Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Minutes to Midnight ❯ Ripples (Hueco Mundo) ( Chapter 39 )

Title: Ripples (Hueco Mundo)

Characters: Byakuya, Hanatarou, Hisagomaru, Rukia, Renji

Rating: K+

Warning: Spoilers

Words: 2,301

Description: The worlds are connected, and when Aizen Sousuke ascends, the results are felt everywhere.

 

 

Rationality reminded Byakuya why Las Noches was currently missing most of its usual residents. Aizen had made no secret of the fact that today was the day he planned on invading Seireitei and affecting his final battle. He didn't invite them to attend, not that Byakuya would have. In fact, he hardly cared. Except for the tiny part of him that fumed at his inability to join the battle on the proper side.

 

He was left surrounded by a white silence and loneliness. Neither bothered him as he had chosen the latter and was used to the former. His room was very much isolated from the others, and he had dismissed Rukia and Renji long before, unwilling to put up with their stilted lack of apologies. Byakuya preferred the emptiness around him to their attempts to convince him of their sort of nonsense.

 

He knew that Aizen was enacting his final plan only because he had been told. As it were, Byakuya couldn't and didn't feel a damn thing about it. He heard rumors and whispers from the hall that the Arrancar could feel something. There was a sense to the air, more like emotion or anticipation, but otherwise, he couldn't tell.

 

It bothered him immensely. He was shut off from everything, including Senbonzakura. The emptiness inside of him echoed with her loss. Silence never used to bother him before because he always had her. Now, it was too loud, too reverberant. It left him with nothing to do but think, trapped in his own thoughts.

 

And he'd be damned if he stooped himself to seeking out the company of others. The indignity he had suffered ensured he would stay far away from anyone who claimed to know him.

 

He sat in a chair by the single window, large enough that he could climb out if he wished. But Byakuya was no fool. Escape was the furthest thing from his mind. He was under no illusions that he would survive longer than a minute if he ventured beyond Las Noches. Then again, there was no certainty he would prove palatable to any Hollow. What with lacking any sense of reiatsu.

 

The white sands contrasted directly with the black night, and a single, pale moon watched over everything. Byakuya had studied it for weeks, but as near as he could tell, it didn't wax or wane. As if time itself had paused in Hueco Mundo, never moving forward, never moving back. Still and silent as a tomb. It made him wonder if the story he had been told truly carried some validity.

 

His curiosity couldn't be helped, Byakuya supposed. He wondered how the Shinigami were faring against Aizen and his forces, even as he knew that they must have been drastically outnumbered by this point. Byakuya could recognize that in attempting to ensure the safety of their future, they had made some grievous errors. Alienating Kurosaki Ichigo was one of them.

 

If Seireitei fell, then Byakuya surmised it would be due entirely to that one fatal mistake. He had never realized until now how deeply entwined in the lives of the Shinigami Kurosaki Ichigo had become.

 

Byakuya wanted to believe that the captain-commander and the surviving members of the Gotei-13 would be able to overcome Aizen's forces. It was, however, a baseless belief. He might as well claim that he would wake up tomorrow with his spirit powers intact once more. Foolish.

 

Time passed in its usual dragging speed with Byakuya firmly ignoring all knocking on his door.

 

How long would the battle take? Would the world accept Aizen as its new king? And what would become of Seireitei? The Gotei-13? Himself, for that matter?

 

So many questions, and he couldn't even begin to formulate an answer.

 

Byakuya never felt the stirring of reiatsu that must have swept the world when that last step was finally taken. He didn't sense it in the same manner as those around him. But there was for an instant a twinge resounding through that empty spot in his chest.

 

And he thought for the barest of seconds that he might have even heard Senbonzakura calling.

 

- - -

 

Though it seemed impossible, Hanatarou was sleeping through most of it. Exhausted after helping Ichigo and Urahara recover to their full capacities before striking out against Seireitei, he slept through most of the day prior to the attack and pretty much all of the one during it. In fact, if it hadn't been for Hisagomaru, he wouldn't have known anything was happening at all.

