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.
Notes:
If you’ve read Kagami no Ningyou, you may remember where Akashi first received the wound he carries here. The blade mattered. So did the moment. Watch how it lingers.
Chapter 2: Slipped Stitches
Chapter Text
The Honmaru garden shimmered under early mist. Dew laced the bamboo, and the sky glowed a pale, uncertain gray.
Akashi sat beneath the awning, back against the post, eyes half-lidded in the pose of peace.
But his fingers twitched faintly near his sword.
Something was wrong.
He couldn’t name it—only the pressure behind his eyes, the crawl down his spine like a memory half-recalled.
And then—
A flash.
Salt air.
Roaring water.
The sharp tang of steel and smoke.
Hotarumaru’s voice—calling. For him?
A ship crumbled in flames.
The tiny form of his brother—backlit—slipping—
Gone .
It hit like memory, but sharper.
More vivid. Louder.
Like something he’d lived through twice.
The vision dissolved. Only the rush of blood in his ears remained.
The garden was still whole. Unbroken.
But the dread had rooted deep.
The ache beneath his ribs flared once, then quieted.
That night, he didn’t sleep.
He sat with his back against the wall of his room, eyes open to the ceiling, listening for something he couldn’t name.
When Hotarumaru’s soft footsteps passed outside his door, he didn’t call out.
He just pressed his fingers to his left wrist, as if to make sure he still existed.
***
The next night brought a dream.
Not fire. Not water.
A thread.
Thin. Silk-bright. Suspended from nowhere.
At its end—Hotarumaru.
Not the boy who hummed on the veranda.
This one hung—just above the ground. Limbs slack. Legs too straight.
Posed. Left behind.
His head tilted—not curious, but off-balance.
One eye glinted. Not kind. Not soft. Just reflective—lacquered glass catching flame.
Hotarumaru blinked.
Then smiled—too wide. Too still.
Exactly like the one in the rift.
Akashi woke with his hand clenched around the blanket, breath caught in his chest.
His side burned.
His hands shook for minutes.
“I won’t let that happen again,” he whispered. “Never again.”
***
The next morning was ordinary.
Aizen grumbling over drills.
Hotarumaru wandering the hall, half-asleep and eating a bun.
Akashi trailed behind, shoulders slouched, hands tucked in his sleeves.
But his eyes were sharp. Watching.
“Barely awake again, Kuniyuki?” Aizen teased.
“Mm,” Akashi replied.
A classic non-answer.
“You’re not even trying to hide it anymore.” Aizen tossed casually over his shoulder as he turned away. “Lazy old man.”
No huff, no retort. Just silence.
Aizen glanced back, considering.
Hotarumaru offered him the last bite of the bun. “Want some, Kuniyuki?”
He shook his head faintly. “Not hungry.”
He didn’t tell them that the hallway had been different just seconds ago—two sliding doors too many. He’d blinked, and the world had realigned, as if it never changed.
He said nothing.
The pain in his side hadn’t left. It lingered – low, rhythmic. Familiar in a way it shouldn’t have been.
***
That afternoon: routine deployment. Small cleanup detail.
Not dangerous. Not urgent.
But the timeline had been strange lately.
The field was overgrown. Empty.
An old temple, untouched by anything living.
They dispatched the echoes with practiced ease—until Akashi struck one down.
And it bled.
He froze.
“Swords don’t bleed,” Aizen commented, flicking ichor from his tantō.
But Akashi saw it.
Not ash. Not mist.
Pale. Human.
He crouched down to touch it, and the blood vanished like water on a hot stone.
The smell of copper still lingered in the air.
“Something wrong?” Hotarumaru called out.
Akashi paused. “It’s nothing.”
Another ripple. Another fracture.
He didn’t tell them the sword had shifted weight in his grip—or that, just for a breath, it had been in his left hand. Like it remembered something he didn’t.
***
That evening, Akashi sat alone again under the awning, knees drawn up, arms draped loosely over them. The crickets were louder tonight. Or maybe he was just listening too hard.
The vision hadn’t returned, but he couldn’t unsee it. Hotarumaru’s voice—rising above fire and seafoam.
Gone.
The pain was a constant bite in his side now.
He pressed his fingers to his left wrist. Again.
Chapter 3: Bending the Glass
Chapter Text
Night fell over the Honmaru with the hush of falling snow, though no snow lay on the ground.
In the archive room, candlelight flickered over centuries of record scrolls.
Akashi stood in the dim silence, staring at an open mission ledger.
The parchment recorded dozens of sorties—dates and names written in practiced hands. But something was wrong.
One scroll listed Hotarumaru—alone—on a sortie dated three days from now.
Akashi’s stomach dropped.
That wasn’t right. Missions didn’t get assigned like that, not anymore. Not with the stability team policy in place.
Behind him, the tatami creaked.
