Chapter 9: In which Aizen crosses several lines
Location: Great big hall somewhere in Las Noches
Copyright: Do I even need to write it?
Oh, and PS: I changed the title to Fanfictional Fugitive. Seemed to sum it up better.
Last time on Bleach: The Filler That Never Was:
Our not so heroic heroine made a resolve purely based on hatred, bloodlust and a rather disturbing amount of desire for revenge. This lasted for a couple of hours before Aizen revealed his ace, which conveniently turned out to be Suzume.
"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HERE!"
She blinked, surprised at the outburst. Me screaming at people is very unusual. Me screaming twice at the same person that is a friend, is actually a first.
"YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE WITH ICHIGO!" Somewhere in the back of my mind I registered I was being more than a little unfair, but I didn't really care about that part right now.
"Now, now. There's nothing to get upset about" Aizen said calmingly. I fully ignored him.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE! DO YOU HAVE ANY, ANY IDEA WHAT SHIT IS GOING TO HIT THE FAN NOW?"
"I think I do" she replied dryly. "After all, I'm the hostage now, eh?"
At that moment, when she said that so inhumanly calm, I really want to punch her. Especially because she had said the exact word I wanted to keep away at all costs, including its consequences. Hostage.
"Now now" Aizen soothed again, probably a little surprised at the murderous expression on my face. "Hostage is such a nasty word. If we all can come to a good agreement, we can just call you our well-loved guest."
"Good agreement" Suzume scowled with a sarcastic laugh. "You aren't seriously considering that, Myrthe? If you tell him the others are done for." And don't forget yours truly.
"I request a little bit of information, that's all. Just cooperate and there's nothing to fear."
"Forgive me, but it's kinda odd you chose the word 'fear'" Suzume snarled.
I made the weirdest facial expressions at Suzume, trying to stop her from pissing him off. Aizen didn't seem to mind at all, though. A headache slowly started to box my ears.
"Now then" he turned to me "as a first, please tell me when I will be expecting our new guests. And please tell the truth- If I were to find out you were lying, things could get ugly for our dear guest."
.
This can't be happening.
The silence was killing me. My gaze swept back and forth from between Aizen and Suzume.
"Um, Myrthe, on second thought…" Suzume's voice seemed to tremble, which caught my attention. That and the shiny blade being held close to her throat.
"Well? When?"
This CANNOT be happening.
"Myrthe…?"
THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING.
My vision was getting a little blurry, and the headache increased. Possibly from stress, possibly from the intense hesitating.
Tell him? I knew that the consequences would be disastrous. But if I didn't, they would be disastrous as well- and not just for my conscience. It might seem unrealistic, how long I hesitated about the life of a friend against some information, but there was another factor on my scale. I simply refused the fact of helping Aizen any longer, especially now he had put me in this situation. My resolve might have been weakened, but my hatred had only increased further, making logical thinking, already not my best ability, nearly impossible.
"If you're going to wait any longer, I'm afraid I have to assume you're not going to tell me at all."
I heard a soft whine from Suzume's direction, but I didn't dare to look her in the eyes. Or actually, I felt like I shouldn't look her in the eyes- I lost the right to.
"This will be my last warning." A hint of annoyance was audible in Aizen's smooth voice.
"When will they arrive?"
"…"
What can I do? What can I do? What should I do? What shouldn't-
.
A pained, panicked scream rudely interrupted my thoughts. Without quite realizing what just happened, I turned my head-
A second, even more panicked scream followed, though I couldn't remember my brain had directed that one.
It is hard to describe the scenery before my eyes. My memory of it keeps changing, one time making it all cloudy, as if my brain tries to forget it, and the next time it looks so macabre that it could only be my nightmare-version. The cold facts were that Suzume was on the ground, Ulquiorra was towering over her, his blade was stained red, and so was the ground around her.
My mind went blank. My voice went mad. My legs went towards her, until a soft hand landed on my shoulder and held me back with an iron grip.
"There, there. She's all but dead, nothing bad. Ulquiorra?"
