Disclaimer- I still do not, and never will, own Bleach.

Chapter 25

We Bend

Sitting on the couch, Sayomi gently rotated the tinkling bracelet on her wrist. The smooth, cool metal felt good beneath her fingertips, familiar and reassuring. With a heavy sigh she fell back against the cushions and stared at the white ceiling above her, her eyes unfocused. Having her spiritual pressure negated was a very big blow. She could do nothing against Aizen. She could do nothing against anyone. Aizen's scheme had made her little more than a bug that could be squashed at any time. She was vulnerable, defenseless. It was a feeling that she did not like.

The soft creak of the door opening was barely audible over the sound of her thoughts that were clamoring haphazardly through her brain as she tried to think of something, anything, she could do. She kept coming up with nothing that would make any difference and would only, likely, get her killed.

"You really should eat, Sayomi. You won't regain any strength if you don't. Then what good would you be?"

Icy blue eyes clearing as her thoughts scattered, leaving her all too aware of the vile presence in her room, Sayomi glanced at Aizen with bitter disdain.

The tall man strode easily around the couch she reclined on until he was standing in front of her, a smug smirk pulling at his lips.

"No need to look so full of yourself, Aizen," she commented dispassionately, returning her attention to the bright white ceiling above her. "You haven't won yet."

His deep chuckle made her jaw tense, but she covered her discomfort by feigning a disinterested yawn. The man gave her the creeps. He was so sure that he had already won, that he would have everything that he wanted and it was unsettling.

"I have, though. Everything will play out just as I've predicted, it has thus far," he replied.

"You certainly don't lack for self-assuredness," Sayomi observed tartly.

Ignoring Sayomi's retort, Aizen spoke again, "As much as I would enjoy spending the day in conversation, I'm afraid I have other things to attend to."

Something in the way he spoke, the way his presence seemed to grow in a way she could only describe as giddy sent an icy shock of foreboding straight through her. Lifting her head she met Aizen's eyes unflinchingly.

"Then why are you here?" She questioned slowly, thoughtfully. She hoped the dread that was beginning to settle over her like a suffocating dark cloud wasn't noticeable in her voice or posture.

When Aizen smiled at her indulgently she felt her blood run cold and knew that her composure had cracked, and that it was continuing to do so despite her best efforts to maintain an unaffected appearance.

"I'm here to ensure the outcome of a prediction," he answered.

Her hands curled into tense fists in her lap, a reaction she barely noticed as she kept her attention on the very dangerous man in front of her. She knew she didn't need to ask the question, but she asked anyway, "What prediction would that be?"

"That you would be my queen."

A rush of heat, of defiance, welled up within her. It didn't quite warm the chill that had overcome her, but that wasn't going to stop her from holding tightly to every ounce of her stubborn refusal to belong to Aizen in any way.

"I will never be your queen. I will never be yours," she spit hotly.

"We'll see," he replied casually. "In the meantime, there's something I would like for you to see."

Holding tightly to the fiery anger inside of her, Sayomi snorted derisively and quirked a brow at Aizen. "Not interested."

"No one said you had a choice."

His spiritual pressure slammed into her chest, brutally crushing all air from her lungs. If she hadn't already been sitting, she would have been forced to her knees. She had no doubt Aizen would have enjoyed that immensely, forcing her to kneel before him as if she were submitting to his will. When the spiritual pressure lightened, she gasped in a breath of air before shuddering as her body relaxed now that she could breathe once again.

"There is no use in fighting, Sayomi," Aizen advised, staring down at her arrogantly.

He was right, her unwillingness to comply was pointless, she was powerless. She had no choice but to do as he said. For now.

Rising, Sayomi slipped on a pair of black flats and then followed Aizen from the room. He led her through corridor after corridor, turn after turn. When they finally came to a halt they were in a room Sayomi didn't recognize. It was large and very plain. She glanced around, trying to understand what it could possibly be that Aizen wanted her to see, but there was nothing to see. Just an empty room.

"Ah, I see the guest of honor has arrived. Fantastic."

Sayomi could feel as the hair on the back of her neck began to rise, she didn't need to look behind her to know that the one to have spoken was Szayel, the resident freak scientist. Her heart began to speed up as Aizen chuckled.

"This room was put made just for you," Aizen informed her, smiling. "You'll be spending most of your time here from now on."

