A Temporary Lapse in Reason...

Sixteen Bars of Sorrow: FF for nomoreprinces

2007-07-01T03:57:44Z

Aizen/Matsu mindfuck for

nomoreprinces Sorry for length. D:

Sixteen Bars of Sorrow

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It was beautiful; in the way he considered things beautiful, anyway. Such artifice he was capable of, such craftsmanship! Even here, the feat of molding a glacier into a mere snowflake. Flushes of red accented the Soviet snow, as a wind over the flat landscape bellowed in approval. Certainly this was a work of art, made only with the simplest of brushstrokes. Almost longingly he stared at it, hardly even phased by the exertion (as there had been very little of it.) They would be affected by it, that was fact. Not in the way he was, perhaps, but soundly disturbed. His hand slicked back his brown tresses, an accidental line of crimson highlighted among his locks.

“Now then,” he purred, voice like rusted nails and sherry, “let’s get to finishing this.”

-----------------------------------------

The words cut her deep. Perhaps at first she hadn’t realized, hadn’t fully grasped the nature of those cuts. They only mingled with her own, brought on from nicks and scratches brought further through years of service and of keeping civility. It is one thing Matsumoto did know, and that was that the nature of this particular wound would never cease its gush of absence. The first day had been difficult for Rangiku, as she had very little way of knowing how to cope with the horrid truth.

Perhaps it was all a lie? That her captain had been taken to the fourth-division with only a slight glance to the side, having narrowly escaped death as he always had before. She hoped there was the chance even when he’d sworn her to secrecy.

That night was still fresh in her mind, in the vivid sort of way you imagine Christmases past, a belt of lacquered stars hanging heavy above their heads, as summer winds skirled through the shadowy garden. The shock of white that was his hair seemed incandescent in that moment, silver-blue eyes committed solely to pursuits that had frightened her. Aizen had issued the challenge, knowing the golden child of the Gotei 13 would take the offer, and had come out the victor without contest. Yet in that moment they shared was solace; uncomfortable, but still.

“Rangiku...” he had pleaded her, “If I don’t return tonight, tell no one of what I accepted. This is on a level that...shames me.”

Never had she thought those to be their final words together. When she saw him again... in the arms of Abarai-san and Kuchiki-taichou, her stomach gave a violent upheaval. Such was the squalor of the remains, sinew and viscera all a vulgar desecration of the man she knew. The internment was too grandiose for her taste, but then most things the Gotei did were lavish affairs. True to her word, she said nothing of Aizen’s part in his death, but they had their suspicions. She refused to attend the service, despite being strongly encouraged to give a eulogy (as was traditional for the fukutaichou-taichou relationship.) Shuuhei had taken the job in her stead. Eulogies never made sense to her, anyway. If a person was so great, why reduce their life’s work to a few sentences?

Now she stole away into her old captain’s office, gently nudging into a small pipe of sake. It was warm, but not in the way sake should be. The virulent swill eased down her throat with passable indifference. It kept her stable now, kept her from the space between her and forever. Tonight there were stars as well, but she hardly noticed them from the floorboards. At times she caught herself slipping between sleep and awareness. Her dreams were hateful, an unsurprising menagerie built upon utter loathing. Hitsugaya would not have wanted her to hate, to despise. For as mature a woman as she was, she was frail.

Men in her life had a way of leaving, and Hitsugaya had proven no different in that respect. Perhaps it was her? The idea did not seemed so strange in that vague light that drunkenness bestowed her. Who could say otherwise?

Finishing her liquor repast, she settled down against the mahogany desk, the faintest line of a tear faltering down her cheek. The room smelled so very much like him. She heard a swift rap against the office door, a soggy, wilted sort of knock that forced both silence and consciousness upon her. Words failed to meet those beautiful lips, waiting for them to come proved similarly. Another knock. This time stronger, violent, collided with the door and she wished hard against its presence. The strikes were deliberate, as if a man intended great pain upon the door. Rangiku had left Haineko in her quarters, leaving only her brief catalogue of kidou to protect her. Once more it struck, a hollow gush of bone and liquid hurling against the wooden frame. She rose to her feet diligently, knowing far too well this was not some child’s joke, but secretly hoping it was. No one had the ignorance to desecrate former captain’s office, and none knew of her whereabouts.

