Part 1, The Song
Shinji isn't sure what's worse at the moment, the silence that fell too suddenly or the screams that started shortly after.
Eyes screwed shut, he tried to block out the sounds of the others begging for Rose, asking what happened. Since the beginning of their captivity after the war ended, they hadn't seen one another, not since Aizen's causal flick of the wrist destroyed all of Hachi's barriers and the flash of white knocked them all unconscious before they each awoke suspended by chains in a cell.
Shinji isn't sure how far apart they are, but he knows the acoustics of the building they're in are high quality because just as easily as he can hear Kensei roaring for blood he can hear Mashiro's breathy little sobs, the ones he had to strain to hear when he was on the same couch as her in the warehouse.
For awhile they were screaming for one another, begging to be in one another's reach and making sure that they were each safe, or at least as safe as they could be at the moment. He had nearly cried with relief when Hiyori's shrill voice started to demand to be set free, that she was gonna kick everyone's asses.
A short while after they were able to confirm that they were still all together random periods of time would pass by without someone's voice and they'd be back but they would never say what happened.
It was around that time that Rose announced that he could not handle the silence and began to sing.
At first it was simple melody meant to fill the silence but over time it began to grow strong enough to cover the sounds of crying and the roars of the Espada for him to shut up. Rose switched between languages as easily as breathing, singing songs of love, loss, and of joy, calling back to all the times they spent together over the past century and whatever echos remained of who they once were before they lost the purity of their souls.
Shinji could remember back to when they were all training to control their hollows, how they could barely think for all the screaming still going on within their own minds and how Rose would still hum his little melodies despite having lost his music at the time. He had that warm look he only showed his closest companions as he picked up Kinshara for the first time in years, "If all you're going to do is moan and wail, then I'll sing and hum until it gets better, no one needs to live with such horrible sounds in the background."
It seemed like he was making good on his promise, his voice warbling and singing out despite the coughs that came in between verses and the soft moments of quiet between when he'd confirm that he was fine despite the hacking coughing fit he just had before immediately starting into the next song.
It was the moment that the music stopped that frightened Shinji the most. Right as Rose had been about to hit the bridge of the song it came to a sudden stop. For a good few minutes there wasn't even a cough to tell them that Rose was still there, and for a moment Shinji's stomach dropped as his inner hollow chuckled as he whispered 'You all always did joke he would one day sing himself to death.'
When he didn't respond to the careful calls of his name, panic set in. Even if Rose had passed out or something they all knew he was the lightest sleeper they had ever encountered even before Hollowfication sent his hearing sensitivity to the levels it was now. He always woke up easily and would always respond, this wasn't like him.
Shinji and the others knew their drama king very well, well enough to know that he never did anything half assed, that Rose would make good on his promise to sing his heart out, willing to turn his lungs to ash and tear his vocal cords to shreds rather than let the songs he would croon out to them come to an end before he saw them again.
"ROOOOSE!" Love's voice echoed once more down the halls of the castle, "ROSE SAY SOMETHING!"
Shinji wished his hands weren't chained to the ceiling so he could cover his ears and pray for anything but what he feared most.
—-
On the other side of the palace, Aizen stood over a Visored strapped down to a table as Szayelaporro continued his work.
As much as he wanted to remain stoic, Rose felt tears fall down his face as the pink haired arrancar wired his jaw shut and as Aizen began to heal the broken skin around his mouth.
Rose had just about to hit the bridge of one of his favorite songs when the door to his cell opened and and Espada with golden eyes froze him in his tracks. Before he could come to his senses and fight he had been restrained to a gurney and brought to this room where the pink haired Espada chuckled as he worked.
"Really Rojuro, was it really worth it to damage yourself in such a manner?" Rose wanted to jerk away from that gentle hand as it brushed against his cheekbone, but the restraints prevented any movement. "Your songs were lovely, that I must admit, a talent that no other Visored has seemed to show. It would be a shame to lose such a lovely voice, now wouldn't it?"
