Winter War - Nanao: Dark Songs
Title: Winter War - Nanao: Dark Songs
Authors: incandescens
Characters: Nanao, others
Rating/Warning: PG-13.
Notes: This is a dark AU co-plotted with sophiap and liralen. The war against Aizen's forces went very badly. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe.
Summary: A gift is requested and a bargain is made.
Index of Links
[...]
40. Ensemble: Sneaking About
41. Nanao: Prisoners
42. Ukitake: Falling
43. Nanao, Renji: Tunnel Vision
44. Yoruichi: Smokescreen
DARK SONGS
Nanao was sitting seiza. Suzumushi lay sheathed in her lap. Her left hand rested on the zanpakutou’s sheath, and her right hand was on its hilt.
She was aware that the others were discussing strategy. She was confident that with Kyouraku-taichou there, and Yadomaru-sempai and Madarame and Hisagi and Ayasegawa, they would probably arrive at some sort of battle plan which took Aizen’s powers into consideration, and their own strengths and weaknesses, and that did not involve anything approaching a “fair fight” or a “frontal battle”. She knew that Kyouraku-taichou had very strong opinions on when such things were appropriate. He’d trained her, after all.
She’d already spoken to her own zanpakutou, as much as she could manage to communicate with it. Where she was about to go, it could not go with her. Cold loathing pooled within it at what she was about to do, like a warning screamed from a great distance or a sky lit with the greenish shades of an oncoming storm. It did not like the idea. It did not approve. It did not want her to do this.
It respected and approved her choice to try to do this.
It disapproved, and it approved, and the whole answer was like a folded origami figure, a knot of ribbon, where all the layers carried their own weight of information and meaning, but in the end it said The choice is understood.
To put herself completely within another zanpakutou’s sphere of influence, she would have to relax her link to her own zanpakutou, pay it out like a ball of thread, and while it would still be hers as much as it could, and it would wait for her afterwards -
- if in the end it came down to that, afterwards, and if there was an afterwards -
She must make this journey alone.
She closed her eyes.
Vision came on her at once, as if it had only been waiting for her to be blind to the outside world before it opened upon her. She was standing (the back of her mind tried to insist that she was kneeling, but she knew better) on a hillside. The wind stroked down the hill and along the plain below, dragging the long grass into endless ripples.
It was night. The world was all black and white. There was a white moon in the black sky, and the grass was grey. Or possibly there was a black moon in the white sky, and the grass was a different shade of grey. Her vision slid between the two extremes from one moment to another, and she couldn’t be sure which one was dominant: they both seemed to exist simultaneously, in an optical illusion like those pictures that were both a young woman and a skull at the same time.
It was her perception that was at fault here. The thought came to her, was offered to her. All she needed to do was let down her defences, and she would see the world exactly as it was.
Nanao folded her arms. “No,” she said. “Show yourself.”
She knew the risks of this place. Hisagi had shown them all too clearly what could happen when a zanpakutou took control of its wielder, and Suzumushi had even less reason to have any sort of concern for her or for the others. She was here in the middle of its power, and she could only hope that she would be strong enough.
Cricket song came from behind her, too close for comfort.
She kept her motions deliberate and under control, not jumping, not spinning on her heel, but turning calmly to see what was there.
A shadow stood there, its outlines indistinct, its head bowed. It did not cast a shadow itself in the moonlight - and nor did Nanao herself, she realised. It held its hands (or at least, the outlines of its hands) cupped at chest level, and in them was a small bamboo cage.
“Suzumushi,” Nanao said. She gave the shadow, or possibly the cage that it was holding, the polite half-bow that she would have given to a visiting dignitary.
“Ise-fukutaichou,” the cricket-voice sang, audible words now, the tone as sweet as silver. “Your zanpakutou will not speak to me.”
“Probably because I’m the one here to negotiate with you,” Nanao said sharply.
“There is no negotiation.” The scene shifted from black/silver to silver/black. “It is your duty to obey me.”
“You are not Tousen-taichou,” Nanao retorted. “And even if you had been, it wasn’t my duty to obey him either, after what he did.”
“What he did?” the sweet voice sang. “He did as I would do, I would do as he did: we sent the evil ones away, we sought vengeance, we enacted justice. Justice. Justice!”
