a storm was brewing within the seireitei, a tempest of cold ferocity that dwelt beneath the skin of a man. in his veins ran the throbbing tumult of the fiery heart of the earth below foot, in his bones bloomed shards of ice that would gladly rend those who had fallen beneath his gaze asunder. here, in the seireitei, a storm was brewing and it was contained in the shape of a man who had unleashed but a fraction of its fury upon his own environment in an explosion of power which had decimated it. how he had stood there under that cold rain, stripped to the waist, as the captains had surrounded them and a man he had not expected to stand between him and them had told them to stay back. eventually, it seemed, they chose to listen to him. but they were wounded, these people; even through the drenching of that downpour, he had smelled smoke and ashes and blood on the air.
none of it had mattered to him, not then. not even when kurosaki ichigo had stood there before him, looking up into his face, had aizen sousuke cared in the least as to what those people thought or felt in those moments. he had simply looked at them with that cold stare as if waiting to see whether or not they would listen to a man who had fallen before his betrayal a century before. and it seemed, ultimately, that they would indeed do so. he pressed his lips together voluntarily, keeping himself mute even as he ignored the discussions of what they would do with him. their soutaichou was dead and all that anyone knew now was merely that there had been a blurt of alarm thanks to a man who had been reinstated -- but he was nowhere to be found. how that brown eye never met any of those accusatory stares. he had merely turned his head towards the horizon, gazing towards something only he was aware of.
he did not even bat an eye when he had felt the dryness of that hollow's reiatsu surging nearby from his captain. none of those here, none who were arrayed to try and attack him, mattered in the least to the man who had so easily decimated them two years before. no, he would not attack them - but aizen suspected, coldly, that the same was not true from their own views. if anything, he rather expected that they would indeed find some reason or excuse to attack him for what had happened.
semantics.
he had only looked down at that haori turned inverse when shinji had thrust it at him, as if to expect him to put it on with the turquoise lining exposed now. something for him to cover up with and then, mildly surprised, had only shaken his head even as he thought of what he had said. of how he was the only one, so far, who had met the enemy leader and had emerged unscathed. he didn't see himself as unscathed.
aizen didn't want to wear that haori. he had known, from the first time that he had ever put it on, that he was only borrowing it. once upon a time, he had been content to remain merely the fukutaichou of the gobantai, wooden badge on his arm pressing warmly to the bicep beneath the layers of fabric. he had taken care of that badge, had oiled it and polished it with beeswax until it had glowed. he had been so proud to be the adjutant to hirako shinji. but he had known the haori was not his. if he had truly wished to, he could have advanced to a captain's position long ago. he knew it. and perhaps his captain would have let him go. or perhaps not. it was nigh impossible for even him to say whether or not he would have been obstructed or supported in pursuing such an endeavor by the lanky blonde. but he would not wear the haori again. when he, gin, and kaname had abandoned the seireitei, aizen had discarded the haori which he had worn on that day to hang it in the closet in his quarters within las noches. he had debated burying it, burning it, destroying it in some form or fashion ... but it had not felt appropriate, somehow, to do that.
he had gone to the eighth, then to the twelfth, and spoken to mayuri of this so-called roadmap which yhwach had bestowed upon him. he had never liked kisuke's successor; a sneaking man, middling in any capacity, and one who he rather imagined would have but to deal with many things. the twelfth had been leveled, he had heard, but some things remained intact and he had answered those questions as best as he was able. dressed in the simple black and white uniform once more, with tabi and waraji on his feet, he looked once more very similar to that role he had maintained for so long. but there were differences too; the eye patch which he still wore, the styling of his hair, the lack of those square-rimmed glasses which had once been his signature look. no more did he look the shaggy pup; this was a wolf that paced with steel teeth bared and a fire in that eye of brown. but he allowed himself to listen to what it was that mayuri had to say, paying heed only to what was discussed to figure out how to set him on his path.
if he could have, he would have gone on his own but he knew, too, that such would not be permitted to him. not with how the man who had once claimed him for lieutenant seemed intent upon hovering. aizen paid no heed to the rain that was the funereal shroud for yamamoto. he cared nothing for the wounded and the dead. perhaps if his mood had been better he could have turned that monstrous power of his to their aid. but all that mattered to him was getting that understanding he required of this roadmap which yhwach had laid out for him.
a storm was brewing. within his soul, within his mind, within his bones.
he did not care how it was understood so long as it was and as soon as he knew there was a way for him to go to where he wished, aizen did not hesitate. he merely tilted his head as he listened to the explanation but never did that singular brown eye waver from the face of the man who had taken over the twelfth in the wake of urahara's exile. never did his focus shift in the least. whether it disconcerted mayuri or whether he ignored it, it did not matter. aizen merely nodded once with impatience as he listened to the man speak of it.