“You’re still up, Akashi?” Hotarumaru’s quiet voice cut through the silence.
He straightened too fast.
He never calls me that.
Hotarumaru’s next utterance was tentative. “Kuniyuki?”
He blinked.
The name was gone.
Uguisumaru’s name stood in its place.
Had it always?
The scroll’s edge crinkled in his hand.
“Yeah. Just… couldn’t sleep.”
Hotarumaru stepped closer, clutching a woven blanket around his small frame.
His eyes, ever kind, were too observant. “You looked scared.”
Akashi looked away. “Don’t worry about me.”
Hotarumaru tilted his head, expression soft. “If you’re scared, we can be scared together.”
Something about that cracked right through him. He gave a ghost of a smile.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
He didn’t tell him the truth. And that—was the problem.
***
The next mission came too soon. A patrol into a fragile period of the Sengoku era—but with an unusual change.
Hotarumaru had been assigned to another unit.
Akashi’s heart stopped.
He stared at the mission sheet handed down by the administrative swords, jaw tight as he scanned the name placements again and again.
Unit Two. Hotarumaru. Departure at dawn.
Not under his watch.
He didn’t remember standing up.
Only that the wound burned—not hot, but deep.
Like a command he didn’t know he’d heard.
“Something wrong with the briefing?” Aizen asked, peering over his shoulder.
Akashi didn’t answer. He handed the paper back, his grip just a bit too tight. The scroll creased in his fingers.
“Nah,” he muttered, voice low. “Just another cleanup job.”
***
There was a ripple in the corridor.
Akashi stopped.
The shadows bent too cleanly around the lantern light.
The air shifted—just slightly, like silk pulled taut.
He blinked.
And for a breathless moment—he was somewhere else.
A chamber hung in stillness.
Fine cords glistened from beams above—silver, silent.
And suspended midair—limbs slack, eyes wide—
Hotarumaru.
No—just a hollow echo. Strung and still.
His eyes caught the light wrong.
His smile stayed frozen—too wide, brittle as glass.
The cords didn’t sway.
The air had no weight.
It wasn’t a dream. It was something fed to him.
Akashi stepped back.
The vision cracked—
—and he hit the floor with a muffled thud.
From down the hall, Aizen turned sharply.
By the time he reached him, Akashi was sitting up, breath shallow.
“Another ripple?” Aizen asked.
Akashi didn’t answer. He stared at his hands—still trembling.
Then, softly, like a confession:
“What if it wasn’t just a dream?” His voice broke slightly. “What if I see it because it’s going to happen again?”
Aizen didn’t respond right away.
He crouched beside him, gaze steady—but unreadable.
Akashi didn’t look up. He seemed lost in a place Aizen couldn’t follow.
So he didn’t push.
Just sat with him. Quiet.
He doesn’t make sense, Aizen thought.
But I’ve seen that look before.
I’ll keep an eye on him. Just in case.
He didn’t say it aloud.
Didn’t need to.
But his gaze sharpened slightly. And he stayed there long after Akashi stopped shaking.
***
The dreams always began the same way:
With him watching helplessly, distant and sealed away,
as Hotarumaru—the real ōdachi—was lost to the currents in the dying days of a forgotten war.
The sea swallowing steel.
Silence crushing breath and hope.
And Akashi would awaken with his side on fire.
He refused sleep, and found himself asking questions no one dared ask.
What if he’d moved faster? Disobeyed? Chosen love, not duty?
He might become the shard sharp enough to cut fate itself.
The thought festered.
It grew claws.
At night, the paper reappeared in his mind like a curse.
The distortion whispered a promise—
“You can change it.”
He took it.
***
He sat in the dim stillness of the archive corridor, alone but wide awake. He could still see the brushstrokes of Hotarumaru’s name—innocuous, as if the universe hadn’t already tried to take him once.
The thought curled around him, tight and barbed.
He opened the records.
Silently, carefully, he altered the roster.
Hotarumaru’s name vanished from Unit Two.
He inserted an older blade—less critical. The logic would hold up under scrutiny.
Probably. He hoped.
The ink bled colder than it should have.
The characters shimmered faintly—like they’d been waiting for this.
He sealed the scroll again and exhaled—shaking.
It felt like touching the water’s surface—and seeing the reflection move.
Just once, he told himself. Just this once.
But already, something had shifted. A fracture. A ripple.
And it would never settle back the same way again.
Chapter 4: Web of Inversions
Chapter Text
Akashi had stopped looking at people when he spoke.
Aizen had started watching more closely.
The moments between moments.
The silence between orders.
Something was unraveling—slow and quiet, like thread pulling free from a sleeve.
***
Hotarumaru sat alone in the courtyard, legs tucked beneath him, hands resting quietly in his lap.
The wind brushed past the paper lanterns strung overhead, and he tilted his head, listening. Even the air felt… different lately. Thicker. Still.
