#bleach spoilers cw

[opscurus]

// MY GOD that escalated quickly, I wasn't expecting it. :o The camera panning and movements there were so cool!!! I'm on edge to see what happens. ALWAYS love Shiro Sagisu and the way he brings life to the series with such amazing and haunting pieces.

Also, the ending to the episode being the title of the episode itself. They did a good job at bringing it all back around. I'm not really wanting to read the manga any further to watch every episode with clean eyes ;;w;; AND the ending theme is so good, I enjoyed it more than the opening.

[deathberi]

ZOMBIE HITSUGAYA vs KUROTSUCHI

[kotohinaaoi]

𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍.𝐈𝐍𝐃.𝐒𝐄𝐌𝐈-𝐒𝐄𝐋 Is a blog

Based off 𝓑𝓛𝓔𝓐𝓒𝓗 by 𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐊𝐔𝐁𝐎

It is 𝐀𝐔 friendly. &. 𝐎𝐂 friendly

𝑻𝑯𝑰𝑺 𝑩𝑳𝑶𝑪 focuses on. 𝓚𝓞𝓣𝓞𝓗𝓘𝓝𝓐 𝓐𝓞𝓘

A original character & A young Quincy

Written by 𝓘𝓥𝓞𝓡𝓨, THIS BLOG WILL

CONTAIN TRIGGERING TOPICS,

(Link to cardd hidden in underlined text)

[apocalypta-secundus]

I made funny memes from today's episode so uh

Insert 1 read more

(I'm making icons!)

[cc-ichigo-kurosaki]

Part 3 OPENING Without any words by SIX LOUNGE BLEACH: Thousand Year-Blood War

[torawro]

I’D DIE FOR YOU (AND I HAVE). ( s.a. )

sousuke aizen & black!fem!reader.

cw ━━ ! minors, blank and ageless blogs DO NOT INTERACT. reader is portrayed as a black woman but you do not have to imagine her that way. using this map of the seireitei as a reference (i searched high and low for a consistent accurate one but it was hard). the first half is set pre-ryoka invasion / pre-soul society arc. the second half is aizen-centric (from his pov told from the 3rd person) and set post-tybw arc, years after he was sealed away in mugen, also including mention of events from vol. 1 of can't fear your own world (a light novel that's post-tybw & can be considered canonical); so all this being said: SPOILERS i guess???? of course you're welcome to read if you don't care about spoilers! somewhat based on 'die for you' by the weeknd & even more loosely based on 'dark red' by steve lacy. contains themes of heavy-ish angst, existential crises (?) & inner emotional turmoil within reader + aizen (separately). descriptions of character death, blood and violence. descriptions of manipulation/mind games. aizen is an unkind man. proofread (i did my best).

word count ━━ 11k

notes ━━ ! the way this fic was supposed to finished a month ago...but life once more gets in my way. and the way that it's this long....i anticipated the max being 10k but i greatly underestimated how long it would take to flesh out my idea. anywho i'm somewhat reentering my bleach era again. i’m not sure what it is but character analyses in the form of fanfiction is my jam rn like i really enjoyed writing this (i got tired of the length by like... 7k words lmao) but i like how this turned out. i've watched & read quite a bit of content that provide explanations as to why aizen is the way he is so i wanted to try my own portrayal of that in the context of canonical events. how i characterized him here is partially inspired by a fic i read about him last year so shout out to them for their support :D i hope i've depicted and humanized aizen well ♡. reblogs + commentary are heavily appreciated!!!!!

THE PAD OF YOUR THUMB SLOWLY glided against your bottom lip, the lingering aftertaste of jasmine tea still on its surface and on your breath. The absentminded motion of your thumb caressing your mouth, as if in deep contemplation, continued as you stared at the clock hanging on the wall above you.

It was past eleven, and the midnight hour only continued to draw near as time sustained its temporal march. And there you sat at your desk, floating in the limbo of your mind that was filled with hesitancy and admittedly, budding anticipation.

Your gaze lowered to the now empty porcelain cup, nothing remaining of its contents except the shriveled remnants of herbs and a few wayward drops of the brew.

Your senior comrade, captain Sōsuke Aizen, was correct in his prediction that you'd take a liking to its floral and delicate taste when he gifted you a jar full of the jasmine tea leaves as well as other ingredients.

The captain of Squad 5 seemed to be correct about a lot of things.

His intelligence and foresight, along with his kind and politely witty disposition, were qualities that you found somewhat charming, and gradually drew you closer to him.

Being the current third seat of the 9th company, your barracks and those of squad 5's were relatively close to each other's, so often you'd catch glimpses of and run into Captain Aizen on a pretty normal basis. Over the years, the conversations that bounced between the two of you expanded past the realm of formalities between a higher and lower ranking officer, and instead ranged in territories from literature, to art, to food & drink, and even to the politics of the government for which they were soldiers for.

Sometimes, you found it hard to believe that you managed to befriend a man like him. A man who seems to have mastered the balance between being a gentle soul, helpful to others, but also possessed enough refined power and skills to be named a captain within the Gotei 13.

Especially a man who wasn’t even of your own squad.

Despite the increasingly friendly relations and generally pleasant conversation, there were few moments where Aizen's words didn't feel quite. . . . real━ he didn't feel real. He spoke eloquently, often relying on figurative language to further illustrate his point and to breathe meaning into seemingly plain and meaningless words. But at times those words, his tone felt stained; stained with some substance or color you couldn't quite place. An enigmatic façade was painted over his speech, and it took too much mental capacity to try and find your own meaning in it.

So you'd often brush it off. Your over-reliance on your own reasoning that 'you weren’t able to come to a conclusion because there is no problem a conclusion could be generated from' successfully quieted your mind’s voice. You'd also frequently blame exhaustion, or your newfound hobby of watching human psychological crime shows during your off days for these subconscious ideas you had.

But you feared that the request Aizen made of you yesterday, the source of your current predicament, couldn't be blamed on any of those things. You looked at the clock again before returning to stare at your empty tea cup. For what reason could Sōsuke Aizen wish to meet you outside of the 1st division barracks? Specifically at this hour? You immediately thought of his question as uncharacteristic of him but prevented yourself from jumping to any further conclusions.

Aizen was a reasonable man, and you were sure there was a reasonable explanation.

With a final sigh of acquiescence, you stood up from your sitting position to retie your yukata before slipping a thicker, dark colored haori on top. You were unsure how cold it was this late at night or how long you'd be out, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

You paused for a moment, glancing longingly at your vanity mirror a few times, clearly torn between a decision, before giving in with a soft groan. Grabbing your favorite perfume, you quickly spritzed the spray onto both your inner wrists, either sides of your neck, and stray areas on your clothes. You’d proceed to make sure your hair was in order and your lips were as moisturized and glossy as a pair of tear-filled eyes before making your way to the door and slipping on your sandals.

Meeting with a captain— with Aizen of all people— in the dead of night resembled too closely to forbidden lovers rendezvousing under a fruit tree to fulfill their desires of embracing one another, with no one but the moon as their witness. The comparison alone caused the apples of your cheeks to burst aflame with embarrassment, and you lightly chastised yourself for even indulging in such an inappropriate train of thought. Such a scenario seemed far too deluded to even be considered ‘wishful thinking’.

But those delusions still seemed to make more sense than whatever other conclusion you have yet to reach.

Making your way out of your personal quarters, you activated your shunpo technique, stealthily hopping from one rooftop to the other in an effort to make it to Squad 1 barracks quicker.

After several minutes, your mind mostly engulfed with the 'what if's', the soles of your sandals finally touched ground, and you stood a few feet away from the massive walls and bridges that connected to and from the barracks. Even at night you were able to make out the bold-printed kanji for the number 1 that was painted on the building.

When you arrived, even from a nearby rooftop, you didn't see anyone around. Feelings of confusion and worry began to creep up and flicker to life in your mind.

But, as if your thoughts were as audible, you felt a light breeze of wind behind you, a familiar sound that indicated someone had made their presence known.

Startled, you reflexively reached for your zanpakuto, when you remembered that you hadn't even brought it with you. It still laid against the wall near your bed, just where you placed it earlier when you were relieved of your duties for the day.

You didn't think you needed it necessarily if you were just going to meet with Aizen, hence why taking it with you slipped your mind.

The flickers of concern were swiftly extinguished as your brain caught up with your body upon realizing who just appeared. A relieved sigh left your lips, a breath of air that seemed to release all the tension that had a grip on your heart and wound tight within your muscles. "Ah! Good evening Captain Aizen. You caught me off guard for a moment there."

"My apologies, that was not at all my intention." The Fifth Division Captain sported a dark colored scarf, his long captain's coat and the standard shihakushō all Gotei officers were supposed to wear. In the sash around his waist resided his own sheathed zanpakuto. His tawny hair maintained its usual part but looked slightly tousled, yet still remaining so in a meticulous fashion that made it look intentional.

The state of his hair alone, and his current facial expression made Aizen look more . . . approachable if that’s how you were to describe it. There was a glint in his eyes that you had seldom seen before.

"Thank you, for making your way down here to accommodate my rather. . . . atypical request. I again extend my apologies if I have inconvenienced you in any way."

You shook your head in reply, "It's alright, I wasn't doing anything too important anyway. Just having a cup of tea and delighting myself in a book before bed."

You glanced downwards at the foot or so of space that was wedged in between the two of you. You forced away the murmurs of your lingering thoughts that took note of how the moonlight and shadows danced across the surface of Aizen's face just right, and emphasized his decidedly handsome features.

"But having a complete and good night's rest is important to be fully functional in all areas of one's performance. Wouldn't you agree?"

You couldn't help but chuckle softly. "Yes, I do agree with that sentiment."

Aizen all but hummed in acknowledgement, letting a moment of silence fill the air before speaking again.

"Shall we be on our way?"

You nodded in agreement, following him as the both of you walked about the First Division grounds. From what you could tell based on your position, your aimless nightly stroll drew you closer to where Sokyoku Hill was located. The area became increasingly more grassy and contained less buildings.

Although Squad 1 grounds weren't terribly far from either of your barracks, you still weren't sure as to why Captain Aizen wished to meet out here. Initially you thought that perhaps he was just fond of this particular scenery, but really it could have been anything.

But still, you believed Aizen always had a purpose for everything he did.

After several moments, his warm voice replaced the evening silence, vocalizing your current thoughts. “I assume you are contemplating why it is I have asked you here, and I’m afraid the reason is quite benign. Truthfully, I just wished for your company. I often go on night walks to clear my head after a long day and thought I might invite you to join me this time, and have a conversation with each other."

Your brows shifted upwards, for that was not quite the answer you were expecting. It seemed too . . . simple. “Really? You just . . . wanted to talk with me? Plainly?”

The Squad 5 captain let out a short, soft laugh at the disbelief that was painted on your face. There was an expression of fondness present in his eyes and in the light smile he offered you. “Yes, exactly. I quite enjoy our discussions actually, they’re intellectually stimulating and relatively pleasant. You crossed my mind, and before yesterday, it has been quite some time since we’ve had the opportunity to unwind and talk.”

You hummed an mhmm in agreement, tearing your eyes away from Aizen’s side profile in favor of the hem of his captain’s haori, watching how it danced in the soft breeze. It seemed to be less distracting than the way Aizen peered down at you from time to time.

"I see. I am. . . . truly flattered by your words, Captain Aizen; you're too kind. Forgive me for asking but," you took longer strides so that you could fall into step next to him━ as if to speak to him more directly, "Why at this time? To talk with me, I mean. It couldn't wait until more . . . . . conventional hours?"

He chuckled again, and answered as smoothly as if he were awaiting you to ask him that. "Unfortunately, today's tasks ran a little long today, so I had to stay at my office later than usual." The spectacled man paused for a moment, before setting his soft gaze on you, "And besides, that completely defeats the purpose of inviting you on a night stroll, doesn't it?"

You ignored the heat flaring up in your cheeks again. Your mind refused to move past the fact that you had crossed Sōsuke Aizen's mind enough times━ or the times that he thought about you were significant enough━ and highly enough to invite you into his realm and indulge in these moments with him, when he very much could have done that alone.

A tender smile appeared on your lips, more towards yourself than the man next to you. "I. . . suppose it does."

