Monsters We Became { Bleach Aizen Sousuke Fanfiction }

24 - Rises the Unmasked Sun

There was something in the air of the Soul Society that didn't set right with Aizen. A flicker of powerful reiatsu. A clinging dread that carried in the wind and struck the trees, casting a shadow over an otherwise beautiful day. Yet the sun shone so bright overhead.

He escaped into the garganta and traveled through the desert beyond its gaping maw. The artificial stairs that lead to the civilization of Hollows no longer existed. What remained was a pile of rubble consumed by the sands, untraversable.

There were other, less manufactured ways into the Forest. Through an unsupported skin of sand and into the beast's rotting coelom.

The air was rife with the metallic scent of blood. Pained groans filled the silence. There was no light radiating from the entrance. No light at all except the scant rays of moonlight that witnessed from on high.

A Hollow's corpse, still dripping with blood, hung over the crumbled ruins of what was once the crystalline archway demarcating the entrance, now just a pile of dust soaked in dark liquid and mixed with entrails.

Passing over the collapsed entryway gave true vision to the horror that had unfolded. There were no fields. A pit ahead and to the left had strangely smooth edges and a sandy bottom. Broken slats lay on the floor within its center. No water. No scent of moistened earth – only the smell of death and blood and ashes.

Half a dozen Hollow corpses lied in what would have been the fields, slowly turning into dust as they decayed. Too weak to be anything more than fodder. Even the remarkably human-like corpse of a man beside a disembodied head with red hair and a decaying sword at his side was meaningless. Glassy eyes and face frozen in rage and terror.

A tower off to the left rose into the darkness that cloaked it. Crimson ran down its gray face like tears from unseen eyes. A few Hollows' reiatsu could be sensed struggling within, weakened and destined to die. Their lives meant nothing to the Shinigami as he walked down the dilapidated pathway and over a pile of ashes with coiled white fragments staring out from within.

His interest was on the trail of blood along the path.

Before the tower's doorway was a pitiful tale, frozen in place. A pink-haired Hollow hanged from a single smooth vine that pierced a hole through her abdomen and drained the blood from the body. That plant, too, had begun to wither.

What was once a castle was now just a hole carved into the rock-face, no different from any other, except for rubble at its mouth. Each step towards the dilapidated ruins, a reminder of beauty's fragility. More corpses lined the ground and rubble like ants.

Slabs of stone marked what should have been a collection of buildings; collapsed under their own weight as their supports turned to dust. A single yellow wall topped the ruins in the distance, the only other color remaining in the ocean of gray and crimson. It too was fading to gray.

"Help... me..." A voice croaked from somewhere inside before joining in the background anguish. Aizen paid it no mind.

The bloodtrail headed left, towards the building hidden in the depths of the crevice carved into the cliff face. More dead Hollows, but not all of these were killed by blade. One had a hole blown through its head by a large projectile. Another left nothing behind but a mask. The last was stripped of skin, with blood oozing from every surface and orifice, what was visible of his masked face contorted in agony. The trail did not come to an end until the building.

Latticed door removed, there were books scattered everywhere as though a hurried hand searched through everything, looking for a document they would never find. Leaning against one of the collapsed bookcases and clutching her remaining hand upon her swollen abdomen was the most monstrous Hollow of them all.

"Those three came back just to try to eat you. Hollows truly are pathetic creatures."

The eyeless beast attempted to lift her head, but lightheadedness made the weight unbearable and it rolled to one side. Black dribbled from her lip and from the gash in her mask. From the split it the bespeckled white, yellow spiritual pressure rose, slowly diminishing as its cracked vessel emptied.

"They did." A weak voice replied with a slowness matching her injury, before repeating a cutting word, "Pathetic."

"You're right... There was nothing I could protect."

Blood stained the creature's remaining hand, clutched so closely to her abdomen, but no longer ran red. Crimson pooled where she sat and trailed down her legs revealed the truth – whatever had once been in that pierced womb was no longer viable, and only existed because the force applied by the reiatsu radiating from her hand held its form together. A futile effort; neither would survive their injuries.

In the depths of this knowledge, the Shinigami's eyes carried only disappointment.

"Before I die, I must ask you for one final favor."

He looked on, already aware of her plea.

"Please, save the child."

Disappointment became a flicker of rage before subsiding into that all-too familiar indifferent expression.

"You know that is an impossibility, yet you ask regardless."

A flicker of hate for his own kind and for those worthless creatures unable to protect her–and another spark for the stubbornness that led to her demise.

"If that is your wish, then I will do what I can."

The Shinigami knelt in front of the dying beast. It made no attempt to move as a hand, sharpened with reishi, raised and pointed towards the grievous wound. As the hand plunged forth, the other's fell away. With the Shinigami's hand deep within her body cavity, Koukou did not cry out, her teeth clenched and cracked and a hand reflexively grabbed the arm embedded into her flesh attempting to stop the newfound source of agony. Soon, it fell limp, along with the rest of her form. So left her life.

As light began to emerge from the many wounds marking the limp body, beginning the summoning of the gates of Hell, Aizen retrieved his bloodied hand – and an undulating red orbule of reiryoku. Thick red and blue vessels pulsated across its fleshy surface, neither alive nor dead. It was all that remained of the once-mighty Vasto Lorde and a near millennia of unlife.

"Farewell, Kou."

—

"This is an emergency meeting! There has been a sudden influx in Souls and it threatens to destabilize the three realms. You are authorized to exterminate 100,000 rukongai citizens in order to maintain the balance of worlds. Squad 5, you are in charge of this assignment!"

"Yes, Sir!" Called the group in unison, with one voice below the rest that belonged to a brown-haired man hidden behind a pair of glasses.