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rinusagitora · 2 years ago

Text

The changing of the tides.

Fandom: Bleach

Characters: Karin Kurosaki, Yuzu Kurosaki, Ichigo Kurosaki, Renji Abarai, Izuru Kira, Shuuhei Hisagi, Akon, Shuukurou Tsukishima, Momo Hinamori, Toushirou Hitsugaya

Words: 5.8k

Summary: Merpeople!AU. WARNINGS- recreational drug use, major character death, cosmic horror; The end is foretold by the disappearance of the sea serpents.

A/N: Written for @thewhisperingdeep fanzine.

AO3: works/41955684

Gargantuan serpents have ruled the ocean for as long as life has made their home in its waters. Generations pass and they remain until conquest claims them and recycles their flesh as food and bones as shelter and tools for the masses.

The natural order is venerated as a result. Birth, life, reproduction, death, consumption. All things outside the cycle, that which is unnatural, are calamitous and loathsome. Ruins, masses of hollow and angular planes dotting the ocean bottom, are omens of devastation. Alien artifacts found are destroyed by magicians or given a wide berth so they do not pollute the order worshipped by ocean-dwellers.

The end is foretold by the disappearance of the sea serpents, where nothing is behind to repurpose, and there are no rulers to command the denizens of the seas.

---

Karin only dreamt when she was ill. She was healthy, so they came few and far between as a result.

She was made by her companions to hole up in their father’s home to recuperate once they noticed the severity of her delirium. Disorientation and indolence. But Karin hated caves, even when she lived there as a child. Even if it had enough space to fit their enormous bodies, it was too tight of a squeeze for her to feel comfortable. She always pictured the walls giving in and the rubble crushing her.

The seaweed bed made for her was destroyed while she thrashed in her sleep, haunted by terrible images of blinding lights and bellies unzipping. Of water clouded with blood and intestines until even the most piercing luminescence was smothered by its density.

Her eyes opened to her father shaking her. Karin breathed a sigh of relief to be free of terrible hallucinations.

Yuzu was more youthful, despite being her twin. It was because she didn’t chew kanakusa, psychoactive seaweed digested by sharks then preserved in brine pools. She inherited their mother’s fairness, with pale hair and red tendrils, unlike Karin, who inherited their father’s darkness. Black hair, black bell, black tendrils. Yuzu glowed through the darkness while Karin disappeared into it. It sometimes made Karin jealous, until she remembered she inherited her mother’s fury and passion. Her emotional likeness was better than her physical likeness.

When their mother Masaki was murdered, her body fed Karin, Yuzu, and their brother Ichigo until they bloated. It was a common ordeal, but it gave Karin mixed feelings into the present. The grief over never seeing their mother again, the bliss from absorbing her essence. They kept her bones. Karin wove Masaki’s teeth in her hair and Yuzu shaved Masaki’s ribs into jewelry, like beautiful talons.

Karin absorbed Masaki’s odd dreams with her flesh. Witches called them premonitions, but they were always so cryptic. She wasn't smart enough to decipher them. Karin didn't classify herself as a witch for that very reason. Witches solved riddles, while the rest of them scratched their heads like buffoons.

She rubbed her eyes after blearily taking in Yuzu. She then glanced around the cavern. Their kind traveled with at least one companion, oftentimes unremarkable that used their enormous bodies as shelter in exchange for companionship in the lonely ocean. “Where are my marrer?” she croaked.

Yuzu pet her hair. “Outside.” Even though she was comforting, Karin sensed her disquiet.

“What has you unsettled?”

“Ichigo and Renji are outside as well… they want a word with you.”

Ichigo’s visitations were a welcome change of pace. He was swamped with errands since he began serving the serpents. Karin only saw him from afar and never long enough to flag him down before he disappeared into dark waters. Social calls were non-existent. He only wanted to see her for whatever schemes the serpents had in motion.

Karin respected the serpents a great deal. They took care of herself and her sibling after Masaki was murdered. The serpents she met, Toushirou and Shinji, were compassionate. But she feared them. The magnitude and their influence and sheer power made her feel small and scared. The ocean was their possession, and they could bring its end with a flick of their tails if they so desired. She gave them a wide berth as best as she could.

She lifted herself out of the ruined bed. “I’ll see what they want.”

Karin’s companions loitered in the mouth of the cave. Kei’s lips were downturned and worried. He was always anxious, but Kazuya, Ryohei, and Heita were just as worried as he. Kazuya rubbed his arms hard enough that he shed scales.

“Be calm,” she told them, “I won’t be long.”

Karin saw Ichigo from afar, glowing through the waters due to his paleness. Their father called them phantom jellyfish, enormous beings whose tendrils billowed like ether.