"I'm all done on my end Lord Aizen." The pink haired Espada gave a respectful bow before leaving the room.
The restraints holding his neck and head perfectly still were removed, allowing Rose to test the wires. Strong enough to keep his Visored strength in check, but with enough give to make sure he could easily breathe and shift his teeth if need be, all while holding his jaw in place.
"Why?" Rose choked out the word through his mangled vocal cords, the wires and his aching throat allowing him to speak only that one word.
A hand brushed through his hair, catching on tangles that had formed while he had been restrained in his cell, hands bound to the ceiling. Aizen looked deceptively gently as he then tugged against a particularly tight snarl. "You are not to cause yourself such injury again my jewel." His quick fingers untangled the snarl and continued on to another. "I don't wish for my things to become damaged as you allowed yourself to become. It was already enough of a pain to have to heal all those injuries after you injured yourself in battle with the rest of the collection, but now," the hand dropped away, "injured under my care."
Rose heard footsteps in the hall just before a smaller servant entered the room with a cart of tea. After a quick dismissal Aizen turned from the servant back to Rose. "I will be sure not to make the same mistake again."
A moment later, the table shifted and his upper body was elevated and Aizen held a cup of what looked like milk before him. Turning from it, he pressed his lips tightly together.
"Come now my Topaz, it's just a glass of honeyed milk. If you'd prefer, I also have tea if that would suit you better." The grip on his chin was enough to startle him as he was forced to turn back to Aizen. "I fully intend to rectify what you have done, especially if we want to keep that beautiful voice of yours. I will not let one of my collection break when I can easily fix them."
The lip of the cup pressed into the seam of his lips and the warm liquid glanced off of his upper lip as he screwed his eyes shut and tried to refuse the drink. "Don't be like a child my Topaz, take your medicine." At Rose's silence he continued, "Every choice you make to disobey me makes this harder on both you and your friends. Right now your punishment is already bad enough, do not make me have to do something drastic to make sure you all remain in my control."
The lip of the cup softly clinked against Rose's top teeth as the force increased. "Drink." The command was simple and Rose hated the sweet liquid as it soothed his aching throat, Aizen holding both him and the glass steady as to keep any drops from spilling. Once the glass was empty Aizen repeated the process several more times until Rose felt sick from the sweetness of the honey clinging to his tongue and throat.
"That will do for now." Reaching beneath the cloth of the tea cart he pulled out what looked like a glittering golden muzzle, shaped similarly to the beak portion of his hollow mask and made to completely cover the entirety of his face starting just below his eyes. "Considering how Kinshara is such a lovely shade of gold, I thought you would enjoy my choice of color."
Rose tried to jerk his face away from the offending object but too quickly it was secured, the smooth inside shaped to further hold his mouth in place. A quick struggle left him horrified at his discovery.
"With the help of the septima, I managed to get Hachigan to obey a few simple orders when I removed him from your group for a time. I had him spell this muzzle with kidos to prevent the ability to speak or be removed by the wearer."
Hachi had been forced to use his kido to make something like this? As the table was lowered back down Aizen began to push him out of the room and walked to several of the Espada gathered outside the door. "Return him to his cell, I want him to remain unchained and take anything that could make noise from his cell. Two guards are to remain at his doors at all times and I will call for him to be taken out of his cell to receive care. Do not let the others hear him." As the guards began to push him away Aizen smiled at Rose and gently called out, "Until we meet again, my Jewel."
Upon arriving at his cell and being released from his bonds he clawed away at his muzzle and pounded his fists on the walls, knuckles broken and bloody as the voices of his friends calling out continued to echo about in his mind while every part of him screamed to respond to the people he had become closest in the past century.
Hands slid down the wall with the rest of his figure, bloodied handprints left behind as he reached to hold his head to his knees.
