Chapter 4: Dream and Nightmare
(Thanks a bunch to Jess0409 (ME TOO!), Aizenfan6969 (Ichigo will definitely get his huggles!), Kyuumihaira (I think you're right!), Picklez80 (Nope, he's very aware of Aizen's dangerous nature, and his HOTNESS!), Winterheart2000 (If only it was that easy!), PrivateCaller (Okay, here you go!), Enjali (You have jedi instincts!) Phantom Trainer (Aww, so glad you like it!), Shima-Taicho31 (Aizen smiles wickedly "Since when did you think watching me would save anyone? lol), SagenWarrior (Okay, here's more!), Hisuiryuu (Some loving is coming right up!), Sariniste (I think that the pendulum will swing back and forth between them a few times as the dynamics shift.), Mitzukini Haninozuka (You've got it!) Enjoy the chapter! Love, Spunky)
Ichigo came awake suddenly, his stomach throbbing fiercely and a feeling of intense nausea sending him flying out of bed and running to the bathroom, where he expelled the contents of his stomach violently, then fell back against the wall opposite the toilet, panting and rubbing his still aching stomach.
"Ugh..."
It occurred to his suddenly that when he had awakened, he had found himself alone.
That's strange, considering Aizen seems to always want to spend a lot of time around me. I wonder if he's in the king's archive, looking for more information on the king making process. I mean, the truth is, neither one of us knows exactly what we're doing. We're both being used by Reiou, and he's dead and only really able to talk to me because his soul is in the king's prism inside of me.
He felt an uncomfortable twinge and a sense of invasion, knowing the prism was in his body and the king's soul was inside, watching, but with no way of changing his situation and the worlds hanging on what happened in his belly, Ichigo had little choice but to follow the directions he had been given. The thought sent a little shiver down his spine.
I have to wait until Aizen's body has gathered another cluster of the transcendent reiatsu, and then he'll come to me.
It hurt a lot that first time. Maybe it will hurt less, now that I know what he's going to do.
Ichigo climbed to his feet and walked out of the bathroom and made his way to the closet, where he picked out a clean yukata. When he stepped back out into the bedroom suite, he found a hot meal waiting for him.
I still don't know how that happens. But it's like whatever causes it is aware of my needs. I can't complain about the food either, although it's a little creepy how it's always something I like.
He tried to sense Aizen's location, but felt an odd dimness in his perception.
Reiou said I would lose my powers. I didn't know that I wouldn't have my shinigami senses. They were working before the first time, but after, I felt the difference. Now I can't sense anything at all.
Given the inevitability of Aizen's return and more sexual joinings, it left him with an uneasy feeling.
Ichigo worked slowly at his meal, well aware that Aizen could appear at any moment and growing more spooked and anxious by the moment. He finished eating and left his room, walking out into the gardens to soak in the king's healing pool.
It seems to make my stomach ache and burn less when I sit in there for a while.
He sank down into the hot water, enjoying the lazy swirls that curled around him, soothing both his body and his ragged nerves. By the time he left the pool, he had begun to relax. He walked through the quiet gardens, listening to the chirping of the birds and the sound of rushing water in the nearby lake. He was standing near the edge of a cliff, overlooking the water, when, without warning, strong arms wrapped around him from behind and began to undress him.
"Damn it, you can't even say something first to let me have a second to prepare myself?" he snapped, struggling as Aizen dragged him down onto the ground, barely getting his clothing out of the way and clumsily preparing him before entering him and beginning their next mating.
"Asshole!" Ichigo gasped, pushing at Aizen's shoulders.
He caught sight of the other man's eyes and felt his insides go cold. Where before, the golden light had come into the other man's eyes more gradually, this time it shined more wildly out of them and Aizen's face showed no sign of reaction to Ichigo at all. There was urgency, but no affection in the hands that held him down. And he didn't even pause upon completing his entry, but began thrusting immediately and forcefully.
It's like he's not even there, Ichigo mused, relaxing his body slightly, I wonder if he even knows what he's doing right now.
He had to remind himself that it wasn't in the king's interest for him to be harmed, so it made sense to just cooperate and get the uncomfortable joining over with. He found that moving with Aizen's body seemed to calm the other man, causing his painfully tight grip on Ichigo to loosen and his hands to caress the younger man, bringing him into a more receptive state and even allowing his body to become aroused. He felt an odd sense of loneliness and brushed his lips against Aizen's, needing to at least feel there was some kind of connection besides that of their bodies alone. As their lips touched, Aizen's gilded eyes looked down into his, and for a moment, Ichigo wasn't sure if Aizen Sousuke was the one with him. Indeed, the glare within those eyes felt powerful, but they felt more emotive too.
And then, realization began to strike him.
The hogyoku and the king's prism! They are both sentient forces. The king's prism was made to take in the soul of the king, each time one incarnation died and another had to be made. Reiou's soul is in the prism and he is with us when we mate. But the hogyoku. It's sentient too. I wonder if what this might be are the souls Aizen sacrificed to make the hogyoku. They were all stolen by him and given to the hogyoku to devour. Those souls sense that what we are doing will give them something they want.