Renji was a shark. He was a fearsome creature, bulging with musculature, fashionable scars, and rows of jagged fangs spanning from his lips down his pallet. But he was friendly. Karin felt like he was a giant pillow or another brother. He teased her and she teased back. He told her stories about the sea serpent he served. Byakuya was covered in mollusks and blooms of colorful coral. Long ago, Renji helped Byakuya crush a terrible sea serpent whose name and body was lost. It was a fierce battle.

Karin was grateful to Renji, too. He introduced Karin to his wife Momo, who became her very best friend. Momo was a witch. Perhaps not the most frightening or revered, but notorious enough that she was feared. She was the lover of the nameless sea serpent. The one who murdered Karin’s mother, and required the teamwork of all the serpents and their thrall to kill. She cursed him so his name was forgotten and his body unusable. The invocation of her vehemence was worse than death. She was kinder than their compatriots made her out to be. Momo kissed her head and showed her fascinating parlor tricks that made Karin feel like the world was wonderful.

Karin hugged Renji, and then Ichigo. Renji pulled a clamshell filled with kanakusa and pressed a wad into Karin’s hand. She chewed it.

“Yuzu told me you were ill. I hope you’re feeling better,” Ichigo said.

“I think I’m over the worst of it now,” she replied and did not elaborate. He didn’t need to know about her awful dream. “Where are Keigo and Mizuiro?”

Keigo and Mizuiro were Ichigo’s companions, the way Kei, Kazuya, Heita, and Ryohei were her companions. They usually accompanied Ichigo for menial tasks, but he left them behind when something serious arose. It put a pit in Karin’s stomach. She nervously clung to Renji to keep her anxieties at bay.

"Karin, we need a favor from you," Ichigo replied.

"Alright."

"I know you befriended Toushirou. We want to know if you've seen him as of late."

Karin shook her head. "Not for some time. My fever lasted for a while. My companions made me rest here, so I haven't seen anyone but them or our sister since I came here."

"How long ago was that?"

Karin spat out a glob of kanakusa. “I don’t know. The fever blurred the passage of time,” she said. “Why are you asking me these questions? Is Toushirou hurt?”

Ichigo and Renji shared a glance and Karin’s heart thumped. Fear washed her like cold waves.

“His thrall haven’t seen him for some time. Not even Rangiku,” Renji said.

Rangiku wasn’t the most reliable thrall to Toushirou, but his most loyal, and most useful. She played a key part in rallying efforts against Momo’s former lover, and the scourge of the ocean. Karin met her many times and each was memorable, rife with hallucinogens, alien oceanscapes, and mischief. She always made Karin feel acknowledged. It was, perhaps, the most useful skill to have in peacetime.

It was worrisome that she, of all people, who got along with everyone, hadn’t seen him.

Karin’s father told her about the prophecies when she was younger. The end came when their rulers vanished without a trace. No bodies behind to reuse, but horrific vanishment, with only their memory remaining. The ocean decayed in their absence.

Karin crossed her arms. “Have you spoken with Momo? She should be able to conjure something to hunt for him.”

Ichigo shook his head. “We haven’t. We were hoping this wouldn’t escalate to necessitate magic.”

“I’ll assist the search, then.” Karin had a few tricks she could use to locate Toushirou. Friendship with Momo gave Karin access to horrible creatures worse than she. Creatures with reach that spanned the ocean, networks larger than even the most mammoth serpent. Ones Ichigo and Renji refused to associate with when the circumstances permitted it.

Renji squeezed her. “If you find him, go to Momo. She has the means to contact us,” he told her. She nodded.

***

Karin gathered Kazuya, Kei, Heita, and Ryohei, and left for the open ocean.

“Where do you plan on starting the search?” Kazuya asked as they swam.

“With friends,” Karin said.

Their brethren were too fearful of the terrible things in the ocean. That which was unnatural was abhorrent, but the definition of natural was often narrow by those outside the magical class. It was why witches were feared. But those ostracized except in the direst of times were often the most useful. And the ones Karin most easily befriended.

Shuuhei and Izuru were Momo’s husbands, like Renji was her husband. They weren’t witches but incredible in their own right. Attuned to the pulse of the ocean, like the ocean was their pulse. Karin didn’t understand what the ocean’s pulse was, but they found it at the bottom of the deepest valley, and it connected them with the ocean and everything in it. They would know where to find Toushirou, or where to start, once they tapped into it.

They steadily descended. Karin felt like she was being squeezed and rung out, like how they processed kanakusa. The appearance of her companions warped. Shrunk and flattened.

The only denizens at those depths were serpents, shrimp, and mollusks. Karin felt like she was breathing stones. Heita burped bile and blood. Kazuya clutched his chest. He gasped, “I cannot continue! I feel myself collapsing. Dying!”

Karin stopped. “Ascend,” she ordered. “I’ll return once I finish.”

