#young gin ichimaru

[irlkisukeurahara]

The rebellious son of the Kuchiki clan and the infamous troublemaker of the Rukongai approach you with a fuck ton of booze wyd

[muzansfangs]

A witch, a werewolf and a vampire

Starring: Aizen Sosuke x f!reader x Urahara Kisuke; mention to Jugram Haschwalth, Gin Ichimaru, Rangiku Matsumoto, Isane Kotetsu, Unohana Retsu, Yamamoto Genryūsai, Kenpachi Zaraki, Muguruma Kensei, Yoruichi Shihoin, Sui-Feng, Momo Hinamori, Tier Harribel, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, Ryuken Ishida, Mayuri Kurotsuchi;

Format: one-shot;

Warnings: nsfw, fantasy au, misogyny, vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, creampie, use of potions as birth control method, threesome (m x f x m), oral sex (f!reader receiving), oral sex (Urahara!receiving), blood drinking, vampire!Aizen, werewolf!Urahara, witch!reader, hair pulling, murder, gore, horror, burial, death, language, dirty talk, competition in bed, criminals, morally grey reader, double penetration, anal sex, alcohol consumption;

Plot: It’s a rainy night and blood runs down the muddy streets of the town. Three supernatural beings, a witch, a werewolf and a vampire, find shelter in a disreputable Inn that attracts the wrong sort of people. All of them are on a run, secrets and horrific murders staining their reputations and making them quite notorious downtown. When the three of them end up forming an alliance, they realize something links them together. The thirst for blood, the gloomy atmosphere and the inhebriation leads them to give in to lust in a room upstairs.

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The croaky laughter of a drunk man slamming his fist onto the ebony table of the bar made you flinch. You were soaked, a puddle of water expanding from underneath your boots as you scrutinized the crowd of people dining all around you. Most of them were humans, without the shadow of a doubt. Men, to be specific. Predatory eyes sizing you up, offensive words piercing your ears, you knew exactly what they were thinking. A young, beautiful woman shaking like a leaf and looking for shelter was probably an easy prey for them. Unfortunately for them, you were not a hapless girl. Clamping your mouth shut not to draw attention, you resorted to lowering the tattered hood of your cape down on your face and you walked up to the innkeeper to ask for a table and a room for the night.

“That’s the last one. You’re lucky” the lanky man on the other side of the counter told you, handing you a rusty key and motioning with his chin at the last empty table somewhere behind your back.

You followed his gaze, eyes landing on a dimly illuminated area of the dining space. In a corner, a chair and a dusty table, waiting for you to sit at. You scrunched up your nose in disgust, already figuring the bedroom would have most likely been even worse than the chilling refreshment stand you were going to drink at. However, it was not time for you to be fussy and picky about where you had to spend the night. The guards outside were tracking you down and leaving this place would have only granted you the chance to experiment the same fate of your late mentor, the great witch Unohana Retsu. You had really screwed up this time, but the heavy money satchel hanging on the leather belt secured around your waist was definitely worthy the murder of Lord Jugram Haschwalth.

Your head turned back towards the grey-haired man, bony fingers tapping onto the wooden desk impatiently “It’s perfect. — you faked a smile — A bottle of wine too, please” you told him, before grasping your satchel and drawing out some money to cover up the price of the rent and your order.

Paying you little to no attention, he whistled loud enough for some tipsy men to complain about being brutally awakened from their slumber, but also to draw the attention of a beautiful waitress serving soups and beers at the tables. You wondered how such a pretty girl had ended up in a squalid barrelhouse like that. The gold band on her ring finger answered your question, as she cleaned her hands quickly in her lilac apron and jogged back to the counter with a kind smile adorning her plumped lips.

“Gin, honey, what’s the matter?” she inquired, sparing you a brief glance before refocusing on her husband.

Now that she was closer to you, the waves of magic radiating from her made you feel less in danger. Witches were not welcomed in the small town you lived in. Knowing the innkeeper’s wife was a supernatural being too made you feel more at ease, as if you were at home, safe from stakes and fire. Nevertheless, you never let your guard down, not after you had witnessed to Unohana’s ashes blowing in the wind, dissolved in the village square, a couple of years ago. Isane, your friend and the other apprentice your mentor had taken in, had fled right away in search for protection in one of the towns in the North of the Country. You had no idea if she was still alive, or if she had shared your teacher’s destiny. Hopefully, she had joined a powerful coven and she did not have to fight for her life anymore like you did.

Sometimes, you asked yourself why you did not follow her in her incredible adventure. The answer, sadly, was that you loved that place too much to move away and forget about your past. Also, you were seeking revenge. The Mayor, that old bastard, Lord Yamamoto Genryūsai, was still alive. You were working day and night to create a deadly potion to kill him once and for all. In order to get close to him, though, you needed connections and, regrettably, you were a lone wolf.

Gin grinned “Sorry, darlin’, but this girl here needs a bottle of wine. Be a dear and accompany her to her table with this” he explained, ducking underneath the counter to grasp a cheap bottle of red wine and a globlet. Drowning your demons sounded good enough, given your foul mood.

The curvaceous woman sighed and ruffled his hair affectionately “I got it from here. Take care of the rest while I’m busy, will you?” she cooed, winking at her husband before gesturing for you to follow her to your destination without further ado. You caught a glimpse of the man smirking, as you moved away from the counter, noting how pleased he seemed to be for the attention his companion had reserved to him.

The dirty comments the waitress and you received on the short walk to the table made your stomach churn and you had to suppress the homicidal impulse to set those swines on fire right on the spot. You really did not need cops to break in and arrest you. Not when your face was already printed onto numerous newspapers and you had an impressive bunty on your head. People chased you down the streets to turn you in and alert the authorities.

Tiredly, you slumped down onto the chair, chin propped onto the upturned palm of your hand, whilst you absent-mindedly observed the girl uncorking the bottle with expertise. For a few moments, she stayed silent, limiting herself to pour some wine into the goblet and sliding it towards you once it was filled to the brim “Here you go” she stated then, eyeing you from behind her long and dark eyelashes. She was most likely a charmer, the dangerous kind of witch that could bring a man to madness.

“Thanks” you shortly replied, only for her to glance behind her shoulder briefly, checking the area, and lean closer to you afterwards, her tone of voice low enough not to be heard from anyone else besides you.

Her light blue eyes locked with yours “No one is going to harm you, but two of our guests are affiliated to the Government. — she informed you, shooting a subtle look at a purple-haired woman, sitting by the window, clinking glasses with her colleague — You may think she is our ally, considering her condition. It turns out she has a secret agreement with the Mayor to grant her immunity from prosecution”.

You took a sip of your wine, narrowing your eyes in disgust at the unexpected news about the famous Yoruichi Shihoin switching sides to save her own neck. Becoming one of the Hunters was not a career you had ever considered in whole life. The last person you could imagine to betray the Supernatural Community for a personal advantage was Yoruichi. She was a wild spirit, a force of the nature. Clearly, something had changed in her life and, judging by the way the petite girl next to her was now running her fingers through her luscious hair, it was probably the unforgiving feeling of love.

“Who would have ever thought a shapeshifter worked for that shitface. Thanks for the information…” you trailed off then, not knowing how to address the witch saving your life for free.

She smiled softly at you and snapped her fingers to light up a candle she had pulled out from the front pocket of her apron “Rangiku Matsumoto, the one and only. — she introduced herself, positioning the candle into an old candlestick — I would like to chit-chat with a fellow witch a little more, but I really have to go lend my hand to my husband. Enjoy your wine” she excused herself then, waving her hand at you and venturing back into the intricate lines of the tables.

You watched her leave, bringing the goblet to your mouth again, but turning your attention back to the two women looking for the next head to bring to the Mayor on a silver plate. You did not fail to notice the amount of daggers strapped to their belts. At their feet there were bags full of newspapers and you could swear there was even an axe in one of them, but it was too dark for your eyes to make out the real shape of the weapon. It was decidedly better not to go anywhere near that table. You could defend yourself, you were powerful enough to force them to transform, or even cast a curse on them to perpetually turn them into animals. However, you could not assault them out of the blue and this was not a place to fight.

You were genuinely surprised a shady man with unkempt sandy hair and a smug smile on his lips approached them. Yoruichi seemed to know him, her yellowish eyes darting on the stranger immediately, upon sensing his presence at her back. While she began conversing with him, you switched your attention on the raven-haired Huntress at her right, her scowl quite evident as she stared daggers at the newcomer. Well, jealousy could do numbers on people, to the point of even attempting to kill the person who piqued the interest of your loved one.

It did not startle you the way she suddenly leapt forward and knocked him down onto the floor, pressing the sharp edge of her dagger on his carotid. Silence swallowed the room, the moment she straddled him and grasped his jaw roughly in her small hand.

“What part of ‘stay away from her’ you did not comprehend? Do you want me to etch it on your face?” the girl snapped, while Yoruichi disinterestedly finished her drink and slammed the empty glass back onto the table. She did not bother to step in to prevent her colleague to make a scene, or possibly slaughter a man in front of all those witnesses. All she cared about was being the center of the attention, as per usual.

The man sighed, hands raising apologetically to quell his aggressor’s rage “Woah, I got it, Sui-Feng! — he defended himself, his tone playful and strangely calm despite the compromising position he was in — I was just telling her my goodbyes! You know, I’ll leave this town in the morning” he explained, earning a scoff from the woman above him who begrudgingly sheathed the dagger back into its scabbard before jumping back on her feet.

“That’s the fourth time you use this pathetic excuse to approach her. It’s only natural for a merchant to travel. — she retorted, hopping back onto her stool and glancing at the dark sky outside — Too bad it’s not a full Moon night. I’d have loved to skin you alive” she added, a mischivious grin curling her pinkish lips as the man leisurely stood back on his feet and dusted some dirt off of his baggy clothes.

A werewolf? You had not met one in years. After Unohana’s death, Kenpachi Zaraki and his pack had left the town and the only werewolf still around was Muguruma Kensei, the smith who lived in the mountains. Who was this man, then? Why had you not met him before? Did he belong to a pack from another town, or did he get exiled? Whatever was his origin, all you knew was that he had caught you staring and he winked at you with a teasing smirk promising a conversation.

Straightening your back, you whipped your head to the other side of the room and found yourself wishing you could chant your beloved invisibility spell. You really did not wish to catch the attention of anyone in particular. Making bonds could be dangerous and that man radiated troubles.

“Let him go, Sui-Feng. — Yoruichi chimed in, silky voice resonating through the room — Kisuke was about to leave anyway, right?”.

“Of course, I was! You are probably in the middle of the hunt anyway and I should make my getaway before a silver blade takes me to the grave prematurely” you heard him jest, but you were not too happy to hear them share their goodbyes. You had a feeling deep in your guts he was about to head over to your table and you had no intention to die at his place.

Therefore, you stood up and sauntered towards the wooden staircase leading to the rooms upstairs. It was time to go to sleep and lock yourself up, maybe even protecting your door with some defensive spells to keep anyone trying to break him outside. With each step you climbed, you felt safer and, if it was not for a whimper echoing in the corridor at the end of stairs, you would have dared to say nothing threatened your life anymore. That moan, however, was pained one. Someone was hurt and you felt your heart thrumming against your ribcage violently as you wandered down the deserted area, expecting someone to jumpscare you at any moment.

There was an ominous atmosphere around you and it had become notably coldler with every passing second. You reminisced some of your mentor’s teachings about the temperature and atmosphere’s changings. Sudden cold usually was connected to the presence of ghosts, or beings capable of sucking the life out of their victims. In other words: vampires.

You truly wished the monster at the end of the road was not a bloodsucker, but you soon found yourself face to face with one as he dropped the lifeless body of a young woman down onto the floor with a dull thud. Glossy brown eyes staring at you, pale complexion, the corpse belonged, much to your dismay, to the kind nun Momo Hinamori. Too young to die and too devoted to think monsters existed, she had always refused to believe you were a witch. You wondered what she was doing in that Inn and how the dapper man in front of you had lured her into his trap.

He was handsome, this much was undeniable. Then again, she was not the type to melt for small attentions. You wondered what he had done to her, if he had used mind control, or some other devious technique to compel her to follow him so effortlessly.

He stood there, lean frame enveloped by a luxurious black cape as he wiped his mouth clean with a silky white handkerchief. Your presence had not bothered him in the slightest.

“Good evening” he greeted you, velvet voice caressing your skin warmly, a fatherly tone you despised with every molecule of your body. You felt your mouth going dry, your eyes averting from him to spare another glance at the victim at his feet.

You took a sharp intake of breath, your eyes hardening as you reached for the phial of holy water you always kept hanging on your neck and tossed it at him. The man disappeared from your sight, dodging your attempt to make his skin sizzle, and the glass collided onto the wall, exploding into a million splinters before your frightened eyes. Your head frantically whipped around, trying to detect his presence before he could get his hands on you, but the moment you realized he was at your back it was too late for you. Your cheek was pressed against the wall, one hand wrapped around the back of your neck to pin you on the spot.

“How much do you know about vampires, sweetheart?” he asked you, cold breath wafting over your jaw, when he dipped his head down to talk directly next to your ear.

“Enough to desire their extinction” you sassed, furrowing your brows in discomfort as he tightened his grip on your nape. You definitely needed to train in hand-to-hand fights. Against some monsters spells and curses did not suffice. The scar in the middle of your mentor’s chest was your daily reminder of how dangerous it could be losing focus in a duel.

The vampire hummed and magnanimously loosened his grip on you, but he cautiously took a couple of steps back to put a relatively safe distance from his opponent “You must be the witch everyone is talking about. — he noted, chestnut hues scrutinizing your face — The sketch on the leaflets doesn’t do you justice” he smoothly complimented you, causing your cheeks to heat up, but your brain to inform you he was probably trying to get in your mind.