The pale servant grabbed Suzume brown locks and pulled her up like a puppet, revealing that the blood had come from a cut in her upper right arm. It produced a lot of blood, but her eyes where still open- and burning.
"Let me go, freak!" She tried to hit Ulquiorra with her left arm. She actually hit him. I have told you that she does karate, and recently she also started with kickboxing. What I didn't tell you was that her specialty lies in breaking planks, sometimes with bare fists. So I was surprised that Ulquiorra let her hit him- though he didn't react to it at all. She might as well have punched a rock.
"Lemme go! Damnit!"
Actually, there followed a lot of other words, but I probably shouldn't repeat those.
"Thank you for your demonstration, Ulquiorra. Now, dear, please answer me a little faster. When will my guests arrive?"
"I think now's a good time to tell him…" Suzume's face was a strange twist of anger and fear.
"When?"
"He's gonna cut my other arm…"
"…"
"I am running out of patience…"
"Say the goddamn words!"
"They'll come a few days after you kidnapped Inoue!"
"Who?"
Who?
I was still shattered by the fact I had given in, and he just went on without a blink to who?
"Well? Are you going to make Suzume wait?" With this, Ulquiorra brought his sword closer to Suzume's left arm.
"No! don't cut-"
"THEN TELL ME ALREADY!"
.
It maybe isn't correct to use capitals since Aizen wasn't screaming, but it's the only way I can describe the impact he gave those words. His voice didn't really change at all, but still… Well, I can't really describe it at all. You may recognize it, such an icy command is sometimes used by really, really angry parents for example, or you may not, but the effect on me was completely bull's-eye.
"Kurosaki Ichigo!" I shrieked, only to realize that was the most obvious answer that could be given in this universe. Kurosaki Ichigo is coming. No shit, Sherlock, nobody must've seen THAT one coming in the fan-freaking-tastic Bleach universe.
And then I finally came up with the idea to lie. Now I know all of you are thinking 'You idiot! He threatened to hurt your friend if you would lie!' but I told you before: I wasn't thinking rationally anymore due to hatred and another problem I had yet to realize. This, together with Suzume's confident and courageous attitude, made me hot-brained and led me to saying:
"He will get here alone, but later on the entire Soul Society will be knocking at your door."
Of course, I shouldn't have used a metaphor- it directly gave away my overconfidence. Aizen raised an eyebrow.
"MYRTHE! Why are you lying to him!" Suzume suddenly exclaimed, nearly making me jump. She looked both scared and mad. "Do you forget about this here?" She made a cautious nod to Ulquiorra's shiny weapon. "You want me dead?"
I resisted the urge to hit her -why did she snitch?- before I realized she was actually being the smart one here. Aizen pointed it out for me.
"There there, I'm sure our dear Myrthe didn't do that on purpose. After all, she knows what would happen if I were to find out she was lying?"
A bloody image unwillingly formed itself in my head.
"Of course she must've just slipped up, am I right?" he smirked at me again (RAGE!) and waited.
"Yes, yes! I mixed it up, sorry" I mumbled quickly, desperately trying replace the picture of Suzume's corpse with a vision of Aizen getting his ass handed over to him.
"Kurosaki will arrive together with Chad, and Ishida, and Rukia, and Renji."
Lowly tattletale.
.
"See? Now, that wasn't so hard was it?" Aizen smiled. And while he continued smiling, he made a gesture towards Ulquiorra.
A scream followed. And then another, this time from me. It was intended to sound like a big fat man-falling-off-a-cliff 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-' but the high pitch didn't exactly help the pronunciation.
"Ah, my apologies. I'm sure Ulquiorra didn't do that on purpose as well. Now then, let's continue."
~.~
Then, a lot of questions were asked. And a lot of answers were given. The blood and screaming had done their job wonderfully; I was numbed and replied automatically, like a robot. All my brain functions were switched off, except the memory parts. I guess it was a psychological thing; As long as I only thought about the answers, I wouldn't have to face the truth about what I was doing, what I was causing. I can't remember what the questions were, or what I answered; I guess that is a nice trick from my brain too, to ease the guilt.
