the feel of it. The warm confident weight it offered.
"Take a moment then go shower. It will help ease the strain."
With that he turned and ventured off beyond the periphery of scraggly cliffs forged from haphazard colossal stones. Rukia heeded his advice. Control. Balance. She steadied herself and her breathing as the mantra honed her mind; inhaled the harsh air and coaxed fatigued muscles to run what felt like another mile more—a few meters beyond the rocky veil.
Disappearing down an opposite path, she found a small clearing and began undressing with slow, heavy movements. Her entire body cramped; a blackening ache expanding to cover muscles and sap her strength. A welcome distraction, she told herself, from the thoughts seeping into the fissures of her mind; more bitter and acidic than any prior known poison. She was too tired, too drained, too lost and confused and despaired to strangle their progression.
Out of mist and dust she absently conjured a cloud.
It was a long, hot shower that drained her heart and flooded the silent, lonely world. Water beads trickled down her back to her thin thighs and weary calves, slithered along her silhouette and bled seamlessly into ash-caked grounds. Crimson over white, blushed and flushed, the waters purified her of lingering indignities and doubts born from Aizen's revelation.
Clean once more, refreshed as she could be, she sat on a small boulder on the open clearing she'd been practicing on, awaiting Aizen's return. Fingers combed through wet strands of inky black, causing her to wince as she accidentally tore a tangle. Her hair had grown just below her breasts and was proving ever more cumbersome, even more of an annoyance. She'd never allowed it grow out so long before but in the throes of perpetual death—amidst the morbid decay of change—she'd wanted something to mark a familiar passage of time.
Now it was proving to be yet another burden she could do without.
Fisting the strands tight and level to her neck with one hand, she readied and aligned her sword with the other. The edge of steel met raven hair. All it would take was one clean slice—
"What are you doing?"
She stilled. Gaze darting, she found Aizen standing just a few meters away, a plethora of plums floating around him like miniature planets orbiting a sun, staring at her. His expression was on the cusp of affronted and appalled.
"…Cutting my hair?" she answered tentatively, resolve dwindling, suddenly questioning her own intent.
"Don't," was his only response. Final, absolute, it allowed no room for dispute.
"Why?"
Her own tone was indignant, the blade no longer wavering in her hold. She thought of going through with it if only to spite him.
Just how many choices would he deny her?
Aizen quickly closed the distance, plums floating along with him and falling into a large pile on the ground beside her. Coming down to one knee and level with her, his hand closed around the tight grip about her sword.
"Beauty… is a bright adornment, Kuchiki-san, capable of soothing the sadness of our condition and the agony of our existence. It is a balm upon the troubled soul, an escape from the maladies of the world. It alone can allow us to overcome our earthly imperfections and woes. It alone can offer us a glimpse of the most holy and divine."
She blinked at his words, was left confused—as always—and trying to unravel their meaning. Aizen's hold continued to coax her fingers to relax, to release their hold on her blade. She unwittingly felt them responding to his calm, assured touch, slowly loosening.
"There are already so few beautiful things left in this world. Let us not spoil that which we have left."
Thump.
Her heart responded just as her grip unravelled completely. Her being failed utterly before him. Her features were blank, a lingering pall of confusion as she watched him pry Sode no Shirayuki with no resistance. Smoothly, he placed the sword on the ground. Her hands fell onto her lap, an enervated marionette.
She thought that was it, the end of the matter and curtains closed.
Surprise coloured her features when he shifted a little closer instead, fingers trailing through her hair. Snaking through threads. Knots and tangles instantly came apart with no struggle at his touch. Higher, his hands ventured further, nails grazing softly against her skull as he took his time pulling up and away drying inky wisps of skeletal hairs. Lulled by the soothing kneading and whisper-light strokes, her eyelids drooped closed.
That felt… so good.
"Pardon me."
Rukia slowly opened her eyes with an inquiring hum. She felt the faintest brush of movement against her chest, caught a quick blur of trailing white at the edge of her gaze. Her eyes blinked confusedly, guilelessly and without a clue. She felt the comfortable grip atop the crown of her head as Aizen quietly worked away, gently manoeuvring strands and gathering them together in a secure hold.