Kazuya, Kei, Ryohei, and Heita shared a glance before they nodded and retreated. How they accomplished nonverbal communication was a mystery to Karin.

The well-being of her companions was her responsibility. They needed her for shelter and fed off her scraps. As badly as she needed their company, she’d have no more company if the pressure of the deep made them implode.

It wasn’t much longer before music penetrated her. The pulse was magnified by the drumbeat Shuuhei made from the preserved hide of his and Izuru’s late masters. Their names were Gin and Kaname. Each was as destructive as the serpent whose body and name Momo sought to erase.

The drumbeat shook her bones and innards. The kanakusa was kicking in, highlighting the waves and debris in lovely hues of gold. The energy rushing through her head, pumping in her brain and through her veins, was good, even if her insides felt like they filled with blood. It reminded her of the rush sharks experiences as they tore apart smaller fish, and the smug satisfaction lantern fish had when they coaxed their brothers and sisters into their bellies. The mere existence was magical. Thrilling. The water shook her, and it shook with her, and she shook with it. It felt like she was diffusing into the waters. Was it the fabled pulse of the ocean?

Shuuhei and Izuru played in an arena of vents spouting boiling water. A cloud of algae shrouded them, and they played through it, pounding their drugs with their fists so swiftly in the deep, dense water, that they blurred. The vents added an endless melody, a monotonous rumble of rushing, sizzling water.

Her eyes shut as she reveled the enchantment of her bones shaking. But they noticed her, and they stopped playing, and her bones stopped shaking. Her eyes opened and she missed the euphoria.

Shuuhei swept her into a hug. “Hey! It’s been a while. Look at you, you’re gorgeous.”

He was a shark able to throw his jaw out of his skull. He called it distention and a goblin. It made Karin feel good that he owned his unusual appearance. Sometimes she wanted to emulate it and become comfortable with her phantasmagorical qualities when, according to him, the alternative was wallowing in misery. He was as much a brother to her as Renji and Ichigo were.

Karin was close to Izuru too. He was gutted years ago on angular ruins and put back together, but he was a miserable bastard long before that. Renji told her a cruel serpent named Gin warped him into a fatalistic and ruthless creature when Karin was born. She was never told what the serpent did to make Izuru calloused. Karin wasn't sure she wanted to know, either, because Momo rendered her serpent nameless and missing. Some things were best left private to not open old wounds.

But Izuru made Karin feel justified in discomfort and anger, and he adored her best friend Momo as her husband. It was hard not to love him.

Izuru played with her hair. He swept it behind her shoulders. “Your hair is longer… it’s beautiful.”

“The shrinkage makes it appear longer than it is,” she replied, smiling as she squeezed their arms. “Unfortunately, I’m not here on a social call.”

Shuuhei raised his eyebrows. “So you say… but you’re high on kanakusa.”

“It’s a long story. And potentially time-sensitive.”

Izuru folded his arms. The dark spots on his skin turned gold before they dimmed. “Is this about Toushirou?”

“No one has laid eyes on him in some time. Not even Rangiku. She, Renji, and Ichigo are in a tizzy trying to find him. I was hoping you two would have feelers out for him,” she told them.

Izuru and Shuuhei shared a side-eye. Even if Karin was buzzed, she knew they were displeased. Neither of them liked Toushirou. They thought he was bratty and ineffective. Karin was sure they would be more than pleased if Toushirou perished. But Karin believed in the prophecies. Moreso, she liked Toushirou. She could cope with his death, but she needed to find him first.

“Truthfully… we haven’t been searching. We haven’t felt anything from the pulse, either.”

“That’s not a good sign,” Karin replied.

Shuuhei shrugged. “It ebbs and flows. It’s not unusual to lose touch, even down here where it’s strongest.”

“But you don’t know where he is?”

“I’m sorry,” Izuru said. And he was. She saw it etched in his face. He was a pleaser. Sought the approval of Momo and his husbands, and those he, at the very least, regarded as allies. “I know someone who may be able to help you, however, if you’re able to tolerate the brine pools.”

Karin asked, “Where kanakusa is processed?”

“No. Mayuri’s territory.”

Her lip curled. “Oh.”

Mayuri was a malicious sea serpent. She refused contact with most of his thrall because most of them were never-do-wells. Karin’s favorites were the never-do-wells, as long as they weren’t Mayuri’s. Mayuri made the very rocks rot and crack. His brine pools were as volatile, burping acid and swarming with indiscriminate predators he employed to guard his secrets.

Shuuhei clasped her shoulder. “I know it isn’t ideal.”

“It isn’t, but I’ll survive,” Karin replied with a gentle smile. “Who am I looking for?”

“His name is Akon. He’s a competent witch, and you will be safe in his care.” Izuru said.

She nodded. She met Akon once before. He was a smarmy and mucosal hagfish. Karin always felt like he wanted to pull out her guts and play with them while she writhed.

