Tiger Got to Hunt, Bird Got to Fly (ch. 12)
XII: AN UNRAVELING
Gin lounged about in Aizen’s private quarters, idly flipping through an old issue of Seireitei Communication. The magazine slipped from his hand as soon as he felt the familiar presence of his former captain.
Tousen turned to face the doorway as Aizen stepped in and seated himself. “I trust all went well with my division?” he asked calmly.
“Perfectly. Your subordinates behaved no differently than usual. Unfortunately,” Aizen said, flicking his eyes in Gin’s direction, “things did not go so smoothly in the Third.”
“Oh? I’m sorry to hear that, Captain Aizen. They can be a rowdy bunch at times.”
“It was not the conduct of the ‘rowdy bunch’, as you say, but rather the perceptive nature of certain others that has invalidated the use of this method on your division.”
“Ah, the quiet ones! S’always the quiet ones ya gotta watch out for.”
“Indeed. I was surprised to find them so attuned to your erratic behavior.”
Gin took this to mean that Aizen was rattled at the thought that other people might know Gin better than Aizen did. So many years spent under his tutelage, and yet Aizen had never managed to figure out all the nuances to his favored one. It must bother him so.
To drive the knife in deeper and twist it, Gin said to Aizen tauntingly, “Maybe s’just Kyoka Suigetsu can’t imitate me well enough. There’s more to a person than just appearances and mannerisms.”
If it bothered Aizen, he didn’t show it. He only continued on in that slightly bemused tone he was so good at affecting. “They said some very interesting things, your subordinates...”
“I’ll bet they did! Didja like what I’ve done with li’l Kira-kun?”
Aizen paused to consider his response. “It is acceptable. I see you’ve begun a physical relationship in order to completely bind him to you. An interesting maneuver, though it is perhaps a bit too cruel for my tastes. You surprise me, Gin, with your willingness to hurt your favorite.”
Gin’s smile grew to grotesque proportions, and the slant of his eyes appeared violently mirthful as he played the part of the sexual sadist, quickly flicking his tongue over sharp teeth. “He’s pretty when he cries.”
Tousen snorted his disgust. “A subordinate is not a plaything. There is no need to toy with him any more than is necessary to accomplish our mission.”
“Aww, but then it’d be as boring as how you deal with your lieutenant.”
“With respect? It’s called professionalism.”
“Exactly. It’s boring.”
“And your sexual depravity is the better choice?” Tousen all but hissed in displeasure. “You make me sick. Why must you cause unnecessary harm to others for nothing more than your own perverse enjoyment? Aizen’s path is the path of least bloodshed, and yet you who claim to believe in his vision have made a mockery of it by abusing your position of power. Your conduct is far from the straight path of justice we swore to walk.”
Try as he might, Tousen’s lectures had no effect on Gin. Tousen was an idiot. His heart was so simple, so pure and direct and good, like a saint. It was disgusting, how incorruptible he was. So fiercely did he walk the straight and narrow that he could not be bent no matter how much force was placed upon him. The strength of his moral convictions made him the perfect choice for Aizen’s plans, and Tousen was well aware of this. Ah! But there was irony in the fact that to be absolutely right meant being absolutely wrong in Tousen’s case.
If there was one thing Gin had learned from his duels with Shinsou in his inner world, it was that no matter how straight his sword was flying when it extended from his hand, it could still end up missing the mark if the space around it was bent. This, Tousen did not understand. He was too close to the center of the vortex and lacked the ability to distance himself. That was exactly why Aizen’s ability to create distortions was most effective on him even though he was blind and thought himself the only one who could not be manipulated by Kyoka Suigetsu’s illusions. He was a man forever trapped in the eye of the storm.
Straightness could not account for the gravitational pull of powerful beings such as Aizen. Straightness was a weakness when the universe moved at god’s will. From outside Aizen’s sphere of influence, anyone could see, like a mathematical diagram, Tousen’s straight path twisting and looping, tying itself in knots.
“I like bein’ bent,” Gin said, chuckling. There was a reason Gin was Aizen’s greatest creation, and that was because he was the only one who knew how to counter the effects of Aizen’s distortions by creating distortions of his own. Even Gin himself had had no idea he would become so twisted once he started walking the path of vengeance.
“Ichimaru...” Tousen growled in warning.
“Enough,” Aizen said. “Kaname, please give Gin the benefit of the doubt. I trust he knows the limits of his playing around.”
“Absolutely! You were sayin’, Captain Aizen?”