Swiftly, like some old prayer, she recited the kidou incantation, stepping unsoundly towards the door. Moonlight shafted angrily from the window, a strange ambience falling on the room that stiffened her breath to taut exhalations. She moved as in a trance, not entirely knowing what she did but that she need do it. Her left hand stiffed upon the door handle, cautious eyes darting as the beatings rambled together into a cacophony of white noise. Crying out, Matsumoto slung the thing wide, smoothly swinging to the side, a gap of ordinarily open air and hallway...remained as such. Nothing suggested any one had ever been near the office, nor had there been any force applied to it. She breathed in tightly, turning away from the entryway before letting out a concussive gasp.

“Rangiku,” bade the fast tenor of her captain.

It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. Hitsugaya was gone and she was drunk, and this was just a nightmare and everything would stop. Stop suddenly and she would be awake. Yet it was so real, so true, his short stature framing the window opposite the door. How he had entered was not in her range of concern. A beast yearned inside her, hungered for realization, for insight. Terror, admiration and confusion warred over her emotional state, a nuclear winter of joy advancing on all fronts. It couldn’t not be real, the way his eyes moored her to compassion, his posture, his smell. So visceral.

“T-taichou...? You’re alive.” Relief and fear both left her voice slightly hinged.

“Yes, without thanks to you, pitiless whore.”

The words were daggers, individually placed in her innards like some monarch butterfly splayed for posterity.

“...what are you saying tai-“

“I am not your captain, if I were you would have saved me from shame. You would have gone to fight alongside me, to protect me when I needed you, Rangiku. I did, however, manage to kill your little boyfriend Gin before I died. It was penance I suppose.”

Those daggers grew to sabers, vicious and unyielding scimitars that danced inside her very soul. No words could have ever achieved the horror that these did now. She issued a quiet but guttural sob.

“...I’m afraid, not penance enough. Now I’ve come for you, Rangiku-san. I want your very essence displayed across the avenues of creation. I want you to suffer every reticent fiber of pain I endured, every flash of color, but most of all I want you to weep. Do it loudly, they’re listening for you in hell.”

Reflexively she finished the kidou, letting out a bright scarlet burst that seemed to project right through Toshirou. As if he’d willed himself around it. And in that moment she succumbed to a baptism of fear, christened and alight in every infinite horror. Reactions she was numb to. Regret was there too, confusion, and she collapsed to the floor, unheard sobs flowing forth like some ancient pleading, but there was no more in ten minutes time.

-----------------------------------------

Aizen Sousuke smiled, charmingly, through the veil of illusion. What a delight this had been! Even he surprised himself on occasion, but this was certainly a feat among feats. Flicking the ichors from his blade in a careless nick of the hand, he removed the artificial visage of Hitsugaya Toshirou as he would a parka. While her death was all together unnecessary, even Aizen enjoyed the occasional game. This was no different, and perhaps the more psychological the better. Now, both captain and vice had met similar deaths, and he had satisfied his pallet for the grotesque. Coyly he retrieved a bottle of Chianti from under his jacket, and a thin wine glass. He drank for around twelve minutes, before stepping neatly over the various bits of Matsumoto scattered through the room. Shame she was so frail. Without much adieu, he left, with the reckless confidence of a man who knows no fear.

For certain, it was beautiful.

Paltry Rhetoric - Shuuhei/Aizen fic

2007-05-31T04:16:34Z

>D For Nor.
--------

Aizen smiled opaquely at the docile frame of Hisagi Shuuhei, a razor thin smile that he would be familiar with. One did not forget a visage like his, one so pragmatic, so compelling. Sousuke was a name soon remembered, sooner still following the wounds inflected upon the Gotei. The traitor had garbed himself in a lime green polo, tan khakis, a messenger cap and a pair of doc martins. He held the general air of sophistication, tousled brown hair neatly beneath the hat, startling eyes a thousand miles deep. Truly he was a visionary, if only in appearance.

