"You bitch!" Sousuke snarled as Ashen Eye chuckled at his impotent rage.
"Careful now, boy," she warned, "You don't want me to make you forget him any faster, do you?"
Sousuke quieted, jaw clenched. She was toying with him, he knew, but he couldn't risk forgetting his partner any quicker. Whoever he was, Sousuke loved him far too much to risk that.
"No."
"I didn't think so," she said, clearly enjoying his current misery. His fight. His defiance. She was a cat toying with her mouse before she killed it. "Do you want to get him back?"
Sousuke's interest piqued. "Of course I want him back," he said, trying to keep calm so his memories of his partner wouldn't decay any further. But the hollow must have seen the momentary display of emotion on his face, because she cackled again at his expense.
"Oh, you humans are all the same. All the same!" she rubbed her hands together with glee. "Always taking your people for granted until they get taken away."
Sousuke tried to keep his face unreadable, while she chuckled at a joke only she seemed to know. Suddenly turning serious. "Are you sure you want him back?"
"Yes," he answered. No hesitation, because how could there be?
"Is there a way?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady and even. An attempt to make up for his earlier show of fear.
"Aye," she smirked. "Though it'll cost you.
A chill rippled through him, and he swallowed the fear.
Cost what it may, I'll pay it.
Ashen Eye chuckled knowingly and held up her body index finger. A twisted parody of a gentle grandmother about to ease her grandchild into a lesson. "Of course," she smirked wider. Dark and sinister. "It depends on how much you're willing to risk, and how much you're willing to pay to get him back."
She tilted her head and he felt her three eyes bore into him. "I do nothing for free."
An icy chill pierced him to the core as she spoke those words. Gutpunching him back to when he was a child facing another Monster. One with the shape and skull of a bear, with black fur where the body should be. Blood dripping from its jaws like thick black tar as he spoke those same words.
I do nothing for free.
Now he was here. Facing an altogether different kind of monster. About to make another deal with a devil. History repeating itself as history often did.
"So what'll it be, little boy?" Ashen Eye asked. "Are you willing to gamble for the chance to get him back?"
Do we have a pact?
Aizen stood a little straighter and squared his shoulders. Ready to do what he had to do to get his person back. "I am," he said firmly. "What do I need to do?"
Ashen Eye clasped her hands together again, chuckling and hopping eagerly from foot to foot.
"My, my, you're an eager one, aren't you?" she teased. "Oh, I like you."
"Just tell me what I need to do, Ashen Eye," Sousuke growled. Not at all in the mood for any more dawdling. Every second wasted here meant more memories trickling away from him.
"Oh, you're fiesty, too," the ancient hollow snickered. "Very well, very well. I'll tell you what you need to do to get your precious little person back, don't you fret."
"Well?" Sousuke prompted when she lapsed into a thoughtful silence. But Ashen Eye just chuckled again, smirking like a fiend. He was starting to get real fucking sick of that chuckling now...
"You're going to play a game with me," Ashen Eye explained. "If you win, you get your person back. But if I win, his soul belongs to me forever. As does yours."
Sousuke studied the ancient creature for a moment. His face the best approximation of unreadable he could muster.
Get my person back or lose myself trying? Is it really much of a choice?
In the back of his mind he heard Kyouka muttering. High stakes, she noted. Of course she had self preservation in mind; if he perished, so would she. But it wasn't just his life on the line here.
And he had to at least try to rectify his mistakes.
Yes, he agreed. But what choice do I have?
"Very well, I accept those terms," he told the hollow. "What are the rules of this little game?"
Ashen Eye gave a sinister smirk. "Why, the rules are quite simple, Sousuke," she began. "I've hidden your lovely little person away somewhere in this little city. All you have to do is find him before sunset, and you'll get him back with you safe and sound. If you fail... then I get to devour your soul as well. As we agreed."
"Yes," Aizen answered. "Any clues as to where I might find him?"
He watched as the decrepit hollow paused to consider his question for a moment. Hoping against hope that she'd offer some hint of where she'd hidden his person. She cocked her head again, and looked at him with a glint of mischief in her trio of eyes beneath her hood and veil.
"A clue, you say?"
"That was what I said."
She shrugged. "I'm not really sure you need one," she said haughtily. "You're the great Aizen Sousuke, are you not? Surely you can find one single missing person on your own?"
Sousuke stood very still and resisted the urge to cut the creature into pieces. The sinister voice inside him laughing at the irony – he never, ever asked anyone for help before the person he'd cared about had come into his life. He felt his mask slip a little, but he schooled himself. Panting a smile back onto his face. A show of false confidence.
"Surely you can even the playing field a little bit," Aizen said smoothly. Biting back all the cutting remarks he wished to make. "After all, what's the point in winning if the scales are already tipped in your favour?"
Says you, the hypocrite, the voice in his head snarled. It was hard to ignore it, but he did his best. There was a person he cared about on the line here.
"Hmm, very true, very true," Ashen Eye conceded. "You make a good point, and you drive a hard bargain."
Aizen nodded. Seething that they were still wasting so much fucking time deliberating.
"So, this hint?" he prodded when she was not forthcoming. She gave him another of the devious looks that were her trademark, and he tried hard to mask his impatience, though he was sure it was seeping through.
"Just follow your beastly nose, my dear Sousuke, and you will find him."
Sousuke frowned at that. "Beastly nose? What's that supposed to mean?"
He looked to her for an answer, but the ancient hollow was already slowly vanishing, still chuckling to herself. And it was clear he wasn't going to get anything more out of her.
"Tick-tock little Sousuke," she cooed as she faded. "Time is ticking."