But he and Izuru were on good terms. Akon, at the behest of his serpent master Mayuri, was the one who put Izuru’s guts back together after his disembowelment. She wasn’t sure they were friends as much as they were two warped individuals who meshed in the way warped individuals meshed. Feeding off each other’s twisted ways. The difference was that Izuru was endearing. Akon was a fucking degenerate.

The meaning of Toushirou’s disappearance was far bigger than she, however.

“I must leave. Time is of the essence,” Karin said. She hugged Izuru and Shuuhei once more and ascended to meet her companions.

Kei asked, “How was it? Did you find anything useful? Did they find Toushirou?”

“They probably just had an orgy,” Ryohei mumbled.

Karin smacked Ryohei upside his head. He yelped. “There’s no need to be crude,” she said. “But no. Izuru and Shuuhei aren’t able to tap into the pulse now. Izuru gave me another lead, however, so we must go posthaste.”

She swam between them and they flanked her. Heita asked, “I know I’ll regret asking, but where are we going?”

“A servant of Mayuri will be able to help us locate Toushirou.”

Heita groaned. “Of course.”

“That’s why you don’t ask questions,” Ryohei told him.

***

The brine pools Mayuri’s servants populated were as alien as Karin remembered them being. Rangiku took her once. She met Akon. They got high on kanakusa, and Akon made Karin feel like parasites crawled over her.

The waters were noxious there. Karin’s throat itched and it felt like her skull was swollen. Kei, Kazuya, Heita, and Ryohei hid in her bell, hoping her tendrils would circulate breathable water, but it didn’t save them from the rash of saline water. Kei coughed and scratched his eyes. She was tempted to tell them to head back to the cave she was made to recuperate in, but couldn’t muster the words. How anyone tolerated that climate was puzzling.

It was rare to see inside any cave from afar. But Akon’s home glowed with shelves of luminescent fungi. It was stale inside but lived in. Karin collected her tendrils to keep from knocking over scrolls Akon fashioned out of hide.

Akon mashed a concoction of ingredients Karin didn’t recognize. He didn’t notice them until Karin called him by name.

“Akon, Izuru sent me here.” She hoped Izuru’s name would keep him from dissecting her.

He glanced up and flexed his jaw. It spanned from his face to his chest, filled jagged and teeth he chipped from gnawing flesh off bones.

He, at least, didn’t require pleasantries. “What for?”

“We’re searching for Toushirou. He’s missing.”

“Serpents are difficult to locate by nature.”

“No, he’s missing. Rangiku doesn’t know where he is. Several of Byakuya’s thrall are searching for him, as well.”

Akon frowned. “That is troublesome.”

“We were hoping you would be able to utilize your magic to locate him,” she said.

Akon rolled his shoulders. He hummed. “I can. But I need something from you.”

“Will it help find Toushirou?”

“No, but I’ll help find Toushirou when it’s finished,” he said.

Karin frowned. She should’ve seen something like that coming. Akon was a selfish person, and favors were his currency. She didn’t want to be his gopher or experiment, but Karin needed to hear him out.

“Mayuri requires golden bones from the Ruins,” he said, “he saw them glinting through a hole in the ruins and wants them harvested.”

The Ruins were a strange, angular structure that sank before Karin was born. Ocean-dwellers gave it a wide berth because it was the zenith of the unnatural they feared and reviled. Karin saw it from afar once, and they ran. It emitted death. The very image inspired horror, it made Karin’s guts bubble with anxiety. She wasn’t thrilled to run errands for Akon, but having to search the Ruins was the absolute worst.

“Fine,” she replied. “I’ll fetch the bones for you. But I want nothing to do with Mayuri.” She didn’t want to be the thrall of the serpents, especially Mayuri’s.

“Bring them to me, and I’ll give you his location.” Akon’s eyes turned into crescents like he was smiling. “I’ll see you soon, Karin.”

She hoped she returned alive.

Without another word, Karin flipped around and returned to the dark ocean. Her companions freed themselves once they were away from the toxic brine pools.

Kazuya asked, “Are you okay?”

“It was a short exchange. We have that to be grateful for,” Karin said.

The Ruins weren’t far from Mayuri’s brine pools. In the darkness, its shape emerged through the darkness. Flat, angular planes. Shrimp didn’t occupy it, and there wasn’t a hint of barnacles on its surfaces. A bubble of vacancy entombed it. It didn’t even stink of death. Death, a natural part of life, was accepted and grieved. The complete vacancy was unnatural.

Momo told her the Ruins appeared one day. It was long before even her father’s time. The serpent Momo now served, Shinji, a long crab with pincers able to snap whales in half, told Karin of the day it sank. It barreled to the seafloor like a curse from the beyond and kicked up a cloud for ages. When the silt cleared, the serpents and witches condemned it. No one has touched it since. Certainly not Karin.