Aizen probably asked about the battles, what would happen, who would face who, and the outcomes; as well weaknesses and strong points of my would-be saviours. Knowing Suzume would directly tell if I were lying, I couldn't lie. Though I doubt that I could've lied anyway, given the creepily zombie-like state I was in.
.
That was, until he asked about the battle between Renji, Ishida and the mad scientist dude that looked like a lady. It wasn't that I didn't want to answer (all I wanted was peace and quiet and a blanket over my head) but that I simply had forgotten what had happened there. I had just completely forgotten.
"I can't remember" I said. Aizen raised his eyebrow.
"I can't remember" I repeated, slightly panicked and confused. I wasn't used to really forgetting things like that. Sure, I forget important dates and names, and don't even get me started about phone numbers, but normal, useless information? Stuff like that usually stayed inside my head. Or at least a trace of it.
"Please try to remember."
"Um, I hate to agree with him, but please do" Suzume mumbled as well, eyes locked on Ulquiorra's sword.
My gaze kept getting a little bit blurrier, my head foggier. It was as if I was thinking in slow-motion, or more like panicking in slow-motion.
"I don't know!" I said, my voice a few octaves higher than usual.
"Don't be so obstructive now" Aizen said, adding an extra layer of menace in this voice.
This can't be happening. I switched back to my denial state of mind. No. Not now.
"Myrthe?" Suzume squeaked, probably because of the approaching sword."
I have to remember.
"Anyone home? Hurry up!"
I can't have forgotten.
"I suggest you make a bit of a haste now, or I'm afraid things might get a bit ugly."
No. No. Just no. No, no, no-
"Myrthe!"
Nononononononononononononono-
"Just tell him! He's gonna kill me!" Suzume shrieked.
-nonnonononononononono-
"TELL HIM!"
"WHY DON'T YOU TELL HIM!" I screeched back. I clutched my head, from pain and from helplessness.
"I can't do this! Why don't you just tell him!"
.
Right after I said that, it was as if someone had smacked me in the face. I froze in my rather melodramatic pose, as the unthinkable thought loudly presented itself in my head. It was as if a fog had cleared and just revealed an abyss I had been standing for.
.
Why doesn't SHE tell him.
Oh SHIT.
.
"They will die" I said hoarsely. Aizen seemed a little surprised- and suspicious.
"Ishida and Renji" I basically choked out. "The crazy pinkhead kills them. With his secret thing."
"His secret thing?"
Come on now. Moment of truth. Don't let yourself down now. THINK.
"He has some sort of ultrasuperspecialawesome last form, even kept it secret from you" I mumbled, avoiding eye-contact.
"He turns into some sort of… octopus. A white octopus. And he uses some sort of technique… I didn't understand the details; it had something to do with a copy of the Hogyoku." I didn't dare to look at Suzume, afraid to give myself away. It remained silent.
"Let me guess, smart miss" Aizen said alarmingly friendly. He saw right through me. Of course.
"You didn't tell me directly because of that Hogyoku-copy, did you?"
Damn, he- wait, what? I looked up, trying to hide my surprise and the slowly upcoming hurricane in my head. For the first time I looked at Suzume, but she only seemed to stare at the blade, not a single thing in her attitude showing what I hoped and feared for. She now looked back at me with that hurt expression, as if she knew I was betraying her again. She knows. I prepared to beg him to save her life once she would speak up, but instead-
"Why didn't you tell him directly!" she said, nearly hissed at me. "Why do you want me dead so badly!"
.
Another smack in my face. The proof. Why didn't she tell Aizen I was lying my ass off? Why hadn't she told Aizen herself in the first place? Why did she act so completely unlike herself? How could she possibly have fallen into Aizen's hands in the first place? And why didn't Aizen ask her the questions?
There could only be one answer, both relieving and absolutely gruesome.
She isn't Suzume.
…
THAT BASTARD.
.
"She isn't Suzume" I said out loud, forcefully spitting each word out of my throat.
Aizen chuckled. "Excuse me?"