You snorted, arms folding against your chest “Don’t tell me you won her heart with such ridiculous pick-up lines. — you taunted him, eyes darting on the late nun behind you — Now, unless you want us to respectively end up with a stake through the heart and flesh consumed on a burning pyre, what do you say about parting ways and leaving this small altercation behind?” you flatly suggested, eyes flitting back on your interlocutor who impassibly listened to you. He was unnerving. Too stolid and tranquil, he got on your nerves without even talking much.

Before dignifying you with an answer, he slicked back the single cowlick tickling his pointy nose, a placid smile adorning his lips “Is that what you wish for? — he queried softly, before ambling over the cold body of his victim and inspecting it with a cold indifference that made you question how many people he had killed throughout the years — Mala tempora currunt. Forming alliances is fundamental to survive”.

You blinked, swallowing forcefully to withstand the impact his words had on you. If the world once belonged to supernatural beings it was merely because humans feared those who possessed such abilities. Knowledge is power and, forging new weapons to eradicate the so-called monsters from the society, from hunters you had all become the hunted. No matter how powerful you were, you were constantly on the run and with no one to seek protection from. It was probably a matter of time before someone killed you. Vampires were surely powerful, albeit the sunlight was their greatest weakness. Their strength dopended on their biological age. The man in front of you looked like he was in his early thirties, but the confidence and charisma he possessed indicated he had most likely been around for a long time. Centuries. There was no doubt he was a skilled fighter, if he had lived that long unscathed.

“I don’t trust vampires” you countered back, watching him pick up the lifeless body of the young nun as if it weighted nothing.

“You shouldn’t trust anyone besides yourself. — he replied, glancing at you briefly before staring back at the girl in his arms — However, this is what happens to people who don’t make connections. I can offer you protection, a safe place to live, and only ask for a few favors in return. We don’t have to be friends to make an alliance” he reasoned, once again reminding you of how much you were risking by isolating yourself and working as a killer for a living.

You took a few seconds to ponder your next words. The temptation to accept the deal was alluring and, all in all, you knew there was a catch in this.

“If I refuse your offer, you are going to denounce me, am I correct?” you inquired, his smile confirming your inklings and earning a scoff from you.

Holy crap, you were screwed.

“How perceptive of you. — he said, his baritone voice caressing your skin like a silky blanket leaving goosebumps on its wake — My name’s Sosuke Aizen” he introduced himself, bowing his head cordially to make up for his temporary impossibility to shake your hand.

You did the same “I’m Y/N L/N” you curtly said, before letting your eyes flick to Hinamori once again. It was disturbing continuing your conversation in her presence. Your expression probably spoke volumes, for the vampire to sigh and indicating a window at the end of the corridor.

When be began to walk in its direction, you hesitantly followed him “Wait, don’t tell me you’re going to throw her out of the window…” you voiced your doubts, but the ugly look from him made you desist from pressing him with more questions.

You stood next to him as he hurled the corpse out of the window, the sound of it colliding with the muddy ground down below made you flinch, but you did not expect for a familiar voice to pierce your ears. You had had no guts of looking outside the window, you had limited yourself to check the stairs to assure the both of you no one had seen the sacrilegious action. Still, curiousity killed the cat; when you heard Kisuke’s voice coming straight from the yard, you peered down to check on him and there he was. Smug grin, disheveled sandy hair sticking to his forehead, he was mostly covered in dirt. At his feet there was a freshly dug pit in which he was tossing Sosuke’s victim.

Your mind went blank. That werewolf was in cahoots with the vampire! Probably, he had caused that commotion at the restaurant to allow his friend to feed without anyone bothering him.

“It took you so long, Lord Aizen! It’s freaking cold outside!” the werewolf complied, grey eyes gleaming in the darkness as he picked up the shovel at his feet to fill up the pit once again. It was definitely not the first time they did something like that.

“Actually, I got held up by this lady. — Sosuke retorted, making space for you to lean out of the window and granting his friend a look at your shocked face — From this day and for years to come, she is in partnership with us” he informed Kisuke, only for you to regret all of your life’s choices in a instant.

The perspective of being burned alive did not sound that unappealing anymore.

Kisuke stopped in his tracks, a smirk on his lips as he winked up at you “Welcome to our society, milady. I truly hope you will survive” he chimed, causing you to halt and look back at Sosuke dead in the eye.

“What does he mean by that?” you asked him, ready to hit him with a migraine spell right on the spot. Something about these two was off and you were pretty sure they were responsible for a long line of unsolved murders.

He sighed “The last woman who joined us tragically died in a fight against another supernatural brigade. You are clearly stronger than her, fear not” he tried to soothe your nerves, but you simply grimaced and took a couple of steps back to put some distance between you two. You hoped he was telling the truth. In times like this, fights were frequents to establish domain over villages and you knew about some beings who had succumbed recently.

Maybe, if you knew the name of that woman, you could surely tell if she had been involved into a battle.

“Who was she?”.

“You ask too many questions, sweetheart”.

“Don’t call me that. — you punctuated, folding your arms against your chest as you gazed out of the window, eyes lingering on the starless night sky — It’s only fair you share some informations with me”.

Sosuke took a sharp intake of air, chestnut eyes closing as he leaned his back against the wall in resignation “She was a mermaid I had encountered in the South during a trip. — he began, eyelids lifting leisurely to refocus on you — Her name was Tier Harribel. I thought she could keep up with our rhythms. My mistake” he stated, leaving a weird sense on bitterness on your tongue, after his words sunk in. A mermaid. You had never met one in person, but you had heard stories about them. While they were pretty powerful in their natural habitat, they could solely rely in their hypnotizing singing and peculiar beauty on the land.

If your companions were so invested into fights for power, you had to watch your back. What if they suddenly saw you as a menace and killed you off? Strategies were not your forte, but you knew your way around men. Maybe, you could keep them on check, while honing your abilities. You were a witch, you had learned to use not only your magical abilities to bend knees. The art of seduction was something every woman knew, but witches were trained to make a good use of it at very young ages. There were stages to go through and now that you were a full grown woman in her early twenties, there was no limit to what you could do. The carousel stopped when you decided to get off of the ride.

Realizing you had zoned out for a while now, you were pulled back to reality by the sudden appearence of the goofy werewolf next to you. The man had sneaked back into the Inn by climbing the giant oak by the window. Humans would have not made it that far, but his supernatural strength showed in his agile movements and the minum effort he had endured in jumping from a brench to the other.

“Geez, I definitely need a bath, but the room I’ve booked doesn’t have a tub” he stated, your eyes travelling up and down his body in sheer disgust. Yeah, he really stank of wet dog and dirt. His clothes were a mess and he would have drawn way too many curious glances, if he were to go downstairs like that.

Maybe, this could be your chance to prove yourself to them and, at the same time, to catch their full attention. It was better to have them on your side, than after you. It was clear they were not going to let you go. The vampire had made himself abundantly clear a gew moments ago. You were stuck with them, the new addition to that deadly duo, the wanted girl they would have not hesitated to sell out to Yoruichi and Sui-Feng, if she attempted to run away. You had to learn more about them and feigned kindness, wine and blood were exactly what you needed to make them talk.

“I have rented a room too. — you started, hand reaching for the key the innkeeper had given to you earlier — Let’s go check if there’s a tub you can use”.

Your words made the werewolf pause, grey eyes scrutinizing your face suspiciously, evidently still wary around you. Pretty faces frequently deceived people and witches were well-known for taking advantage of their looks to achieve their goals. He was right not to trust you, but you could not confirm his doubts. Also, it was not like you keened to really murder them. You merely wanted hold some kind of control of the situation and, naturally, finding out more about them.

“What’s with that face? Can’t a girl take pity on a man?” you queried sarcastically, sauntering towards the room with the number three etched onto the top section of the door without waiting for him to reply. Unlocking it, you pushed the door open and made sure they entered the room before you did. The show was about to begin. The moment you joined them, you locked the door behind you again and cleared your throat to catch their attention, temporary focused on the modest forniture decorating the space.

Once their eyes were both transfixed back on you, it was time to feign a polite smile and raise your hands, fingers flicking in the air to emphasize your next words “Considering the Huntresses downstairs and the horde of guards hunting me out there in the streets, I will put a protection spell on the door. No one will be able to enter this room, or detect our presence in here anyway, alright?” you informed your new comrades, who barely shared a knowing glance before allowing you to proceed without further ado.

Turning around victoriously, you kept in mind this was, without the shadow of a doubt, a bold move. Your intention was mainly to protect yourself and show them you were going to put your abilities on the table to defend them as well. Still, who would have protected you from them, if they simply decided to betray you, to kill you?

You were doomed.

Too distracted by perfecting the incantation to pay attention to them, you had not heard the sound of clothes rustling, landing in a pile on the floorboard. What you saw, however, made your eyes widen and you swallowed forcefully upon the indecent vision welcoming you back on Earth. Kisuke Urahara, fully naked, had entered what looked like a wine cask, but was actually the tub, without even bothering to let you know he was stripping himself. You stepped back from the door and made a relative distance between you two, careful not to lock your eyes on his sculpted body, littered with scars from the battles he had fought to survive. He was smugly smiling at you, splashing the water into the tub to rub off of his muscles the dirt and sweat sticking on his flesh.

“A brute, I know. No wonder all women decline our invitations to join our army” Sosuke finally spoke out from behind you.

The hair on your nape stood on the end, his cool breath tickling your earlobe as you gulped down nervously and turned your head to the side enough to meet his gaze. You had not realized he had gotten that close to you until he had talked. Vampires, the worst specimen ever created.

Kisuke scoffed, splashing some water onto his face, slicking his damp sandy hair back “Chastising me, when you are the one who sucks them dry after they refuse your offer is a bit ironic, don’t you think?”.

You grimaced and walked off to the nearby desk, hand reaching for a glass and a pottery jug you found over there. This place truly made your skin crawl, yet you had to give it credits for the services it offered. Pouring some water into the glass, you knew you had to do something to bring balance to the conversation again.

“There is no need to bicker. We are comrades now, things like this happen on a regular basis. Also, it is not like I have never seen a naked man before” you chimed in, mellow voice cautiously aiming to extinguish the fire ready to start between them.

You brought the glass to your lips, a single sip washing away the dryness your anxiety had left behind. You could perfectly deal with them, you could handle this situation like you had handled your mentor’s loss, your friend’s decision to leave and all the terrible crimes you had committed to gain money and earn some favors from some inhabitants of the hills around the village.

Biting on the rim, you observed the vampire ubuttoning the silver buttons keeping his black cloak draped neatly over his shoulders. Underneath, he was wearing an expensive brand of clothes he had probably purchased in the North of the Country. The white shirt and the black waistcoat were immaculate, his crimson cravat a striking contrast reminding you of the nun’s blood dried around the bitemark on her tender neck. Handsome like the devil and probably worse than Satan himself.

He caught you staring, impassible face lighting up in a knowing smirk “Do you wish to see me naked as well?” he inquired, your cheeks flushing up as you barely got to shrug his provocation off with a bemused laughter fueling his curiosity.

“You are all the same underneath your clothes. What would make a difference?”.

“The way we use our bodies to pleasure our partners” Kisuke interjected, still sitting comfortably in the tub, muscular arms resting on the borders of the bathtub as he eyed you in genuine shrewdness. He did not make a move to get out of it yet and, frankly, you did not know if it was better this way, or not. Things, however, seeemed to have been escalating quicker than you had anticipated.

You settled your glass down, your own cloak dropping from your shoulders as you tossed it over a nearby chair probably to gain some time to fire a smart answer back “I see. Men and their toxic tendency of being convinced they can pleasure a woman more than she can do it herself, even going as far as competing over who does it better than the other. — you rambled, rolling your eyes and allowing a soft chuckle to escape your lips while you flicked your gaze up to meet the hungry eyes soaking in your form, now visible for the lack of the cloak hiding your curves — Can’t any of you understand women know how to reach their ecstasy themselves? They are the only ones who know how to reach blissful climaxes, without a man attempting to find that spot, or… Well, find the clitoris”.

You were well aware you were walking on thin ice and feeding their imagination. Then again, you were kind of getting some thoughts that had been pestering your mind for years out of your head and, additionally, you could not stop running your mouth because the wine you had consumed earlier was really getting to you. Wonderful, considering you were in the company of two supernatural beasts that could easily snap your neck like a twig, thanks to your lack of concentration.

Sosuke hummed, arms folded over his chest, back leaning against the wall behind him “I don’t doubt your words. Nobody can say to know a body more than the owner themselves. — he gave you credit for your remark, pausing only to watch you kick your boots off of your feet and run your fingers through your hair to fix them, a vision making his pants uncomfortably tight — The exception to this rule, however, is clearly in practice and acute observation. Someone who has spent centuries walking this Earth, having countless people warming up his bed, telling him where they longed to be touched, my dear, knows how to break your mind” he replied confidently, stunning you in silence as you slumped onto a chair and propped your chin over the upturned palm of your hand.

He had a point. How were you supposed to reply to this? This smile on his lips told you just enough to let you know he had no problem in showing you the empiric evidence of his theory. And, damn him, you were pressing your thighs together to subtly relieve the throbbing need irrevocably growing in your heat.

The sound of water gushing out and splattering onto the wood made your head snap back towards Kisuke, who had raised tall on his feet and climbed out of the tub with an impressive bulge worsening your state. The room felt way too hot right now and you wanted nothing more than your clothes to evaporate at the moment. You straightned your back, eyes straying away from him to preservate your mind from what you were seeing. You were definitely not a prude. Not after Grimmjow, long ago, had showed you the pleasures a cock well stuffed into your core could bring to you. Too bad he had then enrolled in the so-called Hollow Army to bring war to a Country you did not even remember the name of.

“You may know the female anatomy better than me, alright, but can you smell her arousal? Because, to be precise, she is clearly dripping underneath her gown and it all started the moment she saw me naked” the werewolf earnestly stated and, bloody Hell, how you wished you could simply summon a fireball to throw at him to shut his mouth. He was telling the truth and your upper lip twitched in irritation for having been caught red-handed so easily.