I wonder what...
The question radiated in his mind as Aizen's thrusts slowed and his breathing grew more ragged. Ichigo was shocked by the expression of intense pain the overtook his handsome face as he stiffened and began his release.
What's happening to him?
He barely had time to wonder before the radiant light around their bodies seemed to explode, and it raked his insides, making him scream and twist his body free of Aizen's. He took a few staggering steps, vaguely aware that Aizen too, had collapsed and wasn't moving.
Did something go wrong?
Ichigo's vision faded and he sank down into a seemingly impenetrable blackness. He thought he might have felt his senseless body being lifted, then lowered into the hot, bubbling water of the healing pool, but he couldn't move or speak, and he didn't have a clue who it was who had moved him. A feeling of exhaustion swept over him and he faded in and out of awareness several times. Then, he dropped off into a deeper, more natural sleep that might have lasted for hours, or even days.
He emerged again slowly, and found his body floating in the healing pool, with Aizen's also floating nearby. He should, he thought, have been frightened by the fact that he was breathing the water in and out of his lungs, but some part of him remembered Tenjiro's pool, and how Byakuya, Renji and Rukia had all been submerged for hours or days and had emerged unscathed and fully healed. He surfaced slowly, gradually expelling the healing water out of his lungs as he went. He planted his feet under him and coughed a few times, then moved forward to look down at Aizen. For a moment, he encountered a sense of dread.
He looks like his body has been emptied.
And in fact, it had been, during their mating. The gathered reiatsu had been expelled forcefully, and it seemed that this time, there had been more of it.
We both knew that the powers being rendered were dangerous. The power is feral, and it's strong enough to kill us. I wonder of he just gathered too much before mating with me...or if it was supposed to be like this. Whatever, I think he and I need to figure that out before it happens again.
He remained at Aizen's side, watching quietly until he showed signs of returning consciousness, then took hold of his yukata and dragged him into the shallows, holding him as the elder man expelled the water from his lungs, then sagged wearily against him. Ichigo led him to a ledge, where the two sat, recovering. After several minutes, Aizen's face lost some of its pallor and he managed a thin smile.
"Are you all right, Ichigo?" he asked drowsily.
"Are you?" Ichigo asked in reply, "It was different this time. It seemed like you weren't even there."
"The transcendent power we're rendering is untamed," Aizen explained, "From what I can tell, I have no control over how much is gathered in my body or when I will have the urge to mate. Those are controlled by the hogyoku, which is responding to the king's prism."
"So, the king's prism thought it would be a great idea to kill us both with reiatsu. Is that it?" Ichigo asked angrily.
"It's not in the king's interest for us to die, Ichigo," Aizen reminded him, "He wants his new incarnation to be born."
"But he's not too worried about what happens to us, is he? That makes me wonder if the king we're making is going to be as balanced as he said, or if he might not have any interest in his subjects' pain and suffering!"
"Ichigo..."
"It also gives me a really bad feeling," Ichigo confessed, "Our bodies are being pushed to the brink, and when the reiatsu is rendered and the king is born, I wonder what will happen."
"You think that we won't survive?" Aizen asked quietly.
"Well, you have the hogyoku. You can't die as long as it's there, right?"
Aizen gave him a cryptic smile.
"That is exactly right, but...how long do you think that the hogyoku will be in me?"
"What do you mean?"
Aizen looked down at his unblemished chest, where the hogyoku had been fused with him.
"Ichigo, the rendered power that we are exchanging has to come from somewhere. When we say it is being gathered, what we really mean is that it is building up in my body. But...where did it come from? The hogyoku, right? And where is it going? Into your body, which houses the king's prism. The answer is simple. The king's prism is gathering and rendering the souls that the hogyoku devoured, and it is using them to make the new incarnation of the king."
"So...the king's prism is absorbing the hogyoku?"
"Yes. And that means that when the seeding of your body is complete, the hogyoku will be gone. I will lose my immortality, so yes, I could die...or be killed."
"You think the king wants you to die?" asked Ichigo.
"I am a dangerous person. He knows that. I was necessary for this, so he spared my life when the Central 46 councilors ordered me killed. He let me rain hell on Soul Society, let the war rage down below him, because he knew that the side effect of my war against him would be you, Ichigo. You...the creation of my experimentation, the key to stopping my plans against Reiou, and now, the bearer of the new king. All of this, because he changed my fate."
"You must wish I'd never been born," Ichigo said in a near whisper, the swish of the bubbling water almost drowning out his words, "You know that if you aren't killed by what we're doing, the Gotei is going to be waiting to take you back to Muken...only Muken was made for dangerous prisoners whose hearts couldn't be stopped. Doesn't that mean that without the hogyoku, they will just execute you?"
"That is exactly what Central 46 will order," Aizen confirmed, "How do you feel about that, Ichigo? Do you hate me enough to want me dead?"
