Sixteen Bars of Sorrow: FF for nomoreprinces
Aizen/Matsu mindfuck for
nomoreprinces
Sorry for length. D:
Sixteen Bars of Sorrow
------------------------------------
It was beautiful; in the way he considered things beautiful, anyway. Such artifice he was capable of, such craftsmanship! Even here, the feat of molding a glacier into a mere snowflake. Flushes of red accented the Soviet snow, as a wind over the flat landscape bellowed in approval. Certainly this was a work of art, made only with the simplest of brushstrokes. Almost longingly he stared at it, hardly even phased by the exertion (as there had been very little of it.) They would be affected by it, that was fact. Not in the way he was, perhaps, but soundly disturbed. His hand slicked back his brown tresses, an accidental line of crimson highlighted among his locks.
“Now then,” he purred, voice like rusted nails and sherry, “let’s get to finishing this.”
-----------------------------------------
The words cut her deep. Perhaps at first she hadn’t realized, hadn’t fully grasped the nature of those cuts. They only mingled with her own, brought on from nicks and scratches brought further through years of service and of keeping civility. It is one thing Matsumoto did know, and that was that the nature of this particular wound would never cease its gush of absence. The first day had been difficult for Rangiku, as she had very little way of knowing how to cope with the horrid truth.
Perhaps it was all a lie? That her captain had been taken to the fourth-division with only a slight glance to the side, having narrowly escaped death as he always had before. She hoped there was the chance even when he’d sworn her to secrecy.
That night was still fresh in her mind, in the vivid sort of way you imagine Christmases past, a belt of lacquered stars hanging heavy above their heads, as summer winds skirled through the shadowy garden. The shock of white that was his hair seemed incandescent in that moment, silver-blue eyes committed solely to pursuits that had frightened her. Aizen had issued the challenge, knowing the golden child of the Gotei 13 would take the offer, and had come out the victor without contest. Yet in that moment they shared was solace; uncomfortable, but still.
“Rangiku...” he had pleaded her, “If I don’t return tonight, tell no one of what I accepted. This is on a level that...shames me.”
Never had she thought those to be their final words together. When she saw him again... in the arms of Abarai-san and Kuchiki-taichou, her stomach gave a violent upheaval. Such was the squalor of the remains, sinew and viscera all a vulgar desecration of the man she knew. The internment was too grandiose for her taste, but then most things the Gotei did were lavish affairs. True to her word, she said nothing of Aizen’s part in his death, but they had their suspicions. She refused to attend the service, despite being strongly encouraged to give a eulogy (as was traditional for the fukutaichou-taichou relationship.) Shuuhei had taken the job in her stead. Eulogies never made sense to her, anyway. If a person was so great, why reduce their life’s work to a few sentences?
Now she stole away into her old captain’s office, gently nudging into a small pipe of sake. It was warm, but not in the way sake should be. The virulent swill eased down her throat with passable indifference. It kept her stable now, kept her from the space between her and forever. Tonight there were stars as well, but she hardly noticed them from the floorboards. At times she caught herself slipping between sleep and awareness. Her dreams were hateful, an unsurprising menagerie built upon utter loathing. Hitsugaya would not have wanted her to hate, to despise. For as mature a woman as she was, she was frail.
Men in her life had a way of leaving, and Hitsugaya had proven no different in that respect. Perhaps it was her? The idea did not seemed so strange in that vague light that drunkenness bestowed her. Who could say otherwise?
Finishing her liquor repast, she settled down against the mahogany desk, the faintest line of a tear faltering down her cheek. The room smelled so very much like him. She heard a swift rap against the office door, a soggy, wilted sort of knock that forced both silence and consciousness upon her. Words failed to meet those beautiful lips, waiting for them to come proved similarly. Another knock. This time stronger, violent, collided with the door and she wished hard against its presence. The strikes were deliberate, as if a man intended great pain upon the door. Rangiku had left Haineko in her quarters, leaving only her brief catalogue of kidou to protect her. Once more it struck, a hollow gush of bone and liquid hurling against the wooden frame. She rose to her feet diligently, knowing far too well this was not some child’s joke, but secretly hoping it was. No one had the ignorance to desecrate former captain’s office, and none knew of her whereabouts.
Swiftly, like some old prayer, she recited the kidou incantation, stepping unsoundly towards the door. Moonlight shafted angrily from the window, a strange ambience falling on the room that stiffened her breath to taut exhalations. She moved as in a trance, not entirely knowing what she did but that she need do it. Her left hand stiffed upon the door handle, cautious eyes darting as the beatings rambled together into a cacophony of white noise. Crying out, Matsumoto slung the thing wide, smoothly swinging to the side, a gap of ordinarily open air and hallway...remained as such. Nothing suggested any one had ever been near the office, nor had there been any force applied to it. She breathed in tightly, turning away from the entryway before letting out a concussive gasp.
“Rangiku,” bade the fast tenor of her captain.