The ashen-white moon only rose higher in the sky, providing an ambiance of tranquility as the both of you talked about whatever crossed the surface of your minds. Other times, the stillness of the night did the talking, and you'd listen to the leaves, and the wind, and the crickets sing together in harmony. Gradually as you walked and the beaten path grew more narrow, your figures drew closer together, until you could feel the long sleeves of his haori brush against your own.

You hadn't noticed that the two of you eventually stopped walking and paused under a tree until Aizen struck up conversation once more. When he called out your name in that gentle, velvety voice, you swore your heart was going to lurch out of your chest. The sound of your name rolled of his tongue so smoothly, the desire to hear it again grew within you.

"Uh━ yes, Captain Aizen?"

"Are you satisfied with way things are at the moment?"

You stood next to him, perplexed at his inquiry due to its vague nature. "Um, what. . . . things? I'm afraid I don't understand what you're asking."

The wind brushed Aizen's dark ochre tresses across his face as he took a step towards you, like the breeze itself was pushing him towards you. "Hm, perhaps I should be more clear then. Are you content with being a soul reaper? Are you satisfied with being a soldier for the Soul Society?"

With your brows slightly furrowed in thought, you remained silent for several seconds and overanalyzed his every word, trying to predict where he might be steering the conversation now. The longer you thought it over, the stronger that nagging feeling from within your soul became. The one that often told you what he was asking wasn't exactly . . . it didn't quite feel . . . . .

"This feels like a prelude to another insightful discussion on Shinigami━ and by extension━ Seiretei politics." Your words cut off your own thoughts, as if your mind was trying to sweep something under the proverbial rug.

Aizen huffed in amusement, before lightly shrugging, leaving your statement definitively unanswered.

You sighed as you seriously considered his question this time. "I mean sure, I guess. I'm somewhat satisfied with my job and all of . . . this," gesturing your hands in the air around you to emphasize your point. The 5th Division Captain made another humming noise, indicating that you still had his full attention. He inched a little closer into your personal space.

The mere action caused your next words to die in your throat and a quiet chuckle resounded from his, before your thoughts revived themselves again.

"Of course things could always be better but. . . . y'know. This is just how it is." You weren't quite sure if you should voice negative opinions about the Soul Society so plainly to a senior officer, even if he was the one who asked you in the first place, so you treaded lightly.

The same plainly relaxed smile from earlier remained painted across his lips, held in his chestnut irises was an emotion akin to affection. He seemed somewhat pleased that you were expressing your thoughts with him.

“And you? Are you satisfied, Captain Aizen?” You were unable to keep the teasing endearment out of your tone as you returned his gaze, casting aside the notions of Gotei officer seating and ranks for the moment. The air seemed like it shifted━ towards what, you weren't sure of━ but it kind of made you feel like you were adrift, floating in isolation from everything else around you.

It was still hard to process that you were alone with Captain Aizen right now. . . . at night.

A low hum reverberated within his chest, contemplative in nature as he replied, “Perhaps.”

The wind whistled lowly again, erecting goosebumps on whatever part of your skin happened to catch the midnight breeze. You fought the instinctual urge to twitch towards the nearest source of heat, which happened to be Aizen. Now that would be even more wholly inappropriate than the 'lovers meeting at midnight' scenario.

The silence between the both of you was brief, but comfortable nonetheless. Once more his mellifluous voice cut through the quiet, leveled and calm, like still ocean waters.

“Come. I want to show you something,” Aizen reached his arm out towards you, your spine as straight as if someone stuck a metal rod dipped in ice water down your robes.

The captain's movements seemed steady and slow━ it had felt like time itself had hesitated for several moments. You thought he was going to . . . . well you weren't sure what he was going to do, and that's what you made you nervous.

Was he going to touch you? Cradle your cheek? Remove a stray leaf that happened to land on your head? You were left somewhat dangling in anticipation, not daring to flinch backwards because you felt it would be disrespectful or offensive. You hadn't even blinked, subconsciously fearing that this was only a very vivid daydream.

But alas, when his arm drew near it extended past your head, slightly above you, and held a small branch in his palm it like a delicate flower. You released a breath you didn't know you were holding, but that breath drew short again when your gaze was eye level with his lower neck and chin.

He seemed . . . . closer.

“I think that regarding the condition of the Soul Society," Aizen began in a quiet voice, referencing his own reply to his earlier question, "and therefore my thoughts about it, is akin to this set of leaves on this branch."

Snapping out of whatever stupor you seemed to have slipped in, you exhaled softly before stepping back a bit to look at what he was talking about. In his palm he cradled a wayward branch that grew from one of the other sturdier branches of the tree. The green foliage of its arms had started to weaken and dull in color. The cold air due to the seasonal transition to autumn caused the leaves become brittle, nearing closer to the edge of death.

The sound of just how brittle they were resounded in the air when Aizen thumbed the leaves in between his fingertips, observing their texture with pity laced in his small movements.

"These leaves will fall off as it gets colder. And soon, the rest of this tree will be bare as well. When the time comes, when the right circumstances fall into place, the old die to make way and usher in the new; it's simply the way things are. I think of the Soul Society government is structured in a similar manner."

You hung onto his every word, like he were imparting crucial wisdom to you. Even though you were a bit confused on the last part, and on the connection between dying leaves and Soul Society, you still listened intently, waiting for him bridge the gap between the two.

"The Soul Society as it is now can be thought of as a season. And this particular season, this climate has remained so for several centuries. How can nature continue━ how can we continue to progress when the old have yet to be washed away by the currents of time? It defies that of nature, yes?" He directed this question at you specifically, in search of your agreement.

You nodded your head, tearing your gaze away from the branch and directed it at the grass beneath your feet. Your brows furrowed a little as you mused over Aizen's words. He gave a rather ambiguous answer before but now, his words sounded like vague displeasure and muted criticism. Everyone was entitled to their opinion, and on some fronts, you'd sometimes agreed with the 5th Division Captain. The Soul Society was far from perfect, too much emphasis on nobility and status, the government resembled too closely to an oligarchy . . . But you didn't━ wouldn't voice these thoughts, though.

Instead you hummed quietly under your breath. There was that tugging sensation again. This time it told you that there was something deeper to this conversation than meets the eye. But what could there be? Was there anything at all or were you just overthinking it?

The voice-like sensation in your soul was calling out to you, but you couldn't hear it that well or quite make out what it was saying. It's as if someone was calling out to you in a crowded room that had music playing on the speakers: you felt like if you listened hard enough you could make it out but ultimately, the result would fruitless.

"And when that happens," Aizen continued, "sometimes nature has to be gently nudged back on track to keep things moving smoothly. That may require . . . shaking the tree. Pulling a few harmful weeds from one's garden, so to speak."

"Weeds?" You echoed. You felt like you understood this analogy and therefore what he was trying to say, but at the same time you didn't. Or was it . . . . you didn't want to understand what he was implying?

Because if you were interpreting his words correctly, if he were inconspicuously comparing the higher-ups and the government itself to dying leaves and harmful plants that needed to be removed, then . . . .

"You, dear child, are a mere weed in this scenario."

Wait, what did he just━

Your thoughts were cut short when a gush of air that smelt strongly of Aizen━ warm oak, vanilla, and a kind of musk that you weren't sure how to describe but was still pleasant all the same━ brushed against your face and took you by surprise.

But there was another aroma that arose, steadily becoming more apparent alongside the increasingly painful throbbing feeling you felt in your abdomen.

It smelt metallic. And it was something that you've smelt all too many times before.

It was blood.

Your gaze that was initially narrowed in confusion lowered as it followed the source of this pain. Your eyes slowly widened in as you struggled to comprehend the blade that was currently ran through your torso.

Aizen's blade.

"Actually, instead of weeds, a more accurate and befitting analogy perhaps would be blades of grass. You unfortunately have to step on them in order to reach the weeds you want to remove."

You couldn't really focus on what the captain was saying, because your brain was still struggling to process what the hell just happened. Your hands slowly rose from their sides and shakily grazed the zanpakuto, wanting to believe that if you touched it, it would pass right through your fingers like mist. But no, the sensation of cold steel was as real as the robes you wore on your back. You only just now are processing the muffled squelching sound of his sword impaling your flesh.

You wanted to scream, to cry in pain, to vomit, to push him off━ something. But all you could do was stand there, stunned, words completely failing you. "Wh. . . . what? Why did . . . . you . . . . "

A cough replaced your attempt at a comprehensive sentence, and you tasted iron in your mouth.

Fuck....was this really happening?

"Please don't push yourself trying to talk," His voice was like an index finger to one's lips, similar to a parent's gentle caress to quiet and sooth their child, "You'll only hasten your death. And I'm sure you wish to know the reason for my killing you, yes? You'd have to be alive for that."

'Killing me?' 'My death?' The certainty that rang in his words chilled the blood in your veins, and they confirmed the one conclusion you hoped wouldn’t come true: that you were going to die.

The frigid embrace of fear and dread engulfed you from behind and you shivered, causing the blade snugly lodged in your organs to shift. The pain of that foreign object moving even a little bit shot through your entire body, causing a groan to emerge from your throat.

Desperate to conserve your energy and the oxygen that was becoming a little harder to take in, your breathing became uneven and a little wheezed. Even then, you couldn’t bring yourself to meet the gaze of Captain Aizen to confirm if this was really happening or just an extremely realistic and vivid nightmare. The sight you might be greeted with could be more frightening than the actual impaling of his sword.

As if his betrayal couldn’t actually or figuratively cut you any deeper, just then there was a noise that grew louder and louder within a matter of seconds until it was almost deafening. You’ve distinguished it to be the sound of glass crackling.

Your surroundings formed cracks everywhere on its surface, like it was just an oversized window. Even on the grass you stood on, or what you thought was grass, began to crumble away.

A dumbfounded but panicked look was plastered on your face when your world literally shattered around you, the only remnants of it being you and the Captain.

What was underneath the mirage━ or you should say, the fact that it was a mirage at all━ only disturbed you and increased your perplexity.

Slightly hunched over and breathing heavily, it took a minute to process where you were, but you noticed that now the two of you stood in a formal room that looked like it was used for important meetings. The lights in the room slowly started to brighten, most likely due to motion sensors. Even with Aizen's scent lingering in your nose, you could still pick out a rather stale aroma that hung in the air like dead fruit that hadn't fallen off the tree.

"Is . . . this Cen . . . tral━ "

"You are correct. Where we currently stand is the assembly hall for Central 46, the judicial power of the Soul Society. All judiciary as well as legislative trials and proceedings are held here."

All around the room were seats with partitions, the kanji for 1 through 46 printed on them. In the seat for the 19th member, your gaze caught onto something on the translucent barrier. It was a little farther up so you had to squint your already blurring vision to see it properly.

You saw, and your heart promptly sank as a result, eyes widening once more.

There were splatters of a dark colored substance on the partition━ undeniably blood. And the lithe, bony fingers of an older man laid lifeless, peeking out from the side of the screen like the appendages themselves were trying to escape from the body they were attached to.

That man . . . was dead. That stale aroma you smelt was the stench of death.

It was only after that unsettling epiphany did your eyes dart frantically around the room and realize that every member of Central 46 was dead.

The disturbed expression on your face only intensified as your stare was pulled back down to where Aizen's blade still resided in your body.

" Cap.....Aizen," you uttered, swift to correct yourself. All the moisture in your throat dried up like water underneath the unrelenting rays of the sun. You kept gulping your saliva in an attempt to assuage the sensation, but relief only last for a fleeting few seconds. "Did you ━ you killed them . . . didn't you?" Your question was laced with shaky hesitance and swelled with apprehension, fearing that you already knew his reply even before he answered.

There was a moment of silence and a hum before he replied. "Smart girl."

The muted mirthful tone in his voice sounded like sarcasm, and it was enough to finally draw your attention away from everything else and directly look at him. Almost instantly, you regretted it.

His umber tinted gaze was colder than you remembered. You couldn't find anything in his eyes that hinted that all of this was just a big misunderstanding, or a dream, or that Aizen had a secret sense dark and complex humor.

This was your first, and apparently your last time, that you have ever felt a fear such as this. Your mind was struggling to comprehend this was the same Aizen that spoke with you so gently, full of encouragement and wisdom. The same man that recommended you books to read and gifted you tea to drink and gazed upon you like . . .

Well, none of that mattered now. In this moment, Sōsuke Aizen wasn't the same man anymore. This Sōsuke Aizen was someone else, and it frightened you.

"When?" you croaked, your voice no longer sounding like your own. Nothing felt real anymore. "W-When did you . . . . . how? Why?"

