Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary [Solo]

“What did you do?”

A girl delighted to see him.

“I just sung to you and let those desires take over is all”

His blade shining in his hand.


“What sort of Zanpakuto controls it’s master?

Her blood soaked form as he stood above her and then he had vanished into the night.

“Exactly, the sort of Zanpakuto you don’t control. The sort of Zanpakuto that hasn’t even been called to use Shikai yet, the sort of Zanpakuto that has been trying to speak to you for the last year and the sort of Zanpakuto that is that little tick in your head made manifest”


“Quiet”

“You are a killer Emon Suzumei, you are not mad, you aren’t crazy, I’m not a little voice whispering in your head like one of those lunatics in the maggots nest. No, I am your own Zanpakuto. So accept that”

She lay away from him in the corner of his room. Where he had tossed her after he’d been gripped in the furor of passion. The tip of her blade still trickled a thin line of blood that the apparently needle like interior had been equipped to suck up.


“You are not a wasp, maybe a mosquito”

The woman clucked in her inner world as she sat at the bench of her piano. If he focussed just enough he could see her clearly within that world. An orchestra hall. Her piano recital. Treating this as if it was all . . . all so normal?

“My name is?”


“Compulsive Giant Hornet


Kyōhaku Suzenbachi”

She sighed out loud, she seemed to take great pleasure at finally being able to hear her own name. The pure ecstasy that crossed the woman’s face as she sat there - her fingers caressing the keys. She wore a black robe that seemed to point at a hood that covered her face. Her arms and legs were thin and pale and her eyes? He couldn’t see her eyes. Her delighted expression on pale pink lips was enough to not make him try.

“Now Emon, say the rest, don’t be shy. Really release me”


“Never”

The sealed Zanpakuto lay on the ground and was it him or didn’t it seem to radiate spiritual pressure? He wasn’t sure if this was some sort of trick or if his Zanpakuto was actually revelling in front of him.


“What if they find out? You know how easy it was for us to track Hyoumaru’s trail”

“It’s fine, you were clever, you made it look like a suicide, how could anyone know that one of your students you mentored, was actually so wrought with bad thoughts? That even in this ‘world of heaven’ it was better to be nobody once more”

His shinigami uniform sat crumpled in the opposite corner of the room. Somehow it hadn’t been bloodstained but he would burn it later . . .later when. . . oh god. He would just, he would just end it right? Better than ending up in the Maggots Nest, better than being some murder robot for a blade that would slowly drive him mad.

Emon needed a plan but he couldn’t go to Titus. No for this he would have to think. The blade itself seemed to be relishing in his identification of it. For now it would be appeased but as long as he steered clear from “that” release phrase, those choice words he had spoken in the grip of that thing’s power that had guided him to commit the atrocity - he’d be fine.

It would be better if he never thought about it, struck it clean from the record but he’d need to cover it all up. His mind needed to work quickly, his actions even faster. Emon mopped the blood up with his clothing so not a speck remained and then he vanished once more into the night leaving his zanpakuto behind to dispose of the clothing and burn them securely.

Seconds turned to minutes.

Minutes turned to hours.

To the Rukongai and back again.

A plan spinning in his head. A crazy thought.

He would do it as a last promise to that silly girl who he had mentored - who he had slain. He would do it for her, for them, for the better and as he neared his barracks room the voice crept into his head once more.

“You were gone a while”

Disapproving. Mocking? Perhaps . . . knowing?

He stood above that instrument of murder. He stood above it and reached out his hand and he touched it, willing his spiritual pressure at the blade. Smothering it like you would pour water onto a fire.

Suddenly he was there.

In the music theatre. Sitting in the audience with the faceless men and women that applauded Suzembachi’s every action. She stood on stage and she seemed confused.

“I don’t understand, what are you doing?”

“They say that there’s a way to mask your zanpakuto so it’s true power never sees the light of day” his words echoed across the auditorium, the faceless men and women all turned their heads towards him. She killed them every so often, but they always returned, sheep to the slaughter but they didn’t know better. They were memories of people he knew and people he would know.


That a Shinigami once wanted to fight under the Kenpachi but wouldn’t be accepted if his Zanpakuto saw the light of day. So he lied to everyone, he changed the rules, he sealed the release of the Shikai” she moved, bolting across the stage and leaping towards him - their Zanpakuto flashing to light in her hand. Emon stood, raising his and a gale of wind pushed her backwards into her piano. Then he began to weave, gathering the energy of what he knew and what he wanted her to be. Of promises and of wishes. Of desires and of sins. He spun each individual thread into his hand and wove in a falsified memory. A blade built on murder? Was now built on surviving. A blade forged in sin? Now forged in repentance.

“I am your master and your creator Kyōhaku Suzenbachi and I compel you. Be kind” she hissed at him as his reiatsu wove a curtain over the stage. She was sealed away where the audience could not see her anymore, for he’d written into the weave of that cloth a new phrase to call her. He had bastardized his own Zanpakuto.

Then he opened his eyes.

His weapon was silent.

Wait . . . was that . . . crying?

He closed his eyes and took a breath.

“I’m sorry”