Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sky was pretty clear.

The clearest it had been since the end of the war, in fact.

The clouds were white, so few they littered the sky insignificantly, and very small.

Akon took a drag out of his cigarette. He stood close to the railing of one of the balconies of the Shinigami Research and Development Institute, feeling strangely lightheaded.

The war had been declared officially over since a week. Ever since the declaration, Akon and the other researchers had checked on the status of Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou's body inside the pod he had made sure to be inserted in, and upon finding that the Captain's recovery was close to optimal and finished, and his strength thusly almost completely replenished, they had begun the procedure of inverting the process he had undergone, while immersed in the fluid, to enter stasis and heightened regeneration. While some of them had handled that procedure (Hyosu had insisted it would be him and his department, or what remained of it anyway, due to Akon having almost fainted and needing rest in that moment), others had started getting their lab coats and uniforms dirty with the tedious work of fixing all those machines and pieces of equipment, not to mention rooms, of the Institute which had received damage, be it big or small, during the luckily short-lived conflict.

Akon remembered hearing Kurotsuchi grumble, as soon as he'd actually gotten out the pod and hurriedly fixed up his disheveled hair to a modicum of dignity, about the many times HQ had refused to let him strengthen walls and defensive weapons positioned around the Institute due to the "times of peace" the Seireitei was going through. "Times of peace? How many times did I tell them there is no such thing as eternal peace!" , he had heard the Chief mutter, smugly and irritatedly but still tired, almot as if the pod had sucked life out of him instead of giving it. "Look where their ingenuity has gotten us!", he had also huffed, changing the tattered lab robe he had worn in the pod for a cleaner and intact one, whipping his face to the side due to that one strand of hair that just wouldn't keep itself in position.

Akon had then followed his captain around as they made for his private quarters, where he had positioned Nemu's brain (it was notable and incredibly fortunate it was still intact, the Chief had been really industrious and efficient in ensuring nothing too tragic would happen to it) in another pod. He and Kurotsuchi had stood in that very same room for a while, the former awaiting orders while his head throbbed more than usual, whereas the latter had given him the shoulders, exhaling with finality with both his hands planted on a nearby desk, his longer fake nail producing a periodical clicking sound on the surface as Kurotsuchi kept tapping it, taking his time, thinking. Akon had then received his promotion (no fanfare, no declarations: they both liked it that way, it was more practical), and he had been dismissed, and told to watch over the reconstruction efforts while Kurotsuchi would handle the reprise of the Nemuri Project.

Handling restoration and renovation had been truly... complicated, to say the least. It was going well, but it was complicated nonetheless. Mostly because, for some reason the department in charge of handling the lower levels was working at a much slower pace than expected, and while a part of him was frustrated and wanted to go there personally to check, he had also sent Hyosu to do so in his stead, in the end, at his colleagues' ulterior insistence he get some rest. As a result, Akon hadn't factually managed to do any lifting and fixing yet: the medicines, ointments, and injections he had administered to himself were working kind of slowly because his head had been wounded more severely than he'd thought, and also because he had been forcing himself to make efforts he shouldn't have during the war. So he had, instead of making himself help directly, preoccupied himself with directing the actions of everyone else and focusing their on what really mattered whenever they would ask how his injuries were recovering.

Now was one of the few moments he had gifted himself away from the busy mutters, shouts, clanking and overall noisy mess which was the construction site they had enstablished to completely rebuild from scratch a building of the Institute which had sustained too much damage to be considered salvageable. Looking around and breathing fresh air without being surrounded by others proved to be a blessing, but though tempted (the blue above him was extremely welcome due to the previous days of non-stop, blood-red skies they’d had to endure), he avoided looking upwards, knowing vertigo would strike him fast and make him lose his footing if he did so.

This short instance of tranquility wouldn’t last long, because of course it wouldn’t.

He looked at his left side...

...observed two young researchers approach him with uncertainty in their step...

...sighed, and went back to his brief moment of peace, preemptively kissing it goodbye. He felt his bags grow heavier as he forcefully trained his eyes on the intense blue dome surmounting the whole of Seireitei and Soul Society, without miraculously getting any of the dreaded vertigo symptoms; he really hoped it could give him a spark of strength in the face of whatever it was that these two wanted from him.

He would have to withstand it, however nonsensical it would end up being. He had been appointed as Lieutenant of the 12fth Division after all: scaring away the doubts and leaving diligent workers in their wake was his job, considering that Kurotsuchi would never be magnanimous enough to do so himself.

Now that he thought of it, upon turning properly to face the new arrivals as they twirled their thumbs and looked up at him underneath the massive but transparent glasses of the safety masks they were wearing, Akon was pretty sure he could recognize them. They had, written on their card, which also signaled them as lowly ranked, all the evidence he needed to deduct they had been assigned to the exploration and eventual modification of the underground quarters. He couldn’t be bothered to squint his eyes and figure out their names though (something in his head had gone ouch when he tried).

He had seen them walk around the Institute when they should have focused their efforts underground instead of the other floors, and no matter how much he had reprimanded them, he could swear he would always see them appear in his field of vision as he coordinated surface-level attempts at restoration.

Did they want to say sorry? They had exchanged glances with him when he had, for the hundredth time, seen them sneak around in yet another one of their trips that very same morning. They had also probably seen him sigh and stay put, too burned-out and secretly pissed, but needing to maintain control, in order to stop them.

He stared at them expectantly, while taking another drag out his cigarette.

-Do you two need something? Perhaps, to give me an apology for making me insane trying to figure out where you were running off to?

They guiltily looked down, then up and at each other, only to suddenly bow stiffly; and as they spoke in a chorus, they sounded like they could have been a man and a woman (but Akon had learnt not to assume).

-We may be doing something wrong and we need your help, Lieutenant Akon, sir!

Oh, really, now?

-Yes, I noticed.

-N... not that, sir.

...Oh… Really, now…

-Then what?

-Um, you'll have to see sir!

He could feel a vein twitch above his brow.

