The atmosphere was chilling, with the coffee in Aizen's cup displaying a disfigured image of himself that varied with each tapping rhythm on the table from Gin's fingers. The sudden noise broke the silence that prevailed in the atmosphere. The empty chairs left in the remaining parts of the room acted as silent spectators, but their attendance at such a late hour was rather improbable. Tōsen was stationary in the darkest corner away from the light of the lamp, as if he was a stone statue, with his hands clasped on top of each other.
Aizen exhaled, his mouth clouding with fog. "Not a single person would notice if you disappeared," he whispered. Gin stopped drumming but held perfectly still, his smile twisting before taking on a cruel expression.
"Meaning?" Aizen slowly raised his eyes, meeting Gin's narrowed stare without lowering his own.
"Meaning?" Aizen repeated, "that what remains behind won't be you. Not entirely."
Gin's smile remained in place, though a slight tremor passed over the hand resting on the table. This insignificant muscle movement was the only thing that caught Aizen's notice—that slight movement of fabric at the wrist—and calm was reinstated. None was necessary in the form of explicit words, though Tōsen's head twitched infinitesimally, as though muffled voices tried to grasp it. The steam stopped rising from the cups between them.
"So you are proposing... that we leave behind mirror puppets to bid us farewell?" Gin sneered. "That's some trick, Aizen-taichou." He leaned on his chair, which groaned as he put his weight on it.
Aizen's hand drew closer to the edge of the cup. The fluid wobbled for an instant and then fell sharply—as if the motion was sucked away by a larger quietness. "Not puppets. Reflections. They will bleed when harmed, laugh when joyful. They will come to consider themselves as you."
Turning his head ever so slightly, Gin's face came before him, broken only by the highly polished tabletop. "Down to the last memory."
A pause fell upon Tosen, but it was but an instant, as he felt the hem of his garments touching softly against the floor mats. "And their fates?" It was a calm rhythm, but there was much weight behind it. Aizen smiled. His smile, through the shattered darkness, was sharp as a blade, almost menacing. "They will walk through paths that are familiar to you. They too will face the same hardships, share from the same rice bowl. But when there is no more use for deception," he hesitated at the edge of the cup, "they will melt away like mists at dawn, chased by the rising sun."
Gin laughed suddenly, his sound sharp as shattering glass. "Sounds lonely," his smile expanded further, his teeth glinting with light. "For them I mean."
The stillness prompted Aizen's reflection to twist into a nightmarish vision in the cold drink, before stabilizing into a smooth, precise shape once more. "Loneliness is irrelevant," he whispered. "Efficiency is what counts."
Leaning forward, a smell of stale coffee wafted through the space between them. "Consider it, every Espada not simply formed through Hollow instinct but through Soul Society planning as well: Every weakness picked apart and every strength honed to perfection, without a whisper of deception going undetected."
Patterns began etching on the condensation covering the tabletop. "The reflections will have their own existence now. They will be instructed by captains, spar with lieutenants, and learn every manual on Kido." His fingernail tapped against the porcelain. "And we shall know everything."
A hint of wonder had crept into Gin's smile, making it obvious that he couldn't quite decide whether to let his curiosity get the better of his control. "So we can observe them whenever we like? Without any..." his gesture spoke for itself, slicing his neck in an exaggerated cutting motion, ".... messy endings."
A sudden silence held the room as Aizen raised his cup. The coffee, suspended in the cup, quivered, as if it understood his thoughts. "Not watch," he said without looking up. There was a pause, and then he said, "Possess." This word, like a weight, heavy as a thing that had fallen from a very high place, was pronounced. "Their eyes are ours. Their instincts are ours. Every deception they uncover, every secret they reveal—these will be combined with us as additions to a text that holds memories."
A glimmer of a smile appeared on Gin once more, as sluggish as the movement of smoke. But the rubbing of jointed articulation sounded with his entwined fingers meeting at the base of his neck. "Then, I suppose it's time we started making some mirrors."