"There," he finally declared, all too satisfied and pleased with his work.
Her hand reached up, feeling the brush of silk against her palm. Her confusion had turned endemic.
When did he…? How did he…?
"Give me a few minutes to freshen up," he said as he promptly stood. "Eat the fruit. We'll be on our way once I'm done."
Rukia nebulously stared after him just as something occurred to her. "Wait! Won't you have any?"
Aizen turned his head, inscrutably regarding her. "You need to eat more than I do."
Thump.
Speechless and frozen still, she watched him disappear beyond the rocky cliffs. It was a long while before she found a path out and beyond her shocked and frozen stupor.
And then she was moving in a blur, quickly and curious and restless. She summoned a stream of water and pooled it into a mirror before her. Rukia gazed upon her reflection, saw the colour that had returned to her cheeks and ruby red lips. Her eyes shone brighter; like violet diamonds catching the light. And her raven locks had been secured into a smooth, high-ponytail, held together by a perfect bow of silky white.
She reached up to touch it again, familiarity gnawing away at her. Her mind was turning, whirling, trying to place it.
"Ah!"
Her hands darted to the inner pocket of her shihakushō, just above her heart. As expected the strip of Aizen's outer coat, the one he'd used to help ease her fever so long ago, was gone. She'd almost completely forgotten about it. She hadn't even realised she'd kept it.
…Yet Aizen had.
She blushed furiously. Crimson bloomed and spread to her roots and all the way down her chest. She could feel the plague of tender whisper-burns that weren't there before.
Thump.
With shaky hands she reached for a plum, absently biting into it. Bursts of sweet juices filled her mouth and rolled down her tongue. Quickly finishing it off she reached for another, then another. She stuffed fruit after fruit into her mouth until the sticky sugar-juices ran from tight-pursed lips and her belly protested, filled full and to the brim with an aching mound of lead.
The plums were all gone. Rukia felt vaguely ill.
Yet the chaos warring inside her heart had finally, thankfully, soothed.
The minutes continued to pass away, thoughts adrift and made liquid, and no longer burning with the disordered intensity of burning coals on her skin. There would be no profession—of devotion—or confession—of….
Rukia stilled, quieted her mind, suddenly wondering on the time.
Aizen had been gone for far too long.
Standing up, she hastily ventured down the path he'd taken, wadding through a morass of growing jagged-cut worries. Bruising hurts trailed after her, chaffing her ribs and suffocating her with old, forgotten panics. The hiss and rush of water falling in the distance soon filled the silence. Relief instantly flooded her. Dispelling all doubts she mindlessly followed after the sound, a welcome invitation.
Turning around a rocky corner, Rukia was hit by a dense cloud of scorching steam.
She almost coughed, lungs on the verge of choking on air and mist. She batted at the dense cloud before her, willing the wafts of vapour away. Tentatively venturing forward, blindly seeking. She could scarcely see where she was going, relying solely on the sounds of gushing water to guide her.
At last, she found him.
Back facing her, shielded mostly by thickened steam, Aizen stood bare and frozen under a ruthless downpour. His form was hunched over, head bowed, arms braced against a towering stony cliff. He was so still he didn't even seem real, swallowed wholly by vicious pelting drizzles and drifting mist.
Something was off.
Rukia felt like she was staring at the ghost of a man not even dead.
Alarm gripped at her, caused her to take another few steps forward. Closer now and still so far, she could nevertheless feel the intense heat, the burning, furnace-punishing pelts of water. Her cold reiatsu pushed back against them, shielding her. A soundless, horrified gasp escaped her lips when she took in the sight of his muscled back: skin peeled back raw and blistered. Angry red, brutal, scalded across every inch. His frame abruptly moved, tremored and shook, as he drew in and released a long, shuddering breath.
Aizen suddenly resembled a martyr burnt at the cross.
Frozen still, an intense, inescapable agony consumed her, as if she were the one being scorched. Through ashes and fire, grisly and awful, and left just as charred and broken and dejectedly beautiful as he. Subsumed utterly in unspoken calamities.
Had she done this? Had her question unearthed this tragedy upon him?
