Free Talk- Well, despite coming out rather quickly, this chapter was actually kind of difficult to write. I'm never quite sure how to handle action, particularly fights. This is the first fight I've written in a long time, since my (as yet unfinished) X fanfiction. I somehow doubt that I have captured the intensity I wanted. Sigh… Thank you for the support, anyways. Whew! I'm not sure if I can keep writing at this pace. Keep reading and please tell me what you think.
Sympathy
For the Devil
By Miss
Angel Maxwell
twelfth chapter
WHEN YOU EXPECT FAIR PLAY YOU CREATE AN INFECTIOUS BUBBLE OF MADNESS AROUND YOU
Right turn, left turn, Momo was maneuvering the palace hallways purely on reflexes. Everything looked the same, so she couldn't even tell if she was running in circles. The pounding of her heartbeat in her ears drowned out all other sounds. She couldn't hear if there was anybody following close behind her and she didn't have any time to look back and check. Her brain just kept repeating the same thought.
Gotta find a way out. Gotta find a way out. But her legs were beginning to stiffen and throb, and a more rational thought had to take its place. I gotta find a safe place where I can think of a way out!
She took another left turn and the corridor became narrower. This was not a welcoming sign but she kept running anyways. She kept pumping her legs until she reached a door. There were no more turns to be made, just a single door at the end of the hallway. With no other option besides turning back around, Momo opened the door and dashed inside. She tried to breathe a sigh of relief when the room turned out to be an empty storeroom, but her lungs were too tired and burning, gulping up as much air as they could get. It took several precious minutes to finally get enough oxygen.
"I can do this," she panted quietly. "I watched Mr. Tousen open a portal. I just have to remember how he did it. I can do this. Oh, how did it go? I think…"
Before the young shinigami could finish her sentence, a warm hand hooked around from behind her and clapped over her mouth. Fear shot through her so piercingly, she thought she was going to faint in that instant. But she didn't, and then another instinct took over and she tried to scream and struggle away. She was outmatched in strength and the only sound she produced was a frantic, muffled squeal.
"Shhhh!" a familiar voice hushed in her ear. "You know it's quite remarkable how much easier it is to track somebody just based on sound."
The hand released from Momo's mouth and her tensed body relaxed slightly. "Mr. Tousen," she said softly, turning around to face her captor. "You're going to have to take me back to that lab, aren't you?" She could feel the sting of tears threatening to reemerge in the corners of her eyes.
Tousen's shining white eyes stared sightlessly through her, making her tired legs tremble. "Miss Hinamori," he said. "Up until now, I have acted kindly towards you because Master Aizen ordered me to do so, to make you feel safe." Momo felt her heart plummet to her feet and Tousen continued. "But what I am going to do now," he said. "I do based on my own feelings."
Momo closed her eyes and braced herself to be murdered. At least she would die with her babies and they would never be turned into monsters. But the blind shinigami didn't attack her. She watched in awe as he raised his arm and drew a circle in the air, which immediately filled with light. It was a portal to the Living World. Then he handed her an object wrapped in cloth.
"I brought this from Master Aizen's bedroom," he said. "I believe it belongs to you. Please take it and leave right away. Find shelter in the Living World as quickly as possible."
"Tobiume," she breathed as she pulled the cloth back just enough to reveal a bit of her beloved blade. Now she couldn't leave without asking. "Mr. Tousen, why are you helping me escape? Won't you get in trouble?"
"When I was a little boy," he said. "My mother sacrificed her life to protect mine. Since then, I have firmly believed in a mother's right to protect her children. So go, Miss Hinamori, quickly. Protect your babies any way you can and don't look back. I will be fine. Master Aizen knows that I am still loyal to him."
"Thank you, Mr. Tousen," she said, grateful tears lining the rims of her eyelids. Then she stepped through the glowing portal and it closed behind her.
Because she followed Tousen's instructions and didn't look back, Momo did not see Ichimaru Gin enter the room right as the portal swallowed her up. He'd arrived in time to witness her escape, but not in time to stop it. Tousen Kaname just stood there, calm as always despite appearing to have aided the fugitive.
"Did you just let her out?" Gin hissed. "You are a traitor to Master Aizen! I knew it!"
Tousen didn't reply, however, until Aizen himself strode into the room, completely casual and perfectly collected. "Miss Hinamori has escaped," the blind man informed. "I got here just in time to see her create a portal and leave through it. There is nothing I could have done, Sir."
"Liar!" Gin wheezed through his grinning teeth. "He opened the portal himself. He let the girl escape."
"You cannot prove your theory," Tousen replied sternly.