You could not blame him for having supernatural senses, though.

Your palms were sweaty, eyes darkening in anticipation as you cleared your throat before Sosuke could blast his alley’s ego effortlessly with his silver tongue. Why restraining yourself now? You had started this, they had to finish it. What was better than sex to fortificate relationships? Everything was going according to your plan, fortunately.

You spread your legs tentatively, hand reaching for the hem of your plum gown to hike it up and expose your legs up to your thighs “Still, I don’t see any of you doing something to fix the problem…” you hazardously whispered, sly smile creeping on your lips.

Sosuke arched a dark eyebrow up, cocking his head to the side “Aren’t you going to pick your knight for the ride, dear? You just expect us to jump on you like two dogs contending a piece of meat, don’t you?”.

“You know, it doesn’t really matter to me who is going to fuck me. — you started, pursing your lips thoughtfully — What I need right now is for one of you two to help me out. I offered you a bath and a room and I have blindly accepted to partake to this association, whatever it is. Consider this a payback” you stated, watching Kisuke loop his arm around Sosuke’s shoulders and whispering something you failed to catch in his ear.

With the masterly art of masking his emotions, Sosuke did not let his facial muscles stretch to display his reaction to Kisuke’s words. You guessed this was a skill he had acquired after centuries of living in a reality in which the less you showcased the longer you lived. Therefore, when the other man took a step away from him, Sosuke gazed into your eyes, looking for sincerity in your offer. When you did not falter, he motioned for Urahara to proceed. You locked eyes with the werewolf instantly, hand reaching up to scratch the stubble over his chin, when he bent down towards you.

“Did you ask your buddy if you could do the honors?” you asked him, fluttering your lashes as he bit the tip of your nose playfully, before dropping onto his knees in front of you. Calloused hands slithering up your stockings, he seeked the garters to unlatch them and free your panties from the leather restrictions.

He chuckled, shooting a knowing look at you “Let’s just say we started a contest. Who makes you come faster wins” he cooed casually, fingers tugging at the waistband of your underwear and dragging them down your thighs deftly, before clutching them in his hand and taking a long whiff of them. You squirmed on your seat, jaw dropping but closing soon, prompted by the cold hand of Sosuke now standing at your side with an obscure gleam in his caramel brown eyes.

“Relax. You are in good hands” he hushed you, thumb playing with your bottom lip, as you watched Kisuke’s head disappear underneath the layers of your gown, lips quickly finding your folds and tongue lapping at your arousal like a starving animal.

Right, this is what he was after all.

With the first licks he gave you, attention solely trained on your clitoris, you jerked over the chair you were sitting on. Your head lolled back, neck strained and chest threatening to spill out of the tight corset you were wearing. Your breasts, squeezed and pushed up by the fine item gifted to you by Lord Ishida Ryuken in exchange of Lord Kurotsuchi Mayuri’s head, were a sight the vampire could not ignore. He was a man too, at the end of day. No matter how composed and sophisticated he was: right now Sosuke Aizen only wanted to bury his face between those plush mounds and trace with his tongue a path leading to your jugular. A bite, some blood to taste you.

Fingers running through your hair, he brought his lips close to your ear, pointy nose nuzzling your cheekbone “Do you mind if I have a taste, sweetheart?”.

A taste. He wanted to feed from you. Mind fuzzy for the intense waves of pleasure provided by the werewolf’s tongue now swirling around your entrance, you moaned loudly and peered up at Sosuke in sheer desire “Are you going to suck me dry too?”.

“Don’t be foolish. I merely want to rinse my mouth from the nun’s blood. — he whispered, mouth already searching for the vein of your neck, eyes closed as he smelt the fragrance of your blood — I would rather have you screaming my name in pleasure every night than making you my meal”.

You shuddered, the tongue between your thighs was now accompanied by a finger stretching your pussy for what was yet to come. Your hand reached up to grab a fistful of Sosuke’s silky hair and tug at them, when his fangs pierced your neck. You whined, a pained one, the overflow of your blood invading his mouth depriving you gradually of some energy. The two mouths over your body were definitely robbing you of the last shreds of sanity left in you.

��Oh my Lord— Gosh, I’m close” you breathed out, a groan of approval rambling from somewhere deep in Sosuke’s chest as he pulled his mouth away from you. You felt some trickles of blood dribbling down your neck, escaping the wound he had left onto your neck, leaving goosebumps on their wake.

Legs spasming, you bucked your hips against Kisuke’s face, seeking more friction, riding your orgasm out with untainted hunger. It all felt like a lucid dream and, to be honest, you had no idea how you ended up naked over the bed after your orgasm. You remembered Sosuke pulling you into his arms, kissing you violently and spinning you around, whilst his fingers hastily undid the strings of your corset. Falling face first onto the bed, you were soon sandwiched between them.

None of you was covered, skin to skin, panting, you realized what was going on only when Kisuke’s length probbbed at your lips “Spit on it, babygirl. Suck on it, come on, make it nice and wet. You know, it’s only for the best. I don’t want to hurt that cute little hole of yours later, hm? Lubricate it”.

And you did. Tongue sweeping out of your mouth to twirl around the mushroom head of the hard cock in front of your face, you kept an intense eye-contact with the werewolf before taking as much as you could into your warm cavern. He grunted, hand resting behind your nape to push your head even more down onto him. But even though you had tried so hard not to show a gag reflex, you ended up choking on Kisuke’s cock, when you felt Sosuke’s ministrations on your puckered hole.

Tears prickled at your eyes, falling from your lashes as you took a sharp intake of air, and Kisuke sighed, hand ruffling your hair to comfort you “Sosuke, don’t be so rough with her. She’s… Ah, shit! She’s in the middle of a very delicate— Oh! Fuck, like that, shit! If you keep going like that, I’m gonna cum!” Kisuke’s protests towards the other man turned into a series of moans elicited by your mouth.

You had gained back some control, head bobbing up and down in a fluid motion, once you had adjusted to Sosuke’s intrusion in your most private parts. Before you could even properly realize it, in fact, he was already pressing his tip onto your entrance and the stretch left you breathless. Strings of saliva connected your mouth to Kisuke’s cock, choked out whines escaping your lips.

“Sosuke!” you cried out, a whimper leaving your wobbly lips, nails clawing at Kisuke’s thighs as a reflex while he held your face in his hands.

Your spine arched, eyes squeezed shut as the vampire groaned lowly, rotating his hips against yours to bottom out. Tight, warm, your hole was literally sucking him in. The spit he had used and the fingering had done nothing to make it less hard to breach in. Still, there you were, taking him like a champion. Your legs trembled, but gosh how beautiful you looked like that. Your ass, pressed up against his navel, was making it hard for him not to burst into you right on the spot.

Kisuke took notice of his colleague’s status and clicked his tongue “Oh, are you alright, man? Having a hard time holding on?”.

“Shut up, Kisuke” Sosuke admonished him sternly, fingertips digging onto your waist as you were now helped by the two men to raise better onto your knees and straddle Kisuke’s lap. You were out of breath, thin sheen of sweat beading your forehead whilst Kisuke gently slipped himself into your pussy. The feeling made your eyes roll in the back of your skull.

You heard them cussing, throwing insults at each others face, pointing out how loud you were because of their ministrations. Honestly, you had no idea of which one of them was blowing your mind more than the other. All you knew, when you forced them to kiss you contemporary in a messy dance of tongues and labored breaths, was that you were not going to betray them. Not that night, not in a lifetime.

When the three of you were done, bodies sweaty and numb, you were laying between them, spent, drained. Their seeds leaked out of your body, staining the sheets underneath you, while you absent-mindedly drew patterns on Sosuke’s pectoral and let Kisuke play with your hair.

“May my mentor be blessed, for she taught me how to make birth control potions” you muttered tiredly, huffing as Sosuke grasped your wrist and nipped at the veins to play with your emotions.

“Indeed. — Sosuke commented, glaring at Kisuke at your back — I would have hated to deal with pups around my castle”.

“What a jerk”.

AUTHOR NOTE.

Hello there! It’s finally here. I will be frank with you. I have enjoyed writing this fic more than I had anticipated. There is a lot going on up there, but I hope I have been able to depict the mediveal world I had in mind. I tried to vary in the choice of the specimens mentioned and it sounded so good in my head. Hopefully, this is spooky and kinky enough to celebrate this fabulous month!

Let me know what you liked about this story in the comments! Likes and re-posts are greatly appreciated. Until next,

x o x o

Tags: @j-u-u-z-o @brittscafe @jesurum-says-hi @sashi-ya @naru-mi-gen @persuasivus @noirfan12 @my-my-my @bankaizen @enchaotic @villainsrtasty @velaenaa

[gallusrostromegalus]

You can lay blame for this second ask at @hoifne 's feet, I saw their comment on the post and had to:

How did folks react to the moon landing?

"You're ready? No Big Regrets?" Renji asks. He always asks. He'd done hundreds of Konso rituals now that he was doing his mandatory tour of duty in the living world, but he never wants them to feel 'routine', so he talks to the ghosts. Hypes them up a bit for the afterlife, tries to keep his heart in it.

Especially when it's a kid.

"Well, it's not really a big deal..." The ghost Suichi considers. He was maybe ten or eleven years old. Thick prescription glasses, face round with puppy fat, very loved. Love won't stop a freak electrical accident though. Young Suichi is handling his sudden departure really well, all things considered, so maybe love does stop despair. "-but its a bit of a shame that if there's no TV in the afterlife, I won't be able to watch the moon landing."

"Yeah, we're a bit behind the times, but I'm sure one of the mad geniuses in the 12th will invent one sooner than late-" Renji grins ruffling the boy's hair before the rest of the sentence registers. "-The What Landing?"

"The Moon Landing!" Suichi lights up with excitement. "They just launched the rocket yesterday! But in just three days, man will walk on the moon!"

"...The Moon?" Renji blinks, bewildered.

"Yeah!"

Renji points up over his shoulder into the sky, gripping the boy's shoulder, eyes wide. "THE MOON IN THE FUCKING SKY?"

---

The lights of the Fifth division offices reflect blankly off of Captain Aizen's glasses as he attempts to process the news. He is entirely still, save for his eyebrows which are writhing like overcaffienated caterpillars, unable to settle on an emotion to convey.

"The Moon?" Lieutenant Ichimaru squints at Renji even harder than usual, pointing up out the window behind him. "The Moon in the fucking sky?"

"Yeah!" Renji spread his hands. "I didn't believe it either but the humans have managed to work out some neat trick with the way the world turns to like, throw the spaceship like a slingshot..?" he tried to explain.

"So, so there's three guys in a boat-" Captain Aizen tried again, reaching up under his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

"It's really more like a sealed metal tube, but they call it a Space Ship because it does sorta sail through space..." Renji tried to explain, holding up the newspaper from the living world he'd brought back to substantiate his claims and also provide helpful images to explain what was happening.

"So there's three guys in a metal tube and they... threw it into the sky so hard that instead of falling it started flying instead?" Aizen tried. "How do they even throw something that hard without Kido?"

"So the men are up in this little itty bitty bit at the top that looks like a cap on a vaccine needle-" Renji pointed at the image of the Apollo 11 rocket. "-All the rest of this is the uh. enormous amount of extremely coordinated high explosives they used to launch it. The. The whole thing is like... It's a little over three hundred fifty shaku and only 12 shaku of that is where the humans are. The rest is um. Air they smooshed so hard it became liquid and then they set that on fire and look at the picture you can see the kaboom!" Renji tried to explain, pushing the paper across Aizen's desk for his captain to read.

Aizen certainly pointed his face at the image and accompanying article, but 'read' may have been a bit beyond him at the moment.

"Oh, is that all it took?" Ichimaru hummed with interest. "Well fuck, why haven't we done that?"

"Oh yes, how very silly that the humans have beaten us at the trifling matter of FLINGING OURSELVES INTO SPACE, WHAT THE *HELL* ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ICHIMARU??" Aizen objected.

"Well like. Idea's sound. Moon goes around the earth, so a smaller thing should too. And we can absolutely make a sealed metal container and kaboom bigger than that." Gin shrugged, as though this were plainly obvious. "Betchya the clown that runs the twelfth has the stuff laying around- we got a meeting with him later today anyway, why not ask?"

"Oh sure, that's a great Idea!" Aizen beamed. "Why hello Kurotsuchi-taicho, curious news from the human world- do you think you could spare a few parts and several tons of explosives to send some guys for a stroll on the moon?"

There was a moment of silence where Renji and Gin shared an awkward glance (or at least, Renji gave meaningful look to the narrow slits where his lieutenant-commander's eyes theoretically were).

"...he'd agree to that in a heartbeat, if he hasn't started work on his own Spaceboat already." Aizen groaned.

---

"No." Grunted Mayuri.

"No? Why not?" Aizen asked, head cocked to the side like a confused spaniel.

"Look, what the old man doesn't know about budget expenditures won't hurt him!" Gin smiled encouragingly. "Think of all the scientific data you'd get to research!"

"What the old man finds out about budget expenditures after the fact can and will hurt me." Mayuri growled. "It's not cookie money, kitting an expedition to the living world to engineer a spaceship with atomic matter instead of Reishi- No, much more efficient to let the humans do it for us and poach the date from them."

"...Why would we need to go to the Living world?" Aizen blinked, confused. "I can see the moon from the window right here?" Aizen pointed out the window of Kurotsuchi's office.

"What? That moon? You can't go to that moon!" The clownish chemical engineer cackled."

Aizen and Ichimaru stared at him blankly.

"Is. Is the moon here different than the one in the living world?" Aizen asked, bewildered.

"Different? It doesn't exist!" Mayuri laughed, waving his hand at them.

Aizen and Ichimaru stared at him, then leaned back in their seats, looking out the window at the moon, which still looked as physical and present as it ever did.