Its voice rose to a throbbing shriek, like a thousand violins tearing their strings at once, and the shock of it sent Nanao stumbling backwards, barely managing to catch herself. “Calm,” she whispered, but her thoughts said very clearly in the back of her mind, This zanpakutou is not sane.
“It astonishes me that you should shrink from justice,” the zanpakutou sang, its voice bearable again. “Together we shall banish Aizen. Will you not wield me, Ise-fukutaichou? Let down your walls and let me in.”
“I thought that it would be harder to persuade you,” Nanao said. She kept her tone gentle, not wanting to touch off another outburst. They had very little time.
“I am the last remembrance of my master’s will,” Suzumushi whispered. The wind swept across the grass again, whispering a chorus to the cricketsong. “When I have gone to join him, there will be nothing of Kaname left in this world. I remember his last thoughts as he left me, when I was in his hand and knew his commands. He knew that Aizen had betrayed him, had left him to be lost. If he could have struck at Aizen in that moment, then he would have done so. How can I do less?”
“And will you obey my commands so that you can avenge him?” Nanao pressed.
The shadow took a step towards her, within the range of a blade. “No, Ise-fukutaichou,” Suzumushi sang. “You will obey mine.”
Nanao crossed her arms. She had a little room for bargaining here, she thought, or Suzumushi would already have taken her over, assumed her body and be acting through it, just as Hisagi’s zanpakutou had done to him. “I don’t think you like shinigami any more than Tousen Kaname did.”
“And why should I?” Suzumushi sang. “Have I not suffered twice at their hands already?”
Twice? “I understand,” Nanao said. “And I understand that you would let me die if it would let you avenge yourself on Aizen.”
“Would you care?” The darkness grew darker, the moonlight sharper. “You are prepared to die if it will bring Aizen down, Ise-fukutaichou. I am merely putting the choice in front of you here and now. I offer you my bankai. We will trap him in darkness, Ise-fukutaichou, eternal darkness. We will sing him to his end. Your body will be the vessel that brings his doom upon him. Walk in my quietness, Ise-fukutaichou, hear me, hear me now, and take my oath that we will have darkness, before we sleep, Ise-fukutaichou, before we sleep.”
Nanao pulled herself out of the lulling voice as she would have dragged herself from sleep, taking a step back. “Stop that,” she gasped, and then forced her voice to harshness. “Stop it! You will not have me like that!”
“But why did you come to me, if not so that I could have you?” Suzumushi whispered, a single thrill of music in a sudden silence. “Give yourself up to me. It will be for the best. I know my master’s will.”
It felt as if she was drowning in an endless sea of silver and black, lost in the moonlight of a strange country. She made her anger into a weapon and clung to it, letting it burn her if it must, as long as it warmed her against this cold disorientation. She suspected that she had already surrendered any protection her own zanpakutou might offer, in coming here like this and entering a strange zanpakutou’s world. And she was beyond Kyouraku-taichou’s protection now. If she lost here, beyond his ability to call her back, he would be able to do nothing except give her a final quietus.
Very well, so she must fight on her own.
She turned away, making the movement as casual as she could. “Certainly not,” she said. She had said it to her captain a thousand times, through all his casual requests and his gentle mockery, but this time she let her contempt and her genuine anger show through the words. “I will not be your vessel. I will not be your weapon. And the reason that I came here - well, it was to ask you to be my weapon. But if we must do without you, then we must.”
“I am not your weapon!” Suzumushi’s voice rose again, still bearable but unmistakeably furious. “You do not wield me! You are not Tousen Kaname!”
Nanao shrugged. Every nerve in her body, every reflex that had been drilled into her at the Academy and afterwards, urged her to turn around and see what was behind her. But instead she kept her back turned to it, ignoring it. “Tousen Kaname is not here. We are your only hope of vengeance, Suzumushi. Your only hope.”
“I could leave you,” Suzumushi sang. “I could let you wander in the darkness forever. Your friends will be gone, and you will be gone, and you will have failed, and everything that you have sought will be lost, and you will know your failure, and the last thing that you will have will be despair.”
Nanao took a deep breath. The cold air was dry and bit at her throat. “The others will go on without me, Suzumushi. I know that. Tousen Kaname knew them, didn’t he? What did he remember of them?”
There was a vast shuddering silence behind her. To her twitching imagination, it conjured images of large teeth and sharp edges, an inch behind her shoulder blades.