-...Please… come see?

That did it.

Akon sighed. He could feel his brain concoct a new type of cramp for his headache to torment him with as he followed them back into the building, resisting the urge to longingly continue his staring contest with the sky, as if begging it to finally lift him to a place with no pain and no stupidity.

The elephant in the room of the underground quarters Akon was dragged into was no elephant at all. It had the same effect as seeing an elephant in such an unexpected and cramped place, though.

...Maybe worse, now that he thought of it. He could garner as much from the feelings of confusion, surprise, and horror, perplexion, sadness, present with varying degrees in the eyes of experienced and newly appointed researchers alike.

Whether or not their eyes were already clouded with habit and spirit of scientific investigation to hide whatever inner struggle was festering underneath, depended largely on whom of the spectators who had arrived before him at the scene were those Akon had recognized as colleagues who had worked with him during the darker, more obscure times of the Institute.

The many fresher recruits had no such veiled hearts and wore everything on their sleeve, a great deal of them staying the farthest away from the issue filling the middle of the room…

This group of (easily understandable) scaredy cats included the two researchers who had sought out Akon, and who were now hiding behind him, the one with a more acute inflection of their voice holding onto his lab coat’s sleeve. There were also components of this group who were crouching and kneeling, not as scared as the others but just as tense, surrounding the glaring issue sprawled on the floor and picking samples of it, shooing away any veteran researcher who got too close.

Akon didn’t feel like sighing anymore, not as he tried to take everything in: he just wanted to stop thinking about his brain exploding and pressuring him to just get this over with.

There was a matted mass of hair, somewhere in the pool of weirdly fleshy substance that he kept reminding himself to remain a very safe distance away from, for now. Something like blood and melted organs must have been there too, but for all the experiments he had helped Kurotsuchi with, in this case, even he had difficulty deciphering what exactly had happened, and where exactly every fragment of gut and muscle was.

Being boiled alive and fused to the floor was a somewhat good theory for what had happened to whomever he was observing the (most probably days old) remains of… But it almost seemed too easy. Most of the substance wasn’t semi-liquid anymore. It had dried itself off, clinging to the pavement in unsightly and crusty constellations of gore.

What the fuck.

-… Is this the reason why you have been walking around like headless chickens?

Silence followed his question, formulated with what he was quite sure must have been a deadpan tone. After a few glances were shared by all those present, and a few gulps were heard echoing into the macabre atmosphere, coming from the throats of the younger researchers, Akon heard a familiar voice behind him.

-Akon-fukutaichou, you see…

He turned around to face Hyosu, raising an eyebrow in mild surprise.

-Wait, you in on this too?

-Only recently, sir.

Hyosu’s wide, green-ish face held a tight expression which seemed apologetic, telling him that he didn't know what else to say. 

Hyosu had been dodging him too? What was it with his colleagues shying away from him while acting concerned, looking at him with their tail between their legs? He hadn't really rationalized receiving a promotion would add this layer to their relationship, and it annoyed him.

-...How come no one has told me about this? Why were you even hiding it...?-, insisted Akon, still not getting over it, not raising his tone yet but starting to get the impression he would feel the urge to, soon. -If we had reached the corpse earlier we could have analyzed it and reused the organic matter to-

-We know,- said another older researcher, hands stuffed in his pockets as he shrugged, -But this group of youngsters wouldn’t let us. When we found out they were taking too long, we checked in, tried making them understand the importance of this, but they pushed us back. When Hyosu came here and found out too, he spoke to them and told us to stop the squabble and call you.

The researcher scoffed, shook his head lightly, his mouth shaping itself into a frown that screamed contempt.

-And here we are. If there’s anyone to blame for the whole mess, we still think it’s them.

Akon’s eyes fell on said group the fellow scientist had nodded towards curtly. All but one of the recruits got smaller and nervous under his gaze. The bravest one was standing taller, her hands (he had seen her around more often that others and she had been referred to as a woman, he knew that much) slowly clenching into fists, though her eyes betrayed the inner turmoil of an animal glaring at the confines of a cage, expectantly, worriedly. He took note of how the other young scientists where holding onto her, whispering things to her which he couldn't make out and looking at the shapeless horror on the pavement with teary eyes.

...Ok, something had changed without him knowing, and it had been brewing for quite some time, but it wasn't related to his promotion. Oh boy.

Only one word was what came out of Akon, after taking a deep breath.

-...Why?

He didn’t receive an answer immediately. But then the woman stepped around the pond of gore, and after turning back briefly to offer placating gestures to her companions, she approached him. He saw her hands shake anxiously; she bowed pretty deeply as she spoke.

Kind of a good start, he guessed.

-We did not want to disturb Chiyo’s rest too much, sir.

Chiyo?

-You think you have recognized who this was?

-We don’t think… We know. Most of her badge is intact… Here.

Akon inspected the piece of plastic he was given, and convinced himself, though his headache, that the name written was indeed Chiyo, and that his brains weren’t too far gone to completely hamper his perception.

He… remembered someone named Chiyo, buried in his past, the most obscure sides of it anyway.

Welp, here they went, forever disintegrating into dust, his prospects of having a somewhat tranquil day for once. The inkling he'd had the first instants he'd spent looking at the human remains on the floor, warning him this could've easily revealed itself to be far more difficult to deal with than it looked, was turning into very concrete certainty. It was just what he needed, really.

-I understand. But due to the peculiar nature of our division, you must be aware that corpses must be reported to me or the Captain to check if they can be used for research first and foremost, and then, if possible, give burial to the remains.

Akon pushed himself to recite protocol with his hand pinching the top of his nose’s bridge, feeling the rebuttal of the woman coming from the way she opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, like a fish out of water, desperate for an opportunity to chime in.

-I am very well aware of protocol sir, and the reasons why it’s there-

-So why not report this and be done with it?-, he asked, keeping himself from groaning out loud and hoping it didn’t sound as aggravated as he could feel himself becoming. -You would have had the chance to mourn her anyway… Perhaps not whole, I’ll grant, but you know the rules.