Today, however, he was one of many in that small Parisian cafe, nestled beside a lovely square far from tourist's grubby hands. Pigeons bustled vagrantly among the people, some older ones accustomed to the practice of divulging food from the nonchalant, pecking hungrily at the custom smells of baguette and cake. They were handsome aromas, he admitted somewhat bashfully. Shuuhei did not take pleasure in these things. Did not appreciate Aizen's candor, did not enjoy his refinery, and frankly did not enjoy Aizen at all.

He was garbed officiously, looking somewhat extraneous given the nature of his markings. A black pinstriped blue suit, matching entirely all save his dress shoes, gave him the decided look of one of many business persons in that city. At his side rested a wide Italian suitcase, inlaid with gold and suede. Their first moments were silent, though not awkward.

Hisagi only suppressed the urge to kill him then and there, one clean jerk would end it all. But such things were not to be expected, and only the sky, silver-blue in overcast, became their battleground. The table was small, suitable only for two, and on either side a cup of tea, brimming a halo of steam that circled and mulled upward into nothingness.

"Shuuhei."

The former captain of the fifth division gestured to the seat across from him. None of the other occupants seemed bothered to notice them. They were untouchables, so to speak. Hisagi faltered one moment, taking in the velocity of disgust he held for the man, before settling in quietly.

"You certainly clean up nicely, don't you? Maintain that image and you'll be a regular diplomat."

"Fuck you."

"Oh, now we've given it an ego. Shame on me."

For a moment Aizen sipped his tea, focusing in on each individual thread of taste, each interlocking puzzle piece upon his tongue. He was a sensory man, took pride in what he touched, what he saw, how it tasted. Perhaps that was why he was so successful, so eccentrically gifted, all based in sense. Committed was he to experience, to tooling with the boundaries of the human psyche and most of all taste.

Particularity was another strength he flaunted, his adeptness at knowing what was precise and what was needful. Many would liken his mind to a discordant cycle of static, tied together only in ideal and power. To Sousuke it was a large chessboard where only the moved pieces. Finally he stopped, after a fairly small increment of time progressed.

"Now then. Shuuhei. How have-"

"I am not here exchange flowery dialogs."

"...and I'm afraid you've misunderstood me. This isn't exactly about what you want, now is it?"

Aizen reclined slightly in the metal chair, he folded one leg over the other, before bringing both index fingers to his lips in a sort of mock prayer. Shuuhei's silence was his strength, a fact the sociopath had learned decades ago.

"One more time, then. I trust everyone is well?"

"No. None of us are, given the crime you've committed."

"I'd hardly call it that. You really think things would've gone any different had I not intervened?"

"Yes. Most certainly I do."

"It appears as if Old Yama's paltry rhetoric has planted itself rather deep. A shame."

For one moment Aizen felt doubt, as he would feel a summer breeze or the trickle of water down his throat, doubt that sweated from the freshly appointed captain of division nine. It was a thick, caustic smell that was not easily removed.

"That aside, I am here to negotiate."

"You? Negotiate? I highly doubt you're here on your own accord. Rather, I think they felt you best suited for the job. Losing your captain can be very taxing. Replacing him? I can't imagine the pressure you must be under. To fill such a remarkable void...you know, he once told me that only the righteous are truly blind. I feel that has some pertinence. At least in your case, Shuuhei-san."

It thickened, the scent, and Aizen's nostrils flared at its arrival. Exhilarating in a word.

"We want to a return of the hostage."

"Hostage? Are you that ignorant, Shuuhei? Bah. It's no more a hostage situation than when I was a dead man."

In a swift motion he slid the briefcase onto the table, unbuckling the gold latches dexterously, before turning it to his counter. A face mixed with dread, discomfort and security, the numbers six and nine black as sin on his face. Three scrolls, copper kanji scribbled on their exterior, gave off dull umber in the bleak light of that day. This was their ultimatum.