Aizen drummed his fingers against his temple impatiently as his underlings argued. "Gentlemen," he interrupted. "You are wasting valuable time, you know. Regardless of how she escaped, one of you is going to have to retrieve Miss Hinamori. The test subjects for our experiment are housed in her little body. And besides that, she knows too much about our work. Ichimaru, I think you would be well suited to this task. It would not do to send Tousen, as I cannot ascertain whether he set her free or not."
"But Sir, you said I am not to lay a finger on Miss Hinamori," Gin reminded, his voice laced with excitement. "That will make the job a lot more difficult."
"Consider that restriction lifted," Aizen said stealthily.
"And if she resists or attacks?" Gin asked.
Aizen stared at him intensely. "Then kill her."
Evening had already fallen in the Living World when the portal spit Momo out onto a deserted street. It was cold, though she probably felt chillier because she was clad in pajamas and bathed in sweat. The familiar style of the houses reassured her that she had safely arrived in Karakura, but she still wasn't sure exactly where she was. Looking down the street in either direction the homes all looked the same. Izuru and Shiro and Renji and the others were all somewhere in this town. She had to find one of them, and quickly. Someone was sure to have followed her here.
"Think, Momo?" she asked herself quietly. "Does any of this look like where I met Izuru? This town is as much a maze as that palace. But I can't just stand here scratching my head. I'll have to just pick a direction and leave it to fate."
She decided to go right, dashing down the street in her bare feet.
"Wrong wa-ay," a sadistic voice chimed. It seemed to come from all around and Momo spun to look for its source. Her heart was pounding. She knew whom that voice belonged to, but she couldn't see him anywhere, so she kept running. A flash of silver in front of her face brought her to an abrupt stop. Gin was standing right in front of her, as if he'd appeared out of nowhere.
"Ichimaru!" she gasped.
"That's right," he replied, smiling gleefully. "Your days of playing house with Master Aizen have come to an end. And I'm afraid your days of being alive are about to come to an end as well."
Momo tore off Tobiume's wrapping and closed her sweaty hand around the hilt instinctively. "You have been sent to kill me?" she asked.
"Actually, I have been sent to retrieve you," he answered. "But I have no intention of doing that. Master Aizen has given me full permission to use violence against you… at my own discretion, of course… But then, he doesn't know just how badly I've been wanting to kill you."
The young woman's eyebrows tightened in confusion. Something just didn't add up in her head. "Wasn't it your idea to use the houga… the hyouga… that rock on the babies and turn them into Arrancar? If you kill me your idea will never come to fruition. You should want to take me back."
"I never intended for my idea to be carried out," Gin informed. "I wouldn't want those brats in your belly to become more powerful than myself. No, I suggested the idea because I knew you would run. I knew the little puppy would try to protect her whelps… and I knew that when you ran, Master would lift the restrictions he'd put on my conduct. All according to my plan…"
"You don't really want to kill me," Momo pleaded. She was silently praying that she could somehow talk her way out of the situation. "What have you got against me? I've done nothing to you, Ichimaru, and killing me won't gain you anything."
The smile on Gin's face suddenly took on a strange new dimension of cruelty. "You want to know what I have against you? I'll tell you, Miss Hinamori. I'll tell you how I sacrificed everything just to get where I am now. I scorned friendship, scorned compassion, scorned kindness and light… scorned love just to secure my place at Master Aizen's side. Ah, I can tell by your face that you are wondering why I would go so far to ally myself to a megalomaniac. It's quite simple really. I knew that Aizen would one-day rule over all the realms of shinigami, hollows, and humans, with or without me. It was a matter of rule or be ruled. As his right-hand man, I was poised for a glorious future."
"But what does this have to do with me?" Momo asked. "I never asked you to give up everything to serve Aizen."
"No," Gin hissed. "But you interfered with Aizen's plan and thus interfered with my plan. You are probably too thick to know that Master Aizen only allowed you to stay in Hueco Mundo so that he could indulge his basest and most salacious needs. Don't you see? Any emotions he seemed to have for you were all just a part of his sick game. His only real interest in you was for fucking. But you, you insatiable slut, you used his desire for you as a way to pull him away from his life's work. You fucked him to distraction and that's why I have to eliminate you."
Before Momo even had time to reply, Gin pulled Shinsou from its sheath and had it pointed right at her heart. She immediately raised her own zanpakutou in defense. "I'm not afraid to fight you! Snap! Tobiume!" she barked, releasing the blade. But Gin's arm was already in motion. Momo swung Tobiume to block the attack. The silver fox was not trying to hit her with the blade end of his sword, however, and she failed to stop the hilt from slamming into the side of her skull at full force. The blow felt like a sledgehammer smashing into her head and she fell to the ground like a ragdoll.
