#commit murder

hirako shinji never thought about what he would do last before death.  it was a stupid question. even stupider when asked of a shinigami. he didn’t know what younger generation of shinigami considered themselves to be — warriors, perhaps? protectors? shamans or ferrymen? — either way, he was a soldier.  a soldier didn’t have the luxury of planning his last wishes.  he would hope that he spends his last moments protecting someone, helping someone, or simply enjoying someone.  but he also knew, more likely, that it would be fighting for his own life, while attempting to take another’s.

it wasn’t a very optimistic outlook, nor a comforting picture. but he had chosen this so others could get a chance at optimism and comfort. perhaps it was topsy turvy; those who made a conscious choice and put in effort should suffer punishment, and those who simply went with the flow and averted crisis and conflict shall reap the fruit of peace. but much of life was like that. and he was not one to shy from the inverted and seemingly counterintuitive world.

but he wished he would be less fucking scared by now.

there had been too many wars in his lifetime. each one fucked with his head more than the last. he remembered obliteration, bodies falling from the sky like chunks of red hail. remembered blinding light, flashes of white and momentary darkness, that each time felt as though they could be permanent. he also remembered blood; a torso falling in his arms lighter than it was supposed to, lighter than he knew than he was used to — it was the lightness that was the most unnerving. coldness running up his back like ice even while his arms were drenched in hot, hot, hot, hot blood.

… god, he was TERRIFIED.

terrified of losing her, terrified of losing to him.   aizen sousuke … AIZEN SOUSUKE WAS THE MOST TERRIFYING WAR HE HAD FOUGHT IN HIS LIFE.  a war he can’t prevent; a war he had lost before it even started; a war of magma and heavens; a war on another level that felt nearly, nearly out of his reach.

but he fought it nonetheless. bloody and beaten in the end like the old warhorse he was. his only solace, his last accomplishment was that he had dragged the chariot there, had stalled for long enough until the young stallion reached the field.  kurosaki ichigo … the last thing he did was to wait for his arrival.

it all felt too familiar now. they were again waiting. waiting for the salvation of youth in the midst of chaos and old history.  bodies were falling. white uniforms, black uniforms, and all flesh-color corpses.

that’s when he felt it.  A FLASH OF LIGHTNING PASSING HIM, a supercharged wind, nearly knocking him off his feet. and he turned instinctively to the direction in which the bolt came. it was long gone by then, of course, in the blink of an eye.  but what filled his vision was another terror unmatched by any other.

kurohitsugi.

one of the highest level kido and despairingly deadly, rising out of the ground like a black tower of doom.  it dissipated like ribbons of shadow, followed by the dust storm of a building decimated and the pressure of monstrous reiatsu flooding the streets of seireitei. he had to keep running to avoid feeling his knees shaking in the loose garment of the shinigami shihakusho. just keep going — that’s how you deal with aizen sousuke — the singularly biggest threat in his life. 

“Stay in your post! Stay with your squad members.”  he shouted at the other shinigami as he ran toward the opposite direction, toward the first division. he locked eyes with the nearest visored; all recognizing simultaneously aizen sousuke’s reiatsu springing free.  he was grateful then that hiyori did not return to gotei 13 with the rest of them, because there was no way she would’ve listened to his next command:

“Don’t follow me no matter what!”

he shunpo in a flash. was he slower than usual? he felt slow. heavy. like all three enormous reiatsu crushing down on him making his limbs soft and weak. his throat tightened, baked dry by yamamoto’s flames.  and the unsettling sensation needling at his spine from the brief passing with the entity that just rushed past him. eating at him, like an erosion; an impending doom — the tendrils of atrophy clinging to his long, narrow legs… but he put all those behind him. all his concern and doubt and wariness of the unknown, and put his attention toward the one subject in front of him ——

his curse. his sin. his unfinished business.

“Stop right there.”   he found himself on top of what was now the rubble of first division, and the collapsed muken beneath.  sakanade drawn. his captain’s haori fluttered in the wind as he faced his nightmare and haunting. a terror incarnate.  “—- Sousuke.”

his eyes cut. tossing aside sakanade’s sheath as proof of his resolve, he affixed his gaze upon the jailbreaker, at possibly the worst ever time.  he will stop him this time. shinji decided. he will stop him even if he had to use his bankai, to give it his all. even if it killed him.