Another noncommittal hum resounded from the spectacled man as he closed his eyes, feigning the action of thinking of an answer. When he reopened them, his narrow gaze returned to you.

"Everyone in the Thirteen Court Guard Squads was previously aware that the ability of my zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu, allowed me to confuse the enemy using bodies of water, mist and even moisture in the air in order to attack. However, that is not my zanpakuto's actual power; there is more to it than just simple confusion. Kyoka Suigetsu's true power is Complete Hypnosis. Essentially, when someone looks at my blade, I am then able to take control of that person’s five senses, causing them to believe that something is real ━ or that something isn't real. In a way, once glancing at my unsheathed zanpakuto, that person forfeits their sense of existence to me. Kyoka Suigetsu is quite flawless in its deceptive abilities."

A heavy silence, aside from your uneven breaths, endured in the space between both of you. You didn't need him to spell out what he was trying to say.

It was all . . . . an illusion. A convoluted, premeditated illusion. And you walked right into it without even knowing or considering, that it was all fake.

The Fifth Division Captain inwardly smiled at the despair clearly written on your face as he watched you mentally put the pieces together. He took your lack of reply as a sign to continue. "The members of Central 46 have unfortunately been dead for quite some time now. And as for your question of why......"

The taller man stepped towards you which inadvertently (or purposely, you began to fear), drove his sword deeper into your abdomen without warning and slight force. You bit down on your bottom lip hard to stifle your exclamation of pain. In an attempt to somehow resist him, with the little strength you had left, your hands automatically took purchase in his oversized sleeves, but it did nothing. You found it ironic that you could feel how warm Aizen was underneath his robes, but his soul was anything but.

" . . . . I believe I already mentioned it earlier, yes? All flowers die eventually and the weeds......must be removed."

At that moment you remembered that tugging sensation that told you something felt off in some instances whenever you talked with Aizen. This must have been what it was. Damn it all. You still didn't understand exactly what bad things Central 46 and the Soul Society have done to cause his actions, but based on what you've been told and your current position, it must have been heinous. Again, you actively swallowed the urge to vomit.

"You . . . you lied. I can't believe━ how could it have all b-been a lie?" Another nasty cough rattled your body, followed by a shiver and a groan.

The brown-haired man slightly tilted his head, like he was truly confused. "Lied? Hmm, well. I suppose you could put it that way based on your limited knowledge of the circumstances, but I wouldn't put it that way. Besides, this isn't really about truth or lies. It is, and always has been, only about the reality of what is. And what is, is that you were unable to anticipate my deception. No one could, because it was outside the domain of your thoughts. What is, is that the current way the Soul Society operates is tainted, and I shall be the one to remedy it."

You drew another shuddering breath and looked down at the ground with a grim expression as your blood continued to pool at your feet. Briefly, you even considered unsheathing yourself from his blade and take the chance to make a run for it, but the chances of you making it to the outside world, let alone coming across someone before you bled out and died were slim. Besides, it was clear that you couldn't even trust your own senses anymore after Aizen demonstrated that he had complete control of your reality.

Which reminded you of something else.

" . . . when?" you asked the same question again, but much quieter than before, despair palpable in your voice. 'When and how did you subject me to your zanpakuto's Complete Hypnosis?', is what you were really asking. And being as intelligent as he was, the spectacled man understood.

Abruptly, with a large palm on the small of your back, Aizen used his gentle hold grip to pull you towards him in order to close the remaining distance, causing him to drive the remaining length of his zanpakuto all the way through until the tsuba of his blade rested against your stomach. You looked like a skewered piece of meat.

You didn't have the willpower to hold back the piercing shriek of agony and physical anguish as tears sprung forth from your eyes. You could no longer tell if your blurry vision was due to your tears obstructing your sight or if it was from being a step away from death's door.

"Do you remember . . . the first time we met?"

The hand that rested on your lower back slowly glided upwards until his fingers found your jaw. With a tenderness that reminded you of a time before his betrayal, he lifted your chin and guided your gaze to look at him directly. His thumb moved to graze your bottom lip just as you've done mere hours ago━ as if he knew that, as if he watched you do it. His thumb was dangerously close to slipping inside your mouth and that both excited and scared you. Your breasts against his, your breaths synchronized with his, your body and his were fully pressed against each other and it made focusing on his question more difficult.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. The first time . . . we met? Sure, with a little bit of effort you could easily recall the first time you formally met Aizen. It was sometime in the spring, and you remembered him running through combat formations with his lieutenant and the rest of his squad. But why d━

A silent gasp left you. Another epiphany, another figurative blade piercing your heart.

Battle formations, and he . . . offered you to join them . . . his zanpakuto . . . . .

Confusion crumbled away, and was replaced with vacant horror and sadness. It seems you've already been defeated, for many, many years now.

Aizen seemed to murmur something under his breath, a pleased sound you couldn't quite decipher. His mouth brushed over yours, rendering you literally speechless, before he closed the distance and brought your lips together. You could barely process what was happening.

It was ironically tragic how soft and skillfully gentle his lips were against yours. The kiss felt longing, like a departure between two sweethearts and their last meeting together. It also felt heavy and final, making you want to cry.

And you did. Silent tears streamed from your eyes and rolled onto the fingers that still held your face so affectionately. The captain reacted by guiding your chin up a little further, dipping his head a little lower, so he could deepen the kiss. You weakly scorned yourself for thinking about how the two of you must really look like lovers now, sans the sword sticking out from your back.

Oh, how cruel this was; how cruel he was. It was cruel for him to kiss you like this, hand still splayed on your back like he needed to touch you stay sane. And how cruel it was that still managed to enjoy it, even as you stood there dying. Your lips moved together in tandem, slow and almost passionate, all while tears stained the apples of your cheeks, drying up the plush youth that once resided in them.

Aizen's tongue had slithered its way into your mouth, and you suddenly felt like crying harder. There was a tart, sweet flavor lingering on his tastebuds, and you absently wondered what is was. Perhaps hibiscus from tea, you surmised. And he too tasted the sweet jasmine and citrus that clung your tongue and lips. At this, he chuckled quietly into your mouth, humming before retracting from you by a few inches so he could speak.

"I knew you would like the tea. It's sweet and flavorful, isn't it?" You hated how low his voice was, how its timbre pleasurably vibrated and rumbled against your lips, and you hated that lidded stare he gave you. You again thought it unfair that you couldn't even revel in the rare sight of Aizen's lips slightly wet because your lips were intertwined with his.

"I have to thank you for humoring me and my recommendations. I really appreciated it. And I also," you winced loudly and cried out in affliction as Aizen finally began to withdraw the sword from your body, "must to bid you farewell now. It seems you don't have any more time left, and this has dragged on for longer than it needed. I'm not surprised you've held out for this long, as I already knew you possessed commendable strength. But alas it wasn't enough. I am sorry that you have to die; it's rather regrettable that you happened to be that blade of grass that ended up underneath my foot."

Another wail was yanked from your chest as he steadily removed his sword from your abdomen. The pain was becoming excruciating, you would have collapsed by now if the taller man weren't holding you.

You saw two things before the light in your eyes had all but faded away. The first were the colors of faux pity and apathy that swirled in Sōsuke Aizen's irises, spiraling like a storm that was certain to wreak havoc in its wake. His gaze was devoid of any regret or remorse; the final metaphorical nail on the coffin. The second was a small smile.

But this wasn't one of his smiles you were familiar with. No wait . . . . the one you knew was simply a veneer of what is.

This smile was slanted, the corners of his lips tilted upwards and was sharp. Sharp enough to cut open your already gaping wound further and completely tear you apart, spelling out your demise. It looked insidious as if it were hiding razor-edged fangs. This was what is; Aizen's real smile.

"I. . . I see. Aize. . . ." were the last words you were able to manage. You didn't have the strength to be upset or hurt any longer, so you gave in to the exhaustion.

Your body permanently relaxed, long lashes veiling your now empty eyes as your arms lifelessly dropped to your sides. The captain found a disturbing amount of pleasure in his name being the final word you attempted to speak before succumbing to the sleep of death.

And even after the fact, the facade of doomed, star-crossed lovers persisted as your body slumped backwards. Aizen's strong forearm wrapped tightly around your waist being the only reason you didn't fall to the ground in a puddle of your own blood.

That day was the last anyone saw of you, your zanpakuto still laid idly in your room, its spirit destined to forever wander in the afterlife between worlds alone, eventually fading from existence without ever feeling the presence of its master again.

They had declared you missing by the end of the next day. Lieutenant Hisagi was probably the most perturbed about your sudden disappearance. Days, weeks passed, and they never located you. The Gotei 13 was left unsettled by the lack of progress, but ultimately had to rule your case inconclusive. Some believed that you were simply killed by a stray hollow, or even ran away from your duties because of the stress.

The news of what happened spread like wildfire across all the squads, that a high-ranked officer just up and vanished without a trace. The spirits and morale of the thirteen companies dampened, sorrow and worry swelling like a festering boil.

And that boil burst when Ryoka infiltrated the Soul Society, and when it was revealed that all of it was carefully orchestrated by Sōsuke Aizen.

Like a blade of grass that somehow snuck into one's sandals or in between their toes, during his time in Hueco Mundo, images of you flashed in his head at unexpected times when his mind was quiet. He'd remove the grass, tossed you aside, and moved on with his day. There was no room for you in the grand scheme of things. Such reminisces were beneath someone like him.

And yet.

He'd always find another piece of grass from the greenery he stepped on whenever he advanced a step in his plans. There you were again.

It was common knowledge that if you kept repeating the same action over and over, it will eventually wear you down.

━━━━━━ 鏡  ━━━━━━━

It was dark, and there was nothing.

There had been nothing for quite a long time now. Utter darkness and the abyssal shade of black engulfed every inch of Aizen's body and surroundings.

He saw nothing, the seals over his eyes too opaque to let anything through. And even if they weren't obscuring his vision, he would barely be able to see three feet in front of him; there was seldom a few lanterns in his cell to begin with. He felt nothing but the bindings that kept him imprisoned in one of the deepest pits of the Seireitei. At times it felt like even his internal organs had stilled in their functions. He heard nothing but the unrelenting quiet of his cell within Mugen's maw. The only thing that served as proof that he hasn't spontaneously grown deaf yet was the occasional muffled noise that originated from outside of the entrance. And even then, he could hardly hear much of anything.

Such is an ironic fate for someone who, with a stray thought and a glint of his blade, could control someone's senses and take away their free will to experience those senses in their reality. And now, he was stripped away of all of his in nearly every capacity.

Sōsuke Aizen was rendered stationary and stagnant, qualities he detested and were the antithesis of his ambitions and plans, perhaps even his existence.

Aizen had always believed in being in control of your own destiny and making your own choices; if you had the opportunity and the power to change something━ especially if it was something that was wrong, unfair or immoral━ then one should be able to move towards that goal by making change, even if by force. The former captain had always been intentional about his actions and his desires right from the start.

And yet, here he ended up.

Spending years strapped to a chair in this dark, cloistered hole, Aizen had nothing but time to reflect the reason for his arrest: that orange haired Ryoka boy, Ichigo Kurosaki. He had nothing but time to admit to himself and settle on the conclusion that his last battle with the substitute Shinigami . . . did something to him.

Fighting the Ryoka boy ignited something inside him that he previously believed would forever lay dormant.

The thrill of a challenge.

Adrenaline was injected into his veins with each clash of their swords, spreading far and wide across every inch of his body. It no longer reacted in the measured, calculative manner he had programmed it to, but with unadulterated, pure instinct and raw power━ all in an effort to not only withstand such potent spirit energy from his opponent, but to come out on top and win.

It made him feel alive.

Aizen's desire to be the victor in battle and in his philosophy━ to prove himself right━ both fueled him and consumed him so thoroughly it led to his own downfall. That was a rather difficult fact to acknowledge; so much so his head started to pulsate intensely whenever it crossed his mind one time too often.

All of it unfolded right in front of his eyes and yet . . . he didn't really see it happen.

As time passed during his perpetual incarceration, with hooded eyes, the former captain spent an unfathomable amount of time tossing and turning every single event that led him to this underground prison, even pondering his temporary release by the Head Captain Kyōraku to fight in the war. Scenarios both minor and significant displayed itself in front of his mind's eye as if he were watching a film.