He could feel it in Akashi. The tightness behind his lazy half-smiles. The way his eyes lingered too long when he thought no one noticed.
And in Aizen, too—sharper lately. Like a little flame that sputtered more than usual, trying to spark something that wouldn’t catch.
Hotarumaru had always trusted them. Followed without hesitation.
But lately, it felt like they were all dancing around something invisible.
Something cold.
He thought about the strange pull he’d felt on their last mission—
how time had felt like it was bending sideways, like a sword warped in fire.
How his blade had felt too light.
He plucked a fallen sakura petal from his sleeve.
“It’s okay to be scared,” he murmured aloud, to no one.
His reflection shimmered faintly in the water basin beside him.
It blinked—once—when he didn’t.
And then it smiled.
A little too slow.
A little too wide.
***
He hadn’t planned it.
Or maybe he had—quietly, over dozens of sleepless nights and altered ledgers.
So when the new rift opened—raw, unsanctioned, wrong—he was already halfway through it.
He told no one.
Not Aizen.
Especially not Hotarumaru.
He only left behind a single written notice:
“I’ll fix it. Don’t follow.”
***
The world on the other side was wrong.
The rift shimmered before him—silent, silver-bright.
As he stepped through, the mist caught against his sleeve.
Fine. Clinging. Like thread.
He shook it off too quickly.
At least the pain had disappeared the moment he entered the rift.
He was not followed.
Not at first.
He’d chosen an entry point where no other sword had business. Anomaly cluster. Secondary distortion zone.
The kind the Time Authority would clear slowly—if at all.
Then he found it—the moment.
A ship at harbor. Crates loaded in silence.
Hotarumaru, in the form of a blade, being carefully packed for transport in a crate stamped with the rising sun.
A nameplate beside it.
Bound for war.
Akashi stared in horror.
If he destroyed the shipment manifest here—burned the crates, tore down the port records—Hotarumaru would never leave.
He’d never vanish into the sea.
He drew his blade, and braced for combat.
***
He never saw the distortion strike.
It took the form of a young soldier—a man who might have loaded the crate. Might have lived. Might have died.
Akashi cut him down.
And another.
And another.
Blood was everywhere.
Human blood.
The timeline resisted his interference like a living creature. History fought back, bleeding memory into monsters.
The harbour looked like a battlefield now—familiar terrain—but twisted. The sky was too dark. The horizon folded in on itself. And scattered through the smoke, echoes flickered—half-formed figures shaped like people he knew.
But they weren’t people. They weren’t even ghosts.
They were distortions.
He moved through the wreckage, blade drawn in his left hand—his true dominant side, the one he rarely used anymore. The weight felt natural. Too natural.
Time unraveled around him, reacting to his presence.
And somewhere, in the act of defiance, he lost sight of who he was fighting for.
He heard a voice—familiar, soft.
“Why are you doing this…?”
He turned, and there stood Hotarumaru, or the shape of him—eyes hollowed, face serene, but gaze tinged with accusation.
Not real. A reflection. But it pierced deeper than steel.
“I’m protecting you!” Akashi shouted, voice breaking.
But the distortion swallowed the words whole.
***
He didn’t realise at first that Aizen had followed him in.
Of course the younger blade would.
He saw what Akashi had become.
The battlefield, blood-slick and twisted.
Echoes clawing out of time.
The wreckage of restraint.
“You lied to us.”
Aizen’s voice—clear. Raw. Full of disbelief. Of fire.
The sound of a brother watching the man he trusted break himself from the inside out.
He saw him rush forward—into smoke, into mirrors.
Blades flashed. A shadow snarled.
Then the mist thickened.
Akashi lost sight of him.
Then something broke—quietly, wrong—like a string snapping deep in his chest.
He didn’t see it happen.
But he felt it.
And for a moment, the world moved without rhythm.
He didn’t call out. Didn’t look back. He was afraid of what he’d see.
Then Aizen materialised again at his side, and they moved on through the battlefield.
“This way,” Aizen said—too softly.
The tone landed flat, like something recited from memory.
He turned to strike left—too slow.
No blade followed from behind.
The gap in timing struck him as strange.
But he adjusted—alone.
***
Now the distortions grew stronger.
Each memory corrupted turned into another monster. A failed mission. A name he couldn’t protect. A regret that never left.
Hotarumaru.
Aizen.
Even himself.
They mirrored him—his fear, his guilt, his obsession. And in every reflection, he lost a piece of himself trying to fight them back.
And finally, when there was no one left to hold him steady—
He turned.
Not instantly. Not all at once.
But over days. Weeks. Years. Or perhaps just seconds in a fractured plane of time, where regret carves deepest.
He rewrote timelines—pulling Hotarumaru from fate’s grasp again and again. But each time, the world frayed. And the boy’s smile slipped further away. Until all that remained was rot and one terrible truth:
He was never meant to save him.