“They will go on,” she continued. “They will fight Aizen. And whether or not they bring him down, Suzumushi, you will never know. If Aizen wins, what will happen to you? You’ll be left to lie in the dust of some old corridor, where nobody will find you. Or he’ll lock you away. Again. He won’t risk anyone finding you. No hand will touch you. You will go on and on, Suzumushi, because you will never be buried with your master. You will never have your vengeance. You will never have your justice.”
She took another breath. “Unless you submit to me.”
“You think that you can threaten me?” Suzumushi sang. The tone was just a little bit uncertain, enough to give Nanao hope.
She turned to face it. Still just the shadow, holding the cricket cage. Nothing but that. “I am asking for your help. We need Tousen Kaname’s bankai.” Paying out short sentences helped her keep her composure, helped her stay calm and steady in the middle of its power. “But we want it on our terms. Let me wield you. Let me be the one to judge when to call the bankai out, and when to send it back. Do this, and you will have your part in vengeance against Aizen. You will have your justice. I swear it.”
“A shinigami’s oath is meaningless,” Suzumushi sang, but again she had the sense of uncertainty, a feeling that the zanpakutou was considering its options.
“And was Aizen’s oath any better?” Nanao snapped.
Suzumushi didn’t answer that. Possibly, Nanao thought spitefully, because there was no answer.
“I have nothing but respect for you,” she went on. Well, that was a lie. “You served Tousen Kaname well and faithfully.” Even if you could have given him better advice. “Now let me wield you, and together we will have justice.”
And it was true. This wasn’t just about vengeance. However many times and however self-justifyingly Tousen might have used the word in the past, this time it was genuinely about justice for all the people that Aizen had killed, and the restoration of proper order and peace.
Nanao was quite sure of that.
“Very well,” Suzumushi sang. A little too easily, the critical section at the back of Nanao’s head pointed out. “Turn and look up the hill behind you.”
Nanao did as the zanpakutou had instructed. The hill wasn’t smooth grass any longer. There was a tombstone on it now, and an open grave in front of the tombstone. The grave was full of something that shimmered in the moonlight.
“Go there,” Suzumushi sang, “and take me from my home. Then wield me for as long as you can, Ise-fukutaichou, for as long as your flesh will bear it, and I will hold you to your word.”
Nanao gave the shadow and the cricket-cage another bow of respect, before walking up the hill to the grave. The long grass rustled around her ankles. Nobody had come to tend this grave for a long time.
The hole in front of the tombstone was full of flowers.
Nanao bowed in front of the tombstone. She remembered the conversation with Ukitake-taichou and Sasakibe-fukutaichou, and she thought that she could perhaps guess at what some of this symbolism meant. The dead deserved their due honour, and Suzumushi would know it.
Then she went down on her knees, carefully, and reached into the mass of flowers.
Darkness came down on her, descending in a great weight on her shoulders, pressing her down and into insignificance. There was the same feeling of detachment as before, as Suzumushi tried to distance her from her own body and senses, to turn this partial consent into a full possession.
Hisagi’s face as his zanpakutou’s blade stopped a fraction of an inch from her, his laughter, the way he smiled
The darkness filled her. It crowded into her mind and left no space for anything else.
Our training has always been to recognise and master the zanpakutou, Ukitake-taichou said, not to allow it to control us, or speak for us.
It had no time for her. She was a means to an end, and that was all. They would all disappear, the betrayers, the shinigami, the faithless, the evil, the unjust, they would go away and only Suzumushi would be left and then it would find Tousen Kaname again and the one who had been before him.
A holding of affections and grudges, Sasakibe-fukutaichou said. Zanpakutou are buried with their users for good reasons.
In the darkness, there was nothing except her and the word no. She braced herself against it, and began to push.
“Do you remember Hisagi?” Nanao asked the darkness.
A questioning ripple surrounded her, putting off the certain and absolute task of utterly crushing her for the sake of a moment’s curiosity. All of it came washing over her in a single moment, emotion and concept and imagery, deep in the darkness of the zanpakutou’s heart.
“He let his zanpakutou take control of him.”
And so should you, the answer came, cajoling, convenient, easy. Let go and it will be well, it will all be well.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She straightened her shoulders and pushed. “Let me be entirely frank, Suzumushi. You’re incompetent.”