Every so often, a blurred visage of your image would make a brief appearance, like the flickering sparks of a match before they were able to come to light, fading away into the void and were overshadowed by his other thoughts. It was as if his own consciousness and intentionally muted any manifestations of your existence in his memories. As if he wasn't able to or allowed to see them━ to remember you for too long.

Mentally reliving moments from the last several months, years, decades, centuries━ trying to analyze each moment and decipher where it could have went wrong━ turned out to be quite an exhausting task. His mind and body would grow heavier with inertia, and eventually he would succumb to the alluring pull of slumber. After some time he would rouse from his sleep, and continued from where he left off.

These were his daily activities day in and day out (even though he had trouble distinguishing day and night in his chambers) for years. He saw a positive side to it though. He'd instead think of it has him getting stronger because he had spent so long . . . thinking. Ruminating. Contemplating every possibility in the past, present, and future. His mind would become as sharp as his zanpakuto.

Aizen had always been intentional about what he did, what he said, and how he conducted himself. He was sure in his abilities to orchestrate an image━ a belief for others to have faith in, and act on it in order to further his goals. He was always sure in that image, knowing who he was and what he stood for.

Or at least, that's what he thought.

Aizen wasn't consciously aware that his certainty in this crafted image had already begun to waver. He could not and was unable to anticipate how severe these small fractures had become until after a certain lieutenant paid him a visit outside his cell of confinement, right before he was scheduled to be thrown back into that dark hole of the Mugen.

Lieutenant Shuhei Hisagi was quite emotive when he burst through the doors. His expressions were contorted in volatile mixture of frustration, anger and sadness. His emotions were every which way, directed at everything that has happened so far, including himself. He was especially emotive at Aizen specifically for what he did to former captain Kaname Tosen and 'corrupting him with his twisted ideals.'

Aizen found amusement in that.

Before he was rolled away by the punishment force and therefore out of earshot, a particular set of Hisagi's words caused the small, content smile on his lips to uncurl ever so slightly. "Everything . . . and everyone that has ever gotten themselves involved with you has been trampled on by you and your ideals one way or another, and they all end up dead. If you think what you did to Captain Tosen was justified━ to call it mercy . . . . . then there is truly no justice in this world. You will . . . forever be the enemy in my eyes."

There was a trembling anger in his voice. Pain that wanted to cry out and be set free but, the thin lid of reason prevented it from doing so. And after a moment of silence, the corners of Aizen's lips curved upwards once more. A little bemused, a little more wolfish this time. He maliciously imagined Hisagi's reaction if he ever discovered the true reason for your disappearance.

But instead, all he said was. "What an interesting thing to say, Shuhei Hisagi. Your conviction is admirable." Any evidence of emotion that might have been reflected in his sepia irises was swallowed up and obscured by the darkness of the Mugen's jaw.

The cracks in Aizen's sense of self, in his beliefs, in the image he invented started to cave under the weight of Hisagi's words before he himself realized it was happening. They were like stains in the fabric of his mind that refused to come out.

What puzzled him more, was that with each attempt to figure out just why Hisagi's words echoed in his mind, they all lead back to you, the third seat of the 9th squad. Annoyingly so.

The tattooed lieutenant hadn’t said anything particularly profound ━ at least, Aizen didn't think so. Your name didn’t even fall from his lips. So why were memories of you and your likeness the only clear thoughts he could make of Hisagi's speech? Was it because he was aware of how close the two of you were? He doubted the reason were that trivial and insignificant.

His thoughts grew more discordant by the day, his soul a little more weighted than usual. Perhaps these new seals that Urahara had fashioned actually had an effect on him, Aizen thought. It made sense. His intellect, other than his own, were the only ones capable of creating such effective restraints.

After a while, he had a revelation. This was a different kind of weight.

This heaviness, the closest word he knew to describe it as . . . . was loneliness.

Time taunted him as it seemed to drag on━ Aizen grew even less sure of how much━ when he came to this realization. Hisagi's words were a clear mirror to the loneliness that echoed within him after what happened to you and to Tosen. It was so . . . potent, that it seemed to strike some chord in Aizen he had never heard before.

Such a chord, this sound of loneliness, it was strange and uncomfortable; he wasn't very fond of this sensation. He'd try to scrub it away, but it was all for naught.

His eyes had slid shut at some point, his ruminations leading to dead ends and wearing him down. And, almost as expected, there you were again, in all your translucent glory. The hem, the sleeves, and even the smell of your yukata slowly dragged across his dreams, haunting his thoughts like a lonely wraith.

And Aizen hardly dreamt of anything.

When he regained consciousness he was plagued with yet another epiphany. An additional reason behind this newfound depth.

Aizen's own loneliness. Guilt. Much to his own quiet horror.

How foreign and unusual a thing like guilt is. It was like looking into a mirror and not recognizing something you had never noticed before, but wondered if it had always been there.

But the thing Aizen did recognize, how lonely he actually felt, was something he had hoped would never resurface again. It was a notion he hadn't had the time or regard to consider━ 'loneliness'. Its only purpose, if any, was solely to serve as a motivator. At times though, it was more like a hindrance.

Something akin to nausea slowly started to bubble up in the pit of his stomach, but he suppressed the sensation before it became any more intense.

What of his previous actions did he need to feel guilty for? He hadn't felt it then, so why would he feel it now? Again he ruminated such a question endlessly into oblivion.

The former captain had no doubts that his plan to remove the Soul King, and therefore the Soul Society's sins, were necessary.

Nor did any hesitancy about removing the opposition or dead weight━ whether shinigami or arrancar━ existed.

He certainly had no reservations against killing Kaname Tosen, for he knew the man well enough to know that Tosen would have been so thoroughly appalled with what he had become, it would have drove him mad.

So what was it, then? Why were such useless emotions as guilt and loneliness being amplified n━

"Y....know, S....."

Even covered by the seals, Aizen's eyes widened and his brows were slightly furrowed in distress. Had his mind finally tipped the scales of sanity and madness, to the point where he was hearing things?

It was quiet for several moments longer, before his senses caught onto the sound of water dripping onto a hard surface.

One drop at a time.

Its cadence a little too rhythmic to be natural. And for a second time, he heard that soft, ominous sounding whisper. Its voice a little clearer this time.

"You...know.....Sōsuke."

In the second it took for his eyes to flutter shut behind its seals to blink, when he reopened them, he was no longer sealed to the walls and floors of the Mugen, nor was he surrounded by every shade of darkness imaginable. His limbs and senses were finally freed to breathe for the first time in what felt like ages.

That relief was short-lived when his senses absorbed the unending landscape of water underneath his feet, water lilies lifelessly floating on its surface, and the dim sky illuminated by a full pale moon.

Aizen was in his inner world, and now he was aware of how he got here, or rather who brought him here.

"You . . . already know the answer to that question, Sōsuke." The voice was even more clear, its sentences more comprehensible. And it sounded it eerily like you.

Why the voice was impersonating your likeness had caught him off guard for half a second, but he realized it was only the work of his zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu.

An illusion it may be, there was an untouchable quality about your voice and how you spoke that even Kyoka Suigetsu couldn't replicate.

A few feet away from him, the water was disturbed by a being emerging from the depths. Ripples formed around a manifested version of his zanpakuto, who took the form of you, smiling ever so gently. The smile felt airy, and it didn't seem like the same one that haunted his dreams and every waking thought as of late. It felt....knowing.

Still, the former captain couldn't be bothered to maintain eye contact with his sword spirit, so he turned around and opted to keep his unreadable stare trained on the vast expanse of water and white lilies.

"It's been quite a while since I have stepped foot into this realm. There must be something you want . . . Kyoka."

The zanpakuto chuckled, it sounded like the way you would softly laugh at one of his clever quips. But this wasn't you.

He didn’t want to admit that something about that fact didn’t sit right with him.

"Judging from your tone, would I be correct in assuming you don't want to be here?"

Silence rang out within the soul scape, before Aizen interrupted it, his gentle voice colored a shade darker, and a little rigid. "And I fail to see the reason why you must take that form when you revealed yourself to me. Is your aim to get a reaction out of me? Or something along those lines?"

Your eyes━ the eyes of Kyoka Suigetsu━ narrowed at its master's back, as if they were trying to create concavities in his skull. But the expression was washed away the moment it appeared, the serene smile from before was back in place.

"You know . . . it's considered quite rude to not look at someone when you're addressing them. That, and when you deliberately ignore things they say. Your manners have been deteriorating, Sōsuke. Tsk, tsk."

Kyoka-dressed-as-you suddenly appeared before him, as if they had teleported. Even when they were in his peripheral vision, Aizen still maintained his stare off into the distant nothingness.

"Unless, you can't find it in yourself to look at me. . . that's correct, isn't it? It's because I look exactly like her, right?" The zanpakuto continued to provoke him, taking a step closer into his personal space.

With an exasperated sigh, his eyelids fell shut for a second, using that time to gather the strength he didn't know he needed, and directed his gaze to meet his spirit's. Aizen's face gave nothing away, but his heart lurched about his chest when his bronze eyes met with yours, or what was made to look like yours. The undesired affect it had on him was all the same.

"If you wish to chastise me about manners, I suggest you take your own advice. You didn't answer my first question, either: what is it you want? Why am I here?" Again the former captain chose to not address the other parts of Kyoka's statement. For the sake of his sanity and his thinning patience━ or was it to preserve his resolve?

Its smile widened a bit, moving another step closer to their master. God, Kyoka even smelled like you, mimicking your signature honeyed scent that Aizen didn't realize he found so intoxicating until this very moment.

"I called you here to save you from yourself."

Aizen remained silent, only narrowing his eyes in speculation. "Meaning?"

"Didn't I already say it earlier? I think you already know what I'm talking about, Sōsuke. You've always known."

Fate's pairing of Kyoka Suigetsu with Aizen was a match crafted from the spindles of heaven, but also a maddening curse pulled from the depths of hell, for they complimented each other a little too well. The zanpakuto was too perfect a reflection of Aizen and his soul, looking at it started to hurt his eyes.

His sword spirit insisted that he already knew the reason for his coming here, and perhaps he did have an inkling the moment the light of epiphany was shone on his profound loneliness and guilt. But that couldn't have been what it was referring to . . . . could it?

"You cannot feign ignorance here, my dear Sōsuke, however I do find it rather humorous you bother trying. If you'd like, I don't mind humoring you by spelling it out for you. I'd be glad to unearth the truth that you have buried in the most neglected corner of your heart."

"When you were . . . . subjecting yourself to such mental torment, it had an affect on this world as well. The ripples, the waves in this scape become quite . . . tumultuous." The nuances in your voice were perfected by his zanpakuto, but the way it talked sounded like a fog that was gradually closing in from over the horizon. The uneasy feeling that resided in his chest traveled down to his stomach, but Aizen's face remained steely, even when Kyoka Suigetsu took that final step to close the gap in between them. "And the reason for that, the reason why Hisagi's words rattled you so is because you regret killing that woman."

The creased line in Aizen's brow grew more prominent as he stared down his sentient sword spirit. With its breast pressed against his, they placed a hand on his clothed chest in a tantalizing manner, but he felt nothing. There was no warmth from its palm, much unlike when your hand touched him. There wasn't even a cool sensation either. Even minutes before your death, your touch brought a soothing heat that permeated through his shihakusho and penetrated his skin.

Kyoka's face grew nearer, their smile━ although still tender looking━ grew cold at its edges, nearly resembling that of a predator eager to see despair reflected in the eyes of its prey. It didn't fit the graceful allure of your face at all, and seeing this expression deeply unsettled the former captain more than he would like to admit.

"You regret . . . killing me."

A chill tore through Aizen's body, the weight of Kyoka's words adding onto the heaviness that still hasn't been alleviated from his heart; he was hardly able to suppress the involuntary shiver.

Without warning, Kyoka's mouth suddenly became dangerously close to their master's, its lips brushing against his in a provocative manner. Aizen's expression darkened when he realized that it was reenacting his last encounter with you when you were alive. His mouth started to grow uncomfortably dry, despite his soul scape being full of moisture, and there was a taste on the back of his tongue that's been lingering there since he arrived.

The lilt in Kyoka's tone continued to taunt him. "That is the reason for your guilt: regret. You have been in denial. And in the spirit of unearthing truths, I suppose I can admit that perhaps . . . . I've been . . . . encouraging said delusions, adding drops of fuel into the flames of your emotions and ambitions. But after all that's happened, when it comes down to it there's no point in continuing this hallucination any longer. I've grown tired of this game, so it's time to for you wake up now, Sōsuke. I've brought you here to release you from your own illusion, to completely shatter it."