"Full pardon for you and your allies. That is the final offer for the return of-"

"No. Hinamori will remain with me."

"...then we will be forced to take her back ourselves."

"Right then. Tousen sends his best."

And in that forced silence, Shuuhei collected himself. Ends of withered pasts aching for one moment, the shred of his inner child cowering away from this horrid man. What hexes he had mastered in his days of abandonment, what verbal curses of inflection and pitch were beyond his reason. Only a fearful coldness gripped at his stomach, and the urge to leave the living realm for a great time. Aizen only enjoyed the sights, briefly speaking a lyric or two before returning to the still liquid of his tea, leaving the cup to the waiter's discretion.

He did hate partaking in others' foods.

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Zanna was

2007-05-29T05:35:03Z

totally unexpectedly awesome.

I am pleased.

Taking a stab at flashficcing, deal bitches.

justcallmeziggy @ 2007-05-04T17:16:00

2007-05-04T21:44:41Z

So just blah. Zanna has me worried. In that "omg show is in less than twenty days" way. So yeah. I still need to get a few things for costumes and things of that ilk. It just sort of irks me that people miss rehearsal for the most mundane reasons. And i understand I'm not a majorly huge character, but large enough to have consequence. I've missed one rehearsal. Other's...it's like they fail to care. And not to mention our rehearsal time is limited anyway. It's one of my grievances with OYT, is that they have a lot of bark but no bite whatsoever. I miss Norissa, too. D: Emily cannot play Candi, it's the sad fact. and I love her I do, but she's just not right for the role. It's just the little things that compell me to audition elsewhere, but then the Rep is usually awful when it comes to that sort of thing, and all the other little places aren't rousing my interest. Regardless of the fact, I do believe Zanna will still be great...just i wish people would focus in a bit more. I have an audition on Tuesday at the Theatre Downtown for Happy Birthday, Wanda June. Wish me luck, I suppose.

justcallmeziggy @ 2007-04-29T14:42:00

2007-04-29T18:43:25Z

Sinuses suck ass.

Sing to me,
Oh woeful child,
Fleeting is the time we have,
Let's make our houses out of glass,
And forget this ever happened.

Holyshit.

2007-04-23T22:01:44Z

I'm tired.

I had one of those obnoxious coolata things at Dunkin Donuts, and I don't maintain coffee well so literally I crashed about ten minutes later. Kinda gay. I'd say mock day was a success. I went as the lovely Petrina Tate. The reactions were worth the godawful $20 wig from the party market. Personal favorite was me walking down a hallway, only to cause a kid to stop conversation to exclaim "What the FUCK?" to the heavens. All together quite awesome.

y dem treez on dat plate?

2007-04-23T02:08:20Z

Spanish...

2007-04-11T21:26:10Z

...is lots of awful.

Lament

2007-03-14T01:20:01Z

Rosey and Jim episode 70 has died.

As has my soul.

/WEEP

Just say we were lovers!

2007-03-02T05:51:57Z

And we'll call it even.

Am I Afraid of Waffles?

2007-02-25T05:23:26Z

I lie awake at night and ask myself that.

Zanna was fun today. The show is going to be great. I was going to go to the build today, but a mounting sense of "Meh..." told me to do otherwise. So yeah. I saw the Number 23 on Friday. It was...good in theory. It sorta just lost luster at the film went on. The plot holes kinda irked me, and it was apparent that Carrey kept falling back into his comedic self. Oh well. Still not sure if I'll do Urinetown, still not sure here meaning "dear-god-you're-doing-Urinetown-stupid-so-shut-up-about-it." Oh well. I suppose it's a privilege (to pee.)

-- Bruce

I Picked Up Croquet Today...

2007-02-22T03:57:47Z

Yowza.

Hello there, Livejournal world.

I probably won't use you much.

Oh look blank spaces.

Blank blank blank.

-- Bruce