---
A form appeared, and the light fragmented around his boots, not of blood and bone, but of light that manifested a flesh-like form. As the light climbed, as if silver was pouring onto stone, it appeared beside him, a copy of every aspect of his body, even the presence of his stillness in his throat. The flicker on its face held for a heartbeat, balanced on the edge of truth and deception, and then held perfectly as a copy. Its eyes opened. Its mouth was in motion. The smile was worn from the number of sunrises spent pondering forgotten faces.
"Interesting," it whispered, adjusting its fingers. This voice was similar in tone to Aizen's, with murmurs accompanying every word as if several voices whispering softly in sync with the beat of the heart.
Gin let out a deliberate sigh just behind him. The ozone filled the air, no longer solely the smell of cold metal but a blend of the two, although without the thunder to split the heavens apart. The twin moved its face, the uncomfortable smoothness of its rhythm to the point that the dialogue seemed as if it were not happening, turning the glare upon Gin. The eyes were not right. The brown highlights which had defined Aizen's eyes had changed to pure, absolute black, replete with spots that sparkled like broken colored glass scattered throughout a thick fluid.
"Your turn," it said. Gin's smile grew stiff. A beat passed.
A hand appeared—not an incantation, not a threatening gesture, just an invitation. Then the region disintegrated—like windows exploding, quick and jagged. Gin saw himself fragmented—inexorably so. Each shard portrayed a variation on himself: neck bent, limbs uncoiled, hands stretching toward the sword at his side. The telling point: a lookalike was blinking on purpose.
Something drew at Gin, a deep, primeval urge, before anything happened. The air broke apart, as if ice had left too much glass in the cold. A version of himself emerged, smooth as smoke curling from stone. It moved in silence, just out of reach, but wrong, as if light bent there.
There was a figure there in his likeness, with the same twisted smile and the slouch he was so familiar with. But the eyes were resolute – they pulled at Gin's gut like a hook.
Its eyes were like narrow slits, serpentine in shape, and glowing strangely, as in Aizen's copy.
A shape appeared beside Tōsen out of nowhere. Before, only empty space had been there. Then came a sudden shift from emptiness to shape, a duplicate already on one knee. The placement was a perfect imitation. Fingers ready with painstaking detail, as if by remembering. Not a twitch to signal an uncertain touch.
It was an oppressive silence, an unnaturally quiet atmosphere. There was not a breath of wind. The chest was not rising, was not falling. There was Tōsen, with alien skin.
"Walk our paths," Aizen spoke, his eyes locked on this other version of himself reaching for the cold cup. His hand was shaking, but it was not from fear, more so from determination, much like he knew his own hand might shake should he be lacking confidence. The sound of ceramics against wood broke through the silence. A gesture that was uncertain.
"Eat our meals, bleed our blood. When Yamamoto summons you to his office, bow exactly two inches lower than he expects. When Ukitake offers medicine, refuse once before accepting."
His hand contracted involuntarily, and so did the photocopy. "Make them believe."
***
In the other side of the gash, all breathing was filled with the hurt of salt, and there was an ancient mystery waiting to be unearthed. Aizen moved on, his way opening a wound behind him, Gin by his left, and Tōsen following, moving to fill the space left by the thunder. The ground beneath them was easy to tread, absorbing all footsteps with silent and invisible ease. Above, an ash-like moon observed them, and the pooling of faint lights was accumulating at its peaks. This was the place where Espadas would be born, within this nursing ground of hunger.
"A king," Aizen whispered, the words slurred, heavy with the weight of lava. His voice hung at the border of silence. Gin smiled wider, his eyes flashing. There was silence instead of sound, a stillness etched in his face. Tōsen did not move, his ear cocked ever so slightly, as if beckoned from afar. The wind curled up a whisper about him. Baraggan towered in the distance, his very existence a lack of walls, standing atop a ridge made from old bones.
"A relic clinging to hollow supremacy," Aizen whispered. "His hubris is his throne, his power his chains."
The ground began, grain by grain, to open up under Aizen's feet, producing a cracking noise as if from dried-out bones. "We will undo him," he whispered.