Aizen's back was as stiff as a board, not moving a millimeter when Kyoka's lips grazed his again. They were breathing softly onto his mouth, but he hardly felt any puffs of air.

The former captain was having a rather difficult time processing the fact that his zanpakuto had its own agenda and had been manipulating his emotions without him noticing. Specifically the emotions he felt towards you.

He never truly believed that such a thing was possible, one's own blade having such a deep-rooted influence━ no, control over their master. Or would it be more accurate to say that he never expected himself to be controlled to such a degree? He that prided himself on being freed from the marionette strings of fate that were tied to his limbs and mind, he that relished being able to do what he wanted, think what he wanted, feel what he wanted━ or what he didn't want━ it was hard to believe that none of that mattered in the end.

Kyoka Suigetsu's deceptive abilities were indeed undeniably perfect. No one, not even Aizen himself could have anticipated that Kyoka's most absolute and complete hypnosis would be enacted on himself.

"Do you know now, Sōsuke? Do you understand?" Kyoka's voice was as soft as a whisper, but it couldn't hide the edges of its tone that were still sharpened from finding amusement of seeing the truth flash across its master's face. "You had destroyed the solution to your existential question of loneliness, before you could fully understand the question itself."

Yes . . . . . Aizen understood now.

He didn't bother acknowledging what Kyoka had said. His grim facial expression━ still, tinged with dolor, and paired with an indescribable, distant look his eyes━ said all that it needed to. His silence was as much as an admission as any.

Kyoka-dressed-as-you leaned forward again to fully close the gap between their lips and Aizen's. Tenderly, like the intentions of a lover, it spoke against his nearly closed mouth. "Have you figured it out yet?"

Nothing but quiet could be heard between them, as Kyoka's mouth moved about their master's face and placed something like kisses upon its surface, but not quite.

Aizen's cocoa-shaded eyes slide down to stare at his sword spirit pressed up against him. His gaze was hard, and yet something swam underneath its surface that his zanpakuto had never seen before. Melancholy, it guessed? They weren't quite sure.

Kyoka pressed on when Aizen remained quiet. "The taste in the back of your mouth. Have you figured out what it was? You know it quite well....."

Aizen's tongue grazed the roof of his mouth, sensing the rather unpleasant taste that has coated the inside of it. And within a moment, because he was faced with the current circumstances, Aizen had finally placed a name associated this particular taste. How unfortunate this was.

Upon his realization, Aizen's head lowered, and his brown tresses hung freely over his lashes. Perhaps it was so Kyoka couldn't properly see whatever remorseful expression painted their master's face, but it mattered not. Even from here, the sword spirit could already sense exactly what it was he was feeling.

And they loved it.

"It's a sweet and flavorful taste, isn't it? Quite lovely." Kyoka Suigetsu mimicked the exact words he uttered against your lips all those years ago when he tasted jasmine tea on your tongue, and sealed your death with a kiss. "It's too bad you don't seem to enjoy it anymore."

Aizen's chest continued to rise and fall calmly, and the hands of his sword spirit that rested there glided upwards to cup his strong jaw, caressing his skin with its thumb. Its phantasmic touch did nothing to stir their master.

"Sōsuke, do you know what the jasmine flower from that tea symbolizes?"

Aizen's lips were slightly parted, but again he didn't say anything. Instead, its corners twitched and lifted upwards by an inch, and he huffed softly.

Kyoka Suigetsu grinned in reply. "Good."

The next time Aizen blinked, he was plunged in darkness yet again. The restrictive feeling that swallowed his being whole had returned, and was an indicator that his zanpakuto had released him from his inner world. He was consciously back in the Mugen, back in this abyss they called a prison cell.

Kyoka was indeed as much as a formidable force in its own right, as much as, if not greater than Aizen himself.

The conversation he had with his sword spirit would be cemented in his head for all eternity. When he grew senile and began to physically wither away, the one thing that would remain vital like a young heart, was this epiphany that he had. This realization that he actually . . . .

As the chains of despair bound him tighter to the bottom of the metaphorical pit, regret and his loneliness corroding his flesh and spirit like metal exposed to moisture, a stray memory of his time in Hueco Mundo flashed in his mind. He recalled having tea prepared for meetings with his Espadas and he could not pinpoint when, but at some point, Aizen developed an aversion for jasmine flavored tea. For one reason or another, he no longer found its taste appealing; whenever he drank it, it always tasted bitter.

Now that reason had become painstakingly clear.

The binding on his mouth muffled a rueful chuckle at the though, and it trapped the flavor of jasmine on his lips.

(#) @soaringmirror @stygianoir @ryukenzz @blkjupiters @chrissie2003 @nymphoheretic @dejwrld @triangularz @souyaszn @kuujo @honeybleed @valentineluvu . let me know if you’d like to be apart of my tag list ♡♡.

[bits-and-babs]

✦ 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ✦

captain john price x f!reader (raven) | smut, 18+ | 4.2k

summary: when a seemingly bulletproof mission goes awry, captain price makes the vital mistake of pursuing the target alone and contributes to the chaos that almost claims the life of one of his men. When he returns, he lacks the humility to accept your reprimand lying down.

cw: mwiii spoiler free. war and violence, mentions of wounded, ooc price maybe a little? angst, enemies to enemies that fuck, reader is pathetically attracted to price because same, literally a voice kink fic disguised as a deep throating fic, very light degradation, bratty behaviour from reader, heavy face fucking, hair pulling, praise, gagging, very little aftercare.

price mlist | main mlist | taglist

It all goes tits up.

Shouts of distress arise across the coms in the CIA conference room, blaring through the headphones glued to the watchers’ heads. Ghost’s gruff voice calls out a casualty, leading General Shepard to launch out of his seat and crash his fist against the tabletop. Mugs of coffee tip over from the force of the impact, liquid bleeding into top secret documents- they aren’t his primary concern.

“Lieutenant, this is Gold Eagle. Is there an issue, Ghost?” Shepard’s voice snarls down the coms.

“Sir, it’s Soap- he’s been hit.”

Hanging your head between your shoulders, you barely register the orders that Shepard screams into the microphone of his headset, his spittle peppering the laptop screen where he oversees the mission descending into chaos. Your ears are ringing, your heart thumping wildly against your sternum. Further panic ensues, Gaz shouting a brief, hurried explanation of the mission breakdown. “… snipers in the mountain, sir. Had to dispatch them- I can’t see Captain Pri—”

“Bravo 2-6, this is Raven. Confirm Captain Price’s location,” you insist, swallowing the alarm that threatens to haemorrhage from your lips.

“Negative, Ma’am. Lost him while dispatching the snipers.”

“Fuck,” you mutter, feeling your blood boil at The Captain’s recklessness. “Fuck!”

Your fingers blur over your keyboard, focusing your attention on John Price’s coms. Again, Shepard barks orders at Ghost, but you can’t hear him over your own heavy breathing and pressing tone as you address Price in a fury.

“Captain Price, this is Raven; confirm your location immediately!”

Silence at first. Coffee drips from the edge of the tabletop by your feet, pooling into the navy-blue carpet. It stains like blood, a dark smear. You can imagine it in Price’s camo uniform, spreading thick and fast from a bullet wound- a direct hit to the chest.

“We’re gonna lose Hassan.”

“Captain Price,” you yell down the microphone, simultaneously relieved to hear his voice and enraged at his increasingly frequent decision to go AWOL, “We will most definitely lose Hassan if I must bury every member of 141! Return to Team Bravo immediately!”

You’re almost certain you can hear Price’s teeth grind together, the enamel straining under the weight of his fury and threatening to crack down to the root. “Are you tellin’ me we let him go?”

“Captain Price, I am telling you that we were given faulty intel. I am telling you that we are sustaining heavy losses and that Sergeant MacTavish is critically wounded, and I am calling for EVAC!” Your knuckles are bleached where your fists hover over the keyboard, nails digging into your palms so hard you’re sure the indents they leave burrow straight to the bone as you await confirmation of Price’s retreat. “Task Force 141 is a priceless tool against Al-Qatala. I cannot afford to lose every member for the sake of a man we will ultimately have to chance to apprehend again!”

Your eyes float to General Shepard. He’s furious, his irises swallowed by the hollow blackness of his pupils as he jerks his head in confirmation of permission to evacuate 141. It shouldn’t have come to this.

“Do you copy, Captain Price?” You yell down the microphone, finally losing your cool with the maddening Englishman that continued to defy your authority.

“… Yes, ma’am.”

**

The ticking minutes-hand of the analogue clock that hangs above your desk sweeps away half of the day before you have confirmation of 141’s safe return to American soil. A further two hours of urgent, life-saving surgery have you chewing your nails to the quick. By the time word reaches you of Soap’s stable condition, your nailbeds are bloody and raw.

“Intel confirms a convergence of Las Almas fighters on the Mexican-Guatemalan border. We believe they intend to smuggle Hassan out of Mexico and into Venezuela, where they would almost certainly grant him sanctuary. Air surveillance suggests that armed guards patrol the border twenty-four seven, concentrated significantly around a central point where we suggest they will attempt to help Hassan over it. Ghost and Soap will lead a special operations unit to kill all Las Almas fighters on sight. Captain Price and Gaz will handle Hassan and the fighters guarding him with the help of the Mexican Special Forces. Captain Price, you have execute authority, but we want Hassan alive for interrogation.”

Enraged by the complete breakdown of the mission, your mind replays your mission briefing repeatedly, scanning the tiniest of details in vain hope of understanding how such a concise and faultless plan had almost killed a vital member of your task force. You couldn’t have made it more transparent, having covered every possible eventuality. Even the risk of faulty intel had been accounted for, enough backup issued should teams Alpha and Bravo find themselves outnumbered, yet…

“Captain Price and Gaz will handle Hassan and the fighters guarding him.”

High-ranking officials sidestep you as you turn the corner to your offices, just barely escaping your warpath as you zero in on your target. The heels of your polished shoes crack against the lino flooring of the hallway like gunfire, the sound ricocheting off the walls and alerting those in your way to your fury.

Perhaps it would explain the wide-eyed shock already present in both Shepard and Captain Price aimed at the door of the General’s office when you throw it open with rage.

“John!”

“I fucked up--“he attempts to assure you of his guilty conscience, gesturing vaguely to his commanding officer, who no doubt had already laid into him over his poor decision-making. It does little to dispel the bubbling temper that churned in your stomach and coated your tongue with a sour taste.

“You’re damn right, you fucked up,” you scoff loudly, watching Price cross his thick, bulky arms across his chest as he surrenders to your verbal onslaught. “Your decision to ignore my plan and, arguably, go AWOL nearly cost Johnny his life! I’d issued a faultless mission briefing and paired you with Gaz against Hassan! With Gaz!”

General Shepard watched you chew up Price from his seat at his desk, lacing his fingers across the surface littered with pictures that looked as though they’d been ripped from the bodycam and air surveillance footage of the failed mission. Photographic evidence of Price’s incompetency—or rather, his blind faith in himself that he could singlehandedly take on a small army of Las Almas fighters and legendary terrorist fighter Major Hassan Zyani.

A bitter spark flashes across Captain Price’s cerulean eyes, his inflammatory retaliation worming its way between his gritted teeth and rumbling in his chest.

“It’s easy for you to criticise my split-second decisions when you sit behind a desk every mission, barkin’ orders with coffee in your hand.”

It’s a miracle that you restrain yourself, momentarily considering issuing a reminder of your military prowess in the form of hand-to-hand combat. If it weren’t for the haggard strain of John’s voice from his bellowed EVAC orders in a desperate attempt to save Soap’s life, you’d have connected your balled-up fists to his face. Instead, you spit in retaliation.

“Need I remind you that before I used to call the shots, I used to shoot people?”

Price lets out a bitter laugh, shaking his head at your comment and opening his mouth to argue. You don’t let him, smothering the threat of his stupid rebuttal of ‘with what, a water pistol?’.

“Your decision to pursue Hassan nearly killed Johnny,” you repeat the undeniable fact, punctuating it with a violent jab of your finger towards him, “Do you realise how close I was to calling into Scotland? How close I was to organising the coffin to bring him home in? How dare you undermine me- disrespect the resume that put me in that seat and the people I killed to get there, Captain.”