So he became something else.
Because by the time he realized they were too far gone, he couldn’t fix it.
He wasn’t fast enough.
Wasn’t strong enough.
He had shattered time to save what he loved—and all it did was show him the pieces he could never mend.
He awoke one day and could no longer tell—
Was he still trying to save Hotarumaru?
Or had he only ever wanted to become someone who never failed?
Chapter 5: In the Wake of the Unravelling
Chapter Text
The rift had no sky. No horizon.
Only a weightless dusk that never changed.
He sat with the truth now. Heavy, irreversible.
He had tried to stop it.
But each attempt had cracked the world deeper.
And still—he’d tried.
Until all that remained was this.
The first time had been a desperate act—he’d seen the records. Hotarumaru’s blade, sunk in the Pacific. Lost. Irrecoverable.
And he had known, with perfect clarity, that he couldn’t let it happen. Not again. Not when there was still a chance.
He could change it. He had to.
So he slipped through time’s seams.
Again.
And again.
Each attempt left deeper cracks.
He’d thought he’d chosen this.
But now he knew:
The fall hadn’t been clean. It had been engineered .
Every crack in the timeline, every slip of ink, every word he never spoke.
Now, in the quiet, he could see it clearer:
The wound hadn’t bled the way it should have.
It had settled — deep and exact — warping everything beneath it.
Not loudly. Not with malice.
Just a slow rethreading of the way the world felt.
Until it all made sense, though none of it did.
Until desperation looked like logic, and love like a knife with purpose.
He still bore the guilt.
And he should have noticed.
The Aizen he thought had followed was never the same after that first dive.
He didn’t realize until too late that it wasn’t Aizen at all.
He should have asked.
Should have known.
The real Aizen had died in that first clash—cut down by a shadow version of himself that took his place so seamlessly that Akashi, already half-mad from ambition, hadn’t even noticed.
No.
Not Akashi.
That name belonged to someone who still believed.
He used to hear it spoken softly—drawn out in exasperation by Aizen, half-laughed by Hotarumaru like it was something sacred.
They even called him Kuniyuki too.
Now it felt like a ghost clinging to bones that no longer fit.
And the thing that wore Aizen’s face hated him.
Not just for failing—but for choosing.
Every time he reached for Hotarumaru, it watched.
Every time he turned his back on the edge of their bond to chase one more fragment of the past, it festered.
And Hotarumaru… sweet, bright Hotarumaru…
He pressed his palms into his eyes.
He had followed them.
When neither of them had come back, he followed.
Down through the rift, into the spiral.
He still remembered the first time the boy’s voice echoed strangely in the rift—slurred, split, like someone trying to remember what being loved felt like.
And the longer they stayed, the less Hotarumaru saw them. Heard them.
His form blurred—too long without anchor, too long alone.
Until one day he said: You forgot me.
And he had nothing to say in return.
Because it was true.
The version who once hummed lullabies beside Hotarumaru’s bed was gone.
Hollowed out by hope.
Shaped by loss.
Driven not by love,
but by desperation pretending to be it.
Something willing to trade everything for a second chance.
Even his brothers.
Even himself.
The laughter of Aizen’s double haunted these edges now—cruel, guttural, warped by resentment. He hunted through the rift like a fire given voice.
And Hotarumaru?
He didn’t even speak anymore. He just watched with those wide, glowing eyes—too bright, too empty.
He—
He turned away.
From them.
From what he’d become.
“I didn’t want this,” he whispered to the silence.
The sound of footsteps behind him didn’t make him flinch anymore.
He turned slowly.
The thing that was supposed to be Aizen stood there, blade resting lazily on his shoulder.
“Well?” the double sneered. “Happy ending yet, hero?”
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t lift his blade.
He just looked at him.
He knew it wasn’t him.
Not anymore.
But still—he couldn’t look away.
The stance. The eyes. The fire beneath the sneer.
So much of it was wrong.
But not all.
He remembered that voice.
You lied to us.
It had been so clear.
Not hollow. Not monstrous.
Just—real.
A final truth, thrown at him without armor.
And he—
He hadn’t even noticed.
Hadn’t turned around.
Hadn’t registered the moment Aizen disappeared into the rift and didn’t come back.
His throat tightened.
There was no redemption.
No logic.
Only the silence that came after all the excuses fell apart.
He looked the thing in the eyes—his brother’s echo, hollowed and wrong.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Quietly.
Truthfully.
Not to win. Not to fix anything.
Just to be heard by someone who still wore his brother’s face.
That stunned the thing into silence for half a breath.
Then it grinned, wide and cracked. “Too late for that.”
He nodded once.
“I know.”
The echo turned and disappeared again in a whirl of high, mocking laughter, like smoke caught in wind.
He remained in the quiet after.