Finger tips clicked an irregular beat on the white surfaces of the ivory. Silence rippled outward. Baraggan sat in a chair made of the remains of death. Hollows knelt beneath, masks turned toward the speaker in reaction to the silence.
Nothing stirred on the ridge beyond, nor did any brave warrior sufficiently confident to defy the desert sands dare to show themselves. Only those who were willing to bend the knee, to plead. He came, as if victory had manifested itself.
Baraggan leaned on his throne, his skeletal grasp encompassing the armrests as he sized up the intruder. Aizen was immobile, unaffected by the force being brought against him. His hands dangled listlessly, having no care in the world about the tremendous power being pressed against him. Baraggan was puzzled that Aizen's eradication at this particular time had been put on hold. Waiting.
A fog swirled through the words of the ancient king. "State your business, little trespasser," he intoned, his voice heavy with the weight of many years of decay. His blank mask quivered on its edges – a smirking expression. "You come into my territory like a moth to a lantern. Talk fast, and maybe you can leave in one piece."
There was an immediate calm that fell across Aizen. The weight was palpable, built from ages past – the darkness of Baraggan looming before him, his power growing, swelling, as if the very ground itself was rising. The rocky ground shifted to accommodate his movement. It was neither an opposition, nor was it yielding. It represented the beginning of movement.
"Your throne," Aizen noted, his voice slick as wet rock. It was no request. It was no command. It simply was, expressed in the flat tones of a comment on rain. The throne was his. Hands stopped in mid-motion, fingers locked against the cold stone. Hollows below fell away into darkness, masks scrapping against bone.
A gigantic creature, tusked and massive, exposed its teeth. The sound of its voice was deep, verging on a growl. "You smell like prey," the beast growled. A line of saliva curled from its lips, and the hiss of its landing on the earth was etched into the grain. Decay clung to its breath.
Aizen, though, continued to focus on Baraggan, with no recognition of the arrival of the other being. The Hollow looked no more threatening than a puff of wind to him.
This enormous figure charged forward, and the curved ivory shone moments before it seemed to be suddenly frozen, as if an unseen hand had chilled it. Then it broke apart, dissolving into mounds of loose dust as soon as it touched the earth. Not vaporized, or shredded. Reversal.
Every particle settled gently, melting into the landscape of shriveled wheat. Nothing shattered the peace. There had been no battle. It simply disappeared.
Baraggan's fingers on the arm of the chair he sat in quivered ever so slightly. A collective freeze as all hollows stilled, their heads raised as if transfixed on the empty space their comrade had just vacated. No change in position came from Aizen, his hands resting lazily at his side, near his hips.
There was a tremor in the silence where the figure had been – a mere flicker of light upon the heated sand, which disappeared as soon as it was noticed.
Baraggan's breath came, deliberate and measured, as if the passing of time itself trailed behind him. He clenched his fingers tighter around the throne. In the depths, they retreated, masks scraping against bone as they crept backward, heads bent in submission. Not a sound. Not so much as a flicker of an eyelash.
"Insolent," Baraggan declared, his voice deep and leaden. The ground beneath them began to decay. It did not collapse suddenly; rather, it fell as if bones long buried beneath the same ground at last surrendered to their own weight. Steaming decay trickled from Baraggan's bony flesh, his breathing deep and languid, his sunlight distorted by waves of fetid air. The ground beneath them fell away, sand—each grain—turning to ash and shattering quietly beneath their weight. Nothing fell suddenly. It merely aged out.
Aizen took a breath. Decay reached his lungs, and then it stopped.
With each following breath, Aizen was frozen in place, at peace, unflappable. Decay clouded Aizen, but not near him, as if the smoke was contained by stone. The surface of the earth was untouched. His body was unyielding. His clothes remained unbroken. Where the touch of Baraggan left ash, the land Aizen stood on was pure, no grain altered.
Suddenly, a stillness passed over Aizen's face. He raised his hand not as a shield, not to defy, simply to observe as if looking at something that had been locked away for years. "Curious," he said.
Against his hand, the rot pressed with thick, deliberate arcs—but it was contained by nothing sharp or bright. Then there was movement: the rot contracted in a leisurely fashion, finger by finger. And in this moment, the rot fell apart. Not diminished. Not weakened. It tore apart, as if struck from above with massive force.