Belatedly she found herself closing the distance, cursing her lack of prudence. Reviling her foolishness in thinking none of this had affected him.
Why wouldn't he be affected?
So she wondered, reassessing her beliefs as the world fragmented apart with every step, piddling morose tunes and cruel reverie-based whims in tune with the hail of water.
This was not his burden to bear.
So she wanted to tell him; that it wasn't his fault. Wanted to drill it into his skull with the intense, vicious, fiery fury of a phoenix being reborn. Again and again, until he knew it as unmistakably certain and true.
She wanted to tell him there was nothing he could have done…!
Aizen moved, stood upright once more, the movement bringing her to an unceremonious halt. The burns and welts across his back were already gone. A vanishing act quick and clean, and Rukia wondered whether they had ever truly existed. Languidly his head tilted back, eyes closed, allowing the currents to unhurriedly wash down over his face. A hand came up, brushing back damp locks.
Slowly, he turned.
Rukia's eyes widened, her breath ceased. Heart turned apostate—thump, thump, thump—her thoughts went static then erratic. Little by little her gaze fell over chiselled, glorious lines; the well-defined pecs and rock-hard, solid-cut abs. Lower, across the prominent belt… the sinful slope of his hips. Lower—
She caught herself, became all too aware of herself. Rukia turned in a flurry of shameful bewilderment and flash-stepped quick and away. The frenzied wail-of-a-whistle blowing in her wake.
She sat herself down in her previous seat, her cheeks aflame. Slapped them both, hard, adding to their scorching heat a wave of stinging pain. She needed to knock some sense back into herself.
What the hell was wrong with her?!
She was all over the place. Her entire body was burning, was burned out. Rukia couldn't bring herself to find the necessary, appropriate emotions in her exhumed clay chest. Her eyes, unblinking and wide, stared at a small white pebble in the ashy sands. All of a sudden it seemed like the most interesting thing in the world.
She would never think on it.
She would never speak of it.
It was too mortifying. Too disastrous a truth if ever discovered.
At some point she numbly registered the sound of Aizen's steps. Her gaze remained locked on that single pebble, features demure and blank.
"Ready?"
A beat, then two, and she slowly nodded, rising to her feet. Rukia refused to look at him, could not look at him, as she began her approach.
She could feel his gaze on her. "Is something wrong?"
Slowly her eyes drifted to him, landing on a safe, non-descript point on his clothed chest. Features schooled. Self-control and a poker face. Deep breath and exiled butterflies. She was not going to crumble; she would not reveal any follies or deceits.
"No… nothing at all."
He studied her for a moment longer. "Then let us be off."
He turned on his heel, began a decisive pace. Rukia allowed some distance to grow before she followed after him. Her gaze steadily swept over his figure; focused on his back, her mind replaying that raw, throbbing sight. Studying him now she saw nary a thing out of place and was left wondering whether it had all been a trick, a ruse. A vision out of some morbid fantasy; nightmarish and ghoulish and surrealistic
Whatever it was, she silently swore it away. She would do everything in her power to ensure it never manifested again.
More bitter than sweet, it was a vow that cut chasms deep into her being.
. . .
Before them, around them, the world shuddered. The world ached and burned.
The world begged to be released from its misery.
And still life went on.
Walking towards an elusive horizon, Rukia took the long, dreadful incalculable passage of time into her palms and breathed long-fermented promises and resolve into them.
She would persevere.
She would get stronger.
She would….
She….
She was….
Sometimes she forgot who she was entirely. Why she was enduring all this. And then her heart would tear, would scream her name—Rukia!—as it ripped apart and seared. A reminder spurred in pain. The faces and memories of her loved ones would call out to her in those moments and she would desperately reach out for them, clutch onto them with a burning, aching fury that swore she would never forget.
When they did not fill her fleeting thoughts, there was only Aizen.
He truly was a man of his word. Again and again he tore her down, built her back up. Would ignite a thundering roar through her bones and would smoulder her blood like lightning struck twice. A remembrance in bruising action. That she could still feel.
That she was still very much alive.