When he stepped forward once more, something shimmered—a reflection caught in a fractured pane.
Hotarumaru’s eyes, wide with trust.
He reached for it.
It dissolved.
That trust was long gone.
He knew that this was what he had made.
And knew, too—
That when the next mirrors came, he would not fight them.
Not really.
He would test them.
Because if they could win—
Maybe, just maybe—
They’d be the ones to do what he no longer could.
And save the ones he’d already lost.
Or at least…
Remember the shape they once took, before the mirror broke.
***
Time passed.
Or maybe it didn’t.
There were no clocks in the rift, only consequences.
He sat again at the edge of nothing, his back against what might once have been a tree, his breath rattling in lungs that hadn’t needed to breathe in years. The silence pressed in, thick as seawater, clinging to every thought he couldn’t unthink.
Somewhere out there—his brothers screamed.
Not in pain. Not anymore.
But in distortion.
In the last thrashing vestiges of who they used to be.
Aizen’s double vanished in a snarl of embers.
Hotarumaru’s shadow fell like a fractured doll, flickering once—then gone.
And he—what remained of him—stood in the soot of silence.
He didn’t move.
He couldn’t.
The ash beneath him clung like regret, heavy with the remnants of what had once been his purpose.
All the fire, all the fury, all the terrible momentum… spent.
He had nothing left to protect now.
Nothing left to lose.
And still, the ache lingered—low and endless—gnawing at the hollow in his chest where their voices used to be.
Even in corruption, they had been familiar.
They had followed him.
Mocked him.
Stayed near.
He had failed them in every timeline.
But at least here, they had remained.
Until now.
He lowered his blade.
Smoke curled up around his knees like sea mist, wrapping around his form with a sick kind of gentleness.
He stared at the place where Aizen’s double had fallen.
The hatred that one carried wasn’t just venom.
It was pain, sharpened and left to fester.
The real Aizen would never say those words aloud.
But his shadow had.
And he had listened.
And Hotarumaru—his precious, distorted shadow.
That last flicker of light in a body grown twisted by time and neglect.
His smile had broken something in him even at the end.
“I was supposed to save you,” he whispered into the silence. “Not bury you.”
He closed his eyes.
The rift still groaned quietly in the distance, churning like a tide that never turned.
Somewhere beyond it, he could sense them—real and bright.
The three who had walked in whole, not yet unraveled.
His mirror.
The true Hotarumaru.
The real Aizen.
He didn’t feel anger toward them.
Not anymore.
He felt tired.
More tired than he had ever been.
And somewhere, deep in that tiredness, the words echoed back to him—sharp, unshakable.
Too late for that.
He’d said nothing in reply then.
He still had nothing to say now.
He straightened slowly, dragging the edge of his sleeve across his weary face.
He wouldn’t fight it anymore.
If fate meant to undo him, let it come.
He would meet it with open eyes.
And so, step by step, he walked into the mist again—
toward the fading sounds of battle,
toward the trio.
They had chosen each other.
Not the past.
Not ghosts.
Toward the end.
Chapter 6: Sharded Light
Chapter Text
The battlefield lay broken, hollow and split open by grief from the echo of Hotarumaru’s shadow’s fall.
But the mist hadn’t cleared.
He stepped in, calm as the tide.
He’d been waiting all along.
His mirror stiffened. Injured but whole. Still clean .
He stopped, tilting his head in idle curiosity as he regarded the trio before him.
"So this is what I should become. Loyal. Tired. Bleeding for people I swore I’d never care about."
And then he saw them.
Hotarumaru—still himself. Soft. Steady. Real.
And Aizen—jaw set, fire bright behind his eyes.
For a moment, time didn’t move.
Hotarumaru edged out from behind his mirror, brushing his sleeve.
"That’s not you," he told his double, but something in his voice trembled.
His eyes flicked to Hotarumaru, and for a heartbeat—just one—his expression cracked.
A fragile fissure in his calm.
A flicker of the man he once was, buried beneath years of regret and broken hope.
“I tried to save him,” he murmured, voice like ash. “To stop the waves from taking him. I broke time to rewrite that moment.”
He felt his chest tighten with emotion he didn’t know he was still capable of feeling.
"I tore time itself apart for you. And no one stopped me—until it was too late."
Hotarumaru stood frozen, his lips parting, the light flickering in his wide eyes. Still sweet. Still bright.
His double hitched a breath. "That’s why you turned?" he asked, hoarse.
He smiled—slow, weary. "No. I turned because no one let me."
Then Aizen stepped forward, blade raised. "We’re not going to let you rewrite history," he said, voice sharp—but steadier than before. "No matter how much it hurts."
His gaze shifted to the tantou.
Not the shadow who had mocked him. Not the double who had sneered at every failure.
But the real one.
Fierce. Loyal. Still whole—somehow—even after everything.