If it weren’t for you, Price’d be standing in the pews of a church in Glasgow, draped in black and drenched in red.

Clearing his throat suddenly from his seat, General Shepard just barely splits the brutal tension bludgeoning your skull in the form of a migraine that only seemed to arise in the presence of Captain John Price. It thumps against your temple when Shepard makes a show of standing from his seat and pointing to the door.

“I can leave you both here to sort out your differences. The last thing you will both do is undermine my authority by screaming like petulant children in the corridor in front of my colleagues. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” you both manage to address him, eyes still pinned to each other like a missile’s locking system. Shepard grunts, and you note the twitch of a muscle in Price’s lower eyelid, his anger threatening to claw its way out of his face before he erupted with it.

The door to Shepard’s office swings open, heavy footsteps passing the threshold. In a sick, comedic chain of events, he doesn’t bother to pull it closed again. Instead, it creaks as the hinge closes achingly slowly.

You feel sick when you stare at Price. Not because you fear the words he could aim towards you in a critical hit—instead, you felt nausea at the concept of hearing the gravelly tone of his voice alone, the stabling force of your commanding officer absent.

It’s a dirty little secret that you’d never allowed yourself to speak. Even four Proseccos deep into a rare Christmas gathering of 141, you’d swallowed the word bile down that threatened to use your inebriation to rid yourself of the guilt. Price had admonished your choice of alcohol that night, commenting on how you could have chosen something better- like whiskey. The rumble of his voice in his sarcastic assessment had pooled in your stomach like the liquid amber he had suggested.

How could you possibly admit that the tone of his voice, so gritty and deep, swelled in your clit when you went to bed at night. That you replayed the ridiculous, pathetic one-liners he’d utter over the coms to you. The one time you’d issued a warning of an incoming threat, and Price had offered thanks in the only form he knew to give you: “Tha’s a girl”. You’d made a late-night Amazon order for new bedsheets and a mattress protector that same evening.

Click.

The door shuts, and the sound makes you jump as though John had slammed his fist on a big, red nuclear button.

“Are you done?”

The swallow that drags down your throat at the husked whisper he’d started with is far more audible in the now silent room. The spiteful gaze you had levelled at Price melts away, transfixing on him instead with something akin to dumb-struck, doe-eyed idiocy.

“P-Pardon?” You stumble over the two-syllable word that had confidently come to mind. Working in a building that relied so much on manners, there was absolutely no excuse for butchering a word you used upwards of fifty times a day.

Price’s eyebrow arches pointedly at you, the flickering ember in his irises that had previously resembled an inextinguishable fury instead glows with an amused curiosity at your very sudden surrender.

“Are you done making me look like a rookie in front of General Shepard?” He clarifies, stalking forward. He crosses the space between you both with long, cocky strides that make your heart pump double time when he finally settles in front of you. “Are. You. Done?”

“Hah-!” You laugh. You mean for it to mock his ridiculous notion, but instead, it’s all choked, nervous and airy because that damn voice knocks the oxygen from your lungs like he’d rendered a sucker punch to your gut. Price’s eyes pin you to your spot on the floor, root your feet to the coffee-stained carpet.

It’s utterly infuriating how he tilts his head in a smug observation of your panicked expression. You can see the exact moment he notes the tremble of your inhaled breath and the heat of your arousal rolling off your body. Fuck-

“John-“

There it is. Comprehension. The glistening sweat at your temple, the wide-eyed nervousness in your expression, and the breathy whisper of his name all surged forward and lit the bulb of realisation in his mind. You can practically see the golden glow of it in his pupils, a switch tck’ing when he murmurs an ‘oh’.

His lips split into a toothy, wily grin, “Oh, look at you, Station Chief.”

You bristle with panic with the way he makes a point to emphasise your rank, your lips parting in shock when he reaches up to grasp your chin in his hand.

“Who are you to question my decisions? You don’t even know if you want my cock in your mouth or your cunt.”

The sheer filth he utters makes your head reel as though he’d fed you some of his mind-numbing whiskey. You’re confident you’re gawping at him when he smirks at your reaction, his calloused thumbpad brushing across the bridge of your jaw. It reminds you of the way he caresses the trigger of a sniper rifle before he fires it and how you’d spent so many nights imagining that touch when you circled your clit-

“How ’bout we start with your mouth?” He urges you with a smokiness that rivals the puffs of his cigar. You loathed him for his smoking habits when the acrid scent clung to your hair but worshipped him for it when you buried your nose into your pillows when you came with a silent cry of his name.

You see his smirk widen suddenly, and it takes you far too long to realise that you’d let out a devastating whine at his lurid suggestion. John’s fingers and thumb settle on the pillowy flesh of your cheeks on either side of your mouth, pushing against them until your lips are pursed. It’s undignified, far beneath your station, but then-

“Gunna wanna open that mouth nice an’ wide for me, Dove.”

You sink to the floor of your commanding officer’s office floor before your rational mind even has a chance to talk you out of the offence- or acknowledge the choice of pet name that cheekily undermined your call sign. Your perfectly tailored office trousers crease beneath the weight of your knees… But suffering through cleaning and ironing them again was worth the rumble of a groan that fell from John’s lips as he watched you kneel for him.

“Fuck,” Price hums in appreciation, those gorgeous sky-blue irises swallowed by the midnight black of his pupils once more, “Spend all your time issuin’ orders, but you just needed someone else to take control, didn’ you, Love?”

For a moment, you hesitate. It’s improper, the way your knees ache with the hard floor beneath them. A tiny, quiet voice urges you to stand and rush out of the room before you damage your reputation any further, but the clink of John’s standard-issue belt buckle has your jaw falling slack before the idea can truly take root.

“Look at you,” he stresses again as he pulls the length of the belt from its loops with a slow thwppp sound, “So greedy for my cock. Anyone would think you’d been desperate for it all this time.”

John drags down his zipper, watching you look at him through your lashes. You don’t dismiss his hypothesis, instead choosing to stick your tongue out for him in an obscene act of fervour. The haggard groan that lurches from John’s lungs settles deep inside your cunt.

“You filthy girl,” he gasps, hurrying his hand into his trousers. He doesn’t even strip the pants from his hips, instead fishing his cock from his boxers and settling his balls against their waistband. “You have, haven’t you? How often did you touch yourself beneath the table while I spoke to you over the comms? Hmm?”

You’re so far gone now, so drunk on the idea of the agitating, ridiculous, utterly infuriating Captain finally fucking you that you might have answered that question-- if you’d heard it. Instead, his voice, which previously captured every fibre of your attention, drowned into the background of the thumping pulse in your ears. His cock sits just in front of your face, and it’s like you can’t breathe.

Ruddy and red at the tip, his cock already drools precum down the curve of its shaft. Veins throb beneath the thin, velvety skin, their ridges glistening beneath the wet tracks that his leaking seed leaves. It settles at the base, where his heavy balls rest against his boxer’s elastic waistband.

His question dies in the thick tension in the air, and you lean forward on your knees to press your drooling tongue right at the base of John’s cock where his precum pools. Your unexpected starting position causes John to spit out a curse, his fingers flying out to grip the strands of hair at the crown of your skull. “S-Shit-“

Saltiness coats your tongue where you lap up his cum, flattening your tongue against the underside of his shaft to trace his pronounced frenulum. Dragging your tastebuds upwards, you collect the tracks the droplets had left behind until the tip of your tongue rests on the underside of his fat cockhead. It’s disgusting, the relieved whine that escapes your open throat, but the vibration tips Captain John Price over the edge.

“Fuck! Eyes on me, Dove. Wanna see your eyes- that’s it.” John’s face contorts, brows creasing, and the edges of his lips turned down beneath the coarse hair of his beard as you look up at him, kissing the head of his velvety dick and slipping it into your mouth.

“Take orders so well. So obedient,” he purrs, the rumbling sound edging into a moan when you ease more of him into your mouth. He’s trying to play off the power dynamic, you note. Getting off on the fact that you’re his superior, but that he held the authority like this. A playful resentment teases the edge of your mind, urging you to remind him of his place.

You drag the edges of your teeth over his shaft. Not hard enough to hurt- just enough for a singing hiss to echo in the quiet room when you pull back from his cock.

It’s a mistake.

John grasps your hair at the back of your head, winding the strands around your fingers and suddenly rocks his hips forward. The length of his cock slides deep down your throat, and you splutter as your nose crushes into his pubic bone. “Couldn’t fuckin’ help yourself, could you?”

His gravelly reprimand swirls a ghost-like touch around your clit, and you gag around the length that intrudes against your throat walls. Price tuts softly, feeling your nails dig into his flesh beneath the camo canvas still covering his muscular thighs. It’s only when tears cling to your lashes that he draws your head back with a pull of your hair.

Gasping down a heavy breath, you splutter when John groans loudly. His cock twitches, drooling more precum as you gasp for breath, and he drags his eyes across your face. “Good fuckin’ girl. Takin’ me like that- didn’t it feel good?”

God, you’re nodding pathetically, tongue already lolling from your lips in a silent plea for more. The heaviness of his cock against your tongue and the vibrations of his lurid tone are enough for you to cum on their own, and you want more of them. John groans, a chuckle settling somewhere between the sound as he grasps the nape of your neck.

“Jus’ like that, you dirty girl,” he urges you, his free hand tapping at his balls in a wordless order. This time, you obey, tonguing over his finger before taking one of his balls into your mouth. You can hear the shaky exhale that rattles in his lungs when you suck.

“So fuckin’ good for me. I’ll fuck you against that desk one day, you hear?” You see him point in the corner of your vision, his index finger aiming at General Shepard’s desk. Realisation slams into you and rocks your clit with arousal- Shepard could walk in at any second and see his right-hand man stuffing Captain Price’s cock down her throat in the ultimate show of disrespect. John doesn’t seem worried about it. In fact, it’s as though he gets off on the idea, his eyes darting to the door as he details his plans for you.

“Think you’d look real nice on it. Far better than ‘is tacky nameplate. We’d make a mess together, get our cum all over it so he can smell jus’ how wrecked I left you-“

Moaning around the length of his cock, your clit throbbing desperately with his words, the vibrations cause John’s hips to lurch forward again. The head of his dick prods the back of your throat, but John’s tight grip doesn’t allow you to pull back. He’s buried to the hilt, twitching against your palate.

“Fuckin’ droolin’ for it, Love. It’s dripping down your chin—Fuck, you look so pretty like this,” He’s slurring his words as he watches you bob your head up and down on his length, swallowing around him and just barely holding back your gag reflex. It’s quick, messy, and loud, the wet sounds ricocheting off the office’s walls.

“D’you think he’s got cameras in here?” John muses, his voice thick with his incoming orgasm. The sound of it, the arousal coating his tongue has you whining desperately, “Why don’t you touch yourself, hmm? Give ’im a show.”

You sob around his girth like he’d just offered you a miracle. Fumbling, you don’t even bother wasting time trying to shove your hand down your trousers. Your fingers find the vague outline of your cunt through the crotch, roughly circling your clit through the layers of material.

It’s all you need. Your eyes roll back into your skull at just how close you are to cumming, your thighs trembling beneath your weight. You soaked through your panties and into the crotch of your trousers.

“Fuckin’ slutty girl,” John gasps, and you feel his cock jump at the sight of you already teetering on the edge, “’s my voice getting’ you off? Fuck, you’re fuckin’ perfect-“

Stop. Stop; you need him to stop. Your orgasm is ebbing at the edges of your abdomen, threatening to swallow you whole and drawing up tight, but John won’t shut the fuck up.

“C’mon, Love. Deeper. Deeper, that’s it. I’ll fuckin’ lick your pretty pussy if yo-“

His promises drown out with the surge of bliss that roars in your ears. Price times it perfectly, rocking his cock further down your throat so that you gag around his length. The lack of oxygen causes your nerve endings to sing when it cracks down your spine, bursting through your abdomen and spidering across your limbs like white-hot plasma.

Everything is loose with ecstasy, and it allows Price to issue one, two, three more brutal thrusts of his hips before he’s choking out a haggard warning that he’s going to cum.

“F-Fuck-“He chokes out, holding the nape of your neck before burying himself as deep as he possibly can without choking you, hot ropes of cum spurting down your throat. Even in your post-orgasm haze, mind numb, you swallow him down greedily. Big, heavy gulps, even licking your lips when he removes his dick from your throat to milk out the last drops of his cum onto them.