"...Oh don't tell me you didn't know." Mayuri frowned, pouting. "No, spirit world doesn't have a moon. The thing up in the sky is a Tulpa- there's a "moon" because everyone who comes to spirit world thinks there should be one, and there's so much ambient spiritual energy even weak souls can exert some force on the nature of reality and when millions of them are all certain there should be a moon, a moon manifests. Or at least, a thing that looks like a moon. Doesn't act like one, changes size and skips around it's phases all the time and if it really were a round object in space, that's NOT what a crescent moon would look like."

Aizen and Ichimaru looked back out the window at the "Moon", whose crescent arced a full three quarters of the alleged satellite's circumference.

"Seriously? this is some really basic stuff." Mayuri glared at them in disappointment. "You never noticed that the moon is always visible out any random window at night, no matter what time it is? It doesn't even go east-to-west more than half the time!"

"But. But we have a lunar calendar..?" Aizen muttered, an edge of genuine distress in his voice.

"Oh yeah, the moon *used* to be regular as clockwork- everyone literally set their watches to it." Mayuri shrugged. "Then sometime about eh, two and a half, three thousand years ago? Right around the same time the first captain-class spirits started appearing, the moon started doing this 'Full Moon Thrice A Month If it Feels Like It' and 'Visible At Improbable Angles' nonsense."

Aizen's eyes were wide and Gin's very nearly open with alarm.

"That's uh- that's terrifying?" Aizen sputtered, now outright frightened.

"Yeah, anybody know what coulda caused that?" Gin muttered.

"The going theory is that the precipitation of a new class of spiritually hyperpotent souls like us has caused disproportionate tugs on the desired appearence of the the "Moon", but that's only a theory- my predecessor's predecessor once attempted to send a camera to the 'Moon' for a closer look, but it never actually *got* any closer." Mayuri explained, casually inspecting his fingernails- he seemed to be growing out the middle one for some godforsaken reason. "-Your theoretical starboat would likely far worse."

"...Okay but that's worse. You understand how that's worse, right?" Aizen demanded and Mayuri waved him off.

"No, no hit makes sense-" Gin nodded, and Aizen glared at his lieutenant. "Think about it! There's what, three and a half billion human on earth? Millions die every day, but only a couple hundred ever turn up every day at the intake queue in the 7th, and nearly everyone is from just the one part of Japan. We're one afterlife of many- ugh, could you imagine if the missionaries were sent here?- anyway, our world is nowhere NEAR as big at the Living World, so the moon-moon is just a geographical feature in the living world, and there's only a couple million people living here. We got disproportionate swing, so we pull on the collective conciousness more. It's fine!"

"That's AWFUL!" Aizen shouted, dismayed.

"I mean I think we all understand God is an Asshole, but what are you gonna do about it?" Mayuri shrugged before tapping on the crate beside his desk. "-Anyway, do you want these Polio Vaccines for the rukongai outreach program our not?"

"I- yes. Please." Aizen muttered.

"Good man, sign here." Mayuri tapped the sheet on his desk. As Aizen tried to read over the provisions release paperwork, the small "Electronic Mailer" on Mayuri's desk pinged. "Oh, the word got out- Kyoraku-taicho wants to hold another moon-viewing party for the occasion. Do me a favor and attend so you can explain to him why we can't go to our 'moon' for me? I don't want to go, and I really don't want to explain it to him through a hangover either."

"If you don't wanna go Boss I'll stand in for you. Promises to be a real riot." Gin grinned.

"Yes, you have your young friend, don't you? Miss Matsumoto?" Aizen smiled fondly at his second-in-command.

"Oh, she probably already got her invite- she an' Miss Nan- er, lieutenant Ise are real pals from the academy." Gin laughed. "Nah, I was gonna drag old blind bones along."

"...Captain Tousen?" Aizen asked, befuddled. "Whatever for?"

"Stars ain't exactly braille, y'know?" Gin explained, wiggling his fingers. "He knows even less than we do an' I wanna watch Rangiku and Kyoraku try'n 'splain the whole thing to him." Gin grinned.

"Sounds lovely! Take your shit and get out of my office." Mayuri threatened.

---

Renji exhaled, still bewildered, laying on his back on the grassy hill just outside the 2nd division training grounds, staring up at the moon as it rose opposite the sunset behind him. Or, maybe not? There had been some lecture about how the moon in spirit world wasn't a moon back at the academy that he didn't really remember-

"You sound like you're in the throes of a moral conundrum Red." Shuuhei teased, looking up from the strange contraption he was setting up.

"Huh?" Renji blinked. "Oh, no I'm just- Those guys in the Spaceship gotta be somethin' else, going to die thousands of miles from home."

"What? The Astronauts? They'll be fine! -Probably." Shuuhei laughed. "They're definitely insane, getting in that contraption at all, but they still gotta come home with all the rocks and whatever they get from the moon for the lab techs to look at."

"...How the hell are they getting back?" Renji frowned, rolling up onto his elbow to frown at his senpai. "I thought they blew up all the rocket getting off the planet?"

"They got a bitty rocket in the lunar landing craft that will get them between their ship and the lunar surface, and then they will angle the ship a bit and the moon will fling them back to earth the way earth flung them at the moon." Shuuei explained, not looking up from the weird bass-drum looking object he was messing with.

Renji opened his mouth, realized his friend probably understood it way better than he did, closed his mouth, shrugged, and changed topics. "So what is that thing you had me haul up here?"

"It's uhhh... Experimental. Haven't got a name for it yet." Shuuhei muttered, placing a level on top of it and frowning at the bubble before adjusting the legs bolted awkwardly to the side of the drum. "-But with all this excitement about the Lunar Landing, I realized Tousen-Taicho is... I mean he gets left out of a lotta stuff, y'know? But it's not like he can see the stars, or the spirit-moon, and I don't think he really understands orbital mechanics-"

"I sure fuckin' don't." Renji muttered.

"Yeah, because you're the kind of moron who put a ham sandwich in a VCR-" Shuuhei rolled his eyes.

"That was ONE TIME, and Matsumoto Senpai told me it was a Panini Press!" Renji sulked.

"-and then pressed "Fast Forward", but Tousen is actually smart as hell- I'm the one who can't explain it without gestures he can't see." Shuuhei continued. "...but I can use a camera obscura and reiryoku-sensitive film to sort of take an old exposure image of the night sky. I'm hoping that if I treat the exposed film right, that the light and dark parts will turn into different textures for him to read, like a braille sky."

"Oh." Renji muttered. "That's really nice of you actually."

"I mean, we'll see if it works." Shuuhei shugged, examining the level again. "Hand me the allen wrenches- What about your boss?"

"Captain Aizen? Uh- honestly? He seems a little freaked out by all this and I saw him fuckin' slam the newspaper into his wastebasket when he got back from the twelth." Renji winced. "He's weird like that. Sweet as cake most of the time but then there's these weird flashes of anger... and I'm not sure how much longer he's gonna be my boss."

"As in you got ambitions, or you think he's gonna get fired?" Shuuhei asked, staring at the level again.

"As in 'Tetsuzaemon Iba got in another brawl with his mother about him only being fourth seat when she made captain, and Liuetenant Madarame asked me if I'd updated my resume recently." Renji winced.

"Woof. Talk about a lateral promotion." Shuuhei winced. "Still, the pay raise would be nice. You could afford to take your girl Rukia somewhere up to her brother's standards!"

"IT'S NOT LIKE THAT!" Renji snapped, rolling over and jumping to his feet. "-It's -I'm sorry. It's kinda complicated." Renji sighed.

Shuuhei was silent for a minute as Renji sat back down on the grass, face in his hands. After a minute of fine-tuning the drum to keep it level, he spoke up. "You're more than good enough."

"Huh?" Renji jolted. "Oh, yeah- I'd be doing all the eleventh's paperwork but there's no way it's worse than the fucking rice subsidies accounting board-"

"That's not what I meant." Shuuhei glared.

"...I know." Renji groaned. "It's just. It's complicated, okay?"

"If you say so." Shuuhei shrugged. "Alright, hand me the flat box- thanks. It'll be ready for exposure in a minute, and I want to get it done before those clouds roll in." He gestured at the distant thunderheads threatening to bloom into a summer storm on the edge of the city.

The process was quick- the shielded plate went into the gap under the drum, and the light of the night sky was reflected onto it from a pinhole in the top. Once the metal plates were pulled back, it needed a few minutes to pick up enough light, before Shuuhei pushed the metal shutters back in and locked the plate in darkness until it could be developed.

"It's for taking pictures of the stars, right?" Renji asked as Shuuhei started disassembling the camera. "You could call that plate an Astrograph."

"Hah! Futuristic. I like it!" Shuuhei grinned. "C'mon and help me with this thing before the punishment squad turns up to kick my ass for having a camera within a mile of the second."

[peppermintquartz]

He was very young when he understood, and what he understood was Everything.

His zanpakuto whispered to him when he first opened his heart to it, and from Kyoka Suigetsu he learned about illusions, and from illusions he saw the truth. The twisted, ugly, grotesque truth of the world that no one wanted to see:

-- there was no God.

And because there was no God, the delineation between good and evil, moral and immoral were all arbitrary and ultimately pointless.

The only thing that truly mattered was control.

The ones who could control what others saw, what others heard, what others learned, controlled how they reacted.

And over time, Aizen weighed the different means of gaining control. Control of self -- that was easy and impossible. He could not lie to himself into thinking he was doing this for a greater good. No, wielding Kyoka Suigetsu meant he always, always knew what was real and what was illusory. He had to master himself first. Parts of him were buried deep beneath the calm waters of Kyoka Suigetsu's lake: compassion, compliance, surrender.

Control through relationships was not difficult. He knew how to be charming yet appear genuine. What people liked to hear to reinforce their vision of themselves. Even Tousen Kaname had his weaknesses, and that was how Aizen won him over. Some, he kept blind to his real self. Some he allowed glimpses, just for the fun of it, for while he was aware of the Truth, one terribly enlightened, he was also a person with his individual needs and delights. And one he allowed to see everything. He knew that Ichimaru Gin would have to betray Aizen or himself, and Aizen was curious as to what Gin would choose.

Finally, control through power. Not a challenge at all: Aizen ousted Hirako, caused the mass exile of the vizards, thus destabilizing the divisions and putting his own into positions of authority. The Central 46 were nothing but administrative blowhards; he left them to Gin's mercies.

The hougyoku... If Aizen could have won Urahara over to his side, he could have attained his goals so much sooner. But in the end he got what he wanted.

And still... Nothing mattered.

He had set a goal for himself, just to see if attaining ultimate control would change something. Anything. It worked for a while, giving him something to work towards, distracting him from the illusory nature of the world. Can't pay attention to how pointless everything is if his attention was directed at one single point. Tunnel vision had its uses.

But it was all illusion. He had only managed to fool himself, just for a short while. A hundred odd years, give or take. A blink in the long endless span of pointless existence.

He let Ichigo win. He let Urahara trap him. He let the hougyoku reject him. Rage - the rage was against their blindness, their ignorance, their headlong rush towards deceit and falsehood.

Well, he had learned something anyway.

There was no point to victory.

Maybe there would be something to learn in defeat.

Ten thousand years bound to a chair in the dark. Nothing more than an inhale and an exhale.

[electronicwitchcollection]

🖤🌸

BAHAHA YOUR GIN DRABBLE IS AMAZING. I just pictured Gin walking around and walking into to everyone and falling like a flopping fish XD

Now, I know I talk about Byakuya a lot but I genuinely want to know what he’d react like when he sees Gin drunk and tipsy. I just read @bleachbrainrotbro ‘s hcs on the two getting drunk where it was a similar situation but Byakuya was the one who ended up drunk 😂😂

😂 the image brought me so much joy.

Little side note! I’ve actually got a Byakuya x Gin one shot planned! It’s angsty and rough and hopefully very filthy 😂 as soon as I finish my Aizawa one shot (nearly done!) and the next chapter of Accidental mate, I’m going to start writing it

Now! On to the good stuff.

Byakuya isn’t one for drinking in access. The high standards of decorum and pride that have been ingrained into him from a young child have him conditioned to look down on such behaviour. Being unable to control yourself, the sloppy erratic movements, the slurred unfiltered words due to copious amounts of alcohol was unbecoming.

Drunk people were embarrassing, unsightly, and just plain annoying. Now he was used to the overly touchy Kyoraku, having (unfortunately) spent a lot of time in his presence at noble gatherings, in which Kyoraku took as an opportunity to get absolutely shitfaced.

Over the years he has figured out the best ways to avoid his elder, or at the very least distract him enough to slip away. Gin, on the other hand was a variant he was completely unprepared for.

Gin had staggered (probably away from Kyoraku) down the street when he got Byakuya in his sights. Even drunk he cannot resist the urge to mess with the stuffy captain.

Byakuya could tell straight away how inebriated he was, with the sloppy, heavy footsteps swaying all over the place. His devious grin plastered on his face as he got the captain in his sights. Byakuya would sigh internally, scanning the area for someone, anyone, to shove this nuisance off on.

Gin would throw a heavy arm around him, alcohol soaked breath assaulting Byakuyas nose the instant he got close. Looking straight ahead one would almost be able to see the distain radiate off him.

Gin is a wind up merchant, this only amplifies when drunk. He would poke Byakuya on the nose, snickering at the offended look he would get in return. “Bya-kun”

Byakuya’s eye would twitch as he tried to keep his composure, answering with a curt “captain Ichimaru”

Gin would speak utter nonsense, trying to rile him up. He wanted a reaction, and he wouldn’t stop until he got one. He would poke, nudge, flick and generally be a pest

Byakuya would discreetly try to detangle this drunken leech off of him, to no prevail. Muttering a silent mantra of “don’t hit him, don’t hit him, you’re above fighting in the street. Don’t hit him”

I cannot tell you how hilarious I find the idea of Mayuri walking down the street, stopping when he sees Gin drunkenly hanging off Byakuya. Byakuya would catch his eye and motion to him “come get this idiot off me”. In which Mayuri would snort, flip him the bid and walk backwards away from the scene. Like hell would he get involved in that.