He thought of the other Aizen—the one who had taken his brother’s face and filled it with poison.
The one who spat hate, who wanted to hurt him…
because he’d been left behind, too.
He had never said it.
Not when it would have mattered.
But looking at Aizen now—alive, steady—he wished he had.
Even just once.
Regret twisted like a knife.
I failed both of you, he thought, voice lost even to himself.
And still… you came back to me.
Then Akashi—the one who hadn’t shattered—stopped his brothers. "No. This one’s mine."
His companions protested, but his mirror simply shifted the blade he held to his left hand.
Matching him.
The wind shifted.
Then—
Akashi and he vanished into motion.
Steel clashed. Faster than before. Harder. Cleaner.
They moved as one—each strike met with its twin, every parry a perfect echo.
Each blow cutting through reflection, memory, and regret.
"You hesitate," he snarled mid-swing, watching his younger counterpart grit his teeth.
"Because you know I was right."
But his double didn’t snap back with anger.
"No," Akashi murmured, voice low but clear. "I hesitate because I understand you."
A flicker passed across his own face—his mask cracking.
"You tried to save him," his mirror said, parrying a downward arc. "You reached too far back. You drowned in it. And I… I see it now."
Another strike. A shift. He staggered back.
"You broke because no one reached back. But I’m here now. I see you."
His double shifted his stance.
Left hand forward. Weight balanced. Blade drawn inward.
He knew it.
He’d used that form before.
A clean, finishing blow. Fast enough to turn a battle.
No hesitation. No compassion.
A killing move on one who had worn his face.
And now it faced him—precise, inevitable.
A perfect echo.
Of course this was how it would end.
By his own hand.
By the same blade.
By the same rule.
Poetic justice.
He braced for the cut.
But as their eyes locked in that final instant--
There was something else.
Not vengeance.
Not scorn.
Something quieter.
Something still.
“And I forgive you.”
His breath caught.
Not because of the words.
But because of the name that followed them—
soft, certain, unmistakable.
“Akashi Kuniyuki.”
For a moment, he forgot the blade.
Forgot the stance.
Forgot the end that was coming.
That name— his name—spoken without hatred, without fear…
It landed deeper than any cut.
Like a thread drawn through the fray, stitching him back into himself—if only for a moment.
The blade in the other’s hand glowed.
"Shinken hissatsu," he heard—and his mirror vanished.
Then time caught up.
The blade carved cleanly through his chest—not with rage, but with stillness.
He gasped—not from pain, but from the weight that left him as the blade passed through.
He staggered. Not from the wound—but from the understanding.
He had expected justice. But what met him was mercy. And it unmade him more than steel ever could.
His body, broken by years of resisting the flow of time, crumpled as the corruption slipped away.
In those last moments, clarity burned through the fog of despair.
He saw the bond between the three of them again—the warmth he’d tried to hold onto in his own twisted way.
It had never left.
It had only warped through his desperation.
He looked over at Hotarumaru—eyes wide, fighting tears—and then at Aizen, jaw clenched, standing protectively at his side.
They looked exactly the way he remembered.
Not twisted by the rift.
Not worn down by grief.
Not warped into mockeries like the ones he had fought, or failed.
Just them.
Whole. Alive. Together.
The way he had wanted them to stay.
His form flickered—the last vestiges of corruption retreating like shadows at dawn.
He had tried to change history to keep them safe… and had ended up becoming the threat he feared.
I kept holding on,
even when I knew the fall was coming.
Even when I knew I wasn’t saving anyone anymore.
His eyes found Akashi now—injured, breathing hard, steady—true—looking at him with eyes wide with shared grief.
The one who had carried everything he couldn’t.
The one who had loved them without destroying them.
"You let go," he said, barely a whisper. "You did what I couldn’t."
He smiled—small, quiet.
"Thank you," he murmured.
For being the one to end me.
He held Akashi’s gaze.
Choose different.
After receiving a barely imperceptible nod, his form blackened and scattered like crumbling ash on the wind.
And then he was gone—leaving behind nothing but silence,
and a shadow no longer bound, but seen.
Somewhere, the rift breathed.
Chapter 7: Where Scattered Shards Settle
Chapter Text
Ash drifted through the rift like snow in a void without sky.
Akashi stood still, blade lowered, eyes locked on the space where his corrupted double had vanished.
He didn’t breathe.
He didn’t blink.
He just… remained.
There was no echo left.
No ghost or scream or fire.
Just the stillness that followed after something too broken to hate had finally stopped moving.
He should have felt triumph. Or grief. Or something clean.
Instead, he stared at the empty air.
Not with pity. Not with fear.
But something quieter. Older.
Recognition.
So this is what I could have become.
He didn’t speak the words aloud.
But in the hollow where silence echoed, they rang clearly.
The fall hadn’t been weakness.
It had been weight.
And he had nearly carried it too.