"Forgive me for not making it quick and painless," Gin said, looming over the fallen girl. "But if I were to just slice you in half… Well, that wouldn't be any fun." Then, still smiling, he viciously kicked Momo in the face, breaking her nose and busting her lip open. Then he kicked her in the chest and cracked her ribs. "Get up and at least give me some sport," he said.
Momo's head was still spinning and throbbing, but she managed to lift herself off the pavement and get up on her wobbly legs. As soon as she was standing, Gin's fist brought Shinsou's hilt crashing into her stomach in a brutal uppercut. It was the absolute worst pain Momo had ever experienced. It felt as if she was turning inside out with pain. She bowed over and vomited from the sheer intensity of it, but somehow she managed to stay on her feet. I have to fight back! I have to get a hit in! Tobiume, I need your help!
Despite the excruciating pain wracking her entire body, the young woman stood up tall and gritted her teeth. Blood was now dripping from her nose and lip into her mouth and down her chin, but that couldn't deter her. She held onto her zanpakutou with both hands and yelled out with unfettered determination.
"Bankai!"
For a moment, nothing happened, and Gin's initial expression of shock started to morph into one of derision. Momo wouldn't let herself doubt Tobiume, though. Her grip constricted and she could feel the blade's handle growing hot, white-hot. The hilt grew so hot so quickly that Momo had to drop Tobiume on the ground between herself and her attacker. Both of them watched in absolute awe as the branched sword began to swell and glow brightly. It was growing and changing shape. The transformation was swift and in just a few seconds, Tobiume had evolved into a creature with four legs and a long tail, her entire body shrouded in blue and white flames.
Momo's swollen jaw hung open. "Tobiume is… a tiger?"
Without needing a command from her master, the enormous beast lunged at Gin. She swung a fiery paw at him and he barely dodged. Her glowing tail flailed and lashed against the side of his leg, burning right through his clothing a scorching his flesh. Momo watched with pride as her mighty feline partner pounced and swiped at the fox-eyed villain. Even though her hands were not touching Tobiume, Momo knew that she was controlling her zanpakutou somehow, through the strength of her heart and her desire to protect. But the pain in her head and her stomach was intensifying and she could barely focus her eyes, let alone stand. She crumbled to the ground again and curled into a ball. There was blood oozing from her temple and into her eyes.
"Tobiume! Finish him!" she shouted, clenching her fists with the small bit of strength she had left.
The zanpakutou listened to Momo's cry and leapt magnificently into the air, and then slammed down against Gin's side, sending a huge shower of blue sparks all around the two of them. It was a direct hit. Momo watched with a feeling of pure triumph, waiting patiently for the smoke and embers to clear. You did it, Tobiume! You beat him!
Her joy was eradicated, however, when she saw Gin's silhouette materializing through the smog. As the atmosphere continued to settle, a grisly scene came into focus in front of her weak eyes. Gin was still very much alive, and Shinsou's distended blade was pierced straight through the tiger's massive head. Momo had no idea how it had happened, but it just took a few quick movements from Gin's arm to finish the job. The cowering girl's eyes widened in horror.
"Nooooooooooooooo!" she screamed, though her voice was fading quickly. She was paralyzed with pain and fear and could do nothing to save her partner. The glorious creature dissolved into smoke, leaving nothing of Tobiume but the glistening metal shards of a shattered blade. Tears slid down Momo's cheeks uncontrollably, stinging her wounds and mixing with her blood.
Gin was coming towards her now and her only defense was annihilated. As he drew closer, Momo could see that he hadn't come out of the battle unscathed. A small gasp of shock escaped her throat as she got a good look at him. The entire left side of Gin's face and all down his chest and shoulder and been grotesquely charred. His cheek was completely burned off exposing a jaw full of shiny white teeth, which made his grin seem even more monstrous. His clothes and his hair were burnt and melted into his blackened, oozing flesh. Still, he walked towards the collapsed girl as if nothing were wrong. Despite sporting what should have been a fatal injury, Ichimaru Gin had never been more terrifying.
He stood over her for several minutes, staring at her with his gruesome, hollow-like smile and pointing Shinsou down at her trembling form. Then something happened that Momo never expected. The uninjured right side of Gin's mouth curled down into a frown and his right eye opened fully to reveal a large round iris the color and clarity of deep red wine. He continued to look at the young girl for a few more minutes before he sheathed Shinsou and ran way. It was the last thing Momo saw before she fell unconscious in a spreading puddle of blood.
To be continued…
(Hmm… I wonder how people would react if I stopped writing here…)