 

It was in his dreams that his zanpakutou came to him, dragging him out of some imagination involving cotton candy and roller coasters and into the familiar grounds of his inner world. He lay on his back amongst a field, surrounded by the scent of herbs and fresh wind. The sun was a warm and gentle presence on his skin, but Hanatarou didn't open his eyes, preferring the illusion of sleep.

 

Besides, he knew without having to look what surrounded him. Acres upon acres of farmland, covered in miles of green vines. Sprouting from the greenery were copious amounts of vegetables: squashes, pumpkins, cucumbers, and melons. Buried amongst the larger growths were smaller plants, herbs of different varieties. In fact, the entire area reminded him of the fourth division with its herbal scent and healing atmosphere. It was apt and well-fitting.

 

Footsteps paused near his body. “You're missing out on the battle, Hana-kun,” Hisagomaru stated, tone deceptively gentle.

 

“Eh heh,” Hanatarou replied, wincing sheepishly. “I can't really fight anyway. So I did the best that I could do.”

 

“Oh, it's admirable to be sure.” There was a trace of amusement in Hisagomaru's words, voice sounding like something ancient. Though Hanatarou knew for a fact that his zanpakutou's spirit was very young. With eyes like the steely, sharp glint of a scalpel.

 

Hanatarou made a noncommittal sound in his throat, feeling lethargic. His reiatsu was a field of rice and waved unenergetically in the wind. He had expended himself more than he probably should have, and it showed. He didn't think he could even cast a low-level kidoh at this point, not that he would share that knowledge with Ichigo or Urahara-san.

 

He did feel, however, that there was something hovering on a precipice. The world hanging in precarious balance, waiting to be tipped to either side. It stirred his sluggish reiatsu and tried to make him rise from his recuperative sleep.

 

Something soft brushed across his forehead. “The fighting has stopped. The search begins. I wonder who will find the throne.”

 

“Aizen-san, of course,” Hanatarou replied without any hesitation. “Ichigo-san is helping him.”

 

After all, he had absolute faith in Ichigo. Otherwise, he never would have taken that fateful road over a year ago.

 

He had the idea that Hisagomaru was looking to the sky, head cocked to the side. His inner world was practically thrumming with anticipation, and Hanatarou felt a little less tired.

 

“Of course,” Hisagomaru agreed amusedly.

 

Hanatarou settled more comfortably into the soft, black earth, rich with nutrients and surrounded by an atmosphere that always scented of spring time. He thought he might have heard a battle, somewhere in the distance. The clashing of zanpakutou, the flash and pop of kidoh. The shouts and the clamor.

 

And then suddenly, there was a flash of pure power like a light across his vision. Hanatarou startled, right out of his inner world, right out of his dream. And directly into wakefulness, flailing about with little grace. His feet tangled in the sheets. With a wild cry, he tumbled off the side of the bed, landing shoulder first onto the floor. Which luckily wasn't far enough away to harm him.

 

He groaned. “Ah. I fell again,” Hanatarou murmured to himself and heard Hisagomaru laughing at him from deep inside.

 

'A king has been chosen,' his zanpakutou told him, voice echoing from within.

 

Which probably explained the gradually lessening sensation of weakness. Smiling to himself, Hanatarou carefully began untangling his limbs from the sheets. He could feel it now, the stirring of the world's reiatsu. A pebble dropped into the center of a lake, sending out gentle ripples in all directions.

 

He thought in that moment of that day more than a year ago past, when he had heard something that would change everything. How strange that it should all eventually spiral to this moment. To a man who sat upon a throne. To manage to change everything, though only time would tell just how much.

 

`Yeah, you did good, Hana-kun,' Hisagomaru murmured at him, giving the impression of patting him on the head.

 

Climbing back into his bed because he was strangely both fatigued and energized, Hanatarou inclined his head in agreement, unable to stifle his yawn. He thought so, too. And with that, Hanatarou slipped back into sleep.

 

- - -

 

Scritch. Scritch. Scrrrrape.

 

“He's still pissed,” Renji offhandedly commented, seemingly saving his entire focus for the half-finished block of wood in his hand. It was better than thinking about the sensations crawling across his skin in any case.