“In case ya ain’t notice, we’re havin’ a bit of a situation here. I dunno how ya got out but we really ain’t got time for yer dramatics right now, Sousuke.  So sit down an’ wait yer turn!”

                aizen sousuke knew what it was he had done in those moments before his death, when long fingertips had reached out to the bare skin of his chest, when that head had bowed, when shoulders clad in white had seemed slumped rather than triumphant and a voice flavored by an accent he knew so well to the point where he himself was sure he could do a passable imitation of it had spoken the words which had been the crux of his murder. he knew what he had done in those seconds when his gaze had seen gin's hand reaching out and coming to settle upon the blade he carried. his kyoka suigetsu. a piece of himself. of his soul.

                i entrusted you with a piece of my soul -- he had thought. i entrusted this to you. because i knew it would come to t his one day. but not here. why does it have to be here and now. why now--? gin -- 

                in those seconds, in the void of every heartbeat for his chest had been wrought into emptiness through the blooming of that flower of poison wh ich had corroded his anatomy, eroding away the heart, the lungs, the ribs and spine and more, stabbing upwards and leaving that torso gaping, a wound whispering and growing and yet he had managed to reach out with that left hand, that left arm, reaching for gin. not the rock -- not that -- he had reached for gin, had sought to grasp at him. he was dying. he had known he was dying as those legs had bent and he had found his torso falling backwards. how his hair had streamed like ribbons of swirling brown in his vision, like trails of ink in pale water and above him, the sky -- look to the sky and smile --..... look to the sky and--

                gin.

                the name had ridden down into the dark with him. WHAT WILL BE THE LAST THING YOU DO BEFORE DEATH? --- a name. a name that had been the coin, gilt in silver, a thing designed for the ferryman. the mythology of old, the currency for the one who had surrendered their existence and proceeded to find themselves upon the mortal coil's ending. he had spoken a name. a name, twice over, as if to conceal his eyes with the flash of silver that had been his name. as if he would grip it tight between his teeth and he had reached out, only to find himself upon the street of karakura town, betrayed and yet not ( i brought you with me because i was curious to see how you would kill me. ) and still yes betrayed.

                he had had plans for if they lost. if he lost. of what would happen. of what they would do. of course he had anticipated it. there would always be factors he would not plan for in any given situation, things which he would not see coming which would force him to adapt. that was ever the case.  but contingencies were ever in place. contingencies that would have seen them through many things as they had before. that was in aizen sousuke's nature. to plan, to anticipate, to think dozens, even a hundred, ten hundred, steps ahead of others. that was his nature. that was his way of being. it was the crucible upon which he had been forged so long ago. 

                and yet he had not anticipated this he had not anticipated suddenly learning that gin was ALIVE. that gin was there before himself, leaving aizen doubting his eyes and believing too in equal measure while he'd stared, hungry, rapt, in but a drifting second. the snake that had always been there to drape over his shoulders, the one who had been his shadow. a silver thing, pacing after aizen with ease, smiling as aizen smiled too, theirs a relationship which had been birthed over a hundred years ago beneath a moonlit night where he had seen for himself just what this child who'd burned through the academy within a singular year had been capable of. such a pity it was that aizen had chosen the old third seat for that process. truly, a pity. nevermind what he had heard some weeks prior. nevermind that he had been coming to collect his captain to the monthly meeting. keeping himself concealed in those moments had been natural enough. and how his eyes had hooded slightly behind his glasses with what he'd heard, with what he understood in those moments. 

                a fine way of seeing the boy's skill -- and a fine way, too, of seeing this problem removed from his captain's perception of things.  how he had not been bothered by that, smiling his smile as he had praised the youth who'd stood over the gutted third seat, entrails spilling in slick red ropes into the grass. so many questions had come forth -- so many things he wanted to ask him. oh -- so many things which he wanted to know. so many things which had been slowly played out between them.

