Chapter 10.5: In which help arrives in an unwanted way
Location: Same old corridor as last chapter
Copyright: Those who have the copyright of Bleach.
"Myrthe?"
No way.
I just sat there, speechless, motionless, senseless.
No way.
In all of my despair, I hadn't even dreamt this could be possible. But it was. Right in front of me stood the entire rescue squad and a few additions; Ichigo and his gang, several other Shinigami (Toushiro!) and, most importantly-
"Suzume!"
She was there. She was alive. She seemed unharmed, but with some badass Shinigami clothes on. She seemed just as shocked as I was.
Suzume. Thank heavens.
At that point, I was so overwhelmed with happiness en relief that once again, I couldn't think rationally anymore. Instead, while I sobbed from joy, I dashed forward and without much thinking hugged her tightly.
"Suzume" I sobbed again. It wasn't just that I was so goddamn happy to see her. Sure, I was glad she was ok. But I hadn't really changed, and my own hide still mattered more to me. My own hide, which just had been saved. I had found the comrades. They would protect me.
I am safe.
While being so overly happy, I somehow still noticed that Suzume hadn't hugged me back. She seemed uncomfortable, even- uncomfortable, while her kidnapped friend had just been found, alive!
It started to get awkward, hugging someone who doesn't hug you back, let alone stays eerily quiet. So I let go, still feeling very awkward.
So much for a tearjearkingly happy reunion. Jeez.
When I had let go of her, I stepped back to look her in the face, curious why she reacted so undercooked.
That is not the happy face I expected. She didn't seem happy to see me at all. She didn't smile, or looked something even close to being relieved or happy. Not at all. Instead, her face was twisted in a mixture of pain, sorrow- and if I had to trust my eyes, something like regret.
I backed off, looking around me. Nobody looked happy. No one smiled, seemed happy to see me. They all wore the same expression as Suzume. Some seemed to have a less regretful and more determined look, but the overall atmosphere was very, very uncomfortable.
"Um, is… something… wrong…?" It was so creepily quiet, I almost whispered. No one answered, the glaring just continued.
Why am I getting the feeling someone either died or is going to die?
I was surprised at the last bit of that thought. It just kind of popped up unexpectedly, almost subconsciously. Maybe it was because of all the dark looks. Everyone stayed quiet.
My voice rose.
"Suus? What's going on here?"
Suzume looked to the ground. She didn't reply. The silence seemed to strangle me with invisible hands.
"Suus?"
Her lips mumbled something; she still refused to look me in the eyes. If I hadn't stood so close, I wouldn't have heard what she said. But I did hear the words. Though I stopped at the hearing part, not knowing how to process them.
"I'm sorry."
OH SHIT. O SHIT O SHIT O SHIT-
Swears and alarm bells made quite the noise inside my head. The rest of me was rendered motionless.
Hitsugaya Toushiro cleared his throat, and stepped forward. Even he seemed to avoid my gaze. "A direct order from Supreme Commander Yamamoto-sama. The apprehension and execution of Myrthe, resident of the different world, accused and found guilty of treason of Soul Society and transmission of crucial and confidental information to first class criminal Aizen Sousuke."
"WHAT?" I choked out.
"WHAT?" A little louder.
"You're kidding me" I said, already knowing that they weren't the type of people to joke around. I looked around, shocked, trying to address each one of them. Ichigo. Rukia. Renji. Ishida. Chad. Inoue. Hitsugaya Toushiro. They all looked somewhere else, avoiding eye contact. None of them seemed too happy.
"Suzume, they're kidding, right?" I pleaded, not knowing how this situation could be prevented. The swears and alarm bells in my head kept swearing and ringing louder and louder in my head. I backed off a little.
"I'm on your side!"
Suzume didn't answer.
"On our side!" Histugaya sneered. "Didn't you just listen? You gave him all of our secrets! It's a miracle we're still alive! He knows all of our strengths and weaknesses, our tactics! On our side? You're nothing but a traitor!"
I backed off again. If you say it like that… It actually makes sense.
The tension grew even tenser. Hitsugaya's words seemed to trigger the darker sentiments of the others too.
"He is right, thanks to the tips you've given him, he managed to set all kinds of traps, custom made to take advantage of our weaknesses." Four-eyes pushed up his glasses, before giving me a cold stare. "Indeed, you are nothing but a traitor."
This can't be happening.
They were supposed to save me. To feel sorry for what I had been through, to promise to protect me with their lives, to do everything they could to bring me back home. Not indicating an execution.
"Suzume!" I didn't know who else I could turn to. "You should know! All of you should know!" I made a wide gesture. "That man is a monster! Suzume!" Still no reaction. "You should know! I would never tell him everything just like that! He forced me! He tricked me!" Images from Suzume's bloody body and Aizen's grin started to pop up again, images so vivid I felt my eyes sting. I wanted to tell them what he had done, what he had made me think, what he had made me see. But those images had to get out of my head at all costs right now or I would start crying, and talking about them would not be helpful.
"You should know!" I repeated desperately.
Suzume muttered again. This time even I couldn't hear it, and she seemed to realize this. She mumbled again, a bit louder.
"I know."
Somehow, the whole looking away thing got me angry.
"Good! Wonderful! Fan-fucking-tastic! You know! Then what THE HELL is this?" 'This' not really meaning anything in particular. Probably the whole situation.
"We believe that you weren't intending from the beginning to tell him, but the fact remains you did. The fact remains you betrayed us."
They can't just kill me on that. My brain was in overdrive, frantically searching for a way to convince them not to kill me. The facts were against me; if we looked at facts alone, I had betrayed them. I had to find an argument elsewhere. Somewhere else, where facts didn't count. Let's play them heartstrings.