"She isn't… Suzume." This time it was less harder, and I somehow managed to look up right into his eyes. His face remained the same. He made some sort of gesture, then looked somewhere else. Following his gaze, I was just in time to see Suzume grin inhumanly at me before she vanished into ashes. Gone. I heard her laugh, twisted in a monstrous way, echo through the room before I looked back at Aizen, unable to produce a thought. Aizen just looked back.
And smiled.
.
Have you ever felt a sudden urge to lung at someone and kill him or her, without even thinking about eventual consequences? Ever wanted to see someone suffer so badly you'd doubt your mental health? Well, that urge took control of me now. Some people say it gives a red shade to everything you see, as if you are looking through red glasses. That's not true, those people have never been as madly enraged as I was. When you are on such a level of anger, you don't see red. Instead, the edges of your field of vision become black. A bit like the black bars around YouTube-videos, only more subtly shading into the visible part, like an ink frame around invisible glasses.
That frame now appeared around my sight, together with an increased head-ache, a strange sound boxing my ears, a now almost completely failing eyesight and a somehow familiar, overwhelming exhaustion. And then I completely lost it.
.
"YOU!" I screeched, unable to find anything else that could be a synonym to his despicable being. And I started running. I ran, my hands unconsciously turning into human claws, urging to dug the nails into his skin.I ran, barely unable to produce a sharp image of anything that wasn't Aizen. I ran, towards Aizen, ready to rip him to shreds and beyond, to bite, scratch, kick, punch, pinch, strangle, tug, pick out his eyes, tear every single hair out, break every single bone that was available, cut him to pieces, burn him, drown him, throw him off a cliff, bury him alive…
I ran faster than I ever had and ever will, tripping over probably my own feet in my haste, enclosing the gap within a few seconds, screaming like mad- and mad I was, in the most psychopathic way possible. Releasing another insane howl I lunged towards him, one hand stretched out and ready to claw his face.
"DIEEEEE-"
And I was held back, Ulquiorra's iron grip holding my arms on my back, keeping me in place despite my hellbent attempts to wriggle myself out of his grasp, to get to that contemptible existence in front of me, so close, so far. I kept screaming "DIE" to him through my huge sobs, my entire mind, for as far as I still possessed one, bent on killing him.
"Ulquiorra."
And just then I was free, and I stumbled and ran towards him, just about to hit him, not caring how he raised his hand, just wanting to hurt it-
And I flew back and landed harshly on the ground, my cheek burning, my tongue tasting blood and my teeth rattling. I tried look up, the world was spinning, my head felt as if it were to explode, everything was blurry, and most importantly, I suddenly realized I was completely exhausted. And with exhausted I mean that my eyelids felt too heavy to keep them up, so they kept falling down, and even then they were just too heavy to handle, and the white was burning in my head, and I just wanted a dark place, just dark, dark. And all these feelings and pains flowed together, creating one big sensation I suddenly recognized. A sensation that made me realize the cause of that uneasy feeling that had been haunting me for as long as I had been here. What I had been forgetting.
.
I need my medicine.
.
And then I fell asleep on the floor.
Me: IT HAS BEEN FINISHED! HALLELUJAH!
F!Myrthe: *plays around with baseball bat* So, about the amount of time it took you...
Me: I... better go back to studying. Really. Like, now.
F!Myrthe: YOU CANNOT ESCAPE YOUR FATE! *Turns to the audience* And my apologies for my behaviour. It's just the writers fault for trying to copy her own miserably personality. Honestly, if I were in charge here, I'd have kicked Aizen's ass and had a full-fledged romance with Kurosaki Ichigo already. BEFORE BREAKFAST.
Me: *Peeks around corner* Suuuure -_-; *Turns to the audience as well* Also, a little explaining about the very last part: I need to take medicine everyday for my thyroid condition, and if I don't do that EVERY SINGLE EFFING DAY, I get trouble. The whole passing out thingy is based on a real occasion (minus the Aizen part) where we all discovered my disease after some drama at school (no worries, I didn't pass out there, I fell asleep AFTER I got home in my own cosy bed). The doctor told me that it might happen again if I don't take my pills, because the thyroidhormones might-
*FALCON BASEBALL PUNCH*