It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. Hitsugaya was gone and she was drunk, and this was just a nightmare and everything would stop. Stop suddenly and she would be awake. Yet it was so real, so true, his short stature framing the window opposite the door. How he had entered was not in her range of concern. A beast yearned inside her, hungered for realization, for insight. Terror, admiration and confusion warred over her emotional state, a nuclear winter of joy advancing on all fronts. It couldn’t not be real, the way his eyes moored her to compassion, his posture, his smell. So visceral.
“T-taichou...? You’re alive.” Relief and fear both left her voice slightly hinged.
“Yes, without thanks to you, pitiless whore.”
The words were daggers, individually placed in her innards like some monarch butterfly splayed for posterity.
“...what are you saying tai-“
“I am not your captain, if I were you would have saved me from shame. You would have gone to fight alongside me, to protect me when I needed you, Rangiku. I did, however, manage to kill your little boyfriend Gin before I died. It was penance I suppose.”
Those daggers grew to sabers, vicious and unyielding scimitars that danced inside her very soul. No words could have ever achieved the horror that these did now. She issued a quiet but guttural sob.
“...I’m afraid, not penance enough. Now I’ve come for you, Rangiku-san. I want your very essence displayed across the avenues of creation. I want you to suffer every reticent fiber of pain I endured, every flash of color, but most of all I want you to weep. Do it loudly, they’re listening for you in hell.”
Reflexively she finished the kidou, letting out a bright scarlet burst that seemed to project right through Toshirou. As if he’d willed himself around it. And in that moment she succumbed to a baptism of fear, christened and alight in every infinite horror. Reactions she was numb to. Regret was there too, confusion, and she collapsed to the floor, unheard sobs flowing forth like some ancient pleading, but there was no more in ten minutes time.
-----------------------------------------
Aizen Sousuke smiled, charmingly, through the veil of illusion. What a delight this had been! Even he surprised himself on occasion, but this was certainly a feat among feats. Flicking the ichors from his blade in a careless nick of the hand, he removed the artificial visage of Hitsugaya Toshirou as he would a parka. While her death was all together unnecessary, even Aizen enjoyed the occasional game. This was no different, and perhaps the more psychological the better. Now, both captain and vice had met similar deaths, and he had satisfied his pallet for the grotesque. Coyly he retrieved a bottle of Chianti from under his jacket, and a thin wine glass. He drank for around twelve minutes, before stepping neatly over the various bits of Matsumoto scattered through the room. Shame she was so frail. Without much adieu, he left, with the reckless confidence of a man who knows no fear.
For certain, it was beautiful.
nomoreprinces
Sorry for length. D:
Sixteen Bars of Sorrow
------------------------------------
It was beautiful; in the way he considered things beautiful, anyway. Such artifice he was capable of, such craftsmanship! Even here, the feat of molding a glacier into a mere snowflake. Flushes of red accented the Soviet snow, as a wind over the flat landscape bellowed in approval. Certainly this was a work of art, made only with the simplest of brushstrokes. Almost longingly he stared at it, hardly even phased by the exertion (as there had been very little of it.) They would be affected by it, that was fact. Not in the way he was, perhaps, but soundly disturbed. His hand slicked back his brown tresses, an accidental line of crimson highlighted among his locks.
“Now then,” he purred, voice like rusted nails and sherry, “let’s get to finishing this.”
-----------------------------------------
The words cut her deep. Perhaps at first she hadn’t realized, hadn’t fully grasped the nature of those cuts. They only mingled with her own, brought on from nicks and scratches brought further through years of service and of keeping civility. It is one thing Matsumoto did know, and that was that the nature of this particular wound would never cease its gush of absence. The first day had been difficult for Rangiku, as she had very little way of knowing how to cope with the horrid truth.
Perhaps it was all a lie? That her captain had been taken to the fourth-division with only a slight glance to the side, having narrowly escaped death as he always had before. She hoped there was the chance even when he’d sworn her to secrecy.
That night was still fresh in her mind, in the vivid sort of way you imagine Christmases past, a belt of lacquered stars hanging heavy above their heads, as summer winds skirled through the shadowy garden. The shock of white that was his hair seemed incandescent in that moment, silver-blue eyes committed solely to pursuits that had frightened her. Aizen had issued the challenge, knowing the golden child of the Gotei 13 would take the offer, and had come out the victor without contest. Yet in that moment they shared was solace; uncomfortable, but still.
“Rangiku...” he had pleaded her, “If I don’t return tonight, tell no one of what I accepted. This is on a level that...shames me.”
Never had she thought those to be their final words together. When she saw him again... in the arms of Abarai-san and Kuchiki-taichou, her stomach gave a violent upheaval. Such was the squalor of the remains, sinew and viscera all a vulgar desecration of the man she knew. The internment was too grandiose for her taste, but then most things the Gotei did were lavish affairs. True to her word, she said nothing of Aizen’s part in his death, but they had their suspicions. She refused to attend the service, despite being strongly encouraged to give a eulogy (as was traditional for the fukutaichou-taichou relationship.) Shuuhei had taken the job in her stead. Eulogies never made sense to her, anyway. If a person was so great, why reduce their life’s work to a few sentences?