"There's nothing here," Sayomi pointed out, trying to keep the fright and uncertainty from her voice. Aizen's smile was like that of some vicious predator that had just found prey and was now ready to play with it until it died, slowly, painfully.

"That may be true," Aizen said as he began to step away and toward the exit. "But there is plenty to see."

She gasped as the room suddenly warped and the blank white walls came to life. "What is this?" She inquired, looking around herself uneasily as she found herself standing in the same field Gin had very nearly killed her in almost a century before.

"It's a lesson," Aizen replied. "We'll start with the easy ones and work our way up. I told you I would break you, Sayomi, and I will. We'll worry about rebuilding you later."

She repressed a shiver as anger tried to flare to life inside of her, but the flame of it was flickering and unstable. "I am not some toy that can be taken apart and put back together."

"Oh, but you are. We all are, really. Some of us are just more perfect than others, so there's no need to rebuild."

Screams and clashes of steel were beginning to fill the artificial night she had been plunged into. Despite knowing it wasn't real, she could feel the wind, smell the blood, and hear the screams.

"This isn't real," Sayomi pointed out defiantly. "You can't break me with images of the past."

"I don't intend to. This is just the beginning of our little experiment, Sayomi. I suggest you make yourself comfortable, you may be here awhile." Aizen smirked before turning on his heel and striding from the room.

She was left staring at Szayel, the pink haired Arrancar was grinning at her as if she was his next meal.

"This isn't real," she repeated, sounding more defiant than she felt. "You can't break me with false images of the past."

"You think they're false now, but..." the scientist trailed off as he pulled a syringe from his pocket and plucked the cap off of it. "I've been working on a little drug to mirror the effects of Aizen's zanpakuto. It's far from perfect, it's hard to recreate perfect hypnosis, after all, but I've found it gets the job done quite well. Reality is really just a state of being, isn't it? Why don't we see what happens when reality is no longer, well, real."

There was nowhere for her to go, with no powers and no way to fight back she backed away as Szayel approached. She felt like a cornered animal, she was crouched low prepared to fight or flee. Fighting would be worthless so instead she tried to dart passed Szayel, but the tall man caught her quite easily. He was laughing as she struggled weakly and he continued laughing after plunging the syringe into her neck and she began to scream.

"You talk too much," Ichigo grumbled with an exaggerated sigh as he plopped his chin into his palm and dropped his elbow on to his knee.

"Well, excuse me for trying to warn you that there might be vast differences in the powers of the Hollows that we've fought while in the living world and this one," Uryu replied shortly, dusting off his white coat before pushing his glasses haughtily up the bridge of his nose.

"We've been running for hours, but we don't seem to have gotten any closer," Chad spoke up, hoping to change the subject and keep the two stressed boys from fighting amongst themselves when they had other things that they needed to focus on.

Glancing behind him at the gigantic palace like structure that stretched out for what could only be miles, Uryu frowned. "The distance is hard to gauge, all we can do is keep running towards it."

"But who knows how long that'll take, we need to get Orihime and Sayomi out of there. Now," Ichigo said.

"I'm aware of why we're here, Kurosaki, but we're going to wear ourselves out if we keep going at this pace. Then we'll be of no use to either of them," Uryu retorted.

"Hm?" Ichigo straightened when he felt the white sand that covered everything around them move. He noticed a small lizard-like Hollow burrowing out of the sand, it looked around with it's large eyes before diving back into the sand and disappearing. "It's kind of hard to believe that those tiny Hollows could actually be as strong as some of the Hollows we've fought back home."

"This place is made of spirit particles, even the air is full of them and that's where they get their strength. It would be best to be on our guard, like I was-"

"Ok, Chad, let's go," Ichigo cut in, having stopped listening to Uryu a while before. He jumped up from the ground, patting his clothes free of the sand he had sat in for lack of anywhere else to sit and then started walking towards the domed palace of Los Noches again.

"Hey, I was talking!" Uryu snapped.

"Yeah, you do that a lot," Ichigo muttered grumpily.

"I was-"

All three boys stopped in their tracks as the ground shook and a loud roaring sound ripped through the quiet tension of the air. Looking behind them, they were surprised to see what looked like a human child that was crying and two adults running in fear from an enormous worm-like Hollow.

"There's no way! Humans other than us here?" Uryu shouted, face contorted with confusion.

"We'll think about it later, lets help them," Ichigo yelled back, grabbing his large zanpakuto from his back and charging forward.

