Chapter Nine

I didn't have to pushed through the looming white doors into the spacious room again. I walked in of my own free will instead, head held high and shoulders semi-squared. Grimmjow followed at a respectable distance: close enough for me to know he was there, but not so close that he could reach out and punch me.

I had tossed the spoon out of the barred window before leaving; there was no way I was going to use that utensil to eat again, covered in saliva and my hair as it was.

We had left the table flipped; the tray sat on the couch, everything that it had held still intact.

Aizen sat at the opposite end of the room, and I wasn't sure when I should stop walking. He looked like he was asleep, his head resting in one of his hands; it would be rude to wake him up. But why would Grimmjow bring me here if Aizen was just going to be asleep the entire time?

We see what we want to see. I froze mid-step, just long enough for Grimmjow to place his hand on my lower back and propel me forward.

The voice shouldn't have been heard. I shouldn't have been able to hear it; I took my medication, and enough time had passed since then for it to actually kick in. So why was I hearing it? What was going on?

And stop. It sounded stronger than it had in years, reverberating through my head and making me bend to its will. The words of the voice were crushing, paralyzing; I had no choice.

I stopped in the dead center of the white room, back rigid, hands formed into fists at my sides. My chest felt like it was constricting, my lungs like they were decaying with every shallow breath I drew. My limbs felt like they were dead weight, numb with panic.

Breathe, breathe, breathe, I thought. Just breathe. But I couldn't, not really. I was afraid—why wasn't my medication working? It should have worked; it had never shown signs of not working before. Keep calm.

I knew that if I did my best and kept my head about my shoulders, nothing bad would likely happen. All I had to remember was that the voice wasn't actually real, wasn't actually there, wasn't actually talking, wasn't, wasn't, wasn't.

"Kaori-san?" My vision snapped into focus. Aizen was looking directly at me, head still on his hand. Despite how large the room was, his voice didn't seem to echo.

"Yes?" Mine, on the other hand, echoed. The room seemed more cavernous than I had originally thought; even the outer walls were shrouded in darkness.

"How do you feel?"

Well. I hadn't thought that this was going to be a social call, but then again I had only met the man once, and at that time I had been a little more concerned about my bloody nose and why I was there than anything else.

"Uhm. Fine? I guess. I mean, you know, cagey and bored, but fine?" Answering questions on the spot was not one of my better subjects, even if they were about me. One would think that I would have been decent at answering them given my string of psychiatrists and other doctors, but it wasn't something I excelled at.

Even from the distance I was, I could see that Aizen had closed his eyes. Disinterest, perhaps?

"And your little problem?"

I swallowed. I wouldn't let him know; wouldn't let anyone know that I could hear it through the meds.

"Nonexistant." I did my best to sound absolute in my answer, to give him no reason to doubt me. Doubt destroys everything; doubt is something I can't have.

Liar, liar, liar, the voice taunted, the baritone of it reverberating off of my skull and making me want to fidget.

I fought to stay still, to stay where I was and not run. Running was useless; the voice was part of me, and I could not run away from it no matter how far I traveled.

"When was the last time you heard him?" A heartbeat ago.

"Ages. Years, I mean. At least six." I tried to stay confident, staring at him unflinchingly, trying to keep my voice from wavering and telling on me.

Liar, liar, LIAR, LIAR. And then the one voice split into two, both sounding the same but whisper-shouting different things. But you were telling the truth, weren't you?

I could feel my lips begin to quiver, my resolve begin to weaken. This was going downhill, going downhill quickly.

I blinked, gulped, flexed my hands. That was all the movement I would allow myself, especially out of fear that any extra movement would give the fact that I was lying.

"How is it you can manage to not hear it? It shrieks at you, does it not? Demands your attention, whispers in your ears, laments your subconscious sorrows." And suddenly Aizen's eyes were open. He was leaning forward in his chair, hands laced together beneath his chin. His face was like a mask of disinterest, but his posture said he was quite interested in what I would say.

He was making me uncomfortable. From the screeching in my mind and the sweat I could feel beginning to bead on my forehead, I knew this wasn't going to end in my favor.

"I just don't." I didn't want to elaborate; if I elaborated, I would be caught in my lies. If I said anything else, it would be obvious that I was lying. I was royally screwed either way. What had I gotten myself into?

Liar.

He's going to kill you, he's going to kill you. He brought you here to kill you.

Kill him first. It's better that way.

I felt like I was falling apart at the seams and nothing could put me back together again.

There was a smirk on Aizen's face, one I hadn't noticed before that moment. It was bone-chilling and knowing, like he was fully aware of the cacophony of noise that was rattling about in my head.

"And how easy is it to ignore it?"

My tongue felt like lead in my mouth, almost like I couldn't form words even if I wanted to. At that point, I was digging my own grave, trapping myself in my own words.

"Fairly easy."

Liar. Kill him before he kills you.

None of this is really happening. There were still two voices, but they were the same voice, and it had never happened before. None of this had ever happened before. But this really, truly was happening—my bruises could attest to that. I just had to remember that this was real, and it was happening, and there wasn't a whole lot I could do to change it.

I wanted to puke. I could feel the bile rising in my throat, threatening to come up all the way and force me to double over and empty the contents of my stomach all over the floor.

But suddenly, it was over.

"That will be all. Kaori-san, it was enlightening to speak with you again." I could feel myself on the verge of hyperventilating, the shallow breaths I had been drawing earlier harder and harder to come by. I barely managed to get my feet working and turn around as Aizen leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and resting his head back into his hand.

I walked—well, stumbled really—straight past Grimmjow and towards the door, breath coming in quick, rapid gasps. My vision was tunneled, throat constricting, the voice in my head screeching at me that I was a liar, that it was better to kill them before they killed me, that none of this was really happening.

And then I was in the hall, staggering about like some newborn giraffe. I ended up leaning against a wall, knees bent at awkward angles, shoulders heaving.

But then I was sitting on a bed staring at my hands, which were covered in blood. My mind was numb, my limbs felt weighed down and utterly useless. My mind was quiet, no screeching back and forth, no insidious whispers echoing inside of me.

It was blissfully, serenely quiet.

My vision was still unfocused, and everything besides the blood on my hands was blurred and colorless.

But god, did my head hurt. It was a pulsing pain, focused somewhat on my temples but mostly on my nose. My nose was throbbing, and I couldn't breathe in or out of it.

"Hey." I wanted to jump, startled, but I didn't. Instead, I wearily raised my head up, looking away from my hands to see Grimmjow standing in front of me, a soaked cloth in his hands. "Are you still a homicidal maniac, or is it okay to approach you?"

I frowned—at least, I think I did—and shook my head. "What?" My voice was thick, nasally. "What happened?"

Taking my answer in his own way, he tossed the damp rag at me. I made no move to catch it, and it landed in my lap with a squelching noise. Dumbly, I stared at the rag before looking at my hands and then back to Grimmjow.

"You freaked the fuck out and started throwing punches," he said airily, almost like it was nothing. Blearily, I noticed a small cut on his face.

I blinked, wondering where this was going. There was no way a little tiny cut on his face could be the cause of so much blood on both of my hands.

"And?"

"And I might have reacted and punched you in the face," he admitted with a shrug.

Well, at least the blood was mine.

Phew. New chapter up! The next one will be an intermission of sorts and should be out within a week?

Feedback would be great.