"I don't know," Ichigo admitted in a lost tone, "It's hard to hate you when I know that Central 46 set you up as a child to be murdered. What they did was horrible. Not knowing all of this would happen, I would have said that it was good the king rescued you from that fate. But then, you took your revenge, not just on Central 46, but innocent people too...people who never hurt you. You used people like Rukia and Momo, who never would have done you any harm, then you coldly tried to end their lives. You experimented on innocent people too, sacrificed innocent souls. You became a monster."
"And because I did, I also make the one person who could stop me. What I did, didn't serve me in the end. It served Reiou. He saw his own death coming and he knew there was no escape, so he manipulated other fates so that his new incarnation would be free to act, not just a prisoner. But I ask you, Ichigo, wasn't he as much of a monster, loosing me on the three worlds, just for the sake of freeing himself from that crystal prison?"
"Were the ones who put him in that crystal prison any less monsters for doing that to him?" Ichigo asked, "It all seems to go back to why the king was imprisoned in the first place, doesn't it?"
"Yes," Aizen agreed, "It was the shinigamis' desire to prevent the king from becoming too powerful that led to Reiou being enclosed in that crystal...powerless except for his foresight and his ability to keep the balance of souls."
"It seems like one wrong thing just piled onto the next," Ichigo sighed, "Damn..."
"Well, what's done is done," Aizen concluded, "You look tired, Ichigo. Are you in any pain?"
"My stomach hurts, but that's just the king's prism doing it's job, rendering the raw power. Other than that, I'm just hungry. I'm fine."
"I am sorry for hurting earlier," Aizen apologized, "I wasn't aware, but there is flesh memory that stays with me."
"You mean, you don't sense it while it's happening..."
"But I remember it afterwards. Yes," Aizen confirmed.
"This is just so weird," Ichigo sighed, "All of it. I don't even know how to feel about it anymore. I don't know if what we're doing is even right."
"It will undo the entrapment of the king," Aizen reminded him, "And wasn't that the act that unraveled everything?"
"I guess you're right. I don't know."
Aizen smiled.
"Why don't we go back to your room and get some food and rest?" he suggested.
"I'm kind of scared you'll jump on me while I'm sleeping," Ichigo mused, "You just sort of appeared without warning."
"Well, if I'm in bed with you, you won't be surprised if I touch you."
"What? You want to have sex with me? When we're not being controlled?" Ichigo asked, frowning at the idea.
"What does this tell you?" Aizen asked, leaning forward and sinking deeply into his mouth.
Ichigo pulled away and scowled at him.
"It tells me that you're up to something," he said crossly, "And I'm not falling for it!"
He exited the healing pool and stomped, naked, back to his room. Slamming the door, he retreated to the shower and rinsed himself, then dried off and walked back to the closet, where he found even the clothes he had worn before were clean and waiting for him.
"This place is nuts..." he muttered, selecting a set of soft, warm pajamas that were more like the ones he'd worn in the living world.
He crawled into the bed, too weary to even wonder where Aizen was or when the next coupling would take place. He slept for several hours, but woke while it was still dark, then laid in bed, contemplating all that had happened. Inevitably, he found himself thinking of Aizen's zanpakuto, and what he ha felt upon defeating him.
Loneliness.
He's been lonely all along. He felt even more lonely when Central 46 ordered him killed when he hadn't done a thing wrong. He felt lonely in his powers and more so when he went to the hollow world to prepare to invade Soul Society and the royal realm. But all along, he wanted one thing...just that one thing.
He wanted his loneliness to end...
...and he made me...
Using the hogyoku, the device that brings possible dreams to reality, Aizen Sousuke made me. And even though I defeated him, and he was placed in Muken, he couldn't hate me. He couldn't bring himself to hate...
...his dream...
I'm Aizen Sousuke's dream come true...me...
The truth ringing in his head, he left his room and walked to the next, then the next and the next, looking for Aizen. He searched the archive and the kitchen, the training grounds and finally, the gardens. He found Aizen still sitting where he had been, resting quietly and gazing up at him as he approached.
Wordlessly, Ichigo undressed and slid down into the water, where he stood in front of Aizen for a moment, then bent and kissed him.
"Why did you do that?" Aizen asked, studying his face, "Did you feel sorry for me because my greatest wish became my worst nightmare?"
"Am I your worst nightmare?" Ichigo chuckled, sliding onto his lap, "You've been around lots of uglier and scarier people than me...real monsters even."
"And none of them could hurt me...not one of them."
"Are you saying I have?"
"You are the reason I was captured."
"I'm also the one who the king's prism chose to deprive you of the hogyoku. And you still don't regret me being born?"
Aizen sighed and very slowly joined their bodies, then wrapped his hands around Ichigo's soft, bare bottom, encouraging him to move. The two went quiet, writhing warmly against each other until they surrendered together to a long, ecstatic release that felt nothing at all like their mating. They left the pool and dried off, then walked back to Ichigo's room together. Crawling into the bed, they wrapped their bodies around each other's and kissed goodnight.
"No," Aizen whispered as Ichigo lingered on the edges of sleep, "I have no regrets...Ichigo."