the result was not like that of a garganta nor a senkaimon but something else. he had no way to describe what he felt beyond fluid. yet how he merely adjusted the shihakusho he wore and then plunged forward. there would be no one here with him but that man that had tried to push the haori at him and there was, too, a strange sense of inversion for a moment. it felt very akin to the shikai which had been revealed on him that day but it did not matter. aizen had trained himself with his kanzen saimin relentlessly; he was a master of his own senses and that had never changed. not then and not even now. a coldness, a shock through his system -- and then, suddenly, an emergence to stand on grounds and leaving him to stare upwards at a building with vast architecture. it made him think briefly of las noches but that wasn't the important thing.
as soon as he had stepped from the shadows and upon these grounds, the sensation of GIN'S REIATSU WAS BLOOMING IN HIS AWARENESS. he had sensed him, somehow, if only vaguely. he had told them, those fools of the seireitei, that gin was alive. he had ignored any arguments of whether or not they could trust him. it hadn't mattered. he had known gin was alive -- he had hoped. he had trusted in that hope, no matter how frail and feeble it had seemed. and as soon as the shadows were left to slide away from his body, that awareness was there, nestling in the back of his head. gin, who had been scared when he had been vanished with yhwach and those quincy. gin, his gin, the moon in his sky -- his tsukiyomi. gin, who he had prayed was not dead despite every lack of faith and belief in such higher powers, was in there. his eye snapped about towards where he could sense the source of that power and he wanted to breathe in. but more than that was the anger which was rising within him, an anger that was so vast and deep that he could not have begun to name the depth of it. oh, this was not the anger of a mortal.
THIS WAS THE WRATH OF A GOD.
the fury which had been building for the last hour, since the moment that yhwach had disappeared with gin in hand to go strike down yamamoto, was a sudden storm of ice within his body and his soul. and more than that was a sensation of something cold and dark that seemed to rise within himself, within his soul -- something that seemed ready as he was to rip this place APART. he paid little mind towards the creeping of the cold within his veins. he paid no heed to what it might have been. all that he knew was that gin was in there -- gin, who had been dead for two years. gin, who had fallen beneath the strike of his kyoka suigetsu no matter how much aizen had struggled against it, no matter how he had shrieked his desperation within his very soul.
the air began to thicken, curdling with raw killing intent, even as aizen's lips drew back from his teeth in a feral snarl. there was no withholding it, not when he had been so kindly invited to this parlance by the very leader of the quincy who had decided to step forth into the tomb of Muken to draw aizen's attention to him. to, what it seemed to the brunet, offer him a job. that was how it had read and the scorn of but a short while ago had yet to abate. here and now, there was a true chance that the lanky man who had seemed willing to take up the mantle of responsibility might find himself slammed to the ground thanks to the way the particles of air seemed to grind together whilst a violet overcast began to permeate the atmosphere. there was no attempt on aizen's part to hold back and he would engulf the whole of this place in his grasp if he could, within his own power. it was heavy, that power, cold and fraught with the promise of death; this was something he had withheld himself from on that day until kurosaki ichigo had arrived to put a stop to his efforts. there was every chance that the older man would have to struggle to breathe, if not outright keep his thoughts running. for this was the anger that had burned in aizen sousuke's soul becoming manifest, rippling wavering tongues of fire seeming to grow to crown shoulders and head. it was not the burning brightness that had adorned yamamoto; this was the boiling surface of the sun turned in on itself.
this was the pulsing heart of a black hole, drawing all matter and light inwards.
anger was, as he remembered saying once to gin so long ago when he had been still a boy, a useless emotion. anger made you reckless. anger could make you stupid. anger could mean losing control of yourself. how that had come back to haunt him. how many talks had they had? how many times had gin come to him with questions, seeking to understand the man he'd call boss with a sly grin that had never quite been openly mocking? how many late nights had they spent together, discussing many things, sharing in their views? how brilliant the little viper had been, coiling himself willingly first around aizen's wrist, then later draping those strong coils of silver over shoulders and looping around the proud neck? such was how aizen had ever felt him. for two years, for two years he had been dead. for two years, aizen sousuke had screamed out into the dark against what he had done.