And yet the painful bouts were lessening, becoming too few and far in between. The deadened numbness that had festered in their wake turned pale, a lowly afterthought. He'd been far more conventional in his approach of late; his focus on teaching her various Kidō and sparring with her, going through the patient, instructive motions. Highlighting her weaknesses, honing in on them until they blossomed into tentative perfections, and commending her strengths.
He was an excellent teacher.
It became more and more apparent to her the more and more she bloomed. She was able to keep up with him now, could level an offence or two and was not left to simply, futilely, deflect and defend.
Maybe, one day, she could entertain the idea of even thinking of reaching him.
Their current pace was leisurely under the warm phantom sun. Aizen had relinquished his brisk stride in order to match hers as they wandered forth side-by-side. It was a novel change she still hadn't gotten used to, but an all too welcome one that stirred something deep within her.
She liked having him near and not always and forever ahead of her.
Always just beyond her reach.
"Consider a man…," Aizen began, launching into an anticipated oration. "Having a dream in which he is a butterfly, flitting and fluttering around, wholly content, and doing as he pleased. As a butterfly, he does not know he is a man. And then, all of a sudden, he awakes and finds himself to be all too solid and unmistakably human. He cannot, however, claim to know whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man. Your thoughts?"
The way he presented his lectures had also changed. No longer would he simply impart upon her and leave her to quietly mull over a question or point. Now he encouraged her to share her thoughts, drawing her into a dialog. He seemed to relish an exchange, any opportunity for a tête-à-tête. She was all too happy to oblige.
Rukia thought on the account for some time, calling upon previous discourses to better aid her understanding.
"There's a distinction between a man and a butterfly, but at the same time that distinction appears blurred when trying to decide who is actually dreaming."
"Good. What else?"
"…Just as one cannot distinguish between man and butterfly, one cannot distinguish between reality and dreams."
"And what of the distinction in and of itself? Does it truly exist, or is it too illusory?"
Awake… in dreams… is there really… any difference?
Rukia paused as an indistinct, elusive memory flittered across the edges of her consciousness, paralysing her and muddling thoughts. Time and space warped before her eyes, were displaced. Made non-existent. Her mind was drifting, her body moving beyond her, failing, falling—
falling apart.
"Kuchiki?"
Aizen's voice pulled her back from that chilling, dislocating ascent. Pulled her out of waters deep and cold—so deep—and she felt her lungs expand with a painful rush of air.
"Uh… I-I'm not sure…," she whispered with a sharp, erratic exhale as her legs gave out.
"Kuchiki!"
He instantly moved, appearing directly in front of her, his arm whipping out to catch her. She fell onto him, head grazing against his shoulder and neck just as his arm hooked around her back, hand gripping her waist and holding her close. He was saying something but it sounded far too muffled, far too far away, spanning as if across endless space. Her gaze blurred. Everything was fragmenting, bleeding and congealing into a blinding white as reality lost all meaning and fell apart.
Rukia stared out before her with vacant eyes as a violet light appeared, flickering in and out of focus. Slowly it took form, revealing a brightly glowing butterfly. It danced before her against the backdrop of an eternal white. The image superimposed with the one in her mind: a violet butterfly fluttering in a world of endless black.
An invisible hand reached for it in her mind and so too her hand unconsciously moved, pulled as if by obscure strings. Her hand brushed against Aizen's arm, still wrapped around her and keeping her from a merciless descent. It stretched forth beyond his white-clad shoulder, quietly reaching. Violet butterflies weaved and danced just beyond her fingertips.
Is this a dream? Have I been dreaming all this time?
Both butterflies blinked out of existence and Aizen filled her hazy sight, his eyes locked on hers.
A hand gripped tightly onto the side of her face, gently shaking. His lips were moving even as no sound came out. Rukia blinked long and slow, drifting in and out of weightless consciousness as she tried to focus on him. A dull pain was forming at the forefront of her skull.
"Aizen-san…," she heard her-voice-not-her-voice, the cadence turned crystal-light and wistfully melodic. Words that weren't her words poured from her lips and she could do nothing to stop them. "I want… this dream… to end."
Aizen froze. Surprise, alarm and something chillingly severe coloured his expression and dilated his pupils. His eyes were wide, on the verge of an impalpable dawning.