I think at some point Byakuya would just come to accept that this is his life now. Stoically staring ahead waiting for this bumbling idiot to either pass out or get distracted and walk away of his own volition. He would try and coax the captain into going home, try and use some of the distraction techniques that would on Kyoraku (mainly pointing out woman who seem to be single)

The next passer-by wouldn’t be able to escape as easily as Mayuri had. I like to think Toshiro would happen on them next, unhappy, but will venture over to assist. Only to be left livid when Byakuya uses the distraction to flash step away.

Gin would bend over, hand on his knees to get eye level with Toshiro and ruffle his hair like a child. Byakuya couldn’t help the smug grin when he hears Toshiro screaming obscenities from down the road

[toshirohitsu]

Last episode dug up this thought I have been playing with for years now: I wonder how high the ceiling is for Toshiro

We know that he is a prodigy - made obvious not only by the fact that we are told but also by the fact that he became a Captain at quite a young age. This in itself isn't too crazy, considering the fact that there are other prodigies present within the narrative. Gin Ichimaru was regarded as a prodigy as well

However, Toshiro seems to be different even from other prodigies. The whole fact that his bankai wasn't even perfected (which is crazy) aside, there are some narrative points which really make me wonder about his potential

Shunsui (one of the oldest and strongest Captains of the Gotei) himself wagers that Toshiro will surpass him in about a hundred years. Considering he has been around for a good while, I take it as a rather accurate estimate

Which is insane if you think about it. Shunsui has at least abour a 1000 years on him and yet guesses that it would take him about a hundred years to surpass him

On the other hand we have something that became very clear during the last episode. Toshiro's bond with his Zanpakuto seems to be extraordinarily strong. Aside from Ichigo, Renji and Shunsui, the manga doesn't give us all that much information about the Zanpakuto spirits. Shunsui's was shown out of a narrative need, as it played an essential role in his and Nanao's story and Ichigo is the MC. Renji's was shown for us to grasp the concept of how there is the possibility that might not be perfectly aligned with their Zanpakuto. Ichigo is the MC... Self explanatory

Meanwhile we did not just get this show of trust in the last episode but also an entire chapter add-on dedicated to the awakening of Hyorinmaru/Hitsugaya's initial meeting with him. It's intriguing. Why does the manga emphasize so much on this connection?

On top of that, we also received all these motifs that seem to parallel Yamamoto (something I have talked about in more detail in the past). Shaking Kubo by the shoulders as I wonder if all of this is just favoritism of some sort or if there is truly something very special about him that is still waiting for us to discover it

[bleachbleachbleach]

any idea why in turn back the pendulum kaien and ukitake were like "wow [gin] is so young to be a seated officer" when hiyori was a lieutenant at the time? was she not younger than him or at least around the same age?

Hiyori is fascinating to me for this reason. We've said something to this effect on this blog before, but I don't think shinigami age is a linear function. I mean, human aging isn't linear, either. But it's "close enough" that it's often reasonable to imagine that it is, particularly when the number of years we're looking at would flatten out to "basically linear" relative to shinigami age, were they to be plotted on the same graph.

We get the impression from TBTP that Hiyori may be actually young--she's brash and impulsive, and clearly struggles a lot with Kirio's sudden departure, since Kirio was someone in whom she took motherly comfort. But 110 years later, she's not that different, even as previosuly-bb Byakuya and Ichimaru are now solidly adults, as are Hisagi and Nanao.

I feel like there's a couple potentials to consider:

Potential 1: Visual appearance is not a reliable indicator of shinigami age.

Okay, so Yachiru is also just her own... thing, so maybe she's not the best example here, but I honestly don't get the impression that any of her co-workers consider her a child. Sure, they interact with her as though she exists on a different plane of being than the rest of them (and she does), but not specifically as an actual child. And since Yachiru was around for Zaraki origin story flashbacks, and Zaraki was around for Kenpachi Unohana, she's probably one of the older VCs, honestly. Not that the rest of them necessarily know that explicitly, but I think everyone accepts that despite her appearance and way of being, she is not a baby--and that this would be true even if her professional rank did not supercede anything else about her, which I largely think it does, in the Gotei.

And I guess personally, I'm not sure if I actually feel in my heart that Hiyori was actually-young, even in TBTP. Like, I could get behind that idea, for sure. But I'm equally swayed by the idea that in TBTP she is fully an adult and not that far off the age of many of the other Vizard. I would accept without reservations that Hiyori has seen some shit and has not always had the best support and care in her life, and that this is reflected in her impulsivity and attachment issues moreso than her age is. While these may be behaviors typically associated with being young, it's not as though tons of adults don't also struggle with emotional modulation and difficulty adjusting to changing life relationships/circumstances. These are not solely the purview of the young.

Which is all to say, I feel like there's a good chance Hiyori is actually not a child in TBTP and everyone has some other way of knowing this to be true, which is why she doesn't come up in conversation about bb Byakuya and bb Ichimaru.

Potential 2: Judging age/aging comparatively across shinigami is a fool's errand.

I feel like we've definitely been shown that the physical vessel of a shinigami is more take or leave than a human body. Like, it's not a gigai; it's not some alien appendage; it does clearly matter, in a life-sustaining way and a "part of your identity" kind of way. But not like ours. I feel like different things inside shinigami find expression in their bodies according to patterns that have no easy analogs to our human bodies. If our gene expressions can turn on and off, whatever shinigami have got going is a whooole other level. And if this is true, then attempting to judge the age of a shinigami not just by visual inspection, but also by looking comparatively across shinigami in the same span of time, might not actually work.

I don't think we're completely at sea without an oar. Like, we do have vague age cohorts that seem to be growing up together, and relative to each other. Byakuya and Matsumoto and Ichimaru are older than Renji and Rukia and Kira and Hinamori are older than Hitsugaya. (And Hisagi is some lonely lost generation in between ByaMatsuIchi and RenRukiKiraHinamori, an age cohort he shares with Nanao but still manages to act like some kind of solitary lone wolf about, expressing an internal drama Nanao is happy to not be included in, anyway.) But I think that any older than these three groups, and the shinigami aging graph starts getting weird as shit. And it's not like it's necessarily super normal and straightforward even for these guys!

The shinigami all understand it to be and experience this all as normal, though. What do you mean "weird," Ichigo? YOU'RE weird!!

Potential 3: Spending extended periods of time in the Living World as a shinigami kind of fucks you up.

And not just if you're harboring a hougyoku and living in a shitty gigai designed to destroy you. Or if you're living as a human now, for X complicated reasons. Maybe while people like Hisagi and Byakuya and Nanao and Ichimaru are in Soul Society developing normally (whatever that words means for shinigami), it's not the same thing in the Living World, and the Vizard have now experienced something shinigami bodies were never built for. 

I'm surprised Mayuri isn't more interested in the Vizard, even forgetting the Hollowfication bit. Maybe they feel far too much like Urahara's leftovers for him to publicly admit he's interested. (Imagine his sheer glee after Rose and Kensei get dead/zombified. An excuse!! Mayuri got to do a little ghost genocide, dress up like a glow sunflower, fight a hand, use those pods, conduct research on Vizards he'd been secretly frothing over... TYBW, the gift that keeps on giving!)

We know that the atmosphere is less reishi-dense in the Living World than in Soul Society. We don't really know the degree to which this matters. Maybe it's statistically insignificant--a mere annoyance hardly worthy of mention. That's kind of how various shinigami talk about it.

On the other hand, they're trained soldiers, and one of their main jobs (...ostensibly) is to be in the Living World, konsou-ing souls. I'd be fully willing to believe the difference is substantial, but that shinigami have the training and mentality to manage it skillfully.

I feel like this helps offer some defensible reason gigai were such a thing in the Advance Team Arc. Again, there's a separate post for this on this blog, but maybe for all the shenanigans and troublesomeness that gigai introduce, they do actually help mitigate the fuckyness of spending more than a month in the Living World.

BUT ANYWAY, my point is, 100 years is a freaking long time, maybe even with the holistic benefits of gigai. Like when your bone density changes when you're up in space for a long time.

The reishi density is different, time is different, the imperceptible logics of the universe are different. Maybe these differences are written on Hiyori and the others, too.

[godkilller]

@madestars: continued from here.

            “     it’s  Karin.   and  no,   he’s  not  around.   Ichigo’s  got  his  own  training  to  do.     ”          her  brother  may  have  fought  god but these make-up assignments and college applications have been kicking his ass,  apparently,  good grades or no.   not that Karin’s worried,  she knows he’ll do fine,  same way she knows that  @godkilller  won’t cause too much trouble.   at least from what she’s heard from Orihime,  combined with Ichigo’s experience and a bit of Toshiro’s,  Karin can conclude that he’s an okay guy.   chaotic and confusing,  a dump gasoline to the fire type of person,  but Karin doesn’t mind that;   not when she’s the type to carry matches.   so she doesn’t have her guard up,  not completely,  and regards the silver haired man with a curious tilt of her head.                she’ll give him this,  he knows exactly how to pique someone’s interest.   ah,  but it’s not that hard for a growing stubborn girl like her.   she has about enough of these exercises,  she’s more than ready for the real thing!   in her opinion,  the training is going too slow.   she understands the precautions her mentors want to take,  especially when it means dealing with the younger sister of Ichigo Kurosaki,  but she can handle herself just fine thank you very much!   and besides,  this Ichimaru fellow is making a terrific point:   there is no such thing as an unmoving target in a real fight.             Karin looks at the dummies set around the forest,  some of the trees themselves being marked in specified areas,  and then back at Gin.   the choice is easy.            “     fuck  yeah  i  do.     ”

TRUTHFULLY, GIN WASN'T ACTIVELY TRYING TO BE A BAD INFLUENCE. In his eyes, the coddling treatment of never having real experience could negatively influence her ability to take down an enemy efficiently. As someone who fought via a Zanpakuto that required good aim, Gin held some expertise in what worked best training-wise for such a fighting style. Karin was young, her big brother was typically faster on the draw when it came to any real threat, even small ones, coming too close to home. She has never really needed to defend herself from deadly threats, at least from what Gin understood. A few close scuffles originally, yes, but... nothing dire and with her own survival completely relying on her abilities.

❝ This ain't gonna be like shootin' an apple offa somebody's head, ❞ he warned, though he knew she was ambitious enough to not be deterred now that the possibility of real experience was presenting itself.

Gin was currently without the restrictions placed upon him by Central 46; good behavior (debatable, yet true) thus far had been sufficient enough to allow him to carry Shinso on him once more, at least for his trip into the World of the Living. Tensions still resided toward him, of course, and the dislike of him visiting Hueco Mundo solo was still potent. But he wasn't about to let that disapproval stop him. Besides, he wouldn't be alone, technically, and his missions to the World of the Living involved hunting down surviving Aizen-sympathizers within the Hollow population. This was indeed a hunt.

Gin beckoned Karin over -- but she could approach at her own comfort if she wished. He veered that remaining hand away, lifting to languidly gesture a dip of his wrist that proceeded to open a rip within the air. The Garganta opened with a deep yawning shudder, its agape mouth leading into a lightless abyss. Gin glanced back at her, smiling with a larger seethe of mischief.

❝ C'mon, we're gonna go on a field trip. ❞

[keikakudori]

I'm very interested in how Aizen would have reacted right after his loss to Ichigo to questions from Central 46 or other people (yk rangiku, izuru, shunsui maybe) who would like to talk to him about Gin Ichimaru, asking him why he killed his follower. Will he be honest at least in the fact that he knows that Gin betrayed him? How will he feel hearing their questions?

Well, the short answer to this is fairly simple: Aizen wouldn't be saying shit to anyone, especially not if they're asking him about Gin and what happened during Deicide. It's not their place to know anything about that.

The longer answer is much, much more complicated. Time for a read more. This answer's going to be fairly extensive.

Aizen is, and always has been, an extremely private individual. He's allowed very few people to get close to him and no one's gotten as close to him as Ichimaru Gin has managed to do. Kaname and Momo put Aizen on a pedestal, with Kaname going so far as to all but worship him whilst Momo truly believed he was nothing more than her gentle, kindhearted captain. The point here is that neither of them truly saw Aizen as a person; they only projected onto him their ideal image of him. Kaname venerated Aizen like unto a god and Momo's emotions over Aizen were colored by her affection and love over his kindness and warmth. Even his Espada idolized him, even though Aizen already warned them not to trust him; he very clearly stated that that wasn't anything that he remained interested in. It's actually quite intriguing that, for a man who wanted to fill the vacant throne in the heavens, he actually never has enjoyed being worshiped like a genuine god. There's something that could be said about that.

None of them actually beheld Aizen properly and the Espada followed him out of fear, respect of his strength, or because they genuinely did believe in him.

Gin, on the other hand? Gin actually perceived Aizen, saw him, right from the first time that they met. @godkilller and I have built a very massive dynamic for them, and we're ever discovering new facets of how they are, how they feel, and how they behave with one another. So when I say that Gin saw Aizen, it has to come with the caveat that for the first time in over a century, Aizen found himself not only seen but perceived on a level no one else had given him since he'd been a young boy. All it took was that first meeting on that night when Aizen watched him kill the old man Third Seat and the resultant way that inspired Aizen to take Gin underneath his wing.

And, above anything else, it has to be remembered that Aizen's character has always been one defined by loneliness. He was around others, but Aizen never truly belonged with others. Did he ever really feel accepted into the Division? No, not entirely, and a major factor of that was Shinji who kept him at arm's length, especially emotionally, but remained willing to fuck his lieutenant after some years had passed. Meanwhile, Aizen was, at that time, deeply in love with him. And we all saw how that went; eventually, Aizen's anger and growing hate for him burst the dam and Aizen decided to commit murder for a number of reasons.