The disbelief and fury hit her and washed around her in deep drowning currents. But it was an acknowledgement of her, an awareness of her existence.
“Tousen Kaname is dead.” She threw the word out into the darkness. It was the one thing that Suzumushi had never said, the one word it had never used. “And the one who wielded you before him. You failed them. You failed both of them.”
There was a rising hum coming from beneath her in the darkness, a high-pitched drone of pure and absolute wrath that promised shredding agony.
“Do you know what will happen if you manage to take my body? The moment that you open my eyes, Kyouraku-taichou will know that it’s not me. He’s known me for a hundred years, and he will recognise you in my flesh. And you know what he’ll do then, what I’ve already consented to? He will cut me down, because he cannot trust you.”
Was it the truth? She thought that it might be. Suzumushi was insane. If it had control of Nanao, then she wouldn’t be a strategic advantage. She’d be a liability. They could not afford liabilities.
“I’ve known him for a hundred years,” she went on. “Tousen knew him as well. What do you think will happen, Suzumushi?”
The furious hum paused, droning on the same pitch until it rasped at Nanao’s nerves, but now it was a tone of bewilderment and frustration rather than killing anger.
“Look at me.” She changed her focus. “Do you think I’m lying when I say that I want vengeance on Aizen? I may be a shinigami, but I swear to you that this is true.” She had a foothold now, a place to stand. “Aizen has killed my friends and destroyed my home. He’s kept my captain a prisoner here for months. He’s filth, Suzumushi. Can’t you see that this is the truth? Let me take you out of here. Give me your bankai. Let us give him justice. And then you can sleep.”
The darkness drew back from her, and she was kneeling in front of the open grave again. Her hand closed around the sheath of a zanpakutou. She drew it out from the flowers.
Suzumushi lay there in her hands.
Wield me then, Ise-fukutaichou, for as long as your flesh will endure it, came the last echoes of song, shuddering on the wind. Prove to me that not all shinigami are liars.
Nanao was sitting seiza. Suzumushi lay sheathed in her lap. Her left hand rested on the zanpakutou’s sheath, and her right hand was on its hilt.
She opened her eyes.
---
Authors: incandescens
Characters: Nanao, others
Rating/Warning: PG-13.
Notes: This is a dark AU co-plotted with sophiap and liralen. The war against Aizen's forces went very badly. Nothing is sacred and no one is safe.
Summary: A gift is requested and a bargain is made.
Index of Links
[...]
40. Ensemble: Sneaking About
41. Nanao: Prisoners
42. Ukitake: Falling
43. Nanao, Renji: Tunnel Vision
44. Yoruichi: Smokescreen
DARK SONGS
Nanao was sitting seiza. Suzumushi lay sheathed in her lap. Her left hand rested on the zanpakutou’s sheath, and her right hand was on its hilt.
She was aware that the others were discussing strategy. She was confident that with Kyouraku-taichou there, and Yadomaru-sempai and Madarame and Hisagi and Ayasegawa, they would probably arrive at some sort of battle plan which took Aizen’s powers into consideration, and their own strengths and weaknesses, and that did not involve anything approaching a “fair fight” or a “frontal battle”. She knew that Kyouraku-taichou had very strong opinions on when such things were appropriate. He’d trained her, after all.
She’d already spoken to her own zanpakutou, as much as she could manage to communicate with it. Where she was about to go, it could not go with her. Cold loathing pooled within it at what she was about to do, like a warning screamed from a great distance or a sky lit with the greenish shades of an oncoming storm. It did not like the idea. It did not approve. It did not want her to do this.
It respected and approved her choice to try to do this.
It disapproved, and it approved, and the whole answer was like a folded origami figure, a knot of ribbon, where all the layers carried their own weight of information and meaning, but in the end it said The choice is understood.
To put herself completely within another zanpakutou’s sphere of influence, she would have to relax her link to her own zanpakutou, pay it out like a ball of thread, and while it would still be hers as much as it could, and it would wait for her afterwards -
- if in the end it came down to that, afterwards, and if there was an afterwards -
She must make this journey alone.
She closed her eyes.
Vision came on her at once, as if it had only been waiting for her to be blind to the outside world before it opened upon her. She was standing (the back of her mind tried to insist that she was kneeling, but she knew better) on a hillside. The wind stroked down the hill and along the plain below, dragging the long grass into endless ripples.