-She is the head of our team, she had been feeling sick prior to the war and… and…

-And?

-When… when the Quincy attacked, we saw her stay behind and run the opposite direction, and we…

-Where are you heading with this?

The woman was trying to keep her speech measured, and failing, he could tell, as she kept going and answering his probing request for any logical explanation to this issue, her breath catching. She began blinking more often and licking her lips nervously.

-We had no idea she would do this! She had mentioned it, but… We had told her it would be alright, we could make it together-

-Your point being?

They were finally getting somewhere, he could feel it. Thing is, he would find himself almost regretting it.

-She wanted to commit suicide due to PTSD sir!

The acutely-pitched voice of the researcher holding onto his coat reached his ears, and it briefly risked escaping the clutches of his mind before he chased it and shook it by its metaphorical throat.

-PTSD?

He thought hard on it before he realized why, in his brain, Chiyo and PTSD suddenly coincided perfectly. Almost too perfectly. Like very specific memories, suddenly resurfacing with clarity.

Memories of tissues, awkward pats on shoulders and rachitic backs, putting out the cigarette because she had started coughing, sitting by her bed at night to make sure she wouldn’t get up and reach the sink and the blades he used to trim his beard.

THAT Chiyo.

The gorey spectacle in front of him was what was left of THAT Chiyo.

-… I think I may have known her.

He slowly lifted his gaze. It felt like there was a hammer positioned between his eyebrows, and like his small horns suddenly weighed the equivalent of a ram’s, but he made himself lock eyes with the woman in front of him anyway.

-… And yes, her wanting to commit suicide tracks.

Him and her had stayed in close contact for a while, during the period they’d both handled the observations of Quincies held in captivity at the Institute. But they had been separated after the project had ended, and they had been assigned to wholly different units. He hadn’t seen much of her since then, she had become a ghost.

-So, she tell you about those days?

-I…

The woman staggered a bit, then she nodded, her gaze more determined, relieved most probably that they could both finally reach a consensus.

-Yes, she said she’d started having… visions, again. That her zanpakuto was tormenting her. That she had felt a storm was coming and that she had told others she had seen a Quincy on the rooftops, but… No one believed her.

Someone scoffed in the audience, and the woman promptly turned to them, the glare she sent their way merciless. Akon was left silent, pondering on everything he was witnessing, remembering, and having to contextualize.

-I think it’s our fault she did this-, he could hear another one of Chiyo’s former colleagues chime in, their voice shaky. -She could have still been with us had we… cared more… Had we listened.

-… So this, is your way of saying sorry then?

The woman facing him nodded again, and with a watery voice, after clearing her throat, she replied:

-In a way. After all that was done, telling her to prioritize her work... We'd wanted to prioritize her, instead...

He pretended not to dwell too much on the fact that the woman in front of him was about to start crying, and he made sure to send whoever groaned in the background a stare which communicated clear feelings of “do not make this harder than it has to be”, with vague hints of “if you make my headache worse I’ll kill you”.

As much as he hated to admit it, this woman – Rokoa, she was called, he could finally make out from her badge, was mentioning a very real issue. In time, throughout the Institute, a fad of elitism had spread and taken root and it had become tradition, creating a religion out of cynicism. It had been done for survival: it felt appealing, to consider yourself superior to someone else for being better at hiding the scars given and received in the name of science without scruples, instead of having to face every single emotion or reaction your body and brain were desperate to give in response to the horrors you had seen.

Wake up, do whatever the heck you have to do, rationalize, compartmentalize, go to sleep, repeat. Those who couldn’t do it had been considered defective, and thusly people unable to fully comprehend the sacred and yet sinful strife of the Institute.

Akon knew this. He remembered the many times other researchers had to restrain themselves from looking at him like a worm when he walked with Chiyo to sit with her in communal areas and eat with her, make her feel less alone. But Akon had considered her a brilliant mind, though also someone plagued and pursued by the same. He didn’t want her to push aside the bad memories in an effort to erase their responsibilities, but to help her try and walk a path out of the darkness so that maybe, one day, she could do something good, and only good, like she aspired to.

It hadn’t been enough. He had known when, the first time they met after their unit had been disbanded, he had seen her walk past him without even saying hello, a feeble and pale avatar of emptiness, fatigue, her eyes wide and hoping for no monsters, no ghosts of the deceased who would follow her into her room and stare at her from the corner.

Nothing would have ever been enough. He could see it properly now, laid out in front of him in gruesome display.

He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t help her again, if he were sent back in time. But he was also sure not much would have changed had he tried, in another timeline, to help her more.

This was all a huge mess, dammit. And he couldn’t feel angry at anyone, he didn’t have the energy to anymore. He felt like an heavy blanket of bad, bad thoughts was slowly falling upon him. It was difficult, but he navigated through everything to find the most interesting debate his mind was having with itself: how to approach the revelation, everything it entailed, and what to do with the rules they were supposed to be following, and which had been splendidly ignored, in the meanwhile. There were three sides to this inner debate he was having, and he didn’t enjoy thinking about either.

A part of his burnt-omelette-like brain kept telling him it would be opportune for him to follow protocol, reprieve everyone, take whatever was left of Chiyo, bring it to Mayuri alongside a report of the event that had taken place, and watch the fallout wash over the 12th Division like the Great Flood. Another part of his mind suggested not to report any issues, to avoid having to experience a possible tantrum of the Captain, and proposed he handle the remains and concentrate on that only, making sure they could be salvaged, due to the losses of materials they had experienced with the war.

The last side of his mind busy debating, however, the one he wanted to listen to the least out of all of them the more he brushed past it, due to how dangerous entetraining it was… Sigh.

It told him to help them. The disobedient idiots. Told him, when he tried silencing it, that it solved both the issue of wanting to avoid upsetting his fellow researchers - who, old or new, had grown into a nervous and tired lot, mirroring his own mood, and the dilemma of needing to explain everything to Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou and having everyone take the brunt of it.