“Yes,” Aizen said. His smile was strained; he adjusted his glasses. “Concerning the reactions of your officers... I believe we’ve spoken before about your third seat?”
“Itou? I was right about the men listenin’ to her boobs. Totally uncute, though. But I guess some guys find the ice bitch types sexy, like Lieutenant Ise’s fanclub? I told Itou to get glasses so we could send her to lure the naughty librarian fetishists away from the Eighth, but she wouldn’t listen to me. I swear she got those contact lens things out of spite.”
By the time Gin finished with his tale of woe, Tousen’s teeth were grinding so hard that it was audible as he held himself from leaping to defend the honor of the damsels of the Third Division.
Aizen ignored Gin’s impropriety, continuing with his speech admirably well. “I seem to recall that, during that conversation, I asked if you had been previously acquainted, to which you... never answered.”
“Huh. Musta slipped my mind at the time.”
“And now?”
Gin’s mind raced to find an escape. How much did Aizen know, he wondered. How much of it had been planned? Gin had been unable to determine whether Haru was unwittingly being manipulated by Aizen. The possibility of her innocence weighed heavily on his mind, because if he were to give the truth of their past associations, she would be pulled in, meaning Gin would lose an ally. He realized now how he had been overly cautious, testing the waters with her to see if she could be brought over to his side in the way that he was planning to do with Izuru. He should have taken the initiative and approached her more aggressively, despite Aizen’s bluff. And if she had turned out to be poisoned bait, he could have easily dumped her off. Oh, perhaps not offed her, unless strictly necessary, but it might have been better to send her on an extended mission to the Living World, for example.
Or it might have been better if he had offed her the first time around. It might have been better if he had offed her as soon as she came seeking him out. If he’d done it right away, he could have said to Aizen, “An accident has befallen an old plaything of mine. Tousen was right - I’m too rough on my toys.” But that wasn’t how things had played out. Selfishly, he had kept her by his side for his own gratification.
Gin cursed himself for being too soft. He doubted that he would be able to steal her from Aizen if they were to vie for her affections now. He wasn’t even sure he could have kept Izuru if Aizen hadn’t been the one to throw him away first. Aizen knew how to be loved by others; he relished the power he had over their hearts. Gin was too hesitant about love to ever be able to compete with that.
There was no way around it, Gin thought, but the situation could still be salvaged if he chose his words carefully. Ambiguity was his most powerful weapon at the moment. If Haru was Aizen’s unknowing pawn, or would be, Gin would appear not to notice. If Haru was not, Gin would speak in such a way as to make her seem unworthy of Aizen’s attentions.
“Oh, sure,” he said. “I knew Itou from the academy. We used to pass notes and stuff in class. Y’know, kid stuff. Sorta drifted apart after graduation, though. I didn’t see her at all until poof! she was there in my division.”
“Merely a casual acquaintance? It worries me that Itou has been keeping such close watch on you that she was able to sense something inconsistent with my mimicry of your behavior. Perhaps with more personalized attention, she could become something. When we last discussed this, you dismissed her as ‘not that smart’. If she is dangerous to you, that’s all the more reason to keep her close. Kira we know well, but Itou is an unknown variable. Will you not reconsider her as a choice for your lieutenant?”
It was beyond frustrating that Gin couldn’t see through Aizen’s plot right away. Who was the man trying to flush out? Or was he prodding at them to see which one Gin would rather protect? Fishing for weaknesses again, was he?
Gin bit his lower lip, appearing to mull it over. “I could... Provided I still get to play with Kira on the side. Can I?”
“Ichimaru!”
Aizen calmly waved Tousen back down. “It’s quite all right. Please, explain your reasoning to us if you disagree with my analysis.”
“I agree with ya, Captain Aizen. Last time it was my pride gettin’ in the way, and I didn’t want to admit I might’ve made a mistake lettin’ Itou into the division so easily. It was silly of me to forget how sharp she can be when she really tries. As for lieutenant, either one would be all right. I’d still prefer Kira since he has more potential, but Itou is more experienced. She’s got a decent shikai, an’ the rowdy ones listen to her well enough. Trouble is, she’s just about reached peak power, and it ain’t too impressive. Everyone’ll think I picked her for her administrative skills only, and that would be very bad for my reputation, yeah? I ain’t aimin’ to be the next Captain Kyoraku, thanks very much! If I hafta, I’ll push her ‘til she’s ready, but she’ll never truly fight at a lieutenant’s level. She was stuck in the Twelfth for too long and kinda stagnated there, stunted her growth and all that.”
