#[[ also tousen's meaning about shuu having no fear in his words also now makes sense ]]

[kazeshinigami]

How can you say you are completely devoted to tousen and then kill him ?

do whatever you can to make my muse hate themselves

He has no response at first. What can he possibly say? The stranger is, of course, correct to question the hypocrisy of his actions. How can he explain himself when even he cannot reconcile what he had done within his own mind?

Komamura at his side, looking at him with concern. Shuuhei knows he should still be on the ground with the other lieutenants, barely able to move after Ayon’s onslaught. Yet here he is. The pain in his heart is already far greater than any injuries. He tries to confront his captain, his mentor, his family… only to be told that he still hasn’t taken the most important lesson truly to heart.

Traded blows. A brief moment when he seems to have Tousen at his mercy, when he all but cries, begs his most important person to explain everything to him. Tousen’s lack of compunction when he stabs Shuuhei and kicks him off a roof. The awful, horrible moment that Shuuhei sees what can’t possibly be an opening, because the Tousen he knows would never permit such an easy attack from behind, but he rushes in anyway. He has to, doesn’t he? He can’t let Komamura die.

The horror when his blade finds purchase, and he has to face that this isn’t the Tousen he knows (maybe he never was), and that premature grief is all that compels him to speak Kazeshini’s name and finish it.

Shuuhei unconsciously wipes his hands on his hakama, as if there may still be blood there. “…I… I struck… because I am completely devoted to the man he was… to the ideals that my captain taught me… If our positions had been reversed… I would hope he would have done the same.”

But such platitudes don’t make him wish any less that he could have taken Aizen’s final blow instead. He would gladly have given his life in order to give Tousen a second chance. And he will forever regret being unable to save the person he had loved most.