-...What do you want me to do?

It won. Purely out of survival instincts mind you, but the reckless side of him took control this time.

Not because of that sentiment of guilt he had felt trying to push his heart into the ground, not at all.

...Ok, maybe a little. The Quincy’d made a different kind of victim among the Shinigami, but the Shinigami were to blame, like for most things that always ended up biting them in the ass. Akon was merely tired of ignoring the issue, pretending it didn’t exist at all, and had chosen, for once, to act like he’d had a hand in it. Perhaps, had he done that earlier, had he actually backed his efforts with honesty and not merely acceptance, Chiyo would have still been with them.

Moving fragments of the “body”. That’s what the two skittish researchers (Megumi and Hana, he’d learnt their names were) had been doing, and now Akon understood why they had always looked like they’d been carrying something around with them, though impossible to recognize at the distance he’d observed them previously.

He also learnt that, apparently, almost the total entirety of the Institute’s survivors had known, and those who hadn’t, or who’d only been aware something had transpired and not the specifics of the whole thing, had been told to act like everything was normal and that it was just “some bumps around the road that Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou needn’t know of”.

“Lest he kill us all” was either left out, or muttered so low none of the most anxious unaware idiots could hear and squeal.

The parts of the “body” had been carefully placed in vials, and brought to a crematorium to bury properly and discreetly. It didn’t occupy their whole day, this adventure of soft disobedience and parades of regret, disguised by resolute steps that left nothing outrageous or suspicious to the immagination, carrying vials of gore and organic matter hidden under lab coats and safety jumpsuits instead of traditional offerings to wish peace to the deceased.

That was their ceremony. Very 12th Division-like, and probably one of the greatest shows of humanity the Institute had ever witnessed in the latest century, Akon thought…Especially after the unspoken harshness that had weighed on their conscience and forced them into silence, set off by what they’d all had contributed to, for decades.

They didn’t speak openly of this little episode of bravado. Akon wasn’t sure of how many cameras Kurotsuchi had placed around, but he was pretty sure not all of them were visible, sickly and twisted at the corners of the rooms. Kurotsuchi surely wouldn’t have mentioned whether or not Akon’s hypothesis was correct or not. He just hoped that none of those things were working properly, and he kept consoling himself that it was probably the case, having seen no one attempt to fix them.

(His trust in the possibility that the universe would forget the curse of the Institute and momentarily bless them with luck had been misplaced, but he hadn't known that then.)

Speaking of Kurotsuchi, he had been pretty much nowhere to be seen, holed up in his personal lab, since they’d come back and started reorganizing. Akon believed it to be an incredibly fortunate circumstance, because it gave them leeway to do what they had to do, and it was also very understandable. Project Nemuri had been the dream of a lifetime for Kurotsuchi: reshaping her, what he had always defined as daughter in one way but never the other, his masterpiece, his glory, was paramount in a certain sense.

And all of them had their way to cope with their past coming back to haunt them, he guessed.

When Kurotsuchi decided to come out of his lab, however, their efforts to move and bury Chiyo almost came to a full stop.

It happened one morning. They hadn’t carried any part of Chiyo that day, yet, in fact they had decided to add the finishing touches to the main building and then return to the one who still needed a whole shebang of modifications.

Kurotsuchi had emerged from a corridor, creating silence where he walked, wearing his usual uniform and Captain coat, looking around with an expression that may have been haughty had he held more energy in his gaze, and instead ended up seeming bored and empty. He had stepped forward, under the stares of many but unbothered by the very same, to reach the elevated platform in front of which most screens were now working in full order with no issues, showing images of the Seireitei as a whole.

He had then sat in his designated armchair. Something he usually didn’t do.

He also yawned every now and then. Another thing he normally didn’t do.

The Captain was exhausted.

Akon had been split on whether or not he should approach the Director. He opted for doing so, hoping the Chief could feel better after hearing information related to how everything was going; which was pretty well, if one avoided mentioning the whole “someone committed suicide with a dangerous substance and we are hiding it”.

As soon as he finished walking the stairs to the platform, though, he was stopped by Mayuri lifting his right hand, long nail present as ever.

-Did I ask you to approach, Akon-fukutaichou?

There was no anger, malice, or sourness in the Director’s voice. It was languid, solemn, unexpessive. He wasn’t even looking at the Lieutenant.

-No, sir. Forgive me, sir.

-Just keep doing what you are doing. I will retire soon. Move on now.

Akon took in how Kurotsuchi was wearing his hair in a slicked back look and shaved to the sides, similar to his earlier years as Lieutenant; his make up filled his forehead, down to his eyes, with black; his nose and his upper lip were characterized by the same dark hue, which also made up the straight vertical lines starting from his eyes, like tears, and his lower lip, and going further down. His neck seemed entirely covered in black paint as well.

At least the Captain had garnered enough fortitude to change his looks. Akon, and he was sure the others as well, found this was a good sign; he hoped their Captain would manage to stand as tall as he used to. Without him and their shared faults, they were nothing.

Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou found out about it in the end, right when they had reached a point in which very little remained to be transported of the corpse.

Akon had expected the Captain’s first appearance after days of solitude to change some things, but a stupid part of his mind had fooled itself into thinking that it wouldn’t entail Kurotsuchi’s vigilant eye starting to work again, though slowly, to such a rate he would decide to investigate a change in atmosphere.

Akon had been taking a break again when Hyosu had reached him and had urgently dragged him along and back to the underground quarters, shoving past the crowd which had formed in the corridors and bringing both of them in front of a scene charged with tension which, again, Akon had stupidly believed would never verify itself.

Megumi and Hana were bowing, on the verge of tears, still inside the room, where they quivered while other researches timidly still knelt to gather Chiyo’s remains into vials and jars, tempting fate all the while.

The tall form of Kurotsuchi Mayuri, Captain of the 12th Division and Chief Director of the Shinigami Research and Development Institute, stood at the entry of the blasted room, blocking the exit of any of its occupants who may have thought of escaping. He was observing them in…

...Silence. Complete, expressionless, uncharacteristically neutral silence.