It didn't take long to figure out that they were wrong. The little girl was a Hollow as were her two companions and the worm like Hollow was their friend. They had been playing a game of tag and had just been very, very in to it.

"We's very sorries!" The little girl cried, bowing with her friends to Ichigo, Uryu and Chad who all exchanged confused glances. "We's didn't means to cause a mithundertanding. We was just playin' a game."

"Uh, it's ok, but weren't you crying?" Ichigo replied slowly as her stared at the little girl. She had strangely colored disheveled light green hair and big brown eyes, her forehead was covered by a skull like mask that looked like it belonged in a cartoon not on a hollow, it was missing a few teeth and had a crack along one side.

"Nel's a masochist, it's no fun if they's don't chase me round 'til I cry," the girl answered happily.

"What kinda words are you teachin' this kid?" Ichigo growled, smacking the closest of Nel's buddies upside the head. He too was a Hollow, he was vaguely humanoid in appearance but wore a large tiki like mask.

"'Nel', is that your name?" Uryu asked.

"Yup, Nel is the arrancar, Nel Tu," she chirped with a toothy grin.

"...Arrancar..." Ichigo repeated in disbelief, scratching at the side of his head.

"And I'm her older brother, Pesche," a thin, ant like Hollow chipped in.

"And I'm his older brother, Dondochakka, yo," the Hollow that was wearing the tiki like mask added. They all then introduced their pet, Bawabawa before the group struck a pose that did nothing but earn them dumbfounded stares from the humans.

"I really can't wait to go home," Uryu muttered.

"Where is Sayomi?" Orihime inquired as strongly as she could muster.

There was an amused smirk on Aizen's face as his head rested against his knuckles and he watched Orihime attempt to appear strong and immovable. The girl failed majestically in his opinion. She couldn't hide the fear in her eyes or the way her body was tense and trembling while in his presence.

"Sayomi is learning a lesson. I'm afraid she'll be indisposed until that lesson has fully sunk in," Aizen offered casually.

Hesitating, Orhime glanced at Gin, but the man appeared as he always did. Amused by some secret joke that only he was privy to.

"Was there anything else?" Aizen asked.

Hands twisting and untwisting in front of her, Orhime shook her head and looked to the shiny floor. She could see her reflection staring despairingly back at her. She felt as useless as the reflection. Sayomi had disappeared several days ago, at least she thought it had been several days, time was hard to keep track of in Los Noches, and there was nothing she could do to try and help her friend. She tried not to think about the horrors Aizen was possibly subjecting Sayomi to, the man had said he would break the former captain and Orihime had no doubt that the manipulative man could do just that.

"No," she finally answered, softly, resignedly.

Sayomi sat slumped against the wall, her eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by dark bruises. Her cheeks were pale, her lips chapped and flaky. Her white hair was tangled and matted, hanging limply around her face as she tried to block out the visions and sounds around her.

Her body wouldn't respond to her commands, however. She was tired, so very very tired. Every muscle, every nerve, every cell in her body had been pushed beyond exhaustion. Yet, she couldn't sleep. She couldn't even cover her eyes or ears to attempt to gain even a second of peace from the death and destruction that had been her only companion since Aizen had left her in Szayel's demented hands.

There was a cackling laugh that echoed in her head, causing her to shudder in disgust and distress as her inner Hollow clawed at the chained and bolted door she was locked behind. The thing had escaped its bonds, had only to escape its prison now in order to attack her host.

Sayomi had to wonder how much of this Aizen had planned. Did he know that messing with her mind would cause her inner Hollow to go on a frenzy? Did he know what would happen if, when, the thing escaped?

Of course he did.

He wanted her broken, and broken she would be if the thing escaped while she was in the state she was in now. There was no sense of time while trapped in the torture chamber that kept making her see the deaths of every person she had ever cared for or loved. With each death the visions grew worse, more realistic, more frightening. Time had long since stopped mattering. What difference did it make how long she spent as the sole witness to the violent deaths of Byakuya, Kensei, her mother and father, her brother, and all of the friends she had made in Karakura Town?

She had tried to tell herself it wasn't real, she knew it wasn't real, but the only time that made any difference was when Szayel's drugs were wearing off. The rest of the time she felt as if she were drowning in blood and screams of pain and fear. Most of the screams were her own now.

"Byakuya," she mumbled, a tear falling from her eye and dripping off her chin to fall on to her ragged yukata.