Approaching it, she felt like she was in trouble. Like she betrayed Momo and her loved ones. Karin swallowed bile.

She and her companions circled the exterior. They peered in through round holes, even in shape and equidistant, except when long openings punctuated the exterior with thick flaps waving in the tide.

Karin held the flap open. She peered in and frowned. “Stay here for the time being. It’s too tight to fit all five of us.”

Kei hugged his sides. “In, out, I don’t want to be anywhere near here.”

Karin pulled her tendrils over her arms and swam in. Maneuvering inside posed a challenge. She was too large to swim the pathways as she swam through the open ocean, so Karin pulled herself through it with her hands.

It wasn’t a long expedition. A skeleton with a split tail was tangled around a rod. Their teeth glittered gold. She had never seen ocean-dwellers with golden teeth before. When their teeth chipped they either waited for a new one to grow in or lived with it and pureed food between stones if the situation called for it. Their teeth yellowed or grew malformed, but never gold. It was unnatural and foul.

She pried them out with her fingers. They cramped unmercifully until she held the golden ones in her palms.

“What a coincidence,” she heard from behind her. Karin twisted while her heart seized, and she snarled when she saw who addressed her.

His name was Shuukurou, a spiny oarfish. He once conned them into thinking he was their family’s friend and then attempted to take Ichigo’s life. His execution was ordered by the serpent Byakuya but he vanished before it could be carried out.

She wasn’t surprised that a contemptible ocean-dweller like him made his home in the Ruins. She would make it his grave.

“Look who it is… what imbecile would reveal himself to me?” Karin hissed. “Me, who shall celebrate your demise at my hands?”

He glanced at the bones, and then at her. “You’ve taken my treasure, haven’t you?”

“Like you tried to take my brother’s life?” Karin felt like she was boiling in her rage.

His eyes narrowed. “You’ll succeed the same as I succeeded: not at all.”

Karin was good in a fight. It was how she sustained herself. Phantoms didn’t have fancy tricks like luminescence or camouflage, so they relied on brute strength to catch and consume prey. Her family was famous for their combat efficiency.

When Shuukurou lunged, she caught him by his jaws. He thrashed and tried to snap his teeth to skin her, but wasn’t able to free himself from her grapple. As she held Shuukurou at bay, she cocooned him in her tendrils, coiling until they overlapped, and she squeezed him. A howl of rage and agony ripped from his throat. Still, Karin squeezed and pushed his jaw open. It dislocated with a satisfying crack. As his organs collapsed, blood gushed into her face from his throat.

She yelped. Shuukurou dug his thumbs into her eyes and she screamed. Her tendrils loosened and he slipped free. His fangs plunged into her arm. She screeched unholily. Blindly, she thrashed her arms and tendrils until they found purchase. Karin curled her fists around the crest sprouting from his head. She yanked him towards her and held his head in her biceps. Shuukurou writhed. He pounded his fist against her biceps. He scratched and spat, to no avail. Karin loathed him. She wanted him dead and would squeeze the life out of him to do so.

His struggle died out. Karin, through a haze of blood and scratches, saw his mouth gape and his eyes bulge. She pushed him away and counted the gold dots clasped in her hand. Karin held onto all of them.

Karin pushed his corpse away and found her way outside. Her sight was returning, although her eyes still stung. Kei caught her arm.

“What the fuck happened to you?” he asked. “You’re covered in scratches.”

She rubbed her eyelids. “All that matters is it’s over. Let’s get these back to Akon.”

***

The return trip was shorter somehow. Compared to the Ruins, the brine pools were less eerie. Karin gave Akon the golden bones, and he turned them in his fingers.

“These are magnificent,” he cooed. His praise made her skin crawl, and she rubbed her arms to brush off the bugs. “Solid gold. I’m amazed by how pure they are.”

“Just tell me where to find Toushirou,” Karin said.

Akon gave her a wad of herbs. “Chew this. You’ll be given visions of his location, and the aftereffects will serve as a map to his location."

Karin wordlessly chewed it. The herbs were sour and it made her face pucker.

The effects were immediate. Karin groaned as she was overtaken by images. Momo's red tentacles swirled as she strummed a strange, fibrous instrument with a fat, hollow back. The strings she played sour notes and billowed crimson and cerulean, the most vivid colors Karin ever saw, and they mixed into gorgeous violet. While her sour notes played, frames of her weeping and stirring herbs in her mantle flashed before Karin, splitting into red and blue hues before reconverging into a cohesive image.

Karin emerged from the hallucination with a chill. She wanted to throw something through Akon's head, something to pummel him to a pulpy mess of shattered bones and lumps of blood.

True to his word, though, the water illuminated orange. It twinkled in the water, shook with the currents like an eel.

