...
...Not gonna lie, I expected a lot of things from asking that question, but finding myself back in Aizen's Inner realm wasn't one of them.
I idly looked ahead at the man, whose back he held in front of me as he seemed to be... Doing something with his reiatsu- A sense of displacement, or nausea? Hitting me with every beat that passed.
Shaking my head clear, I quickly noticed the fact the inner realm he'd seemed so freakin' proud of looked somewhat off. The roads looked worn, the buildings aged, and the air filled with far too much dust- Even the sun bringing light into the realm had dimmed.
It all looked as if it could collapse at any moment.
Aizen let out a rather loud sigh as he slowly turned back towards me, his shoulders deflated, his gaze...
I blinked a few times as I took in the hint of despair that filled it.
Huh.
What the hell did I miss?
"That should give us some time," The man remarked, as he let out another sigh.
"What'd ya do?" I questioned curiously.
"Jikantaishi." The man answered casually.
I blinked at that, a frown building up on my face as I tried to remember what the fuck that was supp-
"It freezes time," The man finally deigned to tell me.
"Huh," I remarked eloquently. "Neat." I waited for a beat. "But eh, won't the other captains notice that?" I deadpanned. "Kinda sus don't you think?"
He shrugged his shoulders at me.
I pinched my left arm on instinct.
"They're frozen too,"
"...Damn. So they're spying on me?" I frowned, the slightest bit hurt at the thought.
"Not all of them," The man pointed out as a chair of all things came into existence behind him-
I found my knees bending as a chair materialized right below me, my ass falling into it with a thud.
After a moment of thought at the rather surprising gesture, I let out a shrug and took it for a good sign, electing to soak into the utterly comfortable seat.
"Don't they give out life sentences for using that spell?" I questioned, a tad worried.
"Only if you get caught."
I opened my mouth to say something to that before the man continued.
"I very much doubt anyone will notice, given all of Seireitei is under the spell." A beat passed. "At any rate even if they do notice, it is not as if you made a show of using it, to begin with, and they're hardly going to assume one could drop such a thing without so much as a breath taken." A beat passed as I watched the hints of a small smile fill up his face. "Such a feat would be far too worrisome for them to accept as possible, enough so that they'd rather disbelieve the notion of it entirely."
"Lotta words for an excuse, don't ya think?" I snorted, earning a twitch in the process. "Still, pretty ballsy to do it with a fucking royal guard in front of us." I shook my head. "I must've really fucked up with that question if-"
"It has nothing to do with that," The man cut me off. "I did not bring you here to discuss that fool, nor his cohorts." The man idly waved a hand, to emphasize the lack of fucks he was trying to show off with.
Which... Well.
I couldn't help but frown.
He was trying too hard to Aizen for some reason.
"Okay..." I remarked warily. "Am I like in trouble then?" I questioned with a chuckle. "Finally gonna cut me loose, take over, wreak havoc, kill me, repeat?"
He blinked at me for that one.
"I am just saying," I snorted. "If you figured out how to force me here, I can't imagine it's that much harder to take back control."
His expression didn't so much as twitch as he continued staring at me.
"You realize that if I wanted, I could've taken over when you pulled that stunt with whatever had remained of..." His mouth snapped shut, surprising me, and at the same time, him, a hint of irritation coursing through his gaze for some reason before he let out a sigh and continued. "Josh Groban."
Can't lie, the sheer look of annoyance as he said that name was hilarious.
"Huh." That was all I said on the matter, however, as I very much valued a shock-free existence. "Gotta ask though if you could've done that..." I tilted my head at him. "Why the fuck wouldn't you take back control?"
I watched him open his mouth to say the absolute most mind-breaking thing I'd ever thought to hear from Aizen Fucking Sosuke.
"Because you're better at dealing with those fools than I."
Aizen just complimented me.
Without sarcasm.
Holy shit the world was going to end, wasn't it? I was about to wake up from whatever shark-induced coma I'd been-
"Calm yourself, fool." The man interrupted my panic attack. "It is hardly a surprise that an idiot is better served at dealing with other idiots than one such as myself."
"...Thanks?" I replied though I was somewhat still wary that the world was going to end somehow.
The man quickly shook his head. "I cannot hold this for much longer," Aizen stated, using his usual Aizen face and tone- Which obviously meant he was fucking lying. "I would much rather get the reason for why I'd brought you here out of the way so you can go back to beating some sense into that insufferable airhead."
"Why do I feel like you're procrastinating right now-"
"Enough." The man remarked through grit teeth. "Save whatever questions you might for after we've dealt with the looming issue at hand."
