Disclaimers, etc., see chapter one
Opening Theme: Rewrite by Asian Kung-Fu Generation
Ending Theme: Kyouka Suigetsu (Aizen Character Song)
A/N: Warning Dark!Mayuri emerges (worse than his usual)
Bleach: Cross
Soul of Shirahime
By Eugena
Chapter Two: Descent into Madness
THE PAST LIFE MIRAGE – ROYAL PALACE
Mayuri didn’t remember this place. He had never been here before. Though he could not see the place at first, slowly the plush chairs and benches of the Royal Palace faded into view. He looked down the hallway at servants rushing back and forth. He heard Zangetsu’s voice off in a distance, though he did not know him: “Please, my prince, you must calm down.”
“Calm down?” Mayuri recognized this voice. It was Kail, Ichigo’s Hollow and reincarnation of his twin brother.
“You can’t know for sure,” Zangetsu continued.
“He left her!” he shouted. “He left my princess for that guard!” Kail’s shouting became louder and lounder.
“Please, my lady,” said Senna beside him, “why won’t you lie down?” Senna’s gaze held him. “You need rest.”
He doubled over in pain, grabbing his chest. He felt like a sword had pierced it.
“My lady!” Senna cried. “Prince Kail, Zangetsu, help us!”
oOo
HUECO MUNDO
Blood dripped down Mayuri’s face and into his mouth. He tasted the salt and iron of it, licking it as a dog would lick its wounds. His hands gripped the Yukihime and Shinnou zanpaku-tos. He felt the heaviness on his left shoulder and looked to see Shirahime’s broken body draped over it.
He licked the blood more. Ichimaru looked better dead, tasted better. “Shinnouhi,” his droned in a thick voice, “we’re going home.”
Too bad Ichimaru hadn’t felt his death, that he was already unconscious when Mayuri ripped him apart.
“Shirahime,” his voice burned in a mix of grief and desire. “All will be forgiven. You’ll forgive me for failing you.”
oOo
SOUL SOCIETY – SQUAD TWELVE BARRACKS (FLASHBACK)
Some of the lower seats in his squad had managed to capture the new Fourth Seat of Squad Eleven. He looked amused at the young woman in the shinigami robes behind him. Her snow white hair covered her face, and blood dripped down the sides of her mouth.
“Zaraki’s new toy,” he said it mostly to himself.
“Damn you,” she said in a language he didn’t know.
“Do you know that aside from the fukutaicho, there hasn’t been a single new woman to join Squad Eleven since Zaraki became taicho? And now, there’s you.”
“Damn psycho.”
“Interesting.” He looked aside to Nemu. “Hold her down.”
“Hai, Mayuri-sama,” Nemu said.
“You do everything he asks?” the captive woman said in a deeper voice, almost masculine. Although her hands were bound tightly behind her back against the chair, she did not struggle.
A faint reiatsu began to surround her. At first, it was white with a tinge of blue. It quickly turned black and red.
“Does he have his way with you?” she taunted in a man’s voice.
Nemu reached down to her. She looked up at her, and her eyes glowed yellow. The reiatsu aura exploded and knocked Nemu and Mayuri against the wall.
oOo
HUECO MUNDO
Mayuri licked the blood off of the arrancar’s zanpaku-to. What an easy kill. He hadn’t bothered to ask for its name.
“He looked at you wrong,” he said to Shirahime’s body.
oOo
SOUL SOCIETY – SQUAD TWELVE BARRACKS – KUROTSUCHI TAICHO’S QUARTERS (FLASHBACK)
“It’s true?” she asked, the near accusation hanging between them.
Mayuri looked at Shirahime but said nothing.
“You’re nothing but a monster,” she said. “You let them burn for the sake of your experiment!” She waved her arm in the air as if throwing a knife. “You sicken me.”
“My squad exists for my experiments.” What was wrong with him that he couldn’t say that to her?
This was not the first time she had brought up the incident where he first met Ishida and Inoue.
oOo
HUECO MUNDO
Shirahime seemed heavier to him. He pushed forward, barely conscious of his nakedness and injuries. He thought of Shirahime. He remembered so many moments with her, most of them conflict.
oOo
SOUL SOCIETY – SQUAD TWELVE BARRACKS (FLASHBACK)
The black and red reiatsu blasted Mayuri and Nemu against the wall. “This will be interesting,” he said as he freed himself from the wall.
The shinigami stood to her feet, the Shiro Zangetsu in her hands. She laughed manically. Raising the sword, she sliced it down: “Tensa no Shinnou!” A white fire shot from the sword towards him and he barely had time to get out of its way.
“Impressive,” he said again. “And who are you?”
“I am Shirahime’s protector.”
oOo
HUECO MUNDO
Protector.
“I will protect you,” he said, knocking down another arrancar. He raised Shinnou and plunged it into the fallen arrancar.
He would need his own zanpaku-to.