It wasn't Akon's fault her vision didn't yield Toushirou's location. It wasn't encouraging, however. Had he been spirited away, as the prophecies predicted? Were they inaugurating their extinction through their search for Toushirou? Was he altogether dead, and Akon's magic unable to locate the remains?

Karin felt especially urgent. The beacon pointed towards Momo. She needed to leave.

"Thank you, Akon. I need to leave."

"Yes, yes," he said monotonously, waving her out, "you must ensure life as we know it isn't ending. Best of luck."

Karin swam into the open ocean, following the trail of orange waves that guided her to Momo. There was a pit in her gut. She didn't dare tell Kei, Kazuya, Heita, and Ryohei about her vision, however. They would leave her in a heartbeat.

***

Karin was malaised for the entire trek. Her worries were disorienting like she was being spun. It made her taste bile.

Momo was feared because she made her lover's name and body disappear and was reviled because of her home. An odd, angular body fell into the ocean and spilled horrid-tasting ink. It was unnatural and feared for that reason. Momo ripped apart the planes and shaped them into a home.

Karin didn't understand why Momo would do something so ominous. Anyone betrayed as she was, though, couldn't be well emotionally. Perhaps it was easier for Momo to steer into repugnance.

Her home appeared in the distance, highlighted in an orange aura. The rumble of water stopped, and Karin glanced back. Her companions were frozen in the water with their gazes focused on their tails. She frowned.

"What's on your mind?"

"Karin, he isn't here," Heita said, "and if he is, he isn't living."

She stared back. "What the fuck are saying." It wasn't a question because she knew what he was saying. What Kei, Kazuya, and Ryohei were thinking: Momo slew a serpent. That she was mad and harbinger of death.

Heita grimaced. "I'm just… I'm just saying that Momo has a history of doing awful things to serpents."

Rage filled Karin. "You stupid fucking fish!" she bellowed. Her tendrils swarmed him. "How dare you compare this to the schemes of that awful serpent!"

"Look at her home, Karin! We have heard the stories. The horrors these unnatural things do to us and our monarchs! She lives in an omen!"

"Leave my sight before I kill you," she bellowed. The water shook like vents boiled it and she smelled urine. But they escaped as fast as their tails could carry them.

She was hurt and betrayed. It was an open wound in her ribs. But time was of the essence, so Karin didn't have the time to grieve. She turned towards Momo's home before their silhouettes were consumed by darkness.

Momo was fraught. Before Karin was even through the entrance, she heard bowls and shells clatter. She saw fungi, the pleated skin of trilobites, and whale teeth thrown into a mortar. Momo chewed kanakusa. Shreds floated from her open mouth.

Karin knew nothing about magic, but her mentor's mania couldn't be anything good.

"Momo," Karin said. She yelped and flipped around. Her hand pressed against her hand.

"Good god, Karin, you can't sneak up on me like that!" she snapped.

"It's an emergency."

Momo shook her head. She bawled. "I know! I know, I'm sorry. I woke up with a terrible feeling but none of my spells have found him!"

"Is he dead?" Karin whispered. Her voice shook anyway.

"I don't know. This concoction is… is my last chance. If it doesn't work, there's nothing I can do! There's nothing I can do, and it's my fault that the ocean will die."

Karin took Momo's hands. Their eyes met, Momo wild and fearful. Their tentacles interlocked. "We should do it together."

She hesitated, then pulled a wad of algae from her mouth. "Chew on this. I need my drum."

Karin sucked the wad of kanakusa from Momo's fingers. Its juices gushed down her throat, and gold ribbons unfurled in the waves.

Momo's drum hung on the wall. She pulled it off the hook, held it by the rim, and drummed it with the other. Slowly, it penetrated Karin. The pulse of the ocean. She was one with the depths, connected to everything that touched the water.

Momo's concoction billowed crimson ink. Karin's eyes shut as it shrouded them. Visions accosted her. It made her skin prickle and her guts wrap themselves in tight knots.

She saw crests of saltwater crash and foam. A shape as unnatural as The Ruins cut through the water, illuminated by veins of flashing, jagged lights behind it. The air rumbled, not like Shuuhei's music, hypnotic, but cacophonous pops that Karin feared would cause her ears to bleed. The living ruins sent lines of hard rings into the depths where they sank and danced in the waves. She was entangled in them. They cut her to the bone and dragged her to shallow water where she bloated and hemorrhaged until her belly split and spilled her insides.

She saw deaths a hundredfold. Even the mighty sea serpent, Kenpachi, strong enough to make tsunamis and level mountains in the depths, thrashed as terrible weaves caught him and dragged him up.

It was the fucking end.

Her vision cleared. Karin convulsed, spewing bile into the saltwater. The sensation of her splitting remained. Momo shrouded Karin in a hug, entangling their limbs and squeezing her shoulders. They wept together, and Momo rubbed her arms like a sister or a mother.