—
Time was strange in Hueco Mundo or wherever it was that Aizen had his palace.
Lisa had lost track of the days quickly, and time seemed to drag on endlessly since Rose had gone silent. She hung limply from her chains, the ever present and dull pain that radiated around her body no longer anything but her new state of being.
The unending monotony following the start of the silence seemed to be both a comfort and a new level of Hell. At the same time she was thankful that this was all Aizen seemed to have planned for now she would have rather faced an army of Kushanada than have to listen to the sound of the others' struggles growing weaker and weaker, roars of revenge and anger replaced by half hearted struggles and the sound of soft crying.
She didn't even react when the door to the room appeared from the blank white walls, the female Espada leading her little lackeys into the cell.
"Doesn't seem like we'll have to hold this one down." The tallest of her Fracciones seemed a little disappointed in Lisa's acceptance of whatever they planned to do to her. She was faintly aware of the clinking of the chains above her head moving right before she began to drop to the floor, too weak to try to catch herself.
Not one of them spoke to her as the tallest Fraccion threw Lisa over her shoulder and left the cell, Lisa mumbled a curse about the loss of her glasses as the world turned to a monochrome blur around her.
Out of all of her rotten luck, Aizen had seen fit to take the glasses Kisuke had special made for her vision. Having intensely sensitive eyes and other senses came in handy from time to time but in Lisa's case it didn't work out so well. Lisa had to go to Kisuke for special glasses that could both handle her sensitivity and also clear up what damage she had prior to hollowfication.
Before she knew it, they were entering a larger room where, upon being dropped onto the ground like a bag of trash, she could make out the blurred form of Aizen and a number of arrancar around him.
She jumped as a warm hand slipped into her own and turned to see a shock of green surrounding a pale face. "Mashiro." Lisa almost cried upon seeing her, following the tilt of Mashiro's face to see that the other Espada were dragging in the other members of the Visored. "Is anyone missing?"
She was shushed by what looked like a very tall spoon with a face and was dragged to kneel before Aizen's throne with the others, the cool stone leeching away the warmth from her legs.
"So good to see you all again." Aizen was as calm as always, his figure relaxed and his fingers repeatedly rapping against the arm of the throne. "I'm sure your accommodations have been adequate." She could hear the grind of Kensei's teeth at the snickers that rang out from the gathered arrancar.
"Cut the crap." Shinji sounded strong, pulling himself upright and flipping his overly long bangs out of his eyes. "You aren't just here to gloat and i want to know what you did."
"Did to what Hirako?" Aizen rose from the throne to stand directly in front of Shinji.
"Rose." That wonderful name was hissed between Shinji's teeth, his entire figure tensing up in anger. "He's not here and no one's heard him in weeks. I know you did something."
"I had no part in what was done to him." Aizen turned on his heel and walked down their line of breaking souls. Taking a moment to run a hand through Hiyori's messy halo of blonde locks he spoke just as he pulled his hand away before she could try to bite him. "All that singing took a toll on his health and it'd be unwise to allow him to go back there when he'd last so little time in there."
Love's head bowed, "He's too sick to be moved?"
"Much less remain in those cells much longer. Without intervention he most likely wouldn't have lived much longer than he has now if he kept singing."
Mashiro's stifled sobs hiccuped beside her as Hachi too bowed his head.
"Which is why I'm deciding to step in. I can allow for you all to be moved to cells where you would all be able to see one another, and allow the opportunity for you to say goodbye to Rojuro." Lisa froze as Aizen stopped before her and lightly grabbed her chin and pulled her up to look directly in her blurry eyes, coming close enough to her face that he came into focus. "You would all be able to see one another and have other privileges, all for a small cost." His other hand traced the curve of her neck and throat. "All you would have to do is a very simple little task."
The hogyoku glittering in the center of his chest began to glow, and following a quick flash the gathered hybrids all recoiled in disgust at what had appeared.