Now she stole away into her old captain’s office, gently nudging into a small pipe of sake. It was warm, but not in the way sake should be. The virulent swill eased down her throat with passable indifference. It kept her stable now, kept her from the space between her and forever. Tonight there were stars as well, but she hardly noticed them from the floorboards. At times she caught herself slipping between sleep and awareness. Her dreams were hateful, an unsurprising menagerie built upon utter loathing. Hitsugaya would not have wanted her to hate, to despise. For as mature a woman as she was, she was frail.
Men in her life had a way of leaving, and Hitsugaya had proven no different in that respect. Perhaps it was her? The idea did not seemed so strange in that vague light that drunkenness bestowed her. Who could say otherwise?
Finishing her liquor repast, she settled down against the mahogany desk, the faintest line of a tear faltering down her cheek. The room smelled so very much like him. She heard a swift rap against the office door, a soggy, wilted sort of knock that forced both silence and consciousness upon her. Words failed to meet those beautiful lips, waiting for them to come proved similarly. Another knock. This time stronger, violent, collided with the door and she wished hard against its presence. The strikes were deliberate, as if a man intended great pain upon the door. Rangiku had left Haineko in her quarters, leaving only her brief catalogue of kidou to protect her. Once more it struck, a hollow gush of bone and liquid hurling against the wooden frame. She rose to her feet diligently, knowing far too well this was not some child’s joke, but secretly hoping it was. No one had the ignorance to desecrate former captain’s office, and none knew of her whereabouts.
Swiftly, like some old prayer, she recited the kidou incantation, stepping unsoundly towards the door. Moonlight shafted angrily from the window, a strange ambience falling on the room that stiffened her breath to taut exhalations. She moved as in a trance, not entirely knowing what she did but that she need do it. Her left hand stiffed upon the door handle, cautious eyes darting as the beatings rambled together into a cacophony of white noise. Crying out, Matsumoto slung the thing wide, smoothly swinging to the side, a gap of ordinarily open air and hallway...remained as such. Nothing suggested any one had ever been near the office, nor had there been any force applied to it. She breathed in tightly, turning away from the entryway before letting out a concussive gasp.
“Rangiku,” bade the fast tenor of her captain.
It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. Hitsugaya was gone and she was drunk, and this was just a nightmare and everything would stop. Stop suddenly and she would be awake. Yet it was so real, so true, his short stature framing the window opposite the door. How he had entered was not in her range of concern. A beast yearned inside her, hungered for realization, for insight. Terror, admiration and confusion warred over her emotional state, a nuclear winter of joy advancing on all fronts. It couldn’t not be real, the way his eyes moored her to compassion, his posture, his smell. So visceral.
“T-taichou...? You’re alive.” Relief and fear both left her voice slightly hinged.
“Yes, without thanks to you, pitiless whore.”
The words were daggers, individually placed in her innards like some monarch butterfly splayed for posterity.
“...what are you saying tai-“
“I am not your captain, if I were you would have saved me from shame. You would have gone to fight alongside me, to protect me when I needed you, Rangiku. I did, however, manage to kill your little boyfriend Gin before I died. It was penance I suppose.”
Those daggers grew to sabers, vicious and unyielding scimitars that danced inside her very soul. No words could have ever achieved the horror that these did now. She issued a quiet but guttural sob.
“...I’m afraid, not penance enough. Now I’ve come for you, Rangiku-san. I want your very essence displayed across the avenues of creation. I want you to suffer every reticent fiber of pain I endured, every flash of color, but most of all I want you to weep. Do it loudly, they’re listening for you in hell.”
Reflexively she finished the kidou, letting out a bright scarlet burst that seemed to project right through Toshirou. As if he’d willed himself around it. And in that moment she succumbed to a baptism of fear, christened and alight in every infinite horror. Reactions she was numb to. Regret was there too, confusion, and she collapsed to the floor, unheard sobs flowing forth like some ancient pleading, but there was no more in ten minutes time.
-----------------------------------------
Aizen Sousuke smiled, charmingly, through the veil of illusion. What a delight this had been! Even he surprised himself on occasion, but this was certainly a feat among feats. Flicking the ichors from his blade in a careless nick of the hand, he removed the artificial visage of Hitsugaya Toshirou as he would a parka. While her death was all together unnecessary, even Aizen enjoyed the occasional game. This was no different, and perhaps the more psychological the better. Now, both captain and vice had met similar deaths, and he had satisfied his pallet for the grotesque. Coyly he retrieved a bottle of Chianti from under his jacket, and a thin wine glass. He drank for around twelve minutes, before stepping neatly over the various bits of Matsumoto scattered through the room. Shame she was so frail. Without much adieu, he left, with the reckless confidence of a man who knows no fear.
For certain, it was beautiful.