"I don't want to die," Karin wheezed, pulling Momo tight around her like a blanket. She pictured her companions' bodies distorting above the water, bloated until they popped, intestines spilling onto unnatural things. Unnatural deaths. "Momo, I don't want to die like that."

"I know. I know," Momo said, holding her tightly. They rocked in the water, stirring it until Karin heard it rumble in her ears.

Momo turned her around and pressed a kiss against her head. She stroked Karin's head, face warped into a woeful grimace. "We could die on our terms before the ocean is razed. I can make it painless."

Karin felt like her chest was collapsing. "What about Ichigo and Yuzu? I can't leave them."

Momo pets her hair. She kisses her head again. "I love you so much, Karin. You're like my sister."

They hugged. "I love you too, Momo." She laid her cheek on her shoulder. "Is this goodbye?"

"I don't want to die like that."

Karin didn't blame her. Momo always wanted a peaceful death. She was going to take poison and fall asleep and rot without a care in the world.

She didn't want to leave Momo as a result. They floated together, suspended in grief and love. Karin held Momo tight and hoped to absorb Momo into her so Karin would never be without her best friend.

Karin left Momo's home. Karin hoped Momo's husbands would find peace somewhere because it left like a graveyard.

***

Karin felt hollow. She didn't feel the waves or the euphoria of kanakusa. Instead, she blindly floated through the ocean.

She stopped. In the depths, she saw shrouds of darkness, like her own tendrils, but giant. "What the fuck?"

She chased after it. Only serpents could be so large, but there were no phantom serpents that she knew of.

It turned to face her. Karin knew, the same way she knew Toushirou was gone, that it was her father. Had he grown into a serpent? Were they grown, and not created?

"Father!" she shouted. "Isshin!"

He swam to her left. She made a beeline for him. "Father! Father, stop!" she screamed. "Please!"

The water rushed past them. Karin froze, remembering the prophecy, of them being lifted into shallow waters, rupturing, and suffocating. A weave tangled her and swept her up. Karin ripped at it, shrieking, but it was oily and slick. She was going to die.

Her father captured it in his tendrils but they easily tore. Water rushed past her and deafened her to horror.

Her face swelled shut. Her joints ballooned, and her gut popped. It seared. White-hot, worse than her dreams. The end came with tragedy and agony before the blissful snuffing.

#bleach #karin kurosaki #toshiro hitsugaya #ichigo kurosaki #momo hinamori #yuzu kurosaki #renji abarai #izuru kira #shuuhei hisagi #akon #shukuro tsukishima

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littleeyesofpallas · 5 years ago

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Bleach - Name Games

I know I already threw together the master list for these posts, but I realized another set of characters I could still bundle together. Although they aren’t quite as interesting and loaded as a lot of the shinigami names had been. Here’s the Fullbringers!

Ginjou [銀城] Kuugo[空吾]

“Silver Castle” is his family name, which seems dignified, and in retrospect almost feels like an accidental point toward the Quincy. And his personal name is written “Void/Sky/Heavens”+“My/Our” I can’t tell which of the two readings feels like it makes more sense; “Our Heaven” or “My/Our Void” either of which position him as the leader of Xcution, but “My Void” also feels like it describes some of his personal conflict.

Interestingly his name is also a kind of wordplay on Ichigo’s name. The “Silver Castle” is a kind of opposed image to Kurosaki[黒崎] “Black Cape” and like Ichigo’s own wordplay with numbers, “Kuugo” reads similarly to [九五] “Nine + Five.” In a lot of numerological systems, which frequently disregard zero, 1 and 9 are opposed terminals in a sequence. It’s a little hard to tell if Kubo meant for it, but it does kind of scan as if Kuugo is just named like a sort of bizarro Ichigo.

His Fullbring Cross of Scaffold is a dumb name with no meaning, and I only bring it up now because I’ll be mentioning the others’ Fullbrings while I’m at it.

Tsukishima[月島] Shuukurou[秀九郎]

“Moon Island“ and “Excellent Nine(th) Son.“ Curiously it piggybacks off Kuugo’s subtle Nine pun, and I really can’t help but want to draw ties between the “Moon” and Ichigo’s sword, as well as the “Island” and Ichigo’s “Cape/Peninsula.” Without taking these two characters into consideration, the name really doesn’t seem to have any implicit meaning in relation to Tsukishima himself.

Tsukishima is also an actual place in the Chuou ward of Tokyo. It’s the product of a reclamation project centered around what was the namesake island. But I don’t think the name is supposed to reference that, because for one you wouldn’t normally have someone’s family named after a place based on its modern state, and also because it’s not like the small district has any particular features linked to Tsukishima’s character.