"For the price of being able to say goodbye to your loved one and see each other everyday, all you would have to do is wear these."
The collar looked to be made of a simple metal but radiated the same draining energy as the seki-seki stone of the Soul Society. Lisa could recall seeing prisoners due for execution wearing collars with a small piece of seki-seki, but she had never encountered any materials that had the mineral imbued into it. To wear something like that for even a few hours would be nearly as draining as spending a night in the Repentance cell. Delicate chains of the same metal connected to matching shackles for each wrist.
"Just one little word and you'll have the ability to say goodbye." Kensei was testing the limits of how far one could lean back without falling over in order to keep out of the open collar's gaping maw. Aizen turned to where Hiyori sat frozen, eyes wide at the shining metal. "I'd hate to tell Rojuro that his friends refused to come see him when he was so close to the end." He tsked and turned away from them.
Rule one of their little family: No one gets left behind, no matter what. She didn't need to look at the others to know that they were all thinking the same thing, that there was no way that they would ever allow Rose to go without the others nearby.
Aizen didn't even have to ask again for them to accept the collars, the others all following Shinji's example as he bowed his head and held out his wrists.
"We'll do what you want, take us to Rose." Lisa's heart rose for the briefest moment at the strength in Shinji's voice, but once again sank as Aizen locked the collar around his neck, the gasping breaths following the choked noise he gave out after dropping from the weight of the collar settling like ice into her stomach.
As much as she wanted to sit tall and stare Aizen down as he locked each of their collars into place she couldn't stop from flinching and feeling her eyes tear up as she heard Hiyori's groans of pain and Mashiro's whimper as the heavy metal leached away their meager spiritual pressure, leaving them weaker than a weak Rukon child.
'I'm doing this for Rose.' Was all she could repeat to herself in her mind as the cold metal caused the skin of her neck to feel as though it was being burned, followed by the same fire reaching to encircle her wrists.
"Now, that wasn't so hard." Aizen chuckled as Kensei tried to keep from sagging from the drain ripping away any power he had managed to build up.
Snapping his fingers, Aizen called out to the pink haired Espada, "Szayelaporro, if you would please let Grimmjow and Nnoitra know to bring Rojuro in."
Rather than drag in the emancipated blonde that they all expected, they were greeted with the sight of the two espada dragging a fighting Rose into the room where they easily managed to contain him and throw him down at Aizen's feet.
It wasn't until Rose tried to get up that Lisa managed to see through those tangled waves to see something glinting on his face, shining metal streaked with tear tracks.
"Rose?" Such a tiny whisper yet he reacted as if she had screeched his name right into his ear, wide violet eyes turning to look at them, eyes catching on the collars and shackles.
"You lied to us!" Hiyori roar would have been more intimidating if when she tried to rise to her feet that her legs didn't immediately give out on her and spill her to land on Shinji.
"I only gave you a deal and facts my dear." He slipped a finger under Hiyori's collar and lifted her off Shinji and deposited her back into her original spot. "I told you that he was doing poorly and that I had to intervene to keep his health from getting any worse. You all assumed that I meant he was upon his deathbed." He tsked and leaned down to try to grab Rose's chin, unflinching as Rose jerked his face away from that hand and tried to scoot away.
"Shame, that he fears the hand that tries to heal him." Turning away from where Rose curled up, heavily breathing yet never making a sound. "He nearly wastes away to nothing while destroying his voice and I try to heal him only to receive this behavior in return." Clicking his tongue he shook his head, "I believe you all will have to make your goodbyes swift as he's quickly coming undone."
Lisa could feel hollowed heartbeats begin to fall into a icy grip. "But—"
"Once Ican be sure that he's isn't as likely to damage himself again I will have him delivered to all of you, but for now I have to assume he's going to do what he did again, so I'm going to make sure he keeps nice and quiet." That gentle smile crept onto that lovely face again. "I wouldn't dither, it's almost time for you all to get settled into your new home."