She wanted to bring her hands to her ears. Wanted to close her eyes. To stop seeing and hearing the death of the man she loved. It was a slow death this time, not quick and violent like many of his others had been. Now he was slowly dying while a twisted version of herself made him suffer in horrible agony. All while she grinned and laughed, as if mutilating the man she loved so dearly was the most enjoyable thing she had ever done.

"Sayomi... I love you..."

Once again her agonized screaming filled the room, much to the amusement of the scientist watching her suffer on a screen in another room.

The world around her suddenly vanished leaving her to blink at the sudden brightness of the white walls that surrounded her. She would have raised a hand to attempt to fend off the brightness, but she didn't have the energy to even twitch a finger. Her muscles wouldn't even tense despite the feeling that she needed to protect herself from whatever new hell she was likely to be subjected to.

The door to her cell opened and she gazed up at Aizen blankly, she had no anger left, no defiance. All she had was fear and pain, raw and unadulterated sensations that left her entire being numb.

"We're not quite done here, but there's something I think you should see for yourself. Something more real than the nightmare you've been trapped in," Aizen told her. "Perhaps we should clean you up first, though. You're such an unsightly mess at the moment. To be expected, I suppose." The man sighed before glancing behind him and nodding.

Sayomi could do nothing as two unfamiliar Arrancar women stepped forward, hefting her easily from the floor of the cell and carrying her from the room. She wasn't sure when, but at some point the blackness of unconsciousness found her and she was rewarded with a short time of blissful nothingness.

When she came back around, it was like being lost in a foggy maze. You couldn't see where you were going as you tried to find your way out of the many twists and turns with only your hands to help guide you. All of your senses felt useless, there was nothing to see through the thick haze and your hearing was worthless with every sound being dulled by the same haze that stole your sight. There was nothing to smell, nothing to feel but the soft caresses of the fog on your cheeks and nothing to taste but the bitterness of your own fear.

She sat in the high backed chair she had been placed upon, looking very much like a fragile porcelain doll. Her face appeared to be forever set in the blank look that now adorned her features and she hadn't moved a single muscle in minutes as her eyes glossed over and she stared at the monitors that were flickering with life in front of her. Each one showing the fierce battles that her friends had partaken in and each one stopping to show a different angle of them as they took their final breaths before falling to the ground never to move again.

First it had been Chad that she saw fall, he had defeated the Privaron Espada he had been fighting, just barely, but he had. He had never left the scene, stopping for a moment to say a prayer over the body of the fallen Arrancar only to have a sword thrust through his upper chest and twisted violently. Only one angle showed the person responsible, his name was Rudobone. From the little Sayomi was able to actually understand in her current state he was the leader of the Exequias, an execution squad. Not only did he kill Chad, he killed the Arrancar he had been fighting, who had still been breathing.

After Chad, she saw Uryu and Renji as well as two strange Hollow she had never seen before. They were fighting with Szayel in a large room that had made their spiritual pressure useless and though they had fought hard and well, in the end it hadn't mattered. Rudobone and the Exequias showed up when Szayel appeared to have lost interest in them and had cut them all down much too easily. They had never seen the blows coming and even if they had, they would have been unable to stop them since they couldn't use their powers in the room they had been caged in.

Last, she was forced to watch Ichigo die. He had been engaged in a fight with Grimmjow, a fierce battle from what she could tell considering how beat up the two appeared when the video began to play for her.

"D-don't die, Kurosaki!"

Sayomi jolted, shifting her eyes to see that Orihime was standing a top a tall cylindrical building, a little Arrancar girl laying on the ground beside her.

After that everything was a blur for Sayomi, Ichigo was soaring through the air, shouting that he would not be beaten by Grimmjow. Grimmjow prepared to defend himself, slicing his claws through air and creating five sharp blades that were now shooting towards Ichigo, all of them were shattered as the orange haired boy knocked them aside, the hollow mask he had been wearing crumbling away little by little.

There was a spray of red liquid that rained thickly into the air and for a moment Sayomi couldn't tell just what had happened until Grimmjow began to fall towards the ground that was nearly a hundred yards below him. She watched as Ichigo caught the Espada's wrist and slowly lowered him to the ground, his body appearing to shatter and his sword reforming in his hand as he returned to his unreleased state.