He lowered his blade a little further.
And nodded — not to the ash, not to the dead,
but to the space where he had spoken their name.
Hotarumaru reached him first. He didn’t speak—just curled his fingers around the edge of Akashi’s sleeve.
Steady.
Real.
Aizen followed, footsteps light, yet resolute. His gaze held no fury, only a wary understanding as he stopped beside them.
“You’re shaking,” he said to Akashi.
“I’m tired,” came the reply. But not dismissive like before.
Akashi swayed slightly. Then slowly, he lowered himself to one knee.
Hotarumaru’s knelt beside him. “You’re worse than you said—why didn’t you—?”
“Because if I stopped…” Akashi replied, his breathing shallow and stained with red, “I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.”
Each breath caught painfully against the wound in his side. But his eyes were clear. Fixed. Not on his pain.
On what he’d nearly become.
He swayed again—enough to startle them both—but caught himself.
“I saw it,” he murmured. “What would have happened… if I let grief eat me alive.”
Aizen didn’t speak.
Not yet.
Akashi’s voice lowered—barely audible.
“After the Pacific War… there were reports. That Hotarumaru—you—were lost. That your real blade had sunk and would never be found.”
Hotarumaru blinked.
“What…?”
Akashi kept his gaze on the ground.
“I thought of changing it. And I would have… had it not been for him .”
Aizen’s breath caught.
His hand clenched slightly on the hilt still resting at his waist.
And when he looked at Akashi, the anger wasn’t there anymore.
Just something quieter. Older.
“You let me think it was just laziness,” he said, voice low. “Like you didn’t care.”
Akashi flinched—but didn’t lift his head.
“You always looked like you were miles away,” Aizen continued, no longer bitter—but tired. “And I… I hated you for it. I thought you were just leaving us behind.”
“I never left,” Akashi whispered. “But I didn’t know how to stay, either. Not without dragging you both into the wreck I couldn’t stop reliving.”
The silence stretched.
Then Aizen stepped closer.
And with no ceremony at all, he placed a hand on Akashi’s shoulder.
“You’re still an idiot,” he muttered softly. “But at least now I get it.”
Akashi finally looked up.
And for the first time in what felt like lifetimes, he didn’t look away.
“I never told anyone,” Akashi said. “I thought if I locked it away… I could pretend it wasn’t real. But the fear of losing him again… never left me.”
His voice cracked. “And I hated that I drifted away from you, too.”
Hotarumaru’s hand found his.
“You kept that to yourself… all this time?”
Akashi gave a small nod. “I couldn’t bear to see that joy leave your face. Even when I struck your echo down, I still saw the boy I couldn’t save.”
His gaze drifted to Hotarumaru—this time, he saw him.
“But I see now… you’re here. Alive. And stronger than I ever gave you credit for.”
Hotarumaru’s eyes shimmered. “You never lost me.” His grip tightened. “You just needed to look.”
He bowed his head, then turned to Aizen next, gaze full and clear.
“And you— you’re just as important to me as he is. It would break me if I had to lose you too.”
Aizen’s voice was unsteady.
“You idiot… you should’ve told us. You shouldn’t have carried that alone.”
Akashi exhaled, the tension finally releasing from his shoulders. The wound in his side pulsed hot and deep, blood leaking through layers of cloth and armor, but it paled beside the weight that had finally broken free.
“Too late to yell at me now,” he said faintly.
Then finally, his body gave out. He didn’t try to stop the fall.
But they caught him—Hotarumaru beneath one arm, Aizen on the other.
“Easy, easy,” Aizen muttered, tightening his grip.
“You’re not dying after all that,” he hissed, half-angry, half-scared.
“Not planning to,” Akashi mumbled. “Just… let me sleep until next spring…”
“Like hell we will.”
Despite himself, Hotarumaru laughed—a watery, aching sound. Between them, they carried him.
Through the mist and out of the fracture.
Into dawnlight. Into air that smelled like home.
Toward the light that shimmered ahead.
The rift shimmered behind them, closing like the soft fall of a curtain.
And together—wounded but whole—they stepped forward.
The Honmaru awaited.
Chapter Text
It had been weeks since the rift had closed behind them, sealing shadow and sorrow on the other side.
The Honmaru had quieted—not just in sound, but in spirit. The flickering distortions that once crawled at the edges of reality had faded, and in their place had returned the simple rhythms of daily life: laundry strung across the lines, wooden halls swept clean, the steady clatter of rice being stirred in the kitchen.
The sun dipped low behind the tiled rooftops, casting long streaks of orange and rose across the paper doors. Crickets had begun their song in the gardens, and a gentle breeze stirred the branches of the cherry trees just beyond the veranda. Nothing shimmered or bled at the corners of perception. No flickers. No tears in the air. Just dusk.
Inside their shared room, the three Rais rested in silence, bathed in the golden hue of twilight.