Hyosu and Akon had exchanged a look, but Hyosu had been the first to shift his weight from one leg to the other and then lower his gaze, and look somewhere else.

-He can still turn himself into slime, fukutaichou,- Akon heard him mutter. -That’s how he sneaked behind those in the room… I was accessing the floor when I saw some people gathering, some shoving others away to leave, and I was warned… They told me how they'd left the team alone for a moment, but had to turn back immediately after they sent a distress signal through pricate comms... That's when they saw the Captain standing in their way outside the room. Hiromi told me to fetch you.

They had been standing motionlessly, tense and wary, after that small explanation, for what must have been five minutes. It felt like an eternity though.

Akon was wrestling internally with his inner self telling him to speak and seek excuses, and he was trying to win. Something in the stony, unblinking face of their Captain... as well as his perfectly immobile frame, save for the way he was rubbing a finger of his right hand, the one with his incredibly long nail, over the back of his left hand… It all screamed at Akon to run or simply await judgement, and punishment; and he considered himself wise for choosing the latter option.

But… They didn’t come. The lightning bolts, the screams, the smug and cruel comments, the sadistic smile they'd all been expecting, never came. It was only when he saw the Director’s eyes finally blink, slowly, and then reopen when he slightly moved his head to look at Hana, that Akon hesitantly started breathing again and understood why.

Kurotsuchi wasn’t angry. He wasn’t cold, he wasn’t anything. He was in a very relaxed state of… of… Akon couldn’t even define it. What was the Chief feeling? It didn’t seem decipherable, but whatever it was, it wasn’t positive nor negative.

He was lukewarm, empty, barren, inscrutable. Numb. His voice was also inexpressive and dull when he spoke, his tone level and vague, his golden eyes squaring Hana up and down with no hurry:

-This must be the reason why I saw some of you walk around towards the crematorium very often as of late. Why I heard you whisper, and noticed some of you younger recruits avoid the doors closer to my labs.

Kurotsuchi’s eyebrows very briefly shot upwards. Akon gulped as silently as he could. 

-After all, I fixed most of the cameras before fully dedicating myself to the Nemuri Project. Did you really think I wouldn’t, even if just to keep an eye on you while you stumbled around?

But…

Wait. Oh. Oh no. He had underestimated the cameras, hadn’t he. The Captain had been observing them before his first physical reappearance? But they... They hadn't looked operational.

Dammit.

See, it had bitten him in the ass, in the end. They really were cursed, no exceptions.

-But Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou, you never-

-Left my quarters?- questioned the Director, his eyebrows fully lifted this time, though his expression remained otherwise neutral, and Akon could spy no outward anger in his voice when Hana flinched anyway, as if Kurotsuchi had threatened to throw boiling water on her.

-Did you not know? I suppose I neglected to tell you all, then. Thank you for reminding me with your incredulity, girl-, commented the Captain, going on an impassive and almost disinterested tangent, ignoring her reaction to his interruption of her stutter. -The cameras will no longer need to be fixed manually from now on. I added certain functions to my bone marrow before this whole lab was turned upside down. With the modifications, all I have to do is inject my blood on the core controlling the veiny tubature which connects the cameras to reach them and speed up any healing process. So that in case they broke, since I noticed most were older models, they would regenerate themselves faster and without needing to check every single one of them. They looked like they were mostly turned off because they hadn’t fully recovered yet, not because I had wanted to give you privacy, or anything of the sort.

That took their questions out of their mouths with the definitiveness of a cow getting beheaded at the slaughter. With every point of Kurotsuchi’s explanation settling in, Akon’s stomach churned, upset. He really should’ve predicted, or at least considered, even if remotely, the Chief would be willing and able to do something like this to watch over his underlings in a situation of crisis.

Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou was heard exhaling lightly before he turned to Megumi, and this time his head was turned in such a way that Akon could not distinguish if there had been any change of expression, any relevant insurgence of feelings; but he presumed there hadn’t been any. As the Chief kept talking in fact, his posture and voice’s inflexion remained unchanged.

-It was foolish of you to think I would not be watching you. Granted I did not do so with frequency… But I did observe you. And while the cameras started repairing themselves, I started to pick up hints and murmurs of, well, some people’s intentions to keep something hidden from me.

The Director sighed, then slowly turned to Akon, who felt like he could go from nauseous to straight up throwing up on the spot.

He’d fucked up. And yet... No disappointment or rage could be seen in Kurotsuchi’s gaze as he locked eyes with his lieutenant.

Shit. What was he going to say now? Akon’s survivability was mostly owed, in the labs, to his ability to plan reactions appropriate to whichever mood the Director was in, before any of said moods could manifest and ruin their day. He couldn’t do that now and it was making him slightly insane. This was the calmest Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou had been, if one didn’t count that one time Akon had witnessed seeing him enter Nemu’s room while she slept, after the first time he’d yelled at her, to look at her slumbering form before leaving, as silent as he’d entered…

...But Kurotsuchi had been looking at his most prized creation, back then. Now, he was looking at a version of Akon which had decided to think for himself, or others, instead of the protocol. An Akon who hadn’t followed what Kurotsuchi had taught him to do, basically. So Akon carefully took in every word he heard, in this situation that he should’ve totally planned for ahead instead of on the spot, hoping he would be good at improvising this time.

-I hadn’t expected you to collaborate with the rest, Lieutenant-, he heard Kurotsuchi say, -Though it was interesting, witnessing the beads of sweat on your face when you woke up everyday questioning your decisions. It is a look I haven’t seen on you in a long time, I admit.

The Captain had apparently also modified the resolution of the cameras to take in the smaller details as soon as he’d gotten the chance, it seemed. Akon kept himself from snorting ironically, and focused on his current relative safety.

Kurotsuchi blinked owlishly, opened his lips slightly as he thought, eyes briefly glancing to the side (towards the door of the infamous room source of all their current problems).