There was no doubt in Sayomi's mind that Grimmjow would not accept his defeat, he was still breathing and to him that was not defeat, it was pity and he would not accept pity from anyone. It was no surprise when Grimmjow began to slowly force himself up from the ground while Ichigo had gone to Orihime and the little arancar girl who were still watching the scene from the safety of the broken building they had been left atop.

"Like I'd lose...There's no way in hell that I'd lose to a guy like you," Grimmjow shouted forcefully, taking a step towards Ichigo and raising his sword.

Ichigo frowned down at the blue haired Espada. "This fight is over. You'll die if you keep going."

Grimmjow snarled, wobbling slightly as he stepped forward. "You could never beat me! You haven't won, yet!"

"I'm not going to kill you so just accept that you lost, already!" Ichigo shouted.

"If you won't kill him, allow me."

It was Rudubone who spoke, appearing suddenly and thrusting his sword into Grimmjow's chest before violently wrenching it free as the Espada gasped and choked on his own blood.

"Hey, who the hell are you and what gives you the right to attack a guy who can barely move!" Ichigo shouted angrily at the newcomer whose head barely turned in his direction as if Ichigo were nothing more than a little annoying fly that didn't deserve his time nor attention.

Ichigo started as the mask wearing man disappeared in a blur, reappearing in front of him and unrelentingly stabbing his sword through Ichigo's chest, right where his heart should be. A look of pure incomprehension found its way to the substitute soul reaper's face and his body shuddered, bright red blood poured over his lips and dripped down his chin.

The Arrancar girl had been dispatched with ease. So had Orhime, though, the last to fall. Her beautiful red hair was stained a darker crimson as her blood seeped from the slash to her throat, pooling around her body where she had fallen. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, her mouth open in a terrified scream that she would never vocalize.

Words couldn't even begin to form in Sayomi's mind let alone find their way out of her mouth as her pale blue eyes stayed locked on Orihime's still form and open eyes. She had never felt quite the way she did now, it was a strange, inexplicable feeling that she would never be able to put into words. All she was capable of was staring blankly at the screens that were now all frozen on some different grisly angle of each of her dead friends and the people who had tried to help them. Even Rukia was displayed on one of the screens, but she had yet to notice. Her eyes were busy taking in every final detail of the limp bodies of her young friends that would never again be able to move from where they lay, framed in their own blood.

The tears in her eyes went unnoticed by her as her eyes came to a rest on Uryu's still body, his glasses were broken and laying beside him giving her a clear view of his face and the pain he had felt in his final moments. He was lying in a pool of his own blood and his eyes stared blankly into eternal nothingness.

When she blinked her eyes to clear the mist that had clouded them, she finally noticed that Rukia was displayed on the monitors as well and she stared at the girl's motionless body, unable to feel anything other than hollow and lost.

"Do you understand now, Sayomi?" Aizen inquired, leaning down beside the woman who was still staring vacantly at the monitors. "While what you witnessed in that room wasn't real, this was. These images are real. Your friends are dead. I may not have killed all of those to mean something to you, but it's only a matter of time. Especially when they seem so willing to come to me."

The monitors all flickered and displayed different angles of the same scene: Byakuya standing over Rukia's body, his gloved hand tightening on the hilt of Senbonzakura as he glanced coldly behind him at Zommari, the Espada number 7.

"Zommari will keep Byakuya busy for a little while, until I can have him retrieved and brought here. Then you'll kill him."

Her long pale eyelashes fluttered, restoring some life to her eyes and she trembled, fingers gripping onto the arm of the chair.

"You heard me correctly, Sayomi," Aizen taunted, his breath hot against her neck. "You will kill him. It wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

There was an involuntary twitch, a spasm that caused her to gasp in an unsteady breath as her eyes closed tightly. Images flashed across her eyelids, gruesome and appalling. She was killing Byakuya, making him suffer, reveling in his pain and the feel of his blood against her skin.

"No," she mumbled quietly.

"What? Did you say something, Sayomi?" Aizen inquired, straightening up behind Sayomi.

"No," she repeated, louder more forceful.

Her eyes snapped open and when they did the room erupted into chaos.

~A/N~

Hello again... It's been awhile, huh? I've had a plethora of health issues, surgeries and biopsies.. Plus, I completely lost my muse. I'm attempting to get her back and this appears to be the first step. Hopefully I'll be able to get some other stories updated too and soon.

Anywho, hope you enjoyed this very long awaited chapter...

Feed the monster on you way out? ;)