Bleach
All knew that. All abide them.
Of course there were those who did not pay enough attention to their surroundings to even notice those unseen laws that made reality what it was or simply thought themselves above them. The world has an odd way of teaching these individuals all of the lessons they ignored.
Shinigami were no exception to that one rule. Pity one promising member of Gotei 13 never took life seriously enough to consider learning the lessons the easy way. But no worry, destiny soon redeemed that. It was only years later this individual would discover the harshest lesson of all…
Life wasn’t fare. It rarely ever seemed just, even. It wasn’t a game you could simply start over if you got the current one wrong, the people around you weren’t replaceable pieces that if lost wouldn’t be missed. And some things, no matter how absurd they seemed, suddenly turned out to be your very reality.
No life was a game.
Unfortunately, you had never truly understood that until it proved to be far too late to make any sort of aments. You existence as shinigami was an easy one. You,a noble, one of the best captains the Gotai had ever seen, were both regarded almost as being out of the reach of the common population but also as one of the most desirable residents of Seriety .And way not ,you had it all, your colleagues regarded you either as courageous or as a full-hearted worrier who would always try to save those around him and if that was done with the intention to impress one or another future bed partner, it was dutifully ignored by them. You remained deaf to all the warning whispers of those closest to you to be aware a little bit more of the consequences of your actions, of the feelings of others, of what was truly important.
You never listened.
It had to come down to loosing one of the very few people you actually cared about, to realize that occasionally a person was simply helpless to aid a precious somebody no matter how hard and relentlessly you tried, And this time there was no one night stand to impress in the back of your mind, only the eyes of your friend full of disbelieve and pain at an unjust judgment. Watching from the sidelines as Kisuke was exiled was a shock to the system. Processing the fact you weren’t all powerful was hard. Harder was only the knowledge that had you been more involved with the lives of your friends and not drinking with the new fuck buddy of yours that very same night this whole mess happened, you could’ve done something, anything, to prevent this. As it is, you now know the consequences for your decisions but not even the King can help you change them. That is the first lesson you learn.
Next you understand the pure joy of having someone to wait for you back home, to be woken late at night by the cry of your infant son. And as annoying as you thought children to be, there is no better place in world for you to be right now. The baby in your arms has you wrapped around his tiny little finger and you want to stay there as long as possible. The late night, the crying boy, the exhausted wife are your entire world now, your sole purpose for drawing breath into your lungs, you will give your life for them. But when they seem to need you to do just that, faith decided to take that choice out of your hands. And even though the sheer joy of having a family chased all the doubts about turning your back on the shinigami way that was the moment you feel most keenly the loss of your vast powers. You learn the worth of what you’ve given up.
Because, really, sacrificing one thing in order to gain another, never actually excluded the possibility of needing the first to be able to keep the second.
That is your second lesson.
Your wife died a horrible death, she was forever lost to you, that was cleat the moment you felt the Hollow kill her. But the monster didn’t only take her away, it took your son as well, parts of your daughters, too. It took Ichigo’s innocence, made Karin a closed, hard person and stole Youso’s childhood,made her a mother before she had the chance to be a kid.
And yet it was your son that took the hardest blow, you didn’t help much if at all, being preoccupied with learning one more lesson, which proved to be the most painful one.
Love and forgiveness had nothing in common.
And that hurt. It hurt to watch your only son, a helpless child blame himself for something completely out of his control, to see only the reason you were alone with no hope of ever laying eyes upon your beloved wife. You stay silent and inactive when at night the child’s sobbing fills the house and if you hear your other children go and do your job, it goes unnoticed. As deprived as Ichigo is of comfort, he somehow manages to go on, day after day but you still see the guilt in his eyes and you find a vengeful satisfaction in knowing that he is paying for the crime.
Whether it’s his or yours, you don’t want to know.
And now as you stand here, your feet in a pond of blood belonging to your own son, as you see Kisuke’s eyes desperately following every tiny rise and fall of the boy’s chest like any father would,like you should heve, as you hear him pleading for your child’s life, imploring for mercy someone he loathes almost as much as you loath yourself, as you notice Byakuya half crazed with grieve gaze for the miniature figure in his arms, settle on your son,you wonder if you have missed the chance to know a great person in the face the orange-headed child laying in front of you.
And if the dark knowing gaze of Aizen Souske is any indication, if it is really pity you see there,you know you have willingly lost much more than that.
As Gin’s sword pierces you and your flowing blood seems to refuse to mix with your son’s, you realize you have failed utterly in the only thing Masaky ever asked of you.For a moment you think you might have seen your wife’s transfixed on Ichigo but you dismiss the suspicion quickly,had she been here,she would have chosen you instead of your son.Surely?
You, Kurosaki Isshin, are not worried, after all you had an entire life to practice the art of denial.