-I admit that there are actually no cameras on this floor that are functioning well to this day, and there was no camera in this room in the very first place... Hence why I could only garner, upon starting the process of fixing the surveillance system, that something here was being hidden from my knowledge through some stances of careless whispered discussions I heard in the corridors of the upper levels, thanks to the cameras stationed there that where, indeed, working properly. Even then, however, what I could hear was very little, and I find myself still very curious. Could I bother you with a summary of what went on and what you discussed here, Lieutenant?

He had formulated that request soooo treacherously, the old fox. Of course he had heard what they had said perfectly well, if he had been able to see the details of Akon’s psychosomatization. He merely wanted to test Akon… Wanted to see how he reacted, wanted to study him like one of his test subjects, like the times when Akon had been younger and still on his way to becoming the Chief’s most trusted assistant. Or maybe the Captain had been fucking with him when he’d mentioned observing his anxious attitude and he hadn’t actually examinated him so intently, who knew? In any case, it didn’t bode well. Akon chose to be respectful and formal as to not give the other Shinigami more reasons to chew him out if he so pleased.

-Should I keep it brief, Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou?

-Perhaps, perhaps not. An explanation, Lieutenant.

Oh, so they were doing it like that, mh? Geronimo; he went for the middle ground.

-I had noticed something was going on with the lower levels in the main buildings, but Hyosu had asked me to let him handle most things on that side while I concerned myself with others. However it was some of the researchers themselves who came to fetch me to help them with the issue and so I was called.

He paused briefly to check the Director's face for any sign of displeasure, he found none, he countinued his tale. So far so good. He was sure Hyosu had tensed behind him, but Akon couldn’t stop. Only telling the truth could help them now.

- I asked why the organic matter found wasn’t brought to my attention immediately to be used to recover materials in the labs which were operational, I was then made aware there were sentimental reasons involved. The researchers said that the woman who was once the origin of the organic remains had probably neglected to evacuate in order to commit suicide. I also recognized the woman herself. My judgement must’ve clouded, because I allowed it to influence me.

Akon gave himself courage... and lowered his upper body in a bow.

-I should have been sterner and have gathered the materials, also warning you of the issue instead of hiding it. I was responsible for failing to enstablish order while you were handling very important matters, and for failing at my duties as Lieutenant to report whatever is of note to you. I shall accept any punishment you see fit, Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou.

He felt the blood rush to his head and pulse, since his injury was almost healed but not quite, as he stayed in his position… and waited. Had it been enough? Would he be the only one dissected and leaving the Director’s quarters with a new, unexpected, unwanted body enhancement and electrodes for better transmission of orders fixed on his skull?

-...Mh.

That was the only sound that came out of Kurotsuchi before Akon saw his hakama pants and Captain’s cloak enter his field of vision. He felt his shoulder being poked, and then another few words.

-None of that, stand straight, please. Let’s not make this more, aherm, uselessly dramatic than what it’s already been.

Akon did as commanded, then looked quizzically at the Director (he had expected sarcasm and anger, what the heck?) as the latter sighed, and pressed fingers to his nose’s bridge, just like Akon did every now and then, and like he'd done multiple times lately, when confronted with irrationality or complex decisions; he had taken after Kurotsuchi when it came to that gesture, as well as when it came to smoking, though Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou only did that with pipes and hookahs nowadays.

-Was this who I think she was?-, asked Kurotsuchi, eyes closed and fingers still massaging the space between his eyebrows, with the same tone one would have when asking two children why they misbehaved for the thousandth time, as he waved the other hand around. -The woman who I heard was going around talking about the Quincy she saw perched on Rukongai roofs while she distributed medicine for the flu?

-Y… yes, sir, Amanegawa Chiyo.

-Uh. And you say you knew her?

-Yes, sir. She was in the same unit you placed me during our examinations on Quincy prisoners, sir. She was then-

-Split from you, yes… I think I remember now.

Kurotsuchi stopped pinching his bridge and put both his hands behind his back, as he took in Akon fully a second time. Akon braced for impact: but it turned out, Kurotsuchi only wanted to lecture him.

-If there is one thing I have learned from all this, and I must truly thank you for being such obedient test subjects...- Kurotsuchi started proclaiming, while not sounding thankful at all, and like he was made of untouchable fog instead, -… it’s that even the most trained of lackeys resort to basic instincts. I was also foolish, I suppose, to always keep that notion in my head but never expect to see it turn into reality.

Kurotsuchi started walking past Akon, Hyosu, and all the other researchers frantically made way for him; some where stuck in a trance still due to the strange moment they were witnessing, so they had to get yanked back by the rest of the crowd.

When the Captain stopped his march, on the verge of leaving the long corridor which led to the room, everyone held their breath; and as he tilted his head slightly, about to address them from above his shoulder, Akon was sure he heard someone almost faint, probably taken over by the fear he would regard them with a scary smile, and reward their stupid hopes for being let off the hook with electrocution or something…

...But the Director spoke nonchalantly, the iconic shine of his golden irises clouded by heavy eyelids.

The lighting of the flickering lamp above allowed Akon to notice fat bags underneath his eyes that the make up struggled to hide.

-I suppose it’s only natural, on the path to perpetual evolution, to witness imperfection. Though in this case it was for a really stupid matter.

The Captain moved his hands in the air, gesticulating languidly as he proceeded to lay out his reasoning:

-The organic matter you found was useless, I am sure. She used a very powerful substance to give herself a death as painful and desctructive, mutilating one could say, as possible. I recognize those effects, they are from a poison I had reccommended to be used against the spread of noxious spores which happened 60 years ago in the 28th, 29th and 30th Districts, remember? It’s the only substance I can think of which could’ve melted her like that against the floor, leaving little to be harvested.