But before that happened, Gin showed up in his life and genuinely changed the trajectory that Aizen was on. In a very real way, Gin saved Aizen from himself and the path he was heading down. He managed to pull Aizen from that brink of total despair and despondency. There is no way I can possibly overstate how important Gin became to Aizen, but it can be seen in canon; Aizen's behavior in the Blood War after Deicide is far, far different from how he had been prior to that point after he revealed his ambitions to all of Soul Society. He's withdrawn. He doesn't want to engage in conversation. He's downright apathetic to everything going on and, for that matter, he's become something of a death seeker.

And it's so very obvious when you think about the biggest factor of why that is: Gin isn't there to engage with him, or to make sure that Aizen doesn't hold onto that malaise for an extended period of time. Aizen is very literally full of depression and given his behavior in the final act, there's no way you can convince me that he isn't trying to get himself killed.

The point of stating all of this is because I always have to find ways to convey and emphasize just how profound Aizen's attachment to Gin became; even platonic, it's a genuinely massive loss for Aizen. Throw emotions into that mix and it becomes much, much more painful.

But even without the emotions or anything romantic thrown in, it's still clear that Gin appealed to Aizen in several ways. There was, of course, Gin's raw potential, even at such a young age which excited Aizen to no end, but there's also the fact that he challenged Aizen and was unpredictable to a greater extent than anyone else ever has been. Even Urahara Kisuke couldn't make Aizen guess what he'd do the way Gin can and Kisuke is, as we all know, a very prepared man for any fight. But he's still predictable to Aizen who can come up with countermoves if he really wished to.

Gin, though? Gin kept him guessing and that was a genuinely large part of why he became so important, and that isn't even touching on the fact that Gin was able to become a viable death-threat. That alone captivated Aizen's attention, due to the fact that not only did Gin manage to consistently be unpredictable to him, but he also managed to force Aizen to acknowledge that out of everyone he knew, Gin remained a genuine source of providing even faint flickers of fear and kept Aizen on his toes.

There's also the fact that Gin never idolized Aizen, never put him on any sort of pedestal, and never once tried to be obsequious towards him. In fact, Gin's been downright bratty and sharp-tongued towards Aizen in many ways and instead of being an irritating factor? It was only once again a reason why Aizen found his relationship with Gin to be so appealing to him. Gin's willingness to challenge him, call him out on his actions and behavior and words, and carrying a genuine threat of being able to not only actually harm Aizen but to possibly kill him?

How could Aizen have resisted that kind of appeal?

The fact that Gin was able to perceive him and see through those careful illusions of himself he'd built up in the public eye was absolutely one of the strongest factors for why Aizen took Gin under his wing and soon trusted him above even Kaname was absolutely one of those facets of their relationship that is always important to remember, too. It was that, more than anything, which really made Aizen decide that he wanted to keep Gin close - but the other factors are equally important. Aizen had no one to challenge him for years and given that no doubt brought a profound ennui to his life, Gin was an open breath of fresh air.

I did say the longer answer would be more complicated, didn't I?

Aizen's dealings with the Central 46 are always going to be the same; contemptuous needling or a lack of a response at all. I'm pretty sure if he hadn't been restrained the way he was on the day of his trial in that kangaroo court, he probably would've killed all the replacements to the original slaughter that he, Gin, and Kaname undertook when they were setting their plans into motion. He would never answer their questions, at all, even if they didn't pertain to Gin. He just generally holds that body of bureaucrats in constant disdain. The most they'd get out of him is his mouthing off which is what led to that sentence of 20, 000 years. He has no reason nor desire to ever be polite to those individuals and I imagine that won't ever change. He knows the secrets of the Seireitei and he knows how much those old men will prefer to focus on his actual crimes rather than ever ask him about what happened with Gin as it is. If they ever did ask a question about that, it'd probably be only in passing. The result would be the same, however; Aizen just would not answer them and never plans on doing so. He might, however, be thinking of how nice it'd be to drop a full-chant Kurohitsugi on them all.

But, as for those others...

I don't think Rangiku or Izuru would technically be allowed to speak to Aizen, given what I've read between the lines of what was being done to him leading up to his trial, but if they were? The answer wouldn't change at all.

Aizen is, as I said before, an extremely private man. He wouldn't even be able to begin processing his own emotions over such a profound loss, let alone be able to answer the questions that others posed to him; not very easily, I should say. So if Rangiku and Izuru came to him to ask those questions, Aizen would probably use all manner of ambiguity, bending of the truth, and generally talking circles around them until he managed to make them leave him be -- that is, if he even answered them at all at that point in time when he's beginning to process what happened, or at least to begin realizing that what occurred was his own fault.

He knows, of course, that Gin had an attachment to both Rangiku and Izuru; Rangiku was his Academy classmate and someone who obviously holds Gin in high regard and Izuru was his lieutenant and with him since the day that Aizen decided the most competent of the recruits would become second-in-command to Gin, which is a factor I think some people forget about. But also, Aizen thought of Izuru as the most competent out of all the potential lieutenants that he was considering for Gin and Kaname and therefore picked out Izuru for him. Kind of like a present, you could say. A very weird present, but a present nonetheless, because he wanted Gin to have the advantage there.

So, if they were allowed to see him, they wouldn't get very far with him. If Aizen doesn't want to answer a question, he is quite good at simply closing his mouth and staring the person in question down. I think that'd be how he'd handle it if Izuru and Rangiku were trying to get answers out of him. To him, what passed between himself and Gin is theirs and he isn't willing or interested to let anyone on the outside of that dynamic behold the nuances and complexities therein, especially if he and Gin were involved with one another. It's, quite simply, not their place to know and it isn't information that will be useful to them.

Out of all of the three people listed, I think only Shunsui would be able to get any kind of response that might remotely come close to being an answer to such questions, if you tilted your head upside down and squinted. But only remotely as Aizen wouldn't give him very much information either and anything that he possibly would say would only be surface level at best, nothing that can be confirmed easily or, alternatively, the information would be only what everyone already knew. I do think that Shunsui and Ukitake would be the first (and, perhaps, only) people who'd recognize it if Aizen and Gin wound up in a relationship together and I also think that Shunsui would be able to know that there wouldn't be any good answers, even if Aizen and Gin weren't involved. But it wouldn't stop him from asking until Aizen decided enough was enough and simply chose to remain close-mouthed and make it clear that he was done.

Pertaining to the emotional aspect? Oh, he wouldn't be enjoying any of those experiences. Aizen came out of Deicide wounded by what had happened, deeply so. Their asking questions of him when his emotions are already a tumult within him, trying to find out any information on why he did what he did, wouldn't be something that he'd show. But if capable, he'd absolutely do his best to shut them down and shut them out. Asking questions that pry into the privacy of a man emotionally devastated won't do any good and instead of getting angry with them and shouting? Aizen's much more likely to just, simply, shut down and do nothing, say nothing, until they leave, especially since those questions would be pertaining to Gin. It's an awful mess and Aizen really isn't a man who's good at handling his emotions in a good fashion.

So, in sum, I don't think that he'd ever give anyone a comprehensive answer, if he even answered any questions about Gin in the first place. It's a subject that's both too personal and too painful for him to ever speak on to anyone else and it'll remain that way for years, even decades, perhaps even centuries. He's a mess, especially once everything really starts to sink in for him, and there's nowhere for him to turn for support or help, especially not when he's locked up in Muken.

[irlkisukeurahara]

"Are you here to make fun of me now that you're a Shinigami and I'm not?"

"Now why would I do that?"

"Because-- They all do that! Every day, I just hear, oh why can't you be like Kaien Shiba, he became a Shinigami at your age, what are you doing?!"

"Oh?"

"And now I just know they're gonna start comparing me to you soon! Even a kid from the Rukon district like that Gin Ichimaru could become a Shinigami at your age! But you're so bad you make your dad look like the buffest guy on the planet, you angry little worm!"

"Ahhhh, so that's why I've never seen you in the Seireitei.."

"..."

"You run off here to be away from your parents, huh?"

"Not my parents. My mom's dead. And my dad's amazing. It's... It's just my grandfather. A- and that no good cat demon."

"Cat demon, you say?"

"That other noble girl. Yoruichi. She can turn into a cat. She follows me here sometimes when I run away."

"I see."

"..."

"..."

"...So you're not going to make fun of me?"

"I have no reason to."

"Then what's with that stupid grin on your face?"

"You've never seen me without it, have you? It's practically permanent, like that scowl or sad looking pout on your face."

"Oh shut up, you slimy little bitch!"

(I had this doodle idea but I've literally never drawn or written Gin ever so it's probably cringe but meh)

[muzansfangs]

Hiii! I hope ur still accepting requests. Recently, an idea has stuck in my head. What about taking bath with Aizen and his s/o? I hope you will accept it!

Cleanse my soul.

Starring: Aizen Sosuke x f!reader; mention to Shinji Hirako, Kisuke Urahara, Kensei Muguruma, Rojuro Otoribashi, Lisa Yadomaru, Hiyori Sarugaki;

Format: one-shot;

Warnings: nsfw, vaginal fingering, cock-warming, vaginal sex, creampie, fear play, smoking, clit-edging, jealousy, nudity, Lieutenant Aizen, morally grey reader, mention to attempted murder, violence, gore, blood, talks about the future, betrayal, trust issues, turn back the pendolum arc, established relationship;

Plot: He was back, knocking on your door in the dead of the night. His Lieutenant badge had been damaged, the gleam in his chestnut eyes telling you he had succeeded in accomplishing his plan. He always seeked your company, after long days of work and unspeakable crimes committed to chase his dream of becoming a God. You were the only thing he would have never given up to on his climb to the Heaven.

﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

Reading by the window to distract yourself, you had watched in agitation the way your Captain had left the barracks to investigate on the sudden disappearence of Kensei Muguruma and and some members of his squad. Your stomach churned, apprehension leaving space to the mournful feeling of being forced to accept a brutal reality no one else in your Division was prepared for: at the end of the night, you were either going to say goodbye to Hirako Shinji, your Captain, or to Sosuke Aizen, his Lieutenant, your boyfriend.

No one else knew what was really happening, besides you, Kaname Tosen and Gin Ichimaru, the young prodigy Sosuke seemed to be so enthusiastic about. The secrets you harbored behind your soft smile, when you conversed with your friends, as if you had not just witnessed to some poor inhabitants of the Rukongai vanishing before you wary eyes, when you lied for him, when you cradled his face in your hands and reassured him everything was going to be okay, when he silently pleaded you to cleanse his soul by fucking you up against a wall and telling you the world was soon going to acclaim you their queen, were slowly consuming you up from the inside like acid sizzling the delicate walls of your stomach.

Despite that, you had chosen him above anything and anyone else. You were the priest absolving him from the sins he kept on staining his soul with for the sake of his ideals. The real question was: who cleansed your soul?

You often queried whether his efforts to keep your hands clean were actually successful. You were not innocent. You were guilty as well. You had just betrayed the Soul Society and your friends. Your idle tongue was as sharp as Sosuke’s blade. You wondered how many of your friends had already fallen by your boyfriend’s hand. A massacre was taking place outside and there you were, safe in your dorm and hoping Kisuke Urahara was not going to disrupt your lover’s plans.

Someone knocking on your door made you flinch, back straightening as a ramrod as you settled your book down on the ebony desk, careful not to make a sound. What if Sosuke had failed? Maybe he had sold you off too, after being arrested. The mere thought of your beloved boyfriend throwing you to the wolves made chills run down your spine and your mouth turn to chalk. Would Sosuke really do such a thing to you? You wondered, once again, if he loved you as much as you did.

You mentally rebuked yourself for assuming the worst. Sosuke loved you. Why were you doubting his feelings for you? Probably, you were just projecting onto your relationship the ominous feelings, swallowing you in a whirlwind of fear and anxiety, that you experienced when you watched him work cold-heartedly, sacrificing souls, to the chilling phenomen known as Hollowfication.

Your hand reached for your zanpakuto, your bare feet sliding onto the wooden floor without making a sound, just like he had taught you throughout the years you had spent together. You took a sharp intake of breath, tightening your grip on the hilt of your katana until your knuckles turned white. The visitor was masterly suppressing their reiatsu, making it impossible to detect their presence and identify who they were. You knew what you had to do, in case Sosuke’s failed and the guards went after you. Killing comrades, however, was entirely different from massacring Hollows. You were a shinigami, not an assassin. If the person knocking on your door was not your boyfriend, your blade was going to drip viscous, crimson blood of a shinigami.

Hiding your katana behind your back, you slided the door open, ready to become a full-fledged traitress. The lean frame occupying the threshold made you discard the blade onto the floor instinctively, the sound of the weapon clattering against the parquet echoing in the silent night, as your hands clutched the fabric of Sosuke’s shihakushō and pulled him inside. He had come back safe and sound.

It only meant one thing: the Fifth Division had lost its Captain.

You relished the bittersweet taste of happiness achieved through betrayal, when you smashed your lips onto his, hand scrambling to your side to slide the door shut. Yet, you had learnt to be selfish, you had grown familiar with the sensation of enjoying moments of peace and unbridled excitement, when other people were in pain. Sosuke held you close to his chest, his hands cupping your cheeks as he kissed you back with equal fervor. His hair were disheveled, the badge indicating his status of Lieutenant was gone, the black fabric of his uniform torn in some parts, dirt dusted his clothes and visage.

“Are you hurt?” you dared murmuring against his lips, ignoring the way he was already trying to disrobe you.

“Unscathed. — he shortly informed you — But I could use a bath” he added, mouth voraciously assaulting the crook of your neck, whilst you were attempting to make a small conversation to know details about his victory.

However, right now, when you were in his arms and his teeth were nipping at your tender flesh, Sosuke did not seem to give a iota about further explanations. He had won. He had promised to come back to you and there he was, pushing you towards the bathroom, heedless of the corners biting onto your sides as he forced you to stumble backwards to reach the destination he had chosen for you two to spend the rest of the night at.