                those were the moments that had been there in his head when he had died. those were the thoughts which had had him reaching out. WHAT WILL BE THE LAST THING YOU DO BEFORE DEATH? aizen sousuke had had his answer two years ago. he had had his answer in how he had reached for gin while he had fallen. he knew what the last thing he had done before he died had been. he could have answered that question easily. he could have said so if it had been posed to him.

                he had reached for gin. 

                gin, gin gin--!

                gin, here, in the dark. gin, held by a quincy and another lifting that sniper rifle ( a quincy with a gun, a ludicrous thought that -- ) and pulling the trigger. that one, aizen decided in those microcosms of fractional seconds, he would take apart with his bare hands. that one, when he saw him again, would be the one he would eliminate FIRST. that one --- and how he would have lashed out here and now if he could have at him to take the three quincy apart. but no. no, gin was held tight by the dark-haired man who looked as if he was having a very bad day. gin, cradled there in that grip and the other quincy lifting that gun and PULLING THE TRIGGER BEFORE AIZEN'S VERY GAZE IN THE WAKE OF THE KUROHITSUGI WHICH HAD BEEN A STATEMENT ALL ITS OWN.

                and then they were gone.

                they were gone and aizen found his mind ringing with the fading sensation of something he could not speak of having felt from gin in years. fear. fear -- he had been afraid he had been fearful he had been -- 

                gin had been AFRAID and they were GONE.

                what came next was an unfurling of power, of seals snapping and shattering, of POWER ROARING THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE OF THE DEPTHS OF MUKEN. it was a star being birthed, a collision of strength unlike any other into the air over the whole of seireitei. was this that creature of fel ruin reborn? was this the birthing of something monstrous and cruel wrapped in violet fire once more--? ah, how many would be asking that he was sure. but to tear muken open was a thing of ease; the eruption of his own wrath akin to a titan of old stirring and shaking off the mountains which had grown over its form. this was vengeance and fury and more, more, more -- this was divinity's growth and the barracks of the ichibantai, the whole of muken -- yes, they were very much no longer a part of the landscape.

                later, pieces of the area might be found nearly ten kilometers distant. it had been a display of force that might have been deemed, perhaps, EXCESSIVE.

                he did not know of the warning that had been flung across the seireitei . he did not care if his display of irate temper had been enough to make heads turn and make it clear that he was no longer bound in muken. the air was seething as he stepped across pieces of rubble, violet creating a casting of coloration to the atmosphere overhead. tattered were the bindings which draped across torso and arms and legs, for the kurohitsugi turned upon him leaving power suddenly breathing around the former captain. the heat of yamamoto's reiatsu was being pushed aside, suddenly, shunted and elbowed out of the way for there was a different force which was rising, coming to expanse, the curling of his weight seeming to bear down upon everything in its own accord. 

                and then -- suddenly -- there before him stood a man he had seen only once in the last hundred years. a man who he had smiled at politely and seethed t behind his smile, a man whom he had stood over there in the dark as he had watched those eyes.  ( do you see me now--? he had wanted to ask. do you see me now where you  never did before never before even when your shoulders blotted out everything and your hair veiled my face--? ) he had watched those eyes, the dawning in them that no -- even now, even here, the man he had always called his captain had never seen him. there, in the dark, with kaname and gin at his sides -- he had smiled at his captain, watching as he had held to himself the longest out of all of the rest. 

                he had been the one who had fallen last.

you were all such wonderful test subjects.

thank you for going for my cheap taunt.

                words which had betrayed so much in that short span of time. the smile. the seething. how those eyes of brown had held nothing but coldness that night, the same eyes which had ever before peered at shinji with inquisitiveness, with the full of his attention, with a heated delight on nights when the light from the lamps would bounce in golden shine off of those thick brown curls and he would reach upwards, whispering for a kiss, for more. when he would find his nails in that back and the eyes which watched him hooded. how many times had he felt the weight of that stare on him, which had always  been enough to make aizen's head turn to peer to him with those soft brown eyes and how those soft lips would pull up into that smile. how he had smiled. he had always seemed ready with a smile. a smile, just for him. and he had smiled that night. he had smiled.

                he had seethed at him. he had seethed, quietly, behind that smile. how cold his gaze remained that night. and for a hundred years they had been apart .for a hundred years, they had not seen one another until a day when he had purred a statement at shinji that had drawn the man to him. come to me, he'd all but said even as he had extended his hand towards his captain and beckoned with those long fingers. come to me. YOU ARE MINE. for all of the niceties he had shared with hiyori over the years he had not cared if she had perished in that moment. she had not been the important factor on that day. not when shinji had brought his head upwards to stare up at him with murder in his eyes.