Book of the End I feel like was meant to be an attempt at double meaning with Book End, but I don’t think Kubo understood that even though “of” and “the” aren’t really present in Japanese and have to be added in when translating into English, it doesn’t mean you can just take or add them into English in the same way.

Dokugamine[毒ヶ峰] Riruka[リルカ]

The Ga[ヶ] here reads as a possessive, as part of a place name, making her surname “Poison’s Peak“ and the given name, Riruka is just in katakana, so there’s no meaning to read; It is an actual Japanese name, and so there are a few conventional readings it would normally have, but I don’t think Kubo intended for any of those meanings to apply to Riruka. Actually, I think he wrote her name in kana specifically to make her a kind of parallel to Rukia, like Kuugo is a parallel to Ichigo. Also the pigtails, a bit of the attitude, and the poison shtick feels like it was salvaged off Loly Aivirrne’s general design.

Her Fullbring, Dollhouse was, I believe, a reference to the Priscilla album. It’s a little too generic a name to say for certain, but given the time frame and that fact that Kubo went all Jojo and named most of the other Fullbrings after music albums, it lines up.

Kutsuzawa[沓沢] Giriko[ギリコ]

Weirdly his surname translates as “Boots”+”Swamp” which seems almost tailor made for Jackie Tristan’s character, and has no apparent meaning in relation to Giriko... (I won’t actually be covering Jackie in this considering her name has no Kanji at all) And the name Giriko, as you can see above, is another kana only name. The sound girigiri[ぎりぎり] is the sound of grinding, which might actually be part of what Kubo was going for here. i.e. the grinding of gears (of a clock).

(A kind of random sidenote is that the name Giriko was used in Soul Eater for a character who is a living weapon; his weapon form of choice being a chainsaw, so the name evokes the sounds of a grinding chainsaw blade.)

Unrelated to name though, what was up with Giriko originally having what definitely appears to be a riding crop that just never showed back up?? I get this weird BDSM dom vibe from his first appearance, although they pretty quickly resolve the formal wear into his bar tender aesthetic. That may have had its own implications related to “grinding” sounds.

His Fullbring, Time Tells No Lies, is a Praying Mantis album. Between that and the eyepatch he almost feels like a rehash of Nnoitra Gilga’s character notes...

Also, since there’s not going to be any other place to put it: Jackie Tristan’s Fullbring, Dirty Boots is an album by Sonic Youth. And the more I think about this, I wonder if Giriko wasn’t supposed to have Dirty Boots at first, because honestly it would kind of play into that initial BDSM vibe he had, and Jackie’s little leather biker cap feels like a leather daddy kink thing more than just a biker boots thing. And even after her powered up form gave her the little engine and exhaust pipe pauldron thing to kind of pull it together, her boots aren’t even particularly in the American biker style. This isn’t really going anywhere, just something to think about...

Yukio[雪绪] Hans Vorarlberna[ハンス･フォラルルベルナ]

Yukio’s given name reads as “Snow Thread,” although the kanji used for “Thread” here is a weird archaic form that isn’t really used, but it is closely related to a more modern kanji that reads as “chord” or “thread.” Hans Vorarlberna is not a real name, but Vorarlberg is a state of Austria; I have no idea what the name means though, and I just assume Kubo picked it just because it sounded cool...

It feels like there was supposed to be some kind of parallel or theme in him getting paired off to fight Hitsugaya; Both kids, both light hair and ice/cold themed names and demeanor. (I almost get the feeling Kubo wanted him to have white hair until he remembered/was reminded that he already has like 5 other white haired characters running around.) We knew by that point that Kubo had a penchant for clever thematic fights like the Ants and Dragons fights during the Arrancar Arc. Yet there’s not really anything it this one?

His Fullbring, Invaders Must Die, is an album by The Prodigy.

Shishigawara[獅子河原] Moe[萌笑]

Family name is “Lion River-Beach” with Shishi referring to the animal itself but also the mythical lion dogs often depicted as guardian statues outside shinto shrines. The given name Moe[萌笑] reads like “Bud(ding) Laughter” as in the start of a laugh. The same “Budding” phrase can refer to showing symptoms of something like an illness.

I don’t actually know what to make of this name either; his general disposition as a bit of a goofball seems pretty aptly reflected in the given name, but the surname feels oddly specifically chosen for one that doesn’t seem to impart much meaning... I’m wondering if there’s not a more subtle or even just superficial form of wordplay that I’m missing here by not being fluent or more familiar with casual conversational phrases in Japanese.

Like Ginjou and Tsukishima, his Fullbring falls outside the album theme. Lucky Knuckles are just an actual thing: Gold plated knuckle dusters with slot machine lucky 777s on them.

#bleach #fullbring #xcution #ginjo kugo #tsukishima shukuro #riruka dokugamine #yukio hans vorarlberna #jackie tristan

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