You winced pathetically against his lips, the chilly, wintry air blowing through the small, wide-open window of your bathroom leaving goosebumps on your now naked shoulderblades. The rustle of your clothes landing onto the floorboard accompanied you to the edge of the bath, as he finally let go of you and began to undress himself before your glossy, dreamy eyes.

No matter how many times you had traced the outlines of his abs with your lips, or fingertips, every single time his body was bared for you to contemplate you lost any cognitive capacity of thinking straight. Sosuke had always got you in a chokehold from the day you first met at the Academy.

He was that kind of man who outfoxed everyone around him, the sweet-natured guy with glasses no one would have ever accused of committing bloodcurdling felonies. Sosuke Aizen was far from being an ordinary man, some stranger easy to forget about. He had captivated you effortlessly in the palms of his hands, like a clueless butterfly delicately landing on the fruity, multicolored petals of a carnivorous plant only to be devoured to the bone. You had become one with him.

You realized you had been fantasizing about him again only when his hand reached for you chin, forcing you to crane up your neck and meet his gaze. His glasses were gone, his beautiful chestnut brown eyes boring into yours in anticipation as he brushed his thumb over your cheek “Focus on me” he commanded, his words no longer sugar-coated, the typical honeyed tone slipping out of his mouth when he talked to you absent.

His ravenous side strived to take over, evidently. He desired you like a helpless shipwrecked person hoped to find water in a deserted island, adrift amidst the salty water of the Ocean.

Seldomly you had recognized the diabolic gleam in his eyes outside the safe walls of your dorms. His lust, his thirst for power, his greed and ambitions were never showcased in his ever so kind eyes, the same pretty eyes bewitching you right now. Sosuke was the incarnation of the infamous wolf in sheep’s clothing. He had people bamboozled, unable to see him as nothing less than a noble, proficient and polite man minding his business and even reprimanding his Captain for the sake of his Division.

A man with leardship, but uncapable of doing any harm.

Perhaps, it was because you knew him so intimately that his demons had grown familiar with yours that you often asked yourself if you were a mere pawn in his hands, a pretty diamond pin to wear in order to fool people about his real intentions. You hesitated, a small frown creasing your forehead as you watched Sosuke impassibly stare at you in confusion.

“Tell me something, Sosuke. — you started, miraculously modulating your voice in a firm but soft tone — Are you going to abandon me, once the world will be in your hands?”.

His eyes clouded over for a moment, your stomach churning in apprehension. What if you had ruined it all? You impudent mouth, your lips quivering in fright, your heart pumping fast in your chest had revealed you were scared of losing him, or to be fair, of him.

Sosuke’s jaw clenched, his other hand gripping your hip to push you back towards the cool edge of the tub, the still warm water sparkling under the moonlight dimly enlightening the room “When the world will be nothing but a possession of mine, I will give it to you” he stated, making your stomach somersault.

Regrets for having even asked him such a silly question gnawed at your stomach, guilty conscience weighing on your shoulders like a heavy read. You blinked a few times in a row, watching as your boyfriend sidestepped you to climb into the tub. The sound of the water splashing onto the floor, overflowing from the edge, filled the air. Sosuke leaned his back against the bath, arms comfortably positioned on each side of it, penetrative gaze commanding you to join him.

Resisting was impossible. Entering the water, you snuggled into his chest, your back adhering to his firm abs as your neck reclined. Your hair tickled his chin, his jawline, his eyes closing to finally relax. He would have never admitted it, but you could tell he was exhausted. Even Kings needed to slack off, to ignore their duties and enjoy the small moments of bliss their life granted them.

“I need you to believe in me” he spoke out then, velvet voice playing the chords of your heart, as you swallowed thickly.

“I believe in you”.

“Then don’t doubt my love for you. Never” he asked of you tiredly, his arms now leisurely encircling your waist to bring your body closer to his, skin to skin, his mouth gliding down the curve of your neck.

You hummed, thighs parting, when his hand slipped further down your body, disappearing underneath the translucent water “I’m sorry. But this is all so scary, Sosuke. I was afraid—”.

“Afraid of what? That you mattered less than glory and honorifics?”.

You squeezed your eyes shut, his deft fingers parting your dewy folds as if they were a syrupy fig for him to feast on, the scene reminding you of a depraved bucolic lyric about a Greek, Attic shepherd corrupting a modest nymph by a river. A blasphemy you were condoning sheepishly.

The moans you let out were not the answers he was trying to coax you to pronounce “Answer me” he pressed.

“N-No!” you stammered, hips rocking as he plunged a finger into your tight hole, causing him to pull it out and gently pinching on your clit. While the action obviously did not hurt you, it sent waves of electricity running through your body. You jolted onto your seat, toes curling as you lolled your head back onto his shoulder.

Sosuke’s teeth nibbled onto your earlobe, before he hushed you “Hush, love. Can you just recall what I have taught you? Provide me a good argumentation and I won’t prolong this torture further” he whispered, his brown eyes shifting to a small cabinet at his right, making his blood boil in his veins.

Why did you still keep such an object in your house?

Were you maybe going behind his back? Were you actually siding with that frowsy scientist he had taken care of nearly an hour ago? Kisuke Urahara would have not been a problem anymore, whatever was the reason behind your injudicious decision of discarding that water-pipe in such a place for his eyes to see. A small test of your loyalty would have sufficed to prove how deeply you cared for him, to understand whether your devotion was pure and solely on him, or not.

Hazy, you clasped your hand over your mouth to muffle out another whimper threatening to erupt from your throat. Rationality left your body, when he touched you. How were you supposed to force your brain to properly function, when Sosuke was flicking your throbbing clitoris torturously between his thumb and index? Despite that, you knew damn well the only solution to your problem was doing exactly what he had said.

Tears prickling in your expressive eyes, you pushed your knees together, only for Sosuke to chide you and run his fingers through your drenched hair. His nails scraped your scalp ever so lightly, but it was enough to stop your futile struggle.

“You have such a pretty mouth, darling. Let me hear your voice, hm?” he mumbled, one of his arms sliding around your abdomen and pulling you flush against him while the other pinched your clitoris again.

You squealed out in overstimulation, your body too sensitive to endure more of this edging. It was his usual wicked game of power and self-control. Sosuke was in command, yet he made sure you always had your chance to make his ministrations cease. All you had to do was playing your part, like a pretty ballerina moving under his instructions. A false step and you sprained your ankle.

You huffed, cheeks heating up in embarrassment and shame for your total lack of backbone, when it came done to him “A Goddess shall never be afraid” you blurted out, sinking further into the water as a satisfied hum resonated from behind you.

True to his words, he stopped playing with your pearl, fingers merely delving into your pussy instead. Scissoring them gently into your warm cavern, Sosuke pressed his lips against your nape, eyes darkening in lust and a something shady you had failed to see due to your position.

“That’s right. You’re the future wife of a God. No matter how powerful and cruel a divinity is… — he started, one of his hand reaching out to grasp that water-pipe irking him to no end — A man is nothing without his woman” he finished, inspecting the smoking device between his fingers.

His words had left you breathless, your inner walls squeezing his fingers as you writhed in his arms. Your moans echoed in your small dorm, probably the shinigamis in the backyard had heard you too, but you did not care, nor did him. They knew better than coming after the Lieutenant’s girlfriend.

The respect he had gained through the years surpassed even the one your comrades had for the late Shinji Hirako.

Your eyelids had shut, relishing into the way he fingered you so deliciously, and your mouth was hanging open to release those shamelessly high-pitched cries of pleasure he loved so much. The hard wood of the pipe resting against your bottom lip, though, made your eyes snap open again.

Dread washed over you, as Sosuke’s fingers tangled your hair, yanking them back harshly “You still keep his gifts. Smoke for me then. Smoke to celebrate his incoming downfall, darling” he crooned, your blood running cold in your veins as he gripped your wrist and directed your hand up to make you grab the object yourself.

Yout shaky hands did wrap around it, teary eyes meeting his cold ones “S-Sosuke, I am sorry! I just forgot to throw it away, I promise” you apologized profusely, watching how he softly smiled at you and prompted you to raise your hips enough for him to impale you onto his cock.

“I know you did. — he cooed, the bulbous head of his shaft stretching your aching hole, as you languidly looked at him and whimpered as he buried himself deep into your welcoming core — I suggest you to smoke in his honor one last time, darling. Cry for his departure” he whispered, mouth leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses down the curve of your neck.

And you mourned Kisuke’s fate. Oh, you did it so convincingly, for after cock-warming your beloved boyfriend for a while he then began to thrust into you in hard, punishing thrusts making you sob tears of pleasure. You hiccuped, blurry vision, smoke filling your lungs, as you exaled through your nostrils.

Body sore, heat overflowing with Sosuke’s hot seed, you collapsed against chest. His arms held you close to him, as he watched the device sink into the now murky water, forgotten forever like the destiny of all those Captains and Lieutenants who had been unlucky to cross his path.

AUTHOR NOTE.

Hello there! Uhm, I feel too ashamed to say anything about this. If it is not toxic, it’s not Sosuke to me. Ah, my first red flag crush… Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I adored writing it!

Likes, comments and re-posts are greatly appreciated!

Until next,

X O X O

TAGS: @onyxino @velaenaa @villainsrtasty @stygianoir @noirfan12 @bucciaratizippers @linkwho1 @0wh1te0 @bakugosgirl01 @persuasivus because I think you might enjoy it💫

[codename-freya]

Ic asks // always accepting

❝ I thought y'were marked off-duty, did cap'n Hirako send ya this way? ❞ He tilted his head at her, words posed as a mostly innocent query, but underneath it Gin spoke with a piercing tone -- hidden eyes saw well into the haunted mindscape of his fellow Shinigami standing before him. Whether or not she was sent by Hirako wasn't the issue here, his unspoken criticism was of the fact that he was ill company for someone of her trauma -- if she was so viciously guilt-ridden over her dance with death and potential breach of her loyalties to the Gotei 13 during the Quincy war, then surely choosing the company of the token ex-traitor Ichimaru Gin was in poor taste. But he supposed he could humor her approach if she merely wanted to vent her feelings at someone who would not gasp or sneer at the more troubling and darker words spewed. He'd not turn her away -- unless her visiting him seemed to turn toward condemning... which was not unheard of. Even as a reinstated captain, Gin's reputation had a tendency of tainting others' whenever they were spotted engaging with him at length. Whispers and stares persisted, two years were considered a blink for Shinigami, and his betrayal was fresh on their minds. Gin remained seated at his desk, he didn't seek to tower over her, but he did briefly dip his head toward one of the two chairs facing the desk as a silent invitation for her to sit if she wished. The pen in his remaining left hand was quietly stowed aside from the paperwork before him, his handwriting slightly less illegible this afternoon. Small progress. He opted for propping his chin up against the back of that hand, elbow leaning upon the desk. ❝ What can I do for ya? ❞

♤ Did every captain know that she had been marked as off-duty until further notice? Did they all know why? Had it been spoken of amongst other captains, or had it been that the report she’d given her captain was something that the others knew of. How much did they know? Kaisa swallowed, feeling as though she was caught red-handed doing something that she’d be in trouble for. A light pink blush dusted her pale cheeks, and she averted her green gaze from him. She hadn’t really spoken much of what happened, afraid of others knowing just how broken she’d become as a prisoner. Physically, she was mostly okay, but mentally, there were just so many things she was still just attempting to begin healing from. Kaisa hadn’t planned where she had been heading, but she found herself in Gin’s office, looking lost.

“Hirako-taicho still has me on mandatory leave…” the young soul responded, her voice quiet and ashamed that she’d fallen hard enough to be in this state.

All she knew was that maybe she could admit to Ichimaru what she was afraid to say to anyone else. He hadn’t been in her position, but she had a feeling he wouldn’t balk at some of the thoughts that had consumed her during those long, pain filled days and nights she had endured.

Kaisa tucked her short, ragged blonde locks behind her ear before they fell forward again. She was trying to keep herself steady. Her bottom lip quivered for a moment before she gingerly sat in the seat that had been offered. She put her hands in her lap and wrung them together. She was uneasy. It would be obvious to anyone who was even the slightest bit perceptive. Kaisa knew that Ichimaru was more perceptive than most, just like her own captain.

“I-” she started and stopped, staring at her hands, staring at the scars that littered the little bit of her arms that weren’t currently covered by her sleeves, “I… I don’t deserve the patience Hirako-taicho is showing me… I almost betrayed him just to keep my life.”

Kaisa finally managed to say. Her voice was so quiet and full of shame. She hadn’t fought in the war because she had been held prisoner. To make matters worse, she almost agreed to betray the entire Gotei 13 just so Quilge didn’t kill her. It was shameful that she found herself at that point.

“I don’t deserve to continue to hold my seat in the Gobantai… how do you cope with it?”

[godkilller]

Can we talk, Ichimaru-sama? (for traitor izuru verse!)

GIN STEPPED PAST HIS EVER-LOYAL LIEUTENANT, walking down the pale hall with every expectation that the other would follow. Izuru had proven that he'd do so -- given the manner in which he arrived alongside him in Hueco Mundo -- the young man was determined to remain at Gin's side, even through the traitorous reveal.

❝ Of course we can, ❞ Gin didn't bother to try and correct Izuru's addressing of him, that title feeling wrong -- he wasn't a lord. But he supposed here, amongst the Arrancar, Espada... he was one. Along with Aizen, Tousen. He no longer wore the haori of the Third Division, it'd be foolish to expect Izuru to still call him 'captain' -- despite Gin wanting that. They walked, Gin desired to veer them both towards more peaceful portions of the main tower within Las Noches; these corridors were less likely to house unsavory characters, restricted to mainly the traitorous trio and any Arrancar messenger brave enough to seek out their lords within their personal quarters. Gin had Izuru housed down the hall from his own space, albeit Gin was more often than not lurking amongst Aizen's grand portion of the palace instead.