Akashi sat comfortably on the tatami, legs folded into a loose lotus position, the final stiffness of recovery long since faded. His posture was relaxed, but his gaze remained soft and alert, watching the slow dance of evening settle over their home. A recently laundered cleaning cloth hung neatly on a peg nearby — a small, mundane sign that things were once again as they should be.
Aizen had nodded off some time ago, his head tilted against Akashi’s left shoulder, a quiet puff of breath rising and falling in rhythm with sleep. His blade, polished earlier in the day and carefully placed, lay nearby — not as a weapon ready for war, but as something familiar and unthreatening. A part of him. At peace.
On Akashi’s right, Hotarumaru curled up like a cat, his body tucked in and cheek resting against Akashi’s thigh. His hands loosely cradled a small handmade charm he’d shown off proudly that afternoon — a gift from one of the younger swords, made of colored thread and shaped like a tiny star. He stirred once but didn’t move.
Outside the shoji, voices drifted faintly — someone laughing over misplayed go stones, the shuffle of sandals on wood.
Akashi didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
He sat there, one hand idly cradling Aizen’s face against his shoulder, and kept his breathing slow and measured.
And he thought—
This… is enough.
Not glory. Not grand deeds carved into the scrolls of history.
Just this quiet. This peace.
These two, warm and close, leaning on him as if he were something solid — something that wouldn’t vanish come morning.
He hadn’t expected to live for others. To choose them, day after day.
But now?
He wouldn’t trade this for anything. Not even the perfect world his doppelgänger once chased through blood and distortion.
They were safe. They were together.
And that was everything.
He closed his eyes at last, letting his chin rest gently atop Aizen’s hair, remaining protective and still.
The leaves rustled outside like peaceful voices in the wind.
There is a place beyond the rifts.
Not a battlefield. Not a honmaru. Not a distortion.
Just stillness.
He didn’t know if this was the rift’s final mercy or merely a dream — only that it was quiet, and he was no longer alone.
What remained of him after the final clash drifted here.
No longer a twisted, irrevocably corrupted blade-wraith.
No longer bound to his obsession.
Just a worn impression of what had once been — his form like smoke given shape, his presence no heavier than breath in early morning air.
He stood alone in the haze.
Until he wasn’t.
From the mist emerged two familiar figures, their expressions softened by release from war and torment:
A childlike glow. A tempered flame.
They didn’t speak his name.
Not yet.
The three stood together, bound by fate, by memory, and by the love forged through countless battles.
He looked between them.
“...You’re not real,” he whispered.
Hotarumaru tilted his head, voice soft as bells on the wind. “Maybe not. But neither are you anymore.”
“I lost myself,” he said — barely audible. “Trying to protect Hotarumaru. Trying to change what was meant to be.”
Hotarumaru reached out, small hands folding gently around him.
“It’s not absolution,” he murmured. “Just understanding.”
Aizen stepped forward, voice steady and kind. “You carried more than any of us could bear.”
He found that he could not meet Aizen’s eyes.
“I let you die alone.”
Aizen’s gaze didn’t waver. “We never walk alone. Even when we falter. Even when broken, we are still together.”
And still—
They called him Kuniyuki.
The name no longer felt borrowed.
Akashi closed his eyes for the first time in what felt like eternity.
And at last—
They rested. Together.
Notes:
If you’ve read all the way to the end—thank you.
This story began with reflection, fractured into grief, and ended not with victory, but with stillness. It was never about defeating something broken. It was about seeing what couldn’t be fixed… and choosing to stay anyway.
Thank you for walking with them.
Thank you for sitting down with them, too.
If you’re carrying something of your own—something silent, something soft, something that hurts—I hope this story gave you a moment of gentleness. Maybe a breath. Maybe the sense that surviving doesn’t have to be loud.
And now, a few words from our cast:
Hotarumaru:
You stayed through everything. Thank you.
I think… I think we’re going to be okay now.
And if you ever feel like reading it all again…
I’ll be there. I never really left.Aizen:
Don’t expect a speech. But if you’re still here…
Yeah. That means something.
There’s stuff you only catch the second time.
Like how much I was watching.
Like how much I was waiting.Akashi:
…There’s still time. For blankets. For quiet.
For staying.
It’s all still there — the silences. The mirrors.
You’ll hear it differently now.
There was a moment in Ningyou,
where my double began to fracture.
Maybe this time… you’ll see it.I know this one wasn’t loud. It wasn’t meant to be.
But if it stayed with you, I’d be grateful to hear what it left behind.
If something in this story sat quietly with you—
a line, a silence, a moment that hurt gently—
you’re welcome to share it.Even a single word or a small breath of a comment means the world.
🌙
Thank you, always, for stepping through the mirror.
Snowflake88 on Chapter 8 Tue 24 Jun 2025 01:52PM UTC
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