The pain in her skull flared like the sharpest of knife strokes, had her internally wincing. Then mentally screaming. It tore at her ruthlessly until a deluge, a trickle of something warm and molten, wormed its way past her mouth and chin, a scarlet snake-stream. Aizen's gaze shifted to it just as she tasted blood on her lips.
And just like that the miasma lifted, her eyes cleared. Rukia blinked slowly as awareness gripped at her, a hand shakily lifting to swipe at the skin just below her nose. It came away and she saw red smeared across her fingertips. She looked upon Aizen once more, his expression all the more grave and indecipherable.
"Kuchiki—"
"Sorry, just a slight dizzy spell," she explained away breathlessly. "I'm okay now."
When he didn't immediately release her she placed a hand against his chest. Prodding him without any accompanying force to let her go. He did after a long pause and she stumbled back slightly before finding her feet.
"I'm okay," she repeated, more so to convince herself.
Bewilderment and panic slowly flooded her just as her body began to respond to what had occurred with a growing tremor. She tried to escape from it, temper it. The anaemic descent, the hysterical mutilation. It was a bitter struggle and she found herself getting caught up in a wave of inexplicable and catastrophic horrors.
What… what was that?!
"So… what were we talking about again?" she began shakily, latching onto a distraction, her voice a nervous gargle on the verge of hysterics. "The illusiveness of reality? The inadequacy of our senses? That's… that's so very… so fittingly… you—"
"Kuchiki!" he cut her off sharply.
Caused her to jump and yelp and freeze over, staring at him with eyes wide and startled. There was an unmistakable gravity to his tone, his gaze hard and piercing straight through her. Delving deep, intent on unearthing all her secrets.
"Are you keeping something from me?"
"N-no!" she responded too quickly.
"Then what happened to you just now?"
"I… I-I don't know…?" she replied honestly, the severity of his lowly tone helping sober and ground her even as it awoke another layer of latent fear within her. "It felt like I was falling for a while… and everything became a blur… but really, I'm okay now."
Sweat prickled her forehead, damp beads trailing down. They traced her spine like the scorching caress of a chilling finger and the whisper of an unfolding enigma. Slithered around her neck in waves of tension and horrid confusion, building upon themselves and fashioning a noose. Rukia felt something catch in her throat, ephemeral and furtive. It evaded capture, elucidation.
It was something she couldn't hope to tell him, not when she couldn't fully understand or explain it herself.
And so she met his gaze with a guileless resolve, thoughts and obscurities reigned in and not breaking loose in a fusillade.
Aizen wordlessly stared back for a moment far too long, several more unnamed emotions flitting across his eyes. Then his gaze fell onto her lips. Belatedly she realised what he was looking at and she was jolted into action, wiping the remaining trail of her bloody nose away.
"All right."
He didn't believe her, she could tell. He knew there was something she wasn't telling him. Still he dropped the matter and turned on his heel, venturing forward with a heavy, brusque pace. Her heart tugged achingly at the sight of him drifting further and further away, receding into a self-imposed solitude.
Quietly following, she kept a deferential pace far behind him.
She scarcely noticed the echo of distant laughter filling her mind.
. . .
Another long stretch of day gave way to a soulless black night.
They sat near the edge of a colossal mountain peak. A lone fire offered the only source of light and the only source of sound, leisurely crackling away.
Rukia huddled in on herself, arms wrapped tightly about her knees. Confused, depressed, wrecked and wretched, she inhaled the midnight poison and fought to stifle the anxious fog surrounding her. Aizen sat cross-legged an arm's length to her side, purposefully silent, head characteristically resting on a closed fist and staring impassively at the inky wash of starless skies.
So close, yet so distant; she was all too acutely aware of the cold, lonely wall that had suddenly come up between them. The more the seconds—turned minutes turned hours, days, months and centuries— stretched and dissipated, the more she despaired and hated it.
She'd only just begun to fall into a comfortable existence with him. Had only just learnt to appreciate his company; a haven from the world's oppressive, melancholic loneliness and silence. Now, his disregard, his displeasure, felt like the world was slipping away. It bred a chasm, left her guilt-ridden and empty.