It was night. The world was all black and white. There was a white moon in the black sky, and the grass was grey. Or possibly there was a black moon in the white sky, and the grass was a different shade of grey. Her vision slid between the two extremes from one moment to another, and she couldn’t be sure which one was dominant: they both seemed to exist simultaneously, in an optical illusion like those pictures that were both a young woman and a skull at the same time.
It was her perception that was at fault here. The thought came to her, was offered to her. All she needed to do was let down her defences, and she would see the world exactly as it was.
Nanao folded her arms. “No,” she said. “Show yourself.”
She knew the risks of this place. Hisagi had shown them all too clearly what could happen when a zanpakutou took control of its wielder, and Suzumushi had even less reason to have any sort of concern for her or for the others. She was here in the middle of its power, and she could only hope that she would be strong enough.
Cricket song came from behind her, too close for comfort.
She kept her motions deliberate and under control, not jumping, not spinning on her heel, but turning calmly to see what was there.
A shadow stood there, its outlines indistinct, its head bowed. It did not cast a shadow itself in the moonlight - and nor did Nanao herself, she realised. It held its hands (or at least, the outlines of its hands) cupped at chest level, and in them was a small bamboo cage.
“Suzumushi,” Nanao said. She gave the shadow, or possibly the cage that it was holding, the polite half-bow that she would have given to a visiting dignitary.
“Ise-fukutaichou,” the cricket-voice sang, audible words now, the tone as sweet as silver. “Your zanpakutou will not speak to me.”
“Probably because I’m the one here to negotiate with you,” Nanao said sharply.
“There is no negotiation.” The scene shifted from black/silver to silver/black. “It is your duty to obey me.”
“You are not Tousen-taichou,” Nanao retorted. “And even if you had been, it wasn’t my duty to obey him either, after what he did.”
“What he did?” the sweet voice sang. “He did as I would do, I would do as he did: we sent the evil ones away, we sought vengeance, we enacted justice. Justice. Justice!”
Its voice rose to a throbbing shriek, like a thousand violins tearing their strings at once, and the shock of it sent Nanao stumbling backwards, barely managing to catch herself. “Calm,” she whispered, but her thoughts said very clearly in the back of her mind, This zanpakutou is not sane.
“It astonishes me that you should shrink from justice,” the zanpakutou sang, its voice bearable again. “Together we shall banish Aizen. Will you not wield me, Ise-fukutaichou? Let down your walls and let me in.”
“I thought that it would be harder to persuade you,” Nanao said. She kept her tone gentle, not wanting to touch off another outburst. They had very little time.
“I am the last remembrance of my master’s will,” Suzumushi whispered. The wind swept across the grass again, whispering a chorus to the cricketsong. “When I have gone to join him, there will be nothing of Kaname left in this world. I remember his last thoughts as he left me, when I was in his hand and knew his commands. He knew that Aizen had betrayed him, had left him to be lost. If he could have struck at Aizen in that moment, then he would have done so. How can I do less?”
“And will you obey my commands so that you can avenge him?” Nanao pressed.
The shadow took a step towards her, within the range of a blade. “No, Ise-fukutaichou,” Suzumushi sang. “You will obey mine.”
Nanao crossed her arms. She had a little room for bargaining here, she thought, or Suzumushi would already have taken her over, assumed her body and be acting through it, just as Hisagi’s zanpakutou had done to him. “I don’t think you like shinigami any more than Tousen Kaname did.”
“And why should I?” Suzumushi sang. “Have I not suffered twice at their hands already?”
Twice? “I understand,” Nanao said. “And I understand that you would let me die if it would let you avenge yourself on Aizen.”
“Would you care?” The darkness grew darker, the moonlight sharper. “You are prepared to die if it will bring Aizen down, Ise-fukutaichou. I am merely putting the choice in front of you here and now. I offer you my bankai. We will trap him in darkness, Ise-fukutaichou, eternal darkness. We will sing him to his end. Your body will be the vessel that brings his doom upon him. Walk in my quietness, Ise-fukutaichou, hear me, hear me now, and take my oath that we will have darkness, before we sleep, Ise-fukutaichou, before we sleep.”