"Dude," He twitched, quickly making me let out a sigh and give him a wave of my hand. "Alright, I'll bite what is it?"
He opened his mouth to say something, and promptly closed it.
He did it three more fucking times, to my surprise, before he finally decided to say-
"...This world is cursed."
Well, no shit sherlo-
"I have always known it was cursed." The man continued. "And I have always held a plan to recreate it into something worthy of myself-" His fucking lips quivered as the despaired look from earlier returned in full force.
Not gonna lie, Aizen acting out of character is freaky as hell... Where's the pompous, where's the arrogance? Where's the Aizenism?
He grit his teeth again, this time grinding them against each other, as his fist opened and closed, his gaze directly looking at me.
"...Every... Influx of new information... Of despairing new truth that I'd accumulated-" He brought both of his hands forward and closed them together, before laying his elbows onto his knees as he hunched over slightly, still locking eyes with me. "I planned for... Changed what I needed... Fixed my overall, lifetime goal so that it could accommodate it. So that I could fix it." He closed his eyes for a moment, the pit in my stomach growing as I watched him put his forehead onto his palmed hands. Only then noticing just how hard he was gripping his hands. "I spent so many years making sure I didn't miss anything... Making sure that in the end, the world I would've created would've been absolutely perfect... And yet... And yet!"
He went silent for a moment as it finally dawned on me what the hell he'd asked me here for.
"It was all for nothing!" He spat out, his eyes opening once again with utter hate in them. He unlatched his hands from each other as he smashed them onto the chair's handles. "No matter how I look at it- No matter what I do..." The man raised one hand to his face and grabbed his fucking hair- "Hell is all that's coming! Hell will be all that's left!"
I watched as he simply deflated into his chair, gone was the immovable mask I was so used to seeing, instead... He looked downright broken.
Lines covered his face, bags under his eyes, and genuine distress marked his face.
Huh.
I tilted my head at him.
"So?" I calmly asked him, earning a blink from the man before utter distaste filled his eyes.
"What do you mean so?" He snapped. "I tell you that this imperfect... This cursed world is all we have and-"
"Start over then." I shrugged. "Whatever comes, comes, whatever happens, happens, just make sure you can fix what's left," I waved a hand out. "It's not like you give a shit about anyone that lives in it right?"
He considered my words for a few moments before shaking his head at me.
"I cannot take on hell you blasted fool!"
"I am not telling you too," I remarked with a frown. "I am telling you to let hell come, do its thing, and when it gets bored or runs out of shit to do, or frankly kills itself, then just you know, start over." A beat passed. "Hell ain't got beef with you, you know, it's got beef with life- But it also needs life to function so eventually... You know, the realm will be right back to where it started, and this time you can just original sin your idea into existence."
He stared at me for a few seconds following my rant, his gaze going through quite a few unreadable emotions before he settled on...
Dread? For some reason?
"...That's barbaric." He remarked, before narrowing his eyes at me. "Would you be willing to do something like that?"
I snorted at that.
"Course not." I shook my head. "I ain't Aizen enough for that."
"...You think I am capable of condemning the lives of millions to achieve my goals?"
"Aizen you don't consider hollows as lives,"
"What of it?" He questioned, a surprised, if somewhat confused, tone to his voice.
"They're souls you know?"
He opened his mouth and promptly closed it, a hint of wariness filling his eyes.
"...I improved their lives." He belatedly remarked. "Helped bring an end to their hunger-"
"Well yeah, but only because it made it easier to control 'em?"
"...It was a better solution than letting-" For some reason, the man chose to stop speaking as he simply sat back against his seat, a strange look on his face and for once not directed at me. "...You're right."
I pinched myself again.
"I never really considered the other realms." He remarked, a haunted tone to his voice. "Only Soul Society... I didn't care for the others."
"No shit," I snorted. "You basically sent half of them on a suicide mission with you and left the other half in Hueco Mundo- Like I am pretty sure most of them were the culmination of millions of hollows so..." A beat passed. "Yeah, I'd say you got it in you to put down millions for your goals."
His gaze slowly lowered down to meet mine.
"...I am no better than the Soul King." He whispered.
I could practically feel whatever kido or reiatsu bullshit he had going on waver as I felt my consciousness slip back into the main body, the effects of the time-kido crap wavering as well.
"Aizen, honestly, as much as I'd like to help you, I ain't remotely qualified to be your therapist."
For some odd reason, he found that a little funny.
Or maybe I was just imagining things?
...
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