FOR TWO YEARS, HE HAD BEEN CERTAIN THAT HE HAD KILLED THE MOONLIGHT OF HIS OWN SOUL.
anger, right now, seemed entirely apt to the situation at hand.
aizen didn't even think on what he was going to do. he didn't think twice on it as his hand lifted and words began to spill from his mouth, a guttural snarl distorting his voice as he spoke, palm facing the front of the palace. yhwach had invited him so he might as well ANNOUNCE HIMSELF ---
❝ howling tempest, rising storm! clouded eyes and tongues turn to ash! rise and become the fang of the sky, fall and become the belly of the earth! thunder steel, crimson rock, unbind thyself in the heart of the tempest! hadou #88: hiryuu gekisoku shinten raihou! ❞
out thrust his hand, fingers spreading wide and palm facing the architecture as the very atmosphere BOOMED before the eruption of what burst forth. this was not the simplistic display on that night that he had found this kido lancing towards him courtesy of tsukibishi tessai. that had been a storm of lightning and reiatsu. this display was as if one had gathered every storm in the world, all the lightning that could be birthed in the hearts of storm clouds, and woven it into the bar of blinding blue-white destruction that filled the air. this was not a kido so much as it was simply destruction. like liquid lightning, like the heart of the storm. there was no attempt to do more than close his eye to the flaring of lightning that erupted from his hand, yet even though his eye was shut, the actinic flare of it nearly blinded him. he had not cared to warn the man who had come with him, had not bothered. either shinji would have seen what was coming as his power had swelled into the air and would have shielded his face from it or he would be left blinded. the phosphorescent brilliance of the strobing power tore at the atmosphere and the building before himself, claws of storm-born wrath ripping into the architecture and destroying it, leaving debris and rubble to blast inwards. no heed was given to the quincy who likely dwelt inside, those who likely had been consumed as a shock wave of air blasted back towards himself and the older man. he did take enough care to step between it and shinji, yet how the air still was left to howl as steam rose in hissing wreaths of misty ribbons from where the ice which had so coated this place had flashburned into vaporous columns of super-heated water.
he barely waited for the last particles of the kido to depart from his hand before he was striding forward without thought or care to the ruin he had wrought. ever and always had aizen's power been something he contained, going through the world bent in on himself, shoulders hunched and head bowed. he had blunted himself for the sake of others around himself, choosing to do so simply because it had ever been convenient for him. it was well known that captains suppressed their power out of courtesy to their subordinates and even when gin had become a captain in his own right, aizen had still withheld much of his power.
there was, however, no reason for him to hold back now. there was no reason for him to care about holding back. he had gin's location firmly fixed in his head and already his hand was lifting again to snarl out the words of another kido.
❝ ye lord! mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! hadou #31: shakkaho! ❞
how the atmosphere seemed to SCREAM as aizen's power once more was brought to bear with a second explosion formed from the kido he had unleashed. during the winter war, he had created a tsunami of lightning with a raikoho, not even bothering to name or number it. here, with the chants focused into increasing the power of those kido, the destruction was unparalleled.
the front of the building was simply no longer there for perhaps a third of the way across its breadth from where he had unleashed the first kido. the second one was an explosion of fire and super-heated air, turning the architecture of the quincy environment into nothing more than dust-laden rubble. that sweltering wave of air was a coughing roar as the very atmosphere shook with the impact of such heat rising suddenly from the edges of the building where it had been reduced to slag, smoldering and drooping upon itself. rock could melt, under enough heat. even stone could burn. he gave no thought to those who must have died with those two kido for he was striding forward, moving past the rising steps that rose on either side of him and onto the air itself without leaving himself to step upon the molten surface beneath his feet. if yhwach had expected anything else for his arrival, then that was just too bad, wasn't it? his fury was a fine thing, a vintage that had become sharp and acidic to tongue and throat alike. how fully he pulled that power about himself, wreathed in the tumultuous rising of purple that wafted from shoulders and head alike.
there was little effort to reign in that power either, likely crushing those who were not strong enough to tolerate it to the floor and forcing expiration upon them. but he was here. he had been invited. they could not be put out by how he had responded to it. those brown strands of hair were left drying swiftly thanks to the heat that was caused by the kido's aftermath and he continued onward until he found himself finally stepping onto the cold stone flooring and lifted his chin slightly before his voice roared into the air.
❝ i am here, quincy! you wished to speak with me, after all! ❞
he was here and yet even as he spoke, aizen's head turned, his body, turned towards where he could feel gin. he didn't care about welcoming parties, didn't care who might be there to greet him after that display of fury. he was going to go to gin without hesitation and either his one-time captain could trail along after him or he could stay and wait and apologize for aizen's behavior. it didn't matter. the purpose of coming here had been to find gin and to pull him free.
one way or another, he would find his way to gin before any chance of parlay was to occur, no matter who he had to go through.
gin was the important one here. gin was the reason for his being in this place. once he could see him, once he could get him out of here -- maybe then he might actually take a few seconds to consider actually speaking with yhwach.
/ @yhwch @godkilller
