Chapter Text
The three of them had just stepped into the rift—fresh from a world still whole. Blades steady. Hearts intact. The distortion hadn’t touched them yet. Their pace was sure. Their bond, unbroken.
He watched from the jagged edge of a ruined slope, where shattered soil stitched eras together and the sky looped from dusk to noon without asking. Time didn’t know what it was here.
But he did.
Hotarumaru’s stance was light, unspoiled. Still open to the warmth around him. His eyes scanned the mist with wonder, not yet suspicion.
Aizen walked ahead, restless as ever, blade close to hand. The air around him sparked—not with fury, but with momentum. Still a sword that struck only because he could, not because he had to.
And between them—Akashi. His own reflection. Careful. Watching. Eyes narrowed at something he couldn’t name yet.
He knew.
Even across fractured terrain, he recognized their rhythm. The weight of their breathing. The cadence of their steps.
That’s what we looked like, once.
There was no bitterness in the thought. Not yet.
He should have felt rage. Jealousy. Hatred.
Instead—longing.
He’d carried this image in his mind for so long—these three, unbroken, walking side by side through a world not yet torn apart. He had tried to step back into that moment. Just once.
He had tried so hard.
But time punishes those who ask the wrong questions.
He shifted in the shadows. His sword hung loose—not from fatigue, but from understanding.
This was the closest he would get.
He would become the witness. The echo. The scar.
Let them face what was coming first: the twisted doubles. The broken decisions. The consequences he once tried to outrun with trembling hands.
He would wait.
He always waited.
Because if they truly were what he once was—
Then maybe, just maybe—they would reach him.
And they would survive him.
And in doing so, they would forgive what he could not.
None of this began with shadows.
It began with water.
After their return from the distorted realm, the mission logs had been quiet. No rift surges. No anomalies.
Just the slow return of rhythm.
Morning tea. Training sessions. Familiar sparring patterns.
Akashi dozing on the veranda while Hotarumaru threaded charms in the sunlight, humming. Aizen muttering over maintenance with theatrical scorn.
They were safe. Together.
But the quiet was too clean.
Like something had scrubbed it bare, and left the silence polished—hollow.
Sometimes, between breaths, Akashi thought he could hear water.
And the wound from his mirror’s darkened blade throbbed beneath his ribs—dull and exact.
A pressure, not pain. A presence.