It made her think of a dark, desolate place where an old, cold, gorging abyss would come to perpetually rest.
Rukia could no longer endure it.
"Aizen—!"
"Calm, dear girl," he cut in with a low, measured voice. Rukia watched, still tentative and nerve-wracked, as he closed his eyes for a long moment before reopening them, gaze still set on the black expanse before them.
"There's no need to fret. You've done nothing to garner my ire."
"Then… why…?"
Why are you keeping a distance?
Why are you blocking me out?
Why are you ignoring me?
Entreaties vying for answers filtered through her mind even as she couldn't bring herself to give voice to them. She stared at his profile haplessly, longing for some inkling of understanding or reprieve.
Closing his eyes once again, he sighed deeply. His fist relaxed as he brought it up to comb through his chestnut hair.
"Forgive me. I've had a lot on my mind."
The guilty ache she harboured flared at that, knowing she was a likely source for whatever plagued him. Turning away meekly and all too bleakly, she tightly folded into herself once more, staring at a hazy point on the ground. The silence resumed and dragged, slow and heavy. Nerves bundled themselves tight in her chest, soundlessly weeping. And then a rustle as Aizen extended an arm and waved it before him, tracing the midnight heavens.
A violet glow filled the world.
It managed to pull her out of her isolated dejection. Curious, Rukia lifted her head and softly gasped.
The brilliant streak of a galactic core filled the entire sky. Violet nebulae stretched far and wide, constellations danced and billions of stars shone bright. It was as if the universe itself was on display before her, entreating. A silent promise—
Of a place where dreams could return to rest eternally.
"Beautiful," she whispered with a serene awe, her shoulders reflexively easing from their tense prison.
It had been so long since she last saw the stars.
"Only it isn't real," she heard him say in quiet, cynical reflection.
"True…," she conceded, violet eyes staring warmly at the illusion he'd painted. "But even this is enough, don't you think? To turn minds and hearts towards something profound and true… to make you long for something more permanent and real."
Her thoughts were slightly hazy, her ideas half-formed, but they felt right and all the more true as the words left her lips. Aizen was silent for a long time, only for an amused exhale to eventually cut the void. Rukia glanced his way, noting the contemplative smile unfolding on his lips. His eyes were suddenly all too intrigued, gazing upon the conjured stars with newfound appreciation.
"Well said."
The heavy, suffocating pall from earlier had disappeared, swallowed wholly by bright celestial clouds and already a waning memory. Like a thousand years spent, sliced and smothered and lost in time as all was made right again. Rukia realised the gift before her for what it was: an attrition to quiet nervous thoughts and ease her worried heart.
It was his small way of making amends, of helping to quell the tense tremor in her veins.
Thump.
"Aizen?"
"Hmm?"
"If you could have anything at all at this very moment, what would it be?"
She wasn't sure what had spurred the question even as it unknowingly left her lips. A compulsive need to reciprocate, perhaps. Rukia wanted to do something for him. Something, anything. He'd already gone above and beyond—just short of moving heaven and hell—for her.
The sight of his broken form before an altar, of him bowed over and devastated by torrid punishing waters, played achingly over and over in her mind. Even if they were only the augury and horrid, torrid delusions of a broken mind, she would see them excised.
Rukia wanted to unburden his heart completely.
Aizen met her unwavering gaze with a humouring arch of his brow before looking out upon the violet celestial scene once more.
"I don't make it a habit to concern myself with hypothetical fancies, Kuchiki-san."
She might have chuckled at that. The response was… so predictably him. Aizen didn't indulge in fantasies; the animated mental resurrections of hopes and whims. If he wanted something he simply made it his, all too physical and actual and real.
Still, she wasn't deterred.
"I don't mean anything beyond the realm of what is possible. I mean right here, right now. There has to be something that you can have and that you want."
A pause, and something flickered in his eyes. They slowly darkened, tinged by something deep and precariously intangible, before slightly narrowing. His gaze remained frozen upon the night skies a little longer before turning towards her. Rukia met his heavy stare with pure and naïve determination shining through.