—-
Rose was vaguely aware of the change in his surroundings as he was dragged down a new featureless hallway, numb to the aches that came from being pulled across the ground by his bound hands, the new heavy weight around his neck not even warranting concern.
Coming to a stop, he silently sighed to himself as his escorts spoke to another arrancar.
"Aizen said he's good to be placed with the others." The rough yank of his shackled hands was enough to let Rose know that they were talking about him, the barest bit of interest running across his mind at the thought of seeing his friends again as the sound of a heavy door opening echoed through the halls.
Moving quickly, Rose barely had a moment to register passing Kensei and Shinji sleeping in barred cells before he was roughly thrown into an empty cell, the metal portion of the muzzle clanging against the bars near the corner of the cell, the metallic clang echoing through his fuzzy head and making him feel like his fillings were about to shake loose.
Released from the shackles, the tiny chains retracted into the collar and the arrancar left without a single word, the slam of the door behind him causing whatever of the Visored that had been asleep to awaken.
Judging by their wide eyes, he surely had to be some sort of sight, and most likely a sad one.
Everything in him wanted to say something, anything, even the slightest word to them. They had allowed Aizen to put chains on them because of him, and he wasn't even a worthy enough reason.
Tears began to burn the corners of his eyes as they all watched him try to speak, apologize, beg for forgiveness, something, anything!
A silent wail ripped through him, long fingered hands reaching up to once more try to claw away at the edges of the mask, little cuts appearing on his throat and face as he scratched at the muzzle.
Right as he doubled over, forehead slamming down onto his knees, he froze as a familiar hand reached through the bars and settle down into his tangled waves while the second gently pulled him against a knee that had managed to force itself into his cell.
Face resting against her knee, Rose recognized what Lisa as doing. Back before the war, whenever any of the girls had gotten upset, Rose used to pull them close and stroke their hair, never flinching at Hiyori's threats or Mashiro's wailing and tears. He would just sit there and let them do what they needed until the tears had been spent or words no longer were able to rip away at the issue at hand, softly humming as it went on.
'I don't deserve this. I don't deserve them...'
"Rose, I swear, if you try to pull away and cry dramatically in the corner I'm gonna castrate you." He almost laughed at Lisa's threat as she kept him from trying to pull away, she just knew him too well.
For a series of long moments, the cell block was silent, all eyes focused on the formerly missing member as he quietly shook as Lisa stroked his hair.
What to say? 'I'm sorry you were tortured and our first thought was 'Rose must be kicking the bucket?''
In the end, Shinji settled on another form of response he knew Rose would best love.
In a scratchy and long unused voice, he quietly sang.
"If you change your mind, I'm the first in line. Honey I'm still free"
"Really Shinji?" Hiyori was snorting as Kensei glared at him. "All the music we've ever heard him listen to and you chose 'Mama Mia'?"
"Hush, Meryl Streep and Rose understand each other on levels we insignificant mortals will never experience, now quit yer yapping."
"Take a chance on me~" Mashiro continued where Shinji left off before they picked up the tune again, Rose watching them with teary but amused eyes.
"If you need me, let me know, gonna be around."
"If you've got no place to go, if you're feeling down" Love's voice joined in, and soon they were all singing for him, just as he had for them.
"If you're all alone when the pretty birds have flown
Honey I'm still free
Take a chance on me
Gonna do my very best and it ain't no lie
If you put me to the test, if you let me try..."
The song went on, along with many others, lulling Rose into the first quality sleep he'd had in a long time.
—
On the other side of the palace, Aizen listened to the harmony the seven of them were making as they switched to another song, eyes on the screen where a camera was recording their little reunion.
"To think they all share such a gift." He traced a finger along the rim of his glass, the crystal singing a sweet note before he pulled away and leaned back in his chair. "I simply cannot wait to see all what my precious Jewels can do."