“Tha’s my girl, good, don’t let a drop go to waste.”

Price’s hand pushes back the mess of your hair from your face, careful to remove the strands that had clung to your tear-soaked eyelashes. You hold your breath, heart stilling its rapid beat as he brushes his thumb across your cheekbone to swipe up the tear tracks that had leaked from your eyes during his assault on your throat. It’s a single moment of tenderness, barely there, before he withdraws his touch to stuff himself back into his pants.

“Can you stand?” Price asks, his voice even hoarser than when you’d first walked into the room, like the moans you’d elicited from him were like sandpaper in his already raw throat. He holds out a palm- but you’re not cock-dumb enough to believe it’s a makeshift olive branch.

“Yes,” you whisper, matching his brutalised tone with your own as you bat away the helping hand he offers you. Price can’t help but scoff at your dismissal. Turns out even a dick down your throat wasn’t enough to change your uptight attitude. He watches you stand on shaky feet, trying to smooth out your creased knees before Shepard could wonder how exactly you’d made such a mess of yourself.

Besides your heaving breaths, still desperately pulling oxygen in your lungs to soothe the burn, the room is silent. Price finishes righting himself, smoothing his fingers through his cropped hair.

“Don’t forget what I said,” he murmurs, eyes sliding over to the desk. His promise to fuck you on it only barely re-enters your mind following a pointed look. Satiated somewhat by the blistering orgasm that had ripped through you, your rage struggles to roar to life like it had when you’d entered this room. Now it smelt like sex, and your anger only simmers in the base of your stomach.

“That is not happening again,” you promise him firmly.

“Mhmm,” he hums, following Shepard’s footsteps towards the door, “We’ll see about that, Dove.” 

cod mwii/kinktober taglist:

@mockerycrow @bubuslutty @cheezitwh0re @haunt3dh3art @levi-llama @thebiscuitsheep @maelstrom007 @alexxavicry @bug-sy-boy @glennrheesworld @kittenfrostt @luvfromkat @blingblong55 @whore4dilfs @wolfyland07 @doggydale @dog55teeth @cabreezer0117 @cathnoneofyourbusiness @marygraceee @thatchickwiththecamera @legend-o-zelda @whore-for-anime @i-love-ghost @cyberpr1m3 @mockerycrow @bubuslutty @lundenloves @cheezitwh0re @haunt3dh3art @babychoi03 @infectedkura @allekat1988 @whore-for-anime @soupbinsoup @passi0np1t @mockerycrow @cyberpr1m3 @i-love-ghost @allekat1988 @infectedkura @babychoi03 @freakquenci @maviee @yunggoblin @sleepystaarr @watyousayin @soupbinsoup @passi0np1t @damn-dean-blog @pheonyxmoon @magicalreviewphantom @limegreenbabx @johfaam0 @iaur @justsayk

@mortallyuniquepeach @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @crybaby-blue-blog @heart-atttack @pansa-1-san @maviee @emotion-no-hot-yes-hotel-trivago @s-u-t @ghostslynx @solidly-indulgent @glitterypirateduck @gummyfang @bii-aan-ckaa @konigsblog @crissteetee @crissteetee67 @sylvanasthebansheequeen @akaym2 @exploremyworldsm @thriving-n-jiving @su57 @cabreezer0117 @cathnoneofyourbusiness @marygraceee @thatchickwiththecamera @legend-o-zelda @eatingtheworldsoffanfiction @tusk89 @bellasbees01 @dog55teeth

[swan2swan]

See, that one was an easy, immediate fix of a pretty rude comment from the protagonist.

THIS would be actually cutting and changing a whole darn scene with a side character’s nastier side.

Not impossible.

But doable.

Gosh it's gonna be so funny if the transphobia just doesn't happen in Bleach. If they just...cut that part.

[jadeleechsupportgroup]

Laundry Day

floyd and jade learn how not to do laundry.

cw: none

also on ao3

note: this is a vignette from a collection for a full-length fic, but there are no spoilers in it and I like it as its own thing.

Floyd tapped the window of the washing machine with a suspicious expression. “Are you sure we’re doing this right?”

Jade was reading the instructions on the bottle of detergent. “I am mostly sure,” he replied. “I measured everything carefully.”

“Hmmm.” Floyd looked and sounded skeptical. “Are you sure we put enough bleach?”

“Again, mostly sure,” Jade replied. He hummed and set the detergent down. “I suppose we shall find out in due time.”

“Ehh, I don’t know about this thing.” Floyd was treating the washer as if it had challenged him to a staring contest.

Jade understood his skepticism to a point. Much to his personal embarrassment, they had never actually done laundry since moving ashore. At school the staff had handled it. But it could not be terribly difficult if most humans managed it on a regular basis.

What he found particularly fascinating was the way stains worked. A stain was all but impossible underwater, but they interacted with different fabrics in unpredictable ways. Blood, for example, needed to be rinsed in cold water immediately if there were any hope of eliminating it. Dirt and mud were more easily dislodged, while any sort of oil-based substance was much more difficult. He was already devising all kinds of experiments that would answer his questions.

“It will never dry anything if you continue opening the door,” Jade said when Floyd checked the contents of the dryer for the tenth time in almost as many minutes.

“It’s taking so looooong.” Floyd threw himself down on the floor with his limbs splayed out like a starfish. “I demand entertainment.”

“I have not connected the TV and such yet,” Jade answered, which elicited another groan of potentially fatal boredom from his twin. “Check the games cupboard.”

That certainly perked him up. Floyd got to his feet and went to rummage through their collection. He returned with Battleship and a glowing grin.

Jade cleared a space on the floor. Moving was an exhausting process, and he was beginning to think furniture was more trouble than it was worth. They set up the game, each of them trying - and failing - to fold their excessively long legs into a comfortable seating position. Floyd gave up and stretched out on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. Jade felt awkward doing the same and settled for keeping his legs off to the side and leaning on one hip.

“E5.”

“Miss.”

Jade placed a white peg on his side.

“Hmm…C4.”

Jade blinked. “Hit,” he replied and added the red peg to the bow of his destroyer. His gaze flicked upward to meet his brother’s with a slight edge.

Floyd giggled. “It’s your favorite stable plastic explosive.”

Jade sighed. “Am I so transparent?”

“Yes. C5.”

Another hit. Jade decided he really must learn to be more surreptitious about his preferences.

Floyd had decimated Jade’s fleet and was about to deal the final blow when there was a knock at the door. Jade went to answer it, grateful for the opportunity to stretch his legs.

“Hello, Azul.”

Azul strode in. “Greetings.” He scanned the mess of the apartment with barely-concealed dismay. “How are things going?”

“We’re playing Battleship!” Floyd cried from his place on the floor. Then the dryer alarm sounded to announce that it was finished, so he rolled to his feet and went to open it. He removed an armload of clothes and carried them into the bedroom. There was a soft whoosh as he tossed everything on the mattress. Then he returned to move the next load from the washer to the dryer. “Play with us!”

Azul shut his eyes for an extra-long blink and willed himself not to react. “You should fold or hang up clothing immediately after removing it from the dryer,” he said flatly. “Otherwise it will be wrinkled.”

“Laterrrr,” Floyd whined.

“And Battleship is only a two-player game,” Azul continued as he removed his shoes to leave them by the door.

“Uhh, yeah, maybe if you don’t have six copies of it.” Floyd rolled his eyes and went to collect the other five.

Azul frowned at Jade. “Why?”

Jade shrugged. “Object permanence.”

Floyd cleared out their current game and swiftly assembled the playing field so that each of them had two boards. He took his spot on the floor again and gazed up at the others eagerly. “Come onnn.”

Jade gave a tiny, helpless shake of his head and went to join him. Azul followed with tangible reluctance.

“I offered to help you organize things,” he said tartly. “I have a schedule, you know.”

“Should’ve written a contract,” Floyd giggled. “Now you have no choice but to have fun.”

Azul resigned himself to it. He had an easier time sitting with his legs crossed on the floor than Jade, who kept changing his position every few minutes in a futile attempt at comfort.

Jade looked around at the state of their new apartment while Floyd explained his ludicrously complicated house rules for Mega Battleship. It seemed impossible for them to own so many things. When he last spoke to their mother, she assured him that once they had everything put away, it would ease his anxieties. He did not like for things to be out of place. It would be too easy for someone to cover their tracks if they had broken in, if they were lying in wait for him-

Jade shook the thought out of his head with a twitch and reached his arm across to rub his other shoulder. It did not truly hurt anymore, but the thought continued to pester him.

“H10,” said Azul.

“Miss,” said Jade, glad that he had managed to get his thoughts back on track before either of them noticed. “D9.”

“Miss!” Floyd grinned. “J8.”

Jade sighed. “Hit. You have eliminated my submarine.”

“Knew it!”

“I mean this in the most polite way possible,” said Azul, “but how the hell are you so good at this game?”

Floyd shrugged. “I’m not. You two are just so obvious.”

They played through two rounds of it, then took a break to do some actual work. Azul and Jade set to patiently organizing things, putting things away, and hanging up the clothes Floyd had so eloquently discarded on the mattress. It was sitting directly on the floor, and Jade was seriously considering leaving it there, even though Floyd had threatened to build a tent over it and pretend they were camping every night.

“When will your furniture arrive?” Azul asked after a while.

Jade was spending a little too much time flattening the collars and lapels of every shirt and coat in the closet. “We have not purchased any yet,” he said. “I have not found anything to my liking.”

“Hmm,” Azul said. “And Floyd?”

“He finds everything to his liking.” Jade imagined that a room designed by Floyd with an unlimited budget would look patently ridiculous. In the same trip to a furniture store, Floyd had decided he wanted a bean bag chair, an inflatable couch, and a hot tub that would have cost several thousand dollars. (“In the bedroom?” “Uh, duh? Where else?”)

Jade was surprised to sense Azul coming suddenly toward him, leaving enough space for his comfort, save a hand reaching out to rest on his shoulder. He turned away from his anxious fingers, making no effort to hide his distress. There was no point in trying to conceal anything around Azul; his senses were as finely tuned as the eels’, and that aside, Jade trusted him.

“It’s alright,” Azul said simply. “I ensured those responsible were dealt with.” His eyes gleamed, and his jaw was firmly set. “Comprehensively.”

“Of course.” Jade let his gaze drop to the floor of the closet, where Floyd’s shoe collection was spilling over onto his side. “I know that, logically, the odds are quite low that it would happen again.”

Azul took hold of the hand that was once again rubbing his shoulder. Jade had not even realized he was doing it again. “It is also logical to feel lingering effects, Jade.”

Jade closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath that turned into a sigh.

“Food’s here,” Floyd yelled from the living room.

Jade hung up one more shirt before following Azul to the kitchen. They had little choice but to eat at the counter, but Floyd merrily unpacked the boxes of sushi and seafood and spread them out buffet-style. He pushed the box of sashimi in Jade’s direction and hoarded the spicy tuna rolls for himself. Azul and Jade picked at various items with their chopsticks since apparently they had not purchased any plates yet, either.

Floyd opened the next box and froze. “Uhh, who ordered this?”

Azul and Jade peeked at the contents. “Ah, that’s mine,” said Azul.

Floyd and Jade just stared at him as he separated a piece of grilled and glazed eel meat from the others and lifted it to his mouth. He seemed to enjoy it a little too much.

“What?” he asked with feigned innocence. “It’s good.”

Floyd made sure to stare at Azul with his most unhinged expression as he sucked down an entire octopus arm between the points of his teeth like a second tongue. “Serves you right,” Floyd said when Azul’s mouth twitched. “That could’ve been my grandmother. At least your fricken arms grow back.” Floyd paused, as if silently wondering whether this would still work in Azul’s human form.

“Don’t get any bright ideas,” Azul said, pointing the chopsticks at him.

The dryer alarm went off again. Floyd all but leapt up to go open it. When Jade looked at him curiously, Floyd just grinned. “It’s warm and soft,” he explained. When he opened the door, several strips of what looked like paper fluttered out of it with a puff of dryer lint. “Whoops.”

Azul thought nothing of it at first, but his attention snagged on something. They couldn’t have been receipts. Receipts that went through a wash-and-dry cycle turned into little annoying balls of wadded-up paper that shredded all over the place. “Floyd,” he said with intensifying alarm, “what is that?”

“Uh, my favorite blankie and pillowcases. Also the money.”