As if sensing her honest resolve, he lightly sighed, the dark light slowly fading. Looking away from her, he raised an upturned palm in the air before him. A soft light grew in between his long fingers; weaving, pulsing and unfurling, and gave birth to a single flawless iris. Captivated and slightly confused, Rukia gazed upon the brightly glowing bloom fashioned entirely out of pure white light.
He wanted… a flower?
"The perfect blossom… is indeed a rare thing," he whispered wistfully.
He stared at it for a moment longer before turning and holding it out to her by its stem. Rukia took it with careful movements, wholly reverent, afraid it would disintegrate and blink out of existence at the slightest indelicate touch. A flush of warmth filled her upon first trace. It shone even brighter in her hold, filling her heart full of unnamed hopes and blessed harmonies.
So… beautiful.
Staring down at it in blissful wonder, Rukia imagined an unsung paradise.
A Heaven in the palm of her hand.
A smile bloomed across her lips, totally unbeknownst to her.
And with that the world turned all the more silent, all the more still. Air stiffened and scattered, an inhale sucked into midnight void. The earth came free of its stupor and gently tremored even as her body relaxed with all its oblivious graces.
An exhale of perfect contentment brushed against her skin.
"Finally…."
The whisper was so soft she almost hadn't heard it. Pulled from peaceful reveries, Rukia looked up and found Aizen gazing at her with unburdened ease and a gratified smile.
"Thank you, Kuchiki Rukia."
She blinked at him with perplexed, owlish eyes. "For what?"
His expression was patient, all the more indulgent and peaceful. "Didn't I already make it clear to you?"
A pause as he allowed his words to ruminate, to invoke and sink deep into her skin, never to be forgotten again. His fingers traced the white bow on her head before weaving once through the dark strands of her ponytail. He retracted his hand, gaze still locked with hers.
"You're beautiful."
Thump.
He said it so easily, so simply. As if it were an obvious fact as true and conventional as one-plus-one-equals-two.
Thump.
No one had ever outright called her beautiful before. If they had, it likely hadn't meant much to her if the lack of any associated memory was anything to go by. Her appearance wasn't something Rukia had ever given much thought to or bothered with, not when surviving in the Rukongai, and then in the Seireitei, exacted so much from her and dominated her priorities.
Thump.
But when Aizen said it, the way he said it, she knew it to be absolute truth and her apathy promptly dissipated, carried off with incredulous winds.
Thump.
He was gazing upon the heavens once more, leaning back slightly, features and form wholly at ease. Rukia could only look upon his profile with large, bewildered eyes and parted lips. Her cheeks were a blazing furnace. And her heart was a nervous wreck for entirely novel reasons.
Thump.
Frozen still, she felt delicate tremors across her skin. Like petals falling, grazing… swathing her in an impenetrable cocoon. The fluttering deep in her chest spread to the rest of her being; the countless flitters reigning havoc and leaving her a breathless, feverish mess.
Thump, thump.
The palpitations were unceasing, unrepentant. Her breaths were coming in as short, deep bursts. The air she was inhaling wasn't enough. Rukia saw herself drowning in flowers.
Thump, thump, thump.
And there was Aizen, hovering above her, smiling bright as the morning sun and with eyes shining pale like moonlight. Suddenly, his figure dispersed into a swarm of white and purple butterflies flying, falling, right down. They brushed delicately over her skin, delved deep underneath. The vicious tremors they caused turned into the sweetest of aches.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Her gaze swam, her heart throbbed. Just what the hell was—!
THUMP.
Oh….
Oh.
And just like that, Rukia touched dukkha, reached nirvana, saw samsara, one and all.
Ironic, she wasn't even a Buddhist.
Realisation dawned to what had been plaguing her heart, to what had been eluding her for so long, and her world collapsed upon a single, beautifully horrifying thought.
Oh… no.
Rukia is so innocent it physically hurts. And with that this story is a slow burn no more.
We've now just passed the halfway point of this fic. I would like to thank everyone for all the reviews, likes and follows till now. Would also love to hear what you all think of it so far, what you're hoping to see going forward or any theories you might have as to what might occur. Definitely enjoy reading all your comments on here and AO3! Thank you again for all the support, it truly means the world to me.