Nanao pulled herself out of the lulling voice as she would have dragged herself from sleep, taking a step back. “Stop that,” she gasped, and then forced her voice to harshness. “Stop it! You will not have me like that!”
“But why did you come to me, if not so that I could have you?” Suzumushi whispered, a single thrill of music in a sudden silence. “Give yourself up to me. It will be for the best. I know my master’s will.”
It felt as if she was drowning in an endless sea of silver and black, lost in the moonlight of a strange country. She made her anger into a weapon and clung to it, letting it burn her if it must, as long as it warmed her against this cold disorientation. She suspected that she had already surrendered any protection her own zanpakutou might offer, in coming here like this and entering a strange zanpakutou’s world. And she was beyond Kyouraku-taichou’s protection now. If she lost here, beyond his ability to call her back, he would be able to do nothing except give her a final quietus.
Very well, so she must fight on her own.
She turned away, making the movement as casual as she could. “Certainly not,” she said. She had said it to her captain a thousand times, through all his casual requests and his gentle mockery, but this time she let her contempt and her genuine anger show through the words. “I will not be your vessel. I will not be your weapon. And the reason that I came here - well, it was to ask you to be my weapon. But if we must do without you, then we must.”
“I am not your weapon!” Suzumushi’s voice rose again, still bearable but unmistakeably furious. “You do not wield me! You are not Tousen Kaname!”
Nanao shrugged. Every nerve in her body, every reflex that had been drilled into her at the Academy and afterwards, urged her to turn around and see what was behind her. But instead she kept her back turned to it, ignoring it. “Tousen Kaname is not here. We are your only hope of vengeance, Suzumushi. Your only hope.”
“I could leave you,” Suzumushi sang. “I could let you wander in the darkness forever. Your friends will be gone, and you will be gone, and you will have failed, and everything that you have sought will be lost, and you will know your failure, and the last thing that you will have will be despair.”
Nanao took a deep breath. The cold air was dry and bit at her throat. “The others will go on without me, Suzumushi. I know that. Tousen Kaname knew them, didn’t he? What did he remember of them?”
There was a vast shuddering silence behind her. To her twitching imagination, it conjured images of large teeth and sharp edges, an inch behind her shoulder blades.
“They will go on,” she continued. “They will fight Aizen. And whether or not they bring him down, Suzumushi, you will never know. If Aizen wins, what will happen to you? You’ll be left to lie in the dust of some old corridor, where nobody will find you. Or he’ll lock you away. Again. He won’t risk anyone finding you. No hand will touch you. You will go on and on, Suzumushi, because you will never be buried with your master. You will never have your vengeance. You will never have your justice.”
She took another breath. “Unless you submit to me.”
“You think that you can threaten me?” Suzumushi sang. The tone was just a little bit uncertain, enough to give Nanao hope.
She turned to face it. Still just the shadow, holding the cricket cage. Nothing but that. “I am asking for your help. We need Tousen Kaname’s bankai.” Paying out short sentences helped her keep her composure, helped her stay calm and steady in the middle of its power. “But we want it on our terms. Let me wield you. Let me be the one to judge when to call the bankai out, and when to send it back. Do this, and you will have your part in vengeance against Aizen. You will have your justice. I swear it.”
“A shinigami’s oath is meaningless,” Suzumushi sang, but again she had the sense of uncertainty, a feeling that the zanpakutou was considering its options.
“And was Aizen’s oath any better?” Nanao snapped.
Suzumushi didn’t answer that. Possibly, Nanao thought spitefully, because there was no answer.
“I have nothing but respect for you,” she went on. Well, that was a lie. “You served Tousen Kaname well and faithfully.” Even if you could have given him better advice. “Now let me wield you, and together we will have justice.”
And it was true. This wasn’t just about vengeance. However many times and however self-justifyingly Tousen might have used the word in the past, this time it was genuinely about justice for all the people that Aizen had killed, and the restoration of proper order and peace.
Nanao was quite sure of that.
“Very well,” Suzumushi sang. A little too easily, the critical section at the back of Nanao’s head pointed out. “Turn and look up the hill behind you.”
Nanao did as the zanpakutou had instructed. The hill wasn’t smooth grass any longer. There was a tombstone on it now, and an open grave in front of the tombstone. The grave was full of something that shimmered in the moonlight.