Azul all but choked. “Excuse me?”

Floyd shrugged. “I washed it. No big deal. You’re welcome.”

Azul tripped over his own feet as he staggered to the dryer. He snatched up the pieces of material and examined them with growing horror. “Floyd,” he said again, “what did you do?”

Now it was Floyd’s turn to look at him like he was crazy. “Did you forget already? Just did what you asked.”

The bleached, worthless bills slipped from Azul’s quavering hands.

“Are you alright, Azul?” Jade asked from a safe distance.

Floyd, ignoring the unraveling of Azul’s temperament, removed the rest of the bundle from the dryer and walked it to the bedroom, leaving a trail of shattered dreams fluttering to the floor behind him. “I don’t know what you’re upset about,” he said indignantly. “You’re the one who said to launder the money.”

Jade was certain Azul was about to faint, if he did not explode first. His eyes bulged behind his glasses, and his voice came out in a soft, raspy, desperate scrape against his throat. “That is not what I meant.”

[opscurus]

// sobbing screaming

[splendsay]

COD FIC // Callsign: Sunshine // Chapter 22: Untethered

you get another chapter today because ily and also because I couldn't stop writing. I hope this chapter makes u go omg

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Callsign: Sunshine // Chapter 22: Untethered

CWs: Explicit language, implied torture & aftermath of torture

Characters: Simon "Ghost" Riley, Johnny "Soap" MacTavish, Captain John Price, Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, Reader (You), Alex Keller

Chapter Summary (Spoilers):

Ghost ruminates on his actions in the wake of recovering you from your tormentors, and the team tries to figure out next steps. You struggle to maintain a hold on reality -- slipping every so often back into a state of blank emptiness.

..................................................................... Links to: Spotify Playlist Full Fic

[episodeoftv]

Round 1 of 6, Group 1 of 4

propaganda is under the cut (354 words) - may contain spoilers

summaries (pulled from imdb or wikis)

propaganda

Angel - 4.22 Home

Lilah returns from the dead to offer Angel and his friends full ownership of Wolfram and Hart.

1) It's the end of the worst season of tv I I can think of. So much on and off screen was just awful. I wish I could bleach any recollection of this from my mind 2) Easy summation of why Joss Wheadon should not be trusted with handling shows at this point. Connor is a horrible character that gets treated like garbage to the endthat despite the interesting premise of him, they don't address his issues and wipe his story to "fix" him and then there's everything with Cordelia that's best described in an essay that unfortunately isn't around but removing her after assassinating her character with everything is a mess and making her comatose to "wipe her away" never sat right and while the concept of Angel working for his worst enemy is a neat concept. it just. feels wrong. it just sucks.

Steven Universe - 5.29 Change Your Mind

cw: characters get stabbed (PG)

After landing on homeworld, Steven embarks on a journey to convince White Diamond to listen to him so he can help the corrupted gems back on Earth.

1) Genuinely just felt like a compact of all the issues Steven Universe had summed up that it tries to be deep and meaningful but felt so bad as a result. 2) "IDC that the interest decided media criticism is cringe or malicious and we all have to pretended Steven universe was some perfect little angel who was the victim of an evil hate campaign. The ending was rushed, horribley paced, had the worst redemption """"""arc"""""""""" in the entire series(yes I say redemption arcs look me dead in the eye and tell me the diamonds weren't redeemed), hideous fusion designs that broke the pre-established logic of fusion, and was some the most insufferable case of millenial writing I've seen. The only postive of the ending was that 10 seconds of james baxtet animation. It compounds all the criticisms people have held for Steven universe for years into a singular 40 minute episode and I'm glad it's considered embarrassing to like this show now. And in case anyone thinks I'm just a bitter 30 year old who was expecting too much from a children's show: I was 15 when the finale aired I was literally the prime demographic I thought it was shit then and I think its shit now”

[killuasghost]

𝐍𝐄𝐖 ����𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 @ 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐬𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 ⤵︎

↳︎ ( ⛈️ ) storm. 20 something (v much of age), multifandom writer ( mainly anime ). just a black woman writing literature about fake men on occasion. she/her. nanami worshipper.

↳︎ ( ⚡️ ) @/apollostears is my old blog. 18+ MDNI !!

no requests. asks is open for ideas, shitposts, thirsts, and rambles. no homophobic, racist, sexist, offensive, religious, political, or trauma dumping comments please! <3

this blog is not spoiler-free. will contain sfw & nsfw posts, engage responsibly.

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𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐢𝐬...watching bleach s12 | playing sims 4 | watching yellowstone s4 yeehaw!

FREE PALESTINE, CONGO, SUDAN, AND ALL OPPRESSED STATES/COUNTRIES/PEOPLE!!!

[apocalypta-secundus]

104 Yachiru Kusajishi Icons!

Quite a lot are from TYBW, spoilers within!

Download here from the goog drive.

You don't need to credit me. Just wanted some icons myself, lol.

[namazunomegami]

in my opinion, Gege suffers from the same problem that Tite Kubo suffered from: rushing.

this is partly due to the nature of Weekly Shōnen Jump as well as his own health issues, but not completely.

Both Kubo and Gege have this problem in which they have a plan of how to get from point A to point B, but tend to not flesh that out.

However, a lot of the outrage I’m seeing towards the current situation in the manga comes from people who tend to be unable to seperate canon Gojo from fanon Gojo because when you put fanon at the back of your mind as just take Gojo and JJK as a whole (and not for what we wish they could be), the character’s reactions to what’s going on and what’s happening to Gojo do not really surprise me at all.

ANON I'M SO SORRY THAT I KEPT YOU WAITING FOR SO LONG!!! I got sick and spent most of my days with recovering. And now, with newfound strength, I'm ready to yap!! Hope you can forgive me for taking some time off from tumblr.

cw: minor spoilers from Bleach, especially from the new TYBW arc, endless yapping

I absolutely agree with you that Weekly Shounen Jump is Satan's bastard child. I'm not surprised that mangakas eventually choose another, yet a not as popular magazine for publishing. Shounen Jump also takes a lot of creative liberty from authors or not give them enough money, it doesn't matter how popular their work is (just look at poor Togashi, Shounen Jump has been slowly killing him). Literally the same thing happened to Araki and I think it's actually better that Jojo's has a monthly release schedule in terms of writing and pacing. As well as my goat Ishida Sui who got horribly burnt out by Tokyo Ghoul and now moved to Tonari Young Jump which is an even weirder kind of niche, I think they mostly publish horror and seinen but the magazine is a completely online platform. And Ishida now has an irregular release schedule, meaning he publishes a chapter whenever he feels like it. So... sometimes I don't hear anything from Choujin X for months and sometimes I get three chapters in a row every week. But I care about him and his art more than my own incapability to keep up with stuff.

The main problem (for me at least) with Bleach that it gets repetitive quickly. Substitute Shinigami arc? That's a good introduction arc tbh, sense of wonder is there, we're slowly building up the world, provide explanations at a nice pace. Ichigo was a one of a kind shounen protagonist in the early 2000s because he didn't want to save the whole world, he wasn't above to kill his enemies, he didn't want to be the Hokage/Pirate King/the Strongest/whatever, he just wanted to protect those who are close to him and couldn't give a shit about others and that's the reason he was so relatable to many readers. He was a delinquent, a punk compared to the usual happy-go-lucky protag formula.

Soul Society arc? Rukia is off to be executed and Ichigo rescues her with the help of the gang and gets a few power ups. Arrancar arc? Orihime is kidnapped by Aizen and Ichigo wants to rescue her with the help of the gang and gets a few power ups. Fullbringer arc? Sado gets friendly with Xcution and Ichigo's initial trust in them starts to crumble so he wants to protect him with the help of the gang and gets back his shinigami powers and also a few power ups. TYBW arc? Ishida betrays the gang and leaves with the nazis-but-dressed-in-white so he wants to save him with the help of the gang but oh shit the Soul King is killed he must save the whole world too and gets a few power ups. Great success!

I know, I know that's oversimplified but I love Bleach with all of its faults.

Rushing was definitely a problem with Kubo especially in the last arc. I'll forever be bitter about the ending (and no, not because of the ichiruki vs ichihime ship war, I couldn't care less but I admit that I'm an ichiruki and ulquihime fan and Studio Pierrot was always heavily biased in terms of ships) and because Kubo literally failed his own main cast.

I remember that I saw a post on DeviantArt where the original poster shared their thoughts about how they imagine the main four's ending and I'm almost completely on board with that. I can go for so, so long how Kubo did Ishida and Sado dirty, but maybe in another occassion, I'll get deeper into that.

Another problem with TYBW arc is that he made the Quincy ridiculously op. The fights weren't fair and some of the abilities are beyond of any logic (I'm looking at you Gerard, Yhwach and Pernida) and he needed a few asspulls to make the Shinigami win. And some of the truly powerful Shinigami couldn't get utilised. And Byakuya should have remained dead.

But at least I'm giving Kubo credits for that he's willing to correct his mistakes with the new seasons and the light novels.

Gege... Gege just completely lost it. His mind, the plot, character development, everything. He gets inspired by wonderful authors, but can't use them in a satisfying way, the execution is just bad. When you spend such a small amount of time to write your characters the fandom will do it, and that's why fanon Gojo and canon Gojo is just two different characters. But that's sorta true for all of the characters in the cast.

And some fans are just horribly delusional, sorry not sorry.

[starplusfourletters]

Random takes on ahsoka ep 5

Okay actually spoilers this time

Thesis statement: Ep5 was absolutely ridiculous and I loved every second of it

For those wondering what it would look like if the peak of Zirakzigil and King’s Cross smashed into each other at a thousand miles an hour…

YASSSSS THIS IS THE ANGST CONTENT I SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED. I’m not even gonna think about it for a minute just gonna sit here and wallow

Ohhhh he’s got the early season CW armor on he’s just a little guy <3

[Referring to the Teensoka section] Man I was emotionally prepared to hate whatever this was gonna be but I really liked it. Like, multiple different character beats that all hit really well. Nice job guys.

When you’re 45 and just learning what intergenerational trauma is. Better late than never

Why is S7 Teensoka so short. I just think Ahsoka from ~S7 onward should be freakishly tall and yes I know Rosario Dawson isn’t super tall but let me have this

I guess there’s an argument to be made that all Ahsoka character beats get executed multiple times (lookin’ at you, Vader reveal) but guys. Guyyyyyyyys. How many times can she go swimming and then return as Gandalf the Orange because I’m counting three now (I feel like world between worlds and rebels finale are separate level-ups, but if you see them as one beat I’d throw Mortis into the mix). Admittedly part of that might be that I’ve been taking post-Rebels S2 Sith Temple Baptism as canon and I guess not everyone watching this show became completely feral in May 2016

This is totally unrelated but omigod those were Topps cards? The makers of Dinosaurs Attack? Universes are colliding for me rn

Huh we’ve never seen how her face and her montrals meet up before. And… I’m not sure I like it. Put the headband back on

Yeah I know we all knew the white robe was coming but Dave. Dave this is a lot. Like she has white gloves now? And white boots?? ([Channels Bojack Horseman] Do you get it? Do you get my joke?)

Also possibly unpopular opinion but I’m just sayin’ white isn’t her color. The combo with her montrals just makes her look washed out.

Alternative hypothesis: the white clothing is the spare outfit she hates but hasn’t gotten around to getting rid of yet and the grays are coming back as soon as they’re out of the drier

Alternative alternative hypothesis: Seatos’ ocean is 0.1% bleach.

Oh sweet baby Space Jesus she can do psychometry now. She hit level 20 at Malachor and just kept taking levels anyway. My blorbo is op and I can’t even be mad

I’m not even gonna touch “surviving without oxygen for several hours without even intentionally meditating”

Suddenly realized we’re more than halfway thru this show and we haven’t seen Thrawn and we still don’t have any substantial information about the Dark Jedi so like… who is the villain? Is it intergenerational trauma? Please tell me it’s intergenerational trauma

Why do space whales have baleen? Oh to filter feed on midichlorians. Never mind I retract my question

Aaaand Filoni just hit “Jonah” on his Biblical Hero Dartboard

So you wasted billions of dollars on this technology when you could have just asked a whale nicely? How embarrassing.

Come to think of it tho why didn’t Ezra just take a whale BACK? Then again if I start thinking too much about this it’s just gonna devolve into “How Rebels Should Have Ended”