There was an alteration, and Baraggan sensed an immediate loss of what he thought he was entitled to retain. The chair creaked beneath his weight, and the ridges on his ribs moved as he squeezed his fingers.
Footsteps drew near slowly, but the ground was untouched. Aizen spoke, leading the way, stressing that power had become equated with seniority. Sand lay untouched, undisturbed, and clean, as if time itself was paused in the environment. He declared, "Your crown is rust. Your scepter, dust." His words flowed freely in the environment but cut through all others. "Bow."
Baraggan's face split in a laugh that fractured like bad porcelain, his teeth bared in anger. "You... you." he began, but stopped when Aizen raised a finger by mere gesture.
A stinging feeling developed in the area that breath had once occupied. Every piece offered a different interpretation of Baraggan—not entirely accurate, but certainly plausible. His position was knocked from under him, and the mask was wrenched apart. His energy waned as if the very essence of time was drawing away. Some of the representations showed a kneeling Baraggan, of his own volition, and not by force.
A loud crack leapt out of Baraggan's throat, like stone strained beneath weight. Again, his fingers stretched, clothed in the rot that devours moments, clashing with the front of Aizen's body. It shattered like sea foam crashing against dark stone. Nothing pierced, nor remained as damage, nor produced any other sound to fill the emptiness. The smile on Aizen's face remained unmoving, like stone.
The sky grew thick, like a canopy from which water dripped. It was only then that Baraggan felt his legs giving way to the earth.
The old chair sagged under his weight, producing a dry, undead groan, as if some unseen force was slowly but relentlessly pushing down upon him, until his forehead made contact with the sand.
Claws struck out at empty space, with blue veins throbbing beneath the skin as if ancient parchment. Behind him, the Hollows shook, hiding their faces in the dirt as if a hurricane swept through.
The darkness that surrounded him was created by Aizen. "Good," whispered the voice, insinuating itself into Baraggan's thoughts, as if it belonged there.
Teeth ground together until the enamel shattered. He could hardly breathe as he gasped in lungfuls of moist air reeking of decomposition. He could see the crown lying on the ground from which it had fallen, orange markings spreading like a disease on its metal surface.
"Tell me, Baraggan," Aizen bowed his head slightly while tracing the outline of a broken image hovering in the air, "What does eternity taste like when it belongs to someone else?"
The breathing hesitated in the throat of the former king, and no agony was felt, merely the chill of awareness. The Hollows behind him were frozen in place, their faces contorted in a scream, as the influence of Aizen seeped into the sand like a smoke.
"Espada," Aizen said, letting the word hang suspended, as if poised on a razor's edge. The two sounds vibrated throughout Baraggan's whole being, echoing away in places where arrogance had once dwelled. "Ten swords to mark the beginning of a new era. Not prey and predator, but reason."
The trembling of fingers through sand. The shimmer over the dunes. Baraggan was transformed into the form of a man standing upright, clad not in ancient armor but in a dark material that had the look of space, pulled taut. The image faded quickly, but there was just a whisper of it against his own.
"Espada," Baraggan growled, the name thick in his throat, as if the sound was bitter—less dust, more hunger—old and caged. The others shifted restlessly behind him, their masks glancing first at the body on the ground and then at the one standing over it. There was no warmth in Aizen's smile.
"You will be the First," he declared. No promises were made; only the hint of completion. Baraggan's fingers twitched ever so slightly as they touched the earth, two tiny spots holding within the chipped tips of his nails. A shape manifested out of the broken light—not Baraggan himself, but something more significant, shrouded in darkness that shimmered and pulsed—a twisted crown reforming, sharp and glowing. It pulsed and was gone, but its afterimage remained, suspended like smoke.
Blood dripped past his lips, followed by a sting from shredded flesh. Soiled earth squeezed beneath his fingernails, wedging into crevices. "First," he repeated, the single word delivered as if it were a rhythmic refrain, something akin to shattered stone—not a question, but a proclamation.