"Wow. Just wow." I put up my hands to put extra emphasis on how ridiculous this seemed to me. "Wonderful. I got practically abused here, tried my very best to resist that monster, and as a reward I will get murdered. Really. Superspecialawesome."
No one reacted.
"You know" I went on "maybe Soul Society has gotten that low, I can understand that." I looked at Hitsugaya, who seemed torn between anger and his unnaturally mature sense of justice.
"Yeah, Soul Society never really gave a crap about the circumstances of the individual that did something wrong. Right, Kuchiki?" I addressed the shrimp shortly, not allowing her to react before I went on.
"Yeah, I can understand that you Society Shinigami would just do whatever the high-ups say without questioning if it had a bit of justice in it, like a pack of faithful, bloodthirsty dogs." Renji, I'm looking at you. Literally. It seemed that the dog-comparison hit home for a bit.
"But what I can't understand, is that you four agree with this" I turned my gaze to the remaining four. "You always fought for what you thought was right, regardless of what others said, regardless of orders. And you're going to tell me that you see killing an unarmed, helpless victim as right? That suddenly you no longer care about protecting those who need protection? That you-"
"Enough!" Ishida seemed close to furious. "You think we are happy with this? You think we really care about what Soul Society says?"
I was too scared to answer.
"Have you ever, ever in your pity-partying mind considered that to us, you are nothing but an extremely dangerous, unstable and unreliable factor?"
I was too surprised to answer.
"You possess information that might decide the outcome of this war. If this were chess, your value would equal that of a queen." Somewhere I felt a little spark of misplaced pride in these words. Nothing like feeling incredibly important.
"But, while your value is that of a queen, your lack of any skills, defensive and attack alike, make you less than a pawn." Ouch.
He seemed to get angrier as he spoke on, but by this time I was really, really scared of the guy. I couldn't have stopped his rant if I wanted to. As he gave me another angry look and paused to breathe, I suddenly realized. He doesn't want this at all. He wasn't really angry about my whining. He was frustrated by what they were about to do, and tried his best to talk it right, to convince himself. Maybe not even that. Maybe he doesn't need to talk it right. I think I know where this is going.
I don't like where this is going.
"Do you understand? You might make or break victory, while at the same time you're an extremely easy prey for whoever needs your knowledge. You will need to be guarded at all times, slowing us down, constantly be in the way, constantly distracting us, constantly drawing attention, constantly needing attention, constantly posing a huge threat for us all. And in return, you have nothing to offer except more danger. You are only trouble. You're not needed. You are a burden and a tremendous risk that should not exist."
His reasoning seemed to cheer up the others as well. Ok, cheered up might not be the best choice of words, but it effectively ended their lack of resolve.
"None of us are happy with this, but if it's either you or the world…"
"We don't like it, but sacrifices must be made…"
"I'm sure you understand…"
"Please forgive us…"
"I'm sorry."
Swords rose again, an arrow was aimed, a fist reached up, I backed down. Ishida once again was the first person to make a move. He aimed again.
It didn't happen in slow-motion. At all. There was no such thing as slowed down movements; instead, everything seemed to go faster than normal. I heard a 'zing'-y sound and without thinking, I just turned around and ran in the opposite direction of the archer. For a whopping amount of one second, I ran away. Then several swords appeared in front of me accompanied by several dark figures. I couldn't see who was who, as my entire mind was focused on the blades pointed at me. I don't know which blade belonged to who, I don't know who raised the particular sword that suddenly went towards me; there was just an overhyped instinct screaming that I had to MOVE TO THE LEFT and that suddenly there was PAIN and that there was another sword and more PAIN and that I needed to RUN RUN RUN somewhere while the PAIN wouldn't stop and that I made a hella lot of noise and that the blades and shadows disappeared and that right beside me there was an explosion and after that there was more PAIN and I was so scared and that I couldn't stop thinking but I just had to GET OUT AND RUN.
I panicked. No matter how hard I try, all I remember now are random shouts, flailing black fabric, silver, explosions and pain, all mixed together in a chaos that left me no space for even the slightest non-instinctual thought. Everything was one big gruesome blur. Until-
Until-
Until-
"GETSUGA TENSHOU!"
F!Myrthe: And we end with another completely uncalled for cliff-hanger to piss off your scarce readers!
Me: Did I mention I'm not a nice person?
F!Myrthe: What is UP with this chapter? It's completely implausible on so many levels! Like the OO-
Me: Believe me, for once I have solid reason for pretty much everything that may seem strange in this chapter.
F!Myrthe: Suuuuuuuuuure. What's up with the ridiculous shortness of this pathetic excuse for a chapter anyway?
Me: Well, This was originally just a part of the next chapter, but that chapter got too long if this was included. So I just separated this as chapter 10.5 to heighten the suspense.
F!Myrthe: Suspense? What suspense? You already killed Willing Suspense of Disbelief when you wrote the first words of this story, and the rest of the suspense died when the first sentence was done!
Me: Keep on doing what you do and I will reconsider my idea to create weapons for you.
F!Myrthe: SPOILER ALERT!
~*~Opinion Whore Section~*~
So, I read this story all over again a while ago.
HOLY SHIT IT SUCKS. SERIOUSLY. I read and I was ashamed of myself. How could I ever have been proud on this story? The beginning sucks majorly. I'm confident that if someone else had written this and I had stumbled upon this story and read chapter 1, I would've run away screaming. Dear God… The horrible dialogue, the lack of action, the hair-raising grammar, the unbelievably lame puns, the unbearably slow pace, the terrible humour, the dreadful portrayal of the canon characters, the dreadful portrayal of the original characters… I could go on and on and on.
But before I do that: which chapter needs rewriting the most? Chapter 1 and two are in my opinion the worst, but hell, this is the Opinion Whore section, where I ask YOU things I'm too stupid to decide for myself!