“Go there,” Suzumushi sang, “and take me from my home. Then wield me for as long as you can, Ise-fukutaichou, for as long as your flesh will bear it, and I will hold you to your word.”
Nanao gave the shadow and the cricket-cage another bow of respect, before walking up the hill to the grave. The long grass rustled around her ankles. Nobody had come to tend this grave for a long time.
The hole in front of the tombstone was full of flowers.
Nanao bowed in front of the tombstone. She remembered the conversation with Ukitake-taichou and Sasakibe-fukutaichou, and she thought that she could perhaps guess at what some of this symbolism meant. The dead deserved their due honour, and Suzumushi would know it.
Then she went down on her knees, carefully, and reached into the mass of flowers.
Darkness came down on her, descending in a great weight on her shoulders, pressing her down and into insignificance. There was the same feeling of detachment as before, as Suzumushi tried to distance her from her own body and senses, to turn this partial consent into a full possession.
Hisagi’s face as his zanpakutou’s blade stopped a fraction of an inch from her, his laughter, the way he smiled
The darkness filled her. It crowded into her mind and left no space for anything else.
Our training has always been to recognise and master the zanpakutou, Ukitake-taichou said, not to allow it to control us, or speak for us.
It had no time for her. She was a means to an end, and that was all. They would all disappear, the betrayers, the shinigami, the faithless, the evil, the unjust, they would go away and only Suzumushi would be left and then it would find Tousen Kaname again and the one who had been before him.
A holding of affections and grudges, Sasakibe-fukutaichou said. Zanpakutou are buried with their users for good reasons.
In the darkness, there was nothing except her and the word no. She braced herself against it, and began to push.
“Do you remember Hisagi?” Nanao asked the darkness.
A questioning ripple surrounded her, putting off the certain and absolute task of utterly crushing her for the sake of a moment’s curiosity. All of it came washing over her in a single moment, emotion and concept and imagery, deep in the darkness of the zanpakutou’s heart.
“He let his zanpakutou take control of him.”
And so should you, the answer came, cajoling, convenient, easy. Let go and it will be well, it will all be well.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She straightened her shoulders and pushed. “Let me be entirely frank, Suzumushi. You’re incompetent.”
The disbelief and fury hit her and washed around her in deep drowning currents. But it was an acknowledgement of her, an awareness of her existence.
“Tousen Kaname is dead.” She threw the word out into the darkness. It was the one thing that Suzumushi had never said, the one word it had never used. “And the one who wielded you before him. You failed them. You failed both of them.”
There was a rising hum coming from beneath her in the darkness, a high-pitched drone of pure and absolute wrath that promised shredding agony.
“Do you know what will happen if you manage to take my body? The moment that you open my eyes, Kyouraku-taichou will know that it’s not me. He’s known me for a hundred years, and he will recognise you in my flesh. And you know what he’ll do then, what I’ve already consented to? He will cut me down, because he cannot trust you.”
Was it the truth? She thought that it might be. Suzumushi was insane. If it had control of Nanao, then she wouldn’t be a strategic advantage. She’d be a liability. They could not afford liabilities.
“I’ve known him for a hundred years,” she went on. “Tousen knew him as well. What do you think will happen, Suzumushi?”
The furious hum paused, droning on the same pitch until it rasped at Nanao’s nerves, but now it was a tone of bewilderment and frustration rather than killing anger.
“Look at me.” She changed her focus. “Do you think I’m lying when I say that I want vengeance on Aizen? I may be a shinigami, but I swear to you that this is true.” She had a foothold now, a place to stand. “Aizen has killed my friends and destroyed my home. He’s kept my captain a prisoner here for months. He’s filth, Suzumushi. Can’t you see that this is the truth? Let me take you out of here. Give me your bankai. Let us give him justice. And then you can sleep.”
The darkness drew back from her, and she was kneeling in front of the open grave again. Her hand closed around the sheath of a zanpakutou. She drew it out from the flowers.
Suzumushi lay there in her hands.
Wield me then, Ise-fukutaichou, for as long as your flesh will endure it, came the last echoes of song, shuddering on the wind. Prove to me that not all shinigami are liars.
Nanao was sitting seiza. Suzumushi lay sheathed in her lap. Her left hand rested on the zanpakutou’s sheath, and her right hand was on its hilt.
She opened her eyes.
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