                WHAT A FIERCE LOOK. I FEEL AS IF YOUR EYES ARE ALIVE AGAIN AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS.

                gin had done that. gin had done that for him. gin had ensured that hirako shinji would give no thought to anything else but facing off against the man who had torn him down and twisted him, breaking his soul. but hirako shinji’s hands were not bereft of cleanliness. for there were fingerprints to be found if one knew where to look. fingerprints which had been -- yes. they had been there before --... before that night. who had broken who first--?

                he barely gave sakanade a look, however, well aware of the katana that was grasped in the long-fingered hand. how well aizen knew the strength of those hands. he knew well what their shape was, the  weight of those palms, of how he yearned to have them digging into his hair and ruffling at the thick brown curls. that hand held to sakanade as if hirako shinji was ready to bury the weapon into his guts, the folded steel honed to an edge that could cut well. he knew well how it cut. he had a scar upon his arm from it. a scar on that day --- 

                and then, of all things -- he found himself being told to SIT and STAY.

                a very long silence rolled into place in the wake of those words as the singularly visible eye narrowed for a moment before he spoke, voice cool and far, far too calm for the power which was found in the air as it was allowed to become diffused. he had no care for what he felt, for the fact that yamamoto was there facing yhwach. for this moment, here, he found himself staring at his captain for the fact that shinji seemed to think that he would obey.

                ❝ how gratifying to see you as well, hirako-taichou, ❞ came his voice at last, though he did not pull his stare away from shinji's, hands curling slightly at his sides before he was moving a hand upwards to hook and curl his fingers into some of the bindings, yanking at them. more seals were coming undone, seals which he simply slid through. what ws perhaps unsettling was the fact that his voice was -- calm. calm, profusely so, calm in a way that could leave hairs on the back of one's neck rising for it was the calm one might feel while in the middle of deep waters with something vast and powerful circling below treading arms and legs. something that dwelt in those dark waters. would shinji suddenly find himself pulled under or would he be towed along in the wake?

                ❝ did you really just tell me to sit and stay right now--? you say that you  have no time for  me? for me to SIT AND WAIT MY TURN? ❞ 

                this was not seething. this was something cold and alien and vast which was directed at shinji. this man was the only tie he had to the seireitei suddenly -- if the worst had happened, if what he had felt was true, if what he had beheld was REAL -- then this man remained his only tie and to see hirako shinji standing before him, shoulders once more draped in snowy fabric just like the haori he had seen gin wearing there within muken was not helping him right now.

                not when yhwach had swept them out of there and he was grasping at the bindings, yanking at them, tearing them free from his body to drop the looping strands of black material upon the rubble without care. he did not care if he stripped himself bare in this moment, pushing at the seals, undoing them, not while those eyes watched him. he dared to take a step forward, dark material hanging around his body as his eye remained narrowed, focused in upon shinji's face.

                ❝ i am not interested in playing the puppy for you right now, hirako shinji -- NOT when they have taken gin. not when yhwach has invited me to his court in the name of PARLEY. ❞ 

                not when gin could be dead.

PITTSBURGH | Police: Synagogue gunman said he wanted all Jews to die

PITTSBURGH— The suspect in the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue told officers that Jews were committing genocide and that he wanted them all to die, according to a charging document made public early Sunday.

Robert Gregory Bowers killed eight men and three women inside the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday during worship services before a tactical police team tracked him down and shot…

Friend: Hannah, no

Me: no, cmon, it’ll be fun, we can even do some arson!

Friend: Hannah NO

Me: LETS KILL A MAN