[Broadcast mind]
It's a bright, breezy day. Birds are singing. The wind stirs the grass, a little white bunny is eating clover in a meadow and you follow it. It hops along the grassbanks, into the trees, and still you follow her, wondering where she's going.
The sun dips below the horizon. The wind picks up. Sand stirs around your feet, then all is quiet and still. The rabbit has vanished. You're in a room, all is dark. The walls are high.
The voice that follows is mocking you.
"Kuchiki. You've got guts to try and kill the same man twice."
The voice is familiar, you love it and hate it at the same time for all of the anger and hurt it drags from you. There's a sword in your hands, the fury in your body burns so hotly it leaves you feeling cold, and still that face that makes a mockery of everything that tears at your soul is grinning at you.
You're being forced back. He has a sword, and your own flashes back, brilliant white in the the gloom. You can hear your voice panting with exertion.
"Shut up!" You hear yourself scream with enough vitriol in your tone that it would stun those who know you best, "You are not Kaien-dono!"
And then it is raining. It is raining and you are panting under the weight of the body on your sword. You can see it stained brilliant red, too red, unnaturally red in the gloom, and it's trembling with your hands. You can't take your eyes off that face as you hold him.
"Thanks," he says, his voice fading into nothing. "Thanks to you, I can leave my heart behind."
His hand falls and you are dying in that white room. That face you just erased is twisted and contorted into something alien and ugly and it will not. Stop. Laughing. You lift your sword, broken, useless, and it takes all your strength to utter the words:
"San no mai: Shirafune."
Your voice is breaking. It's fading too. Only fair, you reason. You don't deserve a voice. You don't deserve to live for condemning him to this fate.
You don't deserve to watch him die again.
You fall, broken like a ragdoll, and you crawl on your belly, hands stained crimson with your own blood. You can't stop. There are things to do.
...Oh look. There's the rabbit again. She looks sad. Of course she would. You're reaching out to touch her with bloody hands.
You can't get up to go follow her.
The sun dips below the horizon. The wind picks up. Sand stirs around your feet, then all is quiet and still. The rabbit has vanished. You're in a room, all is dark. The walls are high.
The voice that follows is mocking you.
"Kuchiki. You've got guts to try and kill the same man twice."
The voice is familiar, you love it and hate it at the same time for all of the anger and hurt it drags from you. There's a sword in your hands, the fury in your body burns so hotly it leaves you feeling cold, and still that face that makes a mockery of everything that tears at your soul is grinning at you.
You're being forced back. He has a sword, and your own flashes back, brilliant white in the the gloom. You can hear your voice panting with exertion.
"Shut up!" You hear yourself scream with enough vitriol in your tone that it would stun those who know you best, "You are not Kaien-dono!"
And then it is raining. It is raining and you are panting under the weight of the body on your sword. You can see it stained brilliant red, too red, unnaturally red in the gloom, and it's trembling with your hands. You can't take your eyes off that face as you hold him.
"Thanks," he says, his voice fading into nothing. "Thanks to you, I can leave my heart behind."
His hand falls and you are dying in that white room. That face you just erased is twisted and contorted into something alien and ugly and it will not. Stop. Laughing. You lift your sword, broken, useless, and it takes all your strength to utter the words:
"San no mai: Shirafune."
Your voice is breaking. It's fading too. Only fair, you reason. You don't deserve a voice. You don't deserve to live for condemning him to this fate.
You don't deserve to watch him die again.
You fall, broken like a ragdoll, and you crawl on your belly, hands stained crimson with your own blood. You can't stop. There are things to do.
...Oh look. There's the rabbit again. She looks sad. Of course she would. You're reaching out to touch her with bloody hands.
You can't get up to go follow her.