Kurotsuchi finished his rant with a sigh, closing his eyes and turning away before adding, with finality:

-Whatever you would’ve brought me of her remains would’ve been useless for my current projects. All I could possibly use her for is fertilizer, but I have no interest in keeping houseplants. You can do with her whatever you wish, since reparations also seem to be on their way to completion. No big ceremonies, and no more running around like thieving rats. Having said that, let this be a reminder that I am able to see every single one of your struggles and every single stupid attempt at going behind my back. Be thankful that it is irrelevant in this case, and get back to work.

Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou left them like that, mute and staring at each other in utter confusion, expressions shifting to convey bewilderment, extremely weirded out relief, and silent permissions to have a breakdown. Hana didn’t even wait for one of those and just fell to the ground, bawling her eyes out, followed by Megumi’s own frame, both of them shivering and shaking as if they had just come out for air after drowning in freezing water.

This time Akon was too busy looking at a spot on the pavement to listen to the voice, the same one which had reccommended he join their fool’s errand, asking him to extend a hand and settle it on their shoulders. He used it to grasp at his lab coat instead.

They finished scraping every bit of Chiyo from the floor that very same night.

Akon was the one who carried the last jar.

He put the last strand of fused scalp and hair from the pavement of the room into the jar, stood up, and looked around at all the creatures of nights spent barely awake, of rags wet with freezing water used to fend off the headaches to avoid ruining their guts with aggressive meds and getting addicted to self-destruction, of eyes burnt by lamps shining bright past healthy and appropriate hours on their gaunt faces, of hands wrinkled and dried by sanitizers, of bad postures caused by pressing forward chasing inventions when they should’ve been eating…

He looked at all those creatures with their lab coats on, staring at him impatiently, surrounding him. And as he went in front of them, he heard himself become one with their steps, their hushed murmured nothings, their chorus of bodies moving with an objective which had previously almost never been on their mind for what it truly was: burial.

They had almost never buried their own kind.

As he guided them for one last time to the crematorium... as they bid their last goodbye to a woman none of them had really bothered to know (aside from the formalities they needed to work with her and keep their distance from her)… as they gave everything a last look before dispersing and, for once, going to sleep pretty much all at the same time…

Akon felt it, truly, wholly, for the first time in so long. Felt he was one of those many creatures, submerged as he’d been in that communion which had come too late, trying to be an ideal human after the years spent behaving like the worst version of one, trying to reach for a virtue they were too tainted to ever deserve.

But they tried anyway, didn’t they? They were nothing if not unrepentant sinners; realization is never atonement after all, and the road to hell is paved by good intentions… and half-assed attempts.

They really didn’t deserve to wallow in self pity, so none of them did: like Mayuri had ordered, there had been no big ceremonies, and they agreed with that. No one had mentioned how Chiyo’s eyes used to lit up for her favourite strawberry snacks, or how she always sang the same folk song whenever she gathered the first and last bunch of data of the day, even as she looked at her surroundings like a ghoul could jump out and eat her at any second, or how she’d always tied her hair in the very same chignon and with the very same hair-tie everyday of every week.

They shared what little they had left of compassion in the shape of a mute, all-too self-aware vigil, and walked back to their dens when they finished, slithering snakes knowing they couldn’t dare be crying for horrors done out of their own volition.

Akon hadn’t gone to sleep like all the others: as soon as he’d found himself facing the door to his quarters, he’d stood there, unthinking, breathing, looking down at his feet, hands in his pockets.

He’d found himself walking to Kurotsuchi’s quarters instead.

The first thing he noticed was that he didn’t need to ask Kurotsuchi for permission… because the automatic door hadn’t been preemptively locked. It was something that Kurotsuchi tended to always do, in order to avoid it opening at every random person passing by; but it seemed like it wasn’t the case this time, and Akon entered with no issue.

The second thing he noticed, after the automatic door closed behind him, was the light, which was of a blue hue, the only source of illumination in the very dark room. It shone behind the very tall pod where a nervous system, the size that would’ve befitted a humanoid child’s, was floating, still in the stages of development.

The third thing he noticed was Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou’s frame, slumped uncerimoniously on his armchair, head held up by his right hand as he… slept? His eyes were closed and there was no twitching. Hadn’t he noticed Akon coming in?

Akon stood in silence in front of the pod, looking at the bubbles inside floating upwards and at the marvel of anatomy, which would be Kurotsuchi’s next greatest iteration of the Nemuri Project once fully developed, floating peacefully alongside them in the bioluminescent fluid.

He slowly started pondering what was going to happen once the child had fully developed. Would he have to reassure her like he had done for Nemu? Would it even become a she? It was highly likely, wasn’t it, given that in the end the mixture of DNA was the same and thusly her brain could have very easily desired a similar gender identity, considering that she would also develop in a similar environment and being cared for by similar people, but still… Would they get Nemu back? Would it be someone different?

Akon found himself not caring much. Whoever it became, he would shoulder its development of a conscience like before. He always would: he was cursed to stand by Mayuri’s side since they’d been whisked out of the Maggot’s Nest, since they’d recognized each other’s penchant for not fitting in and for desiring the undesirable in life in order to see it get interesting, in order for it to be worthy. From dirt they had risen, and with the dirtiest matters they would dabble.

But maybe that took a toll, even on those that enjoyed it. He found himself thinking about Mayuri’s eyebags. Too heavy this time. The make up hadn’t managed to cover them. He turned around to look at his Captain’s face, curious to check if he had inadvertedly developed more signs of his exhaustion which he had been too busy panicking to notice before...

… and almost jumped out of his skin when met with a pair of half-lidded golden eyes, glowing faintly on a mask of white skin striped with black, stuck in a worn-out frown.

Watching him.

Again there was silence between the two of them, again they looked at each other’s faces while finding nothing very useful on them. Mayuri broke the ice first.

-She is not developing normally.

-Oh?

Mayuri didn’t move from his seat, nor did he follow Akon with his eyes as the Lieutenant backed off from the pod to observe it from a distance, at Mayuri’s side. He simply droned, his tone not unlike the one he'd used when he'd taught Akon the ropes.