❝ Have ya been feelin' alright? ❞ Izuru's adjustments to being within the hostile environment of Las Noches hadn't gone too smoothly at first. And the whole ordeal with Aizen -- well, Gin still had tensions regarding that matter.

But if Izuru asked about anything pertaining to... anything other than his own immediate needs, feelings? Gin had to brace himself to lie and deflect, especially if the blonde sought answers as to why Gin was tangling himself in Aizen Sousuke's web to begin with.

[keikakudori]

❝ Are ya feelin' any better today? I reckon th' food here's not the greatest. I hardly've got an appetite myself. ❞ Lounging about with a lazy sprawl on his back, leg propped upon the bent portion of a knee, the illusionary ghost of the slain Ichimaru Gin couldn't've seemed more alive and real. To each silver hair of his head subtly disheveled, messy, always somehow in his eyes... to the detailing of his white uniform, the folds and how it draped across his languid form, sleeves as always obscuring the slender digits of each hand. Gin was essentially real. Tangible. If Aizen reached out to touch, he'd be met with potent validation; the illusion was strong.

❝ Like prison food, y'know? Leaves a stale taste'n the mouth. Why don't we ditch th' place, hm? ❞ Gin turned his head to peek a gaze toward Aizen, those azure hues almost inhumanly bright in the dull lighting of Silbern. ❝ There ain't no reason to go along with this guy Yhwach's plan, he's usin' you -- why don't we go off 'n do our own thing...? Someplace quiet. And maybe a lil less cold and gloomy. ❞

                 ❝ Moderately better, yes, thank you; I think I needed sleep, ❞ came the response from Gin's companion, where he sat in an overstuffed armchair by the fireplace, his singularly visible eye on the pages of the book he held in one hand. Brown strands of hair were left to curl around the man's face and shoulders, longer and shaggier than they had been before, but still neatly kept in order. He didn't look up to his lover immediately, turning another page to start reading it with an idle adjustment of his own posture. The bed was large enough to hold them both comfortably, of course, and idly he debated getting up and going to join Gin, find a way to distract him.

                 Yet his gaze did lift from the book he'd removed from Silbern's library to focus on the younger man, Aizen Sousuke's lips pressing together ever so slightly before there was a sigh as he closed his eye once more. He too was once more draped in white, the close-fitting uniform doing wonders to emphasize the breadth of his shoulders, the long legs - and he was rather grateful, too, for the jacket which hung to below his hips.

                 Having pants this tight should have been indecent, really, yet Aizen had been certain he'd caught a hint of approval in Gin when he'd modeled the uniform for him. There'd been no thoughts of trying to make his lover get into one too, though Aizen would have adored seeing the lines of his legs so emphasized by the snug white material. But the young group of women who were Sternritter had insisted it made him look good, so he supposed he could accede to their sense of fashion. He knew he didn't really have one anymore to speak of himself, not that it mattered too much.

                 ❝ Bland as the food is, Gin, they are still our hosts for the time being. I'm quite aware that Yhwach has intentions of trying to use me, but I wasn't going to remain in Muken. Besides - if we play our cards right, I can easily get there before he can. I do have an advantage that he lacks, remember? ❞

                 A heritage that had ever been shameful; but Aizen had shared that with Gin long ago, never truly believing what his own logic and senses informed him was the truth. He never quite bought into the idea that it could be true. Yet, if there was a chance that he could use the Quincy that sought to use him in kind ... of course he'd do that. He flashed a hint of that old smirk even as he finally moved to put his book down and move over to the bed. Only one eye remained visible. There was a reason for that, but he couldn't seem to recall what it was ...

                 A disfigurement, earned in the course of his fighting with Kurosaki Ichigo before they had suffered defeat and been imprisoned in Muken. As always, his thoughts never quite went so far as to wonder if he was disfigured, then surely the Hogyoku would have repaired his eye-- never quite that far, no, but sometimes he did have to wonder about it. He'd chosen to wear the white eyepatch that so easily matched the rest of his uniform, trimmed in blue and gold as it was, on this day. Aizen liked the white with the blue for blatant reasons.

                 So he moved to peer down at Gin, hand moving out to rest on that ankle.

                 ❝ If I can somehow find you a snack around here, would that help you stop pouting so much, Gin? ❞

[keikakudori]

             HOSTILITY WAS NOT SOMETHING THAT WAS UNEXPECTED FROM THIS YOUNG WOMAN, IN TRUTH ---- it was not her anger that could make Aizen flinch back from her as much as it was other things. Down here in the dark ( how long had it been? how long how long how long how long--- ) that the god was encased, time held no meaning.

             There was nothing of ontological flow in this vast dominion, one that was not his own. Where once he had surrounded himself with the ever varied hues of white upon ivory upon pearl, when once the man had adorned himself in the non-color, he was steeped in the darkness of this underground hell now. How the ink of this place stained him, seeped into bone and marrow and heart. He drowned within the thickness of it, was bound not just by seal but by the understanding of what had unfolded, an unraveling of threads that had been cut by word and blade and action.

             He had no one else to turn blame upon. But Aizen thought not of Momo, of the young woman whose delicacy he had so cruelly shattered with cold dismissal. He had cared nothing for her beyond what measures he could take to see how far her faith in him and his supposed goodness would carry her. He had no taste for such naivety and had enjoyed it, almost, in some hot and sharp part of his soul. She had placed him and his entire self upon a pedestal and had never truly known him.

             He couldn't stand it. Nor could Aizen truly stand her.

             Yet, it was best not to forget that he himself was a sun of his own power, blazing with a refulgence that spilled out like streamers of light, beads of molten gleam spilling out in strings that anchored him to this spot. Hers was the fury of beauty, the wrath of one so neatly wounded and how her words drew forth less of grief and far more of that old sharpness in a moment such as this one and that brown eye grew sharp and less morose in a single breath of moment. For all that the stygian nature of this hell engulfed him, he was still a dangerous individual. BEST NEVER TO FORGET THAT. His being bound was not safety itself; the keys, the seals --- such trivial things could not prevent him from enacting a whim in his thoughts if he were to be provoked far enough. But the sharpness of his gaze remained only that; a hawk-like intensity that lingered upon her the way a bird of prey focused upon a shiver of motion on the ground beneath.

             ❝ At least I am honest enough to admit to holding the knife, Matsumoto-san. ❞ How that voice came out a smooth and clipped firmness. ❝ I certainly have not denied that since that day upon Sokyoku Hill. Or would it salve your anger if I were to play at denial and give you a chance to rail at me for it? ❞

             Yes, his own tongue was still sharp and would ever remain so. Yet it was but a brief moment for he lapsed into that still silence the next, unwilling to let his tongue get the better of him in this moment. He had no reason to snarl at her and thus sought not to do so. All the same, though, he was capable of cutting deep with words as he ever had been. It was answers that Rangiku sought and she desired them enough to come and speak with him of such things. And the topic at question? The one man that Aizen had thought devoted to him and his desires even more so than Kaname had ever been.

             Ichimaru Gin truly meant something to Aizen Sousuke, something that was impossible to place into the simple sounds of syllables strung together in a connection of words. He had meant more, far more, than that. He had little doubt that much of what he said would perhaps be relayed back to the higher powers that were, but he could not picture what else it was that they could do to him. He was entrapped here, bound by the weight of his own sins. It was shackle and chain, those sins, interlocking and promising that he would ever be left to understand his foolishness. How far he had fallen, wings of wax melting under the heat of hubris and leaving him to crash upon the rocks of pride, flesh torn and mangled.

             Ichigo had not finished the fight.

             It had been finished when the blade had run through his chest, when it had been exploded open, and when he had been dragged out of that darkness. Shadows were here; they were everywhere. For all that Rangiku was determined to prove there were no secrets or doubts in this place, Aizen knew that they were everywhere. Light could not always extinguish every shadow, nor could it disinfect every secret. The entirety of the Seireitei was placed upon a lie. But this was not the time nor the place to speak of that.

             So he watched as she seated herself, gaze tracing over the lines of her face and figure, lingering upon the glint of the silver chain about her throat. Was it noose or promise? A symbol of hope, something that bound her? He suspected hope, promises, a tenderness dwelt behind the sentiment of such jewelry. Fingers twitched and moved beneath his bindings but there was only a slow exhale with her words, as if he were deflating and his eye closed again as that head crowned by shadow and blood dipped low for a second. Such words were acute but they were not, entirely, on point for what was possessed here.

             ❝ You say that I am not telling you why ---... ❞ Was that a hint of the old teacher's frustration in his voice? No; simply an emptiness that colored much of him. This wound she pressed on was certainly still bleeding, still fresh. It would ache and ache and ache until the end of time, a bleeding that threatened to engulf the ceilings and floors of this place, this domain.

             AIZEN SOUSUKE HAD NO IDEA OF THE TRUTH OF GIN'S SURVIVAL.

             ❝ ... it was ... myself but not myself. ❞

             His eye opened now, slit, gleaming like a flame of brilliant crimson in the darkness. The lighting was garish around them both, a filtration of purples that provided nothing upon his true colors. It was too neon, saturating skin with purple tinge and turning brown a rich maroon. His gaze was toned red, as if reflecting the sanguine chords that pulsed beneath the frail exterior of skin.

             ❝ But to truly explain it, then you must have faith that what I say to you is truth. And what is truth, then, if you will insist that everything I say to you is falsehood, predicated on the fact I deceived the Seireitei over decades, even centuries? With a mindset such as that, it will automatically color everything I am capable of saying to you now as a lie; until -- unless -- you change your mnd and choose to believe what I say to you now, then how can I answer the questions that you obviously want to pose to me with any certainty. Either you can swallow your mistrust and hear me out or you can attempt to determine what is said is truth or a lie. You cannot have it both ways, Matsumoto-san. ❞

@keikakudori // continued from here.

RANGIKU WAS HAVING AN INCREDIBLY HARD TIME HOLDING HERSELF BACK. Just the sound of Aizen Sōsuke's voice was setting her on edge —--- a nails on chalkboard, grating sort of thing it was. His reply to her mention of poisoned tea came across as snide, and thus, forced her eyebrows to knit together as she regarded him. A romantic cliché, he had said... and while he seemed so sure that such methods weren't his style, Rangiku wasn't convinced. For how many times had his words been laced with venom? The confessions shared by her comrades used against them when the moment had been just right... not to mention the way he had poisoned Hinamori Momo; a romantic cliché all on its own, though perhaps not quite as literal as a lethal drop mixed into a cup of hot liquid.

The blonde had been there to pick up the pieces of the gobantai fukutaichō, even as her own heart was left broken in the aftermath of their betrayal. Momo had worn her heart on her sleeve... RANGIKU KNEW EVERYTHING THAT AIZEN HAD SAID TO HER, HAD DONE TO HER —--- was this man even remotely self-aware?

❝ You know what, you're right —--- you'd much rather do the stabbing yourself. Twisting the knife and making sure they hurt in all the worst ways... nothing impolite about that, right? ❞ Rangiku couldn't control the way she spat out such hostility; seeing him again had truly brought out the worst in her. A raging sun, she was —--- her heat blazing and oppressive as it worked to snuff out everything in its path.

There would be no shadows, here. No secrets, or doubts... not anymore. Not if she could help it.

Rangiku took a moment to steady herself. She would never learn the truth if she kept villainizing him... after all, a cornered animal was never quite eager to place it's trust in the one hunting it. With a slow, deep breath, Rangiku prepared herself for the more difficult aspects of this conversation. The topic of Gin had never been an easy one for her to discuss, much less openly to the one who had attempted to kill him. So much of their affair had been private... words left unsaid, unspoken, as they had poured their trust in one another. A trust that was left utterly broken, now, but that was beside the point.

She did not miss the way Aizen flinched at her mere mention of Gin's name. It almost seemed like the man had grown hesitant in response —--- his confidence waning as he stumbled over his words. It was so unlike him, Rangiku thought to herself... and upsetting, at the same time.

Gin had meant something to him, hadn't he? He was more than just a blade at his side, ready to kill for him...

Rangiku suddenly felt sick. Anguish churned in her belly, alongside the scorching heat of her anger, making its way up her throat like bile. She pushed it down as best she could, and worked tirelessly to slacken the balled up fists at her side.

She had avoided these truths for so long. She had known something was off, from the very beginning... and yet she never asked Gin what was wrong, or what he was hiding from her. She was too afraid of what he might say. Even now, as she stood upon the precipice of the answers she sought, she was absolutely terrified of what she might hear. But these answers weren't just for her own sake... they were demanded by Central 46, and the sōtaichō himself.

Rangiku sank to the ground, knowing fully well that she needed to be seated in order to carry on with this conversation. She crisscrossed her legs and grasped her knees as her gaze fell from the crucified man, only to seek out imperfections within the floor. Rangiku listened intently to the words he spoke, and noticed the way pain bled into each one —--- Aizen's tone utterly wrought with grief. Perhaps he had been tormenting himself, all this time... though Rangiku was hard pressed to feel any sympathy towards him.

'Will you believe me?' he had asked. 'You must be willing to accept what you will hear.'

❝ I'm not willing to accept anything but the truth, ❞ she replied quietly, though still unable to meet his gaze. What she hadn't anticipated, however, was Aizen's version of the truth... and how corrupted it seemed to be. His claim that he was not himself when he struck Gin down made her want to burst out laughing. Who else was there to blame for all of this? Did it make him feel better, to blame it on the corrupt power of the Hōgyoku? The one he alone had chosen to merge with? This was a self-inflicted fate; one Aizen could have avoided entirely, had he not been so hungry for power. At least, as far as Rangiku was concerned.

❝ —---You're still not telling me why. What caused you to turn on him? You say you weren't yourself, but how am I supposed to know what that means when I don't trust that I EVER actually knew who you were? ❞