“But you’ll take her?”
“I’ll take her. Though I gotta say, bein’ stuck with a researcher-type won’t be as much fun as pushin’ Kira around.”
Aizen appeared to ponder this with a hand elegantly placed under his chin. “I see. Think on it some more, and I’ll trust your decision, Gin.” Then, taking in a breath, he addressed both of them. “Well, gentlemen, please feel free to return to your divisions to make your preparations. Gin, be sure you’re prompt about applying for leave, won’t you? I’d hate to have to make this trip without you.”
“So, who’s it we’re gonna visit again?”
“You know very well who it is, Gin.”
“Mah, humor me, then.”
“Barragan Luisenbarn, the self-styled King of Hueco Mundo.”
“Hmm… Nah, he don’t sound too important.”
---
Haru paced in her darkened office. The other officers had long since left the building, but she had stayed behind, claiming extra duties due to her rank.
Captain Ichimaru - the real Captain Ichimaru - had returned to duty today. All he had done was take one look at her face and run his fingers across his lips. Zip it. Don’t even think about bringing it up.
His next action had been even more infuriating: applying for leave. He’d just gotten back, though no one was supposed to know he’d left in the first place, and now he was taking a break? What was going on? Haru didn’t like it that she was now so out of the loop when it came to his plans.
Gin had gotten deep into something, Haru thought. She had always known that he was up to no good - it was why she had approached him during their Academy days, after all - but something was different this time.
When they had first met, Haru honestly didn’t know what she had been expecting from him. It was a last-ditch effort on her part. In her hunger for vengeance, she plotted out scenario after scenario, all to no avail. She had been weak, but how would someone like her go about gaining allies with power? The strongest person she had known in her childhood was Shin, and he was dead.
The solution had been Gin, whose cleverness was frightening. He was just frightening all around, and those who didn’t think so were just kidding themselves. But somewhere along the way, as Gin turned his genius to helping her plot, and as she threw her all into giving him a boost on his way to the top, she thought they had connected. There was still that spark in her of the stupidly loyal girl who had followed her best friend everywhere he went, even on his quest to become a Shinigami. Even when she hadn’t wanted to be a Shinigami in the first place.
Gin had reawakened that part of her - the part that would follow her friend to the ends of the earth and beyond. Then he crushed it just as swiftly, or so he thought.
It took a while for the hurt feelings to subside enough for her to analyze the logic behind Gin’s actions. Gin’s words weren’t to be trusted at face-value, but there were truths to be coaxed from his lies. The jabs he’d made of her only being a “tool” were just that - tiny pinpricks. Tiny pinpricks when he could have chosen to run her through at any moment. Why, then, would he have done such a thing? He said it was for amusement, but that was also a front. Gin only did things “for amusement” when it was to throw someone off his trail, to keep himself unpredictable. And he’d been a kid then. He hadn’t mastered the art of manipulation like he had now. Haru, now that she could admit it, had been his practice run. For what, she had no idea, and it was eating at her.
It was on her first day as a lab technician that she figured out a little part of it. The former captain of the Twelfth, Urahara, stepped into an explosion in order to shield one of his subordinates. And it dawned on her then that Gin’s goals, which he’d never fully disclosed, were much more dangerous than she had ever imagined. And just like Urahara had wound up shoving the lab technician away, the action was, in the grand scheme of things, one of protection.
As soon as Gin was head of his own division, he had accepted her presence in his life again. It wasn’t just Gin, then. This was a bigger plot, something bigger than the both of them.
The scavenger hunt in his words led to the Fifth Division. That was where she was stuck.
What happened after Gin graduated? He made it into the Fifth, and then there was that debacle. Haru remembered because Captain Urahara had gone missing by the end of it. So many captains and lieutenants, all missing at once? Gin must have been part of it, he must have-- But Captain Hirako had gone missing, too, so it wasn’t him. Something else was wrong with the Fifth Division. Think outside the box, Haru! She sat down at the desk and held her hands to her temples.
Something… something was wrong with… Flashes of memory came to her. Of their Academy days. Of Gin standing in front of her. He made himself her foil. They thought him the mastermind when the real plot that year was Haru’s doing. As she stood behind, feigning innocence… Everyone always suspected Gin, and rightly so. But no one had suspected Gin more than when he was held in contrast to someone like herself, whom others had thought incapable of deception. Someone… like...
“Captain… Aizen?”