-The process will be slower than it was with Nemu, I can tell. The personality they will receive may also be different, maybe the complete opposite. I have been wracking my brains as to why, if something happened during the fight, if there could have been something wrong in the fluids of the pod, but… Perhaps I shouldn’t.

He heard Mayuri inhaling and then exhaling with control, but didn’t shift his vision yet to take him in again.

-After all… You showed me how unpredictability can penetrate every project, today.

Akon whipped his head towards Mayuri at that moment.

-K… Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou…!

-You had no guarantee I wouldn’t change my mind and punish you all, but you did one final procession anyway... and then all went to sleep.

Mayuri’s golden irises hooked onto his darker ones and didn’t budge.

-All but you. Any further regrets you want to bore me with… or must you really ask me why I didn’t punish you, mh?

-Uhm…

-It’s simple really. I did not have the time.

-...Oh.

-Yes. I wanted to focus on the issue of Hachigo not developing any further than this for the last week, you see?

-Oh.

-You really are that surprised, aren’t you? You usually have more intelligent replies than “oh”.

-Very sorry, sir.

-Mh. Already better than a mere sound.

Akon was glad the Captain could still formulate some snark; it made a smirk find its way on his face. But there was still one question which plagued him, and that made his smirk die almost immediately. He didn’t know if it would do him well to ask for clarifications to the Director. But the need to do so was too strong, it had plagued him for the entire day, so he went and did it, self-preservation be damned.

-Do you think Chiyo was wrong?

Once again silenced reigned supreme around them, but when Akon flicked his eyes back to Mayuri and saw the Captain was still staring at him, he could see the gears in the much older Shinigami’s brain turning.

-...No.

What?

-Sir? I thought you’d…

-And I thought you’d learned by now that there is no set answer with me. The only thing that’s predictable about me is that I am unpredictable.

This time Mayuri’s eyes weren’t half-lidded because of a migraine, or because of burn-out, they were like that because he was eyeing at Akon as if he was wearing stupidity on his person like a funky pair of glasses.

-Let’s see if you can understand it if I feed you this information, - Mayuri said, moving his gaze once more so he was staring at the pod and his creation, but pushing his head off his right hand and allowing the limb to rest on his seat’s armrest like the other.

-She spoke to me about the Quincy too, and I sent her away. Two days after, the Quincy sent us flying and our labs were destroyed. I should have surveilled the Rukongai much more, knowing that they could manipulate Reishi.

Akon was bewildered. Was Mayuri recognizing a mistake? Not even most researchers had… What the hell? He guessed this was as close as Mayuri would go with it but… This was unheard of.

He hadn’t apologized, which was in line with his usual self; however, this was undoubtedly Mayuri giving merit to a basically unknown researcher. Strange. And he had definitely added that last bit in order to diminish what he'd said, but it kept echoing in Akon's brain and he would probably never forget it.

-And one last thing, I believe, is of note.

Akon perked up and focused again on what Mayuri was saying. What else was he going to say? That he wore pink pijamas before going to sleep, that he enjoyed eting donuts in the morning when no one was looking?

That he wanted to marry Kyouraku-sotaichou?

But it wasn’t that.

-I had expected her to commit suicide much sooner.

Akon wasn’t breathing, he was sure of it. His heart skipped a beat, his brain was the only one active enough, rushing to acquire information about this surprisingly revealing exchange he was having with his captain in a rare moment in which he didn’t give a shit.

-I had actually thought your attempts to make her feel better, back then, would make her worse,- Mayuri was saying, ignorant of the surprise he had set off in Akon and which was turning him upside down, -But, they didn’t. Aside from the timing though, it was obvious she had joined with the wrong idea of what this Division would become. While Urahara, curse him, probably wouldn’t have gone about the Quincy business like I had, she would have still dissected plenty Hollows, I guarantee it, or corpses of those maimed by them. This place was clearly too much for her, and she wasn’t going to leave for the Maggot’s Nest, either, so I do not think she was “wrong”, exactly. Just… at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Maybe she would have even stabilized had there been no Quincy incursion. But I am not angry at her.

With a final click of his tongue, Mayuri concluded:

-Why would I be angry for witnessing a perfectly predictable, and most probable, result? It was too much, so she preferred to leave. She probably thought she had found justice, like her bleeding heart had wanted when she was still alive, by going away the way she did… and that is that.

Mayuri looked at Akon once more, this time spinning his armchair so that he was facing Akon fully.

-Have I given satisfactory answers? Will you go to sleep, or cry your heart out, and be functional again tomorrow?

Akon stuttered a bit, blast him, before nodding and bowing, uttering a tight “yessir, thank you sir”. Mayuri scoffed lightly at him, spun back, and with a wave of his hand, Akon was dismissed. He looked behind him as he walked out, his head still swimming in uncertain waters and feeling lighter than usual, and noticed not only how Mayuri positioned his head on his right hand again, closing his eyes once more, but how, when the automatic doors closed this time, they locked firmly in place, never to be opened again that night.

The next morning, everything was back to normal.

Akon’s headache was almost no more, so much so that he had tentatively removed the bandages around the injury; he’d gone back to smoking three cigs a day, not five.

Hyosu wasn’t wringing his chubby hands nervously anymore.

Megumi and Hana (they were brothers, Akon would discover when they had lunch that day) were hugging not because they were scared, but because they could focus only if they were both at the same computer.

Kurotsuchi-kyoukuchou wasn’t slouching in his chair in front of the monitors, he wasn’t sitting at all in fact, he was standing and walking all over the place with his measured pace, ordering them around and checking nosily over their work like his old self, make-up perfectly in place and golden eyes shimmering with his typical mirth and astute malice, his smile widening whenever he answered a new recruit’s questions with sarcasm.

There was no Chiyo lying dead and brutally melted in a forgotten, cramped local.

Akon had allowed himself to be a better person, rather than a mere machine, one of many human monsters, for a while... They all had; but, he guessed, it was time they all went to work.

... Let Chiyo rest in peace, far away from their sorry, cruel asses.