 

Rukia nodded faintly. “Nii-sama is very good at holding grudges,” she agreed, distracted by the dissonance on the edge of her senses. She could all but feel the battle stirring through her veins and making Sode no Shirayuki tremble with restlessness.

 

“That fruity Espada disappeared, too,” Renji added, more to fill the silence than any real desire for conversation. Especially about that particular Espada.

 

“Hmm.” Her response was noncommittal as Rukia dropped her hand to Shirayuki's hilt, running her fingers restlessly over the familiar guard.

 

It was really bothering her, the sense of twisting reiatsu in the air. It was almost choking as it surrounded her. And by the look in Renji's eyes, unfocused and distant, he felt it, too.

 

She tipped her head to the side, as if listening to some melody only she could hear. “Would you have gone?” Rukia asked out of the blue, a question that she had been posing to herself many times over.

 

The sound of the knife raking over the wood abruptly ceased as Renji considered her query. “No,” he finally answered and blew out a great breath as he slowly took up the whittling once more. “But I wouldn't 'xactly join Soul Society's side either. You?”

 

Sode no Shirayuki was a firm comfort beneath her fingers. “They were going to kill Ichigo,” Rukia said softly, as though speaking the dark truth out loud made it that much more bearable. “And Inoue. Nii-sama once they realized what happened to him. Sado. Ishida. Everyone.”

 

She paused as she felt something flicker against her skin, the press of reiatsu growing firmer and more noticeable. Sode no Shirayuki vibrated in her palm, and across the room, she watched Renji dip his fingers across Zabimaru's sheath. Surely, he was vibrating too, able to sense the edge that all of the world was hovering on.

 

Rukia let out a heavy breath, eyes darkening. “But I can't exactly condone Aizen either. Kaien's death... it was his fault. And Hisagi's scars. Hinamori's madness. The Hougyoku and what was done to me.”

 

To say that she didn't honestly know who should win in the war for leadership of Soul Society would only be the half of it. She didn't entirely approve of Aizen, but she wasn't exactly fond of Seireitei any longer either. She wanted to say that wherever Ichigo fought, she could claim agreement. Ichigo was one of the most honest people she had ever known, and he only ever fought for one reason: to protect those closest to him. In many ways, the politics meant nothing to him.

 

Silence fell in the room, broken only by the sound of Renji's knife over the wood. She knew he was listening though, the motions mostly automatic and requiring little thought at the moment.

 

“In the end, it's not really our choice, is it?” Rukia pursed her lips together. “They said that the world will decide who is worthy when he or she sits on the throne. What we think doesn't really matter.”

 

“Hmmm.”

 

Scritch. The knife raked over the wood, sending a shaving to the floor.

 

“But would ya have fought?”

 

Her fingers felt cold, the sense of reiatsu rising and swirling, causing Sode no Shirayuki to practically pulsate. She thought of her friends and wondered how many of them knew the actual truth. She wondered if she could manage to lift her zanpakutou against them and not hesitate. Rukia would like to think that she had that strength of resolve, but the truth stared her in the face.

 

She shook her head. “Not for either side,” Rukia finally decided, feeling an urge to rise to her feet and pace. The restlessness was becoming overbearing.

 

Rukia opened her mouth, thinking to add more, but then, she felt it. A flash of power and reiatsu, like a lightning strike flaring across her senses. She was on her feet in seconds, Renji copying her motions as their eyes met.

 

“The key...” she breathed.

 

Renji was sweating, and he clamped a hand down on Zabimaru. “Not just that. The throne, too.”

 

The truth that Aizen must have taken his much desired seat was not spoken aloud. It did not need to be when the proof of it was tugging at the core of their powers, urging their reiatsu along for the ride. It was a sense of something shifting, a balance being restored where previously there had been nothing but chaos and scrabbling along for answers. And though neither knew precisely why, it was a reassuring feeling.

 

“So I guess that's it then,” Renji murmured, unable to decide if he was pleased or disappointed. He supposed only time would tell, based on what exactly Aizen did with his newfound power.

 

Rukia shook her head and felt Sode no Shirayuki humming with newfound energy. “Not really,” she replied, lowering herself back into her seat. “It's just started.”

 

- - - - -